Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved—its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.
But some can never stop searching for answers.
Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand’s code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of the relic. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history’s most perplexing discovery—and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?
A Humongous Mecha Science Fiction Trilogy by Sylvain Neuvel, told in the form of documents: interview transcripts, radio communications transcripts, news broadcast transcripts, and so on. All three parts have been published:
- Sleeping Giants (2016)
- Waking Gods (2017)
- Only Human (2018)
This series provides examples of:
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: The overarching guiding principle for the aliens. Specifically, they believe in letting civilisations develop by themselves, including genetically, which is why the discovery of the metal hand sets in motion events that lead to the aliens killing off humans who have alien heritage.
- Mr.Burns has to follow a similar clause as well. He can't interfere or help directly since The Aliens would destroy The Earth if they see that Humans couldn't develop on their own and their influence on The Planet is irreversible, meaning he can only occasionally give vague advice and bring Rose back to life
- Always Someone Better: Mr.Burns is this to the Interviewer, as while The Interview always appears to be in control whenever with others and know things that they don't, Burns happens to be leading the conversation in their meetings, he disarms the interviewer's sniper early on in their first meeting, along with how Burns seems to be the only one to know much about The Aliens and their nature. There's the fact that he's aware about The Interviewer's son
- Ancient Astronauts: The giant metal hand is the hand of the titan Themis, one of many alien mechs that ancient humans mistook for gods.
- Black Box: The metal hand.
- Body Horror: Vincent undergoes some horrific surgery to replace his legs with cybernetic ones, which are able to bend backwards at the knee (causing him great pain) so that he can pilot the legs of the mech.
- The Brigadier: General Eugene Govender, veteran of many wars in Southern Africa. A decent man with an intense desire not to cause any further bloodshed.
- Cainand Abel:In Mr.Burns' stoy within-a-story, a Mideival king brandishes his legendary sword to his two sons in an attempt to protect them, but it resulted in the older one killing the youger. In response the king throws away the sword where no one would find it. It's heavily implied to be a metaphor for The Aliens coming to intervene once they start seeing the Themis Mech being used for warfare
- Came Back Wrong: Rose comes back to life, but since the restored version of her never experienced the years of uncovering the secrets of Themis, she feels soulless and empty, even after she learns that she really is herself. Understandable, given that a large part of how we identify ourselves is by the events we live through.
- Driven to Suicide: Rose, post-resurrection. The interviewer walks in on her holding a gun to her head and has to talk them down.
- Humongous Mecha: The alien mech that Rose discovered the first part of as a child.
- Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The metal hand.
- Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Mr.Burns makes it clear that if The Aliens really wanted to They could destroy The Earth from a distance or send their own Mechs, which are far more advanced technologically than Themis. The conflict is trying to convince the aliens that Earth wasn't permanently damaged by their genetic interference and allow Humans to live.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: After an incident in which hundreds of thousands die, the nameless interviewer applies this technique to one of the miraculous survivors, in order to be absolutely sure that the survivor truly does not know why they survived (or why the incident happened, or anything else that might be pertinent).
- Fantastic Racism:Implied to be the reasons for the aliens to gas majority of the Earth cities, assuming they wished to eliminate those who weren't descendants of the ancient astronauts but later revealed to be inverted, the aliens wanted to eliminate those that had alien descent within them due to their non-interference clause
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Alyssa conspires to take control over the Themis project, She backs down after the Interviewer explains the complete set of responsibilites she has to take up
- Men Act, Women Are: Aversion. The women are probably more responsible for driving the plot forward.
- No Name Given: The mysterious interviewer, who seems to work for a shadowy organisation with immense political pull, and knows more about events than anyone else.Averted, the interviewer was a Literature Professor who faked his death thanks to help from a Senator. There was no organization and all his recourses were used based off connections he had. He used his mysterious nature in to order to provide comfort to those he worked with, believing a higher power had things under control
- Painting the Medium: After the interviewer dies, Rose tries to psych herself up by thinking what he would say to her in the situation. The parts where Rose "speaks" as that person are typeset in their distinctive typeface.
- Power Glows: The alien mechs.
- Rebellious Princess: According to Mr.Burns, the the aliens were once an empire that conquered another kingdom, when the king who ruled over the kingdom was apprehended, he was made to train The Emperor's daughter. The daughter eventually fell in love with the Warrior King. Once The Emperor found out, he imprisoned his daughter and banished the Warrior King along with his entire people. Fearing that they would eventually return, he sent several Mechs to edge of the Empire's colonies for defensive reasons, explaining how the Mechs made their way to Earth
- Scrapbook Story: The story is told as a collection of documents using interview transcripts, radio communications transcripts, news broadcast transcripts, and so on.
- First-Contact Math: The way the group deciphers the writing on Themis was by interpretting the patterns and symbols as mathematical equations, becomes difficult when it becomes apparent the Aliens use a different counting base for numbers.
- Science Hero: The entire story is driven by the characters' desire to simply understand. Rose primarily applies herself as a physicist, which comes in handy for finding the remaining pieces of the mech, whereas Vincent's contribution is in linguistics, attempting to decipher the script in the chamber in which the hand is found. Alyssa, on the other hand, skews strongly towards the Anti-Hero side of things, applying her biological knowledge in some less than ethical ways. Such as attempting to usurp The Interviewer's management role, and kidnapping Kara and Vincent to undergo artificial fertilization.
