I went through the Battlefield Earth book and pulled some of the author descriptions of Terl which you can see below and this is what the artist was trying to depict. EXCERPTS: What fresh dangers and privations did it have in mind? There was no kindness in those amber eyes. They were like a wolf’s eyes seen in firelight. ** Terl lifted his large amber eyes from the tome that rested minutely in his massive claws and looked around the room. In an even more professorial voice, already deep and roaring enough, Terl repeated his thought. “Man is an endangered species.” ** Terl threw his personal face mask and tank onto the gunner’s seat beside him and rubbed a thankful paw over his craggy face. ** A Psychlo had a life span of about one hundred ninety years, and Terl had been only thirty-nine when he had been appointed. ** “Anyway, members of this mob of cutthroats began to call themselves ‘catrist.’ That means ‘mental doctor.’ So the people became ‘Psychlos’ or ‘brains’ and the ‘catrist’ or ‘mental doctor’ was the real, hidden government. They taught all the children. They inspected every citizen. They suppressed religion. They told people how to think. ... “There was a special class of trainee at mine school. The catrists went over each incoming class with the greatest of care, looking for the most brilliant new students. They were quite rare, really. And when found, they trained them lengthily in every branch of mining activity, theory and practice. “The imperial government was determined that only one personnel on any planet would be able to build a teleportation console for use in times of emergency or to repair one. So they specially trained this group of students. We used to call them the ‘brain-brains.’ They weren’t always the best people to know, but the catrists thought they were. “And as the government and company were so crazy on the subject of secrecy, of course the post to which these ‘brain-brains’ were appointed was that of security officer.” Terl! thought Jonnie. And almost as if he was reading Jonnie’s thoughts, Soth said, “Terl was a ‘brain-brain.’ Darling of the catrists. Trained in every branch of anything. Sly, evil. A true catrist product. Only Terl could have built a firing console from scratch and he’s gone.” ------------------------- Terl is the Psychlo security chief on a planet without insecurities-Earth. It had been a gut blow to Terl when he was ordered to Earth. He was only 39 when he was appointed and he’d just received word that his tour of duty had been extended-with no mention of relief. Terrified at the vision of a 190-year-old Terl tottering around on this same planet, he realizes that such questionable fates require action-big action. And that is just what Terl does, devising a plan to get himself back to his home planet-a wealthy Psychlo. To succeed, he must find and teach humans to run Psychlo mining equipment under the guise of cutting down personnel costs while preventing the head of the planet and the other Psychlos at the minesite from discovering his true motives. Setting things in motion, Terl captures the human Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, forcing him to lead other humans in the mining project-and to keep him in check he imprisons his girlfriend, Chrissie, and her younger sister, Pattie, keeping them locked in a cage, under threat of death if Jonnie does not cooperate. Fully versed in the arts of deception, Terl uses every means of extortion, blackmail and villainy he needs to push forward his plans of personal wealth and power. But unbeknownst to Terl, he has set in motion actions that will affect the entire galaxy-and made a deadly enemy of the only man who would ever really be a threat to him-Jonnie Goodboy Tyler.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 21:00:00 +0000
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