The Hercules Text
| Author | Jack McDevitt |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
Publication date | November 1986 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-441-37367-4 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
The Hercules Text is a 1986 science fiction novel by Jack McDevitt. It tells the story of a message of intelligent extraterrestrial origin received by SETI-scientists.
Plot summary
The story emphasizes on the various characters' reactions to the event, according to their specific scientific background. E.g. a priest's speculations on the implications for religion, a psychologist's theorizing about the aliens' psyches, the scientists' consideration of the implications of the new knowledge for their own specialties and the president's concern for the implications for national defense.
The plot is set in front of a still ongoing Cold War scenario. Unlike other First Contact related stories, there is no dialogue between the senders of the message and mankind, as the received radio-signals have travelled through space for several thousand years.
The Extraterrestrial Message
The message is received with a large Radio Telescope, the Hercules Array, which was built on the far side of the Moon. It is later discovered, that the message was sent with an artificial Pulsar built by the alien race. This pulsar has been known by the scientists for years. It was believed to be a normal pulsar. However, what made it kind of special was its almost perfectly regular interval between the observed pulses.
Then one day, some of the pulses suddenly stopped to appear. This incident drew more attention to this particular pulsar, as the newly discovered gaps showed a remarkable pattern:
The first gap consisted of one missing pulse, the second of two missing pulses and the third gap consisted of four missing pulses. The following gaps also consisted of numbers representing powers of 2 (8, 16, 32, 64, 128, ...).
Publication history
The Hercules Text has been rewritten by Jack McDevitt before being re-published in the year 2000 as part of the two-novel-book Hello Out There (book) (ISBN 1-892-06523-1). The story received some changes taking into account the end of the Cold War and some technical developments like the Hubble Space Telescope or the Internet.