Nitpicks about Larry Niven's Thrintun (Slavers)

Bah! I’ve got an easy rationalization for you:

The Thrintun evolved on a planet with multiple sapient species. The were most likely the last to evolve intelligence, and had to have an evolutionary edge in order to just survive. Eventually they came to dominate the other intelligent species of their home world, perhaps even beginning to drive them to extinction just before the arrival of the Tnuctipun, who they then latched onto to get them into space.

The free Tnuctipun would be able to cleverly infiltrate the slaves and influence events. As long as they were not in a hurry. At least, that’s how I see it.

I read the vripin race scene as indicating that the Power does work on non-sapients. All of the thrintun present were telepathically urging on the vripin they had bet for, despite the fact that the Vripin were too stupid for it to make much difference. It’s never said that it made no difference at all, only that it made very little, and the vripin were incredibly stupid (since brains don’t help one run). When you’ve got a species so engineered for speed that the digestive system is removed to save weight, you can be pretty sure that the brain is similarly toned down. But against an animal like a dog or a horse, (of which there would presumably be several on the the slavers’ home world), the Power would work quite fine, and be quite useful.

teela brown, it’s only Shaeffer’s speculation that the Groggs are decended from the Thrintum, speculation which the Groggs do not agree with (but then, they have a vested interest in not agreeing with it). It’s also quite possible, and given the other differences between the two species, perhaps likely, that the Groggs independently evolved the Power. Certainly, though, we can say that there exists in Known Space a species with an ability similar to that of the Thrintum which works on nonsapient creatures.

That’s a possible out . . . but, again, based on our own experience, the evolution of sentient species appears to be so extremely rare that the possibility of two or more such existing on the same planet at once would appear infitesimal.

Here’s another nitpick (which applies to many fictional ETs other than thrintun): Why would a telepathic species have a spoken language? Or a symbolic language of any kind? Language is a very complex biological specialization. To learn a system of phonemes symbolizing things and concepts, we humans require special brain equipment found in no other species, not even our nearest relatives (chimanzees, gorillas, bonobos). Why would a race of telepaths need such a thing?

OTOH – could a species without language really be sentient? Skill at symbol manipulation is almost the definition of intelligence. If beings could simply transmit their sense-impressions and emotions directly to their fellows, would they ever develop the facility for formulating abstract concepts?

Grogs are hairy. Thrintun are scaly. FWIW.

More significantly, the digestive systems are different. Thrintun have an incomplete digestive system, with the same aperature used for food and waste, while Grogs have a complete digestive system, with food going in the front and waste exiting in the rear.

BrainGlutton, keep in mind that in Niven’s Known Space universe, we aren’t the only sentient species on our planet. Dolphins and possibly some other cetaceans are alleged to be just as intelligent as we are, though Handicapped by their lack of manipulative organs. It just took a while to convince them that it was in their best interest to let us know that.

Two things:

One, you’re reasoning from a sample size of one. Who knows what the norm is, galaxy-wide?

Two, Our ancestors and neanderthals once coexsisted at the same time. Same genus, sure, but still different sentient species. We wiped them out, presumably, because we had better brains. Similarly, the slavers could have wiped out another, possibly related, species with their better (telepathic) brains.

. . . I don’t remember that in the stories. Cite?

IAWM* – evolution on Earth produced hairy descendants of scaly critters in far less time than what has elapsed since the Slavers (unless it really is all a hoax).

*It Ain’t Worth Much