• GarlicBender
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    4 years ago

    Good points and illustration. I think that there is no true need to be able to empathize with alien intelligence in a narrative. Goodness knows I have trouble empathizing with plenty of human characters… Hierarchy of Foreignness was even a thematic element in the Ender books.

    Have you read A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge? I remember it doing a pretty good job of imagining polymorphic sentience and civilization churn.