Foreigner universe
Foreigner (10th Anniversary Edition)
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| Author | C. J. Cherryh |
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| Country | United States |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | DAW Books |
| Published | 1994–present |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback), audiobook |
The Foreigner universe is a fictional universe created by American writer C. J. Cherryh. The series centers on the descendants of a ship lost in transit from Earth en route to found a new space station. It consists of a series of semi-encapsulated trilogy arcs (or sequences) that focus on the life of Bren Cameron, the human paidhi, a translator-diplomat to the court of the ruling Aiji of the atevi aishidi'tat. Currently eighteen novels have been published between 1994 and 2017. Cherryh has also self-published two ebook short story prequels to the series, "Deliberations" (October 2012) and "Invitations" (August 2013).
Cherryh calls the series "First Contact".
The Foreigner series opens with the failure of a starship. A brief preamble to the first book describes a system failure that leaves the starship Phoenix stranded in some far-flung reach of space, without any idea of how to get home, completely unable even to locate Sol in the visible stars. Phoenix is carrying colonists and equipment to establish a new space station to extend Earth's interstellar trade empire.
Sketched in the preamble is the heroic effort to refuel Phoenix in the environs of a hostile sun, and navigate the lost starship to a more habitable environment. Lost to this effort are many of the best and bravest of the crew.
The habitable environment that the damaged starship can reach is the homeworld of the atevi, a green and living world, already populated by aliens with steam age technology.
The humans build their station in orbit around the atevi world but tensions build between the colonists and the Phoenix crew. The Pilot's Guild, comfortable with the power it has accrued during the emergency, and stripped of its best elements by the battle to refuel, has become oppressive and oligarchic. When the refueled Phoenix leaves to explore the local space and establish a further station the colonists become restless.
When Phoenix is slow to return, some of the colonists choose to abandon the station in parachuting landers (much akin to NASA's Project Mercury), despite the efforts of the remaining Pilot's Guild to retain the colonists and control, until the space station becomes unviable and is abandoned entirely.
On the surface the humans encounter the atevi, a race of ebon-skinned humanoids, for whom math is as intrinsic as breathing. Atevi possess no directly corresponding concept of liking or loving another person, but instead place utmost importance on a concept called man’chi, most directly analogous to loyalty. Man'chi is not merely a cultural construct, but is an intrinsic drive, a natural instinct to follow a leader, and is therefore a difference between the two races that cannot be bridged.
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