The structure is destroyed in the process, and its fragments are found to be incomprehensible, being far more advanced than any human technology.

Twenty years pass before the invisible shield is successfully breached, using atomic energy. The structure is found to have been placed on the Moon several billion years earlier, and it is not the product of any terrestrial or lunar civilization. He comes across a mysterious pyramidal structure, surrounded by an ' invisible shield' which blocks all attempts to approach. The narrator, Wilson, is a veteran selenologist on an expedition to explore the lunar surface. The story is set in 1996 (at the time of writing, several decades in the future). It appears in the short story collections Expedition to Earth (1953), The Nine Billion Names of God (1967), and The Sentinel (1982), as well as in The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1972). Despite the story's initial failure, it ultimately changed the course of Clarke's career. It was first published in the magazine 10 Story Fantasy, in the Spring 1951 issue, under the title 'Sentinel of Eternity'. 'The Sentinel' was written in 1948 for a BBC competition in which it failed to place. Its plot and ideas influenced the development of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and its corresponding novel. Clarke, written in 1948 and first published in 1951. I don't believe in astrology I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.' The Sentinel' is a science fiction short story by British author Arthur C. At the very least, it would prove that intelligence does have some survival value-a reassurance worth having after a session with the late news.ĪRTHUR C. However it occurs, the detection of intelligent life beyond the Earth would change forever our outlook on the universe. CLARKE, Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations We have, as yet, no definite proof that too much brain, like too much armor, is not one of those unfortunate evolutionary accidents that leads to the annihilation of its possessors.ĪRTHUR C.

Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of all Utopias-boredom.

Nothing is deader than yesterday's science-fiction.Īfter all, it has yet to be proved that intelligence has real survival value. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.ĪRTHUR C. As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals.

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