wiki/The_Mote_in_God’s_Eye#Plot_summary
larryniven.net and goodreads/author/Jerry_Pournelle
In which I present the Wikipedia page for The Mote in God’s Eye in audio, and the stock art fever dream version that “AI” selected for each sentence:
Niven and Pournelle are a curious collaborative duo. I have more to read from both, so my perspective is limited, but this book is noteworthy due to it being recommended to people as an entry point to their fiction.
In all honesty, I find the entire thing to be a 70s-era anti-feminist hit piece. Feminism has taken several forms since then, and it necessarily only discusses feminism as it existed in the 70s.
While we tolerate much for the sake of fiction, sometimes an author fails to be bigger than their story, hallmarked by there being no characters within the pages who are capable of articulating an opinion that invalidates the author’s own pet thesis. I excoriate some of the book’s premise and lesson here, because even with full knowledge of what the book is, it is still valuable to read through it and to witness what the authors have wrought within its pages.
The Mote in God’s Eye was once conceived of as a less streamlined story called Motelight, which saw the creation of a whole religion about the supposed eye of God (capitalized here because it’s almost a given that it is a superfluous extension of Christianity), formed by a nebula and a red supergiant star. Later, the first contact story grows out of the system near that star.
While I recommend making first contact of your own with this story, no creative work is obligated to be the best thing you’ve ever experienced, and I dare say that Mote’s style and form will not rise to such levels for a modern audience.
Mote is bogged down with the unimaginative place names of “New” This and That. Rarely will you find a place not called New Something. The Second Empire of Man races to become a metaphor of the outdated politics of its own time. The United States and Russia are buddies. There is an odd hero worship afoot, if only for a might-have-been homage. This is a universe of frequent casual self-genocides wherein no one is guilty for pulling the trigger because it is for the best interest of the collectivist human species. Midshipmen will betray itself as a literal term, because for the survival of all, only men are officers of the military, while women are baby-making objects with voices and faces.
This annoying story conceit is more than a premise; it is a way of being. The genocidal aristocracy is performing ongoing favors to humanity by being this cold. The use of force is always necessary, apparently because humanity lacks diplomatic imagination of any kind. The men using that force are just doing a duty that all other important men recognize and corroborate. Prolific officers are the superlative products of their upbringing, rewarded with more necessary duty. No officer who has committed atrocities is ever guilty of anything but being an effective soldier, and thus an effective man in a large hall of fame of other genocidal men.
Predictably, this setting squanders the rest of its conceptual currency on religion, unremarkably idealized as predominantly Christian, with an ebbing Muslim movement that has learned its subservient place. Religion in this universe is utterly uninspired, though the authors attempted to design a “Church of Him” whose origins were explored more in Motelight. But it is nearly irrelevant as it was cut from the original text and provided much later as colorful background to the writing of the final story. The Church of Him is a declining fad of its own, and makes few attempts to distinguish itself as anything other than Christianity poorly applied to stellar phenomena. The authors allow it to fall into decline because it is not necessary when superior Christianity is already so accessible to humanity. The founder of the Church of Him commits suicide because the religion is waning anyway, and never provides a functional purpose to its adherents that Christianity didn’t already offer in spades.
The women of this universe are semi-sentient objects, so I won’t dignify their presentation by pretending they are meaningful characters. The only woman worth mentioning has a cute nickname, is pseudo royalty, a prisoner of a fallen civilization, and is placed on the starship MacArthur because of her vacant womb.
Deepening the Christian projection onto galactic reality, humanity’s first contact is with a species that will turn out to be dangerous for a single reason: they make more babies than humans do.
We don’t receive this climactic revelation for some time, but this is because there is an idiot plot afoot, wherein the men unconnected to the climax of the narrative will notice in retrospect that they missed crucial facts about the inciting incident’s probe, which is discovered leaving the “Mote” system by non-warp means.
In brief, the aliens not only breed a lot, but they just can’t be stopped, and they seem to know it. The alien probe ejects its own occupants into space just to hide that they breed way more than rabbits, and humanity simply fails to notice the vacuum-dried pregnant corpses until it’s the right time in the story.
To cut to a much needed chase, an alternate telling of The Mote in God’s Eye could end without ever going to the Mote system, if only humanity were competent at their jobs.
Once the heroic starship Lenin’s captain is given orders not to expose technology during a first contact mission to the Mote system, the idiot plot continues by humanity exposing technology during a first contact mission to the Mote system. The captain of Lenin is the sole human insulated from alien exposure, for no purported gain; remember, this is a civilization that has no need of heroes, only dutiful men who function like cogs for collectivist humanity.
The Mote’s aliens eagerly reveal that they are divided into subspecies that codify their roles in a communist caste fever dream. But the “Moties” are concealing their prosaic nature: despite never having met nor communicated with another species, they realize that their totally uncontrollable reproductive needs will overwhelm other species.
The Moties’ (we’ll get to that name soon) self-concept is omnisciently informed by the authors’ desire to tell a story about fertility as the most powerful characteristic of a civilization. The Moties are an inherent threat to humanity—despite several technological inferiorities—purely on the basis of their population growth curve. They are contrived to possess a secret super-soldier subspecies. They are contrived to possess a doctor subspecies, and a sterile monk-like Keeper subspecies—the authors seem to realize that there is an unbounded need for more specializations, but refuse to allow a race with a storied history to adapt themselves to more than one purpose each.
The accidentally self-aware communist caste fever dream continues.
“Moties” is a name humans give the aliens, and at no point would the Moties provide viable names for themselves, their individuals, or their language, despite much communication between Moties and humans.
The authors seem to have been satisfied with the folly of making a single word, Fyunch(click), to describe the one concept Moties had little use for until a non-Motie species arrived. The Fyunch(click) are Moties partnered to someone else for the express purpose of impersonating their mode of thinking for diplomatic gain.
In another of my nostalgic callbacks to the Revelation Space universe, sci-fi sometimes comes up with a way for a person to be represented in realtime by an AI persona who can speak plausibly for the human they represent, while that human is unavailable because of interstellar travel or hibernation.
In Mote, the Fyunch(click) obviously serve this purpose, and they obviously intend to wield it as a weapon against humanity. Lenin’s captain is the only person explicitly safe from this tactic, but the other captain and other humans happily allow this to transpire for hypothetical gains that no one on the page bothers to rationalize.
In this book, we are forced to watch as if by sleep paralysis while a casually genocidal humanity fumbles its only advantages because the Moties are cute.
That’s it. That’s the story.
You might be relieved to discover that there are some interesting moments that shake out of this mistake, but they are set piece events that could have happened after any setup, not just this one. The book is worth reading because of the set pieces, but that fact reduces it to a fun romp, losing out on its intended effects as thought-piece.
Mote fails us by designing aliens whose sexual shame is a deliberate foil for Christianity’s shame, for sex as sin, despite its necessity. The shame does not offer contrast, only validation of a Christian idea that the authors felt was transgressed by the sexual revolution of the 60s and later. Mote is an anti-feminist reactionary piece that only contemplates reproductive imperatives from the viewpoint of men who are constantly faced with the compulsion to do what is necessary for survival.
Mote fails us by pinning its entire concept on genocide and crippling sexual shame as two ends of one spectrum. At its most lucid zenith, it admits there isn’t an obvious sweet spot on the proposed spectrum, but it does this only to codify Christianity’s sexual shame as an integral part of being human. It uses the Moties as a cautionary tale of what too much sex looks like.
Mote fails us by lacking the imagination to propose genetic self-modification, to tone down sexual urges. I propose, as a result, that this was because Christianity would blanch at the idea, and reject it out of hand. Mote fails us by never even making contact with the notion.
However, Mote succeeds on a few sparse points, and if I could entertain the plausibility of The Windup Girl, then I can stomach this too.
The Mote in God’s Eye has been a worthwhile read for many people because it offers a familiar humanity, a familiar struggle with self, and a familiar struggle with duty. I do not condemn Mote for the mistakes of its characters on the page—Cixin Liu’s Death’s End is nothing if not a terrifyingly skilled demonstration of total nihilism brought on by well-meaning acts.
Mote’s frustrating takeaway, via the character Bury, is that humanity really ought to genocide the Moties, a species that has no name save for the one humanity gave it.
Mote’s frustrating profundity, via the Moties whose individual names are missing from the page, is that there is hope for change, even on the borderline-sinful edge of the reproductive scale. The Moties call this and all taboo thoughts “Crazy Eddie”, an adjectival phrase that means something unthinkable.
When we ponder that “Crazy Eddie” can only be rendered in translation in English, and not in the Moties’ own language, it becomes easy to understand that this story is about the humans who read it, and not the aliens the book invented.
The Wikipedia text lyrics follow:
In the year 3017, humanity is slowly recovering from an interstellar civil war that tore apart the first Empire of Man. The Second Empire is busy establishing control over the remnants left by its predecessor, by force if necessary. The Alderson Drive enables ships to travel instantaneously between "Alderson points" in specific star systems.
After a rebellion on the planet New Chicago is quashed, Captain Bruno Cziller of the Imperial battlecruiser INSS MacArthur remains behind as Chief of Staff to the new governor, while Commander Roderick Blaine is given temporary command of the ship, along with secret orders to take Horace Hussein Bury, a powerful interstellar merchant suspected of instigating the revolt, to the Imperial capital, Sparta. Another passenger is Lady Sandra "Sally" Bright Fowler, the niece of an Imperial senator and a traumatized former prisoner of the rebels.
New Caledonia is the capital of the Trans-Coalsack sector, on the opposite side of the Coalsack Nebula from Earth. Also in the sector is a red supergiant star known as Murcheson's Eye. Associated with it is a yellow Sun-like star, which from New Caledonia appears in front of the Eye. Since some see the Eye and the Coalsack as the face of God, the yellow star is known as the Mote in God's Eye.
Approaching New Caledonia, MacArthur is ordered to investigate when an alien spacecraft, propelled by a solar sail, is detected. After the spacecraft fires upon MacArthur, Blaine has its main capsule detached from the sail and taken aboard at great risk to his ship and crew. Its sole occupant, a brown and white furred creature, is found dead.
After much debate, MacArthur and the battleship Lenin are sent to the star from which the alien ship came, the Mote. MacArthur carries civilian researchers to make first contact with the aliens, quickly nicknamed "Moties". Admiral Kutuzov, aboard Lenin, has strict orders to avoid all contact with the aliens and ensure that human technology does not fall into their hands. The Moties seem friendly and have advanced technology that they are willing to trade, much to Bury's delight. Although they also possess the Alderson Drive, none of their ships have ever returned. This is because, unknown to the Moties, the Mote's only Alderson exit point lies within the outer layers of the star Murcheson's Eye. Human warships can survive there for a limited time because of their protective Langston Fields, which the Moties do not have.
The Moties are an old species, native to a planet that the humans label Mote Prime, that has evolved into many specialized subspecies. The first taken aboard MacArthur is an "Engineer", possessing amazing technical abilities, but limited speech and free will. It brings along a pair of tiny "Watchmakers" as helpers. Some days later, a delegation of "Mediators" (like the dead pilot of the probe ship) arrive. Their specialty is communication and negotiation. The Mediators invite the humans to send a party to Mote Prime. After some debate, the invitation is accepted. Each person in this group acquires a "Fyunch(click)", a Mediator who studies their human subject and tries to learn how to think like them.
Back on MacArthur, the Watchmakers escape, and although it is assumed they have died, they have actually been breeding furiously out of sight. Undetected by the crew, they modify parts of MacArthur to suit their needs. When they are discovered, a battle for control of the ship erupts. The crew is eventually forced to abandon ship after suffering casualties. The party on Mote Prime is quickly recalled without explanation and told to rendezvous with Lenin. Once MacArthur is evacuated, Lenin fires on and destroys her to prevent the potential capture of human technology.
During the evacuation, MacArthur midshipmen Staley, Whitbread and Potter are cut off and forced to escape in Watchmaker-modified lifeboats. The lifeboats automatically land in a sparsely populated area of Mote Prime. There the midshipmen find a fortified museum. It provides evidence of a very long and violent history, though the Moties had carefully portrayed themselves as completely peaceful. Following this discovery, the midshipmen are tracked down by Whitbread's Mediator Fyunch(click), who reveals that Moties (other than the short-lived, sterile Mediators) must become pregnant periodically or die. This inevitably results in overpopulation ... and civilization-ending wars. The Masters, whom the Mediators obey, have also concealed the existence of one Motie subspecies from the humans: Warriors more deadly than any human, even Sauron supersoldiers.
The museums exist to help restore civilization after a collapse. The "Cycles" of civilization, war, and collapse have gone on for hundreds of thousands of years, leaving the Moties fatalistically resigned to their destiny. Only a mythical character called "Crazy Eddie" believes there is a way to change this, and any Motie who comes to believe a solution is possible is labeled a "Crazy Eddie" and deemed insane.
The current civilization is governed by a type of industrial feudalism, with coalitions of Masters in control of the planet. One faction, led by "King Peter", wanted to reveal the truth to the humans, but was overruled. Colonization of other planets would inexorably bring about conflict with humans, as the inevitable Motie population explosion would force them to seek to take over human worlds. Nonetheless, the more powerful coalition sees this temporary solution as preferable to the impending collapse. Both factions send Warriors after the midshipmen, one to capture them, the other to rescue them. The stronger group's Warriors trap the midshipmen, but the trio refuse to surrender and die as a result.
Unaware of the midshipmen's fate, Lenin leaves the Mote system, taking with it three ambassadors, a sterile Master and two Mediators, whose mission is to open the galaxy to their species while concealing their terrible secrets.
An Imperial Commission is on the verge of granting colonies to the Moties, but MacArthur Sailing Master/Lieutenant Kevin Renner figures out the truth just in time. It is the passengers on the original probe, deliberately ejected into space, that give the game away. Not only is there a Warrior among the group, but several are visibly pregnant, demolishing any argument about them being statues or religious icons.
The decision is made to gather a battle fleet to either disarm or try to annihilate the Moties. The ambassadors are faced with the extinction of their species, knowing that the Masters would never submit. However, a Mediator comes up with a third option: a blockade of the system's only Alderson exit point. This plan is adopted, over the strenuous opposition of Bury, who views the Moties as the greatest threat humanity has ever faced.
