| Dragon Sun | |
|---|---|
| Author | Michael Ely |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Star Trek |
| Publication date | 2001 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 277 pp |
| ISBN | 0-671-04078-2 |
| Preceded by | Centauri Dawn |
| Followed by | Twilight of the Mind |
Dragon Sun is the second book in the trilogy novelization of the popular computer game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. The trilogy was written by the game's story developer Michael Ely and describes the struggles of the colonists on Chiron - a habitable planet in the Alpha Centauri system, years after the events of Centauri Dawn.
Book Synopsis
This story largely follows Gaia's Stepdaughters under Lady Deirdre Skye, and Human Hive, under Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang.
Years after the fall of UNHQ, Gaia's Stepdaughters is falling under increased isolation from factions on the main continent. Other factions are richer or more advanced, and the faction comes under increasing conflict with Morgan Industries, who seek to consume the planet's resources as fast as possible. Gaians have already learned to manipulate small groups of mind worms, but as other factions technologies increase faster than theirs, their meager mindworm groups grow insufficient. So, Gaian scientists work on a way to communicate directly with the planet, to convince the planet to use its fauna to protect them from their enemies. Deirdre Skye, as well as the other leaders, is hundreds of years old now, and needs painful life-lengthening treatments more and more often.
Across the sea on another continent still isolated from the mainland factions is the Hive Mind, unknown to the other factions before the events of the book, with cities built entirely underground. Sheng-Ji Yang tightly controls the Hive Mind, while seeking immortality, largely through virtual reality. He also seeks to bolster his army with "drones", large, strong humans with low cranial capacity who are controlled by more intelligent officers through "nerve staples", implants that transmit pain directly to the victim's brain. When Gaia's stepdaughters is attacked by Morgan Industries, Yang sends troops to help, and Deidre Skye uses her connection to the semi-sentient planet to destroy Morgan's troops with mind worms. By the end of the story, Gaia's Stepdaughters is safe, the Human Hive is known to the rest of the factions, a new, more pleasant life-lengthening treatment is developed that Deirdre Skye uses, and Sheng-Ji Yang is imprisoned beneath UNHQ and replaced by Jin Long as the ruler of the Hive Mind. The twist at the end of the book explains that Jin Long is, in fact, a clone of Yang secretly created to eventually replace the ruler of the Hive. Yang ancitipated that he could become too rooted in the old ways to accept change and created Jin Long as a contingency plan. As such, Long changed his name to Yang (to maintain the illusion of a dynasty) and even began to take on the "old" Yang's personality traits.