"The Invincible" (Niezwyciężony) is a Science Fiction novel by Stanisław Lem, published in 1964
The story describes the mission by the eponymous spaceship to find out what happened to its sister vessel, the Condor. The Condor vanished after landing on the desert planet of Regis III, sending a single distress signal mere hours after arrival. The Invincible's crew discovers strange metallic ruins on the surface of the planet, which don't look like anything in particular either machines or buildings. During exploration, they also stumble upon the the Condor's unsettling remains and eventually learn its sad fate, losing several of their own crewmembers in the process. As attempts to learn more about the phenomenon or destroy it cause increasing damage and loss of life, the protagonists have to come to terms with the fact that there is nothing really left for them to do on Regis III. Nothing but make sure every man — alive or dead — is accounted for. Which leads to one last solitary venture into the desert...
In 2023, a video game adaptation of the novel was released.
Unmarked spoilers ahead.
This work includes examples of:
- Absent Aliens: Justified: the only other known alien civilization - the Lyrans - have been destroyed millenia ago when their home star went supernova. However, protagonists speculate that living machines of Regis III might have descended from some kind of autonomous robots crewing a crashed Lyran colony ship.
- Artistic License – Chemistry: The atmosphere of Regis III contains significant quantities of oxygen and methane, which normally would make it an immense bomb just waiting to go off. When the captain points that out, it's explained that the methane here has different chemical bond energy, making it much less reactive.
- Artistic License – Engineering: somehow microbots of the cloud are neary completely immune to jamming, neutron and thermal radiation from antimatter and nuclear blasts. In all this cases, square-cube law works against them; being tiny, they could neither protect their electronics, nor survive overheating.
- Artistic License – Space: Turns out even Stanisław Lem is not immune to the constellation-as-location issue. The opening scene, pretty much the Establishing Shot, speaks of "southern quadrant of the constellation".
- Cool Starship: The Invincible is capable of interstellar travel, generating protective forcefields able to withstand a close nuclear detonation, and can return it in kind. The fact that equally powerful Condor had met her end on Regis III is not lost to the crew.
- Deflector Shields: Of disintegrator variety, employed by both humans and "the clouds", for various purposes and to various degrees of success. Come in all sizes: from kilometer-wide starship shield, to man-portable variants. A plot-important flaw is that they cannot be shaped arbitrarily... and don't shield from electromagnetic radiation.
- Desolation Shot: The Condor, once it's found, looks like "it's been attacked by a horde of mad monkeys", with tools, book and personal belongings laying all over the ship and surrounding area. Not to mention all the dead bodies.
- Easy Amnesia: In a fashion. The microbots use their electromagnetic fields as a defense against anything with a central nervous system by completely blanking its memory. Including humans. On human side, this is very much averted as a survivor of the experience must be taught even the most basic things from scratch with the implication he'll never be the same person again and possibly never entirely come back to his mental faculties.
- Enmity with an Object: Rohan at one point explicitly compares plans to destroy the resident Microbot Swarm to Xerxes whipping the ocean.
- Foreshadowing: During an expedition to the ocean shore, the protagonists manage to catch a native fish. It turns out to have some kind of biological magnetic sensor, which causes confusion as to why would it need this sense.
- Hover Tank: The Cyclops, the mightiest vehicle in the arsenal of the Invincible. "The clouds" never manage to put a dent in its armor, but its control computer is another matter...
- In the End, You Are on Your Own: A variation. Rohan has to scout the area where one of the previous expeditions was lost, to find out what happened to the crewmembers. He has to do it alone, mostly on foot, since bringing in vehicles would attract unwanted attention.
- It Can Think: Discussed and mostly dismissed. One of the scientist points out that truly sentient "clouds" would be able to easily circumvent Invincible's forcefield.
- Know When to Fold Them: The trope is in play on both sides. Microbots usually attack ferociously, but will scatter in the face of sufficiently powerful attacks, or if futher confrontation is deemed pointless. The human crew realize they have to retreat from the planet because there is nothing they can really do - neither to communicate with the swarm, nor to avenge the Condor. The only thing that stops Horpah from ordering the take-off is those missing in action.
- Mechanical Lifeforms: The only lifeforms on the surface of Regis III. All biological life has been driven into the ocean.
- Microbot Swarm: Dubbed "the clouds" by the crewmember and "necrosphere" (as in, the opposite of biosphere) by the science section, they effectively killed the crew of Condor, and cripple nearly a half of the crew of Invincible. The strengths and weaknesses of such swarms are discussed (and shown) at length.
- Single-Biome Planet: Partially averted. The text mentions polar caps, and there is an expedition to the ocean shore, but all we see of Regis III continents is endless desert. Also justified, as the microbots destroyed all competition.
- Sleeper Starship: The novel starts with the crew waking up from hibernation.
- Stupidity-Inducing Attack: The clouds' electromagnetic attack utterly destroys higher brain functions of animals, including humans. It does the same to computer-controlled machines, too.
- Subspace Ansible: Of sorts. Some kind of relays, or beacons, are mentioned as means to establish interstellar communication, but the timeframe of their operation is never established firmly.
- The Chains of Commanding: Horpah, the captain of the Invincible, usually maintains his steely facade. When it slips during a private conversation with Rohan, the latter is shocked, despite having served with Horpah for years.
- Title Drop: Done as the very last word of the novel, no less.
- We Have Reserves: Very much the microbot battle plan. They are destroyed by the millions during the battle with the Cyclops, and they just send in reinforcements from the entire continent. Rohan can't help but admire their stubborness.
