Perry Rhodan Lemuria 1: The Star Ark

 Perry Rhodan Lemuria 1: The Star Ark

The Star Ark was published in 2004 and translated into English in 2005.  It is a novel set in the German Perry Rhodan universe, and for more information on that, I’m going to refer you to my prior review and the videos on the topic. 

The Star Ark is set thousands of years in the future. The premise of the miniseries is that many of the humanoid races of the galactic supercluster, including our own, can trace their ancestry to Lemuria.  Lemuria was an advanced civilization that developed on Earth over 50,000 years ago. They spread out to the stars and built a mighty empire that stretched across the galaxy,  until they ran into an alien species that didn’t care for that. These aliens decided to correct this with just a touch of civilization-ending genocide.  

The Lemurians were able at the last minute to neutralize their attackers, basically using a weapon that turned them from bloodthirsty killers to placid thinkers, but it was too late for their civilization.  Lemuria collapsed, with survivors hidden across several galaxies that would evolve into their own societies.  Among them were scattered survivors on the Lemurian homeworld, Earth, who would become the race that is referred to as Terrans in the novel. 

Perry Rhodan by this time is an immortal who doesn’t seem to be directly governing humanity, which is wise of him I think. However, he does seem to be a rather powerful and influential guy, because he is taking a ship out to a remote part of a far-away chunk of space seeking to make direct, under-the-table contact with an alien race.  The Akonians are a group of humans who survived the fall of Lemuria and developed on a colony world that the enemy missed. Relations between them and the Terrans are tense, and Perry would like to tone down the tension, as he thinks a war would be an awful waste--which is also wise of him, I think. 

Perry manages to make contact, but in a rather tense way, because they both discover an active Lemurian generation ship traveling at relativistic speed.  This is an important cultural and scientific artifact for both sides, and it’s made more complicated by the fact that there are living, breathing Lemurians on this ship.  The greater political and scientific ramifications of this discovery aren’t covered in this novel, however, as a good part of the novel is taken up with what is going on inside the generation ship. 

The generation ship is a place of limited resources and space, and because of that the Lemurians have created a very controlled society. Most of their energy is focused on maintaining the ship and raising their food supply.  These people also live in terror of being discovered or making contact with the greater universe.  They have for generations now been told that outside of the ship is the domain of monsters that seek to destroy them. So most Lemurians just focus on living day to day and doing what they’re told. 

However, there are those who yearn for something more, who seek to just see the stars that they know are right outside the hull of their ship.  These Starseekers are an oppressed group because everyone else thinks that, if they pop out of the ship to look around, they could bring monsters out of a nightmare on their heads. However, that doesn’t stop one of them, named Venro, from mapping out a route to a shuttle bay and hijacking a shuttle, accidentally killing a couple dozen of the enforcers on his way out.  It’s this shuttle that’s going to lead Perry and Akonians to the ship, so in a way, I suppose, the leaders of the generation ship are right.  

However, that is less of a concern to Denetree, Venron's sister and a fellow Starseeker.  After Venron’s escape, there is a crackdown on the Stargazers; everyone who is part of the group is arrested and will be put to death.  So Denetree, with some help from various people as well as something Venron left behind for her, is in hiding and trying to avoid being arrested and executed.  This gives us a pretty good view of the lower rungs of Lemurian society.  

We have people who are basically field hands, who spend all day on the outer decks where the gravity is highest, working to grow crops to feed the ship.  We also have bands that are moving along the ship's pipes and service vents, patching air leaks, and doing manual repairs with the most primitive tools they can manage. This also gives us a good look at the state of the ship itself, and it’s not a good state. 

The ship is experiencing a slower elapsed time due to time dilation, an effect where the closer you get to light speed, the slower time passes for you. However, it's still been flying for thousands of years.  Parts of the computer network have broken down to the point that they are wiping data from functioning memory cores to transcribe the information they need to keep the ship running.  Some parts cannot be replaced anymore, almost all the security cameras have broken down, and in the unused parts, the power is fading.  While the situation isn’t dire…yet,  this is clearly a machine on its last legs, and the novel ensures you feel the decline and decay.

It’s into this situation that Perry Rhodan, a group of Terran prospectors, and Akonian scientists walk into and upend the Lemurians' entire world.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing given the state of that world, but the Terrans and Akonians are also bringing their politics and rivalries into this, and that could prove disastrous for everyone. 

I enjoyed this novel; both the Akonians and Terrans were given coverage, and I wasn’t left feeling like this was a confrontation between good guys and bad guys but rather between two rival cultures.  Both cultures have good and bad points to them, which felt very realistic. The writers weren’t afraid to make some Akonians more sympathetic than some of the Terrans and vice versa, so both crews feel like people.  

Also, the Lemurians feel very human; their leaders are not thrilled about hunting down the Stargazers but steadfastly believe that if they don’t, they’re putting everyone at risk.  The leader of the ship even puts the man most skeptical of the necessity in charge of the hunt to try and ensure that as many innocent people as possible are spared, even if that means risking one or two Stargazers escaping.  This actually had me wondering what I would do in that situation, where I knew that this group, while not malicious, would get us all killed if I didn’t stop them.  That makes for slightly uncomfortable but good reading in my mind, and it’s good that we have fiction that makes us stop and ask ourselves what we might be capable of. 

If you have some prior knowledge of Perry Rhodan, or if you think you’re quick enough on the uptake to follow along, this is a fun and somewhat interesting read. The writers took into account the idea of how a ship spinning to generate gravity would create different environments in the ship and how the speed would affect the experience of time.  It’s always good to see that level of thought in science fiction.  They were also able to create characters that feel and act human, even though not all of them are from Earth.  I’ll be going through the entire series and giving it a single grade at the end.  So I hope you follow along with me. 

I hope you enjoyed this review. If you did consider joining my ever-wise patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you can vote on upcoming topics for video and text reviews as well as watch patron-only videos.  Thank you for reading.