Races
- Humans
All humans in the novel (except Pham) are descended from Nyjoran stock. Old Earth is noted as being on the other side of the galaxy. One of the major human habitations is Sjandra Kei, three systems comprising roughly 28 billion individuals. Their main tongue is Samnorsk.
- Tines
A canid race, each 'person' comprising a group mind of 4-8 individuals, connected by sound-waves. Each 'soul' will last as long as it has members, potentially hundreds of years.
- Skroders / Riders / Skroderiders
A benign sessile race, using wheeled mechanical constructs to move and as short-term memory.
- Dirokimes
Older race of inward dreamers, original inhabitants of Sjandra Kei.
Read more about this topic: A Fire Upon The Deep
Famous quotes containing the word races:
“Listen, my friend, there are two races of beings. The masses teeming and happy—common clay, if you like—eating, breeding, working, counting their pennies; people who just live; ordinary people; people you can’t imagine dead. And then there are the others—the noble ones, the heroes. The ones you can quite well imagine lying shot, pale and tragic; one minute triumphant with a guard of honor, and the next being marched away between two gendarmes.”
—Jean Anouilh (1910–1987)
“I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)