Noon Universe Wiki

 Welcome to the ! The Noon Universe is a fictional universe where many of Strugatsky Brothers' works are set.

Analysis
The name comes from the first novel's title and refers to the "noon" (as in, "the high point") of human civilization in the 22nd century, which the novels describe, and its inevitable dusk. Also, the title was a slight jab at Daybreak 2250, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel by Andre Norton that the brothers read and disliked with a passion.

Thanks to advances in medical science, Noon Universe Earthlings are capable of near super-human feats and can recover from potentially deadly injuries. As they explore the universe, they discover many Earthlike planets inhabited by humanoids re-enacting various periods of Earth history in the most unpleasant ways possible. This allows for some seriously dark and gritty social satire and the posing of interesting questions: just what can a society of Sufficiently Advanced Earthlings do to prevent the Holocaust or the Inquisition from recurring elsewhere without denying free will, and what effect will interacting with violent cultures have on the Earthlings themselves?

The setting is a future Utopia that gets gradually deconstructed as the authors become disillusioned with the Soviet Union. Intellectuals suffer from free time and idle hands turn to dangerous experiments, the older and more advanced space faring civilizations may be guiding the course of events on Earth, which is driving the security services justifiably paranoid, while humanity's own attempts to help out primitive alien civilizations end in tragedy, and a general "Golden Age feeling the premonitions of its own decay" atmosphere pervades.

The Noon Universe starts with a "Society of Plenty" that averts decadence through a well planned education system that respects the role of the Teacher and strives to teach pupils the values of Love of Labor, Camraderie and Goodness. If you ask a Russian intellectual for a vision of Utopia you're likely to get this as an answer.

Main plot elements
The victory of communism and the advance of technological progress on the Earth of the Noon Universe resulted in an over-abundance of resources and eliminated the need for most types of manual labor.

Mankind is capable of near-instantaneous interstellar travel. Earth social organization is presumably communist, and can be described as a highly technologically advanced anarchistic meritocracy. There is no state structure, no institutionalized coercion (no police etc.), yet functioning of the society is safeguarded by raising everyone as responsible individuals, with guidance of a set of High Councils accepted by everyone in each particular field of activity.

The main governing body is the World Council, composed of the brightest scientists, historians, doctors and teachers. The local matters are handled by the regional versions of the council. Planetary councils are present on each Earth colony, as well, although "colony" in this context refers to a planet that wasn't home to any sentient life before the arrival of Terran settlers. In the Noon Universe, Earth has never attempted to seize permanent control over any other civilization.

One of the controversial occupations (and a common plot drivign element) is that of a progressor. They are agents embedded in less advanced humanoid civilizations in order to accelerate their development or resolve their problems. Progressors' methods range from rescuing local scientists and artists to overthrowing local governments.

The universe is populated by a number of sentient races. Some of them are humanoid, while others are so alien that humanity didn't realize that they were sentient for decades. Several sentient races that have developed to a point of accepting that other alien civilizations exist (and therefore are not suitable for human manipulation through progressor activities) maintain diplomatic relations with Earth's society. Many planets in Noon Universe are inhabited by races identical to humans in all but minor genetic differences. It has been speculated that they were humans who wound up on other worlds due to the Wanderers' manipulations (as Beetle in the Anthill shows, that is hardly unprecedented).

The Wanderers are the most mysterious race in the Noon Universe. Technologically advanced significantly beyond other races and highly secretive, the Wanderers are suspected to manipulate sentient beings throughout Noon Universe for their own purposes. While those purposes were never clarified, it was hinted that they try to "progress" various sentient beings, including the human race.

Novels set in the Noon Universe:

 * Noon Twenty Second Century (1962)
 * Escape Attempt (1962)
 * Far Rainbow (1963)
 * Hard to Be A God (1964)
 * Disquiet (first published as a standalone novel Snail on the Slope in 1966; the original draft first published in 1990)
 * Prisoners of Power (1969)
 * Space Mowgli (1971)
 * The Kid From Hell (1974)
 * Beetle in the Anthill (1980)
 * The Time Wanderers (1986)

Eleventh novel, The White Queen (as in the chess piece), was planned but never completed due to Arkady Strugatsky's death in 1991.

In addition to the core novels above, following Strugatsky works are considered to be set in the same universe: The Land of Crimson Clouds (never translated from Russian), The Way to Amalthea, Space Apprentice, The Final Circle of Paradise, and several untranslated short stories.

In the late 1990s, a collection of fiction by notable Russian scifi writers, titled The Time of the Apprentices, was published in Russia (with an endorsement of Boris Strugatsky). The pieces in the collection build upon Strugatskys' ideas and works, and many of them are set in the Noon Universe. The same period saw the re-release of all Noon Universe novels as part of the Worlds of Strugatsky Brothers series. This re-release is notable for introductory articles written by literary critics from the perspective of Noon Universe historians looking back on the events of the said novels several decades later. The revised edition has some minor fixes (dates, names) for consistency, or undoung Soviet era censorship.

For a list of translations, see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?21409

Main categories
Please see:
 * Characters
 * Races
 * Groups and organizations
 * Locations
 * Technology
 * Events



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