Aliens

Should the mulefa be categorised as fictional aliens? They inhabit Earth, and fill the space occupied by humans in other sentient-life worlds; maybe they even share some genetic heritage, albeit before the radical diamond skeleton development in their evolution.

--E03bf085 15:14, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, they should probably be classed as aliens, as they are a non-human sentient species. I'd say they're so detached from humanity they couldn't be considered to be parallel humans.

They are parallel humans that have developed along a different evolutionary path, and Mary realizes quite quickly that they are not "creatures" but rather "people". It also depends on what you mean by "alien". If you mean "not from earth", then they are not aliens, because they exist on a parallel earth. If you mean "not from our earth" then that makes Lyra an alien as well.Rglong 03:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think they're aliens because they are not the same genetic species as us. Genetically we are in dfferent groups. Lyra is not from our Earth, but she is more or less human (although she may be considered a different breed of human, this is because of the daemon thing, not her origin). As for the mulefa, we probably share the same ancestry, but we are phyiscally different, psychologically different etc. I define alien as a sentient race that is not human, regarldess of their origin. The mulefa are not human. Yes, they are "people" but they are not human- there is a difference. Aliens in most science fiction etc are people, but few would call them human. You said it yourself- the Mulefa developed along a different evolutionary path. Ergo, they are not the same species as us, so they are not human.

Origin is not important; if we were to accept your argument as true, then if on parallel world there were, say, silicon based sentient entities that had an utterly different psychology and metabolism to us, lived on a planet who ecosystem had a completely different sort of biochemistry, and have also begun to transfer themselves into robotic bodies, then they would be human, when it is blatantly obvious that they would not be. Likewise, the fact that they are sentient (ie "people") does not mean that they are "human". As I said, this would imply that Jabba the Hutt is a human.

They are from a parallel universe, but still from oxford! Since a jump through a window into an alternative world does not change the location, they are not from somewhere else. Ergo they are no aliens! An alien is frome somewhere else. If anyone is alien in the world they live in, its the humans. To end the discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_%28biology%29 So could someone please change the words? 212.17.87.133 12:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Technology

By the way, somebody edited this article saying that the Mulefa are not behind humanity. It is blatantly obvious that their technology isn't even close to ours. If, for whatever reason, there was a war, we would win in a matter of hours.

Being able to win a war is not a sign of technological process. More often it is a sign of bloodthirsty and violent cultural values and sheer numbers. Calling the mulefa's technology "backward" is very loaded. Their technology hasn't developed along the same path. Evolution isn't a one-way street, and progress doesn't follow a straight line. We can do some things that mulefa can't, and they can do some things that we can't. Right now the article reeks of the same kind of racist judgments that Europeans had applied to African cultures for centuries, accusing them of being "backward" because they didn't develop the same kind of weapons and machines, even though upon closer inspection there were a great many technological advancements made by non-European cultures that didn't necessarily have to do with motorized mechanisms and war.

Bottom line is that the mulefa are not "behind" humanity because A.) they are contemporary with humanity, and B.) they aren't following the same evolutionary path to begin with. You can't be ahead of or behind someone when they aren't even on the same road.Rglong 03:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the racist language and the inaccuracy about mulefa being 33000 years old and humans being 150000 years old - the book says that 33000 years ago was when the actual "Fall of Eve" occurred and both species became consciously aware, as evidenced by the trepanned human skulls, Mary's research and Lyra's reading of the alethiometer. Both humans and mulefa existed before then, but were not aware as "people", but were rather animals.

The war thing was just an analogy. We are more advanced as we can do things the Mulefa cannot even contemplate-such as generate electricity. As for a war, I think you will find that more advanced factions tend to win in this day and age because they can buid better weapons- no amount of numbers/bloodthirstiness will defeat a well placed nuclear bomb. That's why we are the more advanced race. We know more than they do; we have a better knowledge of phsics, engineering, chemistry, mathematics, you name it. You don't need to actually posess better weapons to be more advanced, but they are a very good indicator- if you are advanced, you will have the knoweldge to construct them, so you will be capable of building necessary equipment to win a war, which is partly why in the conflicts between more and ess advanced forces (such as the German Panzers vs Polish Cavalry), the latter generally gets smashed. Evolution isn't one-way, but technological progress is. Currently what you are saying seems to indicate that if, for example, some aliens arrived in spaceships and brought with them FTL, lasers, nanotechnology etc, they would not necessarily be more advanced than us. I think they would be. This of course is related to our definition of technological progress. I define more advanced technology as being more effetive etc and requiring a greater knowledge of science and enginnering to understand and construct. At the moment, our technology can do everything the Mulefa can do and so much more. Perhaps you could name a technology they have but we do not. What do they have? Nets- check. Wooden houses- check. Wheels- check.

I'm not sure what sort of definition of technological progress you are trying to apply, but it seems to imply that the complexity of the machines you can construct has no bearing on it; essentially it implies that a shopping trolley is advanced as a car. I cannot see how the Mulefa could be considered to be "contemporary" with humanity. Evidence? The computer you are using to type your changes into wikipedia. Whilst they are quite common in human society, no mulefa would even be able to build a device that generates the electricity they operate on. Looking it objectively, we are the more technologically advanced civilisation because our technology- our devices and machines- are more efficient, powerful and effective than theirs, can do things totally beyond the scope of theirs, and requires a far more extensive knowlege of science and engineering to build, but is easier to use.

It's not racism: racism is saying that people are worse etc because of their race. Calling a particular group of people primitive because they do not have the same level of technology as ours is not. There is nothing the Mulefa can do that we cannot (save seeing dust naturally, but that isn't really a technology, is it).

I have re-instated some of the referances to Mulefa having "different" technology to ours.

Indeed- they are clearly technologically backwards, and without reference to this, an entry would give a very misleading image if it did not mention this. Larklight 17:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree: Even if we were to accept Rglong's argument and definitions as true, which I do not, I think it is safe to assume that most people do not use them and would be very confused if we tried to say that the Mulefa were as technologically advanced as us. He may call it racism, but most people would probably accept that African cultures were not as advanced as European civilisation. Technological progress is not a measure of which is the better civilisation, but a measurement of the complexity of their devices.

I will however leave out the information on humans being 150 000 years old and the mulefa being 33 000 years onld, although humans as a species did evolve around that time.

Genetic Relationship with Grazers=

I'm going to check again, but I don't remember it saying the mulefa and the grazers were genetically similar, at least not any more than human beings are genetically similar to cattle, which I think is trivial so I took it out, unless someone can come up with a direct quote from Mary Malone's findings.Rglong 03:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not so sure- the Mulefa and the grazers do look relatively similar. I would consider them to be as close to us as we are to other primates- that is, worth conisdering. You are not looking at this scientifically. Just because the mulefa and grazers have roles in the Mulefan civilisation that are analagous to humans and cattle in ours does not mean that they have the same genetic relationship. They both have similar shapes and apparently lived close to each other before the Mulefa achieved sentience, which would suggest that the two species were once similar but diverged relatively recently.