I’m trying to recall this series, which has an advanced alien species who are quite aggressive and competitive within their own society and who use technology to control other species, whom they link together with telepathic devices and use pain producing bracelets to punish and control.
From memory, the alien species’ name started with the letter “O”. I could be wrong about that though.
I read this some time after 2002.
The aliens had evolved from predators. If I recall correctly, they were described as having hawk like features. They could be worked up into a state where they were unable to control their instinct to kill. They were very aware of social hierarchy and easily aggravated. They isolated breeding females and their young from the rest of their society due to the females becoming more aggressive. One of the males was isolated from their society and was surprised when humans (from a planet which had not regressed) willingly followed and helped him after he had helped them somewhat and earned their loyalty.
One human (protagonist) from a civilised planet was found in a slave market with humans whose civilisation had collapsed and had regressed to the point of losing spoken language. The protagonist was not from there and still possessed the faculty for language. One of the aliens tried to link him telepathically with other species as an experiment. Most other species seemed to know the predatory slaver alien race by reputation and had learned to appease them. Humans had not and trouble ensued when the human challenged them.
Can anyone help?
