"Encounter in the Dawn" is a short story by British author Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1953 in the magazine ''

Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearance ...

''. It is part of the short story collection ''

Expedition to Earth ''Expedition to Earth'' () is a collection of science fiction short story, short stories by English writer Arthur C. Clarke, Arthur C. Clarke. There are at least two variants of this book's table of contents, in different editions of the boo ...

''. Its plot and ideas influenced the development of the 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' and its corresponding novel.

Title

The story has appeared under several titles. In his 1972 book ''

The Lost Worlds of 2001 ''The Lost Worlds of 2001'' is a 1972 book by English writer Arthur C. Clarke, published as an accompaniment to the novel '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''. The book consists in part of behind-the-scenes notes from Clarke concerning scriptwriting (and ...

'', Clarke noted that:

Plot

Three scientists, Altman, Bertrond, and Clindar, are crewing a spaceship on a survey of the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

. They come across a planet that is very similar to their own homeworld, and is inhabited by a species of intelligent but primitive

humanoid A humanoid (; from English ''human'' and '' -oid'' "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of ...

s. Life of this type is rare, so the three men make contact with one of planet's inhabitants, a hunter named Yaan. Yaan does not understand his visitors' language or technology (which includes an advanced

robot A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...

) and he regards them as

gods A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...

of some kind. Bertrond hopes to lift Yaan's people out of their "barbarism", and begins to introduce Yaan to new technology and knowledge. However, the civilisation that the scientists come from is collapsing, for unclear reasons relating to "mistakes" and the death of stars. Altman and Clindar insist that they all abandon the expedition and return to their homeworld. As a result, Yaan's people will be left to develop alone, which could take them millions of years. Before departure, the melancholy Bertrond speaks to Yaan about the irony and tragedy of their encounter, though Yaan still cannot understand him. Bertrond gives Yaan several gifts, including a sharp blade and a powered torch. Then he boards the spaceship, which takes off and vanishes into the night sky. Yaan realizes that the "gods" are gone forever, and wanders back to his village. The story ends with saying that "more than a thousand centuries ahead, Yaan's descendants would build the great city they were to call

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

", revealing that Yaan's people are prehistoric humans and their planet, the setting of the story, is

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

References

External links

* *
Encounter in the Dawn
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

{{Spaceodyssey 1953 short stories History of science fiction Short stories by Arthur C. Clarke Space Odyssey Works originally published in Amazing Stories

Title

Plot

See also

References

External links