The Good

Created Friday 02 November 2012

Chose (by me of course, but in the story by them) to call themselves "good" because it's a word, an idea, so hard to divorce from good feelings.

They claim, though, that it's in fact because it's similar phonetically to what they call themselves, but outside of being an outright lie, it's jutifiable because they're frigging aquatic creatures and nearly everthing makes a "gloog good goop" if you try to hear it that way.

The third ~~eldest~~ oldest ones there. The weird blob-like being(s). Whose pact it makes for co-existence in space is this. This is their motto in the biome:

Look, as long as you're willing to keep our technoloigcal over you at least this large, we won't exterminate you in a way you cannot understand.
(The second oldest are the ghosts; the oldest are the Mycons.)

They are essentially large (dog-sized) single cell organisms. But intelligent life on their home world developed in the sea, and a sea very rich in nutrients, so much that it's essentially a soup. And life within it became so interdependent that it's really like one big organism---enough so that it developed its own self-awareness. And enough so that when "pieces" of it leave (when the Good venture into space), this pieces are not as smart and certainly not as knowledgable as they are when they return.

So, their space flight was inherently not about going out, but about collecting and returning.

In an aside to the Mycons and Ghosts, "They're all isolated organisms. How complex can they be?"

They're chosen a eugenics path. They are willing to put the needs of the species above the needs of members of the species. Sure, they're already kinda not individuals (all parts of teh Hma), but still sure does change how things work there.

They apprise species on a species level. And see humans not so much as individially smart, stupid, whatever, but collectively. And collectively capable of more mean survival. That our social systems extend out only as far as priveledged resourves allow, and contracting quickly to protecting much more immediate genetics. Still, more than those of Raptors: we do have promotion of sibling genes inherent in us while Raptors would certainly kill their kin for themselves. The see Blattids as clever as a species. Dumber as individuals--really the obverse of humans. And teh Good are academically interested in thewar between us.

They do look down on most other beings because they don't feel sensations for global disequilibrium (yeah yeah, kinda like feeling climate change) and an even more abstract (and "recent" in even Good evolution) sense of aesthetic grace that leads to novel insight. We are lower on their scala intelligentia and thus---to them---warrant fewer rights.

They Are Old

Sorta implicit in The Expanse is the difference in ages of civilizations, and this is another thing I think was well-concieved. The universe is really old and there is lots of time for things to happen. Sure, some things take time and different ages of it lend themselves to different things. But still, even a diference in teh rate of life-forming events on a universal scale would be millions or even billions of years difference to when life gets to different stages. Just think of the effect of differences in technology between civilizations on earth and how that affected intereactions between them.
Anyway, they're not nearly as old as the Mycons, of course, but are on the order of over half a billion years older a civilized race than we.

As is their planet. And anyway evolution played out a bit differently there. Evolution, of course, can only work with what it has available. A stark example is the Cambrian–Ordovician extinction (if I have it right) where many baasic body types were eliminated. E.g., arthropods now all have the same number of body segments with wing/leg pairs with other segments fused. Vertebrates, of course have settled on four limbs (that may come and go with evolution but without sprouting a third pair). Extrapolating this out, I could see a whole work with fewer body plans, fewer types of relationships between organisms that are then further nuanced. A sort of increasingly specialized set of a limitted number of forms and interactions. Whole ecosystems becoming either more fragile . . . or more like a whole organism itself. Whence Hma, the sentient world of which the Good are a part.

Good Gear

The most advanced tehcnology known to exist in this dimension. And, sure, they'll sell you some. Along with the gear, they place a set of geostationary satelites above any planet with them that fully cover the planet. The purpose of these satelites?

"They allow us to remain in communicaiton with the delivereds."
"And why would you want to do that?"
"Not want, stipulate as a precondition to their sale. Why do we do this? So we may continue to interact with them, of course."
"O.K., and why would you want to do that?"
"Our products are the most advanced. They did not become so from static processes, and they do not remain so from static processes."
"So, you want to maintain a connection with them to update them."
"Yes, we will update them with any and all developments through our communication satelites."
"And what if we don't like the enhancements?"
"'Enhancments'?"
"How you change the products you sell."
"That is not your choice. Your choose to include you in the products of our development--not in the process of development."
"So, if we don't like them, we can return them."
"You can choose any of the actions outlayed in our contract of sale you want. Including give them to the entities listed there, of which we are one. So, yes, you can give them to us if you wish."
"No, not give them. Return them for a full refund."
"A refund? Goodness. We sell them to you--we exchnage some of our products for some of your resources. That transaction is completed once the contracted is negotiated and the items exchanged. What you do with them within the contract henseforth is up to you. If you wish to given them back to us, you may. If we want to give you back your resources, we can. But those are actions outside of the first sale. if I defecate after I eat, does that mean I did not eat?"

I'm thinking now that the Good don't disable their gear when the Humans attach the Bliattids. They just really restrict sales. (Say it's a total boycott, but in reality the first one was free is all.) The supply nearly dries up just as the demand spikes. And the Good don't stop doing business! They try to do just enough to look good while making a killing.