Nemesis (Asimov)
Encyclopedia
Nemesis is a science fiction
novel
by American writer Isaac Asimov
. One of his later science fiction novels, it was published in 1989, only three years before his death. The novel is loosely related to the future history
into which he attempted to integrate his science fiction output, connecting several ideas from earlier and later novels, including non-human intelligence, sentient planet
s (Erythro), and rotor engines (Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain
).
is in the process of being discovered and perfected. Before the novel's opening, "hyper-assistance", a technology allowing travel at a little slower than the speed of light, is used to move a reclusive space station
colony called Rotor from the vicinity of Earth to the newly discovered red dwarf, Nemesis. There, it takes up orbit
around the semi-habitable moon, Erythro, named for the red light that falls on it.
It is eventually discovered that the bacterial life on Erythro forms a collective organism that possesses a form of consciousness and telepathy
(a concept similar to the Gaia
of Asimov's Foundation
series). While the colonists argue over the direction of future colonization — down to Erythro, or up to the asteroid belt
s of Nemesis system — events catch up to them. Back on Earth superluminal flight is perfected, ending Rotor Colony's isolation and opening the galaxy to human exploration.
The story also relates the breakup and reunion of a family (the mother, the discoverer of Nemesis, and the daughter were separated from the Earthbound father when the colony departed; the father becomes part of the hyperjump research project as a result); the startling discovery that the bacteria
l inhabitants of Erythro, collectively, constitute a sentient
and telepathic organism
; and the discovery and resolution of a massive crisis: Nemesis' trajectory threatens to gravitationally destabilize the Solar System
.
about a star
named Nemesis
. At the time of the writing, the name Nemesis was given to a hypothetical companion to Earth's
Sun
that could provide a mechanism for periodic disturbances of comet
s in the Oort cloud
, which would then fall inwards causing mass extinctions. The red dwarf
star in the book turns out not to be this companion; it is simply passing through the Solar System.
Interestingly, the planetary system in the book included a Jovian planet
named Megas in a very short-period orbit about its primary star. (Erythro is a moon
of Megas.) This was a radical idea in 1989, but was vindicated with the discovery of the first extrasolar planet
orbiting a sun-like star (51 Pegasi
) in 1995, dubbed "Bellerophon". Furthermore, the first speculated "habitable" planet discovered, Gliese 581 c
, orbits a red dwarf star (Gliese 581
) located only 20.3 light years
from Earth — a notable similarity to the novel wherein Erythro is the first inhabited extra–solar body.
In the foreword of the novel, Asimov stated that Nemesis is not a part of the millieu that consists of the Foundation, Robot, or Empire series. He also stated that he may change his mind on the matter as nothing in the story appears to rule out or contradict any of the later stories. Some have suspected that the radiation from the star Nemesis may have been intended to be another possible reason for the radiation on Earth forcing emigration.
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...
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 American writer Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
. One of his later science fiction novels, it was published in 1989, only three years before his death. The novel is loosely related to the future history
Future history
A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors in the subgenre of speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction...
into which he attempted to integrate his science fiction output, connecting several ideas from earlier and later novels, including non-human intelligence, sentient 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,...
s (Erythro), and rotor engines (Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain
Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain
Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain is a 1987 science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov about a group of scientists that shrink to microscopic size in order to enter a human brain so that they can retrieve memories from a comatose colleague....
).
Plot summary
The novel is set in an era in which interstellar travelInterstellar travel
Interstellar space travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. The concept of interstellar travel in starships is a staple of science fiction. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary travel. Intergalactic travel, or travel between different galaxies, is even more...
is in the process of being discovered and perfected. Before the novel's opening, "hyper-assistance", a technology allowing travel at a little slower than the speed of light, is used to move a reclusive space station
Space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...
colony called Rotor from the vicinity of Earth to the newly discovered red dwarf, Nemesis. There, it takes up orbit
Orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
around the semi-habitable moon, Erythro, named for the red light that falls on it.
It is eventually discovered that the bacterial life on Erythro forms a collective organism that possesses a form of consciousness and 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...
(a concept similar to the Gaia
Gaia (Foundation universe)
Gaia is a fictional planet described in the book Foundation's Edge and referred to in Foundation and Earth , by Isaac Asimov. The name is derived from the Gaia hypothesis, which is itself eponymous to Gaia, the Earth Goddess....
of Asimov's Foundation
The Foundation Series
The Foundation Series is a science fiction series by Isaac Asimov. There are seven volumes in the Foundation Series proper, which in its in-universe chronological order are: Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, and...
series). While the colonists argue over the direction of future colonization — down to Erythro, or up to the asteroid belt
Asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets...
s of Nemesis system — events catch up to them. Back on Earth superluminal flight is perfected, ending Rotor Colony's isolation and opening the galaxy to human exploration.
The story also relates the breakup and reunion of a family (the mother, the discoverer of Nemesis, and the daughter were separated from the Earthbound father when the colony departed; the father becomes part of the hyperjump research project as a result); the startling discovery that the bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
l inhabitants of Erythro, collectively, constitute a sentient
Sentience
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
and telepathic organism
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
; and the discovery and resolution of a massive crisis: Nemesis' trajectory threatens to gravitationally destabilize the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
.
Story notes
The demands of the plot required Asimov to hypothesize a planetary systemPlanetary system
A planetary system consists of the various non-stellar objects orbiting a star such as planets, dwarf planets , asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and cosmic dust...
about a star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
named Nemesis
Nemesis (star)
Nemesis is a hypothetical hard-to-detect red dwarf star, white dwarf star or brown dwarf, originally postulated in 1984 to be orbiting the Sun at a distance of about 95,000 AU , somewhat beyond the Oort cloud, to explain a perceived cycle of mass extinctions in the geological record, which seem to...
. At the time of the writing, the name Nemesis was given to a hypothetical companion to Earth's
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...
Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
that could provide a mechanism for periodic disturbances of comet
Comet
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...
s in the Oort cloud
Oort cloud
The Oort cloud , or the Öpik–Oort cloud , is a hypothesized spherical cloud of comets which may lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year, from the Sun. This places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun...
, which would then fall inwards causing mass extinctions. The red dwarf
Red dwarf
According to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, a red dwarf star is a small and relatively cool star, of the main sequence, either late K or M spectral type....
star in the book turns out not to be this companion; it is simply passing through the Solar System.
Interestingly, the planetary system in the book included a Jovian 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,...
named Megas in a very short-period orbit about its primary star. (Erythro is a moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
of Megas.) This was a radical idea in 1989, but was vindicated with the discovery of the first extrasolar planet
Extrasolar planet
An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...
orbiting a sun-like star (51 Pegasi
51 Pegasi
51 Pegasi is a Sun-like star located 15.6 parsecs from Earth in the constellation Pegasus...
) in 1995, dubbed "Bellerophon". Furthermore, the first speculated "habitable" planet discovered, Gliese 581 c
Gliese 581 c
Gliese 581 c or Gl 581 c is a planet orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 581. It is the second planet discovered in the system and the third in order from the star. With a mass at least 5.6 times that of the Earth, it is classified as a super-Earth...
, orbits a red dwarf star (Gliese 581
Gliese 581
Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star with spectral type M3V, located 20.3 light years away from Earth in the constellation Libra. Its estimated mass is about a third of that of the Sun, and it is the 89th closest known star system to the Sun. Observations suggest that the star has at least six planets:...
) located only 20.3 light years
Light Years
Light Years is the seventh studio album by Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue. It was released on 25 September 2000 by Parlophone and Mushroom Records. The album's style was indicative of her return to "mainstream pop dance tunes"....
from Earth — a notable similarity to the novel wherein Erythro is the first inhabited extra–solar body.
In the foreword of the novel, Asimov stated that Nemesis is not a part of the millieu that consists of the Foundation, Robot, or Empire series. He also stated that he may change his mind on the matter as nothing in the story appears to rule out or contradict any of the later stories. Some have suspected that the radiation from the star Nemesis may have been intended to be another possible reason for the radiation on Earth forcing emigration.
Major characters
- Eugenia Insigna Fisher, of the Euro-dominated Rotor Colony, Astronomer for the Far Probe project. Discoverer of Nemesis
- Crile Fisher, a fetcher (technological espionage operative) for Earth
- Marlene Fisher, homely daughter of Crile and Eugenia
- Dr. Janus Pitt, Commissioner of Rotor, ethnically bigoted in favour of the Euros
- Siever Genarr, homely Erythro Dome Chief
- Ranay D'Aubisson, Chief Neurophysicist of the Erythro Dome
- Tessa Anita Wendel, of Adelia Colony, Chief Physicist in Superluminal Theory
- Kattimoro Tanayama, Director of Earth Intelligence
- Igor Koropatsky, Tanayama's successor after he dies
- Aurinel Pampas, attractive 17-year-old boy on whom Marlene has a crush