

Closer to Earth: Ofelia is fairly simple and apparently unimportant, likes peace and quiet and prefers working in the garden and making clothes and jewelry as pastimes but she has the wisdom of age behind her.She doesn't consider herself worthy of the People's trust (or potential sacrifice if it came to violence) but the People do, firmly. And she has to stand up to humans with official titles and college educations and guns. The Chosen Zero: Ofelia is old, weak, frail, a woman of Stay in the Kitchen upbringing and used to being dismissed as unimportant.Unlike most examples, she thrives while alone. The Aloner: Ofelia becomes one voluntarily.The human preconceptions get severely deconstructed when they meet The People. Alien Non-Interference Clause: The human governments have one of these in spite of never having met aliens before.Ofelia and her internal conflicts make up the core of the story, with a side of lampooning the concept behind Star Trek style limits on interacting with alien cultures. Remnant Population is a standalone novel by Elizabeth Moon, a decidedly non- Space Opera offering from a writer best known for them. And in the end, it will be small, insignificant, harmless Ofelia who stands between them and the humans. The natives - The People - are reminded of another event, years ago, where machines were seen making scars across the sky in a place far away from their home nests could there be more of these invading monsters here? A party of them set off to investigate.Īs a result, Ofelia gets caught up in a culture not her own, as she slowly learns that the creatures have not come to kill her but to watch her, and though they first seem much like ignorant children, they have a lot of surprises in store. The peace is broken by the arrival of another colony ship - thousands of miles away, but heard by Ofelia on the old communication equipment - as they try to land and are massacred by a gang of angry aliens that no one knew existed on the planet before. When the time comes, she gives everyone the slip, staying behind on the colony, intending to live out the rest of her life in peaceful solitude with her house and her garden and the comforts offered by all the colonists had to leave behind.

They've lost the charter for the colony and are making everyone ship out to space in cryo-sleep to start over again.įor Ofelia this is a golden opportunity. They all live and work as employees in the Sims Bancorp colony #3245.12, until the tide of business fortunes turns out of Sims' favor.

Ofelia is tired: tired of being told her how to act and what to do, tired of living with her son that doesn't listen and her snippy daughter-in-law, tired of people.
