Tine (race)

''A Fire Upon the Deep'' is a 1992 science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge. It is a space opera involving superhuman intelligences, aliens, variable physics, space battles, love, betrayal, genocide, and a communication medium resembling Usenet. ''A Fire Upon the Deep'' won the Hugo Award in 1993, sharing it with ''Doomsday Book'' by Connie Willis.

Besides the normal print book editions, the novel was also included on a CD-ROM sold by ClariNet Communications along with the other nominees for the 1993 Hugo awards. The CD-ROM edition included numerous annotations by Vinge on his thoughts and intentions about different parts of the book, and was later released as a standalone e-book. It has a loose prequel, ''A Deepness in the Sky'', from 1999, and a direct sequel, ''The Children of the Sky'', from 2012.

Setting

The novel is set in various locations in the Milky Way. The galaxy is divided into four concentric volumes called the "Zones of Thought"; it is not clear to the novel's characters whether this is a natural phenomenon or an artificially produced one, but it seems to roughly correspond with galactic-scale stellar density and a Beyond region is mentioned in the Sculptor Galaxy as well. The Zones reflect fundamental differences in basic physical laws, and one of the main consequences is their effect on intelligence, both biological and artificial. Artificial intelligence and automation is most directly affected, in that advanced hardware and software from the Beyond or the Transcend will work less and less well as a ship "descends" towards the Unthinking Depths. But even biological intelligence is affected to a lesser degree. The four zones are spoken of in terms of "low" to "high" as follows:

* The Unthinking Depths are the innermost zone, surrounding the Galactic Center. In it, only minimal forms of intelligence, biological or otherwise, are possible. This means that any ship straying into the Depths will be stranded, effectively permanently. Even if the crew did not die immediately—and some forms of life native to "higher" Zones would likely do so—they would be rendered incapable of even human intelligence, leaving them unable to operate their ship in any meaningful way.
* Surrounding the Depths is the Slow Zone. "Old Earth" is in this Zone, and humanity is said to have originated there, although Earth plays no significant role in the story. Biological intelligence is possible in "the Slowness", but not true, sentient, artificial intelligence. Automation is not intelligent enough to calculate the jumps required for faster than light travel (FTL) in the Slow Zone, but they may escape by performing an immediate reverse jump to where they came from if the Slowness is detected, and navigation systems watch for this and store the information required during each jump. All ships in the Slow Zone are restricted to sub-light speeds. Faster-than-light communication is impossible into or out of the Slow Zone. As the boundaries of the Zones are subject to change, accidental entry into the Slow Zone is a major hazard at the "Bottom" of the Beyond, the next zone out. Starships which operate near the Beyond/Slow Zone border often have an auxiliary Bussard ramjet drive, so that if they accidentally stray into the Slow Zone (thus disabling any FTL drive), they will at least have a backup (sub-light) drive to try to reach the Beyond. Such ships also tend to include " coldsleep" equipment, as it is likely that any such return will still take many lifetimes for most species.
* The next layer outward is the Beyond, within which artificial intelligence and FTL travel and FTL communication are possible. A few human civilizations exist in the Beyond, all descended from a single ethnic Norwegian group which reached the Beyond. The original settlement of this group is known as Nyjora; other human settlements in the Beyond include Straumli Realm and Sjandra Kei. In the Beyond, FTL travel is accomplished by making many small "jumps" across space, with the efficiency of the drive increasing the farther a ship travels from the galactic core. This reflects increases in both drive efficiency and the ship's automation's increased capacity, enabling the computation of longer and longer jumps. The Beyond is not a homogeneous zone—many references are made to, e.g., the "High Beyond" or the "Bottom of the Beyond", depending on distance from the galactic core. These terms refer to differences in the Zone itself, not just relative distance from the Core, but there are no obvious Zone boundaries within the Beyond the way there are between the Slow Zone and the Beyond, or between the Beyond and the Transcend. Whereas a ship that crosses from the Beyond to the Slow Zone or vice versa will experience a dramatic change in its capabilities, a ship in the Beyond which moves farther out will experience a gradual increase in efficiency (assuming it has the technology to make use of it) until another major shift at the boundary with the Transcend. The Beyond is populated by a very large number of interstellar and intergalactic civilizations which are linked by an FTL communication network, "the Net", sometimes cynically called the "Net of a Million Lies". The Net does connect with the Transcend, on the off-chance that one of the "Powers" that live there deigns to communicate, but has no connections with the Slow Zone, as FTL communication is impossible into or out of that Zone. In the novel, the Net is depicted as working much like the Usenet network in the early 1990s, with transcripts of messages containing header and footer information as one would find in such forums.
* The outermost layer, containing the galactic halo, is the Transcend, within which incomprehensible, superintelligent beings dwell. When a "Beyonder" civilization reaches the point of technological singularity, it can "Transcend", becoming a "Power". Such Powers always seem to relocate to the Transcend, seemingly necessarily, where they become engaged in activities which are entirely mysterious to those in the Beyond.

One of the characters in the book, the human Ravna, uses this analogy to explain the relation between the zones:

Plot

An expedition from Straumli Realm, a young human civilization in the high Beyond, investigates a newly discovered five-billion-year-old data archive in the low Transcend that offers the possibility of unimaginable riches. The expedition's facility, High Lab, is gradually and secretly compromised by an initially dormant superintelligence within the archive later known as the Blight. However, shortly before the Blight's final "flowering", two self-aware entities, created similarly to the Blight, plot to aid the humans before the Blight can gain its full powers.

Finally recognizing their danger, the High Lab researchers attempt to flee in two ships, one carrying the adults and the second carrying the children in " coldsleep boxes". The Blight discovers that the first ship lists a data storage device in its cargo manifest; assuming it contains information that could harm it, the Blight destroys the ship. The second ship escapes.

The ship lands on a distant planet with a medieval-level civilization of dog-like creatures, dubbed "Tines", who live in packs as group minds. Upon landing, however, the two surviving adults, husband and wife, are ambushed and killed by Tine fanatics known as Flenserists, in whose realm they have landed. The Flenserists capture a young boy named Jefri Olsndot and his wounded sister, Johanna. Johanna is rescued by a Tine named Peregrine who witnessed the ambush and taken to a neighboring kingdom ruled by a brilliant Tine named Woodcarver. Steel, the Flenserists' leader, tells Jefri that Johanna and their parents were killed by Woodcarver and exploits him in order to develop advanced technology (such as cannon and radio communication), while Johanna and the knowledge stored in her "dataset" device help Woodcarver rapidly develop as well. A highly placed Flenserist spy keeps Steel informed of Woodcarver's progress.

A distress signal from the sleeper ship eventually reaches "Relay", a major information/service provider for the galactic communications network. A benign transcendent being named "Old One" contacts Relay, seeking information about the Blight and the humans who released it, and reconstitutes a human man named Pham Nuwen from the wreckage of a spaceship to act as its agent, using his doubt of his own memory's veracity to keep him under its control. Ravna Bergsndot, the only human Relay employee, traces the sleeper ship's signal to the Tines' world and persuades her employer to investigate what it took from High Lab, contracting the merchant vessel ''Out of Band II'', owned by two sentient plant "Skroderiders", Blueshell and Greenstalk, to transport her and Pham there.

Before the mission is launched, the Blight launches a surprise attack on Relay and kills Old One. As Old One dies, it downloads what anti-Blight information it can into Pham. Pham, Ravna and the Skroderiders barely escape Relay's destruction in the ''Out of Band II''.

The Blight expands, taking over races and "rewriting" their people to become its agents, murdering several other Powers, and seizing other archives in the Beyond, searching for what was taken from High Lab, but looks only in the Beyond. It finally realizes where the danger truly lies and sends a hastily assembled fleet in pursuit.

The humans arrive at the Tines' world first and ally with Woodcarver to defeat the Flenserists and rescue Jefri. Pham then initiates Countermeasure, which was aboard the humans' ship. Countermeasure extends the Slow Zone outward thousands of light years, enveloping and killing the Blight at the cost of wrecking thousands of civilizations and causing trillions of deaths. The humans are stranded on the Tines' world, now in the depths of the Slow Zone. Activating Countermeasure is fatal to Pham, but before he dies, the remnant of Old One within his mind reveals to him that, although his body is a reconstruction, his memories are real. (Vinge expands on Pham's backstory in ''A Deepness in the Sky''.)

Intelligent species

Aprahanti

A race of humanoids with colorful butterfly-like wings who attempt to use the chaos wrought by the Blight to reestablish their waning hegemony. Despite their attractive, delicate appearance, the Aprahanti are an extremely fearsome and vicious species.

Blight

An ancient, malevolent super-intelligent entity which strives to constantly expand and can manipulate electronics and sentient beings.

Dirokimes

An older race which originally inhabited Sjandra Kei before the arrival of humanity. They work with the humans.

Humans

All humans in the novel (except Pham) are descended from Nyjoran stock. Their ancestors were "Tuvo-Norsk" asteroid miners from Old Earth's solar system, which is noted as being on the other side of the galaxy in the Slow Zone. (''Nyjora'' sounds similar to New Norwegian "New Earth".) One of the major human habitations is Sjandra Kei, three systems comprising roughly 28 billion individuals. Their main language is Samnorsk, the Norwegian term for a hypothetical unification of the Bokmål and Nynorsk forms of the language. (Vinge indicates in the book's dedication that several key ideas in it came to him while at a conference in Tromsø, Norway.)

Skroders/Riders/Skroderiders

A race of plant beings with fronds that serve as arms, the Riders have little native capacity for short-term memory. They are one of the longest-existing species; five billion years ago, someone gave them six-wheeled mechanical constructs ("skrodes") to move around and to provide short-term memory that made it easier for them to retain information well enough to become long-term memory in the "rider". It is later revealed that their "benefactor" is the Blight, which is able to easily corrupt and remotely operate the Riders via their skrodes.

Tines

A race of group minds, each Tine is a "pack" of doglike members, which communicate within the pack using very short-range ultrasonic waves from drumlike organs called "tympana". A pack of four to eight members possesses roughly human-level intelligence; a pack with fewer or more is less smart. Each "soul" can survive and evolve by adding members to replace those who die, potentially for hundreds of years, as Woodcarver does.

Related works

Vinge first used the concepts of "Zones of Thought" in a 1988 novella '' The Blabber'', which occurs after ''Fire''. Vinge's novel ''A Deepness in the Sky'' (1999) is a prequel to ''A Fire Upon the Deep'' set 20,000 years earlier and featuring Pham Nuwen. Vinge's ''The Children of the Sky'', "a near-term sequel to ''A Fire Upon the Deep'', set ten years later, was released in October 2011.

Vinge's former wife, Joan D. Vinge, has also written stories in the Zones of Thought universe, based on his notes. These include "The Outcasts of Heaven Belt", "Legacy", and (as of 2008) a planned novel featuring Pham Nuwen.

Title

Vinge's original title for the novel was "Among the Tines"; its final title was suggested by his editors.

Awards and nominations

''A Fire Upon the Deep'' shared the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel with ''Doomsday Book''. The book was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 1992, the 1993 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the 1993 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

Critical reactions

Jo Walton wrote: "Any one of the ideas in ''A Fire Upon the Deep'' would have kept an ordinary writer going for years. For me it's the book that does everything right, the example of what science fiction does when it works. ... ''A Fire Upon the Deep'' remains a favourite and a delight to re-read, absorbing even when I know exactly what's coming."

References

External links

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''A Fire Upon the Deep''
at Worlds Without End

The book with Vinge's commentaries

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fire Upon The Deep, A
1992 American novels
Hugo Award for Best Novel–winning works
Transhumanist books
Usenet
Novels by Vernor Vinge
1992 science fiction novels
Tor Books books
Fiction about artificial intelligence
Fiction about malware
Fiction about nanotechnology
Fiction about consciousness transfer
Apocalyptic fiction
Novels about technological singularity