Wait, how the hell did he understand them, anyway? Because telepathic speech wouldn't make you understand other races' speech. I don't even remember if this was handwaved or what.
I know that was explained — most likely with handwaving — at some point, but I can't remember how, exactly. I want to say they all had babblefish chips of some description implanted in their heads, but that wouldn't make any sense since one of the books quite clearly demonstrated that brain chips don't morph very well and can actually make your head explode if you try to turn into something smaller than they are. Then again, that wouldn't be the first scifi lore inconsistency in the series, or the last. And also I just got hit by another bit of frigde logic regarding that time early on in the series Jake morphed fly with a frickin' yeerk in his head. Yeerks do stretch themselves at least as thin as skin-tight clothing and therefore could theoretically be morphed, but that would involve them chilling their slug-heels in Z-space while their host spends two hours deciding whether they'd rather be stuck as an animal or as an alien mind-slave.
Oh and also that stupid thing where they wouldn't shut up about how we walk on two legs. Look, if humanity can stop itself from asking how you can keep track of four legs every minute, you should be able to get over this fixation too.
I was all right with that when it was just Ax doing it, because he's basically the super-advanced extra-terrestrial equivalent of That Kid who wears his hat sideways and brings his skateboard everywhere and just wants to know whether black guys can get sunburned, man, don't look at him like he's some racist or something. But when other Andalites showed up and failed to be properly embarrassed by his behavior, I lost a bit of respect for them as a species.
In conclusion, David Brin is awesome
In all seriousness, or are you being sarcastic? Because the explanations Uplift series I've seen make it sound like it just radiates Humans Are Special, and that rather makes me want to steer clear of it.
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Date: 2009-12-04 03:21 am (UTC)I know that was explained — most likely with handwaving — at some point, but I can't remember how, exactly. I want to say they all had babblefish chips of some description implanted in their heads, but that wouldn't make any sense since one of the books quite clearly demonstrated that brain chips don't morph very well and can actually make your head explode if you try to turn into something smaller than they are. Then again, that wouldn't be the first scifi lore inconsistency in the series, or the last. And also I just got hit by another bit of frigde logic regarding that time early on in the series Jake morphed fly with a frickin' yeerk in his head. Yeerks do stretch themselves at least as thin as skin-tight clothing and therefore could theoretically be morphed, but that would involve them chilling their slug-heels in Z-space while their host spends two hours deciding whether they'd rather be stuck as an animal or as an alien mind-slave.
Oh and also that stupid thing where they wouldn't shut up about how we walk on two legs. Look, if humanity can stop itself from asking how you can keep track of four legs every minute, you should be able to get over this fixation too.
I was all right with that when it was just Ax doing it, because he's basically the super-advanced extra-terrestrial equivalent of That Kid who wears his hat sideways and brings his skateboard everywhere and just wants to know whether black guys can get sunburned, man, don't look at him like he's some racist or something. But when other Andalites showed up and failed to be properly embarrassed by his behavior, I lost a bit of respect for them as a species.
In conclusion, David Brin is awesome
In all seriousness, or are you being sarcastic? Because the explanations Uplift series I've seen make it sound like it just radiates Humans Are Special, and that rather makes me want to steer clear of it.