Crabby crabs

Are they sentient, militant crabs, or just ambulatory pot pies with a strong tendency to loud clothing and violence?

L. Neil Smith books show up A LOT in Silicon Valley and Silicon Desert used bookstores. Apparently he wrote a stuff with a libertarian and mildly pacificist bent, but the tonsured crabs featured here don't seem to be demonstrating behaviors that are particularly Buddhist.

His writing also includes a fairly demented series of alternate history novels in which the US goes extreme libertarian from the whisky rebellion onwards, and eventually converts the whole world to anarcho-cap and loads of personal weapons, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Probability_Broach ) and a truly demented comic called "Roswell, Texas" (https://bigheadpress.com/roswell : wait till you get to the gay Nazis). Reading "Her Majesty's Bucketeers", which I recall enjoying, gives you an exaggerated sense of normality.

I don't really dislike the aliens, although they look a bit stylized: I do object to the fact they seem to be importing their architects from the 19th century USA.

So perhaps not so pacificist as I was led to believe, and more in keeping with the "Armed Crab Men Free from the Restrictive Sumptuary Raiment Control of the Government" as in the illustration above.

You know, If I were a crab subjected to such a hairstyle, I'd probably be angry and turn into a sword-waving lunatic, too.

Smith is/was also a major gun fanatic. We had mutual acquaintances for a few years. One of them asked him for advice on gun buying, then happened to ask that if they unalived themself, would he feel guilty? Nope, not for a nanosecond.

All's I'm saying is, he never showed ANY pacifist principles when I was around, but that was when his alt hist thing was at its height and the brain rot had set in.

"Their Majesties' Bucketeers" was the only one I made it all the way through. The deadly furry crabs were pretty good. But then he went full gun nut libertarian, and everyone knows you never go full...

He invented the Prometheus Award just so he could win something. No one quite knows how the ex-Trotskyite socialist Ken MacLeod won it as many times as Neil did...

This reminds me of our old pal Guy N. Smith and his crabs (is it because of the surname?). Most notably the session with Lee Moyer's re-creations. And also the one with people under the jacket portraying the octopus.