Xeelee - Interactions With Other Species

Interactions With Other Species

As far as is known and aside from the Photino Birds, the Xeelee were seldom warlike and usually treated the junior species with disinterest or abandon. There are very few reported instances of them initiating interaction with another species. They will, however, defend their habitats through strength of arms and respond to attacks, as was the case in the war with the Humans. It is noteworthy that during the war with the Humans, the Xeelee rarely opened an offensive or attacked far behind the front despite having an enormous ability to do so. In the end, the humans' total commitment to war amounted to a minor irritation to the Xeelee and their response was minimal at best.

The Xeelee have, however, demonstrated several instances of compassion en mass and even charity toward other species, particularly when it involved escaping the Photino Birds' destruction of the habitable universe. In the conclusion to novel Ring, set 5 million years in the future, they did not interfere with the humans escaping to another universe despite hundreds of thousands of years of humanity's war on the Xeelee (some interpretations are that they even provided an armed escort for the humans in the final leg of the voyage). Even though they were thought to have been driven to extinction by the humans, the Xeelee constructed a universe for the Silver Ghosts that was appealing to their mathematical nature. Before their own retreat from the universe, the Xeelee left ships as 'life boats' at various locations so that other species could use them to escape the Photino Birds through the Ring.