Moties
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'Moties' are a fictional species featured in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's SF novels The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand.
Inhabiting the planet Mote Prime and most of the habitable orbiting bodies in Mote System, as well as many artificial orbiting constructs, the Moties' primary distinguishing physical feature is their specialization into castes. This combines with their high fertility to make them extremely dangerous to any other species with which they might compete for living space. Castes mentioned in the chronicles include Mediators, Engineers, Watchmakers, Warriors, Doctors, Runners, Porters, Farmers and Meats. All of these castes will be in the entourage of a Master. Feral forms have also been observed. Where a Human can to a greater or lesser degree carry out all or any of these functions, a Motie of a given specialisation is (to a Human) astoundingly skilled in it.
The Moties' high fertility, enforced by the biological imperative of needing pregnancy to avoid a premature death, drives extremely rapid population growth, which causes wars in the competition for resources. The consequences of the wars cause population collapse, and this cycle is repeated when civilization recovers. These 'Cycles' have been going on for perhaps a million Earth years, and all Moties believe that they cannot be broken - Moties give the name "Crazy Eddie" to those among themselves who have developed the belief that such a break is possible, and regard them as insane.
As some and possibly most of the wars have involved nuclear exchanges, the resulting radiation at some time during the distant past caused the basic Motie body plan to change from a symmetrical (possibly four-armed) to an asymmetrical layout. Most Moties have two human-scale right arms, and a much heavier left arm, although a form with two left arms and a heavy right arm has been reported.