Thinking about probably unimportant things.
It's funny that Cow Tools suddenly became relevant again -- the backscratcher, you see -- because I was thinking just yesterday about the opposition of, but overlap between, the themes of instrumental convergence vs. cow tools.
On the one side of the coin, there's "everybody does this the same way, except those weirdos over there." Descent Freespace: The Great War has a war between humans and a humanlike species not unlike reptiles, whose technology are very comparable and whose morphology is much the same. Humans and vasudans both encounter, at roughly the same time, a threat outside their scope: non-humanoid aliens whose spacecraft are difficult to detect reliably, are individually armed even when naked, and who have defensive measures and maneuverability beyond the technology or understanding of either.
On the other side of the coin, there's "everywhere in the universe is Roadside Picnic, except humans, who are weirdos." Earthship & Starsong goes that direction: most everyone in the universe has figured out psychic powers and how to create and destroy energy and matter with the mind, and insofar as they travel through space, it is by such extraordinary means. But humans travel by creating small, carefully controlled black holes precisely the mass of what they're moving, generally a spaceship with a black hole generator. Unfortunately, the initial research on this was disastrous, and humans are now seen as rabid killers throughout the galaxy.
I suppose Star Trek splits the difference. Most alien species we meet have technology not dissimilar to Federation technology, even if their ships look different. (Vulcans must love the variety of starship configurations in the universe.) But a large percentage of episodes involve some technology or way of doing things which is seemingly incomprehensible or bizarre, and certainly different from how humans as we know them would go about them.
#cow-tools #roadside-picnic-mention #earth-ship-and-star-song #ethan-i.-shedley #descent-freespace #science-fiction #sci-fi #aliens #star-trek #instrumental-convergence
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