Galactic Milieu Series
Encyclopedia
The Galactic Milieu Series of science fiction
novels by Julian May
is the sequel (and prequel) to her Saga of Pliocene Exile
. It comprises four novels: Intervention, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat. The series involves several religious and philosophical themes, including references to the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
.
Jack the Bodiless (ISBN 0-679-40950-5, New York: Knopf
, 1991) is the first book of the trilogy proper, followed by Diamond Mask (ISBN 0-679-43310-4, New York: Knopf, 1994), and Magnificat (ISBN 0-679-44177-8, New York: Knopf, 1996).
, including the concepts of the Omega Point
and the Noosphere
, which are applied to May's description of galactic mental Unity. The series title echoes Teilhard's 1957 book Le Milieu Divin.
The Remillard family are Catholic
, and on several occasions family members discuss their faith. The most notable example occurs in the first part of Chapter 24 of Jack the Bodiless, where Teresa Kendall explains Christianity
to her unborn son.
Jack the Bodiless begins with a set of quotations, including the Spanish proverb "God writes straight with crooked lines." This proverb summarises the plot of the whole series, in which tragedies
and disaster
s (particularly the Metapsychic Rebellion) result in ultimate good (particularly the repentance
and transformation of Marc Remillard, through which the Galactic Milieu is formed). The Rebellion is thus a Felix culpa
.
Julian May's description of "metapsychic" abilities explicitly refers to the concepts of auras
(particularly in Part III of Intervention) and chakra
s (particularly in discussing the feeding of the "Hydra").
.
Creativity is the ability to create illusions and manipulate energy. In its strongest form, it can involve permanent changes of matter from one kind to another, as when Jack creates flowers from waste. The same level of power can also be used to create mental lasers, and the "Metapsychic Rebellion" causes considerable damage with such mental weapons, produced by brains amplified with cerebroenergetic (CE) equipment. Rogi possess creative abilities, though unreliable ones, and these occasionally help him in moments of need.
Coercion is the ability of metapsychic mind control
over other people. For example, in Magnificat, Denis uses metapsychic coercion to manipulate Rogi to climb Mt. Washington.
Psychokinesis
(PK) is the ability to move physical objects through space metapsychically, while Farsensing is the ability to communicate with others and to sense remotely via metapsychic means, much like telepathy
, clairvoyance
, or remote viewing
. In Intervention, the ability of farsensing (initially called "ultrasensing") to locate hidden weapons becomes geopolitically important. Finally, Redaction provides the ability for mental healing. Dorothea MacDonald has very strong redactive powers.
These five mental powers can be latent, meaning that, while present, they cannot be consciously used. On the other hand, operant powers are available for conscious, controlled use. Higher capabilities within operancy include Master, Grand Master, and Paramount Grand Master levels. Jack, Marc, and Dorothea are all (eventually) Paramounts.
Julian May describes collaborative as well as individual mental powers. A metaconcert is a synchronised use of mental powers by more than one person, as when Jack and Dorothea tackle the geological problems of Caledonia. The ultimate extension of such collaboration is the mental Unity which the Lylmik are fostering in the galaxy.
from the years immediately after World War II
through an increasingly turbulent world, in which various "metapsychic" humans manoeuvre in secret to direct the destiny of the human race. The Remillards play a central role in this story, though the narrator, Rogatien "Uncle Rogi" Remillard, is often an alienated observer rather than a central participant. At the same time, the earth
is under surveillance by representatives of a galactic
culture
(the "Galactic Milieu" of the series title), who monitor the human race's fitness for admission into the wider galactic community. Interwoven with this narrative are glimpses of the time after the main action of the series, drawing together threads from it and the Pliocene Exile
series.
Intervention climaxes with the Great Intervention, the revelation of this wider galactic society. This sets the stage for the more focused story May has to tell in the remainder of the series.
This deals with the history of several family lines with strong metapsychic
potential, especially the Remillards. This line begins with twin
s Rogatien (Rogi) and Donatien (Don), whose mother died giving birth to them. They discover that they have unusual mental abilities (which admittedly turn out to be far less than those of later generations of metapyschics). Rogi is a milder mannered man, who becomes sterile
through mumps
. Don is distrustful and malicious, but handsome and charming, and steals Rogi's girlfriend Marie Madeleine "Sunny" Fabré.
From an early age, Rogi was visited by an entity he called "the Family Ghost", and it is this entity who commanded Rogi to write his memoirs. The Ghost first rescued Rogi as a child, and many years later rescued Don after Rogi tried to kill him in a rage for stealing his girlfriend. The Ghost tells Rogi that he is sterile, but would have an important role in guiding Don's key descendants.
Rogi becomes close to Don and Sunny's firstborn child Denis. Denis is a precocious child, and quickly learns to master many metapsychic faculties, greatly exceeding those of Rogi and Don, in addition to excelling intellectually. Rogi becomes like a real father to him, while Don is always out getting drunk at night. Rogi and Denis start to search for people with similar powers. Don become jealous of Denis's powers but, though Denis's young coercion, is rendered unable to hurt him. Meanwhile, Don and Sunny raise their nine other children, including the monstrously evil second-born Victor, who terrorizes his younger siblings and suppresses their mental powers. Don focuses upon Victor as Denis grows up, seeming to shape him into a vigorous athletic counterpart to Denis's intellectual existence. The more sinister nature of Victor's influences becomes apparent in later volumes.
Don reacts against Rogi's influence upon his children, but cannot over come Denis's attachment to his uncle. Rogi leaves for a job as a hotel manager, where Denis can visit during the holidays. Rogi worries about Denis's education, as his local school is not challenging, but Don does not see education as something to invest in for his children - especially for Denis. Rogi learns of a Jesuit monastic school and manages to get Don to allow him to send Denis there. This leads to Denis attending Dartmouth College
due to a new program for "special students." He becomes prominent in many fields, particularly psychology
and the understanding of "metapsychic" abilities, eventually becoming the "Grandfather of Metapsychology". Subsequent research yields results in many places in the world and Denis organizes yearly meetings within the secret metapsychic community.
At the same time, Victor is plotting with the sociopathic
gangster
metapsychic Kieran O'Connor to bring down the government with their metapsychic powers. This culminates in a showdown at the end of the book where Denis calls out to all the present and absent metapsychics of goodwill to join in a "metaconcert" against an attack by Victor and Kieran. The watching Milieu agents invisible in the sky hear this call, and the subsequent metaconcert, and therefore intervene. Victor, meanwhile, goes after Rogi who has learned too much. Through his metapsychic power of creativity, Rogi uses a mental laser to put Victor into a vegetative state. Rogi never understood how he could have overcome such a powerful metapsychic as Victor, until the Family Ghost reveals decades later that he assisted.
laws) are instituted, which fuels feelings of suspicion in both earth's normal and metapsychic population.
Denis by now has fathered many children, the youngest of whom (Paul) is elected leader of Humanity. Marc, (Paul's firstborn with Teresa — a grandchild of Don's via Rogi's quondam amoureuse, Elaine) is the most powerful human metapsychic known at that time, who also has a genius-level intellect. Paul & Teresa started Marc's education while he was still in utero, which was by then becoming an accepted practice.
Also born - at Victor's deathbed - was Fury. A sociopathic entity that has its own agenda for the Galactic Milieu and the Remillard family in particular. Fury in turn 'created' from the minds of five unborn metapsychic fetus's, a physical monster called The Hydra to do it's bidding.
Following a number of failed pregnancies Teresa has her reproductive license revoked (under the interdict, metaphysics must have permission to have children). Teresa then loses her ability to sing, and thereby loses Paul's attention.
Sometime later Teresa regains her voice and becomes illegally pregnant with the last of their children, and when Marc farsenses emotional problems over her pregnancy he visits his mother to investigate. Upon learning of his mother's pregnancy, Marc takes it upon himself to hide Teresa and his future brother in the Canadian wilderness. Marc realises that Rogi is the only family member that would be empathetic enough to help, and recruits him for this purpose. Marc fakes a “canoeing accident” so that the Remillard family and the Magistratum of the Milieu believe them dead, and after many months in the wilderness, Rogi assists Teresa in the birth, and Jon Remillard, “Saint Jack the Bodiless”, is born.
Although Jack has the outward appearance of a normal human child, his intellect and mental prowess rapidly set him apart from the rest of humankind, as does the fact that his body begins to generate inoperable and incurable tumours that are slowly overwhelming him. Despite the fact that Jack possesses each of the five higher mindpowers (also known as metafaculties) at the highest known level (Paramount Grand Master), he is incapable of effecting change in his own physiology
. The Lylmik, the oldest and most powerful of the alien races in the milieu, veto his euthanasia
and leave it up to Jack. An attack by Fury on Jack as he lies in his hospital room, leads to an evolution
ary jump in which Jack discards his physical form and metamorposes
into his final state as a disembodied brain
.
world of Caledonia. Dorothea lives with her father and her brother amid several step brothers and sisters. Dorothea's mother and other relatives are killed in an attack by the entity known as Hydra, a “metapsychic entity” that Fury uses as an assassin
. Hydra consists of four (formerly five) metapsychics who can mind-meld into a powerful vampiric metaconcert when not leading their normal lives. After this, Dorothea realises that she is a latent metapsychic — one with inherent potential but mental block
s that prevent her using her powers, as opposed to the “operant” metapsychics. However, she starts to overcome her blocks and is able to use her mind to protect and heal herself. Meanwhile, Paul Remillard is preparing for Human entry into the Milieu and is in line to become the inaugural First Magnate
of the Concillium. When his rival's wife is killed after being shoved into a trash compactor in an apparent suicide
disguising her murder by Hydra, a hold is put on Human entry into the Milieu for 1,000 Galactic Days. The Krondaku investigators suspect the Remillards to be involved.
Dorothea turns out to be another Paramount, with incredibly strong redactive powers and resistance to metapsychic probes and attacks. Young Marc Remillard is not able to probe her mind even when his powers are enhanced by the cerebroenergetic (CE) equipment that he has invented, although CE allows him to resist counterprobes. She even manages to slip into Denis's mind, but he quickly throws her out before she can find out much.
Dorothea and Jack have a role in saving an inhabited planet from a diatreme
eruption, using their paramount powers aided by CE. But her lower face is terribly deformed in this heroic act, so after this she always wears a diamond
-studded half-mask, and acquires her nickname “Diamond Mask”.
, surgical modification, mental training (through induced pain) and technological enhancement to create hundreds of humans with the powers — and disembodiment — of Marc's younger brother Jack. This project has been kept highly secret for several years, but peers and competitors of Marc begin to get suspicious. He develops several increasingly powerful CE devices. These amplify a human's inherent metapsychic ability by orders of magnitude. The CE device is discussed in the debates of the Concilium, and is deemed too dangerous to be generally used. Marc disagrees, his research continues in secret although outlawed, and culminates in devices capable of 600x amplification. Marc's increasing ambition draws him to side with a rebel faction of the Concillium — those that do not wish to join 'Unity' with the other races and therefore with the Galactic Mind itself. The rebel faction determinedly opposes this as they believe humans will lose their individuality and privacy
and will become thralls to the other races.
By this time, only two out of the original five Hydra units remain, Parnell Remillard and Madeleine Remillard — Marc's cousin and sister (it is revealed that the Hydra heads were the unborn children present at the vigil around Victor, where Fury corrupted their infant minds). One wet night, Anne Remillard — a staunch loyalist and advocate of Unity — visits Rogi's bookshop. She has deduced that Denis is Fury. Rogi doubts this but when Anne is attacked and nearly killed, he realises that he must inform Jack and Dorothea of the identity of Fury. The only opportune moment seems their upcoming wedding.
After Rogi divulges the information on Fury/Denis to Jack and Dorothea, the Remillard dynasty assembles in order to 'exorcise' Denis. Denis is tricked into making himself vulnerable, and they attempt to remove the Fury element of his psyche. This goes disastrously wrong, and Denis/Fury vanishes. He is later realised to have "D-Jumped" — teleport
ed — a first for man and most aliens, although it is revealed in the Saga of the Pliocene Exile that the Shipspouses of Lene had this ability.
Marc, previously totally chaste, falls madly in love with Cyndia Muldowney, the daughter of Rory, an opponent of Paul's, and the two marry.
After several events, Denis manages to briefly gain control from his Fury persona, and communicates with Cyndia. He reveals that the Mental Man babies (which were created from Marc and Madeleine's sperm and eggs) have become hundreds of Hydra by Madeleine's influence. Denis D-Jumps inside the complex and destroys all the children. Marc is dumbstruck, yet finds a way to terminate the Hydra-infested project while retaining the possibility of a new start. He mind-lasers Madeleine, aided by the CE, and has her frozen so that her ovaries may be used.
Denis travels to Mt. Washington
, where he has manipulated Rogi using metapsychic coercion to journey to the summit. Bad weather hits the mountain and Rogi is shepherded into a shack by his nephew. Denis persuades Rogi to kill him with his yogic technique, as he fears Fury will regain control. None of his children could manage that even though they have strong metapsychic powers, because children seem to have a block against using their powers to attack their parents. And as Denis regards Rogi as a father figure, he hopes that Fury cannot use his powers against Rogi. Rogi feebly manages to start the technique but cannot muster the power. However, Fury does regain control and tries to kill Rogi physically, since the mental block against using metapsychic powers against parent figures does indeed apply. This act of violence gives Rogi the necessary desperation to trigger his operancy, and he vaporises Denis, to his great grief.
Marc in the meantime, continues his quest for Mental Man, but realises that the Metapsychic rebellion is too near for Mental Man to be present to ensure victory. Cyndia discovers Marc's plans, is horrified, and decides to remove all available sources of the new Mental Man. She acquires a sonic apparatus that will render Marc sterile, and triggers it by a telepathic command. However, Marc detects this impulse, realises what the device has done, and kills Cyndia by reflex. He mourns more because of his sterility than the loss of the wife he once loved greatly.
Paul, father of Jack and Marc, is the leader of the Pro-Unity camp, and Jack decides to campaign against the rebels. As tension builds and several children start to co-adunate, the rebels' long-laid plans move into action. Marc has equipped hundreds of individuals with his CE devices, and his colleagues arm many ships. The rebels decide to demonstrate their power by destroying a planet
— Molakar: the Krondaku planet from which the intervention was staged. Billions die in several seconds as the joined minds of the Rebels superheat the crust
of the planet. A massive wave of metapsychic suffering and grief overwhelms the minds of the entire milieu. The response is not what Marc expects. Jack, Dorothea and his father, Paul, decide to confront him peacefully and will not let him take war
to the galaxy. Marc decides to fight regardless, but the three pacifists call out to all the metapsychics in the galaxy to help join in Unity and stop the Rebels.
One of Marc's main allies, and later his mistress, is Patricia Castellane, the leader of the cosmopolitan planet Okanagon. During the attack, the rebels accidentally lose control of another explosive device and it explodes, setting off Okanagon's unstable crust. The resultant geological catastrophe kills the entire population of two billion people. Jack telepathically asks his once-idolized brother, "What have you done?!"
Jack and Dorothea manage to halt the rebel fleet, thanks to their ability to conjoin the powers of all the pro-Milieu operant humans. But these two and Paul die as a result. Many of the Rebels are also killed when their CEs overload, and Marc and a number of the leaders are badly hurt. The deaths of the people of Okanagon, however, propel humanity into the state of mental co-ordination (called "coadunation") which is the precursor to a benevolent joining of minds across the galaxy which the member races of the Milieu refer to as Unity.
After the rebel faction is defeated, their leaders flee through a unique one-directional gate in France
6 million years back in time, to the Pliocene
period. They were aided by a Lylmik who was powerful enough even to freeze Marc in his tracks, as he had done many years previously when Marc was a boy. There they stay in exile, and the events of the Saga of Pliocene Exile
take place. Marc Remillard survives all those years (thanks to his "immortality
gene
", a trait shared by most members of the Remillard clan in differing degrees) and eventually evolves to the 3rd stage of mental evolution, where he brings purpose to the Lylmik to create the milieu. He thoroughly repents of his great evil, and becomes the enlightened leader of the same galactic society that starts the intervention, calling himself Atoning Unifex. Marc is evidently the Lylmik who appeared to his past self, and turns out to be the incorporeal
"Family Ghost" who appears to Rogi for several years, driving him to finish his memoirs as a unique document of the Metapsychic rebellion. Marc, according to the family tree, passes on to the next stage of existence / evolution leaving Rogi to be healed and back in a relationship with Elaine. Some of the Lylmik have human bodies now as well and the future of what happens next is, as yet, unknown.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novels by Julian May
Julian May
Julian May is an American science fiction, fantasy, horror, science and children's writer who also uses several literary pseudonyms, best known for her Saga of Pliocene Exile and Galactic Milieu Series books.- Background and early career :Julian May grew up in Elmwood Park, Illinois, a suburb of...
is the sequel (and prequel) to her Saga of Pliocene Exile
Saga of Pliocene Exile
The Saga of Pliocene Exile is a series of science / speculative fiction books by Julian May, first published in the early 1980s...
. It comprises four novels: Intervention, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat. The series involves several religious and philosophical themes, including references to the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of Noosphere...
.
The novels
The series begins with Intervention: A Root Tale to the Galactic Milieu and a Vinculum between it and The Saga of Pliocene Exile (ISBN 0-395-43782-2, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). This was released in one volume in the UK, but in mass market paperback in the USA as two volumes: Surveillance and Metaconcert. May calls Intervention a vinculum, or link-tale, between the Saga of Pliocene Exile and the Milieu trilogy proper. However, it is a near-essential introduction to the Milieu trilogy as well as a balanced stand-alone work.Jack the Bodiless (ISBN 0-679-40950-5, New York: Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
, 1991) is the first book of the trilogy proper, followed by Diamond Mask (ISBN 0-679-43310-4, New York: Knopf, 1994), and Magnificat (ISBN 0-679-44177-8, New York: Knopf, 1996).
Religious and philosophical themes
The series includes multiple references to the work of Pierre Teilhard de ChardinPierre Teilhard de Chardin
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of Noosphere...
, including the concepts of the Omega Point
Omega point
Omega Point is a term coined by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving....
and the Noosphere
Noosphere
Noosphere , according to the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, denotes the "sphere of human thought". The word is derived from the Greek νοῦς + σφαῖρα , in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere". Introduced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1922 in his Cosmogenesis"...
, which are applied to May's description of galactic mental Unity. The series title echoes Teilhard's 1957 book Le Milieu Divin.
The Remillard family are Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, and on several occasions family members discuss their faith. The most notable example occurs in the first part of Chapter 24 of Jack the Bodiless, where Teresa Kendall explains Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
to her unborn son.
Jack the Bodiless begins with a set of quotations, including the Spanish proverb "God writes straight with crooked lines." This proverb summarises the plot of the whole series, in which tragedies
Tragedy (event)
A tragedy is an event in which one or more losses, usually of human life, occurs that is viewed as mournful. Such an event is said to be tragic....
and disaster
Disaster
A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...
s (particularly the Metapsychic Rebellion) result in ultimate good (particularly the repentance
Repentance
Repentance is a change of thought to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged. In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law...
and transformation of Marc Remillard, through which the Galactic Milieu is formed). The Rebellion is thus a Felix culpa
Felix culpa
Felix culpa is a Latin phrase that comes from the words Felix and Culpa , and in the Catholic tradition is most often translated "happy fault."...
.
Julian May's description of "metapsychic" abilities explicitly refers to the concepts of auras
Aura (paranormal)
In parapsychology and many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation surrounding a person or object . The depiction of such an aura often connotes a person of particular power or holiness. Sometimes, however, it is said that all living things and all objects...
(particularly in Part III of Intervention) and chakra
Chakra
Chakra is a concept originating in Hindu texts, featured in tantric and yogic traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Its name derives from the Sanskrit word for "wheel" or "turning" .Chakra is a concept referring to wheel-like vortices...
s (particularly in discussing the feeding of the "Hydra").
Alien races
The Lylmik are the oldest race in the Galaxy, having been shepherded to mental Unity or "coadunation" by the entity known as Atoning Unifex. They created the Galactic Milieu and in turn mentored the Krondaku, Gi, Simbiari, and Poltroyans. The Krondaku are large tentacled invertebrates, the Gi are feathered hermaphrodites with a well-developed aesthetic sense, the Simbiari are green "monsters", while the Poltroyans are small purple humanoids who most resemble human beings both physically and mentally.Planets
Events of the novels take place on several planets: Earth; the Concilium Orb, an artificial planet constructed by the Lylmik, and the seat of the galactic Council; Hibernia, an Irish-dominated human colony; Caledonia, a Scottish-dominated human colony; Denali, a snow-covered planet popular as a holiday destination; and the human colony of Okanagon. Apart from the home planets and colonies of the alien races, a number of other planets are also mentioned in passing."Metapsychic" powers
Julian May describes five categories of "metapsychic" powers in the series: creation, coercion, psychokinesis, farsensing and redaction. Each of these powers is associated with a colour, as originally described in the Saga of Pliocene ExileSaga of Pliocene Exile
The Saga of Pliocene Exile is a series of science / speculative fiction books by Julian May, first published in the early 1980s...
.
Creativity is the ability to create illusions and manipulate energy. In its strongest form, it can involve permanent changes of matter from one kind to another, as when Jack creates flowers from waste. The same level of power can also be used to create mental lasers, and the "Metapsychic Rebellion" causes considerable damage with such mental weapons, produced by brains amplified with cerebroenergetic (CE) equipment. Rogi possess creative abilities, though unreliable ones, and these occasionally help him in moments of need.
Coercion is the ability of metapsychic mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
over other people. For example, in Magnificat, Denis uses metapsychic coercion to manipulate Rogi to climb Mt. Washington.
Psychokinesis
Psychokinesis
The term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...
(PK) is the ability to move physical objects through space metapsychically, while Farsensing is the ability to communicate with others and to sense remotely via metapsychic means, much like telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
, clairvoyance
Clairvoyance
The term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
, or remote viewing
Remote viewing
Remote viewing is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means, in particular, extra-sensory perception or "sensing with mind"...
. In Intervention, the ability of farsensing (initially called "ultrasensing") to locate hidden weapons becomes geopolitically important. Finally, Redaction provides the ability for mental healing. Dorothea MacDonald has very strong redactive powers.
These five mental powers can be latent, meaning that, while present, they cannot be consciously used. On the other hand, operant powers are available for conscious, controlled use. Higher capabilities within operancy include Master, Grand Master, and Paramount Grand Master levels. Jack, Marc, and Dorothea are all (eventually) Paramounts.
Julian May describes collaborative as well as individual mental powers. A metaconcert is a synchronised use of mental powers by more than one person, as when Jack and Dorothea tackle the geological problems of Caledonia. The ultimate extension of such collaboration is the mental Unity which the Lylmik are fostering in the galaxy.
Intervention
The book follows the Remillard family of New HampshireNew Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
from the years immediately after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
through an increasingly turbulent world, in which various "metapsychic" humans manoeuvre in secret to direct the destiny of the human race. The Remillards play a central role in this story, though the narrator, Rogatien "Uncle Rogi" Remillard, is often an alienated observer rather than a central participant. At the same time, the earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
is under surveillance by representatives of a galactic
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
(the "Galactic Milieu" of the series title), who monitor the human race's fitness for admission into the wider galactic community. Interwoven with this narrative are glimpses of the time after the main action of the series, drawing together threads from it and the Pliocene Exile
Saga of Pliocene Exile
The Saga of Pliocene Exile is a series of science / speculative fiction books by Julian May, first published in the early 1980s...
series.
Intervention climaxes with the Great Intervention, the revelation of this wider galactic society. This sets the stage for the more focused story May has to tell in the remainder of the series.
This deals with the history of several family lines with strong metapsychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
potential, especially the Remillards. This line begins with twin
Twin
A twin is one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy. Twins can either be monozygotic , meaning that they develop from one zygote that splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic because they develop from two separate eggs that are fertilized by two separate sperm.In contrast, a fetus...
s Rogatien (Rogi) and Donatien (Don), whose mother died giving birth to them. They discover that they have unusual mental abilities (which admittedly turn out to be far less than those of later generations of metapyschics). Rogi is a milder mannered man, who becomes sterile
Infertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
through mumps
Mumps
Mumps is a viral disease of the human species, caused by the mumps virus. Before the development of vaccination and the introduction of a vaccine, it was a common childhood disease worldwide...
. Don is distrustful and malicious, but handsome and charming, and steals Rogi's girlfriend Marie Madeleine "Sunny" Fabré.
From an early age, Rogi was visited by an entity he called "the Family Ghost", and it is this entity who commanded Rogi to write his memoirs. The Ghost first rescued Rogi as a child, and many years later rescued Don after Rogi tried to kill him in a rage for stealing his girlfriend. The Ghost tells Rogi that he is sterile, but would have an important role in guiding Don's key descendants.
Rogi becomes close to Don and Sunny's firstborn child Denis. Denis is a precocious child, and quickly learns to master many metapsychic faculties, greatly exceeding those of Rogi and Don, in addition to excelling intellectually. Rogi becomes like a real father to him, while Don is always out getting drunk at night. Rogi and Denis start to search for people with similar powers. Don become jealous of Denis's powers but, though Denis's young coercion, is rendered unable to hurt him. Meanwhile, Don and Sunny raise their nine other children, including the monstrously evil second-born Victor, who terrorizes his younger siblings and suppresses their mental powers. Don focuses upon Victor as Denis grows up, seeming to shape him into a vigorous athletic counterpart to Denis's intellectual existence. The more sinister nature of Victor's influences becomes apparent in later volumes.
Don reacts against Rogi's influence upon his children, but cannot over come Denis's attachment to his uncle. Rogi leaves for a job as a hotel manager, where Denis can visit during the holidays. Rogi worries about Denis's education, as his local school is not challenging, but Don does not see education as something to invest in for his children - especially for Denis. Rogi learns of a Jesuit monastic school and manages to get Don to allow him to send Denis there. This leads to Denis attending Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
due to a new program for "special students." He becomes prominent in many fields, particularly psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and the understanding of "metapsychic" abilities, eventually becoming the "Grandfather of Metapsychology". Subsequent research yields results in many places in the world and Denis organizes yearly meetings within the secret metapsychic community.
At the same time, Victor is plotting with the sociopathic
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...
gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
metapsychic Kieran O'Connor to bring down the government with their metapsychic powers. This culminates in a showdown at the end of the book where Denis calls out to all the present and absent metapsychics of goodwill to join in a "metaconcert" against an attack by Victor and Kieran. The watching Milieu agents invisible in the sky hear this call, and the subsequent metaconcert, and therefore intervene. Victor, meanwhile, goes after Rogi who has learned too much. Through his metapsychic power of creativity, Rogi uses a mental laser to put Victor into a vegetative state. Rogi never understood how he could have overcome such a powerful metapsychic as Victor, until the Family Ghost reveals decades later that he assisted.
Jack the Bodiless
As the Milieu trilogy proper begins with Jack the Bodiless, humankind, led by the Remillard family, is awaiting acceptance into the Galactic Milieu. With Earth's government being overseen by one of the alien races (Simbiari) ultimately under the authority of the Galactic Milieu, harsh laws (including eugenicsEugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
laws) are instituted, which fuels feelings of suspicion in both earth's normal and metapsychic population.
Denis by now has fathered many children, the youngest of whom (Paul) is elected leader of Humanity. Marc, (Paul's firstborn with Teresa — a grandchild of Don's via Rogi's quondam amoureuse, Elaine) is the most powerful human metapsychic known at that time, who also has a genius-level intellect. Paul & Teresa started Marc's education while he was still in utero, which was by then becoming an accepted practice.
Also born - at Victor's deathbed - was Fury. A sociopathic entity that has its own agenda for the Galactic Milieu and the Remillard family in particular. Fury in turn 'created' from the minds of five unborn metapsychic fetus's, a physical monster called The Hydra to do it's bidding.
Following a number of failed pregnancies Teresa has her reproductive license revoked (under the interdict, metaphysics must have permission to have children). Teresa then loses her ability to sing, and thereby loses Paul's attention.
Sometime later Teresa regains her voice and becomes illegally pregnant with the last of their children, and when Marc farsenses emotional problems over her pregnancy he visits his mother to investigate. Upon learning of his mother's pregnancy, Marc takes it upon himself to hide Teresa and his future brother in the Canadian wilderness. Marc realises that Rogi is the only family member that would be empathetic enough to help, and recruits him for this purpose. Marc fakes a “canoeing accident” so that the Remillard family and the Magistratum of the Milieu believe them dead, and after many months in the wilderness, Rogi assists Teresa in the birth, and Jon Remillard, “Saint Jack the Bodiless”, is born.
Although Jack has the outward appearance of a normal human child, his intellect and mental prowess rapidly set him apart from the rest of humankind, as does the fact that his body begins to generate inoperable and incurable tumours that are slowly overwhelming him. Despite the fact that Jack possesses each of the five higher mindpowers (also known as metafaculties) at the highest known level (Paramount Grand Master), he is incapable of effecting change in his own physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
. The Lylmik, the oldest and most powerful of the alien races in the milieu, veto his euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
and leave it up to Jack. An attack by Fury on Jack as he lies in his hospital room, leads to an evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
ary jump in which Jack discards his physical form and metamorposes
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation...
into his final state as a disembodied brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
.
Diamond Mask
The second book deals mainly with Dorothea MacDonald on the ScottishScotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
world of Caledonia. Dorothea lives with her father and her brother amid several step brothers and sisters. Dorothea's mother and other relatives are killed in an attack by the entity known as Hydra, a “metapsychic entity” that Fury uses as an assassin
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
. Hydra consists of four (formerly five) metapsychics who can mind-meld into a powerful vampiric metaconcert when not leading their normal lives. After this, Dorothea realises that she is a latent metapsychic — one with inherent potential but mental block
Mental block
A mental block is either a repression of painful thoughts, or an inability to continue a train of thought, like in the case of writer's block. A similar phenomenon occurs when one cannot solve a problem in mathematics which one would normally consider simple. In the case of writer's block, many...
s that prevent her using her powers, as opposed to the “operant” metapsychics. However, she starts to overcome her blocks and is able to use her mind to protect and heal herself. Meanwhile, Paul Remillard is preparing for Human entry into the Milieu and is in line to become the inaugural First Magnate
Magnate
Magnate, from the Late Latin magnas, a great man, itself from Latin magnus 'great', designates a noble or other man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or other qualities...
of the Concillium. When his rival's wife is killed after being shoved into a trash compactor in an apparent suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
disguising her murder by Hydra, a hold is put on Human entry into the Milieu for 1,000 Galactic Days. The Krondaku investigators suspect the Remillards to be involved.
Dorothea turns out to be another Paramount, with incredibly strong redactive powers and resistance to metapsychic probes and attacks. Young Marc Remillard is not able to probe her mind even when his powers are enhanced by the cerebroenergetic (CE) equipment that he has invented, although CE allows him to resist counterprobes. She even manages to slip into Denis's mind, but he quickly throws her out before she can find out much.
Dorothea and Jack have a role in saving an inhabited planet from a diatreme
Diatreme
A diatreme is a breccia-filled volcanic pipe that was formed by a gaseous explosion. Diatremes often breach the surface and produce a tuff cone, a filled relatively shallow crater known as a maar, or other volcanic pipes.- Word origin :...
eruption, using their paramount powers aided by CE. But her lower face is terribly deformed in this heroic act, so after this she always wears a diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
-studded half-mask, and acquires her nickname “Diamond Mask”.
Magnificat
By the third book in the series, Marc has matured into a highly capable metapsychic and is regarded as a Paramount. Through manipulated dreams, Marc conceives an idea called 'Mental Man' which would create a new subspecies of Man called Homo [sapiens] summus. It would use selective breedingSelective breeding
Selective breeding is the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Typically, strains that are selectively bred are domesticated, and the breeding is sometimes done by a professional breeder. Bred animals are known as breeds, while bred plants are known as varieties,...
, surgical modification, mental training (through induced pain) and technological enhancement to create hundreds of humans with the powers — and disembodiment — of Marc's younger brother Jack. This project has been kept highly secret for several years, but peers and competitors of Marc begin to get suspicious. He develops several increasingly powerful CE devices. These amplify a human's inherent metapsychic ability by orders of magnitude. The CE device is discussed in the debates of the Concilium, and is deemed too dangerous to be generally used. Marc disagrees, his research continues in secret although outlawed, and culminates in devices capable of 600x amplification. Marc's increasing ambition draws him to side with a rebel faction of the Concillium — those that do not wish to join 'Unity' with the other races and therefore with the Galactic Mind itself. The rebel faction determinedly opposes this as they believe humans will lose their individuality and privacy
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
and will become thralls to the other races.
By this time, only two out of the original five Hydra units remain, Parnell Remillard and Madeleine Remillard — Marc's cousin and sister (it is revealed that the Hydra heads were the unborn children present at the vigil around Victor, where Fury corrupted their infant minds). One wet night, Anne Remillard — a staunch loyalist and advocate of Unity — visits Rogi's bookshop. She has deduced that Denis is Fury. Rogi doubts this but when Anne is attacked and nearly killed, he realises that he must inform Jack and Dorothea of the identity of Fury. The only opportune moment seems their upcoming wedding.
After Rogi divulges the information on Fury/Denis to Jack and Dorothea, the Remillard dynasty assembles in order to 'exorcise' Denis. Denis is tricked into making himself vulnerable, and they attempt to remove the Fury element of his psyche. This goes disastrously wrong, and Denis/Fury vanishes. He is later realised to have "D-Jumped" — teleport
Teleportation
Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...
ed — a first for man and most aliens, although it is revealed in the Saga of the Pliocene Exile that the Shipspouses of Lene had this ability.
Marc, previously totally chaste, falls madly in love with Cyndia Muldowney, the daughter of Rory, an opponent of Paul's, and the two marry.
After several events, Denis manages to briefly gain control from his Fury persona, and communicates with Cyndia. He reveals that the Mental Man babies (which were created from Marc and Madeleine's sperm and eggs) have become hundreds of Hydra by Madeleine's influence. Denis D-Jumps inside the complex and destroys all the children. Marc is dumbstruck, yet finds a way to terminate the Hydra-infested project while retaining the possibility of a new start. He mind-lasers Madeleine, aided by the CE, and has her frozen so that her ovaries may be used.
Denis travels to Mt. Washington
Mount Washington (New Hampshire)
Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at , famous for dangerously erratic weather. For 76 years, a weather observatory on the summit held the record for the highest wind gust directly measured at the Earth's surface, , on the afternoon of April 12, 1934...
, where he has manipulated Rogi using metapsychic coercion to journey to the summit. Bad weather hits the mountain and Rogi is shepherded into a shack by his nephew. Denis persuades Rogi to kill him with his yogic technique, as he fears Fury will regain control. None of his children could manage that even though they have strong metapsychic powers, because children seem to have a block against using their powers to attack their parents. And as Denis regards Rogi as a father figure, he hopes that Fury cannot use his powers against Rogi. Rogi feebly manages to start the technique but cannot muster the power. However, Fury does regain control and tries to kill Rogi physically, since the mental block against using metapsychic powers against parent figures does indeed apply. This act of violence gives Rogi the necessary desperation to trigger his operancy, and he vaporises Denis, to his great grief.
Marc in the meantime, continues his quest for Mental Man, but realises that the Metapsychic rebellion is too near for Mental Man to be present to ensure victory. Cyndia discovers Marc's plans, is horrified, and decides to remove all available sources of the new Mental Man. She acquires a sonic apparatus that will render Marc sterile, and triggers it by a telepathic command. However, Marc detects this impulse, realises what the device has done, and kills Cyndia by reflex. He mourns more because of his sterility than the loss of the wife he once loved greatly.
Paul, father of Jack and Marc, is the leader of the Pro-Unity camp, and Jack decides to campaign against the rebels. As tension builds and several children start to co-adunate, the rebels' long-laid plans move into action. Marc has equipped hundreds of individuals with his CE devices, and his colleagues arm many ships. The rebels decide to demonstrate their power by destroying a planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
— Molakar: the Krondaku planet from which the intervention was staged. Billions die in several seconds as the joined minds of the Rebels superheat the crust
Crust (geology)
In geology, the crust is the outermost solid shell of a rocky planet or natural satellite, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle...
of the planet. A massive wave of metapsychic suffering and grief overwhelms the minds of the entire milieu. The response is not what Marc expects. Jack, Dorothea and his father, Paul, decide to confront him peacefully and will not let him take war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
to the galaxy. Marc decides to fight regardless, but the three pacifists call out to all the metapsychics in the galaxy to help join in Unity and stop the Rebels.
One of Marc's main allies, and later his mistress, is Patricia Castellane, the leader of the cosmopolitan planet Okanagon. During the attack, the rebels accidentally lose control of another explosive device and it explodes, setting off Okanagon's unstable crust. The resultant geological catastrophe kills the entire population of two billion people. Jack telepathically asks his once-idolized brother, "What have you done?!"
Jack and Dorothea manage to halt the rebel fleet, thanks to their ability to conjoin the powers of all the pro-Milieu operant humans. But these two and Paul die as a result. Many of the Rebels are also killed when their CEs overload, and Marc and a number of the leaders are badly hurt. The deaths of the people of Okanagon, however, propel humanity into the state of mental co-ordination (called "coadunation") which is the precursor to a benevolent joining of minds across the galaxy which the member races of the Milieu refer to as Unity.
After the rebel faction is defeated, their leaders flee through a unique one-directional gate in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
6 million years back in time, to the Pliocene
Pliocene
The Pliocene Epoch is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 2.588 million years before present. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch...
period. They were aided by a Lylmik who was powerful enough even to freeze Marc in his tracks, as he had done many years previously when Marc was a boy. There they stay in exile, and the events of the Saga of Pliocene Exile
Saga of Pliocene Exile
The Saga of Pliocene Exile is a series of science / speculative fiction books by Julian May, first published in the early 1980s...
take place. Marc Remillard survives all those years (thanks to his "immortality
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
", a trait shared by most members of the Remillard clan in differing degrees) and eventually evolves to the 3rd stage of mental evolution, where he brings purpose to the Lylmik to create the milieu. He thoroughly repents of his great evil, and becomes the enlightened leader of the same galactic society that starts the intervention, calling himself Atoning Unifex. Marc is evidently the Lylmik who appeared to his past self, and turns out to be the incorporeal
Incorporeal
Incorporeal or uncarnate means without the nature of a body or substance . The idea of incorporeality refers to the notion that there is an incorporeal realm of existence, or "place", that is distinct from the corporeal or material universe. Incorporeal beings or objects are not made out of matter...
"Family Ghost" who appears to Rogi for several years, driving him to finish his memoirs as a unique document of the Metapsychic rebellion. Marc, according to the family tree, passes on to the next stage of existence / evolution leaving Rogi to be healed and back in a relationship with Elaine. Some of the Lylmik have human bodies now as well and the future of what happens next is, as yet, unknown.