the Fauna of space (original title: in The Voyage off the Space Beagle ) is a Romance of Science-fiction of A.E. van Vogt (Canada) published in 1950.

Argument

During a long tour in space, the crew of the vessel the Fretterer meets various forms of intelligence Extra-terrestre S which expose them to many dangers. One of the team members, follower of a new science called the “Nexialisme”, will try to prove with its being wary fellow-members to which point this new discipline can contribute to solve complex problems.

Presentation of work

The novel is a collection of four news published in the origin in Astounding Stories between 1939 and 1950, then gathered in only one volume. The four news which composes the novel is:

• in Black Destroyer (1939, chapters 1 to 6);
• in Discord in Scarlet (1939, chapters 13 to 21);
• in M33 in Andromeda (1943, chapters 22 to 28);
• in War off Nerves (1950, chapters 7 to 12).

Each news tells an adventure distinct from the voyage of the spacecraft the Fretterer ( in Space Beagle in English) in the galaxy, but a series of references and recalls from one news to another guarantee the relative coherence of the unit.

Kind

the Fauna of space is a novel of Science-fiction which falls under the sub-genus of the Space operated or of the Planet operated. The four meetings of the land spacecraft with extraterrestrial intelligences proceed either in space, or on exoplanètes.

The idea to put in scene a mission of exploration which leads to discovered extraterrestrial creatures was initiated by John W. Campbell - under the pseudonym of Gift A. Stuart - in a news published in 1938 and entitled the Animal of another world (original title: in Who Goes There? ), several times carried to the cinema.

Style

In three of the news which composes the novel, A.E. van Vogt makes alternate the points of view so as to describe the events either from the point of view of the crew of the vessel, or from the point of view of the extraterrestrial one. This inversion of narrative prospect instigates the action and often makes it possible to the reader to better include/understand the motivations of the aliens that the protagonists account.

Throughout the novel, the narrative engine of the intrigue is basically conflict. A.E. van Vogt describes the internal conflicts with human forwarding and the external conflicts which had with meetings with the extraterrestrial ones. The first are political conflicts (conflicts of interests and supremacy within the crew), the seconds are biological conflicts (survival of the species).

At the end of many chapters of the novel, the author uses traditional techniques of narrative revival which maintains the dramatic suspense and supports the attention of the reader of chapter in chapter. In a typical way, A.E. van Vogt uses conclusive formulas of the type: It is at this time that the thing arrived. .

Complete summary

Main characters

The main characters are classified in the alphabetical order of the patronyms.

• Breckenridge , metallurgist;

• Dack , assistant-chief of the section geology;
• Carl Dennison , chemist;
• Doctor Eggert , surgeon;
• Fander , male nurse;
• John Foran , secretary of Gregory Kent;
• Gourley , chief of the communications;
• Elliott Grosvenor , nexialist;
• Hindley , physicist;
• Doctor Jarvey , chemist;
• Gregory Kent , section head of the chemists of the vessel;
• Kellie , sociologist;
• Korita , Japanese archeologist;
• Captain Leeth , soldier, officer of edge;
• Gunlie To ballast , section head of the astronomers;
• Lomas , physicist;
• Donald Mc Edge , section head of geology;
• Meader , chief of the sub-section of botany;
• Hall Morton , chief of forwarding, section head of mathematics;
• Pennons , mechanic as a chief;
• Selenski , pilot of the spacecraft;
• Siedel , psychologist;
• Smith , biologist;
• von Grossen , chief of the physicists of the edge;
• Yemens , chemist;
• Zeller , metallurgist.

Extraterrestrial species of the novel

The extraterrestrial species of the novel are classified by order of appearance during the account:

• Zorl (in English: in Cœurl ), Cat-like equipped with prehensile tentacles on the level of the neck; it can live several centuries and nourishes only id , i.e. of vital energy related to the presence of Potassium in the alive bodies. Its muscular force is very large, just like its intelligence. The vibratile hairs of its ears are used to him to control energy, to emit and receive vibrations over the entire length possible of wave;

• Riim , beings graciles vêtus of coloured tunics, equipped with a body strewn with feathers. Avian race become unable to fly, but gifted of Telepathy. Riims reproduce in an autonomous way by Parthénogenèse. They live at the civilisationnelle era of the stone and of wood and never knew the Mécanisation. Their intelligence is collective and each individual brain is melted in a kind of “neurological unit” collective;

• Ixtl (in English: in Xtl ), dreadful being of color bright red, equipped with four legs and four arms finished by eight fingers. Its cylindrical body is quasi immortal and it controls the molecular structure completely of it. The race of Ixtls forced its biomolecular evolution until being able to resist energy loads of very strong power. To reproduce, Ixtl needs guuls , i.e. alive hosts in whom it deposits its eggs. The eggs need only a few hours to hatch and are nourished then of their alive host;

• Anabis , intelligent entity resulting from a dynamic gas combination. Composed of billion animated particles, it is in perpetual expansion under the effect of the rays Ultra-violet S of the star S, and nourishes electrical nervous energy of dying animals.

Synthesis of the four parts

; Chapters 1 to 6

When the Fretterer lands on a devastated planet, the team members are observed by a famished zorl. It forges the project to seize the vessel and to discover the planet of the human ones, which it thinks of being mouthful of food.

Once unloaded, the men survey the vestiges of an old extraterrestrial civilization and discover zorl. Later, in spite of the unexplained death of the one of their fellow-member, found bloodless and shredded in the city in ruins, they decide to encourage it to go up on board to study it. The animal prudently goes up the approach ramp of the vessel and adapts to its oxygenated atmosphere, with the great astonishment of the crew.

On board vessel, the conflict incipient between Gregory Kent, the ambitious section head of the chemists, and Hall Morton, the commander of forwarding, leads the chemist to take imprudent personal initiatives. An experiment aiming at nourishing the animal turns badly, Kent attacks Zorl, but its paralyzing ray appears ineffective. The crew starts to take fear and Morton makes lock up the zorl in a reinforced cage.

But during the sleep of the crew, the zorl activates all remotely the electric Vérin S of its cage and massacres several team members in their cabins before returning in its cage, right before the passage of the sentinels. The crew makes the decision then to eliminate the zorl, but notes with fear that it is escaped of its cage reinforced by making a gigantic hole there, in spite of the thickness of metal. The monster is then located in the engine room, whereas it starts to take possession of the spacecraft. After some disastrous attempts to make leave the monster by an energy combination of field and dangerous artificial gravitation for the life aboard the spacecraft itself, Elliott Grosvenor ends up convincing his/her colleagues to use the nexialism to find the final solution with the problem.

It shows that the zorl is the result of scientific experiments carried out on animals by the builders of the old civilization of his planet of origin and proposes that instead of capturing it to study it by endangering the crew, one lets it voluntarily escape from the vessel to then destroy it in space. The zorl is brought by trick in a small shuttle which it uses to leave the vessel. Some time later, he realizes of his error and is disintegrated by the guns of the Fureteur .

; Chapters 7 to 12

Elliott Grosvenor, the nexialist of the edge, prepares a briefing to present its new discipline to the other members of the crew, but realizes soon that a political meeting is organized at the same time by the section head of the chemists, Gregory Kent. This one wishes to be elected chief of forwarding in the place of Hall Morton.

The tensions start to be felt on board vessel and the lobby of the chemists mixes briskly promises and Intimidation. Questioned by a chemist, Grosvenor declares that he will vote against Kent. The meeting of the nexialist meets little success and the following day, its office is occupied by members of the section chemistry. But Grosvenor turns the situation to its advantage and initiates the intruders with his new discipline thanks to a microphone-transmitter placed in the ear.

While the nexialist seeks to solve his conflict problem with Kent, a strange event occurs. Hypnotic halluciations which resemble silhouettes of capped women of hats with feather plunge the team members of the vessel and release the hatred of their Inconscient. Chaos seizes then the vessel, certain men of crew are plunged in the coma, while others clash with the laser gun.

Only Grosvenor and Korita, the historian, succeed in escaping their influence and realize change of trajectory of the spacecraft. To avoid a catastrophe, Grosvenor decides to communicate with the source of the hypnotic illusions: being-birds living a close planet. It opens its spirit to them and is found by Télépathie in the body of a Riim , on planet.

The nexialist includes/understands whereas Riims do not have bad intentions and simply wish to communicate with the men. Grosvenor succeeds in rendering comprehensible to them the danger which they represent for the men and their spacecraft, leaves its state of hypnosis, then modifies the trajectory of the vessel. During the sharp debate which follows, the nexialist succeeds in convincing his colleagues not to destroy the civilization of Riims.

; Chapters 13 to 21

With end of force, Ixtl wanders in space in the search of guul . When it detects the presence of the Fureteur , it absorbs great quantities of energy and takes again forces of them. The rocket stops in space, broken down, and deploys a broad protective shield for the team members left to repair the engines. At this point in time the monster is discovered and the persons in charge decide to put it out of cage.

After a sharp debate on the potential danger which the extraterrestrial one for the crew and the mission represents, the cage is brought closer to the apparatus, but the extraterrestrial master key through a wall and penetrates in the spacecraft. A general meeting is organized in urgency and all the crew agrees that it must be eliminated.

When they located it, the soldiers attack, but Ixtl crosses the partitions and seizes a guard. By studying its anatomy, Ixtl kills the soldier inadvertently, but understands that the stomach and the intestines of human will serve its projects. The men will be its guuls .

Little by little, Ixtl removes the guuls of which it needs and stores them in the flexible ventilation ducts of the hold of the vessel. The physicist von Grossen account with the number of the victims because he guessed the weak point of the alien: its incapacity to imitate the molecular structure of the metal Alloy which constitutes the external envelope of the vessel and which protects the engine room.

Two plans of attack clash then, that of the physicists (to bring the monster on the eighth floor, énergiser the levels seven and nine of the rocket, énergiser partitions and floors to weaken it and kill it with calorific projectors) and that of Elliott Grosvenor (to form several groups, to equip them each one of an atomic disintegrator, poster of the men disarmed like soft foods and to wait).

Finally, Morton, the chief of forwarding, proposes a compromise which combines the two plans. During this time, Ixtl plunges its arm in its chest, out of spring an egg and then places it in the stomach of the one of its still alive victims.

After the failure of the two foregrounds, Elliott Grosvenor proposes a new solution with the crew. After having found the victims of Ixtl in the hold, all the crew leaves the vessel. Ixtl includes/understands whereas the entire spacecraft will be highly energized and will be its tomb. There leaves précipitemment the vessel by a hopper remained opened and is found in space. Some time later, the men reinvest the vessel and reactivate the energy shield. On board, the chirugien extracts eggs from the stomachs of the victims of the monster which are restored soon.

; Chapters 22 to 28

With the approach of the large M33 galaxy of Andromède, the Fureteur undergoes a cerebral wave train which suggests with the team members on their premises returning. Kent, elected official new chief of forwarding for several months, has organized a crisis meeting and concludes that the spacecraft entered on the territory of an intelligence of an amazing power.

During the meeting, following a new wave of cerebral waves, strange monsters appear at the bottom of the room and create chaos in the spacecraft. The battle makes rage, Kent and Grosvenor has a dispute which degenerates, but the monsters are finally eliminated.

In front of the capacity to be it unknown which attacks the spacecraft, the nexialist Grosvenor proposes to destroy all that could lead an extraterrestrial intelligence to the Earth and increase its power: charts and material. The Prying visit various planets in the search of a advanced civilization and is posed on a planet-jungle which seems be to have left its orbit artificially.

The geologists of the edge discover with amazement that the original planet, which reveals with a certain depth of the traces of an old civilization, was entirely covered with rock, ground and water to make a planet primitive Jungle of it. Elliott Grosvenor, which starts to include/understand what occurs in the M33 galaxy, prepares its plan. He asks Kent to order a meeting and injects chemicals in order to simulate a Grippe and to force Kent to come to visit him personally. Refusing to make its recommendations such as Kent requires it, a violent argument follows. Overcome, Kent is inclined.

During the meeting, the scientists announce their discovery on the dust of space at this place of the galaxy, denser than elsewhere. Grosvenor then indicates its plan to his/her colleagues: to remove the sources of food of the enemy entity, to force it to leave this galaxy and to follow the Prying in a place which does not present any danger to humanity.

But the plan of the nexialist implies an extension by five years of the voyage of the spacecraft in the space, which refuses the members of the crew. Grosvenor poses a Ultimatum then: if its plan is not accepted, it will take, only, the direction of the operations on board.

The nexialist pushes back the attacks of his colleagues, plunges all the crew in a deep hypnotic sleep to modify the opinion of each one. After their alarm clock, Grosvenor requests of Kent a new meeting and withdraws its ultimatum. All his/her colleagues accept his plan and instead of being stopped for insubordination, Grosvenor is charged to initiate all the crew with the principles of the nexialism.

Comments

Darwin and the combat for the life

The name of the spaceship of the Fauna of space , in original language in Space Beagle , refers directly to the HMS Beagle , the ship which carried the naturalist Charles Darwin in forwarding at the XIXe century. It is during the voyage of the Beagle that Darwin establishes the bases of his Théorie of the evolution. A.E. van Vogt makes directly allusion to Charles Darwin, because he imagines with the wire of his four news various extraterrestrial species which followed a specific evolution, guarantees of their survival under often extreme conditions. These intelligent species developed physical, molecular or psychic capacities out of the commun run and consequently represent a great danger to the human crew of the Fureteur . Confronted with these dangerous creatures, the team members of the spacecraft are constrained to develop original strategies of survival, helped by a new science, the “nexialism”, which seems itself a new stage of the evolution of the human intelligence.

The various entities met in space present various typologies of survival:

• Zorl : survival of the individual, seeks of a sufficient resource of food;
• Ixtl : survival of the species, seeks of an alive resource to deposit its eggs there;
• Anabis : survival of an individual in perpetual expansion which needs toujous more food and vital space.

The particular case of Riims

Parts I, III and IV of the novel follow a narrative diagram about equivalent;

The second part of the novel is on the other hand very different. Riims, these avian beings organized in company, are not subjected to a strategy of survival, but express their will to communicate with other intelligences. The element release of the narration will be the danger which represents for human form of communication by hypnosis used by these being-birds. This episode allows A.E. van Vogt to question the concept of Civilization. The author leaves the open-ended question, being satisfied to oppose two different designs: that which regard the social organization as sufficient civilisationnel criterion (Elliott Grosvenor) and that which waits of a civilization of the advanced technical realizations (Gregory Kent).

Nexialism

At the time of a conference given by the character of Elliott Grosvenor, A.E. van Vogt presents the nexialism as follows: The nexialism is a science the purpose of which is to coordinate the elements of a field of knowledge with those of the other fields. It offers means of accelerating the process of absorption of knowledge and of using effectively what was learned. The nexialism is a science which aims at the integration of all the branches of knowledge against the bulk-heading in specific fields. The nexialism is thus close to the Holisme or a systemic Approche of knowledge.

The method nexialist associative and is called upon “tables of probabilities”. It uses various cognitive mechanisms associated with last research on the conditioned reflexes with Pavlov and with the subliminal suggestion. The training itself is done under hypnosis thanks to a “hypnogenerator” who projects “tachistoscopic” films.

As affirmed it Jacques Sadoul in his Modern history of the science fiction : This new science invented by A.E. van Vogt (of Latin nexus , takes part last of nectere , to bind, from where the idea of a science crossroads where all the others meet) is the genuine heroin of the novel.

Theory of the cyclic History

A.E. van Vogt presents the History as a cyclic process which sees being born, to grow, to culminate then to disappear civilizations. The author borrows this idea from the German Philosophe Oswald Spengler (1880 - 1936), a theory developed in the Decline of the Occident appeared between 1918 and 1922. Spengler applied to the world History a biological paradigm which made various historical civilizations of the living organisms and one limited lifespan lent to them. The concept of Fellah , that A.E. van Vogt uses on several occasions in its novel, is a direct quotation of the Déclin of the Occident and indicates at Oswald Spengler the character of a population arrived at the ultimate stage of civilization, right before its collapse. This term indicates a primitive become again population and totalment incompetent to evolve/move.

In the narrative economy of the novel, the cyclic History plays a part of very first order at the sides of the nexialism. If Van Vogt always confronts its human characters with extraterrestrial creatures much more advanced than them from the physical and psychic point of view, they are on the other hand always fellahs with the direction spenglerien of the term. This primitive state then prevents the extraterrestrial creatures from using their capacities with a perfect effectiveness and the conduit always to underestimate the advantages of a community organized on a isolated individual.

Van Vogt does not save either the human society which, if it did not crumble yet, also arrived at its “winter civilisationnel”.

Company and individual

Throughout the novel, A.E. van Vogt likes to underline the superiority of the social organization and the co-operation within a community on simple the Individualisme or egotism - that it is a question of fighting dangerous creatures or of behaving in company aboard spacecraft.

Artistic posterity

One of the monsters of the book, Zorl, which has parapsychologic Tentacule S and faculties , is included in the Anime Japanese Dirty Pair under the name of Mugi or Mughi.

Another monster of the novel, Ixtl, gathers many characteristics of the monster put in scene by Ridley Scott in its film Alien - the eighth passenger . Besides A.E. van Vogt brought a lawsuit with major de Hollywood who produced film and obtained win.

This novel also influenced the universe of Star Trek.

Traditional of the science fiction

This novel is regarded as a great classic of the Science-fiction in the following reference books:

• Annick Beguin, 100 principal titles of the science fiction , Cosmos 2000,1981;

• Lorris Murail, the Masters of the science fiction , Bordered, coll “Compact”, 1993;
• Stan Barets, science-fictionnaire , Denoël, coll “Presence of the future”, 1994;
• ideal Library of the webzine cosmic Cockroach.

French editions

the Fauna of space of A.E. van Vogt, translated from American by Jean Rosenthal, knew various French editions:

• Hatchet and Gallimard, coll “the fantastic Ray”, 1952;

• in With the continuation of Slans/the Fauna of space , CHOSE, coll “Club of the book of anticipation”, n°14, 1968;
• I have Lu, n° 392,1971, coll “Science fiction” (republished into 1972,1973,1976,1977,1979,1981,1993,2003);

Quotations

The numbers of page of the quotations which follow refer to the edition I have Lu (2003).

• “ …] Is our civilization at this point based on the reason which we are able to look at even a murderer with sympathy? , chap. 3, p. 32;

• How could one influence a spirit? By changing its postulates. How could one modify a behavior? By tackling the fundamental beliefs, the certainty. , chap. 12, p. 143;

• Any organized company can dominate a community of peasants, because the peasants never carry out anything more than one very loose union against the foreigner. , chap. 17, p. 186;

• It is not impossible that we still meet, during our voyages, other intelligent creatures, much worthier than the man to direct the universe. , chap. 21, p. 233;

• Personally, my morals is that one must be useful for greatest number the, with the proviso of not exterminating, of torturing or of depriving of their rights the individuals who would not conform to this principle. The company must learn how to safeguard the patient and the ignoramus. , chap. 27, p. 299.

Random links:

Large géocoucou | Castaneda | BB 36200-300 | Roswell, the Mystery (telefilm, 1994) | Wiet