Heechee Saga

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Frederik Pohl's most famous Science Fiction creation, the Heechee Saga (beginning with a short story, "The Merchants of Venus", though most people know it through the 1976 novel Gateway) details humanity's discovery of the Heechee, a long-vanished race of advanced aliens. Millions of years prior to the beginning of the novels, the Heechee disappeared from the Universe, leaving almost no trace of their existence. The exception is Gateway, a large asteroid base filled with Heechee tunnels and covered in long-abandoned faster-than-light starships.

Gateway (1977)

The first novel in the series, is widely recognised as a classic of the genre, and a perfect example of New Wave science fiction besides.

Robinette Broadhead (who is, in spite of his name, male) is very rich, and very troubled. In between his therapy sessions with the robot psychiatrist he's nicknamed Sigfrid Von Shrink, he tells the story of his time on the titular asteroid Gateway, where he eventually made his fortune. The Earth he lives on is a Crapsack World where overpopulation and polution have left much of the planet barren, and people have to mine oil for food.

On Gateway, humanity has discovered a fleet of a thousand-odd FTL starships left by the mysterious Heechee. Nobody knows exactly how they work. Programming in a new destination consists of twiddling twelve wheels until something glows pink, and squeezing the go-teat. The ship will go somewhere, but there's no telling where, or how long it will take, meaning you damn well better have enough supplies to last the trip. If you haven't reached the midway point of the outbound voyage by the time a quarter of your food is gone, you draw straws... loser goes into the fridge. Some ships that went out with 5 people got back with one. The few ships that try to change their preset courses never come back. Even making it to your final destination is no guarantee, as the presets can take ships to planets with high radiation, suns that have gone nova, or other deadly locations. The Gateway Corporation offers varying bonuses for scientific discoveries made on trips, with especially valuable discoveries paying the lucky crew a lifetime of royalties. Ironically, they only pay small bonuses for discovering inhabitable planets, since the biggest starships in Gateway can only carry five people, and somebody has to bring the ship back. Experiments to get ships to carry more people have not ended well.

With the majority of Earth's population desperately poor, many view the insane risks they will have to face a fair price for a shot at incredible wealth. After Robinette wins enough money from a lottery to buy a ticket to Gateway, he spends most of the rest of novel too scared to take a space mission. A couple of near fatal missions only reinforce his fears. When a group of daring (or insane) prospectors come up with a scheme to fly two 5 man ships in tandem, Robinette impulsively joins the mission--and changes his life forever.

In the early 1990's, Legend Entertainment published two videogames based on the Heechee saga.

Gateway provides examples of:

• Bi the Way - Metchnikov. Robinette.
• Death World - most of the planets found by prospectors.
• Freudian Excuse - most of the story
• Future Food Is Artificial - Most foodstuffs are made from algae and bacterial cultures grown on oil.
• Ho Yay - Metchnikov. Robinette.
• Human Resources - Full Medical.
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum - Deconstructed with the starships, though other Heechee artifacts are reverse-engineered successfully.
• Mega Corp - The Gateway Corporation, which takes 50% of the initial profits from any particular discovery, and 90% of the royalties.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup - Heechee technology, especially in The Gateway.
• Portal Network - Since everybody uses pre-set coordinates in the ships, they function in a relatively similar way.
• Robot Buddy - Sigfrid Von Shrink, though Robinette doesn't exactly like him.
• Straight Gay - The three other men in Robinette's first mission.
• Technology Marches On - Cassette tapes, everywhere.
• Tomboyish Name - Robinette Broadhead

Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980)

Set several years after the first novel, and finds Robinette Broadhead a wealthy man. Robinette is trying to use his vast wealth to improve conditions on Earth by sending a mission to locate a Heechee food factory in the Oort Cloud. Meanwhile, Earth is being subjected to a mysterious event every 130 days, which subjects all its inhabitants to experience temporary insanity.

Heechee Rendezvous (1984)

Set several decades after Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Robinette is now a billionaire, thanks to the discoveries he made in the second novel. Those discoveries have positively transformed life on Earth, though there are still those that oppose the changes for political or military reasons. Robinette has been able to extend his life thanks to medical treatments, but suffers great guilt over the apparent death of his lover Klara (in the first novel).

The Annals of the Heechee (1987)

With the return of the Heechees from the hiding place inside a giant black hole, Robinette works to disover how to defend Earth from the mysterious beings that caused the Heechee to flee from the Universe.

Other stories in the Heechee Saga provide examples of:

• Brain Uploading
• Hidden Elf Village
• Precursor Killers
• Virtual Ghost