History Literature / ToBeTaughtIfFortunate

''To Be Taught, If Fortunate'' is a novella by Creator/BeckyChambers released in 2019. It is her first entry outside of the ''[[Literature/TheLongWayToASmallAngryPlanet Wayfarers]]'' series.

* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: Probably between a 3 and 4.
** The physics in the story are mostly sound (no gravity in space, information travels at the speed of light, global heating will continue to affect the Earth's weather systems long after we stop producing greenhouse gases, and [[spoiler:solar flares can destroy the planet's electronics]]); however, the ship travels at half the speed of light, which is far beyond our current capabilities (about 0.06% the speed of light) and nearing humanity's limit for tolerating the intense radiation produced by ultrafast cosmic hydrogen atoms.
** The biology is more speculative: we have the enzyme patches that perform feats ranging from producing extra hormones to allowing humans to absorb radiation as food, we have torpor, where you can sleep for twenty eight years and age two years, and finally, we have the fact that life is common in the universe.

* {{Polyamory}}: Ariadne has sexual relationships with both Elena and Jack, but is equally emotionally close to Chikondi, who is {{Asexual|ity}}. They all love each other deeply.

* AmbiguousEnding: [[spoiler:Ariadne's transmission ends with her telling whoever finds it that they plan to go into torpor. If the ship receives a 'Yes', then they will travel to a planet thirteen light-years from where they are, that might contain intelligent life. However the the distance means it will be a one way trip. If the ship receives a 'No', they will come back to Earth and try and relight the spark of science there. And if they don't receive anything, they will stay in torpor until old age or equipment failure takes them.]]

* AmbiguousEnding: [[spoiler: Ariadne's transmission ends with her telling whoever finds it that they plan to go into torpor. If the ship receives a 'Yes', then they will travel to a planet thirteen light-years from where they are, that might contain intelligent life. However the the distance means it will be a one way trip. If the ship receives a 'No', they will come back to Earth and try and relight the spark of science there. And if they don't receive anything, they will stay in torpor until old age or equipment failure takes them.]]
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler: The crew eventually receive a message from a returning mission that has discovered what happened. A solar EMP has knocked out all of the Earth's electronics, including satellites that OCA would have used to communicate with them.]]

* ClimateChange: The climate crisis is continuing to have a big effect on Earth's geopolitics, even though humans are implied to have switched to renewables almost a century before the story takes place (which is TruthInTelevision - even if humans disappeared today, the seas would still rise.) In their first news blast, the crew learn that Elena's hometown of Tampico was destroyed by flooding, along with hundreds of other cities along the Gulf of Mexico.
* DividedStatesOfAmerica: After the [[ClimateChange Great Shift]], Canadian and American territories have rearranged into at least Cascadia (which based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_(independence_movement) this wiki article]], seems to be the Pacific North West) and the Pacific Republic. They share a border, which is mentioned to be desert.
* ForScience: Open Cluster Aeronautics, the international space agency which funded the mission, is described to be an apolitical non-profit funded solely by individual donations.

--> '''Former UN Secretary Kurt Waldheim''': ''We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship - to teach, if we are called upon; [[TitleDrop to be taught, if we are fortunate]]. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.''

** The worlds' names themselves: the ice moon ''Aecor'' ('surface of the sea'), ''Mirabilis'' ('miraculous') which is full of weird and wonderful life, the water world ''Opera'', where the creatures produce a constant cacophony of sound, and finally ''Votum'' (a vow or promise made to a deity), [[spoiler: where the crew, acknowledging that everything they do is on the shoulders of others, place their fate in the hands of humanity.]]
** On the last planet, Votum, the team name the only significant source of water, a small creek, Lei's River after fellow astronaut Lei Jian. [[spoiler: He informs the crew about Earth's fate and as nothing is heard from him or his mission again, it's clear that his damaged ship did not survive re-entry.]]

** The physics in the story is mostly sound (no gravity in space, information travels at the speed of light, global heating will continue to affect the Earth's weather systems long after we stop producing greenhouse gases, and that [[spoiler: Solar flares can destroy the planet's electronics]]), however the ship travels at half the speed of light, which is far beyond our current capabilities (about 0.06% the speed of light) and nearing humanity's limit for tolerating the intense radiation produced by ultrafast cosmic hydrogen atoms.

* {{Panspermia}}: [[spoiler: Here, all cells have a chiral preference (left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars.) However because both types of amino acids and sugars occur evenly when whipped up in the lab, there are two possibilities: 1. Chiral preferences are a necessity for life or 2. Life originated from a meteorite slamming into Earth, which happened to have mostly left-handed amino acids. On their last planet, they discover single cellular life that has no chiral preference. Which means life uses whatever is on hand, and so life on Earth very probably originated from off-world ingredients.]]
* {{Polyamory}}: Ariadne has sexual relationships with both Elena and Jack, but is equally emotionally close to Chikondi, who is {{Asexual}}. They all love each other deeply.

** More mundanely, they fix Ariadne's hereditary color-blindness, suppress Elena's inherited predisposition to breast cancer and provide the testosterone for Jack's [[{{Transgender}} second puberty.]]

* DividedStatesOfAmerica: After the [[GlobalWarming Great Shift]], Canadian and American territories have rearranged into at least Cascadia (which based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_(independence_movement) this wiki article]], seems to be the Pacific North West) and the Pacific Republic. They share a border, which is mentioned to be desert.

* GlobalWarming: The climate crisis is continuing to have a big effect on Earth's geopolitics, even though humans are implied to have switched to renewables almost a century before the story takes place (which is TruthInTelevision - even if humans disappeared today, the seas would still rise.) In their first news blast, the crew learn that Elena's hometown of Tampico was destroyed by flooding, along with hundreds of other cities along the Gulf of Mexico.

** Their ship is called the ''Merian'', probably a reference to German naturalist and scientific illustrator [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sibylla_Merian Maria Sibylla Merian]].
** The sun of the solar system they are exploring is called ''Zhenyi'', presumably named for Chinese astronomer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Zhenyi_(astronomer) Wang Zhenyi]].