Star Kings
The Star Kings are an asexual alien species whose highly successful strategy is to evolve at a furious rate to become like their most successful competitors. According to Kirth Gersen, their development on their homeworld, which they call "Ghnarumen" (Lambda Grus III), was profoundly influenced by the artificial introduction of Neanderthal men in prehistory. In the ensuing millennia, Neanderthals proved to be the fittest species, so the Star Kings grew first to resemble them, then to outcompete and eventually exterminate them from Ghnarumen. Thus, when the Star Kings later came in contact with spacefaring humanity, they immediately began to imitate homo sapiens, driven by their age-old instinct to excel and outdo.
Their temperament and motivations are far different from those of humans, but the most highly evolved (that is, the most human) are able to venture into human society without notice. However, Malagate is an atypical Star King. A notorious criminal with an outstanding reputation for callousness, he himself states shortly before his death that his career is not one that his kind would respect or endorse.
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Famous quotes containing the words star and/or kings:
“I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, -Why have you done thus and so?”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Kings 1:6.