Jim Druley, one of the contributors from Issue #1 has an idea for an article based on an old short story he read years ago. Unfortunately he can’t rememeber the title or who wrote it. Does anybody have any idea? His description is as follows …
An old short story about some sentient spider-creatures/aliens that were both hyper-rational and extremely fearful? The idea was that their rationality somehow led them to be maximally afraid of everything.
It is “decades old” at least.
These aliens look very similar to Pierson’s puppeteers, from Larry Niven’s Ringworld.
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson's_Puppeteers ;
Pierson’s puppeteers are extremely intelligent, but also deathly afraid because–according to a long ago scientific experiment–they have no immortal soul, meaning they see death as eternal oblivion, and therefore try to avoid it at all cost.
Thanks Jetse. I will pass it along.