Rifters Trilogy

"Take a dozen children, any children. Beat and mix thoroughly until some lumps remain. Simmer for two to three decades; bring to a slow, rolling boil. Skim off the full-blown psychotics, the schizoaffectives, the multiple personalities, and discard. Let cool. Serve with dopamine garnish. What do you get? Something bent, not broken. Something that fits into cracks too twisted for the rest of us."

—Excerpt from personal diary of Yves Scanlon, N'AmPac GA Industrial Psych

A Speculative Fiction series by Peter Watts, intended as a trilogy of three novels: Starfish, Maelstrom, and βehemoth. The last novel, however, was published as two seperate books: βehemoth: β-Max and βehemoth: Seppuku. Owing to Watts's troubles with publisher Tor, the printed versions of these are hard to find in stores, so Watts ended up puting all the novels online for free on his website.

Set Twenty Minutes Into the Future, the trilogy is set in a Crapsack World where the end is nigh.

The N'Am-Pac Grid Authority is constructing geothermal power stations along tectonic rifts at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Staffing these stations, though, is difficult, since keeping normal people alive and functional at such depths is prohibitively expensive. As such, the company has developed methods of cybernetically altering people to function in the deep, making them water-breathing and pressure-resistant: the titular "Rifters". With one of their lungs removed and filled with machinery, a Rifter can breathe underwater indefinitely as well as function in the crushing depths of deep sea. Combined with a self-cleaning skinsuit, a voice-modulator for speaking underwater, and light-amplifying "eyecaps", a Rifter can feel more at home in the deep than anywhere else.

Unfortunately, most people go crazy when they're miles underwater, literally under extreme pressure and in a working and living situation where they might die at any moment from the many dangers in the rift. So in a somewhat questionable bit of decision-making, the company decides they can save time and money by making Rifters from people who are already psychologically damaged - in other words, abuse victims, war vets, criminals, etc. This actually works surprisingly well, since these people, having already acclimated living in stressful environments in their everyday lives, are better able to psychologically handle the stresses of working on the rift.

The downside, of course, is that this can (and does) lead to a bit of friction between the staff, seeing as they're all disturbed individuals. This becomes a recipe for disaster when, deep within the Juan de Fuca rift, an ancient microbe is discovered. One that has been isolated for over two billion years, and that could mean the end of all life on the surface. And the people put in charge of containing it feel less and less connection to humanity every day...

Tropes used in Rifters Trilogy include:
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Shows up several times -
    • The internet is no longer trustworthy due to being overwhelmed by self-evolving viruses - and the descendants of self-evolving anti-viruses that got out of control.
    • The "smart gels" (used to filter the net, fly lifters, and other things) have to be trained to perform their jobs, which may result in them learning unintended lessons. The gel running the quarantine's previous job had been as an anti-"wildlife" filter, which meant it had been taught to filter out complex computer programs (the "wildlife") while letting simpler ones (the files) through. It absorbed from this a preference for simple things over complex ones. βehemoth is much simpler than the present biosphere. Oops.
  • Anti-Hero: Lenie Clarke alternates between this and Villain Protagonist.
  • Anyone Can Die: And how!
  • Apparently Human Merfolk: The Rifters.
  • Artificial Gill: The Rifters do not breathe air when they leave the habitat. Instead, oxygen is electrolysed directly from the seawater by a electrolysis assembly in the left side of their thorax, which is then introduced directly into their pulmonary vein.
  • Berserk Button: Gerry Fischer causes this for Mike Brander in Starfish; Mike beats Gerry to within an inch of his life multiple times for minor things. It's implied that this is because Brander was sexually abused as a child, and Fischer is a pedophile.
  • Complete Monster: Achilles, after he is infected with a virus that removes the ability to feel guilt and makes a Face Heel Turn.
    • He inflicts extreme Disproportionate Retribution on a doctor, simply because the doctor refuses to treat his dying cat. He hijacks a robot, drugs the doctor and his wife so that they're paralyzed, and then murders their infant baby in front of them, while they watch, using the robot to set the baby on fire. He then leaves them to burn in the spreading flames.
    • He tortures Alice, Taka, and possibly many other woman to death for no other reason than to satisfy his sexual sadism.
    • It's eventually revealed that he was actively fighting an attempt to wipe out βehemoth to preserve his personal power, and it's heavily implied this is simply so he can avoid any possibility of being called to account for his sexual mutilation/torture "hobby". In other words, he'd condemn millions of people to die slowly of a disease simply so he can get away torturing and killing women to satisfy his own personal desires. And at this point it should be pointed out that he could easily do that in virtual reality without actually harming people, so he's pretty much just doing it all For the Evulz.
      • Though, the fact that his ability to feel guilt was taken without his consent may make him more of a Tragic Monster.
  • Crapsack World: Rising sea waters have turned the entire west coast of North American into a four thousand mile long refugee camp known as "The Strip", where most of the refugees are crammed into giant ghettos and pacified with mood-altering drugs. Also, mutated super-diseases are running amok, parts of America resemble something out of Mad Max, governments have resorted to desperate measures to keep things together, and big corporations can get away with all sorts of immoral jerkassery...
    • This is the setting of the story, when we first start off. The entire series is a long series of "...and then it gets worse", ad nauseum.
  • Cyborg: The Rifters are cyber-merpeople.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Pretty much every Rifter. Justified (see Dysfunction Junction entry).
  • Death by Irony: Happens to Alice Jovellanos. She intentionally infects Achilles with "Spartacus", a virus that removes his GuiltTrip virus but has the unfortunate side effect of removing his natural guilt. Achilles ends up torturing and killing her to satisfy his now un-chained sadistic urges. Oops.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: What Achilles does to a doctor who refuses to treat his dying cat and chides him for wasting dwindling resources when the circumstances are so desperate. He paralyses him and incinerates him, his wife, and their child, saving him for last.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Justified. N'Am-Pac deliberately chooses people who have come to perceive extreme stress and danger as "normal" to be Rifters. Having an extremely messed-up life is one way to achieve such a state.
    • Of course, the other way is to make people messed up by implanting false memories.
  • The Empath: the Psychic Powers available in this universe basically take this form.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: Even before the novels start the world is already halfway to the end. At the end of the first book, the microbe "βehemoth" threatens to kill just about everything on the planet. North America becomes a devastated wasteland in the second and third books.
    • It Got Worse: The counteragent to βehemoth, "Seppuku", gets rid of βehemoth by rewriting people's mitochondria. This has the unfortunate (but unavoidable) consequence of causing mutations in anything affected and fundamentally altering all life on Earth into some new and never before seen form.
  • Explosive Breeder: Prior to the events of the books, most of North America is covered by what's known as "Kudzu4", a genetically super-charged solution to global warming that may or may not have spiraled out of control.
  • Face Heel Turn: Lenie Clarke after she crosses the Despair Event Horizon at the end of Starfish and begins trying to deliberately spread βehemoth, making her the Villain Protagonist for most of Maestrom.
    • Achilles after being infected with a virus that removes his ability to feel guilt.
  • Fake Memories: A particularly horrific example.
    • Lenie was given false memories of having been being sexually abused by her father as a child to deliberately turn her into the sort of complete wreck of a person N'Am-Pac considers as potential Rifter material.
  • Fan Disservice: The graphic scenes Achilles sexually torturing and mutilating Taka. Not to mention the brief glimpses we have of Achilles's alone time (in his personal VR sims), or the way he first became aware of his sexual sadist tendencies as a young boy (when he convinced his little sister to jump off a roof and then got turned on by the sight of her lying injured on the ground).
    • Lenie intentionally cutting the inside of her vagina before sex so she's more likely to pass The Plague on to her partner wasn't exactly appealing either, except maybe if you have odd tastes.
    • And then there's the time Lenie casually lets a gangster rape her in exchange for passage through his turf.
  • For the Evulz: It's pointed out to Achilles that he can always satify his evil urges in highly realistic virtual reality simulations (in fact, this was exactly what he did before his Face Heel Turn). His reply:

"It's not about the sights or the smells, okay? You can't hurt a hallucination. It's play-acting. What's the point of torturing something that can't even suffer?"

"It's not so much what you did, Fischer had learned, as why you did it. If you did things because you were evil, you were in real trouble. If you did the same things because you were sick, though, the doctors would sometimes cover for you. Fischer had learned to be sick."

  • Fridge Logic: The Rifters are given compressed gas guns ("billies") to use against the freakishly huge deep sea fish that live near the Channer Vent. When Lenie Clarke tries out her billy on land she finds it makes a three meter crater in the (sandy) ground; it was designed to function in the high pressure depths of the ocean, and on land it's seriously overpowered. Wait. How does the recoil from that not break her arm or send the billy flying out of her hand? Does it balance the recoil by expelling gas at both ends?
    • The same way she survives twenty thousand atmospheres of pressure: Rifters have bionic implants.
  • Gangsterland: In the future history of this series, America's east coast has become an enormous urban sprawl run by street gangs.
  • Godzilla Threshold: Passed several times throughout the series, starting with a Nuke Em All near the end of the first book and escalating from there.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: In the second book we find out that βehemoth was artificially created from what was probably a relatively benign micro-organism before it was modified and went feral.
  • Government Drug Enforcement: The food provided to the refugees in the Strip is laced with mood-altering drugs to keep them docile.
  • Grey and Grey Morality: Most of the characters don't really fit well into conventional hero/villain categories, and even the one character who would be seen as pure evil in any other setting is evil because his brain was badly tinkered with.
  • Heel Face Turn: Lenie Clarke, after being a bit of the Villain Protagonist in Maelstrom, goes back to being an Anti-Hero with shades of The Atoner in βehemoth.
  • Imaginary Friend: Shadow, who is either Gerry Fischer's Imaginary Friend or an alternate personality.
  • Karma Houdini: Lenie Clarke never really receives any dramatic comeuppance for deliberately spreading an apocalyptic plague. It's surprisingly not too bothersome to the reader, partially because it's not really that kind of universe, and partially because she's such a woobie that you just can't bring yourself to wish even more suffering on her. It helps that she readily admits she has been responsible for millions of deaths and doesn't try to excuse or justify herself.
    • It's made clear in the third book that she does feel guilt about her actions. Plus, it could be said that karma bit her in the ass when at the end of the series everyone in and around Atlantis are killed by Achilles's torpedoes. Everyone she came close to caring about was there.
  • Made of Iron: Ken Lubin still manages a pretty decent showing in the final showdown at the end of βehemoth, considering he'd been blinded (eyes destroyed by acid, and later one is gouged out) and then mauled by giant mutant attack dogs. Justified as he's an assassin with biotech enhancements. And he's just that determined to get revenge on Achilles.
  • Made of Plasticine: The unnaturally large deep sea fish near Channer Vent have incredibly fragile bodies.
    • They attack the rifters indescriminately, but their gigantic razor-sharp-looking teeth just break off against the rifter's bodies. Most rifters just tear the fish apart with their bare hands; the fish just literally almost fall apart.
    • Justified in that Channer Vent is a veritable desert in terms of nutrients, and the fish are extra malnourished due to their unnatural growth (because of βehemoth's symbiotic nature).
  • The Messiah: During the second book, some people begin to think of Lenie Clarke as this.
  • The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Neurobiology is one of Peter Watts's areas of interest, so its no surprise this shows up quite a bit.
    • Karl Acton's personality changes after he cuts back on his neuroinhibitors, allowing the high pressure of the deep sea to cause his neurons to fire faster. This has the side effect of giving him Psychic Powers. It's better than it sounds.
    • Achilles Desjardins's sexual sadism is implied to be the result of faulty neural wiring due to genetics or some other physiochemical factor.
    • A minor character in Maelstrom is noted as having suicidal tendencies due to genetics, and a minor character in βehemoth has emotional problems due to a physio-chemical imbalance.
    • GuiltTrip, a drug that compels it's user to do "good" things (whatever "good" is defined as, that is). And alongside it, "Absolution", a drug that removes any feelings of remorse after you've done something that you might consider horrible under the effects of GuiltTrip.
      • An example: You need to burn a whole city block to the ground to prevent an deadly contagion from spreading to save a whole country. GuiltTrip will compel you to do so, even if you don't want to kill those innocent people, because doing so will save many more people and is therefore more "good". Absolution will make you not feel actual guilt from your actions, so you're not constantly haunted by what you've done.
    • It's implied that Achilles Desjardins's strong attachment to his pet cat may be partially a side effect of the biological modifications he's received.
    • The Government Drug Enforcement scheme in the Strip is another variation on the theme.
    • Achilles Desjardins's Face Heel Turn is caused by him being infected with a virus that removes his ability to feel all guilt (even natural guilt). Somewhat averted in that Ken Lubin doesn't have a Face Heel Turn after being infected with the same virus.
  • Mind Rape: What was done to Lenie Clarke is almost literally this, since it consisted of giving implanting false memories of childhood sexual abuse.
  • Mind Virus: GuiltTrip, though it can be administered as a drug, can be spread like a virus through exposure to bodily fluids and the such.
  • More Than Mind Control: The mind-viruses "GuiltTrip" and "Absolution". The first renders the victim unable to perform or even contemplate doing something that they would consider "bad" (in other words, something they'd feel guilty about). The second, on the flipside, lets the user not feel any guilt, at all, after being compelled to do something they'd normally consider horrible.
    • Lubin's "Conditioned Killing Response" is a more extreme variation of GuiltTrip; since his background is in espionage, he's been conditioned to casually murder anyone who he feels has found him out.
  • Older Than They Look: Gerry Fischer is busted by the police when he falls for a sting which uses a man who has been artificially transformed into an apparent child as bait.
  • The Plague: βehemoth, obviously. In the the book βehemoth, the counteragent Seppuku is feared to cause another plague.
  • Psychic Powers: Justified in-universe and explained as a side-effect of the way the brain utilizes quantum effects in its functioning, and can be induced by tweaking with the firing-rate of your neurons (or through sensory deprivation). However, see Science Marches On below.
  • Rape Is Love: The pedophilic rifter Gerry Fischer has an extremely warped view of relationships due to childhood sexual abuse and genuinely believes his molestations of children are a form of love.
  • Rape Is OK When It Is Female On Male: Averted with Gerry Fischer's backstory. It's very strongly implied that the reason he's so messed up now is that he was sexually abused as a boy by a young girl.
  • Restraining Bolt: Part of what GuiltTrip is intended to function as; a biotechnological mechanism that will kill the person who carries it if they deviate from a programmed acceptable set of behaviors. All senior "lawbreakers" are infected with it, and as such, aren't not subject to any serious security or overwatch because it's assumed they'd never break any rules. The virus Alice infects Achilles with ("Spartacus") is designed to free him from this, but it also renders the person unable to feel natural guilt.
  • Science Marches On: When Watts initially wrote the first book, he based the Psychic Powers in it off of a recent study that showed a very slight ESP-like affect in some sensory-deprived people; Watts simply extrapolated the effect into the Psychic Powers showed in the novel. However, by the time the later books came out, further studies had overturned the first study, casting doubt on the existence of the effect. Watts himself admitted this in the acknowledgements in the second and third books, but pretty much kept the effect in-universe because it was too cool to give up.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: βehemoth, which was safely trapped at the bottom of the ocean before Lenie Clarke brought it to land.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: Lenie after finding out that the childhood memories of being raped by her father are fake.
  • Typhoid Mary: Lenie Clarke
  • Unreliable Narrator: In the first book, whenever the narrative is following Gerry's point-of-view, it's unclear whether "Shadow" is based on Gerry Fischer's memory of a girl who abused him, or she's completely imaginary and represents something else. There's also the subtle implication that his actual abuser may have been one of his parents and he's repressed the memory.
  • Used Future: A lot of the settings in the book are definitely toward the gritty end of the Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty. Despite the relatively advanced nature of the technology described in the series, most everything seems to be ugly, broken down, dirty, etc.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Alice Jovellanos. She believed that guilt was unnecessary and counterproductive to her job as a "lawbreaker", since anything guilt does could be done better by simply thinking about the ethics of your actions in a logical manner. She "frees" Achilles from the Restraining Bolt of GuiltTrip (and his natural sense of guilt) thinking that he will be able to handle it because she believes he is a good person. This, of course, turns out to be horrifically incorrect; she didn't know him anywhere near as well as she thought she did.
  • The Woobie: Lenie Clark. A lot of rifters would probably qualify too if we knew more about their backstories.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Lenie Clark in Maelstrom.
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