Spinneret is a 1985 SF novel by Timothy Zahn, best known for his Star Wars Legends 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.
The Ctencri offer to broker a deal on behalf of Earth: in exchange for roughly $80 million dollars worth of rare metals, the humans can buy a 100 year lease to an otherwise unused planet, with option to renew. The catch? The planet in question has no metals on it, not even trace elements, meaning that to even grow food there would require special fertilization, and everything metal would have to be imported. Most of the powerful nations of Earth—including the UN Secretary General, suddenly elevated to a major power by being the Ctencri's preferred contact on Earth—decide that colonizing such a planet would be pointless, since it would be impractical to support a large population there. Only the American President seems to have any enthusiasm for the idea, resulting in the US being given a UN mandate (and the price tag) for developing the new colony world of Astra.
And all of that's just in the prologue.
Once on the ground, it's up to colony leader Colonel Lloyd Meredith to try and make it a success, coping with the unexpected setbacks of an alien world, a Congress reluctant to fully fund the colony, and political unrest among the mostly Hispanic (and not very well treated) farm workers, fueled by the machinations of professional activist Cristobal Perez. But the colonists' job becomes more difficult when by accident they end up discovering why Astra has no metals: an alien device, built into a mountain, quickly dubbed the "Spinneret" for its ability to leach out metal in contact with the ground anywhere on the planet and convert it into an ultra-light, practically indestructible, and superconductive cable that permanently bonds to anything it touches. The discovery of valuable technology spurs a sudden rush to exert control over Astra by everyone... The US that funded the colony, the UN that holds the mandate, and the six closest alien races, all vying to get leverage over the Astra colony: legal, political, economic, cultural... and military. With Astra caught in the middle, it's up to the leaders of the colony to try and figure out how to exploit their discovery to keep the colony alive, while maintaining a balance of power both among the alien trade confederation and on Earth itself.
And above all hangs a pressing, maybe vital, question: Who built the Spinneret, and why could they possibly have needed to convert an entire planet's metal—a trillion trillion tons or more—into six centimeter thick cable?
Has nothing to do with the web comic Spinnerette.
Spinneret provides examples of:
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: The Ctencri-led trading community by mutual agreement does not have anything to do with systems whose inhabitants haven't managed interstellar travel, humanity included until recently. There's apparently quite a few in our corner of the galaxy.
- Always on Duty: Colonel Meredith, being the military head of the colony as well as the only Reasonable Authority Figure for light-years in any direction is pretty much obligated to handle every crisis himself. Not least because right away, leaving one incident up to a subordinate turns out badly.
- Apocalypse How: Two examples present.
- 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 modern races of that immediate area aren't too far ahead or behind each other in technological development; they've all been evolving for roughly the same period.
- At the end of the book we discover the builders of the Spinneret were wiped out by massive orbital bombardment.
- Chekhov's Blank: The Rooshrike attack on the Celeritas in the prologue of the book might make you think they're the most likely to be the antagonists to the human colonists. In the end, they turn out to be great allies, even volunteering to help fight off an attack by the M'Zarch.
- Claustrophobia: The Poms have a kind of cultural version of this. Being an aquatic species they are used to great freedom of movement and are deeply upset that the difficulties of water-filled spacecraft is greatly limitng their travel in space compared to other races. They are desperate for Spinneret cable as a result, as it's perfect for use in making space elevators that will greatly ease their space travel.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Astra colonists stomp 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 the M'Zarch themselves, such landing craft shouldn't be able to be neutralized that quickly without the use of nuclear weapons.
- Dramatic Alien VTOL: Played for comedy. When one of the military officers sees exactly how fast the Rooshrike ships can take off, he comments that the plasma thrusters that the Ctencri sold the humans must be several generations out of date.
- Drunk with Power: How the UN office of the Secretary General begins to act, once they have a monopoly on alien trade.
- Dyson Sphere: What the Spinneret builders wanted an entire planet's worth of cable for. Not for harvesting the power of their sun, though, but as a means to try and hide from their enemies.
- Failed Future Forecast: 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.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Human discovery of this is what kicks off the plot, and the speed with which courier ships can go back and forth becomes a plot point later on.
- First Contact: Earth gets several of these in rapid succession, one of which is conducted with missiles. They apologized afterward, though.
- Future Food Is Artificial: After initial efforts at conventional farming fail, the colony is obligated to buy hydroponic equipment for producing textured algae food. One of the characters comments that it doesn't take a lot of effort to believe he's eating real ham.
- Got Volunteered: Perez claims that the colony's (mostly Hispanic) workforce was pressured into signing up by veiled threats of economic pressure against them and their families. He's not able to prove it but there is some supporting evidence and no-one else able to conclusively disprove it.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: With the exception of Msuya (driven by personal resentment) and possibly the M'Zarch (instantly resorting to military action) everyone involved in the struggle for the Spinneret is trying to do what they believe to be the right thing. However everyone is also willing to get their hands dirty to various extents to do so.
- Heel Realisation: UN Secretary Saleh has one near the end of the book as Meredith explains his plans for Astra that pretty much match what Saleh originally wanted for the place before he let his newfound power go to his head.
- Just the First Citizen: Meredith later in the story is the de facto ruler of an independent state that controls the most valuable resource in known space. He still just goes by Colonel.
- Leeroy Jenkins: 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. It still ends up costing them the entirety of their landing party when Astra activates the Spinneret.
- Metal-Poor Planet: What with the titular Spinneret sucking metals out of the soil.
- Neglectful Precursors: The makers of the Spinneret just abandoned their staggeringly powerful and dangerous technology, without even bothering to switch it off on the way out the door.
- One-Product Planet: 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.
- Proud Merchant Race: The Ctencri are this and, being the dominant power in our corner of the galaxy, make a point of manipulating new species on the galatic scene to becoming similar. The results vary though; The Ctencri are rather predatory and underhanded but others, such as the Rooshrike and the Poms, prefer honest and straightforward dealings.
- Ragnarök Proofing: The Spinneret itself, having been operating continuously for at least 100,000 years—and possibly a lot longer—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."
- Reasonable Authority Figure: 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 he has to oppose the UN and ultimately the US government in order to do it.
- The Resenter: The UN representative Msuya cannot stand that Colonel Meredith blocked his attempt to take over control of Astra and the Spinneret and will stop at nothing to bring him down.
- Sapient Cetaceans: The Pom are similar to dolphins with tentacles.
- Schizo Tech: The Poms, being an aquatic species, have never invented fire, and their environment precludes many other types of high-energy manufacturing. But that didn't stop them from attaining mastery of enhanced nuclear force.
- Strawman Political: In universe, Cristobal Perez is fond of trying to make Colonel Meredith into one of these, at least in public. In private, he's much more reasonable, recognizing the position the Colonel is in on some of his decisions.
- Uncertain Doom: Msuya. By the end of the book his attempt to forcibly take the Spinneret has failed with some deaths among his forces but it's not stated if he was killed. Although he's certainly not in a good position if he wasn't; several people note earlier that a failure to depose Meredith would wreck his career beyond repair.
- United Nations Is A Super Power: While at the beginning of the book the UN is the typical debating society we know today, it rapidly rises in power by controlling trade with the alien races (via the Ctencri.) And like any good superpower, starts abusing its newfound authority almost instantly.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Col. Meredith does this a bit, usually because he doesn't trust Perez, Meredith's own subordinates, or most of the civilian scientists.
- The War of Earthly Aggression: Downplayed. Msuya goes far enough to use UN troops to try and take Astra by force after they declare their independence. After this meets with abject failure both the UN and US throw in the towel and accept the situation.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: 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 The Starscream.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: The Astra colony and Colonel Meredith in particular have to get good at this fast, especially after being invaded once and then being forced to declare independence from Earth.
