History Literature / TheAndromedaStrain

The novel has been adapted into movie form twice; the [[Film/TheAndromedaStrain 1971 film]] starred Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, and David Wayne and followed the book closely, while the [[Series/TheAndromedaStrain 2008 miniseries]] is a re-imagining of the original story.

* TheAlcoholic: [[NamesTheSame Peter Jackson]] (the elderly Piedmont survivor), to the point of drinking ''stove alcohol'' because it helps him dull the pain from his bleeding ulcer (and because it's the only type of alcohol he can afford). Ironically, this is what saves his life from Andromeda.

* GenderFlip: Leavitt is male in the novel, female in the film. Interestingly, HotScientist is emphatically ''not'' invoked in the switch.

** The government never considered a possibility that the nuclear-sterilization protocol going off could make things ''[[ILoveNuclearPower worse]]'', so arming the device is entirely automatic, with human intervention required to ''abort'' the countdown once it's been triggered. [[spoiler: When Andromeda eats through the plastic gaskets in the containment areas the computers automatically arm the device. However by this point the scientists have discovered that a nuclear detonation would merely give Andromeda an extremely rich growth environment, which potentially threatens the ''entire world'', and Hall is sent scurrying through a DeathCourse to shut it down]].

* BizarreAlienBiology: Zig-zagged. Andromeda is shown via spectroscopic analysis (vaporizing samples and looking at their light to determine what elements are present) to be composed solely of four of the most common elements found in Earth life—hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. However, it's capable of incredible feats of matter-energy conversion, decently fast replication rates, long-term survivability in a space environment, and capability to mutate its form. All without DNA, RNA, amino acids, or protein structures of any kind. Even its hexagonal crystalline structure appears to be all one substance, with no indications of separate areas for replication, food processing, etc.

* YouCanPanicNow: One of Crichton's seminal works on the subject. Things go haywire every time someone tries to either take a shortcut [[note]]Because they see what they expected from their working theories and so don't take the time to verify their findings - as when Dr. Burton doesn't take the time to autopsy the experimental animals he used an anticoagulant on[[/note]] or makes a decision out of fear[[note]]As in Leavitt not admitting even to himself that he has epilepsy because he knows what it would mean to his career and life[[/note]] rather than following proper scientific procedure. The story has been hailed as [[http://www.yacoset.com/why-the-andromeda-strain-is-the-greatest-debugging-tutorial-ever-made "the greatest debugging tutorial ever made."]]
-->''As in most crises, the events surrounding the Andromeda Strain were a compound of foresight and foolishness, innocence and ignorance. Nearly everyone involved had moments of great brilliance, and moments of unaccountable stupidity. It is therefore impossible to write about the events without offending some of the participants.\\
However, I think it is important that the story be told. This country supports the largest scientific establishment in the history of mankind. New discoveries are constantly being made, and many of these discoveries have important political or social overtones. In the near future, we can expect more crises on the pattern of Andromeda. Thus I believe it is useful for the public to be made aware of the way in which scientific crises arise, and are dealt with.''

* ComputerVoice: The computer in the Wildfire secret underground base plays pre-recorded messages spoken by a pleasant female voice. It is revealed that the voice, [[ArousedByTheirVoice which one scientist describes as "luscious,"]] is that of a woman in her 60's, turning it into in-universe FetishRetardant.
** This is in-universe FanService, as the book points out that the most sexy voice the military could find is used for voice reminder systems on the theory that men will pay more attention to it. It also turns into in-universe FetishRetardant when the same voice also plainly announces the [[spoiler: nuclear countdown.]] Stone and Hall find this extremely infuriating.

** A warning bell that's supposed to alert the team when important information comes in on their telex machine is defeated when a scrap of paper peels from the roll and wedges itself between the bell and striker, preventing the bell from ringing. This cuts them off from ''lots'' of important information; little things like [[spoiler:Andromeda eventually learning to eat anything remotely organic - such as the airtight plastic gaskets used in clean rooms. Cue ''really'' unwanted nuclear-sterilization protocol.]]

''The Andromeda Strain'' is a 1969 thriller novel by Creator/MichaelCrichton, about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin that causes rapid, fatal blood clotting.

''The Andromeda Strain'' is a novel published by Creator/MichaelCrichton in 1969 about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin that causes rapid, fatal blood clotting.

->''"[[SpySpeak There's a fire, sir.]]"''\\
--'''Capt. Morton'''

** The US politicians have to content with this trope prior to the climax, as well. One of the Wildfire protocols is Directive 7-12, which employs a nuclear strike on the center of an outbreak to (theoretically) vaporize and sterilize the area if there are no survivors and/or the contagion proves to be quite threatening. However, despite allowing Wildfire to possess an automatic nuclear self-destruct (and dragging their heels all the way), the President retains control of this directive, and is forced to balance the apparent sure-fire cure to an outbreak against the effects it would have in global politics; i.e., letting the Soviets know why they appeared to break a nuclear test ban in private ''at best'', to triggering a global nuclear conflict if the outbreak occurred in the Soviet Union. In the latter case, it was even decided that even the worst outbreak would kill less people in the Soviet Union than a full nuclear exchange. In regards to Piedmont, the President elects to delay the nuking 72 hours and set up a 150-mile cordon around the town instead; [[Main/Foreshadowing this will come in handy later.]]

** The US politicians have to content with this trope prior to the climax, as well. One of the Wildfire protocols is Directive 7-12, which employs a nuclear strike on the center of an outbreak to (theoretically) vaporize and sterilize the area if there are no survivors and/or the contagion proves to be quite threatening. However, despite allowing Wildfire to possess an automatic nuclear self-destruct (and dragging their heels all the way), the President retains control of this directive, and is forced to balance the apparent sure-fire cure to an outbreak against the effects it would have in global politics; i.e., letting the Soviets know why they appeared to break a nuclear test ban in private ''at best'', to triggering a global nuclear conflict if the outbreak occurred in the Soviet Union. In the latter case, it was even decided that even the worst outbreak would kill less people in the Soviet Union than a full nuclear exchange. In regards to Piedmont, the President elects to delay the nuking 72 hours and set up a 150-mile cordon around the town instead; [[Main\Foreshadowing this will come in handy later.]]

* GemTissue: The story centers on an alien crystal that can survive in vacuum and even a nuclear blast. By incidentally triggering near-instantaneous coagulation of the entire volume of an animal's blood, it causes said clotted blood to take on a powdered, diamond-dust like appearance.

* GemTissue: The story centers on an alien crystal that can survive in vacuum and even a nuclear blast. By incidentally triggering near-instantaneous coagulation of the entire volume of an animal's blood, it causes said clotted blood to take on a powdered, daimond-dust like appearance.

* GemTissue: The story centers on an alien crystal that can survive in vacuum and even a nuclear blast. Tragically, it also tends to restructure the proteins in people and animals, most notably converting fluid blood into a reddish powder in its victims' veins.

--'''Capt. Morton''' (film version)

* YouCanPanicNow: One of Crichton's seminal works on the subject. Things go haywire every time someone tries to either take a shortcut [[note]]Because they see what they expected from their working theories and so don't take the time to verify their findings - as when Dr. Burton doesn't take the time to autopsy the experimental animals he used an anticoagulant on[[/note]] or makes a decision out of fear[[note]]As in Leavitt not admitting even to himself that he has epilepsy[[/note]] rather than following proper scientific procedure. The story has been hailed as [[http://www.yacoset.com/why-the-andromeda-strain-is-the-greatest-debugging-tutorial-ever-made "the greatest debugging tutorial ever made."]]

** The government never considered a possibility that the nuclear-sterilization protocol going off could make things ''[[ILoveNuclearPower worse]]'', so they purposefully left out any means to shut it off from inside the facility once it's been armed. [[spoiler:Once the scientists discover that Andromeda not only ''eats'' radiation but uses it to evolve, they have to begin an extensive off-site procedure to shut it down. When Andromeda eats through the plastic gaskets in the containment areas, this threatens the ''entire world'', and Hall is sent scurrying through a DeathCourse to shut it down]].
** The control stations allowing the override for the nuclear warhead weren't installed in several compartments of the center due to bureaucratic delays, necessitating [[spoiler:Hall crawling to the upper level through the central core to find a working shutdown station]].
** The core was equipped with automated guns firing curare-tipped darts to stop any potentially infected escaped lab animals, ''again'' with no emergency shutdown. Luckily, the dose was calculated for primates less than 20 kg, and [[OneDoseFitsAll not for much larger humans]], [[spoiler:thus making Hall's mad scramble possible.]]

* GodzillaThreshold: Two are mentioned in the book but not crossed. The most memorable, of course, is [[spoiler:the nuclear warhead intended to destroy Wildfire if a disease is about to escape to the outside]]. In an earlier scene, when [[ChekhovsGun a rubber seal fails]] and [[spoiler:Burton]] is exposed to the virus, he volunteers to take Kalocin, a [[{{Panacea}} top-secret antibiotic that destroys all unicellular life]] - bacteria, fungi, viruses, you name it. Stone absolutely refuses. [[{{Exposition}} A expository paragraph then explains]] that when tested on humans with terminal diseases, the drug wiped out all the symbiotic microorganisms living inside and on them [[CureForCancer and even caused remission in cancer patients]] (while causing some minor inconveniences [[PottyEmergency like massive diarrhea]]); when the doses stopped, all manner of harmful microbes that humans had NOT co-evolved with moved into the now-empty biological niches and killed all the subjects [[NightmareFuel in various grotesque ways]] within six hours.
* GovernmentConspiracy: Project Scoop was developed to try to find elements on the upper atmosphere or low earth orbit that could be developed into newer biological weapons, with the Scoop VII satellite (which obtained Andromeda from space) having GoneHorriblyRight. [[AdaptationalAngstUpgrade Interestingly]], the characters make more of a fuss about it in the film than in the novel (which presents this fact as early as the second chapter, while on the film is reserved to a twist near the climax).

* {{Infodump}}: Pages of it, as befitting a Crichton novel. Surprisingly, the 1971 film preserved the vast majority.
* InscrutableAliens: It's speculated that the virus was [[spoiler: created by an alien species as a data storage mechanism]], but we never find out anything about them, and it's only a hypothesis. The more likely explanation is that it's just an organism that thrives on any sort of energy, especially thermal energy.
* ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure: The back-up plan to prevent a release of agent from the Wildfire facility was to destroy the site with a nuke. [[spoiler:Heroically averted, as a nuclear detonation might only have fueled Andromeda's rampant growth.]]
** It's also briefly mentioned that the helicopter pilot that drops the Wildfire team off at the site of first infection is under orders that if the team on the ground is overwhelmed by Andromeda, he is to proceed directly to the Wildfire facility, where both he and his aircraft will be incinerated as a sterilization measure. And he's being shadowed by a fighter jet that will shoot him down if he doesn't comply.
* MagicCountdown: [[spoiler:Averted in that Hall disarms the nuclear self-destruct with more than half a minute to spare. Subverted in that the lowest level of the facility is ''evacuated of atmosphere'' '''thirty seconds before detonation''' to increase the yield of the nuke -- the researchers were only seconds from being '''''asphyxiated.''''']]
* {{Mockumentary}}: Crichton presents himself as a historian reconstructing "the five-day course of a major American scientific crisis" through examination of relevant declassified materials and interviews with the scientists involved; he frequently quotes from these interviews and from several {{Fictional Document}}s supposedly part of his research. He even cites fake papers written by his characters alongside ''real'' ones in his bibliography at the end of the book.

* SelfDestructMechanism: The Wildfire facility has a nuclear device beneath it that is set to automatically go off in the event of a breach to prevent any nasty diseases from getting out. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, the scientists calculate that the heat and radiation from a nuclear blast would cause the virus to mutate into a potentially much deadlier form.]] In addition, the book goes into detail about the necessary psychological profile of the one person who should be entrusted with the "off" key. The people in charge calculated that an unmarried male with no strong family connections would be best able to make the decision to allow the bomb to go off. And the device is even designed so only Hall can use it, so another person less willing to sacrifice himself than Hall can't just take the key from him and stop the countdown. (All of which just goes to show how many hoops the Wildfire scientists had to jump through to get the government to trust even a single civilian with control over a nuclear weapon.)

* UndiscriminatingAddict: One of the two survivors of the titular biological hazard is Peter Jackson, the town drunk of Piedmont, a man who is often so desperate to purchase booze to stave off the pain of his bleeding ulcer (and so poor) that he has taken to drinking ''stove alcohol''. [[SerendipitousSurvival His body chemistry is so shot from the constant drinking that Andromeda can't survive it]] ([[WeaksauceWeakness because it can only work within a very slim degree of blood acidity]]).
* WhiteAndGreyMorality: The conflict between the Wildfire team and the titular Andromeda Strain. The Wildfire team consists of {{Science Hero}}es trying to stop (or at least reduce) the dangers of the Andromeda Strain, and despite its [[BodyHorror dangerous capabilities]], the Andromeda Strain is an alien species of single-celled organisms that are [[NonMaliciousMonster simply following their biological code of survival.]]
* YouCanPanicNow: One of Crichton's seminal works on the subject. The scientists are able to rationally tear Andromeda to pieces save when they panic and try to take shortcuts. Things go haywire every time someone makes a decision out of fear rather than logic. The story has been hailed as [[http://www.yacoset.com/why-the-andromeda-strain-is-the-greatest-debugging-tutorial-ever-made "the greatest debugging tutorial ever made."]]

* DressingToDie: Almost everyone in the small town of Piedmont dies when the Andromeda Strain is released. However, some people go crazy and kill themselves instead of dying from the effects of the disease. [[spoiler: One of these is William Arnold, who puts on his World War I U.S. Army uniform before shooting himself in the head.]]

* BodyHorror: Andromeda dispatches its victims by near-instant clotting of blood -- such that most of Piedmont was "cut down in mid-stride." The team get to see wonderful visages, such as a smiling family gathered around rotting food. The autopsy on the man who opened the probe carrying Andromeda also counts, as they chop him open -- and only get clotted blood. It's hinted that a few survived long enough to "go quietly nuts". [[spoiler:The identities of this latter group -- among them, a diabetic, a teen who built model airplanes, a UsefulNotes/WW1 vet, and an old chain-smoking lady -- provide an early hint to how Andromeda targets its victims. All would have been mildly acidotic, from uncontrolled diabetes, the paint thinner they worked with, old age, and COPD respectively, which allowed them to survive long enough to develop dementia. All cases commit suicide in an unnatural and/or painful way in Piedmont, such as one via self-immolation, and the diabetic literally filling a tub with water and holding his head inside until he drowned, and nearly all leave ranting, paranoid notes. Even the model-building teen who drank paint thinner is a clue; Paint thinner and glue both contain methylated spirits (methanol, methyl ethyl ketone and acetone), all of which cause massive metabolic acidosis -- well enough to defeat Andromeda. He likely survived infection, only to die of his toxidrome shortly afterward. A final case which appears later -- a diabetic cop that survived initial infection and then shot up a diner -- which cements the acidosis theory]].