History Literature / TheCrucibleOfTime

** One notable issue is that they become extremely unintelligent and weak-willed when they are hungry. Religious cults abuse this to

[[quoteright:387:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Crucible_Of_Time_9470.jpg]]

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Crucible_Of_Time_9470.jpg

In the late chapters the aliens have finally used geology and archaeology to discover that their planet has been subject to innumerable asteroid impacts and other cosmic phenomena which destroyed prior civilizations. They develop a space program in an effort to get off of the planet before they go extinct. In this time the planet suffers from religious fundamentalism resisting the space program and holding to the old dogma of the stars being hell.

* OrganicTechnology: The aliens' technology is based on bio-engineering; their machines aren't so much made as grown. This is demonstrated in the middle chapters, where seafaring tribes live on the backs of great sea-beasts and grow their food crops in their skin (which causes a major vitamin deficiency until they start taking soil with them).

* BizarreAlienSexes: When genetics are discovered in later chapters, it is shown that [[spoiler: females are actually a completely different symbiotic species or subspecies that physically and chemically mimics males.]] When females are stressed (due to cold, hunger, etc) their hormones become even more male, which causes them to become infertile. Females are impregnated on their abdomen where a lump forms, containing a male and female zygote that fight until the stronger one kills and absorbs the other. Children bud off from the adult females.

** Surprisingly, their machine-driven aeronautic industry does just fine because of a species of plant-balloon that they use to lift aircraft and rockets into the upper atmosphere.

* BizzarreAlienSexes: When genetics are discovered in later chapters, it is shown that [[spoiler: females are actually a completely different symbiotic species or subspecies that physically and chemically mimics males.]] When females are stressed (due to cold, hunger, etc) their hormones become even more male, which causes them to become infertile. Females are impregnated on their abdomen where a lump forms, containing a male and female zygote that fight until the stronger one kills and absorbs the other. Children bud off from the adult females.

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: The aliens become mentally weak-willed and unintelligent when underfed. This is abused by feudal rulers in early history, and by religious cults in late history.

In the late chapters the aliens have finally used geology and archaeology to discover that their planet has been subject to innumerable asteroid impacts and other cosmic phenomena which have destroyed prior civilizations which were quite advanced. They develop a space program in an effort to get off of the planet before they go extinct. Religious cults, which can easily brainwash a starved individual, resist the space program at every turn.

The middle chapters focus on the rise of civilization. The aliens prove quite adept at breeding and domesticating species [[EpilepticTrees which may have been domesticated or bioengineered by older pre-disaster civilizations]]. There are many plant and animal species on the planet which serve useful purposes, such as great sea-beasts which are domesticated and used as ships on the ocean. There is also a species of plant which can pump water, and difficulties in breeding it to work in thin air at high altitudes (with no working theory of gas and air pressure) are addressed. They also develop large plants which contain lighter-than-air gasses, paving the way for aeronautics.

The middle chapters focus on the rise of civilization. The aliens prove quite adept at breeding and domesticating species [[EpilepticTrees which may have been domesticated or bioengineered by older pre-disaster civilizations]]. There are many plant and animal species on the planet which serve useful purposes, such as great sea-beasts which are domesticated and used as ships on the ocean. There is also a species of plant which can pump water, and difficulties in breeding it to work in thin air at high altitudes (with no working theory of gas and air pressure) are addressed.

The early chapters focus on one of the first natural philosophers as the world is coming out of an Ice Age. He uses ancient star charts to demonstrate that stars move, contrary to religious dogma (of the skies being a cold and unchanging hell, and the the magma under the earth being a warm heavenly source of creation). He also correctly pins down the most common reasons for female infertility in their species (females who didn't produce offspring were underfed and abused, which kept them infertile), which leads directly to females gaining the same social status as males.

* BizarreAlienBiology: The story being told from their own perspective, the aliens' physiology isn't precisely described, but the reader gathers that they are a species of intelligent fungoids.

* OrganicTechnology: The aliens' technology is based on bio-engineering; their machines aren't so much made as grown.