Week 10: Babel-17 (5 points)

 I found Babel-17 to be both captivating and thought provoking. Samuel Delaney introduced a plot to me through this story that I had never come across in science fiction. That being how instead of fighting a war with who has the biggest bombs and military might, but rather engaging in warfare through the power of language. 

One thing that has always interested me growing up and learning world history, is how countries have utilized certain strategies and tactics in war. More importantly, how they have evolved in such a short time. For much of civilization, it usually came down to who had the most men ready to defend the kingdom, and those wars were brutally fought hand to hand with a high number of life loss. Now, when we think of war between nations, the idea of two large countries fighting a potential great war by using hand to hand combat seems so foreign. We would much rather see the use of a nuclear arsenal being the weapon of choice and maybe even used as a deterrent against potential future wars. But in Babel-17, the choice of warfare strategy utilized is completely different and at first would leave many people scratching their heads. 

The idea that once a certain language is learned by an individual, that it then has the power to influence and almost override and change that person both physically and mentally is a very interesting and new concept to me. Thinking about it more, it certainly makes sense in the fact that I could see how different languages across the world currently could have different effects on those fluent in said language.