History Literature / BreedsThereAMan

* InstantIllness: For the most part, the government agents don't believe in the mysterious aliens that Dr. Ralston blames for his suicidal tendencies. The most convincing argument in their existence is the sudden suicide of the engineer who worked on the prototype DeflectorShields. They had never even heard of Dr. Ralston, much less his ravings about aliens and penicillin, but after completing their work on the prototype, they walked into the path of an oncoming car for a quick death.

The story begins with a cop describing why he's had to arrest an apparently crazy person. The crazy person turns out to be Dr Elwood Ralson, a physicist working for a top secret American research team. With his [[{{UsefulNotes/Suicide}} suicidal tendencies]] made clear, the government decides to hire a psychiatrist to [[MentalHealthRecoveryArc help cure Dr Ralson's delusions]] so that he can continue work on their top secret project.

[[TheShrink Dr Gottfried Blaustein]] is introduced to Dr Ralson and his psychoses. The government provides Blaustein with answers to the most casual inquiries into Ralson's job and environment. Meanwhile, Ralson explains his theories on why he feels DrivenToSuicide; The world is a incubator for life, and humanity is being run through a bizarre experiment by some nearly-omnipotent aliens interested in their development, but the experimenters have installed limits in people's minds that cause self-destructive impulses to curb the advancement of science and technology that could see the human race grow out of their control, which he likens to a ring of penicillin in a petri dish cultivating a dangerous bacteria, keeping it from spreading too far.

Dr Ralson offers several anecdotal pieces of evidence to support his beliefs, including the [[HistoryRepeats cyclical nature of empires]] and the high frequency of death in scientists who work on classified information. Nobody really seems convinced, and the government pressures Dr Blaustein to bring Ralson back to work soon. The [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar clock of doom ticks closer to midnight]] and America's best chance is developing [[DeflectorShields force fields]] to repel atomic bombs.

* AmbiguousEnding: Dr Ralston completes the force field, and then kills himself, leaving a note saying that it doesn't matter, because the work is complete - once civilisation can't wiped out by atomic war, humanity is "past the penicillin" and beyond recall. Blaustein is left wondering if he was right after all.
--> He looked up at the stars. \\

* AsTheGoodBookSays: Dr Ralston quotes from part of Literature/BookOfPsalms 90:4 ("For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by"), describing how a long-lived alien race might see humans as having lives as short as mayflies.

* DistinguishingMark: Dr Ralston has a distinctive chemical scar [[FacialMarkings on his cheek]].

** Dr Ralston believes that people try to commit suicide because of aliens. He argues that it's an automatic thing, where "strains" of humanity are controlled by unknown effects from the alien experiments. Other people don't believe him, and dismiss evidence (such as the high-than-average suicide rate among atomic scientists) as being due to the stress of keeping their work secret.

* FacialMarkings: Dr Ralston has a [[DistinguishingMark distinctive]] chemical scar on his cheek.
* GetIntoJailFree: Dr Ralston goes to a police station to get himself jailed because he doesn't want to kill himself, [[DrivenToSuicide but has a powerful urge to commit suicide]]. When the officer on duty tells him he can't be thrown in jail without committing a crime, he quickly racks up three charges; resisting an officer, assault and battery, and malicious mischief.
* HistoryRepeats: One of the symptoms that Dr Ralston identifies as due to malign alien influence is the way that historic empires would be destroyed by war/disease during the height of their power. He is convinced that the aliens observed that a group showed too much vitality and ability, and therefore caused a war to destroy the possibility of their further development. He is convinced the UsefulNotes/ColdWar is their plan to end the current "high-culture" experiment.

* InstantIllness: For the most part, the government agents don't believe in the mysterious aliens that Dr Ralston blames for his suicidal tendencies. The most convincing argument in their existence is the sudden suicide of the engineer who worked on the prototype DeflectorShields. They had never even heard of Dr Ralston, much less his ravings about aliens and penicillin, but after completing their work on the prototype, they walked into the path of an oncoming car for a quick death.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Dr Ralston finds himself so much smarter than everyone around him that he has trouble tolerating their inability to grasp "simple" concepts. His psychiatrist describes this isolation to the project manager as analogous to a [[DeflectorShields force field]].

* MentalHealthRecoveryArc: Dr Ralson is the mental patient, a physicist who is DrivenToSuicide, but instead of following the story from his perspective, we see the efforts of the people around him to help him overcome the urge to self-harm and continue developing [[DeflectorShields force field]]s for the American government during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar.
* MrSmith: When Dr Ralston [[GetIntoJailFree gets himself thrown in jail]], he gives "John Smith" as his name.
-->". . . Well, sure it's a phony. Nobody is named John Smith. Not in a police station, anyway."
* NoAntagonist: The conflict is all internal; Dr Ralson is attempting suicide yet doesn't actually want to die. Although he claims these [[DrivenToSuicide suicidal tendencies]] come from aliens, there isn't any strong evidence for his claim. The main conflict in the book comes from the other characters [[MentalHealthRecoveryArc trying to help him recover]] so that he can complete his work on [[DeflectorShields force fields]].
* TheShrink: Dr Gottfried Blaustein, a psychiatrist, is hired by the Atomic Energy Commission to help one of their top scientists [[MentalHealthRecoveryArc overcome]] their [[DrivenToSuicide suicidal tendencies]].

* YourMindMakesItReal: Most of the people trying to help Dr Ralson don't believe in his "alien experimenters", but Dr Blaustein, his [[TheShrink psychiatrist]], points out that it doesn't matter if the aliens exist or not, so long as Ralson associates his [[DrivenToSuicide suicidal tendencies]] with advanced science/technology.

* KnifeNut: Inspector Darrity always carries a switchblade. He uses it to clean underneath his fingernails and to have something to play with in his hands.

[[TheShrink Dr Gottfried Blaustein]] is introduced to Dr Ralson and his psychoses. The government provides Blaustein with answers to the most casual inquiries into Ralson's job and environment. Meanwhile, Ralson explains his theories on why he feels DrivenToSuicide; The world is a incubator for life, and humanity is being run through a bizarre experiment by some nearly-omnipotent aliens interested in their development, but the experimenters have installed limits in people's minds that cause self-destructive impulses to curb the advancement of science/technology that could see the human race grow out of their control, which he likens to a ring of penicillin in a petri dish cultivating a dangerous bacteria, keeping it from spreading too far.

[[TheShrink Dr Gottfried Blaustein]] is introduced to Dr Ralson and his psychoses. The government provides Blaustein with answers to the most casual inquiries into Ralson's job and environment. Meanwhile, Ralson explains his theories on why he feels DrivenToSuicide; humanity is being run through a bizarre experiment by some nearly-omnipotent aliens interested in the development of humanity, but the experimenters have installed limits that causes self-destructive impulses to curb the advancement of science/technology could see the race grow out of their control, which he likens to a ring of penicillin in a petri dish cultivating a dangerous bacteria, keeping it from spreading too far.

* AmbiguousEnding: Dr Ralston completes the force field, and then kills himself, leaving a note saying that it doesn't matter, because the work is complete - once civilisation can't wiped out by atomic war, humanity is "past the penicillin" and beyond recall. Blaustein is less wonder if he was right after all.

[[TheShrink Dr Gottfried Blaustein]] is introduced to Dr Ralson and his psychoses. The government provides Blaustein with answers to the most casual inquiries into Ralson's job and environment. Meanwhile, Ralson explains his theories on why he feels DrivenToSuicide; humanity is being run through a bizarre experiment by some nearly-omnipotent aliens and the experimenters use a "penicillin" ring, that causes self-destructive impulses to curb the advancement of science/technology.

* AsTheGoodBookSays: Dr Ralston quotes from part of Literature/BookOfPsalms 90:4 (For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by), describing how a long-lived alien race might see humans as having lives as short as mayflies.

"I wish I could tell you. Right now, it's an equation on paper. Energy can be so channeled as to create a wall of matterless inertia, theoretically. In practice, we don't know how to do it."

** Dr Ralston believes that people try to commit suicide because of aliens. He argues that it's an automatic thing, where "strains" of humanity are controlled by unknown effects from the alien experiments. Other people don't believe him, and dismiss evidence (such as the high-than-averge suicide rate amoung atomic scientists) as being due to the stress of keeping their work secret.

* InstantIllness: For the most part, the government agents don't believe in the mysterious aliens that Dr Ralston blames for his suicidal tendencies. The most convincing argument in their existence is the sudden suicide of the engineer who worked on the prototype DeflectorShields. They had never even heard of Dr Ralston, much less his ravings about aliens and penicillin, but after completing their work on the protype, they walked into the path of an oncoming car for a quick death.

* NoAntagonist: The conflict is all internal; Dr Ralson is attempting suicide yet doesn't actually want to die. Although he claims these [[DrivenToSuicide suicidal tendencies]] come from aliens, there isn't any strong evidence for his claim. The main conflict in the book comes from the other characters [[MentalHealthRecoveryArc trying to help him recover]] so that he can complete his work on [[DeflectorShields force field]]s.

The story begins with a cop describing why he's had to arrest an apparently crazy person. The crazy person turns out to be Dr Elwood Ralson, a physicist working for a top secret American research team. With his [[UsefulNotes/Suicide suicidal tendencies]] made clear, the government decides to hire a psychiatrist to [[MentalHealthRecoveryArc help cure Dr Ralson's delusions]] so that he can continue work on their top secret project.

* AsTheGoodBookSays: Dr Ralston quotes from part of
Literature/BookOfPsalms 90:4 (For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by), describing how a long-lived alien race might see humans as having lives as short as mayflies.