I'll have to go back to the books to find the quotes I'm looking for, but although they don't appear in the text as such, there are, from what I remember, references to other sentient races. Races that were subjugated by Typhon, and in reference to all of the other Islands on the Yesod, and other references to other civilizations mentioned in some of those Apheta/Sev conversations. Again, I don't have the books in front of me, so I could be compeltely misremmembering.<br>
<br>However, what of the being on Sirius who the Cumaen 'contacts' to remember Apu Punchau? That is at least one explicit reference. <br><br> I don't see how you can say that the novel must simply rule out all other sentient species. Is there evidence for this? And to say "powers" like Cumaen, Inire...that seems like a cop out. What are Powers then. Divine? You don't seem to take that position. So, what are they? Oh, and you mention the Inhumu. Well, what about the Neighbors? They seem more salient here. They are not human, and they first fed on the Neighbors. Are you saying the neighbors are human? I sure missed that part. I guess there are arguments for that (if you buy the whole Blue/Gree is Ushas/Lune thing, which I don't think I do).<br>
<br>What are Abai and Erebus? Aren't they most likely alien beings who landed on Urth and are attempting to take it over? I suppose that isn't necessarily the case, but it seems likely from some evidience.<br><br>
I can't expect you to deal thoroughly with such a really strange question, but I think you haven't really thought through your answer. I can't blame you for that though.<br><br>And if every 'species" did have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment, then that would seem to me to be against the Catholic doctrine.<br>
<br>But I'm really splitting hairs here, and seem to have lost track of the point I was trying to make!<br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 1:42 PM, David Stockhoff <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net">dstockhoff@verizon.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">First, I'd say that the novel simply must rule out all other sentient species. In fact, there don't seem to be any other sentient species in the TBotNS universe---only Powers like the Cumean, Inire, Tzadkiel, etc. (The Inhumi are different, and look at how closely Wolfe examines their moral potential, and how he ties it to humans'.) <br>
We can't speculate on their histories because we don't meet more than one of them---their societies and histories are closed to us. But for all we know, every one of their "species" did indeed have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment. The Increate could have an infinity of sons he sent off to die horribly, *but we don't need to know about it.* TBotNS is not really an "interstellar" or galactic SF novel.<br>
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Second, I agree that it would be a basic unfairness to all the other interstellar races to have the only OTC in the universes land on Earth in 0 AD, and I'm sure this has occurred to Wolfe. *But that's not what TBotNS is about.* Perhaps the LS/SS novels pay a bit more attention to that problem, but still in a necessarily anthropocentric manner.<br>
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I don't think the Pope has ruled yet on whether space aliens have souls.<br>
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