List of Revelation Space locations

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This List of Revelation Space locations lists locations appearing in the novels and stories of Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space universe.

Contents 1 Ararat 2 Cerberus 3 Chasm City 4 Diadem 5 Europa 6 Fand 7 First System 8 Glitter Band/Rust Belt 9 Grand Teton 10 Hades 11 Haldora 12 Haven 13 Hela 14 Mars 15 Monument to the Eighty 16 Phobos 17 Resurgam 18 Sky's Edge 19 Spindrift 20 Tangerine Dream 21 Turquoise 22 Yellowstone 23 Zion 24 See also

[edit] Ararat

A planet orbiting the star p Eridani. A planet of the Pattern Jugglers.

[edit] Cerberus

An artificial planet near Resurgam, orbiting the neutron star Hades.

[edit] Chasm City

This is the largest settlement on Yellowstone. When the Amerikanos originally settled the system by robot, the location of Chasm City (a huge crater spewing unusual gases) was spotted. The crater and gases help to provide a breathable atmosphere for the city that is contained underneath 18 huge biodomes know collectively as "The Mosquito Net".

Chasm City became one of humanity's greatest achievements as the Demarchists presided over a golden age known as the Belle Epoque. During this time, the city itself and the planet's orbiting habitat system (The Glitter Band) became a humanity-wide byword for opulence, luxury and success.

This all changed however, with the onset of The Melding plague. As the buildings, implants and technology that ran Chasm City were disrupted and ran amok, the city in its current state was effectively destroyed along with its golden age. Humanity survived though, falling back onto long abandoned technology such as steam power and the city stratified itself into 2 layers; The Mulch, and The Canopy.

The Mulch is a shanty town at street level where the melding plague remained rife (possibly still existent), and The Canopy being a relatively modern retreat in the topmost stratum where the rich cling to their technologically enabled lifestyle with the remnants of their nanotechnology. Chasm City, like all of Yellowstone, is wiped out by the Inhibitors in 2698.

[edit] Diadem

An icey planet orbiting the star Ross 248 and the first of many to be explored by the Conjoiners outside of our own Solar system. It was colonised by Americans approximately 100 years before the Conjoiner explorers arrived. The Americans sent self-replicating robots to Diadem with frozen human embryos, since transporting living humans across space was not yet possible at that time. However, after building the colony and raising the embryos, the robots were destroyed by the resulting humans because it was believed that the robots were "holding them back" and "mollycoddling" them". Subsequently, the colony collapsed apparently because of the spread of a psychological disorder that slowly killed the human colonists.

However, as it turned out, the collapse of the colony was all part of a plan by Martin Setterholm, an American scientist who spent his life studying a species of worm that lived in the Diadem ice. During his studies he discovered that the worms that lived in the ice left chemical traces wherever they went, leading him to theorize that the planet was a sentient being, which used the worms in a similar way that the human brain uses electro-chemical impulses. Setterholm gradually poisoned the rest of the population to stop the colony from using the habitat of the warms, the ice, as fuel for the main fusion reactor. However, the deaths he had caused could not be dismissed, and 100 years later (after being unfrozen from a makeshift cryonic chamber by the Conjoiners) he was brought to justice by Nevil Clavain.

[edit] Europa

The moon of Jupiter, where the Demarchists first rise to become one of humanity's most advanced societies, living in cities just under the crust, at the top of the subterranean ocean.

[edit] Fand

A planet orbiting the star Lacaille 9352. Home of the Fand "Screech Mat", an organism briefly referenced in Galactic North

[edit] First System

Another term for our own Solar system.

[edit] Glitter Band/Rust Belt

A conglomeration of 10,000 exquisitely unique orbital habitats around Yellowstone. One of the most famous locations in human history, it was the home to millions of people from across the galaxy. It was also a place of cultural, philosophical and physical diversity and a central hub of business and trade in human space.

Then came the melding plague, and the Glitter Band was destroyed. The plague made the nanoechnology that many of the habitats relied on mutate out of human control and this subsequently caused some of the more susceptible habitats to break apart or explode. This caused a lethal chain reaction; because with each habitat that was destroyed the chances of debris hitting and destroying other habitats was greatly increased. Even if the debris did not destroy the habitats immediately, they all invariably were tainted with traces of the plague. By the time the plague had passed, only a hundred of the most heavily fortified and secure habitats remained. The place became known as the Rust Belt, because of the hundreds of dead or destroyed habitats remaining in orbit.

After the plague, the Rust Belt became more secure, as it was slowly cleaned up and decontaminated of any residual plague elements. The level of technology that the people there had to resort to using was almost barbaric, but slowly it rebuilt itself. Of course, like all of Yellowstone, it was destroyed by the Inhibitors. in 2698.

[edit] Grand Teton

Briefly referenced in several books as being one of the larger Demarchies, and a "nice" place to live. Home of the "Slime Scraper", a species of organism native to the planet.

[edit] Hades

Formerly a typical neutron star near Resurgam, orbitting as a distant twin to Delta Pavonis, which was converted into an enormous neutron computer.

[edit] Haldora

Formerly appearing to be a Gas giant planet orbiting the star 107 Piscium, was discovered to be a mechnical connection device between the local universe brane and an adjacent brane, which was disguised through a faltering projection system.

[edit] Haven

A planet orbiting the star Gl 687. It is controlled by the Demarchists. Its natural satellite is Hela. (This isnt the same star that Hela orbits, further clarification needed)

[edit] Hela

A natural satellite of Haldora.

[edit] Mars

The fourth planet of our own Solar system, where the Conjoiners first arise and develop their unique attributes, and where other factions led by Nevil Clavain wage war against them, and where Clavain later joins them.

[edit] Monument to the Eighty

A fictitious monument appearing in several of Alastair Reynolds' novels. It is first encountered in Revelation Space, and is described as a monument commemorating the self-sacrifice of eighty volunteers of a scientific experiment led by the character Calvin Sylveste (who was one of the eighty himself). The goal of the experiment was to map the complete neural structure of the human brain into a computer, making the computer a host for the mind in question. This would preserve the mind and memories, while the scanned person would be run as a simulation. The volunteers died as a result of the "brain-scanning" and many of the simulations crashed shortly after, hence a monument was built in their honour.

[edit] Phobos

The nearer of Mars's moons, the interior of which the Conjoiners hollow out to use as a shipyard and source of raw material for building the first lighthugger, which they would use to escape the Solar system.

[edit] Resurgam

A desert planet orbiting the star Delta Pavonis with buried artifacts from a now-extinct avian alien race known as the Amarantin (who later were discovered to be the ancestors of the Shrouders. It was colonised by a expedition lead by Dan Sylveste to uncover the remains of this species and to shed some insight into the lack of space-faring sentience in the galaxy.

[edit] Sky's Edge

An Earth-like planet in a perpetual state of war between settler families. Home to the Hamadryads. It orbits the star 61 Cygni. In the Revelation Space universe, Sky's Edge is the only planet to be settled by a generation ship. The planet's history is described in the book Chasm City. Before the invention of lighthugger ships, a flotilla of five generation ships (Santiago, Brasilia, Islamabad, Palestine and Baghdad) travelling at eight percent of light speed was deployed from Earth to 61 Cygni, each with 150 waking crew and just over one thousand cryogenically frozen colonists (know to the crew as momios, as a Spanish-based calque of the word mummies). The planet was named after Sky Haussmann, a man who caused the Santiago to overtake the other ships and arrive first at Sky's Edge by jettisoning most of the frozen passengers, and who was later crucified for his crime. (In actuality, he had a stand-in crucified, whilst he escaped).

Upon arrival at Sky's Edge, the populations of the generation ships went to war with one another, the colonists of the Santiago settling in the South and the colonists of the two other surviving ships living in the North. During the course of the journey, Sky, as captain of the Santiago, had alienated the other two ships and hostilities eventually escalated into war when they landed. The war apparently lasted until the point at which the human population of Sky's Edge was destroyed by the Inhibitors.

Sky's Edge is described as relatively backwards compared with some human worlds (though few core worlds are mentioned in anything but passing references in the novels), as it possesses little in the way of high technology and few can afford things such as the immortality treatments readily available elsewhere in colonised space. The war raging on Sky's Edge is the reason for this, the planet apparently exports little but a few biological products harvested from its extensive jungles due to its industries being devoted to the war and so trading ships only stop by about once a decade, usually after being snubbed by traders in more lucrative markets. The people of Sky's Edge rarely buy anything but weapons from the Ultra traders. Only Nueva Valparaiso has remained relatively unscathed by the war, because it is the site of a space elevator which is destroyed during the events of Chasm City; this is run by the cult of Sky Haussmann.

The ecology of Sky's Edge is superficially earthlike, as it includes recognisable plants and animals but it is said to be metabolically incompatible with Earth flora and fauna, causing fatal anaphylactic shock in any creature or person who tries to consume it.

[edit] Spindrift

A planet of the Pattern Jugglers.

[edit] Tangerine Dream

This is the largest Gas Giant Supergiant in the Yellowstone system. Antoinette Bax disposes of her fathers body in its atmosphere and first meets Clavain during the act. This may correspond with the real life extrasolar planet candidate Epsilon Eridani b, which masses between 0.9 and 1.5 that of Jupiter.

[edit] Turquoise

A planet of the Pattern Jugglers. It orbits the star Groombridge 1618.

[edit] Yellowstone

The site of the Chasm City and Glitter Band habitats, orbiting Epsilon Eridani. Formerly the pinnacle of human civilisation, by the time of the bulk of the Revelation Space works, this planet has been devastated by the Melding Plague. As a result, the remnants of the Glitter Band are then referred to as the Rust Belt. However, Reynolds's 2007 novel The Prefect is set around Yellowstone and mostly in the Glitter Band during their prime, about 100 years before the events of Chasm City.

[edit] Zion

A planet orbiting the star Lalande 21185.

[edit] See also

• Transhumanism