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= Mesklin =
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Introduction
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Mesklin is a fictional planet created by Hal Clement and used in a
number of his hard science fiction stories, starting with 'Mission of
Gravity' (1954). Alongside the novel's original 1953 serialization in
'Astounding Science Fiction', Clement published an essay titled
"Whirligig World" on how he designed the planet to have the properties
he wanted. The idea came from an object that was at the time believed
to exist in the 61 Cygni system, and which might represent an
extrasolar planet.
The planet is distinctive for the interaction of its strong gravity
with the centrifugal force due to its fast rotation, giving it a
gradient in the perceived force of gravity from 3 'g' on the equator
to 665 'g' on the planet's poles. It is inhabited by native lifeforms,
including an intelligent centipede-like species, the Mesklinites.
Mesklin is considered a prototypical example of hard science fiction
worldbuilding, an exotic milieu that nevertheless accords with known
facts and laws of physics. While the planet itself is vastly
dissimilar to Earth, its inhabitants are commonly regarded as
noticeably humanlike in behavior, if not in appearance. Mesklin itself
is sometimes viewed as the main character of 'Mission of Gravity'.
Description
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Mesklin is a fictional planet orbiting one of the stars in 61 Cygni, a
binary star system. Its mass is sixteen times that of Jupiter, or
4,800 times Earth mass. It has a very high rate of rotation, with one
day on the planet lasting only eighteen minutes. As a result, the
planet is significantly flattened with a large equatorial bulge: the
diameter at the equator is while the diameter between the poles is
slightly below . By comparison, the diameter of Earth is approximately
.. The planet thus has a significantly higher mass than Jupiter within
a much smaller volume, and its planetary core is made up of collapsed
matter. The surface gravity is very high at 665 times Earth gravity at
the poles, but at the equator the effective gravity is only three
times Earth's as the rapid rotation generates a significant
centrifugal force that counteracts most of the gravitational force.
Mesklin orbits its star in an elongated ellipse, completing a full
revolution in 1,800 Earth-days. The high orbital eccentricity combines
with a pronounced axial tilt to result in an uneven seasonal cycle. In
the southern hemisphere, the springs and summers are very lengthy (28
Earth-months each), and the autumns and winters are much briefer (2
months each); the pattern is reversed in the northern hemisphere. The
two hemispheres thus have significantly different climates. The planet
is cold, with average temperatures ranging from −50 °C at the closest
approach to its star to −180 °C at the furthest point in its orbit.
Mesklin is itself orbited by two small moons and has a large ring
system.
The surface is covered mostly by methane () and ammonia (), both
mainly in the liquid state; the oceans are primarily made up of
methane, while the ammonia is also present as snow. The atmosphere is
principally composed of hydrogen, and its density decreases with
increasing altitude to such a degree that atmospheric refraction
through the successive layers produces the optical illusion that an
observer on the surface perceives the ground as curving upwards, as if
living on the concave inside of a bowl rather than the convex surface
of a spheroid.
The planet is inhabited by various lifeforms. The intelligent native
inhabitants, the Mesklinites, resemble centipedes or caterpillars.
They are long and wide, with eighteen pairs of legs ending in
suckers, as well as a forward pair of pincers for manipulation and a
rear pair for attaching to the ground. They have four eyes and
mandibles. They have a tough exoskeleton that allows them to withstand
the planet's strong gravity. They have no lungs but breathe hydrogen
by absorbing it directly from the atmosphere in a manner similar to
that used by the respiratory system of insects, whereas oxygen is
toxic to them. They are able to survive while submerged for extended
periods of time by breathing dissolved gases. Their lifespan is much
longer than that of humans. They have a strong fear of heights and of
being underneath objects, owing to the danger posed by such things in
a high-gravity environment. For similar reasons, they have no concept
of flying or throwing things. Their society is pre-industrial, with
rudimentary technology including seafaring vessels.
Appearances
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The planet first appeared in Hal Clement's novel 'Mission of Gravity'
(1954), which was first serialized in 'Astounding Science Fiction'
(April-July 1953). The third of the four serial instalments, in the
June 1953 issue, was accompanied by a 13-page article by Clement
titled "Whirligig World" describing the planet and the process of
creating it in detail. Clement later wrote an additional three
fictional works using the planet or its denizens: the sequel novel
'Star Light' (1971; originally serialized in 'Analog Science
Fiction/Science Fact', June-September 1970) and the short stories
"Lecture Demonstration" (1973) and "Under" (2000). The book 'Heavy
Planet' (2002) is a collection of these five Mesklin-related works. In
"Whirligig World", Clement encouraged other authors to use Mesklin as
a setting for their stories provided that they stay within "reasonable
scientific standards", while acknowledging that to be "certainly an
elastic requirement in the field of science fiction".
Concept and creation
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Clement drew inspiration from astronomical work published in
'Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific' by Kaj Aage
Gunnar Strand in 1943. Strand's analysis of the motion of the two
known stars in the 61 Cygni system suggested the presence of a third,
unseen object of relatively small size and mass. This was the first
evidence--albeit indirect--of what might be an extrasolar planet; the
discovery has since come to be regarded as likely erroneous. Clement
used what was thought to be known about the object, dubbed 61 Cygni C
by astronomers, and tried to create an interesting setting for a story
within those bounds. The magazine 'Astounding Science Fiction' had
published a nonfiction article on the apparent discovery in the July
1943 issue--"The World of 61 Cygni C" by Robert S. Richardson, who
also published fiction under the pseudonym Philip Latham--and Clement
may have used Richardson's work in addition to Strand's.
The calculated mass of the object, at approximately 16 Jupiter masses,
meant it was expected to be somewhat smaller than Uranus as a result
of gravitational compression. At the time, it was unclear whether the
object would behave more like a very low-mass and faint star (a brown
dwarf) or a high-mass planet (Super-Jupiter); Clement elected to
depict Mesklin as the latter in order to be able to use it as a
setting for his story. Given this size and mass, the surface gravity
would be about 300 times Earth gravity (300 'g'). Clement decided to
reduce the effective gravity by providing the planet with a rapid rate
of rotation to make it possible for humans to land on it in the story.
He settled on an effective equatorial gravity of 3 'g' and worked
backwards from there to calculate the spin that would result in the
centrifugal force necessary to offset the correct amount of the
planet's gravitational pull. A high rate of rotation was deemed
plausible given what was known about planet formation and the fact
that the more massive planets in the Solar System spin more rapidly
than the less massive ones such as Earth. The rapid spin also meant
that Mesklin would be significantly flattened by the centrifugal
force, which over time would redistribute its matter away from the
poles and towards the equator.
The combined effect of the difference between the polar radius and the
equatorial one, which makes the gravity stronger at the poles since
the force of gravity decreases with distance, and the centrifugal
force decreasing from its maximum at the equator to zero at the poles
would result in a great difference between the gravitational pulls
experienced at the two locations. This was one of Clement's goals: he
wanted to challenge the assumption--present in planetary science and
science fiction alike--that while different planets might have
stronger or weaker gravity, the gravitational field of a single planet
would not display a large degree of variation across its surface.
Clement calculated the gravity at the poles to be 665 'g', but noted a
low degree of confidence in this figure as the standard methods used
for calculating the gravity of a spherical object would not be
applicable to such a distorted shape, and stated that formulae
different from the ones he used suggested that his figure might be too
high by a factor of two. Clement redid his calculations years later
with the aid of a computer rather than the slide rule he had
originally used, coming up with a figure around 275 'g' for the polar
gravity.
Based on the inferred orbit of 61 Cygni C and the known properties of
the stars in the system, Clement calculated that the planet would be
very cold at an average temperature of −170 °C throughout the majority
of its year, with a low of −180 °C and a high of −50 °C. Clement
wanted his imagined planet to have native lifeforms, and reasoned that
this would necessitate a substance that is liquid under these
temperature conditions to play the role in the living tissue that
water plays in life as we know it. He enlisted the help of
biochemistry teacher and fellow science fiction writer Isaac Asimov,
and together they worked through various alternatives such as carbon
disulfide () and hydrogen fluoride (HF) before settling on methane,
and developed a basic outline for the kind of ecosystem and lifeforms
that could plausibly exist in such a chemical environment. The low
boiling point of methane (−164 °C at Earth's atmospheric pressure, and
−143 °C at an atmospheric pressure eight times greater, calculated by
Clement to be the maximum possible on Mesklin) meant that the oceans
would be expected to boil during the warmest 300 (Earth-)days of the
planet's 1,800-day year. To solve this problem, Clement provided the
planet with an axial tilt of 28° such that the northern hemisphere's
summer solstice would coincide with the closest approach to its star,
reasoning that the northern hemisphere would then amass a substantial
polar ice cap during its lengthy winter that would be melted and
boiled off in the summer, while the southern hemisphere would be
shielded from the heat by being pointed away from the star and remain
livable as the planet reached the nearest point in its orbit.
Hard science fiction
======================
Science fiction scholar Gary Westfahl, in a 1993 study of the history
of hard science fiction, noted "Whirligig World" as both "the first
article about a piece of writing firmly identified" as belonging to
the subgenre and the first outline of the process of hard science
fiction worldbuilding by collecting as much scientific data as
possible and extrapolating from it, noting that while Clement rejected
the notion of the article being a how-to guide, such texts were later
written both by Clement and others such as Poul Anderson. In 'Science
Fiction Literature through History: An Encyclopedia' (2021), Westfahl
further commented that 'Mission of Gravity' and "Whirligig World"
together "effectively launched" the hard science fiction subgenre a
few years before the term was coined in 1957. Basil Davenport, writing
in 1955, commented that the only aspect not in line with current
scientific knowledge was that humans had sent a spaceship to the
planet; , writing in 1973, similarly called this level of human
spaceflight "one of the few imaginary science details". Clement
himself, in "Whirligig World", described his approach to writing
(hard) science fiction as a game between the author and the reader,
wherein the latter attempts to spot scientific errors and the former
attempts to avoid making them; Westfahl commented that this was
probably the first description of this "game", and that it has since
come to be intimately associated with hard science fiction. In a 1980
interview with , Clement recalled science fiction fans at MIT using
university computers to calculate the shape of Mesklin, determining
that it would actually have a sharp edge at the equator; Clement
described having mixed feelings about this, being dismayed at having
been caught making an error but heartened that his writing had
inspired readers to go to such lengths.
Setting
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Clement's stories about Mesklin were the first to be set on a planet
outside the Solar System believed (then) to actually exist. , writing
in 'The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy' (2005),
described Mesklin as the prototypical example of an alien world vastly
dissimilar to Earth. John J. Pierce, writing in 1987, commented that
it far surpassed the exotic settings imagined in works like Stanley G.
Weinbaum's "Parasite Planet" (1935) and E. E. Smith's 'Lensman' series
in terms of its alienness. In 'Mission of Gravity', the peculiar
properties of the planet Mesklin--its high gravity, short day, unusual
chemical environment, and so on--are revealed indirectly rather than
being explained outright; Neil Barron and viewed this as one of the
novel's strengths, while Westfahl instead considered it a shortcoming.
Westfahl noted that while Clement's "Whirligig World" outlines the
creation of the fictional location in detail, it does not discuss the
decision to set a story on the world or the process of creating that
story. Clement stated that the story came after the setting and the
lifeforms that could plausibly inhabit it had already been invented;
Westfahl considered this to be a half-truth, reasoning that the
purpose behind the lower and thus human-tolerable gravity at the
equator and the presence of a chemical environment conducive to life
was evidently to facilitate an encounter between humans and aliens and
that this basic story idea must thus have been present from the outset
even if the details were worked out later. Kingsley Amis, writing in
1960, commented that Clement and other science fiction writers likely
engage in this type of worldbuilding primarily as a creative exercise
in its own right, rather than as a means to an end in service of
telling interesting stories.
Mesklinites
=============
The Mesklinites are generally regarded as similar to humans in the way
they act, think, and speak--even if their appearance is inhuman--and
this is often regarded as a flaw in Clement's creation. , writing in
1999, described the Mesklinites' value system as resembling that of
Victorian-era England, while Barron, writing in 1979, found the main
Mesklinite character Barlennan to most of all resemble a Yankee
trader. Morgan further commented upon the Mesklinites' human-like
thought processes and their desire to gain scientific knowledge while
at the same time seeking to avoid giving up their independence. In
Morgan's view, these things make the Mesklinites more reminiscent of
an "emerging third world country" than a wholly alien species; Barron
similarly identified a native-colonist analogy. Barron also commented
that the depiction of Mesklinite psychology suggests that
understanding of the world is shaped by sensory input related to one's
physical environment and compared the Mesklinites' perception of their
world as a bowl to the human perception of the Earth as flat. Hassler
noted that while the Mesklin stories are narrated from a third-person
omniscient perspective, the viewpoint characters are Mesklinites a
majority of the time. As a result, the reader's understanding of the
Mesklinites comes from the Mesklinites' own perspective, such as their
reactions to things like the much longer duration of Earth days than
the Mesklin days they are used to. Hassler further compared the
depiction of the Mesklinites to the works of Jonathan Swift, both in
terms of the size differential as in 'Gulliver's Travels'
(1726)--calling them "Lilliputians in a Brobdingnagian world"--and
their use as a vehicle for social commentary.
The planet itself as a character
==================================
Westfahl, writing in 1996 in the context of the notion that the
Mesklinites are too human-like to be interesting as aliens,
investigated the argument that Mesklin itself may be considered the
main character of 'Mission of Gravity', as well as the most
interesting one. Westfahl compared the situation to Arthur C. Clarke's
'A Fall of Moondust' (1961), where the imperiled characters that might
intuitively be viewed as the main characters are less developed than
the ones who come to their aid. In his view, the description of the
planet in the first line of the novel--"The wind came across the bay
like something living"--suggests that this was indeed Clement's
intention. More broadly, said Westfahl, one might consider writers of
hard science fiction to be applying character writing skills to
objects rather than traditional characters, as opposed to neglecting
characterization altogether in their stories. Nevertheless, Westfahl
did not find Mesklin to be characterized effectively in the novel,
which he attributed to Clement's decision to reveal information about
the planet piecemeal in an indirect and roundabout way.
See also
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* Extrasolar planets in fiction
* Jinx, a strongly prolate (rugby football shaped) planet in Larry
Niven's Known Space setting.
*
*
External links
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*
*
[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5667640905f8e29a3f838b2d/5670c0344bf11858ea5c1474/5670c16ca2bab819494abc84/1453098364378/mesklin.jpg
Depiction of Mesklin], from the cover of the Tor Books edition of
'Heavy Planet', from artist Stephan Martinière's site.
License
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesklin
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