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The Alliance-Union universe is a fictional universe created by science fiction and fantasy author C. J. Cherryh. It is the setting for an epic 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 world series.
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 (FTL), 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 Still, directives from Earth, bound by the speed of light, arrive hopelessly out-of-date and are routinely ignored, making the Earth Company's attempts to maintain control increasingly futile.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, this time in the service of his ambition. Signy Mallory, one of his most senior captains, defects to the new Alliance out of disgust, but the remainder of the Fleet remains loyal to Mazian, becoming renegades and pirates out of necessity.
With Earth turned against the Fleet, 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 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.
As the danger of the Fleet recedes, a new rivalry develops between the Alliance and Union. Union resents the treaty restrictions, while the Alliance fears being overwhelmed by Union's greater population. Tensions rise further when 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.
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.
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."[1] The first exception she notes are the two novels Heavy Time and Hellburner, which should be read in that order (as originally published and as compiled together in the omnibus edition Devil to the Belt). The two are prequels to Downbelow Station, although they can be read either before or after that novel. The second exception are 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.
Cherryh has been praised for her complex, well-developed alien cultures. Her Alliance-Union universe features numerous sentient alien species, including the following:
| Species name | Home system | Home planet | Appearing in | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amaut | Kesuat | Hunter of Worlds | Industrious, stocky humanoids; little regard for other races that are in the way of valuable resources | |
| Ahnit | Wave Without a Shore | |||
| Caliban | Gehenna | Forty Thousand in Gehenna | Large, semi-reptilians of uncertain intelligence; some bond telepathically with the descendants of 40,000 military personnel deliberately abandoned by Union on a planet in the Alliance sphere of influence (to cause trouble for the rival power) | |
| Chi | Chchchoh | Chanur novels | Sticklike, yellow methane-breathers; frenetic; linked to T’ca | |
| Elee | Na'i'in | Kutath | Faded Sun trilogy | Humanoid, artistic, perhaps akin to Mri |
| Hani | Ahr | Anuurn (Ahr II) | Chanur novels | Bipedal 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 |
| Hisa | Pell's Star (Tau Ceti) | Pell's World (also known as Downbelow) | Downbelow Station, Finity's End | Peaceful brown-furred bipedal mammalians; called "Downers" by Pell stationers |
| Iduve | Kej | Kej IV | Hunter of Worlds | Dangerous, 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 Qao | Hunter of Worlds | thin, hollow-boned humanoids; vehement pacifists | |
| Kif | Akkt | Akkht | Chanur novels | Long-snouted bipedal carnivores; extremely competitive; quick to shift "loyalty" to whoever is in power (or likely to take over, in their frequent, often lethal power struggles) |
| Knnn | Unknown | Unknown | Chanur novels | Multi-legged methane-breathers; packrats; chaotic; they (along with the Tc'a) control the most advanced jump tech in the Compact, capable of maneuvers no others can match |
| Majat | Alpha Hydri | Cerdin (Alpha Hydri II or III, depending on source) | Serpent's Reach | Hive-mind insectoids - the entire species consists of only four distinct hive-minds, identified by the Meth-maren by color (blue, green, red and gold) |
| Mahendo'sat | Iji | Chanur novels | Highly political mammalians and therefore not especially trustworthy; introduced the Hani to space travel | |
| Mri | Na'i'in | Kutath | Faded Sun trilogy | Humanoid; tripartite caste-based society; militaristic |
| Nemet | Brothers of Earth | Humanoid; strict honor-based society; reminiscent of Atevi, Mri, and Shonunin | ||
| Regul | Mab | Nurag | Faded Sun trilogy | Xenophobic; 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 | Llyene | Chanur novels | Hermaphroditic; physically and emotionally fragile | |
| Sharrh | Merovingen Nights series | Advanced; aggressive; territorial | ||
| Shonunin | Cuckoo’s Egg | Bipedal mammalians; less technologically advanced than humans | ||
| Tc'a | Oh’a’o’o’o | Chanur novels | Serpentine 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.
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 (ordinary residents of Earth and Cyteen) 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 (which are plentiful in space) but act in a cavalier and wasteful manner toward their physical environment (which must be carefully tended in space).
Space station residents (stationers) 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 (spacers) 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 ("CITs" or "born-men") 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. In this way the majority view is reinforced and grown, and the minority "Abolitionist" view becomes increasingly marginalized. 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.
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.[2]