In The Ship Who Won, brainship Carialle and brawn Keff discover an intelligent civilization of "globe frogs" on Ozran. Now this lost colony wants to make contact with its home world, and Carialle and Keff have the task of escorting three ambassadors, and making First Contact with the Cridi homeworld. The main problem is that Administrator Maxwell-Corey doesn't trust them to do the job, partly because of a sensory-deprivation trauma Carialle suffered at the hands of space pirates several years earlier. And, of course, the location of that incident is close to their destination.
I was rather repelled by the unintentionally patronising attitude of Carialle and Keff to the Cridi: 'at last we have found another intelligent species that is our equal, not inferior like all those others species we Humans have allied with' (the possibility of superiority never seems to cross their minds).
But the point at which I "hurled the book against the wall", on page 124, was when this entire oh-so intelligent and civilised frog-like Cridi population votes, by an overwhelming majority, to join the Central Worlds Administration, basing their decision on meeting only Keff (and Carialle, sort of), and for only a week, and then proceed to sign a pro forma treaty immediately! Implausibility factor overload, suspension of disbelief no longer willing. I decided I didn't care to wait for the, presumably more exciting, foreshadowed battle with the space pirates and resolution of Carialle's trauma (especially as there seemed to be a childish conflict with the bureaucratic Maxwell-Corey in the offing, too).
