The kzin view of humanity is less flattering than our view of kzinti. We seem as naked tail-less monkeys with gangling limbs, too many digits, gibbering speech. Even worse, consummate cowards, grass-eating omnivores capable of no resistance, capable only of cowering before the universe’s ultimate predator, the kzin.
One wonders though, whether that is truly humanity through an Alien lense, or a human’s critique of his own race’s shortcomings. Not to cast asperations on Larry Niven’s capabilities as a wordsmith; were he to bear a title kzin-style it would surely be Crafter-of-Awesomely-Believable-Yet-Inhuman-Fictional-Aliens. Or something shorter.
But is it truly possible for any being to step completely outside its own point of view? If we could plot humanity’s progression toward open-mindedness, I imagine it would be most like an exponential curve: with total omni-perspective as the limit we never quite reach. If so, and Niven is not creating a totally alien thought process, but rather channeling human thoughts through an alien brain, then that pathetic monkey—cowering in the corner, quivering in physical terror, slaving for jumped-up housecats—is not a projection, but a reflection.
Then again, the one common feature of every Man-Kzin war is that sooner or later, when it’s all said and done, the damn monkeys win. Every damn time. Despite all of the advantages nature blessed the kzinti with in speed, agility, strength, and fighting spirit, the humans win. Despite the mind-blowing, space bending technological advantage their former employers gave the kzinti, the humans win.
Just how the humans manage to pull off one impossible victory after another is not explored in depth in the earlier stories. Oh, the events are detailed, but every time the battle appears totally one-sided in favor of the kzinti until the crazy monkeys pull some totally unexpected, crazy-even-to-them-monkey stunt.
It is not until the later books, when relations between the species begin to ease, that a theory is advanced. Occasionally, a human or Protector would comment to their kzin allies that kzinti always leap before they are ready. Always their “hot livers” got the better of their perfectly sapient brains, and they would scream and leap without weighing the possibilities. That was an indulgence evolution did not allow humans.
Exactly who holds the top spot on the food chain is an ever-debated question in the jungles and savannahs of Earth. While most species specialize in order to fill an ecological niche, and then try to out-evolve any competitors who come along, humans clawed their desperate way up to become hunters extraordinare, ensuring their survival by being smarter and more versatile than. . .everyone: competitors, predators, and prey.
The kzin’s noble nature, its arrogance, its pride, its unyielding honor, are its downfall. One could say the kzinti have the vices of their virtues, while the humans have the virtues of their vices. So do we admire the kzinti for the qualities we share, or the ones we wished we possessed? |
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