Plot summary
World at the End of Time follows the story of a young Earth-born human, Viktor Sorricaine, on a colony expedition to a distant star system. The colonists are frozen for the long trip between stars. Unknown to both the humans of Earth and the colonists, the stars around them are home to immensely long-lived (effectively immortal) plasma creatures—with no knowledge of, or interest in, the activities of insignificant matter creatures.
Wan-To, one of the oldest and most powerful plasma creatures, is engaged in a war. After creating modified copies of himself, or "children", for company, Wan-To finds himself in a deadly game of chess with them. The "board" is the entire galaxy and the weapons are the stars themselves. Each star may be home to an enemy "child"; using a variety of exotic particles, Wan-To is able to cause a targeted star to flare and kill any enemy that may be living within it. Some time after the colonists have left Earth, its own sun falls victim to the war, being made to explode with humanity on Earth being destroyed as collateral damage. The colonists are thus the only humans left.
Into the middle of this battlefield, the three colony ships (Ark, New Mayflower and Argosy) unwittingly head for their new home. Upon arriving, the colony begins to establish itself ... only to discover that their entire local group of stars appears to be undergoing a bizarre acceleration, and are dimming. After a disastrous disease outbreak and terraforming failures, the desperate colonists eventually decide to investigate the strange radiation emissions from a small world within their solar system.
Upon arriving in orbit, their ship is badly damaged and Viktor is forced into the onboard freezer systems. They are eventually rescued and unfrozen four hundred of the colony's years later, to find the colony in an even more desperate situation. The star around which the colony's world orbits has dimmed considerably (owing to the energy being siphoned off to accelerate it) and they are now travelling so fast that, because of relativistic effects, the universe around them has shrunk to a bright dot. The colony has become factionalized and heavily religious, with scientific investigation discouraged.
Viktor is eventually frozen again for attempting to investigate why they have been accelerating. He wakes four thousand of the colony's years later, to find the far descendants of the colony have rebuilt their society into habitats closely orbiting the dim star (a brown dwarf) and created a high-technology civilization dedicated to pleasure and comfort. He makes his way, eventually, to the former colony to find only a few fellow-colonists unfrozen and attempting to rebuild it. His unique status as someone who was born on "old Earth" brings publicity to their efforts and the rebuilding forges ahead.
During the four thousand years of Viktor's frozen sleep, the star system has been slowed again. After the vast amount of time that has passed, all that remains of the once young universe are dead stars and black holes, with Wan-To desperately surviving on the energy provided by proton decay. Wan-To receives a tachyon transmission from his long-forgotten systems and makes preparations to move into these last remaining stars — believing that the small matter creatures inhabiting the system are irrelevant and can be destroyed as a result should they become an irritation.
Known Space is the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories by American writer Larry Niven. It has also become a shared universe in the spin-off Man-Kzin Wars anthologies. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) catalogs all works set in the fictional universe that includes Known Space under the series name Tales of Known Space, which was the title of a 1975 collection of Niven's short stories. The first-published work in the series, which was Niven's first published piece, was "The Coldest Place", in the December 1964 issue of If magazine, edited by Frederik Pohl. This was the first-published work in the 1975 collection.
Naboo is a fictional planet in the Star Wars universe. A bountiful world with a mostly green terrain, the planet was the homeworld of two independent societies: the native Gungans, who dwelt in underwater cities, and the human Naboo, who lived in colonies dispersed among the surface. The human denizens of Naboo, known simply as the Naboo, were governed under an elective monarchy and maintained a peaceful culture that promoted education, the arts, environmental protection and scientific achievements. The primary Naboo city was Theed, the planetary capital, and the primary Gungan city was Otoh Gunga. Naboo is known to be orbited by three moons: within the current canon, Naboo's moons are known as Ohma-D'un, Onoam, and Veruna; while in Legends, Naboo was known to be orbited by the moons Ohma-D'un, Rori, and the ice moon Tasia.
Nemesis is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. One of his later science fiction novels, it was published in 1989, three years before his death. The novel is loosely related to the future history of his Robot Series, Empire Series, and Foundation Series, into which Asimov attempted to integrate his science fiction output. This novel is connected to Asimov's other works by several ideas from earlier and later novels, including non-human intelligence, sentient astronomical bodies ("Hallucination"), and rotor engines.
Macrolife: A Mobile Utopia is a 1979 science fiction novel by American author George Zebrowski.
The interstellar space opera epic Star Wars uses science and technology in its settings and storylines. The series has showcased many technological concepts, both in the movies and in the expanded universe of novels, comics and other forms of media. The Star Wars movies' primary objective is to build upon drama, philosophy, political science and less on scientific knowledge. Many of the on-screen technologies created or borrowed for the Star Wars universe were used mainly as plot devices.
CoDominium is a series of future history novels written by American writer Jerry Pournelle, along with several co-authors, primarily Larry Niven.
The City and the Stars is a science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, published in 1956. This novel is a complete rewrite of his earlier Against the Fall of Night, Clarke's first novel, which had been published in Startling Stories magazine in 1948 after John W. Campbell, Jr., editor of Astounding Science-Fiction, had rejected it, according to Clarke.
The Garden of Rama is a 1991 novel by Gentry Lee and Arthur C. Clarke. It is the third book in the four-book Rama series: Rendezvous with Rama, Rama II, The Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed, and follows on from where Rama II left off.
Protector is a 1973 science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. It was nominated for the Hugo in 1974, and placed fourth in the annual Locus poll for that year.
Inconstant Moon is a science fiction short story collection by American author Larry Niven that was published in 1973. "Inconstant Moon" is also a 1971 short story that is included in the collection. The title refers to "O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon", a quote from the balcony scene in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The collection was assembled from the US collections The Shape of Space and All the Myriad Ways.
Extraterrestrial is a British-American two-part television documentary miniseries, aired in 2005 in the UK by Channel 4, by the National Geographic Channel in the US on Monday, May 30, 2005 and produced by Big Wave Productions Ltd. The program focuses on the hypothetical and scientifically feasible evolution of alien life on extrasolar planets, providing model examples of two different fictional worlds, one in each of the series's two episodes.
The Alliance–Union universe is a fictional universe created by American writer C. J. Cherryh. It is the setting for a future history series extending from the 21st century into the far future.
The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in many works of the science fiction genre.
The Night of Kadar is a science fiction novel by British writer Garry Kilworth, published in 1978.
William Renald Barton III is an American science fiction writer. In addition to his standalone novels, he is also known for collaborations with Michael Capobianco. Many of their novels deal with themes such as the Cold War, space travel, and space opera.
The Last Colony is a science fiction novel by American writer John Scalzi, the third set in his Old Man's War universe. It was nominated for a 2008 Hugo Award in the Best Novel category.
The Killing Star is a hard science fiction novel by American writers Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski, published in April 1995. It chronicles a sudden alien invasion in a late 21st century technological utopia, while covering several other speculative fiction ideas such as sublight interstellar travel, genetic cloning, virtual reality, advanced robotics, etc.
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon is a science fiction novel by the American writer Frederik Pohl, a sequel to his 1977 novel Gateway and the second book in the Heechee series. It was a finalist for two major annual awards, the 1981 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 1980 Nebula Award. In the 1981 poll of Locus readers it finished second to The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge.
Kepler-438b is a confirmed near-Earth-sized exoplanet. It is likely rocky. It orbits on the inner edge of the habitable zone of a red dwarf, Kepler-438, about 472.9 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. It receives 1.4 times our solar flux. The planet was discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured. NASA announced the confirmation of the exoplanet on 6 January 2015.
