[Snip]
> Mostali are not cold-hearted, logical machines.
> They lack sufficient warmth and emotional
> depth to be that. Imagine a rock that can act
> and talk but is still no other than a rock for
> all-a-that.
But the Moastali are able to think and to solve problems. As opposed to computers, for instance, they can act independently, and are able to act in ways that they were not expressely programmed to.
The Mostali ethics, I belive, would seem completely unethical to other intelligent species, since it always follows the formula of good=repairing the world machine, bad=obstructing the repair. Saving the lives of individuals (especially those of non-mostali), would not hold a very high priority, and neither would keeping your promises to non-mostali.
This would make them seem to others like nothing but "creepy, unfriendly, untrustworthy little monsters with dangerous magic and sticks that kill from a distance." :-)
Therefore I doubt that people in general are capable of percieving the mostali as anything but cold-hearted.
BTW, they are able to malfunction, and must at least have the potential to feel emotions.
Jeff:
> For some reason this got me thinking of
> Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast. Somehow,
> I think that those folks are not Mostali
> though. But I think they'd make a
> wonderful Brithini colony that's gotten a
> wee bit... isolated.
Very funny, indeed. I must remember to reread Peake sometime.
Regards,
/Peter Nordstrand
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