Xenocide

Defining intelligent life appears in the depiction of both Jane and the descolada virus. Several characters struggle to accept the ideas that Jane is not a computer program and that the descolada virus is intelligent and communicates. Qing-jao refuses to accept Jane as a lifeform and feels no remorse when she reports Jane’s existence to Starways Congress. Grego belittles Quara and argues against her claims that the descolada virus is intelligent and can communicate. Their rejections of Jane and the descolada virus as sentient demonstrates the idea that people often reject those who are “Other.” Other species often deny the sentience of Jane and the descolada virus because the two represent such unfamiliar manifestations of life forms. While many aspects of Jane’s and the descolada’s existence vary from that of humans, they share common traits of sentience with humans—emotions and communication.

Jane’s sentience is defined primarily through her self-awareness and her emotional responses. Although she is self-aware, Jane does not know much about herself in the beginning of the novel. She knows only that she is alive but does not understand how she came to be. Her lack of understanding is, in part, because she is the first of her kind to exist.