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Foreigner (novel): Difference between revisions
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Bren Cameron has the job of the ''paidhi'', the sole point of contact between the human [[Lost Colony]] on the island of Mospheria and the [[Rubber Forehead Aliens|alien]] atevi on whose planet the humans are living. While Bren enjoys being a diplomat/translator/linguist/xenologist, it's not what you'd call an exciting job. Some excitement is added when the ''aiji'', the head of the atevi government, gives him a handgun as a gift, even though it's highly illegal for a human to posses a gun. It then gets ''much'' more exciting when, a week later, an assassin breaks into his apartment and he's forced to use the handgun in self defense. The attack leaves Bren baffled, since although the are plenty of conservative atevi who hate humans enough to want him dead, the conservative atevi have ''always'' hated humans, but no one has tried to have the ''paidhi'' killed in the two hundred years that the office has existed. And thus begins [[
The [[Faster
Two hundred years later, there are two factions of the descendants of the original humans, and tensions between the factions have reached the breaking point. One faction builds jerry-rigged landing vessels and use them to land on the planet on the island of Mospheria, while the other faction takes the refueled ''Phoenix'' off into space, presumably to find long lost Earth. The humans who landed make contact with the atevi (who were just entering their Steam Age) and the humans and atevi seem to be getting on well. However, each species makes the mistaken assumption that the other species has the exact same sort of government and power structures as they do, leading to lots of misunderstandings. Twenty years worth of misunderstandings lead to the War of the Landing, which almost wipes out the [[Lost Colony]]. Fortunately, the leader of the largest atevi government struck a deal with the colony, which came to be known as the Treaty. According to the treaty:
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* [[Blue and Orange Morality]]: If an atevi contracts with the [[Murder, Inc.|Assassin's Guild]] to kill someone, the target is informed of the fact ahead of hand. If, in spite of the warning, the target is killed, it isn't considered to be murder.▼
▲* [[Blue and Orange Morality]]: If an atevi contracts with the [[Murder Inc|Assassin's Guild]] to kill someone, the target is informed of the fact ahead of hand. If, in spite of the warning, the target is killed, it isn't considered to be murder.
** The atevi view some aspects of human society this way. As an example, {{spoiler|when Bren's fiancée unexpectedly breaks up their longer long distance relationship and marries another man, Bren's atevi bodyguard considers it to be an unthinkable betrayal}}.
* [[Fantastic Honorifics]]: A few.
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* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Even the very progressive Western Atevi generally distrust Humans. The Eastern Atevi outright hate Humanity and if given the chance would start a second war.
* [[Genki Girl]]: Played with Cajeiri who is in love with Human Culture, and hangs around human friends and has no idea about proper Atevi etiquette, because, he was in Space for 2 years without any other Atevi his age.
* [[Humanity Is Infectious]]: Averted. No matter how much exposure atevi have to humans, they'll never acquire (or even [[What Is This Thing You Call Love?|understand]]) human emotions involving affection, because their brains are wired differently than human brains.
* [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]]: Well, actually it's a ''dull'' place, since hyperspace has the side effect of making everyone muzzy headed. When combined with the cabin fever of year long trips, this can lead to quite a lot of stress.
* [[Long Running Book Series]]: [[
* [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness]]: Relatively high on the hardness scale, with the only exception to currently understood physics being the existence of [[Faster
* [[Murder, Inc.]]: The atevi has a government sanctioned assassin's guild. However, in spite of the name, most licensed assassins spend most of their time being bodyguards and doing security work.
* [[No Biochemical Barriers]]: Partially averted, partially played straight:
** Aversions:
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** Humans have delayed handing over computer technology to the atevi, since computer hardware and software is full of manipulating numbers. If a customer database assigned customer numbers to people, some atevi would take offense at being assigned an unlucky number. If the database was changed to only use customer numbers internally, those atevi would take offense at ''secretly'' being assigned unlucky numbers.
** When the atevi first started using aircraft, each atevi would determine their flight path according to whatever brand of numerology they used, completely ignoring air traffic control. It took a serious aircraft disaster before the government could effectively force all pilots to obey air traffic control.
** Atevi numerology is much more complex and wide-ranging than the human equivalent, since one of the more popular schools of atevi numerology includes "[[Faster
* [[Space Is Cold]]: The only notable science mistake Cherryh makes in the novels is that unheated portions of [[Space Station|Space Stations]] and starships are extremely cold.
* [[Spot of Tea]]: Any meeting with atevi, whether for business or socialization, is probably going to involve drinking some form of herbal tea. Unfortunately for Bren, many atevi herbs are poisonous to humans, so he has to be careful about what he drinks.
* [[What Is This Thing You Call Love?]]: Atevi are completely incapable of feeling any emotion involving affection, since their brains are wired differently than humans. Having no common point of reference, they can't even ''understand'' it. The closest translation they have for "like" in the sense of affection is "like" in the sense of "I really like salads".
** This is probably the largest cause of on-the-job stress for Bren: he spends 99% of his time surrounded by people who he likes who not only will never like him back, but who will never even ''understand'' what it means to like someone.
** The reverse also applies, since the atevi feel an emotion unknown to humans, ''manchi''. Humans can ''sort'' of understand it, since it's sort of like loyalty, sort of like a herding instinct, and sort of like a flocking instinct, but humans can never fully understand it, never grasp it at a gut/intuitive level, and never ''ever'' actually feel it.
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