Nature of The Shing
Originating in a distant region of the galaxy, perhaps hundreds of light-years from Earth, the Shing infiltrate and destroy the League of All Worlds twelve hundred years before City of Illusions begins. Their main weapon in this conquest is the ability to lie in Mindspeech. The Shing closely resemble humans though they seem to be unable to interbreed with them. Coming to Earth as "exiles or pirates or empire builders from some distant star" the Shing, who are not numerous, establish themselves in a single fantastical city Es Toch. Under their rule the remainder of Earth declines into a thinly populated collection of backward and often mutually hostile tribal societies.
Mindspeech is an advanced form of telepathy practiced by the Shing. Mindspeech was first learned by Rocannon, an ethnologist from the planet New South Georgia of the League of All Worlds on the world called in his honor Rokanan. Two of the races on Rokanan have indigenous telepathy and from one of them Rocannon learns the skill himself, and later it spreads throughout the League. One axiom held to be undeniable was that it is not possible to lie through mindspeech, however the alien Enemy of the League, the Shing are able to mind-lie and use that ability to infiltrate and eventually destroy the League.
Read more about this topic: Shing
Famous quotes containing the words nature of the and/or nature:
“The things women find rewarding about work are, by and large ,the same things that men find rewarding and include both the inherent nature of the work and the social relationships.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“Shakespeare had no tutors but nature and genius. He caught his faults from the bad taste of his contemporaries. In an age still less civilized Shakespeare might have been wilder, but would not have been vulgar.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)