History Literature / TheGodsThemselves

Extremely atypical for Asimov's work, most of the story [[BizarreAlienBiology focuses on sex]] [[note]] Asimov's science fiction works were known for not featuring aliens, and he mostly avoided romantic plots including never depicting sex, so in a completely out of character book for him, he featured aliens having sex.[[/note]] and a trio of aliens named Odeen, Dua, and Tritt.[[note]]More or less the Russian words for "one", "two", and "three".[[/note]] Their species has three genders, and the three of them are a "couple". Dua is of the emotional gender, but she is considered an intellectual compared to the rest of her kind. Their planet is host to two species, divided into "Soft Ones" and genderless beings known as "Hard Ones" (due to the plot-important fact that atomic forces are weak in their universe and Soft Ones have sex by overlapping their bodies).

* AsimovsThreeKindsOfScienceFiction: Social sci-fi written by Aasimov.

%%* AsimovsThreeKindsOfScienceFiction: Social sci-fi.

* CompoundTitle: TitleDrop in 3 parts: "Against Stupidity...", "...The Gods Themselves...", and "...Contend In Vain?".

** In Part 2, "...The Gods Themselves...", all the chapters [[spoiler:(except for the last one)]] are split into three parts (i.e. 1a, 1b, 1c, then 2a, etc.); each letter corresponds to Odeen, Dua, or Tritt, and all of the action in each subchapter takes place at roughly the same time.

* TitleDropChapter: The second of the three parts is titled "The Gods Themselves". The three titles form a quotation that is the epigraph of the whole book.

* Intangibility: The Soft Ones are capable of that, to an extent.

* IgnoredExpert: No less than three Jor-Els attempting to warn Earth of a danger. One is an alien and the two others are human. The name of the novel (as well as those of the three parts) comes from the quote, "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."

* TwoBeingsOneBody: the aliens merge three into one as a part of their reproductive cycle.

* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:Throughout the second part, Dua has learned about how the Electron Pump the Hard Ones have been creating with the aid of beings from another universe (humans) will doom that universe to destruction -- and eventually begins attempting to sabotage the effort by sending the messages the first part's characters use to discover the flaw. At the end of the part, when "her" triad-mates save her from death and reveal that their destiny is to combine into a Hard One, "her" last individual thought is to realize that "she"/they were the Hard One who was the EvilGenius driving the project forward.]]* TwoBeingsOneBody: the aliens merge three into one as a part of their reproductive cycle.

** FridgeLogic: It's existing in this universe when it's discovered.
*** That's because it brought its physical laws with it. Those laws are slowly spreading out, causing the element to decay, producing free energy. [[spoiler:However it turns out that introducing such an energy exchange will cause our universe to catastrophically explode, while the alien universe would slowly decay into nothing. The aliens figure that the energy they gain will more than compensate for the slow death, while not caring at all that our universe would destroy itself.]]

* AndThenJohnWasAZombie [=/=] TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:Throughout the second part, Dua has learned about how the Electron Pump the Hard Ones have been creating with the aid of beings from another universe (humans) will doom that universe to destruction -- and eventually begins attempting to sabotage the effort by sending the messages the first part's characters use to discover the flaw. At the end of the part, when "her" triad-mates save her from death and reveal that their destiny is to combine into a Hard One, "her" last individual thought is to realize that "she"/they were the Hard One who was the EvilGenius driving the project forward.]]

* AsimovsThreeKindsOfScienceFiction: Social sci-fi.

** TheyCalledMeMad [=/=] WhosLaughingNow: Most of the major achievements of the characters -- proving the plutonium isotope is otherworldly, discovering the flaw in the Pump, Dua intuiting how to leave messages for the humans -- are made to humiliate their enemies. [[spoiler: Denison and Selene manage to [[EarnYourHappyEnding earn their victory]] by being willing to set aside their grudges -- Denison decides to let Lamont get the glory of humiliating Hallam, for example.]]

* TwoBeingsOneBody: the aliens merge three into one as a part of their reproductive cycle.

-->'''[[spoiler:Doctor Benjamin Allan Denison]]''' and '''Selene Lindstrom'''

*** That's because it brought its physical laws with it. Those laws are slowly spreading out, causing the element to decay, producing free energy.

Extremely atypical for Asimov's work, most of the story [[BizarreAlienBiology focuses on sex]] [[note]] Asimov's science fiction works were known for not featuring aliens, and he mostly avoided romantic plots including never depicting sex.[[/note]] and a trio of aliens named Odeen, Dua, and Tritt.[[note]]More or less the Russian words for "one", "two", and "three".[[/note]] Their species has three genders, and the three of them are a "couple". Dua is of the emotional gender, but she is considered an intellectual compared to the rest of her kind. Their planet is host to two species, divided into "Soft Ones" and genderless beings known as "Hard Ones" (due to the plot-important fact that atomic forces are weak in their universe and Soft Ones have sex by overlapping their bodies).

Extremely atypical for Asimov's work, most of the story [[BizarreAlienBiology focuses on sex]] and a trio of aliens named Odeen, Dua, and Tritt.[[note]]More or less the Russian words for "one", "two", and "three".[[/note]] Their species has three genders, and the three of them are a "couple". Dua is of the emotional gender, but she is considered an intellectual compared to the rest of her kind. Their planet is host to two species, divided into "Soft Ones" and genderless beings known as "Hard Ones" (due to the plot-important fact that atomic forces are weak in their universe and Soft Ones have sex by overlapping their bodies).

* OutWithABang: The Soft Ones reproduce by "melting", an extended period of time in which they physically merge with their other two partners. Afterwards, one of them gives birth. The children's sexes always occur in a specified order, and all the members of the triad die after the birth of the third child. Subverted because we eventually discover (along with the viewpoint Soft Ones themselves) [[spoiler: that they don't actually die, they permanently merge and become a "Hard One", which up until now the Soft Ones and the reader have been led to believe is a different race. This also occurs temporarily during the other meldings, though the Soft Ones retain no memories of this.]]

* TitleDrop

Extremely atypical for Asimov's work, most of the story [[BizarreAlienBiology focuses on sex]] and a trio of aliens named Odeen, Dua, and Tritt[[note]](More or less the Russian words for "one", "two", and "three".)[[/note]]. Their species has three genders, and the three of them are a "couple". Dua is of the emotional gender, but she is considered an intellectual compared to the rest of her kind. Their planet is host to two species, divided into "Soft Ones" and genderless beings known as "Hard Ones" (due to the plot-important fact that atomic forces are weak in their universe and Soft Ones have sex by overlapping their bodies).

Typical for Asimov's work, most of the book is them having conversations. Dua discusses a recently-built trans-dimensional reactor with one of her mates. One of them explains that the reactor connects to a universe populated by humans. It turns out that the Hard Ones went to great lengths to convince the humans to build machinery on their end, and the reactor works on the principle of isobar exchange - that is, two substances, each stable in only one universe, decay one into the other and are constantly swapped around.

* ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics: Spectacularly averted and/or subverted: when a radio-chemist discovers a radioactive element that cannot possibly exist under the known laws of physics - it turns out to be from another universe where the laws of physics are sufficiently different that it can exist there!

*** That's because it brought its pysical laws with it. Those laws are slowly spreading out, causing the element to decay, producing free energy.
* AndThenJohnWasAZombie[=/=]TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:Throughout the second part, Dua has learned about how the Electron Pump the Hard Ones have been creating with the aid of beings from another universe (humans) will doom that universe to destruction -- and eventually begins attempting to sabotage the effort by sending the messages the first part's characters use to discover the flaw. At the end of the part, when "her" triad-mates save her from death and reveal that their destiny is to combine into a Hard One, "her" last individual thought is to realize that "she"/they were the Hard One who was the EvilGenius driving the project forward.]]

* FakeUltimateHero: Hallam. Everyone believes he is the one to give them the Electronic Pump. In reality, the main idea was stolen from another, while the rest of the work was done by people who were afraid to take credit in time.

** TheyCalledMeMad[=/=]WhosLaughingNow: Most of the major achievements of the characters -- proving the plutonium isotope is otherworldly, discovering the flaw in the Pump, Dua intuiting how to leave messages for the humans -- are made to humiliate their enemies. [[spoiler: Denison and Selene manage to [[EarnYourHappyEnding earn their victory]] by being willing to set aside their grudges -- Denison decides to let Lamont get the glory of humiliating Hallam, for example.]]
* SexAsRiteOfPassage: In the alternate universe, there are three kinds of gaseous people and a kind of solid people. [[spoiler: the solid people are the merging - which is their analog of sex - of three gaseous people]].

** ''Officially'' is the world. Selene points out that it's not easy to ban scientific research, and the moon has a number of scientists researching the subject. There is some suspicion about her being a descendant of a test subject from the original attempt.

* {{Xenofiction}}: Asimov had been criticized in the past for not having aliens or sex in his novels. This one has aliens, sex and alien sex. And ''very'' alien aliens, at that.

* ReactionlessDrive: Asimov managed to come up with a [[ShownTheirWork fully thought through]] mechanism for this that ''doesn't'' involve abandoning conservation of momentum. There might not be anything to push against where you are in this universe, but what about the one next door?

*** That's because it brought it's pysical laws with it. Those laws are slowly spreading out, causing the element to decay, producing free energy.

Extremely atypical for Asimov's work, most of the story [[BizarreAlienBiology focuses on sex]] and a trio of aliens named Odeen, Dua, and Tritt[[note]](More or less the Russian words for "one", "two", and "three".)[[/note]]. Their species has three genders, and the three of them are a "couple". Dua is of the emotional gender, but she is considered an intellectual compared to the rest of her kind. Their planet is host to two species, divided into "Soft Ones" and genderless beings known as "Hard Ones" (due to the plot-important fact that atomic forces are weak in their universes and Soft Ones have sex by overlapping their bodies).

* TechnologyMarchesOn: The particles accelerator Lamont and Denison try to access sounds no better in characteristics than the cancelled Super Collider project, so it sounds unlikely to be cutting edge in the 22nd century. On the other hand, the Moon Scientists do manage to squeeze its functions down to the size of a room.
* [[TwoBeingsOneBody Three Beings One Body]]: the aliens merge three into one as a part of their reproductive cycle.

* ReactionlessDrive: managed to come up with a [[ShownTheirWork fully thought through]] mechanism for this that ''doesn't'' involve abandoning conservation of momentum. There might not be anything to push against where you are in this universe, but what about the one next door?

* SpaceIsMagic: written largely in response to this trope. Asimov once heard Robert Silverberg make up an isotope off the top of his head, Plutonium-186. When Asimov pointed out that said isotope does not and cannot exist, Silverberg responded "So what?" Asimov, who was never one to back down from a challenge (even a self-imposed one) decided to work out under what conditions Plutonium-186 could be possible. He concluded that it would have to be in an parallel universe where the laws of Physics behaved differently than they do here (such as the strong force being a lot stronger than it is in our universe). He went on to figure out how such a Universe would operate, and eventually developed his ideas into what he considered his most ambitious novel.

* TechnologyMarchesOn: The particles accelerator Lamont and Denison try to access sounds no better in characteristics than the cancelled Super Collider project, so it sounds unlikely to be cutting edge in the 22nd century. On the other hand, the Moon Scientists do manage to squeeze its functions down to the size of a room.

* TheWarOfEarthlyAggression: potentially brewing between Earth and the lunar colony.