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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9760493" data-attributes="member: 907">Taking this seriously for a second: once, long ago, I read a science fiction novel set on a world which had an extremely stratified society, likely as a commentary on colonialism. I only vaguely recall the novel (I thought it was an Asimov novel but it doesn't seem that way as I look at his bibliography), but basically you had a small population of highly technologically advanced people controlling a whole planet, with extremely strict laws on interaction (e.g. the "lessers" weren't even allowed to talk to or look at the ruling class). But controlling a whole planet of people was a bit too hard logistically, so they recruited intermediaries from among the conquered population by administering tests to get the best and brightest to work for them, still in subservient roles but with immensely higher standards of living than the common population. However, these intermediaries were expected to dedicate themselves to service, and were not allowed to have children or marry. Over the course of the novel, it turned out that this was a sneaky eugenics program: by recruiting the smart and ambitious ones and then forbidding them from having children, the idea was to remove those traits from the gene pool (it didn't work out very well).Anyhow, when Attack of the Clones talked about Jedi not being allowed to marry or have emotional attachments, I thought of that story. Force sensitivity is clearly a genetic trait, and if you recruit the force sensitive babies to your weird space wizard cult and forbid, or at least de-incentivize, children, that's not going to be good for the prevalence of force sensitivity in the long run.Also, if anyone recognize the story I'm talking about and can help me identify it, that'd be awesome. The idea clearly stuck with me, even if the name did not. I can't have been more than 18 when I read it, so it must have been published no later than 1994 (and probably earlier to account for translation and such).</blockquote>

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