Shirt or skin? (David Brin)

[Shaun]

Do you think that in the in the uplift books that we were actually uplifted by a sentient species like all other races in the known universe or we just evolved. Which has only happned to the very first race. And does anyone think that if a psychological test thinks you are violent and you aren't allowed to go into space, contact aliens or heaps of other things, is fair?

 

[padders]

My knowledge of the uplift universe is only from the first 3 books:

It does seem that we are the only race to have uplifted ourselves so far. Whether we are actually orphans seems doubtful, firstly because there is no record of us in the galactic library and secondly why would a race abandon its client race? So i would think that yes we uplifted ourselves.

Psychological test. Maybe not fair but perhaps necessary. Where earth is in such a fragile position it does perhaps seems necessary to protect that positon (and easy destruction) from those that may choose to do so.

 

[Shaun]

I will try to keep my posts to the first few books. First, for the probationaries. I do think that something needs to be done but thats not thesolution. First if someone was designsted as violent and banned from many things then they would be more likely to commit crimes and act out in anger. Because supposedly they are already violent.This is just a guess because it doesn't say what punishments are for probationaries.

As for the evolution theory. I think that we were actually uplifted. Even if there was no reference of us in the library that still doesn't mean much. It might be a race that was destroyed while secretly working on us or an experiment. But because of human pride I will say we evolved.

 

[padders]

But i would think if any race uplifted us there would be some record of them somewhere, how could they remove every single record of what they had done?

 

[Shaun]

There probably is a record of them in the great library but not a record of their uplifting of humans. They may have done this in secret. In the uplift war you can see this being done and maybe this was happening by our patron race. But if we were uplifted and abandoned why? Maybe because the race got wiped out or just thought we were a failure.

 

[gr8scott]

It's possible that humans were uplifted by the Progenitors (is that what the first race was called), shortly before their demise (I forget - did they leave or something?). Maybe the uplift was incomplete and we "grew" naturally to our present state. Possible?