Introduction to Rama
I haven't been able to absorb a lot of fiction recently, especially in book form, and have never found science fiction books particularly enjoyable, but I stumbled upon an audio rendition of Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke, 1973) and found it a relaxing, yet compelling story. I first heard of this story from a video review of the video game Rama, which was apparently based on its sequel. As of now I am approximately at the halfway point, and writing this in case of plot shifts that might change my perspective on the book. I intend to write a follow-up when I finish, and I might go on to read the sequel, though it has a different primary author (Gentry Lee) and is less critically acclaimed.
The premise is that a little over a hundred years in the future, a spacefaring humanity detects and object passing through the solar system, which turns out to be an alien spacecraft. A ship is hurriedly sent to intercept it before it leaves, and its crew investigate as throughoughly and quickly as they can while maintaining safety standards. The story was written in a fairly nascent time for space travel, though after humans had landed on the moon, so Clarke makes a lot of extrapolations based on the current technology. One of the most interesting factors of the book for me was the series of assumptions he made about how a futuristic humanity would function.
To start with, he projects humanity across the solar system, living in concentrated coloniess yet still having independence from Earth, and forming a UN-like solar sytem council, of which Earth naturally dominates by dint of its currently much higher population. In particular, mention is made of Murcurians, conducting heavy industry on the most inhospitable planet, exporting solar energy from their position nearest the sun and also mining for rare minerals, all while somehow surviving under the most hostile imaginable conditions. The idea that we might be able to survive on other planets as anything more than heavily-supported research facilities, within only a hundred or so years, is one that definitely seemed plausible in the '70s based on our prior progress, but from our current standpoint is not likely to become feasible for several more decades at least.
Probably the most interesting prediction I found was the use of genetically altered monkeys in spacecraft to perform basic tasks, amusingly called Simps. These can apparently perform menial, repetitive actions without becoming bored (of which possibility I have my suspicions), and so are used to perform simple work to free up time for the more specialized human spacefarers. The idea that trained animals would be used for such tasks instead of robots seems now almost quaintly naïve, but of course this book predates the advent of the microprocessor which made micronization of computers possible, ultimately meaning that we could computerize literally every aspect of human life. For comparison, the original Star Trek, which aired a few years before Rama was published, supposed that computers would be powerful, but too large to move around, instead requiring relay communication.
By contrast, Rama features no evidence of computers at all, at least as far as the point I've read, and apparently supposes that humans spread through the solar system by sheer human brainpower alone. At one point, a physicist performs hasty calculations on Rama's weather patterns by himself, and is implied to have made all such calculations in this way, instead of employing a team of many thousands and billions of dollars of equipment, as one might expect to be the case if an alien spacecraft were found today. The implication is that people in this time have simply adapted to the complexities of interplanetary existence, and know how to adjust to adverse and novel conditions without computer assistance.
Which brings me to professionalism. The crew that provide most of the characters in the story are methodical and careful, taking every pausible precaution while advancing their exploration of the alien ship, aided by advice from a team of scientists in the interplanetary council. This is, of course, how astronauts work in reality, but it's refreshing to see them represented as such in fiction. The drama in this case stems from the mystery of what Rama is and why it was built, and the possibility of disaster befalling the crew that is not of their own making, because in an alien environment, anything can happen. For the crew to also be accident-prone would be silly and pad the plot in an uninteresting way. I understand that the sequels are less rigorous in this regard, though I don't know to what extent. A major part of me writing this at the halfway point in my read is that I anticipate some change in the plot, as the crew ventures into more dangerous territory and isn't simply picking their way across inexplicable, but apparently harmless, structures. Time will tell if this impression is correct.
The premise is that a little over a hundred years in the future, a spacefaring humanity detects and object passing through the solar system, which turns out to be an alien spacecraft. A ship is hurriedly sent to intercept it before it leaves, and its crew investigate as throughoughly and quickly as they can while maintaining safety standards. The story was written in a fairly nascent time for space travel, though after humans had landed on the moon, so Clarke makes a lot of extrapolations based on the current technology. One of the most interesting factors of the book for me was the series of assumptions he made about how a futuristic humanity would function.
To start with, he projects humanity across the solar system, living in concentrated coloniess yet still having independence from Earth, and forming a UN-like solar sytem council, of which Earth naturally dominates by dint of its currently much higher population. In particular, mention is made of Murcurians, conducting heavy industry on the most inhospitable planet, exporting solar energy from their position nearest the sun and also mining for rare minerals, all while somehow surviving under the most hostile imaginable conditions. The idea that we might be able to survive on other planets as anything more than heavily-supported research facilities, within only a hundred or so years, is one that definitely seemed plausible in the '70s based on our prior progress, but from our current standpoint is not likely to become feasible for several more decades at least.
Probably the most interesting prediction I found was the use of genetically altered monkeys in spacecraft to perform basic tasks, amusingly called Simps. These can apparently perform menial, repetitive actions without becoming bored (of which possibility I have my suspicions), and so are used to perform simple work to free up time for the more specialized human spacefarers. The idea that trained animals would be used for such tasks instead of robots seems now almost quaintly naïve, but of course this book predates the advent of the microprocessor which made micronization of computers possible, ultimately meaning that we could computerize literally every aspect of human life. For comparison, the original Star Trek, which aired a few years before Rama was published, supposed that computers would be powerful, but too large to move around, instead requiring relay communication.
By contrast, Rama features no evidence of computers at all, at least as far as the point I've read, and apparently supposes that humans spread through the solar system by sheer human brainpower alone. At one point, a physicist performs hasty calculations on Rama's weather patterns by himself, and is implied to have made all such calculations in this way, instead of employing a team of many thousands and billions of dollars of equipment, as one might expect to be the case if an alien spacecraft were found today. The implication is that people in this time have simply adapted to the complexities of interplanetary existence, and know how to adjust to adverse and novel conditions without computer assistance.
Which brings me to professionalism. The crew that provide most of the characters in the story are methodical and careful, taking every pausible precaution while advancing their exploration of the alien ship, aided by advice from a team of scientists in the interplanetary council. This is, of course, how astronauts work in reality, but it's refreshing to see them represented as such in fiction. The drama in this case stems from the mystery of what Rama is and why it was built, and the possibility of disaster befalling the crew that is not of their own making, because in an alien environment, anything can happen. For the crew to also be accident-prone would be silly and pad the plot in an uninteresting way. I understand that the sequels are less rigorous in this regard, though I don't know to what extent. A major part of me writing this at the halfway point in my read is that I anticipate some change in the plot, as the crew ventures into more dangerous territory and isn't simply picking their way across inexplicable, but apparently harmless, structures. Time will tell if this impression is correct.