Alliance–Union universe


The Alliance–Union universe is a fictional universe created by American writer C. J. Cherryh. It is the setting for a future history series extending from the 21st century out into the far future.
To date, the corpus of the Alliance–Union universe consists of 27 science fiction novels along with a series of seven short story anthologies edited by Cherryh and a few other miscellaneous works. It encompasses both books for which Cherryh won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Downbelow Station and Cyteen, and also incorporates various other series books such as the Faded Sun trilogy, the Chanur novels, the four Morgaine books, and the Merovingen Nights shared universe series.

Introduction

As humanity reaches out to the stars, space stations are financed by the private Sol Corporation, eventually known as the Earth Company. Each new station is built by the previous one and is located ever farther away from Earth. In the days before faster-than-light travel, nine stations are laboriously constructed around nine stars, all lacking habitable planets.
The stationers and the merchanters who man the ships that supply them both develop distinct cultural identities, but remain psychologically and to some degree materially dependent on Earth. Still, directives from Earth, bound by the speed of light, arrive hopelessly out-of-date and are routinely ignored, making the Earth Company's attempts to maintain control increasingly futile.
When Pell's World is discovered in the Tau Ceti system, the fragile economic and political equilibrium is disrupted. Not only is this new planet's biosphere reasonably hospitable to humans – requiring only gas masks and air tanks for survival – but it also supports intelligent alien life, the gentle, technologically primitive Hisa, called "Downers" by humans. Importantly, human crops can be grown on Pell's World, dangerously weakening Earth's economic dominance. After the construction of Pell Station above the planet, colonists expand outward in space with renewed vigor and build additional stations even more distant from Earth.
The first successful FTL probe using newly developed jump technology is launched in 2248. Earth takes advantage of the breakthrough to try to re-assert its authority among the colonists. With a poor understanding of stationers and merchanters alike, its clumsy attempts backfire, provoking first unrest, then occasional armed clashes, and eventually rebellion. As the situation spirals out of control, the Earth Company commissions the building of 50 military carriers, the "Company Fleet", under the command of Conrad Mazian, to enforce its orders.
The situation culminates in 2300 with the declaration of an independent Union by the colonists centered at the Cyteen system, another habitable planet and space station at Lalande 46650, precipitating outright war. Union augments its population and armed forces with genetically engineered and psychologically conditioned human clones, called azi, which are seen as an abomination by Earth.
Fighting between the Fleet and Union forces is fierce during the ensuing "Company War". The stations closest to Earth, disturbed by the azi and other developments on the Union side, remain loyal to Earth; several of these are destroyed by Union action. With sporadic, inadequate support from Earth, the Fleet has no choice but to forcibly requisition equipment and personnel from the increasingly alienated merchanters. However, these measures only serve to maintain the existing warships. Without new ships to replace its combat losses, the Fleet gradually begins to lose a war of attrition.
Caught in the middle are the merchanter families and Pell Station, the primary transit point between Earth and Union space. The conflict comes to a head at Pell in late 2352 and early 2353, as described in the novel Downbelow Station. Faced with the increasingly dangerous situation, many of the merchanter families finally band together to form the Merchanter's Alliance, creating a third, neutral power, soon after a team arrives from Earth to negotiate an end to the conflict.
Mazian refuses to accept the peace, and the Fleet continues to fight on, this time in the service of his ambition. When Signy Mallory, one of his most senior captains, learns of his plans to seize control of Earth itself, she and her ship, Norway, defect to the new Alliance, becoming the core of its militia. The remainder of the Fleet remains loyal to Mazian, but he is forced to launch his coup attempt prematurely. Forewarned, Earth manages to defend itself.
With Earth turned against the "Mazianni", Union sees a chance to finally rid itself of its bitter enemy. Because Union does not dare weaken its forces at this crucial juncture to guard its rear against the newborn state, the Alliance is able to broker a favorable peace treaty, with Pell Station as its de facto home base. The treaty cedes to the Alliance a monopoly on interstellar commerce, even within Union, giving it the power to shut down stations simply by withholding trade.
The Mazianni are gradually driven off, as mentioned in Rimrunners and Merchanter's Luck. In Tripoint, however, it is revealed that they have discovered another habitable world and are establishing a colony there.
As the danger of the Mazianni recedes, a new rivalry develops between the Alliance and Union. Union resents the treaty restrictions, while the Alliance fears being overwhelmed by Union's much larger population. Tensions rise further when Gehenna, a precious habitable planet in the Alliance sphere of influence, is found to harbor a population descended from a secret Union military mission deliberately abandoned there to deny the Alliance an easy acquisition.
Meanwhile, within Union, two political factions vie to determine its future. Unbeknownst to either, brilliant scientist and political leader Ariane Emory has her own agenda.
The events depicted in the first books in the series, Heavy Time and Hellburner, take place shortly after the start of the war. Most of the books set in this universe, however, take place subsequent to the establishment of both the Merchanter Alliance and the breakaway Union, hence the label "Alliance-Union" universe.

Genre

The works in the series are usually described as space opera, or especially for works such as Cyteen and Downbelow Station, hard science fiction. The "Company Wars" novels and the Faded Sun trilogy regarding the Mri Wars are also examples of the military science fiction subgenre. The Merovingen Nights series takes place on a single planet and features swashbuckling heroes and low levels of technology, and as such might be classified as science fantasy, borrowing elements from the historic sword and planet subgenre; this is also true for the Morgaine Cycle books, set remotely in time and space from the main sequence. Unlike most works in this universe, the novel Voyager in Night also borrows elements from horror fiction.

Books and reading order

Cherryh has stated that with two exceptions, the books set in the Alliance–Union universe can be read in any order, "just like real history." The first exception she notes is the two novels Heavy Time and Hellburner, which should be read in that order. The two are prequels to Downbelow Station, although they can be read either before or after that novel. The second exception is Cyteen and its sequel Regenesis, which are tightly linked and should be read in that order too.
The novels in the Faded Sun trilogy are designed to be read in sequence, as are the books within the Chanur and Morgaine series. The Merovingen Nights series begins with the novel Angel with the Sword and then continues to the short story anthologies, numbered 1 through 7.

Major characters

Cherryh has been praised for her complex, well-developed alien cultures. Her Alliance–Union universe features numerous sentient alien species, including the following:
Species nameHome systemHome planetAppearing inNotes
Amaut KesuatHunter of WorldsIndustrious, stocky humanoids; little regard for other races that are in the way of valuable resources
Ahnit Wave Without a Shore
Caliban GehennaForty Thousand in GehennaLarge, semi-reptilians of uncertain and varying intelligence; some bond telepathically with the descendants of 40,000 colonists deliberately abandoned by Union on a planet in the Alliance sphere of influence
Chi ChchchohChanur novelsSticklike, yellow methane-breathers; frenetic; linked to T’ca
EleeNa'i'inKutathFaded Sun trilogyHumanoid, artistic, perhaps akin to Mri
HaniAhrAnuurn Chanur novelsBipedal felines, with many parallels to lions; matriarchal society – only females travel off-planet, as merchants and traders; males are considered too unstable, at least until Pyanfar Chanur changes the rules
HisaPell's Star Pell's World Downbelow Station, Finity's End, Merchanter's LuckPeaceful brown-furred bipedal mammalians; called "Downers" by Pell stationers, they use little technology
IduveKejKej IVHunter of WorldsDangerous, psychic, predatory humanoids who travel in lone, huge, immensely powerful spaceships and terrorize other species with their sometimes incomprehensible behavior; more technologically advanced than any other known civilization; members of several species, including at least one human, have been forcibly taken as slaves
Kallia Aus QaoHunter of Worldsthin, hollow-boned humanoids; vehement pacifists
KifAkktAkkhtChanur novelsLong-snouted bipedal carnivores; extremely competitive; quick to shift "loyalty" to whoever is in power
KnnnUnknownUnknownChanur novelsMulti-legged methane-breathers; packrats; chaotic; they control the most advanced jump tech in the Compact, capable of maneuvers no others can match
MajatAlpha HydriCerdin Serpent's ReachHive-mind insectoids – the entire species consists of only four distinct hive-minds, identified by the Meth-maren by color
Mahendo'sat IjiChanur novelsHighly political mammalians and therefore not especially trustworthy; introduced the Hani to space travel
MriNa'i'inKutathFaded Sun trilogyHumanoid; tripartite caste-based society; militaristic
Nemet Brothers of EarthHumanoid; strict honor-based society; reminiscent of Atevi, Mri, and Shonunin
RegulMabNuragFaded Sun trilogyXenophobic; juvenile and adult forms are highly differentiated; eidetic memory; averse to direct violence, prefer to employ other species for such to remain out of harm's way
Stsho LlyeneChanur novelsHermaphroditic; physically and emotionally fragile
Sharrh Merovingen Nights seriesAdvanced; aggressive; territorial
Shonunin Cuckoo’s EggBipedal mammalians; their technology is less advanced than humanity's, being approximately equivalent to that of 20th-century Earth
Tc'a Oh’a’o’o’oChanur novelsSerpentine methane-breathers; multipartite brains; linked somehow to the Chi, though the exact nature of the relationship is not made clear; highly advanced

The novels Port Eternity and Voyager in Night feature additional sentient alien races. The Morgaine books are built around the actions of a humanoid race called the Qual, Khal and similar names, while Morgaine herself is a half-blood member of the "ancestors of the qual", and the third book in the series features an arboreal species called the Harilim''.

Planets

Pell's World

Pell's World, also known as Downbelow, is a planet orbiting Tau Ceti; it was discovered by a probe in 2093. It
was the first planet in the Alliance–Union universe to be discovered by humans with an advanced ecosystem and, more significantly, intelligent extraterrestrial life, the Hisa. Pell Station, a space station prominent in this universe, orbits the planet. It was the discovery of sentient life that sent shock waves back to Earth, sparking off moral, religious, philosophical and policy debates. Then, to aggravate an already delicate situation, Pell Station became a source of agricultural goods and other luxuries, hitherto only available from Earth. This economic advantage disrupted the whole balance of power in the Alliance–Union universe, and became one of the main contributing factors to the outbreak of the Company Wars in 2300.
Pell's World and the Hisa feature in a number of Alliance–Union universe novels, in particular Downbelow Station and Finity's End.

Gehenna

Gehenna is a rare habitable Alliance–Union universe planet in the Zeta Reticuli system, and home to the calibans, sentient lizard-like creatures. Although in Alliance space, it was secretly colonized by the Union, and then abandoned for the Alliance to discover a lost colony on what should have been a pristine planet.
Gehenna features in two Alliance–Union universe novels, Forty Thousand in Gehenna and Cyteen.

Cyteen

Cyteen is a planet deep in Union territory in the Alliance–Union universe that was discovered between 2125 and 2201; it was found to have nonsentient life. Two space stations were constructed in orbit around the planet, the Inner and Outer Stations. The planet's atmosphere is toxic to humans and necessitated terraforming and the establishment of enclaves, or semi-encapsulated city-states. Its native life is also toxic, although it was the source of Cyteen's rejuvenation drug.
Cyteen features in several of the Alliance–Union universe novels, most notably Cyteen.

Technologies

In addition to the advanced technologies required to mine the asteroids, send slower-than-light vessels to nearby stars, and establish large space stations there, signature futuristic technologies of the Alliance–Union universe are:
A broad sociological trend in the Alliance–Union universe is the divergence of fundamental attitudes in planet-dwellers, space station-dwellers, and starship crews. Planet dwellers seem to have many of the same attitudes and concerns as 21st century people in developed countries. The space-dwelling populations find it strange that planet-dwellers fight over things like energy sources and territory but act in a cavalier and wasteful manner toward their physical environment.
Space station residents tend toward extreme caution towards both their physical as well as social and economic environments, since an unplanned change in any of them could be fatal to the entire station population. For example, a great deal of the conflict in Downbelow Station is caused by Pell Station's need to absorb a large refugee population, for which they do not have adequate housing or jobs.
Starship crew have an extremely insular world-view engendered by the time-dilation effects of jump; this attitude was even more extreme before the jump drive was developed, when travel between stars took years. Merchant starships are all crewed by extended families, which occasionally fission if the family prospers enough to purchase another ship. Merchanter women will often have unprotected sex while in port in order to become pregnant and preserve genetic diversity in their crew-families. Spacer self-identification is so great that many spacers would rather starve to death than accept "grounding" and a stationer's life. Spacers often feel they can only relate to other spacers, since stationers and planet-dwellers seem to rapidly age and die from their perspective.
Additionally, in Union, there is a sociological and psychological division between the unengineered citizen population and the azi. Azi are treated by CITs on a continuum between outright slavery and the companionship of equals; in many ways they are treated like children, since they are vulnerable to stimuli that lie outside the coping abilities of their artificially-constructed psychologies. The majority view in Union is that azi are necessary to preserve the technological and industrial base of their many space settlements, while a minority wants to abolish the practice and cease azi production. The majority view is apt to be the more stable and persistent, since azi can, in time, become citizens whose children are born CITs, and these children receive their basic values from their parents. This process is the result of deliberate social engineering on the part of Reseune, the Cyteen-based center of all research and development concerning human cloning.

Mazianni

The Mazianni is a term which refers to the military star-ships and their crews who remain loyal to their commander, the charismatic, ambitious Conrad Mazian, when he renounces his allegiance to Earth.
The ships had begun their existence as the 50-ship strong Earth Company Fleet, sent out to enforce Earth's control of its star stations. In the long Company War between Earth and the breakaway Union, their number had been whittled down to 15 patchwork ships with waning loyalty to an increasingly indifferent Earth. Losing a war of attrition, Mazian devises a subtle, dangerous plan to establish a firebreak between Union and Earth. The Fleet retreats to Pell after the war.
Mazian makes the fateful decision to rebel and attempt to take over Earth itself. Downbelow Station ends with his failure, and the defection of one of his most senior captains, Signy Mallory, and her ship Norway to the newborn Merchanter's Alliance, based at Pell. The remaining ships, outlawed by all three major powers, return to guerrilla warfare: hit-and-run raids and preying on merchant ships for replacement personnel and equipment. At least three subsequent merchanter novels mention the Mazianni.

Songs

C.J. Cherryh wrote a collection of songs about the station trade in the Alliance–Union universe. These were recorded by filk musician Leslie Fish and others, and released in 1985 on an album entitled Finity's End.