Redemption Ark
Encyclopedia
Redemption Ark is a 2002 hard science fiction
space opera
novel
by Welsh
author Alastair Reynolds
. It is the second book in the Revelation Space
series (the third including Chasm City
, a standalone story), and it continues the story of Nevil Clavain begun in the short stories "Great Wall of Mars" and "Glacial". The novel was named "Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year" by Chronicle magazine.
etc.). The other featured faction is the Demarchists, baseline human
s who originally practiced a form of decentralised mass-participatory democracy, but whose civilisation was all but destroyed by a nanotechnology plague. These factions, allies before the plague, are, in the time frame of the novel, at war with each other, with a Conjoiner victory imminent.
Conjoiners society. In the ship, she discovers Galiana, the original founder of the Conjoiners, who left Conjoiner space decades previously on an exploration mission. In space, she encountered the Inhibitors, who have unleashed an agent into her ships which has taken control of it and killed her crew. It now controls her mind as well. Galiana requests that Skade kill her, but Skade only places her in suspended animation
in the hope that she can be helped in the future.
Ten years later, Nevil Clavain is facing problems in the Conjoiner mother nest; he is struggling to find answers as to what happened to Galiana (he is unaware that she is still alive) and about Felka, who he believes may be his daughter. He ponders this as he leaves on a mission, during which he rescues Antoinette Bax as she buries her father in the gas giant Tangerine Dream. Her ship severely damaged, Antoinette limps back to the Rust Belt, a ring of orbital habitats around Yellowstone.
When Clavain and Skade return to the Mother Nest, Skade, Remontoire, and Felka finally convince Clavain to join the Conjoiner's leadership, which Clavain had been resisting. Skade now informs him about the Inhibitors, convincing him to undertake a mission to reclaim lost Conjoiner doomsday weapons and taking him to see the fleet of advanced starships that the Conjoiners have been building in secret. Although, Skade claims that the weapons and ships will be used to defend humanity against the Inhibitors, Clavain is convinced that they will actually be used simply to evacuate the Conjoiners and abandoning the rest of humanity. Clavain defects to the Demarchists at Yellowstone and spread the news of the Inhibitors, enlisting Antoinette Bax's help to escape the pursuing cojoiners under Skade.
Clavain is followed by Scorpio and Remontoire, but they along with Antoinette and Clavain are captured by the mysterious underground figure known as "H". H reveals what happened to Skade during a Conjoiner raid into Chasm City. This was when Skade discovered the secrets that would lead her to develop inertia suppression technology, and when H believes she was subverted by an alien intellect. Clavain reveals Skade's plans for the Conjoiner fleet and the cache weapons, and H agrees to help him beat Skade to them. H supplies ships and his own version of the inertial suppression technology, while Scorpio supplies an army of hyper-pigs for the pursuit.
Skade and Clavain race to the Resurgam system employing various creative long-distance strategies against each other and pushing their vessels to higher and higher speeds. Eventually, Skade's vessel is damaged in an attempt to exceed the speed of light. Clavain and crew arrive in the Zodiacal Light ready to recover the cache weapons.
, have begun dismantling several rocky moons across the system and are moving their components towards the gas giant, Roc. They resolve to evacuate Resurgam by enlisting the aide of the rebel Thorn who has been attempting to evacuate Resurgam all along, by open communications with Captain John Brannigan who is in direct control of their ship due to the nanotechnological
Melding Plague, and by enabling the Cache Weapons as a last resort against the Inhibitors. (These are the same weapons that Clavain will be sent to recover, and it was their activation during the events in the novel Revelation Space by Volyova which allowed the Conjoiners in Yellowstone to determine the weapons' location.)
Successful in all three endeavors Volyova, Khouri, and Thorn begin the lengthy evacuation, while the Inhibitors continue their mysterious construction project. Only a few thousand people have been evacuated from the surface when the Inhibitors come so close to Resurgam's star that Volyova begins deploying the cache weapons in the hope that they will be able to buy more time. It is at this point that a beta-level simulation of Clavain arrives in a laser transmission, and attempts to negotiate the peaceful turn over of the cache weapons to the soon to be arriving Zodiacal Light. Volyova rejects his requests, explaining that she has greater need to the weapons and continues deploying them.
When Zodiacal Light arrives in the system, and because of the failure of the beta-level to negotiate a handover, Clavain attacks Nostalgia for Infinity using Scorpio and his army of pigs as a boarding party. Clavain's superior force capture Nostalgia for Infinity, although Volyova is able to damage Zodiacal Light with one of the cache weapons. Negotiations resume and the two sides come to terms. The evacuation is completed with the help of the Storm Bird and Nostalgia for Infinity departs; Volyova, who is dying from injuries suffered during a suicide attempt by the Captain takes half of the cache weapons and attacks the Inhibitors in the Storm Bird, to no effect. Remontoire and Khouri remain in the system in the Zodiacal Light to try and contact Dan Sylveste in the Hades Matrix in hope that he will be able to supply information that can be used to fight the Inhibitors.
The novel ends with Nostalgia for Infinity establishing a colony on an unnamed Pattern Juggler planet (in the following novel Absolution Gap it is called Ararat), waiting for the Zodiacal Light to catch up with them so that they can continue the fight against the Inhibitors.
The asides also reveal that the Inhibitors were not as brutal in their past, but their performance has degraded over the millennia. They have been detecting civilizations at later stages, and required to commit wholesale extinction more often.
Clavain and Felka learn of this history during communication with the Inhibitors in Galiana's head. Clavain, however, is not convinced that the Inhibitors are right about the coming catastrophe and believes that their degrading performance may give humanity a chance for survival that other species have not had. As such, he rejects the Inhibitor requests to stand down.
The future collision of our galaxy with the Andromeda Galaxy
is a scientifically predicted event. However, astronomers believe that it would not cause major damage to the capability of the galaxy to support life because galaxies are so diffuse that very few, if any, planets and stars would collide.
and express a desire to redeem themselves.
Hard science fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science...
space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
author Alastair Reynolds
Alastair Reynolds
Alastair Preston Reynolds is a British science fiction author. He specialises in dark hard science fiction and space opera. He spent his early years in Cornwall, moved back to Wales before going to Newcastle, where he read physics and astronomy. Afterwards, he earned a PhD from St Andrews, Scotland...
. It is the second book in the Revelation Space
Revelation Space
Revelation Space is a 2000 science fiction space opera novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds. It was the first novel set in the Revelation Space universe, although the then-unnamed universe had already been established by several published short stories....
series (the third including Chasm City
Chasm City
Chasm City is a 2001 science fiction novel by author Alastair Reynolds, set in the Revelation Space universe. It deals with themes of identity, memory, and immortality, and many of its scenes are concerned primarily with describing the unusual societal and physical structure of the titular city, a...
, a standalone story), and it continues the story of Nevil Clavain begun in the short stories "Great Wall of Mars" and "Glacial". The novel was named "Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year" by Chronicle magazine.
Setting
The plot of Redemption Ark involves the pursuit of the "hell class" weapons stored on the ship Nostalgia for Infinity (introduced in Revelation Space). In Reynolds's universe, humanity has split into several factions. These include the Conjoiners, humans who have incorporated technology that allows them not only to share thoughts, but to enhance many aspects of their existence (such as vision enhancements, pain blocking, fastidious memory collection and recallEidetic memory
Eidetic , commonly referred to as photographic memory, is a medical term, popularly defined as the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme precision and in abundant volume. The word eidetic, referring to extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall not limited to, but...
etc.). The other featured faction is the Demarchists, baseline human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
s who originally practiced a form of decentralised mass-participatory democracy, but whose civilisation was all but destroyed by a nanotechnology plague. These factions, allies before the plague, are, in the time frame of the novel, at war with each other, with a Conjoiner victory imminent.
Plot
The novel takes place around the planets Yellowstone and Resurgam, in two story lines which converge near the climax of the novel.Yellowstone
The novel begins in the year 2605, where Skade has been tasked with investigating a Conjoiner ship that has returned to the Conjoiner headquarters, the Mother Nest. It is revealed early on that Skade is a Conjoiner woman who appears to be in touch with secret circles of control within the theoretically egalitarianEgalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
Conjoiners society. In the ship, she discovers Galiana, the original founder of the Conjoiners, who left Conjoiner space decades previously on an exploration mission. In space, she encountered the Inhibitors, who have unleashed an agent into her ships which has taken control of it and killed her crew. It now controls her mind as well. Galiana requests that Skade kill her, but Skade only places her in suspended animation
Suspended animation
Suspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold can be used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use...
in the hope that she can be helped in the future.
Ten years later, Nevil Clavain is facing problems in the Conjoiner mother nest; he is struggling to find answers as to what happened to Galiana (he is unaware that she is still alive) and about Felka, who he believes may be his daughter. He ponders this as he leaves on a mission, during which he rescues Antoinette Bax as she buries her father in the gas giant Tangerine Dream. Her ship severely damaged, Antoinette limps back to the Rust Belt, a ring of orbital habitats around Yellowstone.
When Clavain and Skade return to the Mother Nest, Skade, Remontoire, and Felka finally convince Clavain to join the Conjoiner's leadership, which Clavain had been resisting. Skade now informs him about the Inhibitors, convincing him to undertake a mission to reclaim lost Conjoiner doomsday weapons and taking him to see the fleet of advanced starships that the Conjoiners have been building in secret. Although, Skade claims that the weapons and ships will be used to defend humanity against the Inhibitors, Clavain is convinced that they will actually be used simply to evacuate the Conjoiners and abandoning the rest of humanity. Clavain defects to the Demarchists at Yellowstone and spread the news of the Inhibitors, enlisting Antoinette Bax's help to escape the pursuing cojoiners under Skade.
Clavain is followed by Scorpio and Remontoire, but they along with Antoinette and Clavain are captured by the mysterious underground figure known as "H". H reveals what happened to Skade during a Conjoiner raid into Chasm City. This was when Skade discovered the secrets that would lead her to develop inertia suppression technology, and when H believes she was subverted by an alien intellect. Clavain reveals Skade's plans for the Conjoiner fleet and the cache weapons, and H agrees to help him beat Skade to them. H supplies ships and his own version of the inertial suppression technology, while Scorpio supplies an army of hyper-pigs for the pursuit.
Skade and Clavain race to the Resurgam system employing various creative long-distance strategies against each other and pushing their vessels to higher and higher speeds. Eventually, Skade's vessel is damaged in an attempt to exceed the speed of light. Clavain and crew arrive in the Zodiacal Light ready to recover the cache weapons.
Resurgam
Several years on (roughly 50 from the start of the book), Triumvir Ilia Volyova and Ana Khouri are on the planet Resurgam and have discovered a new threat; the Inhibitors, alerted to the presence of humanity during events described in Revelation SpaceRevelation Space
Revelation Space is a 2000 science fiction space opera novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds. It was the first novel set in the Revelation Space universe, although the then-unnamed universe had already been established by several published short stories....
, have begun dismantling several rocky moons across the system and are moving their components towards the gas giant, Roc. They resolve to evacuate Resurgam by enlisting the aide of the rebel Thorn who has been attempting to evacuate Resurgam all along, by open communications with Captain John Brannigan who is in direct control of their ship due to the nanotechnological
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
Melding Plague, and by enabling the Cache Weapons as a last resort against the Inhibitors. (These are the same weapons that Clavain will be sent to recover, and it was their activation during the events in the novel Revelation Space by Volyova which allowed the Conjoiners in Yellowstone to determine the weapons' location.)
Successful in all three endeavors Volyova, Khouri, and Thorn begin the lengthy evacuation, while the Inhibitors continue their mysterious construction project. Only a few thousand people have been evacuated from the surface when the Inhibitors come so close to Resurgam's star that Volyova begins deploying the cache weapons in the hope that they will be able to buy more time. It is at this point that a beta-level simulation of Clavain arrives in a laser transmission, and attempts to negotiate the peaceful turn over of the cache weapons to the soon to be arriving Zodiacal Light. Volyova rejects his requests, explaining that she has greater need to the weapons and continues deploying them.
When Zodiacal Light arrives in the system, and because of the failure of the beta-level to negotiate a handover, Clavain attacks Nostalgia for Infinity using Scorpio and his army of pigs as a boarding party. Clavain's superior force capture Nostalgia for Infinity, although Volyova is able to damage Zodiacal Light with one of the cache weapons. Negotiations resume and the two sides come to terms. The evacuation is completed with the help of the Storm Bird and Nostalgia for Infinity departs; Volyova, who is dying from injuries suffered during a suicide attempt by the Captain takes half of the cache weapons and attacks the Inhibitors in the Storm Bird, to no effect. Remontoire and Khouri remain in the system in the Zodiacal Light to try and contact Dan Sylveste in the Hades Matrix in hope that he will be able to supply information that can be used to fight the Inhibitors.
The novel ends with Nostalgia for Infinity establishing a colony on an unnamed Pattern Juggler planet (in the following novel Absolution Gap it is called Ararat), waiting for the Zodiacal Light to catch up with them so that they can continue the fight against the Inhibitors.
Inhibitor Asides
In addition to the two plot lines there are occasional asides explaining the history and motivation of the Inhibitors. These asides explain the galaxy was once filled with star faring civilizations. Those civilizations were largely destroyed in the "Dawn War", a galaxy wide conflict over the galaxy's scarce resources. One of these civilizations determines that a collision between our galaxy and another will occur in 3 billion years and create/become the Inhibitors in order to shepherd intelligent life through this cataclysm. They had determined that collision could be most easily dealt with if intelligent life was kept isolated to individual star systems, leaving the Inhibitors to perform any necessary manipulations of stars and planets to reduce the damage caused by the collision.The asides also reveal that the Inhibitors were not as brutal in their past, but their performance has degraded over the millennia. They have been detecting civilizations at later stages, and required to commit wholesale extinction more often.
Clavain and Felka learn of this history during communication with the Inhibitors in Galiana's head. Clavain, however, is not convinced that the Inhibitors are right about the coming catastrophe and believes that their degrading performance may give humanity a chance for survival that other species have not had. As such, he rejects the Inhibitor requests to stand down.
The future collision of our galaxy with the Andromeda Galaxy
Andromeda-Milky Way collision
The collision seen from a hypothetical extragalactic planet. The galaxies will be at this relative angleThe Andromeda–Milky Way collision is a predicted galaxy collision that could possibly take place in approximately 3 to 5 billion years' time between the two largest galaxies in the Local...
is a scientifically predicted event. However, astronomers believe that it would not cause major damage to the capability of the galaxy to support life because galaxies are so diffuse that very few, if any, planets and stars would collide.
Characters in "Redemption Ark"
- Ana Khouri
- Antoinette Bax
- "Captain" John Brannigan
- Felka
- Galiana
- Nevil Clavain
- Remontoire
- Schuyler "Sky" Haussmann / "H"
- Scorpio
- Skade
- Thorn
- Triumvir Ilia Volyova
Redemptions
A number of characters in the novel have committed more or less terrible crimes,and express a desire to redeem themselves.
- John Brannigan tries to commit suicide because he does not want to live any longer with the memory of his past crimes. When he does not succeed, he permits his ship to become an ark for the refugees from Resurgam.
- Schuyler "Sky" Haussmann / "H" makes it explicit that he considers the help he offers to Clavain as an attempt to give back to humanity what he took from them.
- Ilia Volyova equally sees her final attack on the inhibitors as an act of redemption.
- The alpha-level simulation on the Storm Bird, a convicted criminal, sees his suicidal assistance to Ilia Volyova as equally redemptive.
- The Inhibitors, having done severe damage to the galaxy during the Dawn War, attempt to redeem themselves by shepherding life through the Milky Way's collision with Andromeda.
Awards and nominations
- named "Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year[2002]" by Chronicle
Release details
- 2002, United Kingdom, Gollancz ISBN 0-575-06879-5, Pub date 27 June 2002, Hardback
- 2002, United Kingdom, Gollancz ISBN 0-575-06880-9, Pub date 27 June 2003, Paperback
- 2003, United States, Ace Books ISBN 0-441-01058-X, Pub date 3 June 2003, Hardback
- 2003, United Kingdom, Gollancz ISBN 0-575-07384-5, Pub date 8 May 2003, Paperback
- 2004, United States, Ace ISBN 0-441-01173-X, Pub date 25 May 2004, Paperback
External links
- Infinity Plus Review by Stuart Carter
- SF Site review by David Soyka