House of Suns: Difference between revisions

 

Six million years in the future, the entire galaxy is a [[Used Future]]. Tens of thousands of human civilizations have risen and fallen; the galaxy's been united under a single banner [[Eternal Recurrence|too many times to count]]. In the face of deep time, each galactic federation always falls. No one group endures.

Except the Lines.

 

 

Campion and Purslane are two shatterlings who're running late to the most recent Line reunion, having been delayed by an unwanted and dour guest. On top of this, they've been secretly commiting the crime of being monogamous [[Screw Yourself|lovers]] (against the Line's traditional panamory) and traveling together (frowned on as against the "spirit of chance and adventure" in taking unique paths), and they need to edit their travelogues before they get to the Line reunion. As they rush to drop their guest off with the mysterious "Vigilance" civilization, they are sidetracked by a shady ship-dealer who attempts to kidnap them and dissemble their ship for parts. They manage to outwit him and in the process rescue an amnesiac android named Hesperus, a member of the relatively long-lived and advanced [[Mechanical Lifeforms|Machine People]]. Returning him to his people would put the Gentian Line on very good terms with them, so Campion and Purslane see him as a scapegoat they can use as an excuse for their lateness to the Reunion. After all, how can you punish tardiness when they've brough such an eminent guest?

Someone is attempting to wipe out the line. Someone who has intimate knowledge of the Line's secrets, and due to the sheer timescales involved, must keep a ''very'' long grudge.

 

* [[Alien Sky]]: The world that the novel starts on has a special atmospheric bubble which, at night, amplifies faint stars and nebulae, creating a very colorful night sky.

* [[Artificial Gravity]]: Used by the starships to propel themselves and to protect their occupants from the crushing force of their thrust.

* [[Big Dumb Object]]: The Vigilance.

* [[Creative Sterility]]: The original Machine People couldn't create art, but were fascinated by it.

* [[Deflector Shields]]: Used throughout the novel. A ubiquitous technology during the time of the novel. Also used for intertial dampening, as a ship's shields can be projected internally around its inhabitants, allowing extremely high-g maneuvers that would normally render everybody inside to jelly.

* [[Dyson Sphere]]: The Gentian Line's stardams, which can ''contain a supernova.''

* [[Endangered Species]]: Though not a "species", per se, this is pretty much what happens to the Gentian Line. They went from 1000 members to only ''fifty'' after the initial attack on them, and with someone actively gunning for them, they are in real danger of being wiped out forever.

* [[Ghost Planet]]: Implied to be very common throughout the galaxy. Since the various descendants of humanity have been cavorting around the galaxy for the past six million years, there are plenty of planets that once played host to technological civilizations only to leave nothing behind but ruins.

* [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]]: Well, wormholespace anyways.

* [[Mechanical Lifeforms]]: The Machine People, a race of human-looking androids with a little bit of [[Clockwork Creature|clockwork features]] thrown in for flair. Despite having been around for millions of years, undergoing their own [[Mechanical Evolution]], there's still [[Fantastic Racism|people who think]] of them as [[Just a Machine|nothing more than mindless automatons who just ''imitate'' sentience]].

* [[Portal Network]]: {{spoiler|The First Machine that Campion meets tells him that there are wormholes throughout the Andromeda galaxy which lead to different galaxies throughout the universe. It also speculates that the 250-million-light-year-wide [[Unnecessarily Large Interior|Boötes void]][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootes_Void\] could actually be full of galaxies connected by wormholes, but that each galaxy is otherwise blocked from the rest of the universe so they can use their wormholes for pseudo-FTL travel without violating causality.}}

* [[Reactionless Drive]]

* [[Space Opera]]: And how!

* [[Stern Chase]]: Across 60,000 light-years of interstellar space.

* [[That's No Moon]]: The protagonists stop at a ringed gas giant because they heard about a spaceship salesman who lives there. They enter the atmosphere and find that he only has a few ships to sell. After some coercion, he shows them his entire collection of ships, {{spoiler|which were hidden inside and disguised as part of the gas giant's ring system.}}

* [[Time Dilation]]: The main reason the Gentian Line has persisted for so long. Also, an unavoidable consequence of pretty much ''any'' kind of space travel, since if you want to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time (read: within a couple thousand years), you pretty much have to crank up the g's until you're near lightspeed.

* [[Unusual User Interface]]: Palatial, a sort-of holodeck. It's a small room, but as you walk in you are immersed in a vibrant, computer-generated world. Your brain is continually scanned while you are in it, so the world constantly adjusts and changes according to your wishes.

* [[Used Future]]: The ships used by the Gentian Line are often millions of years old. There are also millions of planets lying around that have been terraformed, then left forgotten, then rediscovered and colonized, then forgotten, then rediscovered...

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Science Fiction Literature]]