Pandora's Star

Pandora's Star is a science fiction novel by Peter F. Hamilton, part one of two in the Commonwealth Saga. It was published in 2004. The second and last part, Judas Unchained, is listed on http://amazon.co.uk (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1405000368/026-3629925-5925257) with an October 7 2005 release date.

Plot

It is AD 2380, and humanity has colonized over six hundred planets, all linked by wormholes. With Earth at its centre, the Intersolar Commonwealth has grown into a quiet, wealthy society, where rejuvenation allows its citizens to live for centuries.

When astronomer Dudley Bose observes a star over a thousand light years away vanish, imprisoned inside a force field of immense size, the Commonwealth is anxious to discover what actually happened. As conventional wormholes can't reach that far, they must build the first faster-than-light starship. Captained by Wilson Kime, an ex-NASA astronaut a little too eager to relive his old glory days, the Second Chance sets off on its historic voyage of discovery.

But someone or something out there must have had a very good reason for sealing off an entire star system. And if the Second Chance does manage to find a way in, what might then be let out?

The plot of Pandora's star revolves around the events leading up to, and culminating in, the invasion of the Intersolar Commonwealth by a species known as "Dyson Aliens" or "Primes". These aliens were contained within their star system by an unknown alien species of significant technological advancement. The instantaneous enclosure of an entire star system, however, was a feat on a sufficiently grand scale to convince the Commonwealth to travel to the Dyson Cluster and investigate, adapting their existing wormhole technology to power a faster than light star ship known as the "Second Chance". This is necessary because the power requirements of generating a wormhole imparts a practical limit on the range of any given wormhole.

Unfortunately, seemingly in response to the arrival of the "Second Chance", the previously impervious barrier is removed, exposing the Dyson star to the universe. The aliens contained within immediately expand outwards, and promptly capture two of the "Second Chance"'s crew.

Commonwealth citizens are commonly fitted with neural implants that record and store their memories, allowing them to be effectively resurrected in clone bodies when they die. By analyzing the contents of one of these memory storage devices, the foremost Prime alien, MorningLightMountain, learns the fundamental basics of wormhole technology, and quickly uses it to establish dominance by eliminating all the other Primes. It then turns its attention to the Commonwealth, which barely has the time it needs to establish even a tiny navy before the first Prime invasion forces arrive.

There are a large number of sub-plots and characters, each of whom performs a different role within the story arc of the saga. Foremost of these sub-plots is the covert battle against the "starflyer" - an alien entity apparently determined to bring about the downfall of the commonwealth. The "starflyer" is commonly dismissed as a hoax or conspiracy theory, though it is in fact quite real. The only ones believing in it are "The Guardians of Selfhood" from the planet Far Away led by Bradley Johansson. Other sub-plots feature Paula Myo and her hunt for Johansson or Ozzie Isaacs, who, together with Nigel Sheldon, invented the wormhole technology, and Orion, a youngster from a remote planet, walking the ways of the Silfen aliens, to find the "adult" Silfen. Worth mentioning is also the "SI" a sentient computer-entity living on its own planet and having incredible resources in means of logic and calculation, which are quite helpful to the main characters.

Sentient Intelligence

The Sentient Intelligence is a software-like entity from the novel. It refers to itself as a collective and inhabits his own planet, Vinmar, which is somewhere in the Commonwealth space, where it was moved after the humans accepted it as an intelligent lifeform, which evolved from the wormhole-control-routines. The SI has written RIs (restricted intelligence) to replace itselft after moving to Vinmar. It interacts with many characters in the novel, especialy by offering it's enormous data processing capabilities, and is thus an important part of the plot.