The Mote In God's Eye

In the year 3016, the Second Empire of Man spans hundreds of star systems, thanks to the faster-than-light Alderson Drive. No other intelligent beings have ever been encountered, not until a light sail probe enters a human system carrying a dead alien. The probe is traced to the Mote, an isolated star in a thick dust cloud, and an expedition is dispatched.

In the Mote the humans find an ancient civilization - at least one million years old - that has always been bottled up in their cloistered solar system for lack of a star drive. The Moties are welcoming and kind, yet rather evasive about certain aspects of their society. It seems the Moties have a dark problem, one they've been unable to solve in over a million years.

Related: The Gripping Hand (Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, 1993), Outies (J.R. Pournelle?, 2010)

Wikipedia, Worlds Without End, Richard Harter,

By the book from Adlibris

Comments

Search Help

Non Advanced Search or Natural Search

The documents are returned sorted on relevance depending on order, proximity, frequency of terms.

Advanced Search or Boolean Search

Default search behavior

By default, all search terms are optional. It behaves like an OR logic. Objects that contain the more terms are rated higher in the results and will appear first in their type. For example, wiki forum will find:

objects that include both terms
objects that include the term wiki
objects that include the term forum

Requiring terms

Add a plus sign ( + ) before a term to indicate that the term must appear in results. Example: +wiki forum will find objects containing at least wiki. Objects with both terms and many occurences of the terms will appear first.

Excluding terms

Add a minus sign ( - ) before a term to indicate that the term must not appear in the results. To reduce a term's value without completely excluding it, use a tilde. Example: -wiki forum will find objects that do not contain wiki but contain forum

Grouping terms

Use parenthesis ( ) to group terms into subexpressions. Example: +wiki +(forum blog) will find objects that contain wiki and forum or that contain wiki and blog in any order.

Finding phrases

Use double quotes ( " " ) around a phrase to find terms in the exact order, exactly as typed. Example: "Alex Bell" will not find Bell Alex or Alex G. Bell.

Using wildcards

Add an asterisk ( * ) after a term to find objects that include the root word. For example, run* will find:

objects that include the term run
objects that include the term runner
objects that include the term running

Reducing a term's value

Add a tilde ( ~ ) before a term to reduce its value indicate to the ranking of the results. Objects that contain the term will appear lower than other objects (unlike the minus sign which will completely exclude a term). Example: +wiki ~forum will rate an object with only wiki higher that an object with wiki and forum.

Changing relevance value

Add a less than ( < ) or greater than ( > ) sign before a term to change the term's contribution to the overall relevance value assigned to a object. Example: +wiki +(>forum < blog) will find objects that contain wiki and forum or wiki and blog in any order. wiki forum will be rated higher.