History Literature / Spinneret

* CurbStompBattle: The Astra colonists stomp [[spoiler:the M'Zarch by activating the metal leecher. The M'Zarch landing craft, resting on metal landing skids, get pulled down into the ground -- crushing all of the combat-critical officers and coordinators left inside.]] According to [[spoiler: the M'Zarch]] themselves, such landing craft shouldn't be able to be neutralized that quickly without the use of nuclear weapons.

* XanatosSpeedChess: The Astra colony and Colonel Meredith in particular have to get good at this fast, [[spoiler: especially after being invaded once, and then being forced to declare independence from Earth.]]

** A few hundred million years ago our part of the galaxy was subject to a cosmic disaster that destroyed the civilisations of the advanced races of the time. This is why the races of that immediate area aren't too far ahead or behind each other in technological development.

* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler: At the end of the book we discover the builders of the Spinneret were wiped out by massive orbital bombardment.]]

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: While they're more often referred to as the Russians, characters sometimes make references to the "Soviets" or the Soviet Union in a story set 25 years after it fell.

''Spinneret'' is a 1985 SF novel by Creator/TimothyZahn, best known for his StarWarsLegends books. It starts off with the launch of Earth's first interstellar spacecraft: two American built, one European, designed using a Canadian star drive. The goal: find habitable colony worlds to start off-loading some of the Earth's overpopulation. Unfortunately, all three ships promptly run into unknown aliens, one of whom tracks them back to Earth. Introducing themselves as the Ctencri, they explain the situation: no colonization will be possible for the Humans, because there are no unclaimed worlds left.

''Spinneret'' is a 1985 SF novel by Creator/TimothyZahn, best known for his StarWarsExpandedUniverse books. It starts off with the launch of Earth's first interstellar spacecraft: two American built, one European, designed using a Canadian star drive. The goal: find habitable colony worlds to start off-loading some of the Earth's overpopulation. Unfortunately, all three ships promptly run into unknown aliens, one of whom tracks them back to Earth. Introducing themselves as the Ctencri, they explain the situation: no colonization will be possible for the Humans, because there are no unclaimed worlds left.

''Spinneret'' is a 1985 SF novel by TimothyZahn, best known for his StarWarsExpandedUniverse books. It starts off with the launch of Earth's first interstellar spacecraft: two American built, one European, designed using a Canadian star drive. The goal: find habitable colony worlds to start off-loading some of the Earth's overpopulation. Unfortunately, all three ships promptly run into unknown aliens, one of whom tracks them back to Earth. Introducing themselves as the Ctencri, they explain the situation: no colonization will be possible for the Humans, because there are no unclaimed worlds left.

* ScienceMarchesOn: Back in 1985, it might have seemed plausible that we'd be launching FTL-capable starships "10 months before the 2016 elections". Today, not so much.

* TechnologyMarchesOn: Music is described as being on tapes, but by and large the traditional halo of 1980s tech is absent. Files are entirely computerized, all the settlement's computer systems are networked via buried fiber-optics, and most notably, cellular phones are depicted as compact and common.

* AwesomeYetPractical: The Spinneret cable. At one point Perez wonders what you could really do with a kilometer of super-tensile cable, other than research or building really impressive suspension bridges. Meredith points out you could fold it up or wrap it around things to make impenetrable hulls for starships or space stations; construct superconducting solenoids; indestructable tethers and construction equipment, and those are just the ones thought up quickly by a non-engineer. The Pom have an even more practical use: [[spoiler: they're building a space elevator, to make the difficult and sometimes deadly process of launching their heavy, water-filled ships quick and easy.]]

''Spinneret'' provides examples of:

* AbsentAliens: Spectacularly inverted. Not only is spacefaring alien life common, but it's so common that ''every single planetary system'' in the region is already claimed, either by someone who can live there, or for its mineral resources. The Ctencri have direct contact with nine other species, and seventeen more are known of secondhand, just in this corner of the galaxy.
* AllPlanetsAreEarthLike: Averted. Earth-like worlds are common, but still only a small percentage among non-habitable worlds. And not all species occupy the Earth-like worlds, with the Rooshrike being explicitly mentioned as "hot world" aliens who live in environments similar to Mercury.

* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler: At the end of the book we discover the builders of the Spinneret were subjected to this, apparently via massive orbital bombardment.]]
* AwesomeYetPractical: The Spinneret cable. At one point Perez, thinking it's AwesomeButImpractical, wonders what you could really do with a kilometer of super-tensile cable, other than research or building really impressive suspension bridges. Meredith points out you could fold it up or wrap it around things to make impenetrable hulls for starships or space stations; construct superconducting solenoids; indestructable tethers and construction equipment, and those are just the ones thought up quickly by a non-engineer. The Pom have an even more practical use: [[spoiler: they're building a space elevator, to make the difficult and sometimes deadly process of launching their heavy, water-filled ships quick and easy.]]
* CurbStompBattle: The Astra colonists manage to pull one of these on [[spoiler: the M'Zarch by virtue of managing to activate the metal leecher. The M'Zarch landing craft, resting on metal landing skids, get pulled down into the ground--crushing all of the combat-critical officers and coordinators left inside.]] According to [[spoiler: the M'Zarch]] themselves, such landing craft shouldn't be able to be neutralized that quickly without the use of nuclear weapons.

* FirstContact: Earth gets several of these in rapid succession, one of which is conducted with ''missiles''. [[spoiler: They apologized afterward, though.]]

* FutureSlang: Inverted. When dealing with hostile aliens, Meredith orders his people to use as much slang, and particularly old out-of-date slang if they know any, in order to try and stall the enemy by confusing their translation computers. Cue him explaining why he can't "whisk everyone back to their digs."

* NeglectfulPrecursors: The makers of the Spinneret would count, [[spoiler: having just abandoned their staggeringly powerful and dangerous technology, without even bothering to switch it off on the way out the door.]]
** On the other hand... [[spoiler:total destruction by another species]] would probably make it a low priority to, figuratively speaking, switch off the light before exiting.
* OneProductPlanet: Deconstructed. Part of Astra's problem is that the Spinneret forces them into being this. While they could support a huge population by selling cable in exchange for food and equipment, there would be almost no agriculture, no major industry to speak of, and consequently very few real jobs, leaving any immigrant population idle and dependent on handouts.

* SapientCetaceans: The Pom are a non-terrestrial variant, being described as similar to dolphins with tentacles.

* SchizoTech: The Poms, being an aquatic species, have never invented ''fire'', and their environment precludes many other types of high-energy manufacturing. [[spoiler: But that didn't stop them from attaining mastery of ''enhanced nuclear force''.]]

* TechnologyMarchesOn: For the most part, averted. A couple of times music is described as being on tapes, but by and large the traditional halo of 1980s tech is absent. Files are entirely computerized, all the settlement's computer systems are networked via buried fiber-optics, and most notably, cellular phones are depicted as compact and common. At one point Colonel Meredith claims that "many" of the settlers don't carry personal phones, but [[spoiler: considering that this is an explanation to an alien invader why he can't issue mass orders to assemble in the town centers,]] it's quite likely not true.

* UnitedNationsIsASuperPower: While at the beginning of the book the UN is the typical debating society we know today, it rapidly rises to meet this trope by controlling trade with the alien races (via the Ctencri). And like any good superpower, starts abusing its newfound authority almost instantly.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Col. Meredith does this a bit, usually justified by not trusting Perez, Meredith's own subordinates, or most of the civilian scientists.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Cristobal Perez. He wants to turn Astra into a new source of hope for Earth's starving and impoverished third-world populations. He just doesn't have a good--or even decent--plan for how to do that, and his methods of politicking verge on TheStarscream.

* AwesomeYetPractical: The Spinneret cable. At one point Perez, thinking it's AwesomeButImpractical, wonders what you could really do with a kilometer of super-tensile cable, other than research or building really impressive suspension bridges. Meredith points out you could fold it up or wrap it around things to make impenetrable hulls for starships or space stations; construct superconducting solenoids; indestructable tethers and construction equipment, and those are just the ones thought up quickly by a non-engineer. The Pom have an even more practical use: [[spoiler: they're building a space elevator, to make the difficult and sometimes deadly process of launching their heavy, water-filled ships quick and easy.]]

** On the other hand... total destruction by another species would probably make it a low priority to, figuratively speaking, switch off the light before exiting.

* LeeroyJenkins: The M'Zarch come off as this, with their first reaction to every new development being "Attack!" They're lucky that their neighbors are generally peaceful, or they might have gotten themselves wiped out by now.

* FirstContact: Earth gets several of these in rapid succession, one of which is conducted with missiles. [[spoiler: They apologized afterward, though.]]

* RagnarokProofing: The Spinneret itself, having been ''operating continuously'' for at least 100,000 years, evidently got this from its builders. Discussed in story by one of the scientists, who admits he had been thinking of the Spinneret as being a solid-state device that only survived in working condition due to massive redundancy. After they find a small, autonomous ''digging machine'' that's also still in working order once it's unjammed, he describes the apparently indestructible technology as "awesome and just a little bit creepy."
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Colonel Meredith. Being the last word on anything that happens in the colony and with troops to back it up, he's functionally a military dictator, but goes out of his way not to abuse it, and is almost ridiculously dedicated to doing exactly the job he was assigned to: making the Astra colony a success. Even when [[spoiler: he has to oppose the UN and ultimately the US government in order to do it.]]

* SchizoTech: The Poms, being an aquatic species, have never invented fire, and their environment precludes many other types of high-energy manufacturing. [[spoiler: But that didn't stop them from attaining mastery of ''enhanced nuclear force''.]]