Dyson aliens
Names: Dyson aliensDyson Alpha's civilizationDysonsaliens at Dyson AlphaDyson PairPrimesPrimePrime aliensmotilesimmotilesalienssoldier motilesMorningLightMountainalienDyson peopleoriginal PrimesalienPrimesPrime ships
First appears in Book 1: Pandora's Star, chapter 15 (FOURTEEN)
Appearances
What you know
Book 1: Pandora's Star
- Ch 15The Dyson Alpha civilization has colonized its entire star system with habitats, industrial moonlets and fusion ships, and is roughly on a technological par with the Commonwealth, but has no wormholes.
- Ch 15Dyson aliens use analogue, seemingly random transmissions the Second Chance cannot decrypt, and they fight violent battles among themselves.
- Ch 15Eight hundred seventy-two fusion bombs detonated in thirty minutes in a battle between two Dyson squadrons, which Oscar cited as evidence of their danger.
- Ch 15The Dysons are inferred to be possibly larger than humans, since hatchways are two meters across and tunnels about three meters wide.
- Ch 15Dyson worldlets around Alpha Major aimed laser and microwave beams at the Second Chance, showing they detected it.
- Ch 15Eight Dyson ships are heading straight toward the Second Chance.
- Ch 16Dyson aliens shoot at humans on sight; humans still don't know what they look like.
- Ch 17The Dyson aliens are large, technologically advanced and apparently aggressive, with nuclear weapons but no known FTL, 750 light-years from the Commonwealth.
- Ch 19Primes developed agriculture, mathematics, mechanization, electricity, nuclear weapons and spaceflight; nuclear weapons produced an uneasy equilibrium among territories.
- Ch 19Primes spread across their solar system, with breakaways occurring when communications to the planet were severed; immotile groups can live effectively forever and plan for the far future.
- Ch 19Primes cannot speculate about concepts like FTL and have no tradition of studying their own physiology; they exterminated all other animal life on their homeworld.
- Ch 19Primes have only basic touch and pressure senses and no concept of pain before MorningLightMountain experienced Bose's memories.
- Ch 22Hostile Dyson aliens who are using their industrial power to build giant wormholes reaching across the galaxy; their motives remain unknown.
- Ch 22Dimitri argues they cannot be assigned human motivations, have twice declined peaceful contact, and must be treated as hostile with tens of thousands of warships.
- Ch 23One motile, moving with unfamiliar four legs, ignores MorningLightMountain's directives and acts independently, unlike any other Prime; it notes the nuclear winter.
- Ch 25The Primes opened 48 wormholes in each of 23 Commonwealth star systems, over 1,100 total, and began with nuclear bombardment.
- Ch 25Prime missiles use inflexible, unintelligent software, guided continuously by microwave updates from the wormholes.
- Ch 25The Primes distort quantum fluctuations to block the Second Chance's hyperdrive from opening wormholes.
- Ch 25Prime landing ships descend on the assaulted planets using plasma drives and fusion plumes, protected by force fields too strong for aerobots' weapons.
- Ch 25Prime ships come through wormholes about one per forty seconds, heading for coastlines and water landings rather than capital cities.
- Ch 25Prime ground troops are taller than humans, with four legs, four arms each holding a weapon, and dark force-field-armored suits topped by a four-section sensor dome.
- Ch 25Prime units appear to communicate continually with flyers and ships, suggesting commanders allow little independence on the battlefield.
- Ch 25Prime landing ships hovering on fusion exhaust over Scraptoft produced a tsunami of smog twenty kilometers high, engulfing Treloar's force field.
- Ch 25Prime communications are crude analog signals that the human inserts and electronic warfare can disrupt, making armored Primes erratic and flyers fall.
- Ch 25Over fifteen thousand armored Primes landed at Scraptoft and set up a fortified perimeter with force fields and anti-aerobot weapons.
- Ch 25The Primes are landing gateway machinery to anchor wormholes directly on planet surfaces, which would make their incursion impossible to stop.
- Ch 25Human electronic warfare slows the Prime advance by forcing them to eliminate cybersphere nodes physically, one at a time.
- Ch 26The Primes continue advancing on the invaded worlds, opening gateways on planetary surfaces; the Commonwealth has largely written those worlds off.
Book 2: Judas Unchained
- Ch 3Their invasion killed an estimated thirty-seven million humans on the Lost23 planets; they apparently aim to seize industrial facilities and ignore environmental damage.
- Ch 3The navy believes the Primes will keep attacking until humanity has no worlds; Hans Braunt suggests they wage a religious crusade.
- Ch 3They sent over thirty thousand ships through wormholes in the Lost23 attack and have far more at home; they lack faster-than-light ships.
- Ch 3The Primes built a massive wormhole and invaded the Lost23, establishing themselves there.
- Ch 4Primes are an alien threat the Commonwealth navy is racing to counter with new ships and faster hyperdrives.
- Ch 5The Primes are a hostile alien species found at the Dyson Pair; they launched a devastating attack on the Commonwealth.
- Ch 5The Primes are the alien invaders; the navy suspects they datamined the Lost23 and monitor the unisphere, so the navy withholds specifics.
- Ch 5Primes share communal communications, so one alien detecting humans alerts all; the navy has no pictures of them outside protective suits.
- Ch 6The Primes destroyed the Lost23 worlds and are expected to attack again; the War Cabinet approved genocide only as a last resort.
- Ch 7The Primes are alien invaders who defend their installations with flyers and beam weapons and have a large installation near Randtown on the Trine'ba.
- Ch 7Primes are quad-symmetric, barrel-bodied aliens with four legs, four arms and eight crown appendages; tens of thousands gather near Randtown.
- Ch 7Primes defecate carelessly on their own structures and build with no color or decoration, puzzling the team.
- Ch 7The Primes are building two much more powerful force field generators in bunkers, to be finished in days, making the town impregnable.
- Ch 7The aliens are bioforming the Trine'ba with algae, and keep expanding larger, stronger force fields around their installations near Randtown.
- Ch 7The aliens are a centralized species, and they always move in fours.
- Ch 9The Primes use base four and keep four wormholes per planet; they reopen destroyed gateways in about three days.
- Ch 10The Primes developed a way to deflect Douvoir relativistic missiles in flight.
- Ch 12The Primes launched a long-range invasion of forty-eight Commonwealth worlds, opening seventy-two wormholes around Hanko alone and flooding systems with ships.
- Ch 12The Primes opened wormholes about half a million km above each target star's equator and fired nukes that jam hysradar, hiding something from the Commonwealth.
- Ch 12The Primes are firing flare bombs into Commonwealth stars through wormholes and are conducting a pogrom against humans.
- Ch 12Imperialistic species from Dyson Alpha; they massacred and enslaved the natives of a neighboring star before the barriers closed.
- Ch 12After a human starship disabled the barrier generator at the original Dyson world, they used captured human knowledge to make wormholes and invade twenty-three Commonwealth planets.
- Ch 13Original Primes on Dyson Alpha have inherited continuity of memory and see genetics as forbidden.
- Ch 14Institute troops rumor that the Primes launched a big attack on the Commonwealth, with talk of some reaching Half Way.
- Ch 14Survivors may have escaped from Dyson Beta and could have spread; the Dyson Alpha Primes may also have had ships in flight.
Connections
- has memberMorningLightMountain
- related toalienPrimesoffshoots of the Primes who diverged using alien genetics and technology
- led byMorningLightMountaindominates all Prime motiles
- inDyson Alpha
- ally ofStarflyerOscar suspects it supplied the flare bomb design
- includesHell's Gateway
- enemy ofAnominesAnomines imprisoned the Dysons behind barriers
- family ofStarflyersame family
Key moments
- Book 1 · Ch 15Dyson squadrons fight
The crew observes a large battle between two Dyson squadrons using nuclear missiles and gamma lasers; Oscar urges leaving, but Wilson refuses.
- Book 1 · Ch 15Dysons signal the Second Chance
Laser and microwave beams from Alpha Major's moonlets target the ship. Wilson's crew concludes the Dysons detected them, and hysradar then reveals eight ships approaching.
- Book 1 · Ch 19Electronics and expansion
MorningLightMountain develops electronics for remote control of motiles, conquers territory southward, and builds an empire until grand alliances limit its growth.
- Book 1 · Ch 22Doi announces the Commonwealth Navy
Doi addresses the Senate, honors Kime, Bose and Verbeke, signs decree 1081 creating the Commonwealth Navy, and promotes Kime to admiral. The speech is received with applause and high approval.
- Book 1 · Ch 23MorningLightMountain annihilates rival immotiles
MorningLightMountain opens 328 small wormholes and nukes all rival immotile groupings across the Prime system, then absorbs the survivors, ending all rivalry.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Prime invasion begins
Forty-eight wormholes open in each of 23 Commonwealth systems, and the Primes bombard planets with nukes and projectiles. Wilson, Rafael and Nigel raise force fields and launch defenses.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Second Chance fights over Anshun
Tu Lee's Second Chance destroys projectiles and jumps around Anshun launching missiles, until Prime wormholes block its hyperdrive and ninety-six missiles per wormhole fly at it.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Evacuation order and Prime landing
Simon announces an urgent convoy to the Highmarsh after Mellanie warns the aliens are coming; Prime ships then descend through the clouds over the Trine'ba, and her feed cuts out.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Primes begin planetary landings
Wilson's team watches Prime ships enter atmospheres on many planets, immune to aerobot fire and heading for water landings, so reinforcement of cities is planned.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Evacuation and defense of Anshun
Commonwealth forces funnel refugees and aerobots through Wessex; aerobots deploy from Treloar to confront Primes landing at Scraptoft, but are beaten back by Prime fusion exhaust and smog.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Rear-guard fight at Randtown
Simon Rand's guerrillas fire on landing Prime troops; the aliens retaliate, destroying many buildings and causing panic among the defenders.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Mellanie halts the aliens
Mellanie walks into the street and, with the SI's help, freezes the Prime troops and grounds their flyers, telling the humans to take their weapons and retreat to the convoy.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Humans use electronic warfare at Scraptoft and Anshun
Wilson's EW aerobots jam Prime communications at Scraptoft, disabling armored soldiers and flyers. Navy warships arrive at Anshun and fight an hour-long battle with the Primes.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Defense of the Turquino Valley
Mark, Liz and Simon fight Prime flyers; Mellanie hijacks one. Mark's battery bomb wrecks the advancing aliens while the last Randtown refugees reach the wormhole.
- Book 2 · Ch 5Morton revived early
Morton is woken after only about two and a half years of suspension and offered full remission of his sentence if he fights the Primes on the Lost23; he accepts immediately.
- Book 2 · Ch 7Landing on the Prime-held planet
Cat's Claws are fired through a wormhole in bubbles above the Highmarsh Valley during a massive assault. Aerobots fight off Prime flyers while the squad hides, then they travel through the mountains.
- Book 2 · Ch 7Reconnaissance of Randtown
Morton and Rob scout the Prime-occupied town, seeing huge numbers of aliens, a lake bioforming station, and force field generators under construction.
- Book 2 · Ch 7Ravine ambush and battle
Locals ambush a Prime patrol; Morton and Rob kill the remaining aliens, but Doc's HVvixen use brings many flyers.
- Book 2 · Ch 7Alien found in ruined house
Morton and the Cat scout a garden to place the nuke. Sneekbots find an unarmored alien alone in a house, linked by cable to a human handheld array.
- Book 2 · Ch 10Attack on Hell's Gateway fails
Admiral Kime announces the failure of the fleet's missile strike against Hell's Gateway.
- Book 2 · Ch 12Primes launch the second invasion
Prime wormholes open around 48 Commonwealth worlds, including Hanko and Wessex, flooding the systems with ships while Douvoirs fail to catch the shifting wormholes.
- Book 2 · Ch 12Dublin scouts the wormhole above the star
Wilson orders Oscar to scout the Prime wormhole above Hanko's star. Prime nukes jam sensors, and exotic-energy shockwaves shake the Dublin as it goes in closer.
- Book 2 · Ch 12Clouddancer reveals the truth about the barriers
Clouddancer explains the Anomines built barriers to imprison the Dysons; a human starship disabled one generator, freeing the Dysons to invade Commonwealth planets. He refuses Silfen help.
- Book 2 · Ch 13Prime attack on Boongate
Prime ships arrive in the Boongate system, force fields activate, CST closes wormholes, and Niall buys an escape ticket and takes cash from the office safe.