I don’t read as much as I used to, which is why I’m posting this here rather than on one of the book tracking websites; that and I don’t know that my long form posts are a good fit for those kinds of sites.

Exodus is an up-coming game that was announced during the 2024 Video Game Awards and I don’t think it got the kind of reception it may end up deserving. The trailer focused on a pair of explorers called “Travelers” who were running from the game’s Evil Empire, called the Celestials. Mid-way through, the two Travelers are separated: one is ejected in an escape pod while the other passes through a gate that accelerated his ship to relativistic speeds. The result for them is that one will experience time in years while the other will experience it in minutes.

The game is being developed by Archetype Studios which was founded by ex-BioWare luminary James Ohlen. The book was written by Peter F. Hamilton at the request of Archetype to “front-load” folks into this universe; the book is not a novelization of the game, but it is set in the universe where the game takes place. Although it doesn’t say it on the game’s website, Hamilton was also responsible for helping to build the game universe because he’s written over 30 of these hard sci-fi novels and was apparently told that Archetype wanted him to “[sic] you do you”. That I couldn’t find Hamilton’s name on the game’s website is, quite frankly, fucking criminal. Do better, Archetype.

History of Exodus

In 2200, humanity slowly rolls out of the Sol system due to a decline in the habitability of Earth. They travel in “arkships”, generational habitats that are self-sustaining for the expected long-haul their crews will need to endure in order to find suitable homes. While there was no set destination and several arkships went off on their own, 16,000 years later a fleet arrives in the Centauri Cluster to find thousands of potentially habitable worlds. The fleet sends out a signal to all other arkships to travel there and for the next 6,000 years, most of the other ships arrive and settle.

During this time, humanity goes right back to being human by engaging in wars of empire. In a bid to increase their odds of survivability, genetic engineering becomes a popular tool which effectively splits humanity into several different, new species calling themselves Celestials. One faction called the Elohim engage in fantastic feats of technology and produce such wonders as the Gates of Heaven which can accelerate starships fitted with a “zero-point zone” (ZPZ) engine to sub-light speeds. They also create the Archemedies Engine, a composite device which can move entire planets which they use to increase the habitability of their chosen star systems.

38,000 years after humans left Sol and 23,000 years after settling in the Centauri Cluster, the book focuses on the Imperial Celestials of the Crown Dominion, a subset of the original Celestials who claimed six star systems for themselves, each ruled by a Queen, and all together ruled by an Empress. While there is much internal animosity, the Crown Dominion is a peaceful place where all citizens are cared for. The problem as some see it, however, is that during the 38,000 years of settlement, arkships still arriving in the Centauri Cluster found societies of genetically changed descendants. The Empress of the Crown Dominion granted these humans the right to settle on two planets, Gondiar and Anoosha, but they were expected to forego autonomy and submit to rule by Imperial Celestials. The Celestials saw their ancestors as little more than economic assets, and certainly not equals, but they cared for the “Old Earth” humans as one would care for a house plant or pet.

40,000 years after fleeing Sol, one final arkship arrives in the Kelowan system in the Crown Dominon. It had originally flown away from the Centauri Cluster which is why it took so long to reach the rest of the fleet. Thanks to the relativistic effects of travel, the arkship had only been in flight for a few hundred years, but over 40,000 had passed elsewhere. This ship, the Dilligent, was carrying someone who would disrupt the entire Celestial order, but no one understood this until it was too late.

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OK so I know I’ve already dropped a lot, but this book is pretty monstrous when it comes to content. It’s one of those stories which introduces and removes characters frequently and rapidly; the book starts with a timeline section, then segues into a list of characters, and then starts the narrative so yes, it’s one of those books. Understanding how we got to the modern era is important in this case, otherwise this book might as well be about humans and the aliens they found which, in a way, it is, but also isn’t. Humans can sometimes be the most alien of all creatures we meet.

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Synopsis

We start out being introduced to Finbar Jalgori-Tobu who we come to learn is a member of Gondiar’s administrative family and is therefor very restless in his family’s expectation of him. He is not a Celestial, but a uranic; a less evolved (and therefor considered “lesser” by the Celestials) human but still one who has morphed into a sub-species which can merge with a kind of tactile psychic ability augmented by technology. The Jalgori-Tobu are tasked by the Celestials with ruling over the humans on Gondiar, which is an agricultural world that supplies food to many other worlds in the Crown Dominion. Still, Finn rebels and when we meet him, he has just been thrown out of a low flying ship, his hands and feet bound. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Finn lives, as his is the first name at the top of the character list. He is saved by Ellie Aponi and her “grandfather” Josias — two explorers from the recently arrived arkship Dilligent. Josias had a hand in building the Dilligent and had completed the trip in a kind of cryosleep, making him one of the few (if not only) human left alive who walked on Earth.

From there, we are provided with glimpses into how the Crown Dominon operates. There are segments featuring “archons”, which are like Imperial spymasters who operate broad networks of informants and their handlers. We see into the lives of the Imperial Celestials themselves: how they engage in cutthroat diplomacy with a smile, and learn about their “mindlines” which allow them to transfer their memories and eventually perform a sort of “consciousness transfer” with one of their heirs in order to maintain an unbroken line of succession. We’re also introduced to the Travelers. These are human-operated ships which can travel through the Gates of Heaven thanks to their ZPZ drives. Travelers explore, but mainly seek out Remnant Worlds of humanity’s original empires, looking to scavenge their complex and often deadly technology for profit within the Centauri Cluster.

Finn — with Josias’ guidance — negotiates an unprecedented deal for the crew of the Dilligent: granted land on Gondiar, owned by them, with a blessing from the Jalgori-Tobu Marchioness. No other human community has ever been granted such a boon, and in exchange Finn names his price: The Dilligent, which he and his associated Gyvoy Enfoe plan on making into a starship by acquiring a ZPZ drive.

Meanwhile we’re introduced to the Imperial Celestials, specifically Helena-Chione, Queen of Wynid (where Gondiar and Anoosha are located). She and the other four Queens rotate their position as Empress every 60 years, an agreement that was forged in the aftermath of a war within their own Dominion, as Queen Zuberi of Kelowan attempted a subversive campaign to evolve Celestials further. Helena-Chione is in the midst of a ceremony to elevate one of her “spawn” to Princess Congregant which will designate a single heir to be the recipient of Helena-Chione’s mindline. This process includes three trials, and in at least two of them, death of the participants is an acceptable option.

In another thread we follow Terence Wilson-Fletcher, law-enforcement officer and native of Gondiar. He is hand-chosen to become a “handler” of informants in the network of another Dominion’s archon. This is a dangerous game as archons operating agents in another Dominion’s system is a known quantity, but dangerous none-the-less. It’s during this time that Wilson-Fletcher finds himself in the middle of not just a game of competing spy networks, but a conspiracy brewing at the Imperial Celestial level.

Throughout all of this we’re told that thousands of years go, the Elohim had set in motion an Archimedes Engine to move a gas giant into the Kelowan system. Projections assumed two outcomes: either the planet will continue through Kelowan, or it will be parked in an orbit close to the star. The Celestials are assuming and hoping for the latter because this planet, Dolod, is an “iron exotic”: being close to the star will cause it’s iron center to melt, resulting in “iron rain” which can then be harvested by Celestial ships. This would devastate the production purpose of Anoosha which only half-concerns Helena-Chione but fully concerns the humans whose livelihoods would be ruined.

And then there’s the sinister Mara Yama, a nomadic domain who are skulking along the periphery and who have designs on the Crown Dominion’s unique resource: an exploded helium planet whose remnants provide a fuel source for all of the Celestial’s starships.

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I don’t think that provided any spoilers, although there’s insinuations about the importance of each mention. It’s one of those “hard to keep track of” kind of books, especially when Wilson-Fletcher, his archon connections, and his informant network get involved because people come and go in those scenarios quite frequently. But true to form, it’s Wilson-Fletcher’s arcs that provide the most insight into the actual machinations of more important players.

Finn’s story is also important because while he is a uranic, he’s assumed to be a “useless uranic”. This class of humans are used by Imperial Celestials as administrators, and while their tactile psychic abilities are an important skill in their use, the Celestials really punch down with the whole “useless” part. Finn starts out as a whining pain in the ass, a spoiled rich kid who dreams of having adventures like he sees in popular entertainment but his first foray into a much more dangerous world ends badly for him, although it does introduce him to Ellie and the two become involved. Finn never loses sight of his rebellious ambitions, though, which unfortunately makes him easy to manipulate by more sinister players.

It’s also not too long before we see Josias’ place in this story, although I found myself questioning how a 40,000+ year old man can just swoop in and disrupt a established 40,000+ year old society so easily. Fortunately, we get a lot of lead-up background noise about how this particular ball had already been rolling; Josias just helped add some energy to it, but not without help from some self-serving associates.

Helena-Chione’s story is a bit tragic, but if you side with the humans in the story, not so much except in that things get much, much worse for everyone. Paying even the slightest attention to the background material, it’s certainly not difficult to see how the Celestial mindline succession process can backfire.

None of the characters themselves go through any significant change over time (except Helena-Chione and maybe Finn after Ellie bullies him into not being such a brat) but I don’t think anyone would pick up this book expecting a “hero’s journey”. This is all about the situations that people find themselves in and the creative ways they get themselves out of them. It’s like an escape room if the escape room was designed by people in the year 41,550 who really don’t care if the room kills you or not.

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Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I’ve seen other reviews throwing in other touchstones to shorthand it, so I’ll do the same. It’s got elements of The Expanse with it’s reliance on plausible sounding technobabble, especially the ever-present ramifications of time dilation which, in retrospect, doesn’t play as much of a role in how things play out in the book as you might think. It also has elements of Game of Thrones just from a political maneuvering perspective, and maybe some Dune in there for how things can totally cross the line between hardcore techno-science and a hand-waving bit of maybe-supernatural.

I will say that the parts I enjoyed the least were the action sequences. I found that the prose style that worked for the rest of the book just overloaded these sequences with unnecessarily florid descriptions. Plus, at some point when a sci-fi story is being suitably sci-fi, it can become too sci-fi; I found that during descriptions of combat action, the characters were deploying whatever the hell technology the author might have found “cool” in theory at that exact moment. Using the boilerplate of “Remnant-era technology” to symbolize tech that not even the Celestials understood is another way to tell the reader to “just roll with it” and not to question the underlying science too closely.

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What About the Video Game?

After some investigation of media on the game’s website, I am confident in assuming that the game is a prequel to the book which is weird because the books are usually (AFAIK) prequels to the video game if the book is released first. For example, an article on the game’s website mentions how an arkship recently arrived in the system of Malakbel and the humans settled on Lidon. In the book, Lidon is a well established hellhole with an overabundance of severely high-tech treasures to be found. It’s considered to be the source of some of the most dangerous arms and armor, and is where Travelers go for their cyberpunk-esque upgrades. If the game features Lidon as a relatively new human colony — and I suspect the game’s central quest hub — then the game has to be set before the events of the book. However, considering how the book ends (and the fact that there’s a second book on the way), it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that maybe the Celestial-human relationship changes from aloof indifference to kill on sight which is the vibe I get from some of the game’s trailers.

What the video game trailers, media and — news to me — the Amazon “Secret Level” episode focus heavily upon is the time dilation aspect. It’s mentioned a lot in the books, but Finn’s story is the only one where such a situation is mentioned as an emotional plot point. The Secret Level episode is built entirely around this aspect. While the ramifications of relativistic travel are interesting, I don’t think that it’s the most interesting aspect of the setting. I’m especially curious about why the game is leaning into the time dilation as a selling point. I guess if the game is a straightforward narrative a la Mass Effect then the designers can control how the time difference is portrayed; if it’s more of a sandbox game, then that would require an almost dynamic representation of “time has passed” across the board. What happens if a player just flies in and out of sub-light speed? Maybe 10 hours pass for them, but 10,000 years pass in game according to the mechanics. I’ll be interesting to see what the game comes up with.

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Even if you’re not interested in the video game (and if you are reading this I’m pretty sure you will be) I do recommend Exodus: The Archimedes Engine if you’re a fan of “hard” sci-fi or…I don’t even know what to call the genre of sci-fi which is so far out from where we are now that everything just seems like magic…maybe “techno-fantasy”? It’s got a bit of the space shipping that fans of The Expanse might love, some pretty good world building, and a whole lot of intrigue. I’m very interested to hear more about how the video game will fit into this lore as I now have some questions and concerns about the focus of such a project, and how well Archetype can pull it off without making just a modern Mass Effect clone.