For a series that’s billed as “anthropological science fiction,” Foreigner wears the anthropology mantle lightly. The observations about human vs. atevi nature occur naturally and, as the series progresses and more kinds of humans enter the mix, we get to examine the whole nature vs. nurture chestnut.
Bren is as alien to his own people as he is to the atevi. Born an outsider to his own culture and more in love with things Ragi than things Mosphei’, Bren’s career takes him ever deeper into the atevi world — its culture, its psychology and history. He doesn’t become “more atevi than atevi” the way converts to any given culture tend to over-identify and turn their conversion into a badge of identity and a complete framework for being. That’s not what happens; it’s simply that his work requires him to know atevi as well as he knows the people of his birth. His position gives him a unique ability to see both species from the perspective of an outsider. A lonely position, but for an observant protagonist, ideal.
And his perspective as the negotiator between opposing forces, atevi and atevi, atevi and human, gives him the insight to deal with the kyo and not screw it all up. Life itself requires it.
On the simplest level, everyone can agree on survival instinct. It’s the ultimate common purpose.
On Phoenix, returning from Reunion and looking at the spider plants that have taken over his cabin, Bren muses
[I]t always amazed him, how the plants grew during their transits [through folded space], as if they were mad to live, mad to survive.… He watched the air from the duct stir the streamers and the leaves, artificial wind in a steel world. Fluid moved in their veins and simple light and nutrients let their cells divide. A wondrous invention of planets.
So were they.
So was that other packet of life that met out here, this far from other living cells. And they wanted to shoot one another? Unacceptable. Entirely unacceptable.…
Life itself. Dared one think that in this void where life was rare, life was bond enough, that a couple of reasonable entities might say they’d had their encounter, they both understood the limits, and could get along?
Explorer, p. 276
Volumes later, thinking about human nature, Bren considers the children Cajeiri befriended, kids whose homes and families and entire environment were slagged by the kyo, he sees the same will to thrive :
They had learned everything they had learned from their surviving parents and from recordings, and occasionally from each other. They had learned to survive on a station shot half to wreckage and faced with a long, nearly impossible reconstruction under enemy watch, with limited food, limited resources, and an intolerable present — with a very good likelihood there would be no future.
What in that hellish situation had made them the bright and sensible and practical kids they were, God only knew. Flowers bloomed out of bare rock. Life hung on. And the kids were amazingly hungry to know things, something to absorb. Something to help them to survive. A way to see a tomorrow they could hardly picture to themselves. They just kept trying.
Emergence, p. 69
It’s a striking parallel. To quote Jeff Goldblum, “Life finds a way.”
The desire to survive is a quality common to all living beings; okay, that’s a given. Let’s drill down a little into what separates humans from atevi.
Culturally, the atevi are more formal and reserved than Mospheirans, but they’re just as susceptible to political ambition and conspiracy theory, as event after event in Foreigner illustrates.
The main difference between the species is grounded more in biology than culture. Humans love, can love, can form attractions based on affection. Atevi don’t. They experience man’chi, an instinctive loyalty that binds their people together. Man’chi is more than loyalty, it’s a biological imperative. We see it as an established relationship far more often than we see it in formative stages. In Taiben, when Cajeiri meets Antaro and Jegari, Bren observes the formation of man’chi between them as a sort of electricity, and knows that, once formed, that bond can only be broken with tragic consequences.
Cajeiri experiences the formation of man’chi explicitly when he sees Nomari take on the loyalty of Gaidaro’s alienated and betrayed followers from Ajuri:
The air had all of a sudden changed. The room seemed charged with something — not electricity, nothing so sharp; but a power that could be inside or in the air itself, Cajeiri was not sure, a situation on the edge of scary . . . Too many people, too much distress, but all of it cycled around one man standing out there, his followers swarming around him and others, some of them, overcome together, meeting some of the exiled, some trying to talk to Nomari, all at once. It was disorderly. It was the sort of thing that made Guild nervous. But, Cajeiri thought, it had to be. It had to be let happen.
Emergence, p. 256
When Bren thinks he might be taken aboard the kyo ship and then spirited away from the world he knows, Jago reassures him that he will never be alone: “Man’chi holds, Bren-ji.” They will have his back, no matter what:
Would his aishid ever leave him, ever break from him? No. They could not. And he would not leave them. Therein was the difference between species. Could and would. Two very different things, provoking the same action.
Visitor, p. 151
Banichi, Jago, Tano and Algini are bonded to him for life. That attachment is absolute. Bren loves them and feels loyalty, but it’s not the same. That biological difference renders Bren ultimately alone among the atevi. It means that whoever he loves can’t love him back, and he’s aware of that. Ultimately, he comes to terms with that. And in the long view, loyalty/love vs man’chi is a small distinction, especially when it comes to relations with other humans who are far more interestingly varied.
The ship-folk and the Reunioners are strikingly different from Mospheirans. In brief, Mospheirans are well-off, well-fed, happy citizens in a secure and peaceful culture. They don’t know privation. They live in a democratic socialist paradise and, for the most part, their citizens aren’t crazy, except for the Heritage party.
Spacers could make decisions that, to planet-dwellers, ran counter to instinct and emotion. Jase, in his turn, had been shocked…at the way planet-dwellers made decisions that could risk three men to save one. Irresponsible, Jase had called it: emotional decision had a bad connotation in his world.
Visitor, p. 99
In many ways, the Reunioners are more alien to Bren than either the ship-folk or the atevi. He is genuinely shocked at Reunioner culture, never more so than when he questions Irene’s mother and hopes against hope that she’ll ask the question that never comes: is my daughter all right? As the son of an overbearing mother, having watched the atevi, a species that doesn’t love, attend to their children and prioritize their welfare, Irene’s mother is utterly alien to him.
“She’s not ship-folk,” Jase said. “She’s a generation of stationer you’ve never met, born to a set of rules you’ve never lived by. I find those rules difficult to understand at times myself. Rules are rules, no logic need be applied. The rules exist to control the station, to keep the machine running. Ship-folk, stationers, like atevi—we’re born to a loyalty. Unlike atevi, there’s nothing biological holding us there, only a conviction drilled into us from the time we’re born, and there’s no recourse if it falters. Shatter it and you shatter us. We are analytical people, but we don’t ask questions that might disturb the people who make the decisions.
Visitor, p. 87
Human nature might be a constant — or it might be that sentience itself is sufficient to serve as a constant. Bren supposes that emotionally the kyo are more like humans even though they look very unlike. Life being rare, maybe sentience is enough of a bond for intelligent species to build on. Bren warns Braddock, since he’s not going to be executed, he’s going to have to adjust to a reality he’s never considered possible:
“Are you afraid, sir? I assure you — you’re in a different place where things will always be different.… Here’s my point, sir, and please listen to this very carefully. Mospheirans are different from you, too. Mospheirans are not the people you left here. They’re not the rebels. They’re not the colonists. They’re people who’ve adapted to life here and changed themselves in ways that will probably startle you more than atevi will startle you, because your tendency will be to assume they’re like you. They’re not. And you, and your entire group of survivors, are a very small number compared to the population of Mospheira. You wouldn’t even constitute one small town, and Mospheira has cities, large cities, which vastly outnumber the population of this station. So believe me when I say adapting to people who look very different from you at least gives you fair warning that there will be differences…but adapting to get along with Mospheirans — as ultimately you must — means understanding that there will be differences between you and people that look just like you.”
Visitor, pp. 109-110
Ultimately, in Foreigner, Bren finds that his most perilous relationships are the ones with the people who look most like him. It’s as if, the more the exterior packaging varies, the more anticipated the alienness, the less likely Bren is to assume commonality, and the more reassured he is to find it.
All of which builds toward the central theme: intelligent species would rather talk than shoot. To talk they need to communicate. Language enables communication, but it also builds empathy and understanding. Finding a way to get along is the work of a lifetime; it’s the paidhi’s office.
This was supposed to be a Foreigner mop-up, but it went long, so next week we’ll finish up with bits about cover art and pets, and whatever else comes up. If you haven’t read Foreigner, you should know that I haven’t really spoiled anything for you. These have all been appetizers to the main course, which is the series itself.
Sources
All of C. J. Cherryh’s Foreigner novels are published by DAW. Look ‘em up. Preferably in order of publication.
Previous Foreigner Installments