The Uplift War

The Uplift War
Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author(s)	David Brin
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Uplift Universe
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Bantam Spectra
Publication date	1987
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	506 pp
ISBN	0-932-09644-1
OCLC Number	15730601
Preceded by	Startide Rising
Followed by	Brightness Reef

The Uplift War is a 1987 science fiction novel by David Brin and the third book of six set in his Uplift Universe. It was nominated as the best novel for the 1987 Nebula Award and won the 1988 Hugo and Locus Awards. The previous two books are Sundiver and Startide Rising.

Plot summary

50,000 years ago, the planet Garth was leased to the Bururalli who nearly destroyed its ecosystem by overhunting all large indigenous species. The ecologically sensitive galactic civilization killed all Bururalli, demoted their patrons, the Nahalli, to clients of the Thennanin, and began working to preserve and repair the remaining ecosphere of Garth. Several decades before the start of the novel, Earthclan acquires the lease on Garth in return for their expert assistance in biosphere recovery. The Z'Tang complete a final ecological survey before the planet is passed on to EarthClan.

The novel begins in the year 2489 C.E.[1] with the avian Gubru planning to invade Garth, Earthlings on Garth preparing to defend their claim to the planet, and ambassadors from other races getting ready to depart. The Gubru, a conservative and somewhat humorless alien race, attempt to hold Garth hostage in an attempt to learn more about the discovery that the dolphin spaceship Streaker made in Startide Rising about the Progenitors.

The Gubru invade and overpower Garth's weak space forces, a battle that is witnessed by neo-chimp soldier of Earthclan, Fiben Bolger. Having easily overcome Garth's token resistance in near-planetary space, the Gubru engage a small portion of their ground force in ritualistic combat against Earthling forces. Because they take relatively high losses, Earthlings successfully defend their legal right to the planet under the punctilio of Galactic law. However, the Gubru immediately take hostage most of the human population using pre-planned subterfuge consisting of poisonous gas. The Gubru, used to galactic norms, believe that the neo-chimp population on Garth will be easily controlled without their human patrons to guide them. Some humans and a few chimps are killed by the hostage gas while en route to receive the antidote; the surviving human population is sequestered on an island and kept isolated.

Taking advantage of resentments that fester among the lower social strata of the neo-chimp population, those with limited rights to breed, the aliens subvert some of the neo-chimps in and around Port Helenia, the capital city. A large group in the mountains, led by Robert Oneagle, son of planetary coordinator Megan Oneagle, and Athaclena, the teenaged daughter of Tymbrimi ambassador Uthacalthing, engage in guerrilla warfare. Their combination of “wolfling” ingenuity and galactic diplomacy allow them to inflict significant damage, both psychological and physical, on the Gubru. Fiben Bolger, in town on a fact-finding expedition for the Resistance, runs afoul of one of the conspirator neo-chimpanzees known as Irongrip.

Elsewhere on the planet, Athaclena's father Uthacalthing, the Tymbrimi ambassador, and the Thennanin ambassador, Kault, are shot down while fleeing the Gubru invasion. The two ambassadors land safely, but must trek several hundred kilometers back to civilisation. The Tymbrimi are allies of Earth and well-known for a low sense of humor that, along with a yen for surprise, motivates much of their behavior. By contrast, the Thennanin are portrayed as dour, supercilious, physically unprepossessing protectors of the rights of animals and species. Hoping to fool Kault with an elaborate and ultimately costly practical joke, Uthacalthing secretly instructs a furtive neo-chimp to create false evidence pointing to the existence of Garthlings — a fabled race of pre-sentient creatures that were rumored to have survived the Bururalli holocaust. Uthacalthing also plants evidence about the Garthlings in his diplomatic cache — which is, after being disturbed by Fiben Bolger, stolen by the Gubru.

The three Gubru co-commanders (suzerains) overreact to most situations. When the Suzerain of Cost and Caution is fortuitously killed in an accident set up by the neo-chim resistance movement, the other two suzerains exploit the situation and further their own goals. The Suzerain of Proprietary seizes on the Garthling myth and builds an enormously expensive hypershunt on Garth. If Garthlings can be found, the Gubru will be able to use the hypershunt to adopt and indenture the race for 100,000 years in exchange for uplifting them to sentience. Coincidentally, the Gubru and others find evidence of secret uplift in the mountains, and come to believe that Earthclan was hiding a secret effort to uplift Garthlings.

The Gubru commanders (suzerains) are unable to resolve their internal power struggles and begin scheming against one another. Fiben Bolger begins to fear that Earthclan's well-known naivete at Galactic punctilio could imperil the entire neo-chimpanzee population, both on Garth and on Earth. Some of the key neo-chimpanzee characters are eventually forced to choose between following the legal representatives of the surviving Planetary Government, or to follow their original leaders, Robert Oneagle and the young Tymbrimi Athaclena. Many of the major characters fall in love and must weigh their personal feelings against patriotic duties and greater responsibilities. There is a confrontation between Fiben Bolger and Irongrip, with the fate of all of neo-chimpdom hanging in the balance. In the end, Uthacalthing's joke succeeds beyond his wildest imaginings, with Uthacalthing being as much in the dark as those he had been trying to fool. The Gubru are ejected from Garth, and as the book come end, Uthacalthing's maneuverings have brought desperately needed assistance to Earthclan and its allies out on the starlanes.

Characters

Humans

Robert Oneagle - Playboy son of the Planetary Coordinator, who enters into a complicated interspecies relationship with the Tymbrimi teenager Athaclena as well as being one of two free humans left alive and uncaptured on the surface of Garth. he undergoes a tremendous physical and mental change over the course of the book as the invasion occurs and he becomes the last free human of garth.

Megan Oneagle - Planetary coordinator of Garth, who finds herself powerless in an undersea redoubt after the Gubru arrive, with all plans for organized resistance foiled by the Gubru's gas attack.

Neo-Chimpanzees

Fiben Bolger -

Sylvie -

Gailet Jones -

Max -

"Irongrip" a probie chen outcast -

Galactics (Friendly)

Athaclena - tymbrimi

Uthacalthing - tymbrimi, the tymbrimi are startlingly humanoid in shape and anatomy. they have two features that make them distinct among the galactics though. they are their adaption hormones, and their corona. the corona is a set of tentacular threads emitting from the head upward, it is a probability organ fitted to construct emotional glyphs that convey a specific emotion. These glyphs then can take on a mind of their own, in a sense, as certain ones are used for everything from scouting other creatures in the dark to trying to implant a thought in someone else's mind. The adaption hormones are a special ability they have; under physical stress, the body releases a flood of hormones to the parts of the body, causing the stress and alters them. It can make skin thicker, nails harder and longer, widen the nostrils for better air intake, change the placements of nerve endings and body part placements, etc. Also, the tymbrimi feature a rather unusual quality among galactics; they are tricksters. They play practical jokes on each other as a part of their civilization, and have an extraordinary sense of humor, much like humans but 100-fold stronger.

Kault - thennanin

Galactics (Unfriendly)

Gubru - a race of avian (birdlike) creatures governed by the triumvirate, a selected 3 officials representing the army, church, and economy of their race. An interesting point about them is that they are all un-sexed until the mating consensus, meaning that all three officials need to reach complete agreement on all three subjects before one of them is able to become a female or queen.

External links

• The Uplift War on Worlds Without End

Translations

• Chinese: 提升之战, 2008
• Russian: "Война за возвышение" ("The War for Uplift"), 1995, 1998, 2002.
• German: "Entwicklungskrieg", 1990
• Polish: "Wojna wspomaganych" ("The war of Uplifted"), 1994
• Spanish: "La rebelión de los pupilos" ("The rebellion of the pupils"), 1988
• Italian: "I Signori di Garth" ("Lords of Garth"), 1988
• French: "Élévation" ("Uplift")
• Lithuanian: "Išaukštinimo karas" 1996
• Hebrew "מלחמת הרימום" (The Uplift War) Published 1999