YMMV / Fuzzy Nation

• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Jack Holloway is a MegaCorp surveyor and former attorney who was disbarred for helping a guilty client nearly escape justice. He uses his encyclopedic knowledge of the law to browbeat negotiators and is unaffected by threats against his life He simultaneously strikes a rich vein of minerals and discovers a new sapient alien life-form, the fuzzys. Jack seemingly sets himself up as an advocate of the aliens while using court rulings in their favor to make his employers give him a bigger share of the mining profits. When his schemes endanger the fuzzys, Jack sacrifices his potential fortune to engage in Courtroom Antics that destroy the corporation's position and ensures the fuzzys' safety. As a Consolation Prize, Jack ends up being made a minister in the fuzzys' new independent planetary government. He ends the book by saying that he prides himself in keeping other people from knowing what his goals are and that he may not be the good man the fuzzys think he is, but he was the right man to save them.
  • Brad Landon appears to be the loyal and efficient assistant of Wheaton Aubrey, but turns out to be Aubrey's superior, who is observing him in the field to determine if he has the required skills to be CEO. Landon acts as a conciliatory figure, making rational-sounding business proposals and polite conversation even as he's working hard to screw people over for the sake of the company's bottom line. No one ever suspects his true status until he reveals it to put Aubrey in his place. He makes it clear that his supposed boss has failed the test devised for him and that things could would have gone much worse if not for his supervision of Aubrey. He makes an effort to extend an olive branch to Jack and the fuzzys in the hope that they'll allow the company to return to the planet in the future once their anger cools down.

• What Measure Is a Non-Human?
  • The Zara-raptors showing disturbing signs of sentience, in one scene using a rock to break the window on a skimmer. No one even wants to think about a sentient predator.