Eden (novel)
Encyclopedia
Eden is a 1959 science fiction
novel
by Stanisław Lem. It was first published in English in 1989 (ISBN 0-15-127580-7).
The next day, setting out to find a source of water, the expedition begins to come into contact with the local civilization, and their strange, top-like vehicles. Eventually they come into conflict with a vehicle's driver, who is a doubler. Killing the pilot and fleeing in his vehicle, they return to the ship and prepare defenses. After an attack never comes, they assemble their jeep and half the team sets out to explore further, the other half remaining behind to repair the ship.
The jeep team eventually discovers structures resembling graves and hundreds of preserved skeletons, and adjacent to it, a settlement. Two expedition members exploring the settlement become caught in a stampede of Doublers, who seem totally indifferent to the presence of these aliens. One doubler however, comes to the jeep and refuses to return to the settlement, and is brought back to the ship. While the expedition explored the settlement, a large group of doubler vehicles had reconnoitered the crash site and then fled.
After some studies with their resident doubler and an expedition to gather water, the crew learns that the local civilization is planning to act against them. Shortly thereafter the area around the ship is bombarded for several hours, although no direct attempts are made to damage the vessel. Eventually a wall of glass begins to assemble from the blast craters, showing evidence of a highly advanced Doubler nanotechnology. The glass eventually assembles into a dome, an attempt to isolate the ship.
The doubler that has joined the group proves to be uncommunicative, leading some of the crew to suggest that it is retarded or has some sort of mental deficiency
. The crew also begins to postulate that the "naked" doublers they have seen are the victims of genocide. Choosing to explore further the crew activates "Defender", a large tank or mech which they have managed to repair. Blasting through the glass dome they travel far to the southwest, observing from a distance, for the first time, everyday doubler life.
Returning to the ship in the night, the crew encounters a group of doublers being gassed to death, and act in self defense
with their antimatter weapons, killing an indeterminate number of both "naked" and "soldier" doublers. When the defender team returns to the ship, they find that most of the glass wall has repaired itself, and blast another hole. Returning to the ship until the radioactivity dies down, the expedition plans its next move. In the middle of the meeting a dressed doubler suddenly enters, and the crew makes contact, discovering the doubler to have knowledge of astronomy.
The first contact however, is soon turned into a bitter victory, as the crew learns that this doubler has unwittingly exposed himself to radiation by entering the hole made by Defender. Informing the doubler of his impending death, both parties struggle to learn as much as they can. Through a developed computer translator, the crew and the doubler can speak to one another and begin to gain an understanding of the other's species.
An indistinct image emerges of doublers' Orwellian
information-controlled civilization that is almost self regulating, with a special kind of system of government
created with the use of a fictitious science Lem dubs Procrustics
(cf. memetics
): a dictatorship that denies its own existence and is thus impossible to destroy, a discipline of molding groups within a society and ultimately a society as a whole to behave as designed by secretive hidden rulers, in order to create a hideous form of social control
in which the very existence of the governing powers is denied and each individual appears to themselves to be free yet is being manipulated and controlled (achieved, for one thing, through a controlled dissemination of different information to different social strata - as revealed by the astronomer doubler). One example described in the novel is the above mentioned settlement, kind of a "concentration camp" without any guards which is designed so that the prisoners stay inside apparently of their own "free" will.
Although the doublers know almost nothing of nuclear science
, they once conducted a massive genetic experiment to enhance the species. This attempt failed miserably, resulting in deformed doublers who, if they survive, are often driven to the fringes of society. Much like the government, the very existence of this experiment, and the factories created for it, are denied, and anyone with the knowledge of them is eliminated. The doubler explains that the information disseminated to the higher echelons of Doubler society was that humans, having been subjected to the effects of cosmic ray
s throughout their space journey, were the mutant monsters that were being quarantined, but he had seen it as a once in a lifetime opportunity and chose to pursue it, a choice the humans greatly empathize with.
Finally the ship is repaired and the crew is ready to leave Eden. The astronomer doubler, although recovering fully from his radiation exposure
, decides to stay behind, and as the star ship
takes off, much to the crew's sadness, the two doublers stand by the ship's exhaust, choosing to die rather than return to their oppressive society.
The planet is seen from the distance once again, a beautiful violet sphere, whose beauty, they now recall, was the very reason they crashed, while attempting too close a fly-by and hitting the atmosphere by mistake. It was because of its beauty that they called it, when first seeing it, Eden.
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 Stanisław Lem. It was first published in English in 1989 (ISBN 0-15-127580-7).
Plot
A starship crew – a captain, a doctor, an engineer and a chemist, a physicist and a cyberneticist (robot technician) – crash land for an unknown reason on an alien world they call Eden. After escaping their wrecked ship they set out to explore the planet, first traveling through an unsettling wilderness and coming upon an abandoned automated factory. There they find a constant cycle of materials being produced and then destroyed and recycled. Perplexed, they return to their ship. At the crash site they find a local creature has entered their vessel. They name these large creatures, with small torsos retractable into their large bodies, Doublers (from "double-bodied").The next day, setting out to find a source of water, the expedition begins to come into contact with the local civilization, and their strange, top-like vehicles. Eventually they come into conflict with a vehicle's driver, who is a doubler. Killing the pilot and fleeing in his vehicle, they return to the ship and prepare defenses. After an attack never comes, they assemble their jeep and half the team sets out to explore further, the other half remaining behind to repair the ship.
The jeep team eventually discovers structures resembling graves and hundreds of preserved skeletons, and adjacent to it, a settlement. Two expedition members exploring the settlement become caught in a stampede of Doublers, who seem totally indifferent to the presence of these aliens. One doubler however, comes to the jeep and refuses to return to the settlement, and is brought back to the ship. While the expedition explored the settlement, a large group of doubler vehicles had reconnoitered the crash site and then fled.
After some studies with their resident doubler and an expedition to gather water, the crew learns that the local civilization is planning to act against them. Shortly thereafter the area around the ship is bombarded for several hours, although no direct attempts are made to damage the vessel. Eventually a wall of glass begins to assemble from the blast craters, showing evidence of a highly advanced Doubler nanotechnology. The glass eventually assembles into a dome, an attempt to isolate the ship.
The doubler that has joined the group proves to be uncommunicative, leading some of the crew to suggest that it is retarded or has some sort of mental deficiency
Mental retardation
Mental retardation is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors...
. The crew also begins to postulate that the "naked" doublers they have seen are the victims of genocide. Choosing to explore further the crew activates "Defender", a large tank or mech which they have managed to repair. Blasting through the glass dome they travel far to the southwest, observing from a distance, for the first time, everyday doubler life.
Returning to the ship in the night, the crew encounters a group of doublers being gassed to death, and act in self defense
Self-defense
Self-defense, self-defence or private defense is a countermeasure that involves defending oneself, one's property or the well-being of another from physical harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force in times of danger is available in many...
with their antimatter weapons, killing an indeterminate number of both "naked" and "soldier" doublers. When the defender team returns to the ship, they find that most of the glass wall has repaired itself, and blast another hole. Returning to the ship until the radioactivity dies down, the expedition plans its next move. In the middle of the meeting a dressed doubler suddenly enters, and the crew makes contact, discovering the doubler to have knowledge of astronomy.
The first contact however, is soon turned into a bitter victory, as the crew learns that this doubler has unwittingly exposed himself to radiation by entering the hole made by Defender. Informing the doubler of his impending death, both parties struggle to learn as much as they can. Through a developed computer translator, the crew and the doubler can speak to one another and begin to gain an understanding of the other's species.
An indistinct image emerges of doublers' Orwellian
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
information-controlled civilization that is almost self regulating, with a special kind of system of government
Form of government
A form of government, or form of state governance, refers to the set of political institutions by which a government of a state is organized. Synonyms include "regime type" and "system of government".-Empirical and conceptual problems:...
created with the use of a fictitious science Lem dubs Procrustics
Procrustes
In Greek mythology Procrustes or "the stretcher [who hammers out the metal]", also known as Prokoptas or Damastes "subduer", was a rogue smith and bandit from Attica who physically attacked people by stretching them or cutting off their legs, so as to force them to fit the size of an iron bed...
(cf. memetics
Memetics
Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is essentially a "unit of...
): a dictatorship that denies its own existence and is thus impossible to destroy, a discipline of molding groups within a society and ultimately a society as a whole to behave as designed by secretive hidden rulers, in order to create a hideous form of social control
Social control
Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control...
in which the very existence of the governing powers is denied and each individual appears to themselves to be free yet is being manipulated and controlled (achieved, for one thing, through a controlled dissemination of different information to different social strata - as revealed by the astronomer doubler). One example described in the novel is the above mentioned settlement, kind of a "concentration camp" without any guards which is designed so that the prisoners stay inside apparently of their own "free" will.
Although the doublers know almost nothing of nuclear science
Atomic nucleus
The nucleus is the very dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom. It was discovered in 1911, as a result of Ernest Rutherford's interpretation of the famous 1909 Rutherford experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Rutherford. The...
, they once conducted a massive genetic experiment to enhance the species. This attempt failed miserably, resulting in deformed doublers who, if they survive, are often driven to the fringes of society. Much like the government, the very existence of this experiment, and the factories created for it, are denied, and anyone with the knowledge of them is eliminated. The doubler explains that the information disseminated to the higher echelons of Doubler society was that humans, having been subjected to the effects of cosmic ray
Cosmic ray
Cosmic rays are energetic charged subatomic particles, originating from outer space. They may produce secondary particles that penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and surface. The term ray is historical as cosmic rays were thought to be electromagnetic radiation...
s throughout their space journey, were the mutant monsters that were being quarantined, but he had seen it as a once in a lifetime opportunity and chose to pursue it, a choice the humans greatly empathize with.
Finally the ship is repaired and the crew is ready to leave Eden. The astronomer doubler, although recovering fully from his radiation exposure
Radioactive contamination
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological contamination, is radioactive substances on surfaces, or within solids, liquids or gases , where their presence is unintended or undesirable, or the process giving rise to their presence in such places...
, decides to stay behind, and as the star ship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
takes off, much to the crew's sadness, the two doublers stand by the ship's exhaust, choosing to die rather than return to their oppressive society.
The planet is seen from the distance once again, a beautiful violet sphere, whose beauty, they now recall, was the very reason they crashed, while attempting too close a fly-by and hitting the atmosphere by mistake. It was because of its beauty that they called it, when first seeing it, Eden.