History Literature / MethuselahsChildren

* LawfulNeutral: Ford's only concern is the good of all mankind.

Now ''you'' come along. You shame him in his weakness, you humble him before his children. He dares not plan for the future; you blithely undertake plans that will not mature for fifty years-- for a hundred. No matter what success he has achieved, what excellence he has attained, ou will catch up with him, pass him--outlive him. In his weakness you are ''kind'' to him.\\

* FasterThanLightTravel: Several iterations are used. The ''New Frontiers'' is intended to be a slower-than-light, [[GenerationShips generational colony ship]], but Andy Libby invents an inertialess "light pressure drive" that allows the ship to accelerate to near-lightspeed. The first journey to find a habitable planet occurs at a relativistic scale, but then the SufficientlyAdvancedAliens that they encounter on the first planet they visit show the PunyEarthlings how to build a true FTL drive. Their return trip to Earth is much, much faster.

* BodyHorror: On the planet of the SufficientlyAdvancedAliens, Lazarus finally realizes that humans can't stay there when they start giving birth to "improved" babies with evolutionarily redundant features (such as external ears) modified or removed. Their guests view this as a gift and cannot understand the horror the humans feel.

''Methuselah's Children'' is a novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein first published as a serial in 1941 and expanded into a full novel in 1958. It is about a [[SocietyOfImmortals group of naturally long-lived humans]] who find themselves persecuted by 22nd century society for the (nonexistent) secret of their longevity and are forced to flee on humanity's first interstellar colony spacecraft. On the journey, they undergo FirstContact and meet a number of weird alien species, eventually returning to Earth to find that society has invented its own longevity technology in their absence. The combination of rejuvenation technology, prolonged lifespans, and FasterThanLightTravel gives humanity the keys to colonizing the galaxy.

--->'''Zaccur Barstow''': ''My people are being persecuted!''\\

* DemocracyIsBad: Slayton Ford, the president of the world government, is privately willing to believe the Howards when they claim that their longevity is genetic, but is forced by overwhelming public pressure to intern and torture them. He ends up abandoning his position and escaping with them, but before the Howards came up with the idea of running like Israelites from Egypt, he was seriously considering ''sterilizing and/or executing every last one of them.'' The moral (typically for Heinlein) is that democracy is a terrible way to run things because it results in [[LowestCommonDenominator tyranny of the majority]].

* DemocracyIsBad: Slayton Ford, the president of the world government, is privately willing to believe the Howards when they claim that their longevity is genetic, but is forced by overwhelming public pressure to intern and torture them. He ends up abandoning his position and escaping with them, but the moral (typically for Heinlein) is that democracy is a terrible way to run things because it results in [[LowestCommonDenominator tyranny of the majority]].

* DemocracyIsBad: Slayton Ford, the president of the world government, is privately willing to believe the Howards when they claim that their longevity is genetic, but is forced by overwhelming public pressure to intern and torture them. He ends up abandoning his position and escaping with them, but the moral (typically Heinlien in nature) is that democracy is a terrible way to run things because it results in [[LowestCommonDenominator tyranny of the majority]].

* DemocracyIsBad: The head of the democratic world government seriously considers sterilizing and/or executing every member of the Howard Families because the sheeple are convinced that they have an immortality treatment instead of good genes. He ends up joining them in exile as their de facto leader.

* TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: The first aliens that the ''New Frontiers'' colonists encounter are vastly superior, both technologically and mentally, to humans. Those humans who attempt to join their HiveMind are destroyed or [[GoMadFromTheRevelation driven mad]] by it, as it's too powerful for their psyches to withstand.

''Methuselah's Children'' is a novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein first published as a serial in 1941 and expanded into a full novel in 1958. It is about a [[SocietyOfImmortals group of naturally long-lived humans]] who find themselves persecuted by society for the (nonexistent) secret of their longevity and are forced to flee on humanity's first interstellar colony spacecraft. On the journey, they undergo FirstContact and meet a number of weird alien species, eventually returning to Earth to find that society has invented its own longevity technology in their absence. The combination of rejuvenation technology, prolonged lifespans, and FasterThanLightTravel gives humanity the keys to colonizing the galaxy.

* {{Masquerade}}: Howards use a [[UndeadTaxExemption variety of tricks]] to prevent people from noticing that there's a whole bunch of people around who never get around to dying. In the late 21st century, the world is starting to take notice.

* ImmortalitySeeker: Ira Howard was a rich man at 40, but found himself unexpectedly and infuriatingly dying of old age. So he bequeathed his entire fortune into a trust fund charged with the sole purpose of finding a way to prolong human life.

* FasterThanLightTravel: Several iterations are used. The ''New Frontiers'' is intended to be a slower-than-light, generational colony ship, but Andy Libby invents an inertialess "light pressure drive" that allows the ship to accelerate to near-lightspeed. The first journey to find a habitable planet occurs at a relativistic scale, but then the SufficientlyAdvancedAliens that they encounter on the first planet they visit show the PunyEarthlings how to build a true FTL drive. Their return trip to Earth is much, much faster.

* {{Masquerade}}: Howards use a variety of tricks to prevent people from noticing that there's a whole bunch of people around who never get around to dying. In the late 21st century, the world is starting to take notice.

* ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: The first aliens that the ''New Frontiers'' colonists encounter are vastly superior, both technologically and mentally, to humans. Those humans who attempt to join their HiveMind are destroyed or driven mad by it, as it's too powerful for their psyches to withstand.

* FasterThanLightTravel: Several iterations are used. The ''New Frontiers'' was intended to be a slower-than-light, generational colony ship, but Andy Libby invented an inertialess "light pressure drive" that allowed the ship to accelerate to near-lightspeed. The first journey to find a habitable planet occurred at a relativistic scale, but then the SufficientlyAdvancedAliens that they encounter on the first planet they visit show the PunyEarthlings how to build a true FTL drive. Their return trip to Earth is much, much faster.

* SocietyOfImmortals: The Howard Foundation, started as an applied eugenics program to prolong the human lifespan, and developed into an entire breed of extremely long-lived people who naturally formed their own society to avoid persecution.

* SocietyOfImmortals: The Howard Foundation, started as a breeding program to prolong the human lifespan, developed into an entire breed of extremely long-lived people who naturally formed their own society to avoid persecution.

''Methuselah's Children'' is a novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein first published as a serial in 1941 and expanded into a full novel in 1958. It is about a [[SocietyOfImmortals group of naturally long-lived humans]] who find themselves persecuted by society for the secret of their longevity and are forced to flee on humanity's first interstellar colony spacecraft. On the journey, they undergo FirstContact and meet a number of weird alien species, eventually returning to Earth to find that society has invented its own longevity technology in their absence. The combination of rejuvenation technology, prolonged lifespans, and FasterThanLightTravel gives humanity the keys to colonizing the galaxy.

''Methuselah's Children'' is a novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein first published as a serial in 1941 and expanded into a full novel in 1958. It is about a [[SocietyOfImmortals society of naturally long-lived humans]] who find themselves persecuted by society for the secret of their longevity and are forced to flee on humanity's first interstellar colony spacecraft. On the journey, they undergo FirstContact and meet a number of weird alien species, eventually returning to Earth to find that society has invented its own longevity technology in their absence. The combination of rejuvenation technology, prolonged lifespans, and FasterThanLightTravel gives humanity the keys to colonizing the galaxy.

''Methuselah's Children'' is a novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein first published as a serial in 1941 and expanded into a full novel in 1958. It is about a [[SocietyOfImmortals, society of naturally long-lived humans]] who find themselves persecuted by society for the secret of their longevity and are forced to flee on humanity's first interstellar colony spacecraft. On the journey, they undergo FirstContact and meet a number of weird alien species, eventually returning to Earth to find that society has invented its own longevity technology in their absence. The combination of rejuvenation technology, prolonged lifespans, and FasterThanLightTravel gives humanity the keys to colonizing the galaxy.

''Methuselah's Children'' also introduces the roguish Lazarus Long, the POVCharacter and instigator of many of the novel's schemes, who would later go on to become Heinlein's archprotagonist, appearing in every novel set in the "Future History" universe until Heinlein's death.

''Methuselah's Children'' is a novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein first published as a serial in 1941 and expanded into a full novel in 1958.

''Methuselah's Children'' is a novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein first published as a sereal in 1941 and expanded into a full novel in 1958.

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