Importance
While the Qax play a pivotal role only in one book (Timelike Infinity) their occupation creates the xenophobic government that led the human conquest of the galaxy, and they are almost certainly the main cause of the loss of most of the human offshoots that survived the last human/Xeelee war. They are not responsible for the loss of the Ring but their attack does ensure that the humans who escape the Xeelee prison are able to leave the universe unmolested by the photino birds.
It could be argued that their aggressive policy of cultural extirpation during their period of enslavement is what ultimately led to Man's subsequent expansion and outright hostility towards other aliens. By adopting and subverting many Qax policies, Man became a collectivist society with little to no individuality left - there was only the goal of domination, to which everyone subscribed from an early age. In that regard, the Qax are in many ways ultimately responsible for the Assimilation (including the extermination of the Silver Ghosts) and the eventual war with the Xeelee.
Read more about this topic: Qax (species)
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
“A man’s personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. ‘Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)