The Helliconia trilogy is a series of science fiction books by British writer Brian W. Aldiss, set on the Earth-like planet Helliconia. It is an epic chronicling the rise and fall of a civilisation over thousands of years as the planet progresses through its incredibly long seasons, which last for centuries.
On Helliconia, there are two main intelligent species: humans and phagors. The humans are similar to Earth humans, although they evolved independently. The phagors are white-furred humanoid beings, roughly the size of humans but with horned features resembling the mythical minotaur. They are intelligent, with their own language and culture, but their civilisation has never advanced beyond a hunter-gatherer level. Since the evolution of humans on the planet, the two species have been in constant conflict, with the phagors dominant during the great winter and the humans dominant during the great summer. Orbiting around the planet is a massive space station of Earth humans, the Avernus, and many probes and other monitoring devices, sending information about Helliconia to Earth.
The trilogy consists of the books Helliconia Spring (published in 1982), Helliconia Summer (1983), and Helliconia Winter (1985).
Synopsis As the books of the trilogy take place centuries apart and lack a central protagonist—instead giving time to many members in a cast of characters, such as the lineage of Yuli the Priest (Helliconia Spring) or the royal household of Borlien (Helliconia Summer) -- the true substance of the series is, in one sense, the planet itself and its science, especially in the light of James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis. Aldiss obtained help from many Oxford academics learned in many fields of study -- astronomy, geology, climatology, geobiology, microbiology, religion, society, etc. -- to draw connections that would show numerous ways in which various aspects of civilisation intersect and interact.
Helliconia experiences a very long year, called the "great year", equivalent to approximately 2,500 Earth years, and global temperatures vary greatly over this period. The books (which are set thousands of years in the future) each cover a different portion of one such "great year". A space station from Earth, the Avernus, is orbiting Helliconia and closely observing the planet, including the activities of its intelligent inhabitants. The temptation to interfere in Helliconian affairs is a recurring dilemma for the inhabitants of Avernus.
Helliconia is populated by two main races, humans and phagors, constantly competing for dominance of the planet. Helliconian humans are not the same species as Earth humans, having evolved entirely independently, but are remarkably similar in appearance, intellect, behaviour, and culture.
A major theme of the trilogy is the fragility of human civilisation in the context of environmental changes, and the ability of humanity to preserve and recreate civilisation. Nature frequently interrupts events occurring during the plot, and phenomena related to the changing of the seasons of the Great Year provide a deus ex machina plot device in the climax of each of the three books (the exploding trees toward the end of Spring that allow the heroes to escape a phagor attack, the migrating fish-lizards and sea monsters attempting to mate toward the end of Summer that allow the heroes in both cases to fend off invading armies, and the marauding phagors toward the end of Winter that allow the hero to escape from his captors).
Earth Since the present day, the humans of Earth have been through an era of space exploration. This has been rather disappointing, as faster than light travel was proven impossible, and few planets have been found bearing life beyond the microbial stage (though a minor sub-plot in Winter involves some space explorers finding a planet that contains little but the remains of a ruined civilization, an incident that leads them to posit there have existed several planets with many advanced civilizations, all ultimately having destroyed themselves via nuclear warfare). The one opportune success was the discovery of Helliconia, a planet presently full of adequately developed life. A space station, the Avernus, was dispatched to monitor but not interfere with Helliconia, providing the Earth with scientific data and the entertainment of an epic reality show aired planet-wide on a network of "eductainment".
Somewhat later, the human race destroys itself and most other life on Earth via nuclear warfare. Approximately one thousand years following this, Earth's Gaian repair mechanisms repopulate the world with new life, and allow the return of a small number of humans from other previously colonised planets (though they now wish to live simpler lives, having little interest in technological advancement).
Avernus
Colonisers departed Earth in the year 2100 AD, and were investigating the Ophiuchus supercluster in the 3100s AD when a planet appearing to bear life registered on observational satellites. This planet was Helliconia. In 3145 AD, a starship was dispatched to investigate, and arrived in the vicinity of star Batalix in 3600 AD. At first, the colonisers were able to land on the nearby planet of Aganip, and began construction of the massive space station Avernus, which was then operative in 3608 AD. Avernus is visible from the surface of Helliconia and appears to the inhabitants to be a bright, fast-moving star. Probes and other monitoring devices are installed on the planet, providing scientific readings and images which Avernus collects and transmits to Earth. As Helliconia and Earth are separated by one thousand light-years, the events occurring on Helliconia become viewable to humans on Earth long after they have actually happened.
Thousands of people live on Avernus split into a number of families, also called "clans" each studying a different facet of life on Helliconia. For example, the Pin family follows closely how a handful of families on Helliconia develop over the entirety of one Great Year while the Go family deals with questions of theology, philosophy, ontogeny and phylogeny.
Humans cannot survive long on Helliconia due to viruses and therefore any travel from Avernus to Helliconia is a one-way ticket. A Helliconia Holiday Lottery is held once every ten years during the Great Summer and is a source of entertainment to both the Avernians and the people of Earth. Avernians who go down to Helliconia do so knowing that they will die in a short time and with varying experiences.
The humans aboard the Avernus were intended to engage in their studies for at least two Great-Year cycles. However, after about four-thousand years of operation, the numbing isolation of being locked in a metal shell with little more than studying as the focus of life proves to be an ever-present source of despair for the Avernians. Although some eject themselves and attempt to set up a base on the nearby planet of Aganip, the rest of the Avernians are at last reduced to such base savagery, sexual debauchery (a common theme in Aldiss's works, which he treats with revulsion rather than salaciousness), and eudaemonistic madness that they bring about their own end. By the end of the trilogy, Avernus has stopped sending signals to Earth, and is nothing more than a lifeless shell with automated machinery left ceaselessly performing meaningless routine functions.
Helliconia Astronomy
Helliconia lies in a loose binary star system, which consists of a yellow-orange dwarf similar to the Sun, Batalix (spectral class G4Aldiss, Brian (1983). Helliconia Summer. London: Triad Granada, p. 150), and a hotter and brighter white star, Freyr (Type A supergiant). Helliconia orbits Batalix, which in turn orbits Freyr. The Freyr-Batalix star system supposedly appears near the constellation of Ophiuchus, about a thousand light years from Earth.
The length of a day on Helliconia is about 25 Earth hours, and Helliconia orbits Batalix in 480 days; this is called the "small year" (equal in length to 1.42 Earth years). The people of Helliconia divide each day of the small year into 25 hours, each of 40 minutes, which in turn are each divided into 100 seconds. Helliconia and Batalix's orbit around Freyr, the "great year", is highly elliptical and takes approximately 1,825 small years, equating to some 2,592 Earth years. At periastron Batalix is 236 astronomical units from Freyr, whilst at apastron is 710 AU distant. It is at this point that there, at first glance, appears to be a minor inconsistency in the calculations. A Helliconian year of 480 days x 25 hours x 40 minutes x 100 seconds (p.161) equates to a year of 48,000,000 seconds. A typical Earth year is 365.24 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds equalling 31,556,736 seconds. This implies that the Helliconian year is 1.521 times longer than an Earth year. However later in the text (p. 317) the Helliconian year is confirmed to be just 1.42 times longer than an earth year (hence 1,825 years x 1.42 = 2,592 years approx). The disparity can only be explained if the Helliconian second is 93% of the earth second. This is the case according to times displayed on Billy Xiao Pin's watch in the second novel (Helliconia Summer, p. 16). Two sets of times indicate that for every 210 seconds of Earth time (06:16:55 to 06:20:25), 224 Helliconian seconds elapse (12:37:76 to 13:00:00), which gives the ratio of 93.75% A Helliconian week is eight days. There are six weeks in a tenner, and ten tenners in a Helliconian small year. "The height of the cell was 240 centimetres, corresponding to the six weeks of a tenner times the forty minutes of the hour, or to five times the six weeks times the eight days in a week. The width of the cell at its outer end was 2.5 meters – 250 centimetres, corresponding to the ten tenners of a small year times the number of hours in a day." While seasonal changes in the small year are slighter than those of Earth, the long seasons of the great year are much more marked. When distant from Freyr, Batalix's illumination is sufficient only to maintain ice-age conditions. However, Freyr's output is many times greater than Batalix's, so as Helliconia approaches Freyr, the tropics of Helliconia become hotter even than the tropics of Earth.
Previously Helliconia only orbited Batalix, but the Helliconia-Batalix system was captured by Freyr's gravitational pull about eight million Earth-years agoAldiss, Brian (1983). Helliconia Summer. London: Triad Granada, p. 148 (i.e., very recently by astronomical and evolutionary standards). The Freyr stellar system originally consisted of two stars, but during the encounter by Batalix, the sister-star of Freyr was thrown out of the system, along with one of Batalix's original planets and Helliconia's moon.Aldiss, Brian (1983). Helliconia Summer. London: Triad Granada, p. 396
Other celestial bodies
Batalix has a total of 4 planets in orbit. They are, closet to farthest, Copaise (0.31 AU distant), Aganip (0.82 AU distant), Helliconia (1.26 AU distant), and Ipocrene (1.53 AU distant). To the inhabitants of Helliconia, the other planets appear in the sky to be bright stars, along with one other rapid-moving star called "Kaidaw" (actually the Earth Observation Station Avernus).
Copaise, the closest planet to Batalix, is the planet closest to Batalix. Next to nothing is known about it, but due to its proximity to Batalix, it is presumably a scorched, airless rock similar to Mercury. It is named after the lake Copaise in Beotia.