Author | Larry Niven Jerry Pournelle |
---|---|
Language | English |
Series | CoDominium |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | 1974 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 537 |
ISBN | 0-671-21833-6 |
OCLC | 934734 |
813/.5/4 | |
LC Class | PZ4.N734 Mo PS3564.I9 |
Followed by | The Gripping Hand |
The Mote in God's Eye is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, first published in 1974. The story is set in the distant future of Pournelle's CoDominium universe, and charts the first contact between humanity and an alien species. The title of the novel is a reference to the Biblical "The Mote and the Beam" parable and is the nickname of a star. The Mote in God's Eye was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards in 1975. [1]
The Mote in God's Eye (originally titled Motelight) [2] is set in Pournelle's CoDominium universe, where a union of the United States and the Soviet Union produced a world government and a number of colonies in other star systems, followed by nuclear war on Earth and the rise of the First Empire based on the planet Sparta several centuries before the events of the novel. There is a reference to these events in Pournelle's novel King David's Spaceship .
Many, but not all, humans are part of the Second Empire, held together by an interstellar navy modeled on 19th century British lines, with all-male crews, a highly competent officer corps grown from midshipmen recruited in their teens and trained on the job, and well-armed, well-organized Marines to carry out ground missions. Those who prove themselves worthy can be promoted into the aristocracy. The aristocrats themselves tend more towards duty than privilege. The Empire is predominantly Christian, but other religions are more or less tolerated. The people of the planet Dayan are Jewish, while Horace Bury is a Muslim business magnate from Levant. An upstart religion, the "Church of Him", which was founded when the Mote became intensely bright and was regarded as part of the Face of God, is shown in decline, its founder having committed suicide when the light from the Mote went out.
The Second Empire sees its mission as uniting humanity into one government to prevent war. But in service of this mission, the empire is capable of extreme brutality; it has sterilized a planet to prevent rebellion.
In the year 3017, humanity is slowly recovering from an interstellar civil war that tore apart the first Empire of Man. The Second Empire is busy establishing control over the remnants left by its predecessor, by force if necessary. The Alderson Drive enables ships to travel instantaneously between "Alderson points" in specific star systems.
After a rebellion on the planet New Chicago is quashed, Captain Bruno Cziller of the Imperial battlecruiser INSS MacArthur remains behind as Chief of Staff to the new governor, while Commander Roderick Blaine is given temporary command of the ship, along with secret orders to take Horace Hussein Bury, a powerful interstellar merchant suspected of instigating the revolt, to the Imperial capital, Sparta. Another passenger is Lady Sandra "Sally" Bright Fowler, the niece of an Imperial senator and a traumatized former prisoner of the rebels.
New Caledonia is the capital of the Trans-Coalsack sector, on the opposite side of the Coalsack Nebula from Earth. Also in the sector is a red supergiant star known as Murcheson's Eye. Associated with it is a yellow Sun-like star, which from New Caledonia appears in front of the Eye. Since some see the Eye and the Coalsack as the face of God, the yellow star is known as the Mote in God's Eye.
Approaching New Caledonia, MacArthur is ordered to investigate when an alien spacecraft, propelled by a solar sail, is detected. After the spacecraft fires upon MacArthur, Blaine has its main capsule detached from the sail and taken aboard at great risk to his ship and crew. Its sole occupant, a brown and white furred creature, is found dead.
After much debate, MacArthur and the battleship Lenin are sent to the star from which the alien ship came, the Mote. MacArthur carries civilian researchers to make first contact with the aliens, quickly nicknamed "Moties". Admiral Kutuzov, aboard Lenin, has strict orders to avoid all contact with the aliens and ensure that human technology does not fall into their hands. The Moties seem friendly and have advanced technology that they are willing to trade, much to Bury's delight. Although they also possess the Alderson Drive, none of their ships have ever returned. This is because, unknown to the Moties, the Mote's only Alderson exit point lies within the outer layers of the star Murcheson's Eye. Human warships can survive there for a limited time because of their protective Langston Fields, which the Moties do not have.
The Moties are an old species, native to a planet that the humans label Mote Prime, that has evolved into many specialized subspecies. The first taken aboard MacArthur is an "Engineer", possessing amazing technical abilities, but limited speech and free will. It brings along a pair of tiny "Watchmakers" as helpers. Some days later, a delegation of "Mediators" (like the dead pilot of the probe ship) arrive. Their specialty is communication and negotiation. The Mediators invite the humans to send a party to Mote Prime. After some debate, the invitation is accepted. Each person in this group acquires a "Fyunch(click)", a Mediator who studies their human subject and tries to learn how to think like them.
Back on MacArthur, the Watchmakers escape, and although it is assumed they have died, they have actually been breeding furiously out of sight. Undetected by the crew, they modify parts of MacArthur to suit their needs. When they are discovered, a battle for control of the ship erupts. The crew is eventually forced to abandon ship after suffering casualties. The party on Mote Prime is quickly recalled without explanation and told to rendezvous with Lenin. Once MacArthur is evacuated, Lenin fires on and destroys her to prevent the potential capture of human technology.
During the evacuation, MacArthur midshipmen Staley, Whitbread and Potter are cut off and forced to escape in Watchmaker-modified lifeboats. The lifeboats automatically land in a sparsely populated area of Mote Prime. There the midshipmen find a fortified museum. It provides evidence of a very long and violent history, though the Moties had carefully portrayed themselves as completely peaceful. Following this discovery, the midshipmen are tracked down by Whitbread's Mediator Fyunch(click), who reveals that Moties (other than the short-lived, sterile Mediators) must become pregnant periodically or die. This inevitably results in overpopulation ... and civilization-ending wars. The Masters, whom the Mediators obey, have also concealed the existence of one Motie subspecies from the humans: Warriors more deadly than any human, even Sauron supersoldiers.
The museums exist to help restore civilization after a collapse. The "Cycles" of civilization, war, and collapse have gone on for hundreds of thousands of years, leaving the Moties fatalistically resigned to their destiny. Only a mythical character called "Crazy Eddie" believes there is a way to change this, and any Motie who comes to believe a solution is possible is labeled a "Crazy Eddie" and deemed insane.
The current civilization is governed by a type of industrial feudalism, with coalitions of Masters in control of the planet. One faction, led by "King Peter", wanted to reveal the truth to the humans, but was overruled. Colonization of other planets would inexorably bring about conflict with humans, as the inevitable Motie population explosion would force them to seek to take over human worlds. Nonetheless, the more powerful coalition sees this temporary solution as preferable to the impending collapse. Both factions send Warriors after the midshipmen, one to capture them, the other to rescue them. The stronger group's Warriors trap the midshipmen, but the trio refuse to surrender and die as a result.
Unaware of the midshipmen's fate, Lenin leaves the Mote system, taking with it three ambassadors, a sterile Master and two Mediators, whose mission is to open the galaxy to their species while concealing their terrible secrets.
An Imperial Commission is on the verge of granting colonies to the Moties, but MacArthur Sailing Master/Lieutenant Kevin Renner figures out the truth just in time. It is the passengers on the original probe, deliberately ejected into space, that give the game away. Not only is there a Warrior among the group, but several are visibly pregnant, demolishing any argument about them being statues or religious icons.
The decision is made to gather a battle fleet to either disarm or try to annihilate the Moties. The ambassadors are faced with the extinction of their species, knowing that the Masters would never submit. However, a Mediator comes up with a third option: a blockade of the system's only Alderson exit point. This plan is adopted, over the strenuous opposition of Bury, who views the Moties as the greatest threat humanity has ever faced.
Moties are described as bipeds, about 1.3 meters (4 ft 3 in) tall, covered with fur whose color depends on the subspecies. Their most obvious feature is the asymmetric arrangement of arms, with two dexterous right arms and one heavily muscled left arm whose musculature attaches to the head, so that Moties have no left ear to match the large, membrane-like right ear. The backbone is jointed rather than flexible and the entire upper body swivels to turn the head. The face is simple and incapable of expression. Gestures replace facial expression.
Masters have all-white fur, described as silky. Engineers have brown fur, while Mediators, bred of Masters and Engineers, have patchy fur in brown and white and are sterile. Siblings tend to have identical patterns of patches. Masters are obeyed by all other Motie subspecies, though Mediators have some independence to negotiate between Masters. Other Motie subspecies include Warriors, Doctors with extra dexterity, and semi-sentient Farmers who raise crops. Watchmakers are small and have four arms in a symmetrical arrangement.
Moties alternate between sexes as part of their reproductive cycle, except for Mediators who cannot reproduce and have shorter lives. Masters may become sterile males with hormone treatment, at which point they can become Keepers, who preserve resources considered too essential to be fought over.
The Moties frequently refer to the mythical character they call "Crazy Eddie" when talking to humans. There are many Crazy Eddie stories, but all revolve around the inevitability of repeated cycles of collapse of Motie civilization and the pointlessness of trying to prevent them. The drive that humans call the Alderson Drive, which allows human ships to travel between star systems, is called by Moties the Crazy Eddie Drive, because although it is founded in sound science and has been reinvented many times by Motie civilizations, ships that attempt to use it disappear and are never seen again. The Moties do not know that the ships they send appear inside the hot photosphere of Murcheson's Eye. Human ships are protected by the energy-absorbing Langston Field. The point in space where the Alderson Drive operates is known to the Moties as the Crazy Eddie Point. This is the title of the second part of the novel. The other parts are titled "The Crazy Eddie Probe", "Meet Crazy Eddie", and "Crazy Eddie's Answer". From the Moties point of view, humans are Crazy Eddie. Several Moties, including Rod Blaine's Fyunch(click), become Crazy Eddie after exposure to human attitudes.
Robert A. Heinlein, while giving the authors extensive advice on a draft manuscript, described it as "a very important novel, possibly the best contact-with-aliens story ever written". [5] Theodore Sturgeon, writing in Galaxy, described The Mote in God's Eye as "one of the most engrossing tales I have encountered in years", stating that "the overall pace of the book [and] the sheer solid story of it" excuse whatever flaws might remain, with the one complaint being that he found it unlikely the Moties would not have used genetic engineering at some point to curb their population growth. [6] Don Hawthorne, one of the creators of the related "War World Series" and creator of the Saurons in those books, has stated, "This, of course, is the 'beam' in the Moties' own 'eye'; their inability to see a solution to their problem because of a lack of objective understanding of their situation, a result of cultural and environmental pressures which have shaped their own personal prejudices."[ This quote needs a citation ]
Portsmouth Times reviewer Terry McLaughlin found the novel "a superior tale, told without the pseudo-psychology background that seems to mar many a new science fiction novel." [7]
Brian W. Aldiss and David Wingrove reported that while the imagined aliens were "fascinating creations", the "style and characterization [emphasize] the weaknesses of both Niven and Pournelle." [8]
Pournelle and Niven followed up with the sequel The Gripping Hand and in 2010 Pournelle's daughter, Jennifer, published an authorized sequel entitled Outies.
60,000 words were cut from the novel before publication.[ citation needed ]
The short story "Reflex" was instead published in 1983 in the first There Will Be War collection, edited by Pournelle and John F. Carr. [2] [ non-primary source needed ] It details an early phase of the battle for New Chicago, told from the rebels' point of view. MacArthur, with Captain Cziller in command and Blaine as executive officer, engages and defeats a rebel ship, but because of the technology, particularly the Langston Field, the ship is still deadly and surrender is a complex matter. Midshipman Horst Staley is sent to board and disable the ship while carrying a suicide bomb to prevent interference. He makes a mistake, allowing the "political officer" aboard the ship to snatch away the bomb, but the crew who are sick of the revolt overpower the officer. This preys on his mind during the events of the main novel. The rebel ship is taken as a prize, renamed Defiant, and commanded by Blaine during the final battle.
"Motelight" was also originally written as part of the novel, but was never published except as part of the non-fiction piece "Building 'The Mote in God's Eye'" that appeared in Pournelle's collection "A Step Farther Out". It describes how two astronomers on the planet New Scotland try to continue their work during the war with neighboring New Ireland, and are thus the first to see the sudden brightening of the Mote due to the laser launch system being activated. The rest of the population are hiding under the Langston Fields protecting their cities from bombardment, until one day the field fails and they see the Coal Sack with a glowing green Eye. The story also mentions "Howard Grote Littlemead", who believes that the bright Mote is really the Eye of God, and founds the Church of Him. It is in one of the churches that Potter shows Renner and Staley a holographic picture of the Coal Sack showing the intense green glow of the Mote.
Larry Niven also wrote a poem, "In Memoriam: Howard Grote Littlemead", that was published much later.
Jerry Eugene Pournelle was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked in the aerospace industry, but eventually focused on his writing career. In an obituary in Gizmodo, he was described as "a tireless ambassador for the future."
Laurence van Cott Niven is an American science fiction writer. His 1970 novel Ringworld won the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. With Jerry Pournelle he wrote The Mote in God's Eye (1974) and Lucifer's Hammer (1977). The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America gave him the 2015 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.
Ringworld is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. Ringworld tells the story of Louis Wu and his companions on a mission to the Ringworld, an enormous rotating ring, an alien construct in space 186 million miles in diameter. Niven later wrote three sequel novels and then cowrote, with Edward M. Lerner, four prequels and a final sequel; the five latter novels constitute the Fleet of Worlds series. All the novels in the Ringworld series tie into numerous other books set in Known Space. Ringworld won the Nebula Award in 1970, as well as both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971.
The Coalsack Nebula is a dark nebula, which is visible to the naked eye as a dark patch obscuring part of the Milky Way east of Acrux in the constellation of Crux.
CoDominium is a series of future history novels written by American writer Jerry Pournelle, along with several co-authors, primarily Larry Niven.
The Gripping Hand is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, published in 1993. A sequel to their 1974 work The Mote in God's Eye, The Gripping Hand is, chronologically, the last novel to be set in the CoDominium universe. In the United Kingdom, it was released as The Moat around Murcheson's Eye.
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their parts, by hand. Modern watchmakers, when required to repair older watches, for which replacement parts may not be available, must have fabrication skills, and can typically manufacture replacements for many of the parts found in a watch. The term clockmaker refers to an equivalent occupation specializing in clocks.
Lucifer's Hammer is a science fiction post-apocalypse-survival novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle that was first published in 1977. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1978. Two issues of a planned six-part comic book adaptation were published by Innovation Comics in 1993.
Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021 is a video game written by George Moromisato for MS-DOS and published by Thinking Machine Associates in 1987. Anacreon is a turn-based game in which human and computer players explore the galaxy, conquering worlds and putting them to use to fuel their war machines. The game resembles Stellar Conquest and Hamurabi. It was inspired by Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of novels.
The Prince is a science fiction compilation by Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling. It is part of the CoDominium future history series. The Prince is a compilation of four previously published novels: Falkenberg's Legion, Prince of Mercenaries, Go Tell The Spartans, and Prince of Sparta. Of the original novels, the first two were written by Pournelle alone; the last two were cowritten with Stirling. Pages 174–176 of the printed edition are new to the compilation. The Prince was published by Baen Books in hardcover (ISBN 0-7434-3556-7) in September 2002.
A kinetic bombardment or a kinetic orbital strike is the hypothetical act of attacking a planetary surface with an inert kinetic projectile from orbit, where the destructive power comes from the kinetic energy of the projectile impacting at very high speeds. The concept originated during the Cold War.
King David's Spaceship is a science fiction novel by American writer Jerry Pournelle. It was originally published in 1980. Another version appeared as three-part serial in Analog as A Spaceship for the King from December 1971 to February 1972.
Horst may refer to:
Exiles to Glory is a science fiction novella by American writer Jerry Pournelle, published in 1978. It is a sequel to the stories in the collection High Justice. As with those stories, it weaves the story of pioneering individuals in space with considerations of the technical and financial challenges facing them. It was republished in an omnibus edition with High Justice in 2009 as Exile—and Glory.
Line of Delirium and Emperors of Illusions are two 1995 books of a space opera trilogy by Russian science fiction writer Sergey Lukyanenko. The story is told in third person, usually from the viewpoint of Kay Dutch — a professional bodyguard living in a post-war galaxy. The names of races, planets, and several leaders are borrowed from the computer game Master of Orion, although everything else in the trilogy is original, even the physical descriptions of several races.
"The Star" is an 1897 apocalyptic short story by H. G. Wells.
Multiple organizations of the Dune universe dominate the political, religious, and social arena of the setting of Frank Herbert's Dune series of science fiction novels, and derivative works. Set tens of thousands of years in the future, the saga chronicles a civilization which has banned computers but has also developed advanced technology and mental and physical abilities through physical training, eugenics and the use of the drug melange. Specialized groups of individuals have aligned themselves in organizations focusing on specific abilities, technology and goals. Herbert's concepts of human evolution and technology have been analyzed and deconstructed in at least one book, The Science of Dune (2008). His originating 1965 novel Dune is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, and is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history. Dune and its five sequels by Herbert explore the complex and multilayered interactions of politics, religion, ecology and technology, among other themes.
We've a three-point civilization: the Imperial Household balanced against the Federated Great Houses of the Landsraad, and between them, the Guild with its damnable monopoly on interstellar transport.
A list of works by, or about, the American science fiction author Larry Niven.