Big Dumb Object
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In discussion of science fiction, a "Big Dumb Object" (BDO) is any mysterious object (usually of extraterrestrial or unknown origin and immense power) in a story which generates an intense sense of wonder just by being there; to a certain extent, the term deliberately deflates this. Probably coined by reviewer Roz Kaveney,[1] the term was not in general use until Peter Nicholls included it in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as a joke.[2]
Big Dumb Objects often exhibit extreme or unusual properties, or a total absence of expected properties:
- The object discovered in Quatermass and the Pit was made of a material of extreme hardness, such that diamond-tipped drills and acetylene torches would not damage it. At the same time nothing would adhere to it.
- In Michael Crichton's novel Sphere, the eponymous object would reflect everything in its presence except people. If it did reflect someone, they were alone, and the individual was accepted as worthy to harness the device's power.
- In Iain M. Banks's novel Against a Dark Background, the Lazy Guns have a lot of mass and yet little weight, and weigh three times as much upside down as the right way up.
Such unexpected properties are usually used to rule out conventional origins for the BDO and increase the sense of mystery, and even fear, for the characters interacting with it.
J.G. Ballard's short story, "Report on an Unidentified Space Station" (1982) may be regarded as an exploration of the metaphor of the BDO: in each successive report, the artifact's estimated size increases, people become lost within it.
[edit] Appearances
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- Arthur C. Clarke's monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Larry Niven's Ringworld and sequels.
- Michael Crichton's Sphere in Sphere
- Peter F. Hamilton's Sleeping God in The Night's Dawn Trilogy
- John Varley's Gaea from the Gaea Trilogy
- The Halo megastructures from the eponymous video game series.
- The Event Horizon from the film of the same name.
- The Cuckoo from Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson's Saga of Cuckoo.
- The Excession from Iain M. Banks' Excession
- The core of the Moon from Stephen Baxter's Moonseed novel.
- The Scrin Threshold Towers from Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.
- Centerpoint Station from the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
- Star Forge from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.
- The Citadel in Mass Effect actually begins as a Big Dumb Object (as it was constructed by a long-dead alien species and left abandoned), before it is gradually colonized and made into the central hub for allied galactic civilizations.
- The Marker in Dead Space.
- The Alien Probe in Star Trek IV.
- The Geofront and Lance of Longinus from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- The All Spark, an alien artifact of unknown origins which is capable of generating life in non-organic forms, and which is featured as the motivating device in the live-action Transformers movie from 2007.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Kaveney, Roz, 1981, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, issue 22.
- ^ Nicholls, Peter, 2000, Big Dumb Objects and Cosmic Enigmas: The Love Affair between Space Fiction and the Transcendental, in Westfahl, Gary (ed), Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction, Greenwood Press, p. 13. "... I decided to write an April Fool's entry. I would pretend that a phrase I’d always liked, originated by the critic Roz Kaveney but not in general use, was actually a known critical term. I would write an entry called 'Big Dumb Objects' in a poker-faced style, suggesting an even more absurd critical term to be used in its place, 'megalotropic sf.'"
