Ah, okay -- I did get that very idealized sense from Long Way and it made it so boring I gave up, but I will check out the other Chambers when I get a chance. (hamsterwoman says there's a fourth one coming out soon -- maybe that will get Hugo-nominated, then I'll certainly read it :) )
Well, talking is hard, it's true... but after you talk, the disagreements and conflicting goals remain.
Oh, sure, and misunderstandings too. I can hardly get two people in my own family of origin to agree sometimes (to be fair, there's a cultural divide there too), much less two alien species. I more meant that on the Doylist side, not the Watsonian side -- that the gulf of communication is so wide that it becomes hard to make the story about anything else, even if it would be rather more realistic that once they talked that there would still be a ton of problems (which there would be, as you say!) ...On the other hand, if she'd cut the first third then there might have been some room to deal with it :P
With the aliens, these very complex, obviously very militaristic cultures are slamming into one another partly because they both seem to have social institutions that want and benefit from war. That's the part that seems much harder to solve.
Oh, yeah, that's a very good point, and plays into what you said earlier about the resolution being too pat -- do we really think that enough of the Teixcalaanli are going to be okay with this peaceful-ish outcome? (Which did bother me.) Though I hadn't myself thought of it so much from the side of the dual militaristic cultures, I was more thinking about the vast potential for talking past each other and culture clash.
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Date: 2021-04-03 05:24 am (UTC)Well, talking is hard, it's true... but after you talk, the disagreements and conflicting goals remain.
Oh, sure, and misunderstandings too. I can hardly get two people in my own family of origin to agree sometimes (to be fair, there's a cultural divide there too), much less two alien species. I more meant that on the Doylist side, not the Watsonian side -- that the gulf of communication is so wide that it becomes hard to make the story about anything else, even if it would be rather more realistic that once they talked that there would still be a ton of problems (which there would be, as you say!) ...On the other hand, if she'd cut the first third then there might have been some room to deal with it :P
With the aliens, these very complex, obviously very militaristic cultures are slamming into one another partly because they both seem to have social institutions that want and benefit from war. That's the part that seems much harder to solve.
Oh, yeah, that's a very good point, and plays into what you said earlier about the resolution being too pat -- do we really think that enough of the Teixcalaanli are going to be okay with this peaceful-ish outcome? (Which did bother me.) Though I hadn't myself thought of it so much from the side of the dual militaristic cultures, I was more thinking about the vast potential for talking past each other and culture clash.