The uplifted animals are used as tools or slaves, or in the case of the Planet of the Apes as Villains Brin's take on the concept is more positive, with the "human patrons and their chimp and dolphin clients work together in a joyous partnership.", and that it is almost the human's duty to uplift lesser creatures to an equal footing with their patrons. Ecology Ecology and stewardship of genetic diversity are major themes in the Uplift books. In this Universe, the protection of ecology is given a lot of importance by the various alien races, and those races found to be ecologically destructive are seen as criminals by the various other races in the books, and punished for their crimes. Religion Religious orthodoxy and the behavior of static societies are also themes. Most of the races that antagonize EarthClan and pursue Streaker are described as religious fanatics, and are angry at the possibility that lowly EarthClan may have discovered the fate of the Progenitors, possibly in direct contradiction to the core beliefs of several galactic religions. Earthclan mostly does not follow these religions, instead half-jokingly entrusting their fate to Ifni, a goddess of luck and chance, although there is also a subset of Earthclan known as the Daniks who are in a cult that believes galactic con-artists, the Rothen, are humanity's lost patrons. Speciesism One of the main themes of his work is the idea of speciecism. Brin's themes of animals uplifted to humans has been noted as rallying against speciesist viewpoints in modern society. His work implies that humans are not that different from animals. Brin himself has spoken about the glass ceiling that non human species are up against in terms of evolution, and how it is almost the luck of the draw that humans were the chosen phylum to achieve sentience. These themes are apparent in his work. However, it has been noted, despite the uplifting of some species, and Brin's work seeking an egalitarian proposed society for lower life forms and humans, that humans are still however positioned in the novels as the central heroes. The connected theme to the fact that humans are the only intelligent species on the planet, is that, as such, we have a responsibility to other species, and it is an obligation that we must help other species, including uplifting them to sentience. Brin and his work proposes that it