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5/25/2021 8:02 pm  #31


Re: I'm confused on how Atevi society actually works.

gagetnut
I looked at your starlings, and what came to mind is:     together we live

Last edited by lynxlacelady (5/25/2021 8:18 pm)


Wild about cats, handmade lace, CJ Cherryh.   politics junkie
 

5/25/2021 8:17 pm  #32


Re: I'm confused on how Atevi society actually works.

This has been an utterly fascinating discussion. I only just found it today.
One thing I have been thinking of , regarding Atevi manchi, is zebras.
Only a few years ago I learned that many attempts to domesticate zebras had been tried and all failed. The reason is that a zebra family is inseparable. You can't take one zebra from a herd segment. All the rest of the family come after the stolen member and break down barriers to reclaim that member. So what are the zebras thinking? This sounds a lot like mecheiti, but also like the bond between a lord and his clan members. Unbreakable bond that will not tolerate separation.
Humans can have unbreakable bonds with individuals who are not part of his family or his political allegiance. To Atevi these bonds are incomprehensible, and provoke unanticipated and unpredictable actions. Bren loves Banichi, but he can't say it.
Bren attracts manchi, possibly because his protectiveness towards his staff causes him to act in ways that look a lot like a lord's downward manchi, taking care of his people.
 


Wild about cats, handmade lace, CJ Cherryh.   politics junkie
 

2/24/2022 11:23 pm  #33


Re: I'm confused on how Atevi society actually works.

joekc6nlx wrote:

Why didn't the aiji appoint an ateva as a paidhi to the humans?.

"The Human Advantage" is our adaptability, our ability to "go native" with relative ease. Remember, the negotiations to end the War of Landing were being carried out across a fractured and misunderstanding-strewn language interface.  Offering to send in one "harmless" (disarmed) individual is a classic human negotiation tactic, like the cop who lays down his weapons and walks into the bank-robbery-gone-bad full of hostages.  "We send one person" is something that could be communicated across that very very basic initial vocabulary.  The future Mospheirans just wanted to survive, to live and be left alone.

scenario_dave wrote:

The Atevi would never send one Paidhi. One Atevi is unstable. They would have to send an entire household.

Precisely.  This got me thinking about how, on the atevi periodic table, the inert gases that we call "noble" (aloofness and separation being things we associate with nobility) would be "crazy" gases in atevi chemistry textbooks.  Noble elements to them would be highly reactive, mixed in with everything.

scenario_dave wrote:

But an Atevi household who lived with humans would change. Their manchi to the mainland might fracture. They'd go native.

Not so much.  For adaptability to be the human advantage, the atevi have to be less so, for contrast.  Give or take extraordinary individuals like Tabini and Geigi, who took 200 years to arise.  The atevi household would be a point of stability, a clearly demarcated enclave within Mospheira.  There would be challenges, to be sure.
 

 

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