History Literature / ThePeople

* TakeOurWordForIt: In "No Different Flesh", Mark is working on an important book about a cutting-edge field of science. Meris, the viewpoint character, says she's never been able to make head nor tail of it no matter how many times Mark explains, so the story contains no details nor even a general idea of what area of science it's in. Some People read his manuscript, realize he's got certain things wrong, and have to talk themselves out of changing a couple of lines. Of course, they're thousands of times more advanced and regard earth people as being in the kindergarten stage of whatever this is.

* HighTurnoverRate: In "Ararat", the central problem is that the one-room school in Cougar Canyon, the small town where most of the People live, hasn't been able to keep any teacher for more than a year. It's not a bad gig, really, it's just that trained teachers are necessarily Outsiders and spending so much time around very young People who haven't entirely got the hang of keeping their abilities hidden means that sooner or later each teacher runs up against something their minds can't cope with.

* HumanAliens: The People are physically indistinguishable from Earth humans. They have the same physiology, breathe the same air, eat the same kinds of food, can be treated successfully with the same medicines, and can even interbreed to produce healthy children.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Some of the People are able to edit memories, which most often comes up when an Outsider has discovered their secret. Given their principles, it's not something they'll do unilaterally just to protect themselves, but rather something they'll offer the Outsider if the Outsider thinks that they'll have trouble keeping the secret or that knowing the People exist will make them more unhappy than having a gap in their memory.

* MaliciousSlander: Several of the stories have instances of vicious small-town gossip make life difficult for the protagonists. In "Captivity", a charming scene where Twyla and Francher leave the school dance and dance outside (because Francher is ashamed of not having a suitable outfit and his Gift makes him especially sensitive to the poorly-played music) is closely followed by the town becoming a hotbed of gossip about what they were 'really' doing together out there.

* TakeOurWordForIt: In "No Different Flesh", Mark is working on an important book about a cutting-edge field of science. Meris, the viewpoint character, says she's never been able to make head nor tail of it no matter how many times Mark explains, so the story contains no details nor even a general idea of what area of science it's in.

* GeneticMemory: The People have access to the knowledge and memories of dead ancestors, called Remembering. To Assemble is to organize and narrate those memories as a story.

* PsychicPowers: The People have a wide variety of them: Telekinesis, Telepathy, and Empathy among them. Precognition is ''very'' rare.

* CutLexLuthorACheck: Occasional outsiders will often suggest to the People that they use their powers for financial gain. The usual logic is that they're private people who just want to live modest, quiet lives in their own communities. An Outsider doctor does make a pretty convincing case about all the lives they could save if they could apply their PsychicSurgery powers to create a community of surgeons.

* FantasyForbiddingFather: Believing his wife is the last of the People, Bruce Merrill in "Gilead" is [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing adamantly opposed to his children experimenting]] or even asking questions about their innate abilities, [[StreisandEffect hoping they will lose interest]]. He even gets angry with his son for Remembering a bit of poetry from his long-dead grandmother. He's actually less unsympathetic than he appears, but is afraid they'd do too much around other people if they knew. This doesn't make things any easier on Bethie. In "Pottage", an entire community, founded after the witch-burnings, is based on the repression and denial of their abilities, to the point that ''playground equipment'' is forbidden and even laughing is suspect.

* CrystalDragonJesus: The religion of the People bears many similarities to Christianity. They say "the Presence, the Name and the Power", and they make "The Sign". In the unpublished "Tell Me A Story," set a few months after the crash, a young People woman who can barely speak English enthuses that the earth people have a book that is a lot like their own sacred writings, and even has "Our Brother" in it. She then launches into Psalm 139, "Though I take the wings of the morning..." indicating they've got a similar scripture. The People don't exactly ''worship'' "The Presence": it simply exist as a force in all their lives that they deeply revere and which unites them all. They also identify certain Bible verses as similar or even identical to their own teachings. It's implied that the People are a race of humans who never experienced the Biblical Fall and that ''all'' humans once were (or could be) like them.

* CrystalDragonJesus: The religion of the People bears many similarities to Christianity. They say "the Presence, the Name and the Power", and they make "The Sign". In the unpublished "Tell Me A Story," set a few months after the crash, a young People woman who can barely speak English enthuses that the earth people have a book that is a lot like their own sacred writings, and even has "Our Brother" in it. She then launches into Psalm 139, "Though I take the wings of the morning..." indicating they've got a similar scripture.[[note]]Fridge: "Wings of the morning" in the Bible means someone traveling as fast as the light of dawn moves across the sky, and the People do this on "The Festival", their All Saints Day. It's a big community event. Groups of a thousand or more fly east all night until the ones in the lead see the first glimmer of sunrise, then they all sing in honor of everyone who's died in the past year.[[/note]] The People don't exactly ''worship'' "The Presence": it simply exist as a force in all their lives that they deeply revere and which unites them all. They also identify certain Bible verses as similar or even identical to their own teachings. It's implied that the People are a race of humans who never experienced the Biblical Fall and that ''all'' humans once were (or could be) like them.

* CrystalDragonJesus: The religion of the People bears many similarities to Christianity. They say "the Presence, the Name and the Power", and they make "The Sign". In the unpublished "Tell Me A Story," set a few months after the crash, a young People woman who can barely speak English enthuses that the earth people have a book that is a lot like their own sacred writings, and even has "Our Brother" in it. She then launches into Psalm 139, "Though I take the wings of the morning..." indicating they've got a similar scripture.[[note]]Fridge: "Wings of the morning" in the Bible means someone traveling as fast as the light of dawn moves across the sky, and the People do this on "The Festival", their All Saints Day. It's a big community event. Groups of a thousand or more fly east all night until the ones in the lead see the first glimmer of sunrise, then they all sing in honor of everyone who's died in the past year.[[/note]]

* CrystalDragonJesus: The religion of the People bears many similarities to Christianity. They say "the Presence, the Name and the Power", and they make "The Sign". In the unpublished "Tell Me A Story," set a few months after the crash, a young People woman who can barely speak English enthuses that the earth people have a book that is a lot like their own sacred writings, and even has "Our Brother" in it. She then launches into Psalm 139, "Though I take the wings of the morning..." indicating they've got a similar scripture.

A series of short stories, written by Zenna Henderson, from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Two collections of People stories were released by Henderson: ''Pilgrimage: The Story of The People'' in 1961, and ''The People: No Different Flesh'' in 1967, which contained all the stories that she had written up to that point. A final volume, ''Ingathering'', which contained all of the People stories was published after Henderson's death.

* BlessedWithSuck: Being a Sensitive, without learning to control it. Bethie Merrill ''feels'' the pain of everyone around her, and can't shut any of it out.

The People are a race of humanoid SpaceElves who have evolved beyond the need for all that technology, until their home world is threatened by a tectonic disaster that will make it uninhabitable. They dust off their old designs for starships, and build enough to evacuate their world, scattering out across the galaxy in the hope that some of them will find new worlds to colonize. One of their ships finds its way to Earth, in 1890, but its inexperienced crew botches the entry into Earth's atmosphere, and it crashes, scattering survivors in escape pods, many of them children, all over the southwestern United States.

The People are a race of humanoid, SufficientlyAdvancedAliens who have evolved beyond the need for all that technology, until their home world is threatened by a tectonic disaster that will make it uninhabitable. They dust off their old designs for starships, and build enough to evacuate their world, scattering out across the galaxy in the hope that some of them will find new worlds to colonize. One of their ships finds its way to Earth, in 1890, but its inexperienced crew botches the entry into Earth's atmosphere, and it crashes, scattering survivors in escape pods, many of them children, all over the southwestern United States.

----

The stories were [[AdaptationExpansion adapted]] into a 1972 MadeForTVMovie, produced by Creator/FrancisFordCoppola, and staring Kim Darby and Creator/WilliamShatner. It used the short story "Pottage" for its main plot, and imported characters and situations from many of the other stories to flesh it out.

A series of short stories, written by Zenna Henderson, from the 1950s, through the 1970s.

The People are, by and large, [[ActualPacifist Actual Pacifists]], with real PsychicPowers such as telekinesis, so many of their initial confrontations with humans do not turn out well for them, with many of the survivors running afoul of religious fundamentalists who take their psychic abilities to be witchcraft. Those People who survive their initial confrontations with the people of Earth do so by going into hiding, making it more difficult for them to find each other.

* FantasyForbiddingDad: Believing his wife is the last of the People, Bruce Merrill in "Gilead" is [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing adamantly opposed to his children experimenting]] or even asking questions about their innate abilities, [[StreisandEffect hoping they will lose interest]]. He even gets angry with his son for Remembering a bit of poetry from his long-dead grandmother. He's actually less unsympathetic than he appears, but is afraid they'd do too much around other people if they knew. This doesn't make things any easier on Bethie. In "Pottage", an entire community, founded after the witch-burnings, is based on the repression and denial of their abilities, to the point that ''playground equipment'' is forbidden and even laughing is suspect.

The People are, by and large, [[ActualPacifist Actual Pacifists]], with real psychic powers such as telekinesis, so many of their initial confrontations with humans do not turn out well for them, with many of the survivors running afoul of religious fundamentalists who take their psychic abilities to be witchcraft. Those People who survive their initial confrontations with the people of Earth do so by going into hiding, making it more difficult for them to find each other.

* BlessedWithSuck: Being a Sensitive, without learning to control it. Bethie ''feels'' the pain of everyone around her, and can't shut any of it out.

* FramingDevice: The two collections put together by Henderson, ''Pilgrimage'', and ''No Different Flesh'' have framing stories in which stories about the history of The People are being told.

The People are a race of humanoid, sufficiently advanced aliens who have evolved beyond the need for all that technology, until their home world is threatened by a tectonic disaster that will make it uninhabitable. They dust off their old designs for starships, and build enough to evacuate their world, scattering out across the galaxy. One of their ships finds its way to Earth, in 1890, but its inexperienced crew botches the entry into Earth's atmosphere, and it crashes, scattering survivors in escape pods, many of them children, all over the southwestern United States.

The People are, by and large, {{ActualPacifist}}s, with real psychic powers such as telekinesis, so many of their initial confrontations with humans do not turn out well for them, with many of the survivors running afoul of religious fundamentalists who take their psychic abilities to be witchcraft. Those People who survive their initial confrontations with the people of Earth do so by going into hiding, making it more difficult for them to find each other.

The People are, by and large, ActualPacifists, with real psychic powers such as telekinesis, so many of their initial confrontations with humans do not turn out well for them, with many of the survivors running afoul of religious fundamentalists who take their psychic abilities to be witchcraft. Those People who survive their initial confrontations with the people of Earth do so by going into hiding, making it more difficult for them to find each other.