Kith (Poul Anderson)

The Kith are a starfaring culture featured in a number of stories by Poul Anderson:


 * "Ghetto" (1954)
 * "The Horn of Time the Hunter" (also known as "Homo Aquaticus", 1963)
 * The novel Starfarers (1998)

The Kith develop out of early interstellar explorers in the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. Because of the effects of time dilation associated with travel at near-light speeds, the Kith maintain separate settlements ("Kithtowns") in which care was taken to keep their language and culture consistant over the course of millenia.

Although the Kith are instrumental in maintaining the network of trade that makes human interstellar civilization possible, over time they become the object of derision, suspicion and ultimately persecution. Their Kithtowns become ghettos, pogroms are launched against them and they are ultimately forced to flee human space altogether.