Qax (species)
Encyclopedia
In the Xeelee Sequence
of future history created by Stephen Baxter
, the Qax are an alien species created from chaotic forces (first in liquid before evolving to form parts of gas giant
s, brown dwarf
s and eventually the quantum fabric of the universe). They are few in number and as such not naturally warlike, instead they focus on trade.
The Qax had a longstanding alliance with the sentient Spline
ships who carried them around the galaxy. Circa 5088 AD the Qax encountered humanity and a brief war was fought leading to the occupation of Earth and the colonies by the Qax. The Qax rule was brutal and they withdrew the anti-aging AS treatments removing the virtual immortality that humans had gained over the past two thousand years.
Circa 200 years after the invasion the GUT ship Cauchy appeared in the Sol system towing one end of a wormhole created 1500 years before. The audacious plan of humanity from that time period had been to contact their own descendants using it, however the Qax rapidly took over the ship but not before a human resistance group ("The friends of Wigner") escaped to the past. There they set about seeding Jupiter with black holes for their own purposes. The Qax invaded the past but the Spline involved were wrecked and the wormhole closed.
After this the Qax saw humanity as far more of a threat and took measures. All human cities were leveled and replaced with faceless grey structures while Earths biosystem was replaced with an artificial Qax based one and humanity was forced to speak a constructed language, all human history was to be erased.
Before this work could be finished the Qax sent a human, Jim Bolder, in a captured Xeelee
nightfighter to investigate the Great Attractor
where he found the Ring. Through careful planning he returned to the Qax home system in the wrong place and the Qax fired on the ship (Bolder having jumped ship moments before). Among the weapons used was a Xeelee starbreaker
that had been recovered from the ship and the beam touched the Qax sun.
This started the sun towards a nova and the Qax were forced to abandon the occupation to save their own lives. The Qax vanished for centuries finding new places to live. In the interim humanity became a vast empire and the Qax never recovered their former power.
Long years later after the Xelee defeat of mankind the Qax are known to have dealt with any colonies that were missed by the Xeelee.
Unlike other races, the Qax waited to flee through the Ring after the Xeelee were defeated since their methods of support could sustain them even in a dying universe. They knew the Ring was doomed but they also believed they had time to finish their own projects first - foremost was finishing the job of annihilating humanity.
Around four million years AD the last humans emerged from their Xeelee prison and set out for the Ring, guided by another human Paul who had been transformed into a quantum based lifeform by the Xeelee.
Knowing that the Qax and the photino birds would try to destroy the humans' ship, Paul used his connection to the Xeelee to create an illusionary shadow fleet of Xeelee making the photino birds believe a re-invasion was in progress. The birds rushed to the Ring and began efforts to close it for good.
The Qax learned of this and put their might to stopping the birds and securing the Ring from destruction. A Spline
fleet assaulted the birds (even using a star accelerated to light speed) but ultimately most of them were killed and they failed. During this battle the humans slipped through the Ring (though not Paul who due to his status was trapped in this reality) and the loss of the Ring trapped the Qax forever.
Millions of years later Paul tired of watching the plans of the photino birds evolve slowing over time, and placed his mind in orbit round a dead star that was being heated a few degrees above zero. After a period he found he was not alone - the last Qax (also now quantum based) had joined him. The two old foes orbited the star and exchanged no words. There was nothing left to say...
) their occupation creates the xenophobic government that led the human conquest of the galaxy, and they are almost certainly the main cause of the loss of most of the human offshoots that survived the last human/Xeelee war. They are not responsible for the loss of the Ring but their attack does ensure that the humans who escape the Xeelee prison are able to leave the universe unmolested by the photino birds.
It could be argued that their aggressive policy of cultural extirpation during their period of enslavement is what ultimately led to Man's subsequent expansion and outright hostility towards other aliens. By adopting and subverting many Qax policies, Man became a collectivist society with little to no individuality left - there was only the goal of domination, to which everyone subscribed from an early age. In that regard, the Qax are in many ways ultimately responsible for the Assimilation (including the extermination of the Silver Ghosts) and the eventual war with the Xeelee
.
Xeelee Sequence
The Xeelee Sequence is a series of novels and short stories by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. The novels span several billions of years, describing the future expansion of Mankind, its war with its arch-nemesis , and the Xeelee's own war with dark matter entities called photino birds...
of future history created by Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter is a prolific British hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.- Writing style :...
, the Qax are an alien species created from chaotic forces (first in liquid before evolving to form parts of gas giant
Gas giant
A gas giant is a large planet that is not primarily composed of rock or other solid matter. There are four gas giants in the Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune...
s, brown dwarf
Brown dwarf
Brown dwarfs are sub-stellar objects which are too low in mass to sustain hydrogen-1 fusion reactions in their cores, which is characteristic of stars on the main sequence. Brown dwarfs have fully convective surfaces and interiors, with no chemical differentiation by depth...
s and eventually the quantum fabric of the universe). They are few in number and as such not naturally warlike, instead they focus on trade.
The Qax had a longstanding alliance with the sentient Spline
Spline (alien beings)
The Spline are a fictional race of sentient space-faring creatures that appear in several of British author Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence novels and short stories. They are typically described as fleshy spheres, encrusted with a variety of pods and orifices...
ships who carried them around the galaxy. Circa 5088 AD the Qax encountered humanity and a brief war was fought leading to the occupation of Earth and the colonies by the Qax. The Qax rule was brutal and they withdrew the anti-aging AS treatments removing the virtual immortality that humans had gained over the past two thousand years.
Circa 200 years after the invasion the GUT ship Cauchy appeared in the Sol system towing one end of a wormhole created 1500 years before. The audacious plan of humanity from that time period had been to contact their own descendants using it, however the Qax rapidly took over the ship but not before a human resistance group ("The friends of Wigner") escaped to the past. There they set about seeding Jupiter with black holes for their own purposes. The Qax invaded the past but the Spline involved were wrecked and the wormhole closed.
After this the Qax saw humanity as far more of a threat and took measures. All human cities were leveled and replaced with faceless grey structures while Earths biosystem was replaced with an artificial Qax based one and humanity was forced to speak a constructed language, all human history was to be erased.
Before this work could be finished the Qax sent a human, Jim Bolder, in a captured Xeelee
Xeelee
The Xeelee are a fictional hyperadvanced species from Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence. They were first remotely mentioned in the 1994 novel Timelike Infinity and were later central actors of several novels and a substantial number of short stories...
nightfighter to investigate the Great Attractor
Great Attractor
The Great Attractor is a gravity anomaly in intergalactic space within the range of the Centaurus Supercluster that reveals the existence of a localised concentration of mass equivalent to tens of thousands of Milky Ways, observable by its effect on the motion of galaxies and their associated...
where he found the Ring. Through careful planning he returned to the Qax home system in the wrong place and the Qax fired on the ship (Bolder having jumped ship moments before). Among the weapons used was a Xeelee starbreaker
Starbreaker
Starbreaker is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Justice League of America #96 , and was created by Mike Friedrich and Dick Dillin.-Publication history:...
that had been recovered from the ship and the beam touched the Qax sun.
This started the sun towards a nova and the Qax were forced to abandon the occupation to save their own lives. The Qax vanished for centuries finding new places to live. In the interim humanity became a vast empire and the Qax never recovered their former power.
Long years later after the Xelee defeat of mankind the Qax are known to have dealt with any colonies that were missed by the Xeelee.
Unlike other races, the Qax waited to flee through the Ring after the Xeelee were defeated since their methods of support could sustain them even in a dying universe. They knew the Ring was doomed but they also believed they had time to finish their own projects first - foremost was finishing the job of annihilating humanity.
Around four million years AD the last humans emerged from their Xeelee prison and set out for the Ring, guided by another human Paul who had been transformed into a quantum based lifeform by the Xeelee.
Knowing that the Qax and the photino birds would try to destroy the humans' ship, Paul used his connection to the Xeelee to create an illusionary shadow fleet of Xeelee making the photino birds believe a re-invasion was in progress. The birds rushed to the Ring and began efforts to close it for good.
The Qax learned of this and put their might to stopping the birds and securing the Ring from destruction. A Spline
Spline (alien beings)
The Spline are a fictional race of sentient space-faring creatures that appear in several of British author Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence novels and short stories. They are typically described as fleshy spheres, encrusted with a variety of pods and orifices...
fleet assaulted the birds (even using a star accelerated to light speed) but ultimately most of them were killed and they failed. During this battle the humans slipped through the Ring (though not Paul who due to his status was trapped in this reality) and the loss of the Ring trapped the Qax forever.
Millions of years later Paul tired of watching the plans of the photino birds evolve slowing over time, and placed his mind in orbit round a dead star that was being heated a few degrees above zero. After a period he found he was not alone - the last Qax (also now quantum based) had joined him. The two old foes orbited the star and exchanged no words. There was nothing left to say...
Importance
While the Qax play a pivotal role only in one book (Timelike InfinityTimelike Infinity
Timelike Infinity is a 1992 science fiction book by Stephen Baxter. The second book in the Xeelee Sequence, Timelike Infinity introduces a universe of powerful alien species and technologies which manages to maintain a realistic edge due to Baxter's physics background; it largely sets the stage for...
) their occupation creates the xenophobic government that led the human conquest of the galaxy, and they are almost certainly the main cause of the loss of most of the human offshoots that survived the last human/Xeelee war. They are not responsible for the loss of the Ring but their attack does ensure that the humans who escape the Xeelee prison are able to leave the universe unmolested by the photino birds.
It could be argued that their aggressive policy of cultural extirpation during their period of enslavement is what ultimately led to Man's subsequent expansion and outright hostility towards other aliens. By adopting and subverting many Qax policies, Man became a collectivist society with little to no individuality left - there was only the goal of domination, to which everyone subscribed from an early age. In that regard, the Qax are in many ways ultimately responsible for the Assimilation (including the extermination of the Silver Ghosts) and the eventual war with the Xeelee
Xeelee
The Xeelee are a fictional hyperadvanced species from Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence. They were first remotely mentioned in the 1994 novel Timelike Infinity and were later central actors of several novels and a substantial number of short stories...
.
Appearances
- Timelike InfinityTimelike InfinityTimelike Infinity is a 1992 science fiction book by Stephen Baxter. The second book in the Xeelee Sequence, Timelike Infinity introduces a universe of powerful alien species and technologies which manages to maintain a realistic edge due to Baxter's physics background; it largely sets the stage for...
- Vacuum DiagramsVacuum DiagramsVacuum Diagrams is a collection of science fiction short stories written by Stephen Baxter. The collection connects the novels of the Xeelee Sequence and also shows the history of mankind in the Xeelee universe, and ultimately the universe...
- They are mentioned in most other books of the series.