The Legion of Space [wiki] is a space opera science fiction
series by American writer Jack Williamson. The story takes place in an
era when humans have colonized the Solar System but dare not go farther,
as the first extra-solar expedition to Barnard's Star failed and the
survivors came back as babbling, grotesque, diseased madmen. They spoke
of a gigantic planet, populated by ferocious animals and the single city
left of the evil "Medusae". The Medusae bear a vague resemblance to
jellyfish, but are actually elephant-sized, four-eyed, flying beings
with hundreds of tentacles. The Medusae cannot speak, and communicate
with one another via a microwave code.
The Falstaff character is named Giles Habibula. He was once a criminal,
and can open any lock ever made. In his youth he was called Giles the
Ghost. Jay Kalam (Commander of the Legion) and Hal Samdu (an anagram of
"Dumas") are the names of the other two warriors.
The name Habibula seems to imply an Arab or Muslim background (it means
"beloved of Allah" in Arabic). However, since the character displays few
other signs of such a background, and since he bears an English first
name going back to the Norman Conquest, Williamson seems to have rather
implied a mixture of ethnicities and cultures during the centuries of
spaceward expansion.
In this story, these warriors of the 30th century battle the Medusae,
the alien race from the lone planet of Barnard's Star. The Legion itself
is the military and police force of the Solar System after the
overthrow of an empire called the Purple Hall that once ruled all
humans.
In the novel, renegade Purple pretenders ally themselves with the
Medusae as a means to regain their empire. But the Medusae, who are
totally unlike humans in all ways, turn on the Purples, seeking to
destroy all humans and move to the Solar System, as their own world, far
older than Earth, is finally spiraling back into Barnard's Star. (This
rationale for an invasion of Earth - the invaders coming from an older,
dying planet, and having an existential need to find a new home - dates
back to H.G. Wells' classic War of the Worlds.)
One of the Purples, John Ulnar, supports the Legion from the start, and
he is the fourth great warrior. His enemy is the Purple pretender Eric
Ulnar, who sought the Medusae out in the first place, seeking to become
the next Emperor of The Sun.
The Medusae conquered the Moon, set up their bases there, and went on to
attempt conquest of the Solar System. The Medusae had for eons used a
greenish, artificial greenhouse gas to keep their dying world from
freezing. The Medusae learned from the first human expedition to their
world that the gas rots human flesh, and the Medusae use it as a potent
chemical weapon, attempting ecological destruction by means of
projectiles fired from the Moon. Their vast spaceships also have very
effective plasma weapons, very similar to those the Romulans had in a
Star Trek episode called Balance of Terror.
This first Legion tale featured a secret weapon called AKKA. Using a
space/time distortion, it could erase from the Universe any matter, of
any size, anywhere, even a star or a planet. This weapon of mass
destruction was entrusted to a series of women.
AKKA was used in the past to overthrow the Purple tyranny. In this story
the Medusae tried to steal the secret weapon, but failed and their
invasion force was destroyed. When they were wiped out, the Moon, where
they had established their base, was erased out of existence.
At the end of the story, John Ulnar falls in love with the keeper of
AKKA, Aladoree Anthar, and marries her. Aladoree Anthar is described as a
young woman with lustrous brown hair and gray eyes, beautiful as a
goddess.
Williamson then wrote The Cometeers, in which, twenty years after The
Legion of Space, the same characters battle an alien race, this one of
different origin.
In this second tale they fight the Cometeers, which are energy beings
controlling a "comet" which is really a giant force field containing a
swarm of planets populated by their slaves. The slave races are of flesh
and blood, but none are remotely similar to humans. The Cometeers
cannot be destroyed by AKKA, as they are incorporeal from the Universe's
point of view and exist for the most part in an alternate reality. The
ruling Cometeers feed on their slaves and literally absorb their souls,
leaving disgusting, dying hulks in their wake. It is said that they do
so because they were once fleshly entities themselves of various
species. Hence, the ruling Cometeers keep other intelligent beings as
slaves and "cattle." They fear AKKA, though, as it can erase all their
possessions.
They are defeated by the skills of Giles Habibula. Giles broke into a
secret chamber guarded by complex locks and force fields that the
incorporeal Cometeers could not penetrate. In it the ruler of the
Cometeers had kept its own weapon of mass destruction, one that would
cause the Cometeers to disintegrate. The ruling Cometeer kept this
weapon to enforce its rule over the others of its kind. Once the
Cometeers were destroyed, their slaves were ordered by the Legion to
take the comet and leave the Solar System, and never return.
Another novel, One Against the Legion, tells of a Purple pretender who
sets up a robotic base on a world over seventy light years from Earth,
and tries to conquer the Solar System using stolen matter transporter
technology. In this story robots are outlawed, as they are in the Dune
series. The story also features Jay Kalam, lobbying to allow the New
Cometeers to leave the Solar System in peace, as many people were
demanding that AKKA be used to obliterate the departing swarm of planets
once and for all.
In 1982, Williamson published a final Legion novel, The Queen of the
Legion. Giles Habibula reappears in this final novel, which is set after
the disbanding of the Legion.
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