Help me connect the dots after TFOB and Livesuit
I’ve just finished the second book and Livesuit, and enjoyed them both immensely. But they also left me with a lot of questions, so I’d love some help connecting the dots.
Spoiler alert: if you haven’t finished the books yet, don’t venture any further.
>!The Carryx are a highly specialised, pheromone-driven, technologically superior, insect-like species. Space travel, asymmetric space, constant warfare — all of that seems to imply a strong scientific caste or at least some kind of serious research infrastructure. And yet we don’t really get a glimpse of it in the series, apart from the huge databank in the World Palace.!<
>!They capture “animals” and assign them tasks. But why? If you can literally transform any Carryx into a specialised specimen, why bother managing the zoo?!<
>!I understand why early human societies used dogs. But now, for most people, dogs are mostly companions, apart from selected trained units. So why would a highly developed civilisation need so many alien species for practical work, especially scientific research? Unless they are lab rats — but so far, I haven’t seen experiments in the usual sense.!<
>!Then there are the tasks themselves. Developing a food converter sounds like something you would do if you had just landed on an alien planet for the first time, with no imports, no familiar resources, and serious biochemical incompatibility. But the Carryx have already conquered innumerable worlds, and they are not even operating from their home planet. Surely this problem should have been solved a very long time ago?!<
>!They also claim that the war with the undying enemy has lasted for millennia. But in TFOB, we learn that Sovran lives for only a few years; eight years are considered a long time. So what is the Carryx lifecycle? How do they die naturally? How long do they live?!<
>!Obviously, not every Carryx gets promoted to creche elder. But even the librarian of Sovran becomes an elder within eight years, and we don’t know how long it took him to become a librarian in the first place. So there is at least a chance that those “millennia” might mean something different from what we instinctively assume.!<
>!The key word for any warring civilisation is intelligence. That is what you collect first: you know your enemy, or you don’t win. The Carryx and the undying enemy seem to have been fighting almost forever. And while the Carryx spy on the systems they are about to conquer, we are shown no labs where they dissect, dissolve, grind down, or otherwise research the enemy.!<
>!They should have plenty of material. We see at least three lifesuits crushed to death, and the story implies there are more dead soldiers elsewhere. After thousands of years, you would expect the Carryx to have developed something more effective than tactics alone.!<
>!Then there is the undying enemy itself: the black substance that seems rather helpless on its own, but becomes extremely effective when applied to living organisms, giving them extra strength, endurance, and recovery. It needs supplies to function properly. It is unclear whether it has intent, consciousness, or intelligence of its own; at this point, we mostly have assumptions. Its origin is still unknown.!<
>!And the people using it against the Carryx do not seem to know that much about them either. The Swarm — assuming it was sent by humans and not by some other people — appears to be one of the first serious spies gathering data from the World Palace. Again, if this war has been going on for thousands of years, and the black substance technology has probably been known since the beginning, or at least from an early stage, then what happened? Why only now? Why are there no labs dissecting, dissolving, grinding, testing? What did I miss?!<
>!And finally, the other species. It seems wildly arrogant of the Carryx to assume they are safe while collecting so many oppressed peoples in one place and applying the same “be useful or be culled” policy to all of them. We know of at least two conspiracies already, and I wouldn’t dismiss the others. With the amount of freedom they are given, plenty of them might have their own resistance networks, grudges, or long games quietly unfolding in the corners.!<
So I’d love to hear what you think. Are these actual gaps, clues for future books, or have I simply missed something obvious?