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:
“Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Now different races and nationalities cherish different ideals of society that stink in each other’s nostrils with an offensiveness beyond the power of any but the most monstrous private deed.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“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)