Reflection: Conquest of America

We spoke a lot in class the other day about what constitutes true understanding in cross-species communication. And one of the distinctions that we kept finding was this notion of manipulation. I mean, in Conquest of America, Columbus clearly didn't understand the Indians (to the extent that he basically kept insisting that Cuba wasn't an island) but he understood enough to manipulate them into thinking that he'd taken the moon away from them because they didn't understand the concept of a lunar eclipse. Cortes probably understood the Aztecs better--in fact, I think we voted in class that he basically exhibited greater understanding, but I think the caveat of that was that he understood them in the sense of being able to manipulate them into thinking he was Quetzalcoatl. And I started wondering, in a weird way, if that's the sense the Jana'ata have of understanding humans. Given, they seem pretty ethnocentric, but it seems like a lot of the interactions in The Sparrow have to do with the Jana'ata taking advantage of humanity--until the obvious, at the end.

I've been thinking about it a lot because we have a tendency, even in positive interactions like we see in Speaker, to think of ourselves as these horrible invaders and the alien race as basically benevolent if they don't kill or molest us. In Speaker though, both the Buggers and the Piggies do have ulterior motives for human contact--the piggies individually seek their rough equivalent of eternal life, and the Hive Queen basically hangs on to Ender so she can reestablish herself and her civilization. Is that any different or better than the whole Gold, Glory, God thing we find in early American conquest? Given, in those cases we seem to be the aggressors but I can't figure out if the nature of the conquest necessarily lends moral points to one side or the other.

I also wish we could bring up Mass Effect in class sometime. I know it's a video game but it and its mind-numbingly beautiful sequel are so immersive and well-written that I have a tendency to think of the ME universe as being roughly on par with some sort of higher-class space opera. And one of the things ME addresses is this notion of how difficult it is to deal or cope with a species that is fundamentally different. The entire first game centers around finding out about this long-defunct alien race called the Protheans and their conquest by the Reapers, who aren't actually biological but are nonetheless sentient. And the thing about the Reapers is that because they're inorganic they have this idea that it is necessary to enslave and subsequently wipe out all life. How do you argue for the relevance of humankind with something like that?