Daedalus

Daedalus is the second book in the second trilogy and is the hinge upon which all of the Solverse hangs. This is the story of Joshua and the Urantian civilization, the descendants of the noble Progress fleet. Joshua discovers that the learning of his culture had been corrupted, and that the object of his civilization's worship is in fact the remains of the Progress.
== Dedicatory Quote ==
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke
== Plot ==
Joshua is a linguist and anthropologist studying the remnants of the Centaurian civilization that came before the Leomhi on planet Urantia. He discovers a device (rocket technology) that is able to achieve orbit and it causes a controversy. During this time, Joshua has been having a strange series of dreams about a man from another planet (later met as Svennesohn Gwaltney of Earth; these dreams are narrated by a being calling itself El. He spends a great deal of his time dealing with it internally. 
He forms a special scientific team under government supervision to study this device, reverse engineer it, and construct their own. Soon, Joshua's nation has a space program. Joshua and his team are the first Urantians to achieve orbit. Throughout his dreams have continued and convince him of the error of the Urantian religion. He gains a purely scientific mind.
However, the government of Urantia is using the space program to influence Urantian religion and control the other nations on the planet. That puts a growing tension between Joshua and the other Urantians. 
He encounters the El'yon being known as the Watcher, who revolutionizes Joshua's understanding of life, the universe, and everything. His first encounter is when Joshua discovers the book Breath on board the Progress fleet, and reads it. It is spiritual food to his hungry soul. He encounters the practice of deep space meditation, and goes out on a space walk to do so. He begins making it a regular practice. One of these occasions, the Watcher comes to him by appearing as a simple man (no space suit) in space before him and communicating with Joshua. He answers many of Joshua's vital questions, but leaves him so hungry for more. 
Joshua returns to planet surface and notices that he no longer needs the drugs that helps him acclimate to the planet's atmosphere and light, after his experience with the Watcher. He contacts his friend Zarā, a biologist, for answers. She runs blood tests on him and discovers that his physical makeup has fundamentally changed. He has been transfigured. He is different from the rest of the population and no longer needs the drugs. Joshua knows that if the government gets their hands on this, they will control it - but Joshua believes it can be used to help people. The Watcher later instructs him to distribute his blood to others, as it will grant them the same immunities. When Zarā presses Joshua for information on how this came to be, he shares his experience with the Watcher. She believes him. She doesn't know why, but she does. They try to approach the state with their cure, and they are met with animosity - a cure would require surrendering control of the populace. 
But they are allowed to return to space to set up a research project to study Joshua's blood and the effect of space on humans, all the while they are being used as tools of the state (propaganda pieces) to control the people. Zarā understands that Joshua's blood is vital and can be used as a cure.
During this time in orbit, they unlock the fleet's computer system and discover a sophisticated program (in the manner of Rosetta Stone) that teaches them the Centaurian (SolarI) tongue in a matter of months.
The Watcher appears again to Joshua in his spacewalk meditation and teaches him more things. He ordains him to power and authority and teaches him purpose. Joshua asks him why he won't manifest to the rest of his team, and why he must keep silent about it. The Watcher tells him the time is not, they are not yet prepared.
But there is a second component that cannot be spoken about to the government at all: his DNA. Joshua's DNA has changed. Certain structures are beginning to activate and changes in his body are taking place. Age is beginning to reverse, etc. The team partakes in Joshua's blood and body and are changed themselves.
The Watcher appears to Joshua a third time and this time invites Joshua to experience the reality of the situation: to leave his space suit and exert faith, to walk in space by himself alone with his body. The Watcher touches Joshua and he feels his body transfigured permanently and wholly. He takes his helmet off and finds something else to breathe other than air, a real and spiritual breath. He wholly leaves his space suit and floats in space with the Watcher. This convinces him of the reality of his experience.
Joshua returns to the interior fleet and his team wants to know why he's coming back in from space "naked" (without a suit). He has no explanation, so he sits his team down to tell him his experiences with the Watcher. While he is telling his experiences, the Watcher manifests before them all and they all experience the reality of the situation. It fundamentally changes all of them. From here on out, the Watcher is a continuous presence among them - though he may not always be visible. 
The government wants to know how the research is going. The team proposes the distribution of Joshua's blood to all the people of Urantia, not just the Leomhi, as a way to peacefully unite the planet. They do not want to do so. They would rather leave it only for the Leomhi, believing the other nations to be "inferior" peoples and instead bent on conquering and eliminating them by force. They are ordered to return to ground and do so.
They are hailed as heroes by the people for "having spoken to the gods", something that is not far from the truth. The government continues to use them as propaganda for their regime, pressing their agenda for the elimination of the other races of men. The government wants to use Joshua's blood as a sort of prize of worthiness, to make Leomhi compete for it to strengthen the race to overcome the other races and eventually reign supreme. Zarā begins to manufacture the cure on the down low and distribute it freely, and a growing silent, underground movement starts. As far as the cure spreads, it undermines also the faith in the Leomhi regime, religion, culture, and society. Joshua eventually participates in it himself directly and introduces his DNA to others also, sharing with them the ability to be fundamentally changed. Joshua teaches those who receive this, too, what he knows of spiritual truth out of Breath and from what the Watcher has taught him. 
At this point the Watcher reveals a little of the existence of the Infinite Empire to Joshua, and reminds him of Earth. What Joshua has begun cannot stay here. It will be fought, and Urantia will change. But Joshua's work here is done and he is required elsewhere, if he would but trust the Watcher. He introduces the Aetaern to Joshua, who receives it. Joshua gives the Aetaern to Zarā and the others, and it spreads through to the people who will receive it. 
After learning the location of Earth, Joshua determines that even with a transmission traveling at the speed of light, it would take about ten years for the first sentence to be spoken between Earth and Urantia (4.3 years for the initial reply, an interim period of determining what to say back, and 4.3 years for the reply). 
The growing tension between the government and Joshua's team leads them to engineer the Dominion fleet out of the remains of Progress. The government is powerless to stop them to do this, because they don't know how to achieve orbit on their own. 
They escape Urantian orbit and travel into deep space. They travel for about three and a half years, learning, learning, learning. They learn as much as they can about Earth culture and the history of humanity. They learn to speak Solarian, in the hopes it's still a living language in Sol. But as far as they know, they are in for the long haul. They learn also as much as possible of what the Watcher is willing to teach them of truth and of the Infinite Empire.
During this time, the Watcher has been manifesting on Earth to one Svennesohn Gwaltney, a research scientist like Joshua. He reveals to him the existence of a record in a centuries-old Soviet bunker deep in Siberia, a record of the early Soviet space program. One of these records is Yuri Gagarin's "I see no god up here" transcript, breaking and shattering Sven's perception of the Anthrarchos regime. He is deeply disturbed by this, because he has truly believed all his life that the objects of his worship were gods; the Watcher teaches him that they are but planets, with consciousness of their own but not worthy of worship and they have begged humans to stop their blasphemy for eons. Their existence testifies to one greater than themselves. He idealizes the concepts of his religion and holds on to them in the light of the new truth he has learned (triumph of reason, the creation of life, divine communion, and the God-man). The Watcher tells him about Joshua and his coming.
The Watcher tells Joshua and his team that El'yon civilization has FTL travel through the Jump Gate system, much to their aggrandized chagrin and amusement. They ask why they spent so much time in space at relatively slow speed. He tells them for three reasons: to learn, to grow, to experience what it was like for those you called the Centaurians.
With the Watcher's tech, they arrive just outside the bounds of Sol System and enter the Rim at Pluto. They encounter a sympathetic Faithful Rim population. The first person they encounter is Nic Cruze, captain of the Perihelion, who becomes their friend and chooses to escort them through Sol System as best as possible, as Nic is Faithful and believes that the Watcher is a divine messenger. As they move throughout Sol System, news of an alien spacecraft spreads and reaches earth. Some react with delight, some with fear. Some in the Rim remember the Progress fleet, and warn them against the regime of Earth. But the Watcher insists that they must press on to Earth. They are told of Sven.
They also meet the man who would later be known as Hephastion the Great; at the advice of the Watcher, the Dominion gives him light drive technology.
The Dominion fleet enters Anthrarchos space at Mars and is immediately greeted as a hostile entity and is held to be prisoner in Earth orbit. Anthrarchos craft escorts the Dominion to Earth, where they remain. The Watcher instructs Sven to contact the regime and petition that he be allowed contact with the fleet, in hopes of fostering communication. 
The Dominion fleet is taken prisoner and upon their attempted fleeing, destruction, only to be held alive in the Unity Gate by the El'yon.
== Characters ==
Joshua is a Leomhi male from Urantia and the main protagonist. He is unmated and has pursued a career of science and research since his youngest years. He is ordinary looking for his race, with the notable exception of his nose being significantly more snubbed than other Leohmi. He is a rationalist and harbors a healthy skepticism for what he considers to be the superstitious traditions of his people. He is compassionate, introverted, and enjoys eating new foods.
Zarā is a Leomhi female biologist from Urantia. 
The Watcher is the El'yon manifestation first appearing to Joshua during his EVA meditation sessions. He has the ability to alter his appearance at will, though it is unknown whether the change is actual or only apparent. He first appears as a being of magnificent, almost blinding light but takes a more anthropomorphic form when he begins to converse with Joshua. As he declined to give Joshua a name, Joshua began to call him the Watcher out of jest, and it stuck. He appears also to the other members of Joshua's scientific team. When the Dominion fleet leaves Urantia, the Watcher is their guide and teacher and begins to reveal things relevant to the El'yon race to Joshua. He hints at a destiny that Joshua must embrace, whether he is willing to or not. 
Svennesöhn Gwaltney is a human male from the Upþ (Earth) during the reign of the Anthrarchos regime. Like Joshua, he is a scientist. However, he is deeply loyal to the precepts of the official Anthrarchian cultos and is devoutly humanist and optimistic in his outlook. The Watcher begins to make regular appearances to Sven without Joshua's knowledge when the Dominion fleet is still traveling below point-one-cee. When Joshua discovers his regular visits to Sven, it is revealed that the Watcher has the ability to appear at any point in spacetime at will, thus setting up the revelation for the El'yon's possession of FTL technology through the Gate System.
Sid: Buddha analogue. He comes from a relatively wealthy family; has a wife and kids of his own on Urantia's surface. Finds answers to his own suffering through interactions with the Watcher. He is largely introverted.
Kris: Military background. Initially acts as the operation's government supervisor. Fought for Leomhi expansion into other nations. Warrior spirit. Very loving and wise.
Talia: Has secretly practiced her own religion for years. Is a physicist Bright and intuitive. Ingenious! 
Adam: Becomes Urantia's very first rocket technician. Understands propulsion; largely becomes the chief engineer behind the whole effort. 
Yazzie: Pilot. Worked for the Leomhi air force. Trains to be the primary pilot of the spacecraft. 
Aylah: Commander with an astronomy background. Expert in orbital mechanics.
Daedalus: Personal friend of Joshua's. Historian and writer. Brought along to document the Leomhi space program.
Nic Cruze is the captain of the Perihelion, a freelance mercantile transport and mercenary in the Rim. He is a native of Neptune and has an extreme disdain for the Anthrarchos regime. He is the first person to meet Joshua in Sol System, becoming a loyal if not rough-hewn confidant.
== Behind the Scenes ==
An encyclopedia entry from the 1973 World Book: "Centaurus was identified with Chiron [not to be confused with Charon], the wisest centaur. Chiron taught many of the lesser gods and heroes of Greek mythology, and was accidentally killed by Hercules. Zeus placed him among the stars".
The above passage was discovered after the basic outline for the events of Daedalus (then placed in the Centauri section of the epic) were already written, much to the author's surprise and pleasure. The existence of this notion in Greek mythology is evidence of the genuine inspiration of Solverse. Joshua is a conscious analogue of Centaurus, he being the hoped-for product of the work and spiritual hope of the Progress fleet. The "lesser gods" are the self-proclaimed deities of the Anthroperium. His death in Sol System and subsequent preservation, resurrection, and ascension by the El'yon is an analogue of the placing among the stars.
Category:Second Trilogy