History Literature / TheVoyageOfTheSpaceBeagle

Although obscure today, the stories were enormously influential; to the point that some of the creatures van Vogt invented have been openly imitated, most notably the telepathic, cat-like Coeurl (which became a recurring monster in the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series) and even the xenomorphs from ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' might have been based on van Vogt's work (he certainly believed so.)

A recurrent theme of the stories was that one of the ship's science officers gave a warning of danger, but was ignored and always ended up having to save the crew by himself.

* TheBait: The Ixtl has been abducting people to serve as hosts for its eggs, so the crew act as bait to lure it into an ambush of forcefields and atomic disintegrator rays. Unfortunately a crewman in the line-of-fire panics and, instead of throwing himself to the ground, opens fire on the weapons crew. This ends up killing a whole bunch of people and tips off the Ixtl as to their plans. The captain had advised the 'bait' not be armed for exactly this reason, but was turned down.

* BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood: For some background, everyone on the expedition (except the crew) was a scientist, all from different schools of thought. Grosvenor, the main POV character, studies "nexialism," which is a vague generalist overview of all the sciences (as opposed to specializing in one). His view is presented as the superior, and only, way to study science (i.e. specialists are always wrong and narrow-minded, generalist views are best). Nobody listens to his warnings of danger, and nobody signs on to Nexialism, so eventually he hypnotizes the entire crew through the ship's PA system to force them to turn to Nexialism. It works, and by the end of the book all the ship's scientists become Nexialists and learn from him.
** In fairness the issues were a bit more serious than people not being Nexialists. The Space Beagle's crew were splitting up into competing factions, endangering the long-term safety of the ship, and in the last story an EldritchAbomination is threatening all life in the universe.

* ChromosomeCasting: The crew is entirely male, with the sexual urge repressed by drugs.

* FirstContactTeam: The crew of the Beagle.
* FluffyTheTerrible: The Coeurl is referred to as 'pussy' due to its panther-like appearance.

* HatePlague: The Riim attempt telepathic contact with the ''Beagle'' but inadvertently unleash everyone's inner inhibitions and they all turn on each other.

* AHouseDivided

* ImmuneToBullets: The Coeurl and Ixtl are immune to vibration guns, though not an atomic disintegrator ray--unfortunately firing one inside the ship is dangerous in itself.

* IntelligentGerbil: The panther-like Coeurl and a species of telepathic alien birds called Riim.

* MeaningfulName: The title is an obvious reference to the HMS ''Beagle'', the ship whose voyage of exploration included UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin (and the story has a similar discovery-of-new-species theme.)

* PatchworkStory: A 'fix-up' of van Vogt's magazine stories set on the ''Space Beagle''.

* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: When people do not listen to, agree with, or vote in favor of Grosvenor, he brainwashes and hypnotizes or imprisons them to get what he wants. This is viewed as a good thing because he is "right."

* VillainProtagonist: The encounter with Coeurl is told from its POV.
* WeaponisedTeleportation: Anabis teleports wild beasts onto the control room of the ''Space Beagle'', and feeds by teleporting large parts of the landscape from one planet to another, converting it into a life-filled jungle world so it will produce more LifeEnergy.

* JerkassFacade: Grosvenor provokes a confrontation with Kent who is stopping him from holding a group meeting to present his report on the Anabis. When he finally gets the meeting and realises that no-one accepts his conclusions on how to combat the menace, he insults the gathered scientists and announces his intention to take over the ship. He later pretends to see reason and surrenders, but only because he's installed his MindControl equipment by then.

* WeaponisedTeleportation: Anabis teleports wild beasts onto the control room of the ''Space Beagle'', and feeds by teleporting large parts of the landscape from one planet and [[ColonyDrop dumping them on another]], killing everyone on the surface and feeding on the release of LifeEnergy.

* IgnoredExpert: Dr Grosvenor is the lone nexialist (a scientist whose specialty is nonspecialization) in the crew. He's younger than the other department heads, manages no personnel, and no-one really knows what Nexialism is anyway -- at the start of the book he even has to listen in on other people's CommLinks because he's not been included in the comm circuit for department heads. He gradually starts to win people over as he proves himself useful against each MonsterOfTheWeek, but then the Director dies and Kent replaces him.

* TheCaptain: Downplayed; while he's in charge of operating the ''Space Beagle'', Captain Leeth is not in charge of the expedition itself, so doesn't take the foreground as [[Franchise/StarTrek later spaceship captain's would]].

''The Voyage of the Space Beagle'' is a Science Fiction novel by Creator/AEVanVogt. To be more precise, it is actually the compilation of several short stories that van Vogt had written for a magazine years before (including the first two he ever wrote). All the stories had in common the involvement of the ''Space Beagle'', an Earth starship sent to explore new areas of space, encountering ever more fantastic -and dangerous- alien lifeforms along the way.

Although obscure today, the stories were enormously influential; to the point that some of the creatures Vogt invented have been openly imitated, most notably the telepathic, cat-like Coeurl (which became a recurring monster in the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series) and even the xenomorphs from ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' might have been based on Vogt's work (he certainly believed so.)

* IgnoredExpert: Dr Grosvenor is the lone nexialist (a scientist whose specialty is nonspecialization) in the crew. He's younger than the other department heads, manages no personnel, and no-one really knows what Nexialism is anyway--at the start of the book he even has to listen in on other people's CommLinks because he's not been included in the comm circuit for department heads. He gradually starts to win people over as he proves himself useful against each MonsterOfTheWeek, but then the Director dies and Kent replaces him.

* JerkassFacade: Grosvenor provokes a confrontation with Kent who is stopping him from holding a group meeting to present his report on the Anabis. When he finally gets the meeting and realises that no-one accepts his conclusions on how to combat the menace, he insults the gathered scientists and announces his intention to take over the ship. He later pretends to see reason, but only because he's installed his MindControl equipment by then.

* IntelligentGerbil: A panther-like alien called a Coeurl (which has since appeared in other media) and telepathic alien birds called Riim.

* BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood - for some background, everyone on the ship was a scientist, all from different schools of thought. Grosvenor, the main POV character, studies "nexialism," which is a vague generalist overview of all the sciences (as opposed to specializing in one). His view is presented as the superior, and only, way to study science (i.e. specialists are always wrong and narrow-minded, generalist views are best). Nobody listens to his warnings of danger, and nobody signs on to Nexialism, so eventually he hypnotizes the entire crew through the ship's PA system to force them to turn to Nexialism. It works, and by the end of the book all the ship's scientists become Nexialists and learn from him.
** AHouseDivided: In fairness the issues were a bit more serious than people not being Nexialists. The Space Beagle's crew were splitting up into competing factions, endangering the long-term safety of the ship, and in the last story an EldritchAbomination is threatening all life in the univese.

* PunyEarthlings: Because it doesn't feel threatened Ixtl makes the mistake of abducting humans for reproduction instead of concentrating its efforts to KillAllHumans. It realises too late that HumansAreWarriors.

* ScientistVersusSoldier: Discussed but downplayed; except when the Riim start messing with peoples heads and open war breaks out, Captain Leeth and his soldiers stick to running the ship and let the scientists argue over what they're going to do. When overruled by Director Morton, Leeth doesn't buck the chain of command.

* TheCaptain: Downplayed; while he's in charge of operating the ''Space Beagle'', Captain Leeth is not in charge of the expedition itself, so doesn't take the foreground as [[Franchise/StarTrek later spaceship captain's would]]. He's strictly a military man and sticks rigidly to this. Even when the ship is under attack by alien monsters he still relies on the scientists to tell him how to defeat them, and when overruled by Morton he doesn't buck the chain of command.

* PatchworkStory
* ProtagonistCenteredMorality - When people do not listen to, agree with, or vote in favor of the nexialist scientist, he brainwashes and hypnotizes or imprisons them to get what he wants. This is viewed as a good thing because he is "right."

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Director Morton who is in charge of the expedition is a natural politician.

* TheCaptain: Downplayed; while he's in charge of operating the ''Space Beagle'', Captain Leeth is not in charge of the expedition itself, so doesn't take the foreground as [[Franchise/StarTrek later spaceship captain's would]].

* IgnoredExpert: Dr Grosvenor is the lone nexialist (a scientist whose specialty is nonspecialization) in the crew. He's younger than the other department heads, manages no personnel, and no-one really knows what Nexialism is anyway--at the start of the book he even has to listen in on other people's CommLinks because he's not been included in the comm circuit for department heads. He gradually starts to win people over as he proves himself useful against the MonsterOfTheWeek, but then the Director dies and Kent replaces him.

* IgnoredExpert: Dr Grosvenor is lone nexialist (a scientist whose specialty is nonspecialization) in the crew. He's younger than the other department heads, manages no personnel, and no-one really knows what Nexialism is anyway--at the start of the book he even has to listen in on other people's CommLinks because he's not been included in the comm circuit for department heads. His knowledge gradually starts to win people over, including Director Morton, but then the Director dies and Kent replaces him.

** AHouseDivided: In fairness the issues were a bit more serious than people not being Nexialists. The Space Beagle's crew were splitting up into competing factions, endangering the long-term safety of the ship, and in the last story an EldritchAbomination is threatening all life in the galaxy.

* IntelligentGerbil: A cat-like alien called a Coeurl (which has since appeared in other media) and telepathic alien birds called Riim.

* IgnoredExpert: The lone nexialist (a scientist whose specialty is nonspecialization) in the crew.

** The Riim's hypnotic influence divides the crew into warring factions based on hidden resentments: [[ScientistVsSoldier scientist vs. military[[, and the Morton vs. Kent factions.

** The Riim's hypnotic influence divides the crew into warring factions based on hidden resentments: scientist vs. military, and the Morton vs. Kent factions.

* TheCaptain: Subverted; as while he's in charge of the ''Beagle'' he's not in charge of the expedition itself, so doesn't take the foreground as [[Franchise/StarTrek later spaceship captain's would]].

* CatFolk: The Coeurl.

* FairForItsDay: The historian Korita is Japanese and is devoid of any racist stereotypes, despite the stories being written during WW2.

* CycleOfEmpires: Korita uses this theory to speculate on the motives (and future actions) of the various aliens they encounter. He postulates that the current human civilisation is currently in the 'winter' stage.

* WeaponisedTeleportation: Anabis teleports wild beasts onto the ''Beagle'', and feeds by teleporting large parts of the landscape from one planet and [[ColonyDrop dumping them on another]], killing everyone on the surface and feeding on the release of LifeEnergy.

* EldritchAbomination: Ixtl and Anabis.