ram0029
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- Joined
- Jul 31, 2020
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In the early 2000s, possibly the late 90's I read a novel that was about how space exploration became commercialized to expedite/speed up development. Details I can remember are below, but hoping I am not conflating 2 different novels:
1. The story has two plotlines, one from the distant past (stone age maybe - the aliens looking for colony worlds to relocate their population) and one that covers contemporary timeframe of humans going to space and mastering space travel.
2. An alien artifact is discovered on the moon (later turns out to be the history of an alien race whose planet is rendered uninhabitable by meteor swarms)
3. Aliens try colonizing Earth and using stone age man as slaves pretty much, but genetic problems cause them to choose to terraform Mars instead.
4. A company runs a lottery where people can buy tickets to win a trip into space as a way to raise capital.
5. Think the aliens used a zero-point energy drive on one of their spaceships to travel to Earth.
6. The alien database once deciphered allowed us to build ultra efficient solar panels and other "green" power sources.
7. In one of the plotlines from the distant past, the aliens have "enslaved" humans to serve them and are building a quasi empire when the humans revolt and imprison the small alien crew and use their newly learned empire building skills to do the same.
8. Book ends with a human spacecraft visiting the aliens old homeworld, now abandoned and learning what happened to them.
When I read it it was a paperback novel, seems like it was by a fairly prominent sci-fi writer at the time. Have tried various internet searches and it is driving me crazy.
1. The story has two plotlines, one from the distant past (stone age maybe - the aliens looking for colony worlds to relocate their population) and one that covers contemporary timeframe of humans going to space and mastering space travel.
2. An alien artifact is discovered on the moon (later turns out to be the history of an alien race whose planet is rendered uninhabitable by meteor swarms)
3. Aliens try colonizing Earth and using stone age man as slaves pretty much, but genetic problems cause them to choose to terraform Mars instead.
4. A company runs a lottery where people can buy tickets to win a trip into space as a way to raise capital.
5. Think the aliens used a zero-point energy drive on one of their spaceships to travel to Earth.
6. The alien database once deciphered allowed us to build ultra efficient solar panels and other "green" power sources.
7. In one of the plotlines from the distant past, the aliens have "enslaved" humans to serve them and are building a quasi empire when the humans revolt and imprison the small alien crew and use their newly learned empire building skills to do the same.
8. Book ends with a human spacecraft visiting the aliens old homeworld, now abandoned and learning what happened to them.
When I read it it was a paperback novel, seems like it was by a fairly prominent sci-fi writer at the time. Have tried various internet searches and it is driving me crazy.
