Ethan of Athos

Ethan of Athos

Ethan of Athos is a science fiction novel which is part of the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. It is an unusual member of the series in that it does not feature Miles Vorkosigan, the protagonist of almost all the other books.

The name "Athos" for Ethan's planet may be a reference to Mount Athos in Greece. Alternately, it may be an indirect tribute to the actor Oliver Reed, whom Bujold is known to admire (she has cited him as a model for Miles' father Aral Vorkosigan); Reed played the role of Athos in the 1973 film version of The Three Musketeers.

Plot Summary

It tells the story of Dr. Ethan Urquhart, Chief of Biology at the Severin District Reproduction Centre on the planet of Athos, and his quest to Kline Station to find out what happened to a shipment of vital ovarian tissue cultures.

For religious reasons, Athos was founded and maintained as an exclusively male-populated planetary colony, whose continuing reproduction relies on uterine replicator technology and ovarian tissue cultures. However, after 200 years of service, the ovarian cultures are deteriorating into senescence. The Population Council attempts to mail-order new ovarian cultures from another planet known as Jackson's Whole, but instead they receive an unusable mixture of dead and animal tissues. The Council dubs Ethan their planetary ambassador and sends him offworld in search of a fresh batch of tissue cultures, and (if possible) a refund from the original supplier, House Bharaputra.

Ethan's first encounter with a woman occurs when he asks directions from Commander Elli Quinn, a rather unorthodox intelligence officer with the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, who is on home leave for the first time in ten years. Ethan learns that women in general are not the monsters he was taught; they are as varied as any man and range from honorable to devious to helpful to selfish. Ethan is attacked by military agents from Cetaganda who are seeking the fugitive Terrence Cee as well as the lost tissue cultures, but Elli rescues him.

Terrence approaches Ethan with a request for asylum, and turns out to be the last surviving creation (originally labelled as L-X-10-Terran-C) of a Cetagandan genetic project to create telepaths. Although his telepathy is reliable, it has a small range and can only be triggered for a short amount of time by ingesting large doses of the amino acid tyramine. Terrance’s female counterpart Janine (J-9-X-Ceta-G) was killed in the escape, but he managed to preserve her body and convey it to Jackson's Whole, where he bribed House Bharaputra to splice her genes into the ovarian cultures that were sent to Athos. Terrence had intended to escort the cultures to their destination but was delayed on his way to Kline Station, and is now horrified to learn that they disappeared and were replaced by the useless material which ultimately arrived.

After Terrence's departure from Jackson's Whole, the Cetagandans attacked House Bharaputra, killed the researchers who had worked with him, and destroyed their records. These Cetagandans followed him to Kline Station, and are the same agents who attacked Ethan. In turn, the Bharaputrans hired Elli to track down the Cetagandan agents, although she is also gathering information for the Dendarii.

It turns out that for petty personal reasons, a minor official on Kline Station "threw out" the Bharaputran tissue cultures with Janine's genes. Elli defeats the Cetagandans and attempts to recruit Terrence to the Dendarii, but he is far more attracted to the isolated, uncomplicated life on Athos. He does gives Elli a small genetic sample to take back to the Dendarii, but not before Ethan asks her for (and receives) some of her own ovarian cells to create a new tissue culture.

After her departure, the original Bharaputran shipment unexpectedly turns up intact and usable, not destroyed. Ethan buys a new set of ovarian cultures anyway as a cover, uses their packaging to relabel the cultures with Janine's (and now Elli's) genes, and returns with them and Terrence to Athos.

[Note: The events of the novel are obliquely referred to in the novels "Cetaganda" and Borders of Infinity.]

The Planet Athos

Athos is what author Lois McMaster Bujold refers to as a "monastery" planet, similar to real-life all-male cloisters. The planet economy is self-sustaining and almost completely independent of interstellar trade. The entire human planetary population is male. Athos was settled some 200 years earlier by an exodus of religious zealots who sought to found a sanctuary away from women who have since become mythologized as "demonic" due to the "madness" they cause in men. Contact with the rest of human civilzation is restricted to an annual interstellar courier that brings information, supplies and immigrants, though the number of immigrants has decreased significantly over the years. Emigration is not illegal, but very few men want to leave the planet. All incoming information is screened and censored before dispersal to the planet. Athos’ extreme isolation and history have led it to be derisively referred to as "The Planet of the Fags" by lower-class citizens of other territories.

Most Athosians are religious, with a strong devotion to their families and communities. Partnerships are usually romantic and sexual, resembling homosexual couples in our society, but both celibacy and youthful promiscuity are also present. Ethan himself feels attraction to Terrence, but not to the various women he encounters throughout the story.

Through military and community service, Athosians earn "Social Duty Credits" towards reproduction. These ‘points’ can be taken away for criminal infractions. As with any culture, while desire for children is the norm, there are a minority who do not care to raise children so the loss of points is not a matter of concern for them.

Parents proudly grow beards to display their status as fathers, though it is sometimes considered unlucky to begin growing the beard before the baby is born. A father can choose a co-parent to help raise their sons. Co-parenting is one of the fastest ways to earn social duty credits and while a co-parent does not have to be in a relationship with the father, it is very common. Either way, being chosen to be a co-parent is considered a high honor. Co-parents grow moustaches to display they are or have experience raising children. Athosians in exclusive relationships often will choose to have their children produced from the same egg stock their partner came from, or both partners will choose the same egg stock for their sons which flatteringly creates a family resemblance. With enough social credits, a pair can have several sons and usually raise them together as brothers. This creates a family style situation which is considered ideal.

Sons are grown in and birthed from uterine replicators (artificial wombs) at Reproduction Centers around the planet. For the production of human ovum cells, the colony's founding fathers brought and maintained a set of ovarian tissue cultures which are abstractly referred to with a code indicating the original donor’s initials and the iteration of the culture; e.g., CJB-9 is the 9th production of the tissue culture donated by Dr. Cynthia Jane Baruch. Specific cultures are preferred when a father wants a tendency towards a particular trait in the resulting son. CJB eggs, for example, are thought to produce the best doctors. But eventually, in Ethan’s time, the cultures reached the end of their viability after two centuries, requiring the acquisition of new cultures.

For each conception, sperm is freshly collected from the prospective father and screened to remove the 50% of the cells that contain the "defective" X chromosome that would produce daughters, leaving only the Y chromosome sperm to produce sons. Due to strict censorship and a prohibition on anything to do with women and few Athosians have even ever viewed a human female, even as a fictional image. To discourage curiosity, Athosians are led to believe that to do so would cause a "madness" to overcome the male viewer. Although it was theoretically possible to replenish the Reproduction Centers' old tissue cultures by creating a female fetus purely to harvest its ovaries, this was prevented by religious abhorrence against women.

The future of Athos is unknown. Its isolation and insulation from the rest of civilization, its mostly agrarian society and lack of strategic galactic placement makes it unappealing to conquerors. Only the need to replenish a few vital items, like ovarian tissue cultures, keeps Athos from severing all ties to the rest of human civilization. There is not much immigration or emigration, and there is little curiosity about the planet or its people. The added element of the telepathy complex, grafted into the new ovarian cultures brought by Ethan Urquhart and Terrence Cee, will not begin to manifest in the population for another few generations.

ee also

* Homosexuality in science fiction
* Reproduction in science fiction
* Sex in science fiction

External links

*ISBN 0-671-65604-X
*ISBN 1-886778-39-6 (NESFA Press, hardcover, 2003)
* [http://www.faerielands.com/reviews/ethan_of_athos.html A book review]
* [http://www.glbtfantasy.com/?section=single&revid=138 Another review]


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