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1-Page Summary of Seveneves
Overall Summary
Neal Stephenson is an American writer who’s famous for his works of science fiction, steampunk and cyberpunk. In 2015, he published a novel called Seveneves, which was about the Moon shattering into fragments after some unexplained event. The Earth became uninhabitable as a result and humankind had to go to space in order to survive.
The novel is set sometime in the near future, though the exact date is not specified. The Moon breaks into seven pieces and collides with each other. Meteor showers will soon occur as smaller fragments of the Moon enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up. This process will continue until there are no more meteors left, which means that within two years, all life on Earth will be destroyed by a phenomenon known as a “Hard Rain”.
The narrator explains that Harris’s calculations show the Earth will be destroyed in six months. The solution is to build a “Cloud Ark,” which is an arklet vessel small enough to avoid debris from the Moon. Every country draws lots for 1,500 people who are young and able-bodied. This may preserve the human race and prevent worldwide chaos.
An ark is being built around the International Space Station. It will protect it from asteroids and other lunar fragments. The space station is already bolted onto an asteroid, which they are mining for further protection. Robots are digging into the asteroid to build a better shelter for the astronauts living on it. They must also make sure that there’s enough food and water stored in case Earth isn’t habitable again after 5,000 years have passed (though some hints suggest that this project may not be feasible).
A billionaire named Sean Probst realizes that the Cloud Ark will need a source of water to survive. He starts a personal mission to extract ice from a comet, Greg’s Skeleton, and use it as drinking water for the inhabitants of the space station.
Two years after the Moon is destroyed, a Hard Rain begins to fall. Some people are able to find shelter, such as Dinah’s father who takes shelter in an underground fortress and Ivy’s fiancé who finds refuge underwater. Meanwhile, Julia Flaherty gets on the Cloud Ark at the last minute despite her agreement not to do so. Markus Leuker takes command of ISS and declares martial law over it.
Human genetic data was sent to the Cloud Ark, but a nearby arklet passes too close and destroys most of it. Only some of the samples remain in some arklets.
Some people living in the Cloud Ark disagree about how to organize their new society. Some want to live on a higher orbit far away from Moon debris, while others support Julia Flaherty’s idea of taking refuge in a crevice on what remains of the Moon.
Sean Probst has just returned from a mission. He’s brought back a comet that was on its way to Earth, but he and his crew died of radiation sickness from the nuclear reactor. Markus Leuker and Dinah travel to the comet in hopes of bringing it back themselves. The mission is successful, but only Dinah survives.
When Julia Flaherty returns to the space station, she persuades the other people on board to leave and adopt a new plan that will decentralize humanity. She convinces them to send an expedition to Mars with parts of the ISS. While they do this, they accidentally damage many parts of it as well as discard any remaining copies of the Human Genetic Archive. The only surviving copy is digital, which remains on board the ISS. The combined vessel is named “Endurance” and sets course for Earth’s moon, where another Ark may be built in time before Earth becomes uninhabitable due to its proximity to Proxima Centauri b—a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri that has been identified by scientists at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) as being potentially habitable.
