Philotic Web

Ok, so I am skimming through Speaker for the Dead. Couldn't Libo and Pipo have explained to the piggies that they cannot turn into trees? You're talking about creatures who speak their language. Even if it goes against some sort of rule, if aliens are standing over you with sharp instruments you are allowed to break the rules by saying, no, this isn't how human anatomy works. Every bad thing that happened could have been avoided if they had just SAID that.

I could be missing something.

But if you have a wife and kids and a mistress it's not noble to let aliens vivisect you, it makes you look deeply, deeply not very bright.

How would either of them have known that the Father Trees are sentient? The piggies assumed it was universal to all life, and the humans assumed it was impossible for any life. Pipo and Libo thought they were saving the piggies' life by submitting to death, and paid the price willingly. It was clear to the humans that the piggies would have murdered one of their own if they refused to be vivisected.

It still strikes me as dippy, because wouldn't the piggies have explained WHY they want to vivisect them? All of the problems in this book could have been solved if they learned how the piggies reproduced in the first place. It's like Card set up those ridiculous rules at the beginning, but it's just not realistic (I know it's weird to insist on realism in a story, but I can't help it. Stories have to make sense!) and no real scientist would just assume that an alien species is exactly like them... Assuming is the opposite of good science

As a reader, I can extrapolate from what I read in the book to guess with a pretty good degree of confidence that the piggies DID tell them exactly why they wanted to vivisect the humans. The humans just made the perfectly natural assumption that this was part of the piggies' culture or religion, as a human would say that his soul lives on in heaven. You say that this kind of assumption is bad science, but it's actually very good science in many cases. Occam's razor: the simplest solution is probably right.

As a side note, I'll point out that finding out exactly how the piggies reproduced was a big objective of their research in the first place. They were trying, but they were prohibited frank conversation with the piggies by the Congress. It's not their own stupidity or unrealism, and the rules of the world arent ridiculous. The fact that they seem ridiculous in hindsight just show us what a great storyteller Card is. It makes perfect sense in context.

I have to say, I mostly agree with Sparrow here, particularly because exploring the moral or ethical implications of unknowingly committing terrible acts is a common theme with OSC.

Somehow this doesn't strike me as good storytelling for some reason. Especially if you have a family and a traumatized young woman to consider. Their course of action did not seem LOGICAL to me. This series really was better when i first read it years ago. Don't even get me started on Xenocide/Children of the mind and how the worlds are so segregated and stereotyped.

Also this chicken is cute and this is amusing too

Don't even get me started on Xenocide/Children of the mind and how the worlds are so segregated and stereotyped.

This makes a LOT more sense in OSC's world, than in most sci-fi one-world order tropes because of how they were colonized and the lack of faster-than-light travel.

I really enjoyed the diversity and specificity of the worlds in Congress in CotM. I think it not only made sense, but was a joy to explore. However, I agree it got pretty wild to the point of straining credulity for other, metaphysical reasons haha.