Funny that the humans considered themselves to be superior to the atevi.  Here you have the small island of Mospheira, and how many humans on it?  Compared to the rest of the world, it's a small enclave. 
Now, Bren is in the aiji's court, not in the State Department's court, and even though he's a State Department employee, he's also the liaison with the aiji.  The humans might have greater technology, but they're at a disadvantage with numbers, and more importantly, raw materials.  It's doubtful they're going to get any further along without new technology from the ship, which hasn't yet shown up.....so, people like Gordon Hanks are living in a fantasy.  A dangerous fantasy that could make the War of the Landing look like a minor dustup.  How long before the aiji lays siege to the island and won't let supplies come in?  The humans don't have the weaponry that the atevi have, nor the innovative ingenuity that the Assassins Guild seems to be able to apply to the most innocuous technology.....oh well, just rambling...

To  Roci,

I'm sure that some humans thought they were superior. There are always human that believe that their kind is inherently better then everyone else. The step from that to hating everyone else who isn't just like them is very short. I think that many people in Hanks circle are these types. 

Then there are the people like Bren and others in the Foreign Office and others who think that while the Atevi are different, they aren't inherently evil. We just need to figure out the best way to talk to them.

I believe that in the early books especially, most people don't think very much about the Atevi at all. The war happened 200 years ago. There's no one left alive who remembers the war first hand. It's distant history.  They rarely even thought about the Atevi. If someone talked about war with the Atevi, it would be like someone talking about a plague in the U.S.A. 6 months ago. "That's way in the past. It's never going to happen again. Why should we make any effort to stop something that's not going to happen anyway,"

When the ship came back, Bren's groups reaction was that we need to keep the Atevi in the loop and work together. Hank's group's reaction is that it's us or them. Kill or be killed. Most people just were waiting in fear of the unknown. 

Once Hank's group totally messed up, public opinion switched to Bren's group. Talking and cooperating is the right thing to do, it's much cheaper and it helps the economy. 

Roci and Dave: your posts of 6/3 and 6/4 are interesting. I agree with Dave that there does seem to have been a subgroup of Roci's group 1 that  did regard humans as superior to Atevi and were justified in trying to dominate them. If forget which book it was but somewhere Bren arrives at a new understanding of why the War of the Landing happened. (I think it is one of the later books, well after the 5th). It was a result of the sequence of people who parachuted down to the earth. The first landed just wanted a place to live in peace and have children. But the last down were the administrators, who had all along detested the ones in favor of landing and resisted to that until the station deteriorated and they had to leave. Bren says this bunch, believing they were the only ones capable of judging the situation (being super duper high powered administrators) and they then abrogated all the agreements that the first down had made with Atevi. The Atevi, not unreasonably, found this treacherous. They didn't understand human factions but expected agreements made to be permanent. The human attitude in this action is the essence of superior arrogance, I think. But, Roci, I absolutely agree with your other divisions. I think this "arrogant faction" were a small minority in your first group. Where else did the Human Heritage party come from?

Also interesting are the attitudes of the Shadow Guild, which exactly match the fears of Roci's first group. It seems there are groups on both sides, human and Atevi, which exactly match the fears of the other side. The problem is how large these hostile and suspicious factions are in their own populations.

It is uncanny how Cherryh's ideas so closely match modern American politics. I promise I won't discuss politics. But I keep hearing echoes.

One thing that I've been wondering is how did an insignificant, young and small clan like Najida get a suite right next to the Aji's in the most desired living place on the planet.

Here is my head canon. 

Shejidan was from ancient times the most important city in the west because of its location. It prospered with trade with all of the clans including the distant east. It built a castle which acted as an embassy and trade center. The top and most important floor had 5 occupants.

1) The aji of Shejidan, 
2) The Aji of the east.
3) The lord of the central districts. Which was the Atageini from way back.
4) A clan which was powerful at the time but no longer exists.
5) The predecessor clan to the Najida.

Najida was just a tiny part of a very large and very powerful clan. But the clan's manchi fractured into many pieces over time. The last time it fractured was fairly recently. Probably sometime just before the War of the Landing. 
The Lord of the big older clan lived in the capital and traveled to Najida. They almost never went to the clan's capital. The Lords siblings ruled over the rest of the clans territory. Manchi broke and the original Lord kept manchi in the two places he visited regularly, the capital and Najida. The remainder of their territory broke up into many smaller clans. Much of it ended up being absorbed by other clans and eventually given to the Edi.  The original name of the clan belongs to the clans capital. Najida is considered to be a brand new clan. At this point the clan had lost its power so whenever they restored the capital a room or two was taken away and given to the larger clans leaving 3 huge apartments and 1 efficiency apartment. They kept the room because giving it to anyone else would cause such a fight it wouldn't be worth it. 

Bren actually inherited it because of several reasons. 
The locals would never accept a Lord from the central clans. They would kill them. They would also never accept someone from the Marid. But selecting the wrong local lord would be interfering in Edi politics. Bren was a total outsider. He didn't have any baggage. He could act in the best interest of the estate. You would also be putting the best negotiator on the planet in the most volatile place on the planet.  Bren's one of the few people who could talk to all of the parties involved. 

lynxlacelady wrote:

Dave - Very interesting analysis. My only mild objection is about how Bren got Najida.  At some point in the story Tabini says he wants Bren nearby for his own convenience. We don't see exactly how it happens but the implication is that Tabini simply gave the apartment to Bren at some point. I don't recall Cherryh using "Nabjida" as the name of the clan that used to hold Najida and the Bujavid apartment. She says they were Maladesi, a clan that died out, and the Farai claim to have inherited their claim. So it appears that when the Maladesi died out Tabinin just gave Bren their 2 properties, Najida and the Bujavid apartment.

Your right that the clan name was Maladesi. I had forgotten and used Najida as a substitute. My bad.

My question is why did the Maladesi have an apartment in the most desired place in the entire world? There are 4 apartments on that floor:
1) The Aji, who is the ruler of the world, essentially.
2) The Dowagers who rules the east.
3) The Atageini - who are a very old, very large and very powerful clan
4) The Maladesi - A small extinct clan with two known properties, a small apartment right next to the Aji and a small estate.

CJ said several times that the Maladesi were a small, young and insignificant clan before they went extinct. How did they end up with an apartment in the most desired location on the planet? They had to have had it for centuries and why didn't they get pushed out of it sometime?