Races
- Humans
All humans in the novel (except Pham) are descended from Nyjoran stock. Old Earth is noted as being on the other side of the galaxy. One of the major human habitations is Sjandra Kei, three systems comprising roughly 28 billion individuals. Their main tongue is Samnorsk.
- Tines
A canid race, each 'person' comprising a group mind of 4-8 individuals, connected by sound-waves. Each 'soul' will last as long as it has members, potentially hundreds of years.
- Skroders / Riders / Skroderiders
A benign sessile race, using wheeled mechanical constructs to move and as short-term memory.
- Dirokimes
Older race of inward dreamers, original inhabitants of Sjandra Kei.
Read more about this topic: A Fire Upon The Deep
Famous quotes containing the word races:
“I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“Arrive at New Orleans, a city of ships, steamers, flatboats, rafts, mud, fog, filth, stench, and a mixture of races and tongues. Cholera, “some.” [At] Planters’ Hotel. Mem:—Never get caught in a cheap tavern in a strange city.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Behind every individual closes organization; before him opens liberty,—the Better, the Best. The first and worse races are dead. The second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the maturing of the higher. In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every new perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are certificates of advance out of fate into freedom.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)