03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Alchemy VS Chemistry
He tapped the papers; the advice had been coming down since early winter. He remembered when Amdijefri had brought in the first pages, pages of numerical tables, of directions and diagrams, all drawn in neat but childish style. Steel and the Fragment had spent days trying to understand. Some of the references were obvious. The Visitor’s recipes required silver and gold in quantities that would otherwise finance a war. But what was this “liquid silver”? Tyrathect had recognized it; the M... 1 
notes
notesAn alien from a mideval society receiving instructions to build advanced technology from aliens finds their directions full of digressions and careful methodologies to verify chemical compositions, where his alchemists' instructions are much more simple and poetic.
03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
A Multi-Bodied Alien Considers a Single-Bodied One
Even if there had been no Dataset, even if Johanna Olsndot had not come from the stars, she would still be the most fascinating creature in the world: a pack-equivalent mind in a single body. You could walk right up to her, you could touch her, without the least confusion. It was frightening at first, but all of them quickly felt the attraction. For packs, closeness had always meant mindlessness—whether for sex or battle. Imagine being able to sit by the fire with a friend and carry on an i...Folksonomies: otherness
Folksonomies: otherness
1 notes
notesA race of aliens like wolves, who form beings made of packs that share thoughts through short-range sounds, so that they cannot get too close to other packs without getting their thoughts confused, wonders at a little human girl.
03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
A Primitive Alien Considers Human Visitors from Space
Tines. I like it. If that was the alien’s image, then it was the right name for his race. His pitiful advisors—and sometimes even the Flenser Fragment—were still intimidated by the ship from the stars. No question, there was power in that ship beyond anything in the world. But after the first panic, Steel understood that the aliens were not supernaturally gifted. They had simply progressed—in the sense that Woodcarver made so much of—beyond the current state of his world’s science... 1 notes
notesTheir technology is not magic, he realizes, but, as a multi-bodied lifeform, he is deeply disturbed by our singleton nature.
