Mutineers' Moon
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''Mutineers' Moon'' is a 1991
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
novel by American writer
David Weber David Mark Weber (born October 24, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He has written several science-fiction and fantasy books series, the best known of which is the Honorverse, Honor Harrington science-fiction series. His ...
. It is the first book in his ''Dahak'' trilogy, and is available in the
Baen Free Library The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It ...
. It was later republished in the '' Empire from the Ashes'' compendium.


Plot summary

The book's premise is that the Moon is a massive space ship controlled by a self-aware computer that wants its rightful crew back aboard.


Prologue

The book begins with a prologue recording a
mutiny Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people (typically of a military, of a crew or of a crew of pirates) to oppose, change, or overthrow an organization to which they were previously loyal. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among member ...
aboard the
planetoid According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''mino ...
-sized ''
Utu Utu (dUD "Sun"), also known under the Akkadian name Shamash, ''šmš'', syc, ܫܡܫܐ ''šemša'', he, שֶׁמֶשׁ ''šemeš'', ar, شمس ''šams'', Ashurian Aramaic: 𐣴𐣬𐣴 ''š'meš(ā)'' was the ancient Mesopotamian sun god. ...
''-class starship of the Fourth Imperium (a more-than-55,000-year-old technologically advanced multi-star system empire), the ''Dahak'', led by its Chief of Engineering, the ambitious and psychopathic Captain
Anu Anu ( akk, , from wikt:𒀭#Sumerian, 𒀭 ''an'' “Sky”, “Heaven”) or Anum, originally An ( sux, ), was the sky father, divine personification of the sky, king of the gods, and ancestor of many of the list of Mesopotamian deities, dei ...
and Commander
Inanna Inanna, also sux, 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒀭𒈾, nin-an-na, label=none is an List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, Divine law, divine justice, and political p ...
. Anu's reason for mutiny is to lead his followers to refuge on a planet where presumably the genocidal wrath of the "Achuultani", a mysterious alien race that periodically exterminates all intelligent life it can find, which has also destroyed the previous three Imperiums and the dinosaurs, will pass over them. The loyal crew is taken by surprise, and unable to defeat the mutineers. Faced with no choice, the captain orders ''Dahak'' to execute "Red Two Internal"—a command which will flood the entirety of the interior of the vessel with deadly substances; this action will force mutineers and loyalists to the lifeboats, and the vessel will then, acting on other orders from the captain, allow back in the ''Dahak'' only the loyal crew and blow the mutineers into space. Red Two unfortunately entails the death of the captain as well; no one is able to command ''Dahak'' to destroy the mutineers as they leave aboard warships, not lifeboats, nor undo Anu's systematic sabotage of the power generators, intended to kill ''Dahak'' by starving it of power and thereby rendering it open to conquest by Anu's forces. Unfortunately for Anu, ''Dahak''s computer systems catch the sabotage before it utterly wrecks all the
power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many pow ...
s, but the damage is so severe that it is forced to cease all communications and non-necessary expenditures of power. The damage takes decades to repair—by which point none of the loyal crew is still alive or able to contact the ''Dahak''. Overpowered by the mutineers, the loyalists have been systematically exterminated. This places ''Dahak'' in a
dilemma A dilemma ( grc-gre, δίλημμα "double proposition") is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is unambiguously acceptable or preferable. The possibilities are termed the ''horns'' of the dilemma, a clichéd usage, but disti ...
in which it cannot return to the Imperium as it has been ordered to, but nor can it exterminate the mutineers as other, equally important, orders dictate. This lasts for approximately 50,000 years, until the Earthlings' early space program sends up one Lieutenant Commander Colin MacIntyre to map the dark side of the heavenly body ''Dahak'' had camouflaged itself as—the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
—as a "dress rehearsal" for a similar trip scheduled for Mars.


Story

Colin's mission is hijacked by ''Dahak'' and his death is faked; as had MacIntyre returned with his data, ''Dahak''s cover would have been blown. While MacIntyre is aboard, Dahaks AI explains the situation to him, and prevails upon him to, as a descendant of the loyalists, become ''Dahak''s newest captain, and to exterminate the mutineers—quickly, as Imperium installations are being destroyed, signs of the start of the latest Achuultani incursion. MacIntyre reluctantly accepts; the first step to making him the captain is to massively revamp his body surgically, granting him superhuman resilience, speed, and strength, in addition to the built-in electronics granting matchless control of Imperium technology. While Dahak has known for millennia where Anu's forces have bunkered up—under the
South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...
in
Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
—their base is protected by extremely strong force fields, force fields so strong that to penetrate them and destroy the base would require ''Dahak''s heavy weaponry, which would inevitably kill a significant percentage of the human population of Earth. MacIntyre returns to his home to renew contacts with his elder brother, Sean, and to enlist him in a scheme to discover the mutineers' agent in the space program. It initially succeeds, but when he and Sean attempt to contact the agent, they discover their scan of the space program building was detected. MacIntyre and Sean fend off some of the mutineers (at the cost of Sean's life), but MacIntyre is rescued by an acquaintance, who sends him through a tunnel where he is captured by another group of mutineers. This group, led by former missile tech Horus, was a dissident splinter faction of Anu's, which turned against him after the mutiny. Despite supporting Anu during the mutiny itself, Horus and his crew committed a double mutiny against Anu and fled into hiding on Earth. Once they reached Earth, they entered stasis so that the crew would survive however long it would take for civilization to reappear on Earth (Anu at the time enforced primitivism). Now, with civilization re-emerging on Earth, his group has begun a passive, behind-the-scenes war against Anu. Because they are heavily outnumbered in weaponry, they have been forced to always play it very carefully. As a result, the crew of the battleship has created a huge network of humans, many of whom are descendants of ''
Nergal Nergal ( Sumerian: d''KIŠ.UNU'' or ; ; Aramaic: ܢܸܪܓܲܠ; la, Nirgal) was a Mesopotamian god worshiped through all periods of Mesopotamian history, from Early Dynastic to Neo-Babylonian times, with a few attestations under indicating hi ...
''s crew. However, the arrival of MacIntyre means that the end has begun, for Dahak has at last taken a hand in the game. Eventually, this group and its battleship, the ''Nergal'', joins MacIntyre, and they embark on a grand plan to destroy Anu: first, they rapidly and effectively destroy a number of important installations that Anu's forces are based in (convincing Anu to withdraw all of his important personnel back to the main base), then they have their agents inside the Antarctica base steal the codes to gain access for them; finally, they fake a defeat, and when Anu relaxes, certain that they were destroyed, their now-at-liberty agents send them the codes and they launch a full assault, backed up by Dahak's orbital weaponry. The assault costs them dearly, but Anu and his forces are killed, with Commander Inanna's brain ripped out. With the revelation of ''Dahak''s power, the world's governments have little choice but to submit to the Planetary Governor MacIntyre. However, Colin has little time to unify the world, because the Achuultani draws ever nearer, and the Imperium is silent, even when ''Dahak''s communication systems are repaired. Finally, MacIntyre leaves the world under the care of old Horus, and departs for the nearest Fleet Imperium base, hoping to call upon Imperial assistance.


Concept and creation

Author David Weber says the genesis for this book began with a question: "Assume that Earth doesn't actually have a Moon, but rather a giant starship disguised as our Moon which has been there for at least 50 or 60,000 years. Where did it come from, why did it come here, and why hasn't it left?" Weber says the answer to those questions built the foundation for this book and its sequels.


Cancelled anime adaptation

A division of North American
anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
distributor
A.D. Vision A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. (known simply as ADV and also referred to as ADV Films) was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1992 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Gree ...
was working on an anime adaptation of this series, but it was cancelled with the 2009 bankruptcy of A.D. Vision.


References

* ''Mutineers' Moon'', David Weber; first published October 1991 by
Baen Books Baen Books () is an American publishing house for science fiction and fantasy. In science fiction, it emphasizes space opera, hard science fiction, and military science fiction. The company was established in 1983 by science fiction publisher an ...
. .


External links

* The complete text of ''Mutineers' Moon'' is available for download or reading online at the
Baen Free Library The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It ...
br>here
It can also be foun
here
(the ''At All Costs'' CD). {{David Weber 1991 American novels 1991 science fiction novels American science fiction novels Baen Books available as e-books Novels by David Weber Novels set on the Moon Space opera novels