Politics of pronouns in the Imperial Radch

[kaberett]

(Not sure what's going on here? The answer is Ancillary Justice.)

We're told that Radchaai does not bother with gendered pronouns. It seems to me that the default pronoun used means gender-irrelevant (rather than gender-unknown or gender-specific, which seem to me to be a useful way of considering pronouns of gendered beings). We're told that Strigan's society uses gender-known pronouns even though it professes to consider gender irrelevant.

And yet: the Radchaai frequently refer to ships as "it" (I note that the standard English pronoun used to refer to vessels is the same as the way in which the Radchaai default pronoun is rendered). It's clearly not as simple as in/animate - ships have emotions, ships have personality and identity, ships are sentient, ships have ancillaries. Except that this is done in a literally dehumanising way - ships are explicitly not Radchaai, not citizens, and therefore not considered human; characters who are uninterested in or unsympathetic toward ships are far more likely to refer to them as "it", whereas characters who like ships seem to mostly not pronoun them; non-Radchaai humans are generally called the standard pronoun for Radchaai, despite being considered by at least some in the society to have sub-human status - and so I am left picking away at what distinction it is the Radch is making here...

Thoughts very much appreciated!

Comments

[jack]

Oh yes, this was the other thing your post made me remember. It seemed (not certain?) that the ships had a central (non-organic?) brain in the ship, plus ancilliaries, whereas AM was distributed with (probably?) no central brain.

I wasn't sure if JoT's increasing self-determination as Breq was solely due to increasingly escaping programmed safeguards AM put in the main brain, or if there was a suggestion that organic brains were inherently more people-y, and Breq was more like "JoT Esk One brain, with JoT memories". I don't like that interpretation as much, because it's less interesting distributed-consciousness-wise, but it's somewhat straightforward and common in other SF.

[davidgillon]

Breq is also working on a much reduced processor and with a much reduced set of inputs (One Esk Nineteen alone in both cases). That is going to have a functional effect on their behaviour even without any other changes in the way they think.

[kaberett]

My strong impression is that AM *does* have central brains - one per palace and presumably one elsewhere, too (and we know that there is lag between reports from palaces being sent out). I will see what textual support for this I find through the rest of the readthrough...

[jack]

Oh, oh, right. I didn't think of that, let me think about it.

[davidgillon]

I'm not sure how the two factions of AM would work if there were a central brain in each palace. OTOH AM probably needs that degree of processing power in order to run the empire. I'm reasonably convinced there is such a brain, but open as to whether the brain is AM or a 'Palace' equivalent to the 'Station' side of the complex.

[kaberett]

Anaander Mianaai's thirteen palaces were the capitals of their provinces. Metropolis-sized stations, each one half ordinary large station--with accompanying station AI--and half palace proper. Each palace proper was the residence of Anaander Mianaai, and the seat of provincial administration.

-- which would be some of why I believe palaces contain the AM AI - they're not run by station AI, at least not wholly. (And how interesting, again from the perspective of parallels, that a little earlier JoT says that they expected to be turned into a habitat or the core of a small station, which is not what they were built for...)

(I note with interest that I defaulted to "they" there; I also note with interest that JoT refers to their segments as "it" but doesn't as far as I can tell ever use a third-person pronoun for itself.)

[davidgillon]

There has to be an equivalent to the station AI on the palace side as the station AI's functionality is all encompassing and the palace needs the same roles filling, but whether it is also an aspect of AM seems open to me.

[kaberett]

AM is evidently sufficiently control-freakish that I find it difficult to imagine her relinquishing that degree of control? HOWEVER I will soon be at the bit of the book where Breq & Seivarden visit the palace, whereupon I will source more textual evidence :-)

[davidgillon]

Good point. OTOH this then makes allegiance of the AM palace AIs vital to the conspiracies and we see on JoT that the conspiracies would rather sacrifice multiple AMs than see even a ship AI fall to the opposing faction.

WRT station AI look at the scene after the outbreak of hostilities where they're headed dockside and, IIRC, Station tells Breq it doesn't like her and wants her gone.