October BOTM: Startide Rising by David Brin

[FicusFan]

Originally Posted by Archren

FicusFan-

I totally understand that there are things in the book that obviously don't work for you. However, I'd just like to counter a few bits of your critique.

Leaders killed subordinates in fits of pique, scattering body parts all over the deck. They sacrificed spacecrafts in small numbers and in entire wings. All with no thought but to win. Nobody objects, there are no unbiased or judicial mechanisms to redress wrongs or keep a proper balance. It defies belief that they would spend blood and treasure with no thought for the consequences: how they will be replaced, and the impact of the loss on the future of the people and their own place in the power structure. It doesn't even need to be an objection based on altruism, morals or fairness, simple economics will tell you not to act so wastefully with people and objects that take time to replace and then train.

This is much less true for a species that has a very high breeding rate than for one like ours that has very few children. Much like Octopi have hundreds of offspring at a time and then leave them to fend for themselves until one or two make to adulthood, a species like that would care much less about any individual, finding most of them to be expendable. However, when you consider training and investments like that... you're probably right on that one. Except that in human history, many peoples have "spent blood and treasure with no thought to the consequences." Over and over again. Why should aliens be any more rational than ourselves? Except Vulcans. They rule!

I understand about spreading a lot of offspring and not caring about them -- but those in space were not the many young who had little value, they were the few who survived to adulthood. Having few surviving adults is often the result, among the higher species, of that type of reproduction. The adults are possibly more valuable because there is such a high mortality rate in reproduction. But it wasn't just replacing them it was the rearing and training of them, in both time and energy used to do so, and the experience level of those lost. The ships and other durable goods represent time, money, and the use of raw materials which may be limited or dangerous to gather and work. I just think that there were much bigger consequences to the seeminly easy acts they were engaging in, that the story didn't admit to let alone deal with.

In terms of human cultures that have recklessly spent blood and treasure - sure, but most of them aren't around anymore. Some have been wiped out completely, and others have given way to perhaps wiser and more frugal descendents. When backed into a corner and faced with extinction or total war, you will go all out, but even if you win the echoes and consequences will ripple down the culture for decades or perhaps centuries after. And it isn't something you do just to pick up a few baubles or come out on top of your rivals. If you use it that way you usually will not be strong enough to hold what you win. I think its called a phyrric victory. So the idea that these really old races engaged in that type of behavior - seemingly as SOP did not work for me.

Originally Posted by Archren

In genre speak they were all channeling Ming the Merciless. They were all evil, and they were stupid, worse they were presented as official representatives and following the precepts of their race and the galactic civilization -- leading to the conclusion that to last billions and billions of years your race has to be homicidal and brain-dead....

I too liked the idea of Uplift until I thought about what it really meant. It is simply colonialism and racism dressed up and taken to outer space. In the past Europeans used the same excuses and arguments against ‘natives’. That they weren’t really full members of the race, that they weren’t intelligent, or civilized without the refinement and tutelage that a long period of exposure to our more mature learning and civilization would give them.

I think that modeling the galactic civilization like this was the point. It was supposed to be very similar to European colonialism and to show the abuses of same. And he is showing that that type of set up will come apart at the seams for exactly the reasons you mention, much like European colonialism came to an end in the years surrounding World War II. Also, he is drawing precise parallels between the treatment of aboriginal cultures on Earth and the treatment of Uplifted species in his universe: in the rhetoric of the best of intentions ("Uplift," "the white man's burden", "nobless oblige"), massive abuses occur. This is a message that also has some relevance to current events, and in fact has occured at all times in human history. So, where you see unsubtle rip-offs, I see cultural commentary. Just two different sides of the same coin, I imagine.

You are probably right that it is cultural commentary, but I always have problems when important issues are presented in such a one sided manner. Then it is very easy for it to pass at face value as just a bunch of swash-buckling aliens and humans in a great scavenger/treasure hunt. I just find it a waste of a teachable moment, where a good author can make readers think about more than an action-adventure story set in space, without ruining the story.

Originally Posted by Archren

Anyway, I suspect that you probably wouldn't like the second triology any better. It's even more unwieldly, I have to say. However, it does show the more complete unraveling of a hide-bound homocidal civilization unable to adapt to changing circumstances. And that alien corpse plot really comes to fruition there. (Anyway, I still love Brin's aliens! Especially the jophur in the second trilogy. Amazing stuff there. )

Actually my first book in the Uplift Saga was Brightness Reef which I loved. I thought some of the aliens there were also wack jobs, but not all of them were the same in terms of manner and motivation. I felt it was a deeper more realistic look at some of them and perhaps closer to more realistic alien cultures.

[cgw]

I read this book a few years ago and loved it. I had passed it over for years while browsing through the bookstore (because of the cover - who needs to read some book about dolphins - I did not even read the cover notes). I read it because it won the Hugo and now it is in my top 10 scifi books.

Side note - I liked Uplift War but could not get into Brightness Reef.

[Kamakhya]

I just finished re-reading the book today. I don't generally like re-reading books, but it has been some time since I last read it.

It was nice to be able to pay more attention to some of the details and still be engaged in the story.

I think the subplot of the Stenos vs. the Bottlenosed was to explore the boundaries and obligations of uplifting. Much like the Karrank% were horribly abused, the addition of Shark, Stenos and human genes into the mix caused some pretty disasterous outcomes.

As for the battle over the Streaker, I had no problem believing the ferosity. They believed that the wolfings had the secret to the Progenitors. Aeons had produced a religious and mythological base for fanatic behavior. Brin did say that they were the races in the universe that were "fanatics" and, by inference, that they were plenty of other races out there that weren't. What is the loss of a few dozen ships when you not only control multiple worlds and races, but the prize may be "eternal salvation". I think this was a commentary of religion as much as colonialism.

Trinary haiku was just cool. I wasn't as into the logic lessons, nor was I thrilled with the Dophins "reverting" under stress. It had a patronizing feeling and not too realistic to me.

I liked the dolphon ship. It struck me as humans doing whatever was necessary to liberate dolphins. Sure, it might be problematic, but it was the "right" thing to do, particularly since they were good pilots.

[Colonel Worf]

I'm reading Sundiver by coincidence. I doubt I'll get around to Startide Rising any time soon. I don't have as much time to read anymore.

[fluffy bunny]

I liked the way the whole 'Dent's last bomb' was handled. Brin set it up in such a way that implied that someone would save the day, either intentionally or by accident. Of course by some inverse sod's law, it turned out to be beneficial but still...


One of the things that still bugs me about the whole uplift thing is why are we trying to make dolphins and apes more human? It was like those Trek episodes where Worf got told off got acting like a Klingon. If some alien race turned up and started messing with humans, modelling us to their standards, we'd probably tell them to get lost.

[clong]

I read this about nine months ago, and this is what I wrote about it at the time:

I enjoyed Startide Rising. It follows the adventures of a crew of humans, "neo-dolphins," and a "neo-chimp" as they explore a planet, repair their damaged ship, and try to figure out how to escape from the much more powerful galactic fleets that are battling it out overhead for the right to capture them and the big galactic secret they accidentally stumbled upon.

At its best, it is pure space opera, entertaining and suspenseful. I enjoyed the neo-dolphin characters, who struggle to integrate a dreamy, instinctual way of looking at things with the practical, logical though process of man (frequently the characters end up speaking in haiku).

I thought that the aborigines were poorly developed, and that the human characters were generally less compelling that the dolphins. And I guess that I am skeptical about the general structure of the uplift universe (which Brin has gone on to develop in other books).

Nevertheless, this is an entertaining read and well worth your time.

Looking back, I'd have to say that the ending was a bit of a let down; both the

Trojan Horse escape and the "one guy battling the aliens who have finally landed"

scenes left me unconvinced. Since then, I have read The Uplift War, which I thought was a better book.

[LordBalthazar]

Despite the fact that is offered up some truly great ideas - the whole concept of uplifting first and foremost among them - I still felt like I was reading the novelization of A Sharks Tale. The notion of the space-faring dolphins was, well, silly, and I have to echo FicusFan's critique: of all the mammals worst-suited to space travel, dolphins have to rank at the top of the list. Seriously, wouldn't a crew made up of humans and simians have been significantly more practical? But then, that would be another story.

Overall, well-written although none of the characters jumped out at me. The battling aliens were interesting but too cartoonish and went a long way toward my envisioning the action as little more than a Pixar effort.

I'm surprised. I really enjoyed Brin's Kiln People and was hoping that this book - given its an award-winner - would have offered a similar smattering of dark humor. Alas, twas not to be and, in the end, I'd file this one away as "forgettable".