In my post on the “Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman” I had written about how my reading choices over the past few years have been driven by what I need to learn. The pleasure of reading and discovering things organically had gone away. And inspired by the Four Thousand Weeks, I had decided that I will revert back to random picking of books. Sadly, that didn’t continue. I had become too project oriented. To bypass that orientation, I thought back about the books that blew my mind when I read them first. Quite a few of those books are from certain genres. So, I setup a project that I will do random picks from my collection of those genre or themes. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke is the first pick in that project.

Rendezvous with Rama is one of the marquee books of the classic Sci-Fi pantheon. It won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards. In this book, Clarke explores human behavior and the effect of encountering extra-terrestrial intelligence on it.

The setting is in 22^nd century; humanity has spread across the Solar system. We have colonies on Moon, Mercury, a few moons of other planets and we have an interplanetary governance model. We have a governing body UP (United Planets) very much like the current UN (United Nations).

The encounter with another intelligence takes place in the form of a humongous cylindrical object, spinning on its axis and flying through the Solar system. Our observatories quickly establish that it is not a naturally occurring object like an asteroid, but a manufactured one like a spaceship. The object is named “Rama”, from the Hindu pantheon of gods (because the Greek and Roman names are exhausted by then). Endeavour, one of our spaceships is sent to examine the object. The encounter with, the opening of, the exploration within and the lifeforms on Rama make the rest of the novel.

It is in the mould of a classic adventure and exploration story based in space. The world that Clarke has imagined is strange, but also aligned to our known laws of science. The world can generate its own gravity, can generate oxygen and has water. Rama seems to be purposefully built to transport a large population across space. The construction of the world of Rama is masterful. Clarke does a slow reveal of all the features. And that makes you curious for what’s next.

In parallel to the science fiction, Clarke has also used the story to examine how human behavior might change in the world of future. Not so surprisingly, not by much in his reckoning. Even though we have explored most of the Solar system, have colonies on far-flung planets and satellites, the behavior is largely the same as today.

The academicians of the world still hold to the notion that whatever I am working on is far more important than whatever you are working on. Pride in one’s field of work and the associated disdain for other fields are visible throughout the book whenever the Council interacts on the issue of Rama. Clarke says:

“Even in the twenty-second century; no way had yet been discovered of keeping elderly and conservative scientists from occupying crucial administrative positions. Indeed, it was doubted if the problem would ever be solved.”

Greed and Power are still driving our behavior. One of the theories on Rama’s trajectory puts it in an orbit which is closer to the Sun than Mercury’s. The Hermians (inhabitants of Mercury) see that as a challenge to their position. They are the closest to the Sun. And in Clarke’s future, the Sun gives wealth and power. The Hermians don’t want to entertain any possibility of Rama getting to the closer orbit. So, while the rest of the known world is following the exploration of Rama by Commander Norton and his crew from the Spaceship Endeavour, Hermians launch a nuclear warhead to destroy Rama.

Arthur Clarke uses the narrative arc to also introduce several scientific conceptual elements to the reader. The first one is about how creation of life happens in a self contained world. As Rama gets closer to the Sun, the heat from the sun seeps through its thick walls and the environment changes. The change in environment, some driven by heat, some presumably engineered in the ship, allows the explorers to see an earth-like evolutionary cycle to take place.

The life forms that we see are named Biots (biological robots). They are more robots than biology, still they have intelligence and they can perform their tasks efficiently.

The ship doesn’t have an external propulsion system and when it adjusts its direction, it uses what is assumed to be Space Drive. A system that does not need to follow the laws of physics, specifically the Newtonian laws of motion.

In addition, while exploring one of the Raman (that is what we call the creators of Rama) cities, Commander Norton and his group of explorers encounter various artifacts suspended in something like glass crystals. The conclusion they draw is that these objects allow the Ramans to produce them as per their need. It felt like 3-D printing technology.

This book was published in early 1970s, and from that perspective the science fiction part dazzles in its imagination. Though, I was more fascinated by Clarke’s observations on human behavior.

By the time the book ends, you do want to know what is Rama and who are the Ramans. But then the ship leaves along with all of its remaining mysteries. The only hope that remains is the parting sentence “the Ramans do everything in threes.”