History Literature / TheGodsThemselves

* ArrangedMarriage: The Hard Ones actively select triad partners for the Soft Ones. [[spoiler: This is to ensure the resulting Hard one has desired characteristics]].

* FreeLoveFuture: The Moon Colony seems to be this.

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.

* BeigeProse: A later Asimov work, Gold, has a bunch of frustrated film writers disparately try to cobble together a screen adaptation of ''Literature/TheGodsThemselves'', cursing Asimov's dialogue laden, non-descriptive, and beige prose the entire way.

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

* 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 some time after the birth of the third child (long ago, some triples had six, thus providing the answer to the obvious problem with mathematics. Today, the energy shortage doesn't allow that anymore). 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.]]

* ArrangedMarriage: The Hard Ones actively select triad partners for the Soft Ones.

* AsimovsThreeKindsOfScienceFiction: The characters {{converse|d}} about a trans-dimensional reactor that supplies the energy needs of at least humankind and an alien race, each inhabiting their own universe. The extensive conversation allows the reader to learn the intricacies and dire, long-term, unintended consequences of the use of such technology. The reactor exploits the (fictional) isobar exchange, where two identical substances can be swapped between two parallel universes to generate energy -- the problem is that it causes one of the universes to approach its heat death sooner.

* CreativeSterility: Dua believes the Hard Ones suffer from this, and that the Soft Ones [[spoiler: are a kind of RobotBuddy child substitute they have created to make up for this.]].

* FutureFoodIsArtificial: At least on the Moon. The para-universe is currently developing "artificial food", which is actually artificial lighting, since they are photosynthetic lifeforms. Dua says it tastes awufl.

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: takes its title from Schiller's "Die Jungfrau von Orleans"

* ApocalypseHow: Potentially a galactic-scale one.

** Just to clarify this a bit, when a triad of Soft Ones "melt" (that is, mate), they [[spoiler: temporarily form a Hard One, but don't remember that after they separate (the Hard One does, however, remember its previous periods of consciousness when it is formed again).]] Nonetheless, this fusion is related to reproduction, being the means by which new Soft Ones are conceived (one at a time) to grow to term inside the Parental of the triad. It's not said outright, but there is the implication that there is an order to the pregnancies so that each triad will produce at least one full triad of offspring before they grow out of the breeding stage and finally [[spoiler: merge permanently as a Hard One]]. The Hard Ones are genderless and act in a parental/mentor advisory role to the Soft Ones (though the Parental Soft Ones act as parents to the babies when the latter are very young).

* BigEater: Bronowski's constant snacking.
* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler:Doctor Denison becomes the protagonist of the third part after only being mentioned in the first part as the person who sank into obscurity after his insult launched Hallam's career.]]

* CommonTongue: Planetary Standard, whatever it is.

* CausedTheBigBang: The heroes state at the end that the way they are draining the energy from another universe (which is all a single star) will eventually cause a Big Bang by making the star go supernova. It is unknown whether it happened in our universe, since spontaneous leakages are quite possible.

* DysfunctionJunction: Earth's politics and academia.
* FakeUltimateHero: Hallam. Everyone believes he is the one to give them the Electron 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.

* FutureFoodIsArtificial: At least on the Moon.

* GoneHorriblyWrong: the aliens helped humanity build the source of clean unlimited power. Unfortunately, it will [[spoiler: blow up the sun]].
* HannibalLecture: Senator Burt to Lamont.
* IgnoredExpert: No fewer 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."

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: All the people working with Hallam on the Plutonium-186 research were afraid to go public in case it will flop. Then it turned out they got a free source of unlimited energy, and the very public Hallam ended up with all the prestige.

* MinovskyPhysics: Takes the premise of beings from another universe sending an impossible isotope of plutonium into ours, and extrapolates the consequences to drive much of the plot. [[spoiler:For instance, the other universe's physics leak into our universe along with the Plutonium-186...]]

* 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 (long ago, some triples had six, thus providing the answer to the obvious problem with mathematics. Today, the energy shortage doesn't allow that anymore). 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.]]

* 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]].
* 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.
* SpeculativeFictionLGBT: set in a parallel dimension in which there are three distinct genders that also function as guilds/houses that one may be sorted into (logicals, emotionals, and parentals). One of the main characters is Dua, who is split between the genders and so a version of non-binary (which in the setting is also naturally divergent).
* StarfishAliens: Neither of the alien species is physically described in much detail, but the soft ones are apparently amorphous or gas-like, have three genders, and appear to be photosynthetic.

** ''Officially'' is the word. 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.

* 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.]]
* TranslationConvention: the entire second section, told about and by StarfishAliens. The Earth/Moon language used in the other two sections may also be an example.

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

* CovertPervert: Dua, with her "Left-Em" tendencies and her tendency to [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything merge]] with [[ADateWithRosiePalms rocks]].

* ADateWithRosiePalms: The Soft Ones' analogue of sex involves the triad members merging with each other. An Emotional, however (at least while young) is capable of merging with rocks instead, producing much the same feelings as the merging. In addition, it's stated that Odeen used to have a habit of passing tips of projection from his own body through each other, which caused "a pleasant tickling sensation that made it easier to listen and made him nicely sleepy afterward". All of that is very much frowned upon by the society.

* TriangRelations: Played with for the Soft Ones, since their family structure is this by necessity, and triads like to present themselves as Type 8 (everyone equally involved with everyone else). As Odeen reflects, this is seldom the case in practice, and his own two partners, Tritt and Dua, get along worse with each other than with him.
** More straightforward human case: Selena, Neville and Ben.

* AsimovsThreeKindsOfScienceFiction: Social sci-fi written by Asimov.

* 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]].

* 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 (long ago, some couples had six, thus providing the answer to the obvious problem with mathematics. Today, the energy shortage doesn't allow that anymore). 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.]]

* AccidentalInnuendo: [[spoiler: The "Soft Ones" become "Hard Ones" when they have sex.]] While it's not clear if this even ''was'' accidental on Asimov's part, if it ''wasn't'' then it would mean that [[CrazyAwesome the entire novel was just the setup for a dick joke that flew under the radar]], which to be honest sounds more like something Creator/TerryPratchett would do.

* AccidentalInnuendo: [[spoiler: The "Soft Ones" become "Hard Ones" when they have sex.]] While it's not clear if this even ''was'' accidental on Asimov's part, if it ''wasn't'' then it would mean that [[CrazyAwesome the entire novel was just the setup for a dick joke that flew under the radar]], which to be honest sounds more like a novel Creator/TerryPratchett would write.

* AccidentalInnuendo: [[spoiler: The "Soft Ones" become "Hard Ones" when they have sex.]]

* ADateWithRosiePalms: The Soft Ones' analogue of sex involves the triad members merging with each other. An Emotional, however (at least while young) is capable of merging with rocks instead, producing much the same feelings as the merging. In addition, it's stated that Odeen used to have a habit of passing tips of projection from his own body through each other, which caused "[[GettingCrapPastTheRadar a pleasant tickling sensation that made it easier to listen and made him nicely sleepy afterward]]". All of that is very much frowned upon by the society.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Not much of one, but still... the fact that [[spoiler:the "soft" ones become "hard" when they have sex]] is quite hilarious.

* TreacheryCoverUp:* Hallam is guilty of stealing the work of other scientists, ruining at least two careers due to personal grudges, and hindering all attempts to save Earth from a supernova for the sake of prestige. In the end, it is mentioned that Hallam will lose most of his influence, but will probably retain some honorable position and won't be prosecuted... exposing the [[FakeUltimateHero greatest genius of humanity]] as a total fraud will cause too much damage to the prestige of science.

-->"Earthmen want the Pump; they want the free energy; they want it enough to refuse to believe they can't have it."\\

-->'''Doctor Benjamin Allan Denison''' and '''Selene Lindstrom'''

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: takes its title from Goethe's "Die Jungfrau von Orleans"

* WhyYouShouldDestroyThePlanetEarth: In spite of how many subtropes this trope already has, this one is actually one not listed. It's because [[spoiler: if you don't, your own world will die.]]

* MostWritersAreHuman: Asimov purposefully avoided aliens in most of his books, precisely because he was frustrated with this trope. "Aliens" created by other authors never felt realistically alien to him, and his own efforts impressed him no better. As a result, most of his aliens are unabashedly humans-from-other-planets, caused by the plot requiring a species from another planet to work ("Nightfall" can't take place on Earth, or really involve someone with knowledge of the larger universe, for example). His most notable effort at creating truly alien aliens would be for this work, but while they are quite alien biologically, they still sound a lot like humans in character.

Dua comes to the conclusion that the reactor has minor long-term effects for their universe, because the machine causes the laws of physics to bleed between universes, making their cold and dying stars burn out faster. However, she is is shocked when she comes to a parallel conclusion, that the reactor will cause stars in the human universe to burn faster in a dramatic fashion, possibly causing a supernova in a matter of decades.

* 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.