Line #24 Literature/TauZero


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tau_zero.png]]
2	A somewhat hard ScienceFiction novel by Creator/PoulAnderson, written in 1970. It is based on a 1967 short story "To Outlive Eternity".
3
4	The starship ''Leonora Christine'' is supposed to carry its 50 colonists to a distant star. The journey should take 33 years, but due to TimeDilation at near-light speed, only 5 years will pass for the crew. Then things go to hell when the ship collides with a nebula (due to the mass of the ship and nebula at that speed, it's like hitting a solid object); the ship's decelerator system is damaged, so they can speed up (and steer) but can't slow down.[[note]]They're on a one-way ride to wackiness![[/note]] The ship will keep getting closer and closer to light-speed, reducing the passage of time onboard (their "Tau") to nearly zero. In the time it takes them to repair the damage and stop the ship, billions upon billions of years have passed and the universe is reaching the point of imploding (a "Big Crunch") and starting over with a new Big Bang.
5	----
6	!!''Tau Zero'' provides examples of:
7
8	* ArtificialGravity: The crew experiences gravity due to acceleration, however they board the ship weightless and again when the ship ceases to accelerate while moving between galaxies.
9	* CasualInterstellarTravel: ''Leonora Christine'' is monstrously expensive, and will take over five years of proper time (over 30 years for the people back on Earth) to carry its 50 inhabitants to Beta Virginis.
10	* TheChessMaster: Reymont is a mild one. A member of his secret security force theorizes that Reymont's overall plan is to eventually make everyone on the ship either an official or secret deputy, in order to make sure everyone follows the rules and has something to do. After the disaster, he explains his theory on what people see as a ReasonableAuthorityFigure and makes sure everyone plays their part - he'll bully people into following the rules, and the first officer will be there to listen to people complain about Reymont.
11	* CoolStarship: Practically the entire story takes place aboard ''Leonora Christine''. And, let's face it, a starship that can circumvent the ''end of the universe'' has a lot going for it.
12	* CreatorProvincialism: While Anderson is American, few of the characters are. Nationality doesn't come up much in the book, but it's established that Sweden is the dominant power[[note]][[HistoricalInJoke For those not in the know, Sweden is a militarily neutral country]][[/note]] .
13	* DesignStudentsOrgasm: The 1970 first edition paperback cover was a Creator/{{Kandinsky}}-inspired surrealist image of dots and circles, superimposed with mysterious faces and a partly-obscured topless woman. It is a legendary example of over-the-top 60s pulp SF cover art, one that has [[CoversAlwaysLie little or nothing to do with the text]]. The covers for later editions were considerably toned down.
14	* AFatherToHisMen: Subverted with the captain, who starts off easy going and friendly but becomes more withdrawn from the crew after the disaster.
15	* FasterThanLightTravel: The ship gets infinitely close to the speed of light, but never passes it.
16	* GenerationShip: ''Leonora Christine'' nearly becomes this, when the occupants realize they might be stuck in interstellar space forever without a means of slowing down.
17	* InertialDampening: At high relativistic velocities, some magical property of Anderson's universe allows for [[ArtificialGravity gravity nullification]] so that the starship can accelerate at 3''g'' while only subjecting its passengers to 1''g''.
18	* InfoDump: Many chapters have sections where Anderson takes a break from the story to explain the theories and math behind what is going on with the plot.
19	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Reymont is very abrasive and is seen as a bully by most of the crew, but is genuinely interested in maintaining order and keeping the ship safe.
20	* LastOfHisKind: By the end of the book the universe has died and been reborn, with the crew the only remnants of the old one.
21	* LatexSpaceSuit: While the crew doesn't wear any kind of space suit normally, when bracing for the impact of the nebula, they are all fitted with very bulky suits.
22	* MultinationalTeam: The crew is from all over the world.
23	* NightmareFuel: In-universe example. The rogue star systems in interclan space[[labelnote:*]] lone stars and planets floating in the middle of nowhere[[/labelnote]] are enough to make the crew black the windows right away.
24	* {{Ramscoop}}: ''Leonora Christine'' is one. It's how they get so close to the speed of light.
25	* ReallyGetsAround:
26	** A lot of the crew. Justified in that the situation doesn't really allow for long-term commitments. Many of the crew that fall into this category plan on settling down when they reach their destination.
27	** Not that monogamous procreation would be an option for several generations, with fifty individuals trying to form the genetic base for a species.
28	* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: Anderson does understand just how big the universe is.
29	* SecretPolice: Security officer Reymont has his known deputies, and a number of deputies that no one knows about (including other members of his covert security force). A mild case since there is no real crime aboard the ship, and the security force is just there to keep the peace when tensions get too high.
30	* SpaceClouds: The nebulina they run into, which damages their decelerator, is more rarefied than a laboratory vacuum. It's only because they slam into it at 99.9-some-odd percent of the speed of light that it's dangerous.
31	* SpaceFriction: Which allows for infinite acceleration (but not infinite velocity).
32	* SpaceIsAnOcean: None of the sub-tropes come into play.
33	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Reymont explains how everyone views their immediate superior as an unreasonable authority figure, but their superior's superior as a ReasonableAuthorityFigure.
34	* ShownTheirWork: See the InfoDump entry. Anderson even takes the reader through the mathematical formula for "tau". Unfortunately Anderson is also the only person on Earth who calls it tau - most others use the letter tau for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_time proper time]], and would call Anderson's tau 1/''γ''. Nevertheless, it's a real relativistic quantity.
35	* TakeAThirdOption: Right before breaking the news to the crew that they have no hope, someone comes up with a possible way of stopping the ship.
36	* TimeDilation: It keeps increasing, to the point where years are going by for every second the ship experiences.
37	* WhamEpisode: Chapter 7 is when the disaster hits. Before that, we just got a lot of info on what the ship was doing, introducing the crew, and showing their daily lives.
38

Context Literature / TauZero