Quofum
Encyclopedia
Quofum is a science fiction
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....
written by Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster is an American author of fantasy and science fiction. He currently resides in Prescott, Arizona, with his wife, and is also known for his novelizations of film scripts...
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Plot
Sent by the Humanx CommonwealthHumanx Commonwealth
The Humanx Commonwealth is a fictional interstellar ethical/political entity featured in the science fiction novels of Alan Dean Foster. The Commonwealth takes its name from its two major sapient species, who jointly inhabit Commonwealth planets and administer both the political and...
Science Council , a team of explorers manage to find the planet Quofum—which only occasionally appears on long range scans. Since the planet is outside of the Commonwealth territory their mission is deemed minor and unimportant. The team’s four scientists—two human males, one human female and one male thranx—initially discover four separate, unique sentient species. Combined with Quofum’s nine percent alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
oceans, its unstable appearance is seemingly part of the nature of Quofum: every species on Quofum is seemingly unrelated—casting well-established scientific notions of 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...
into doubt.
When the team’s mechanic, Salvador Araza murders the ship’s captain—revealing himself to be a member of the assassin clan, the Qwarm—the scientific exploration nearly ends. Before stranding the scientists on Quofum, Araza kills one member of the team who tries to stop him from stealing the ship’s shuttle. Upon returning to the ship Araza leaves Quofum but quickly discovers he is not in any part of the known universe. Unknowingly he left the planet while it was in an alternate universe where it periodically hides. Upon realizing his mistake, Araza tries to re-locate Quofum, but fails—stranding himself in the alternate universe.
The three remaining scientists fall into a survivor’s depression realizing their small expedition won’t be missed while also lacking a means to return home on their own. They continue to explore and document Quofum’s flora and fauna, documenting upwards of ten different sentient species of various degrees of technological development. Eventually they happen upon an entrance to the inner workings of the planet. The ancient race (unnamed, but obviously the Xunca) that once inhabited Quofum altered their planet when they realized the inter-galactic Great Evil was eventually coming to their corner of the universe. The main alternation was to give Quofum the ability to shift to a different universe to protect itself. They also started multiple experiments to create different diverse races in an attempt to find a species that could trigger the "Great Attractor
Great Attractor
The Great Attractor is a gravity anomaly in intergalactic space within the range of the Centaurus Supercluster that reveals the existence of a localised concentration of mass equivalent to tens of thousands of Milky Ways, observable by its effect on the motion of galaxies and their associated...
device" they set up in the Norma cluster
Norma cluster
The Norma Cluster is a rich cluster of galaxies located near the center of the Great Attractor. Although it is both nearby and bright, it is difficult to observe because it is located in the Zone of Avoidance, a region near the plane of the Milky Way. Consequently, the cluster is severely...
to fight the Great Evil.
The solution to the problem, and the conclusion to the storyline is actually revealed in Flinx Transcendent
Flinx Transcendent
Flinx Transcendent is a science fiction novel by Alan Dean Foster. The book is the fourteenth chronologically in the Pip and Flinx series, and was released in April 2009...
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Continuity
Although supposedly starting in 555 A.A. in the Commonwealth timeline, and before the events to be revealed in Flinx TranscendentFlinx Transcendent
Flinx Transcendent is a science fiction novel by Alan Dean Foster. The book is the fourteenth chronologically in the Pip and Flinx series, and was released in April 2009...
, the actual amount of time spent by the scientists exploring inside Quofum is unclear. While implied that the trio spent years investigating the extent of Quofum’s mysterious inner workings, this would seemingly contradict the established Commonwealth timeline.