3001: The Final Odyssey

by Arthur C. Clarke

The novel begins with a brief prologue describing the bioforms — dubbed the First-Born — who created the black monoliths. They evolved from "primordial soup", and over the course of millions of years, became a space-faring species. Perceiving that nothing was more precious than "mind," they catalysed the evolution of intelligent species wherever they went, by increasing the intelligent species' chance of survival. After visiting Earth, the First-Born found a way to impress themselves into the fabric of space and time, becoming effectively immortal. Meanwhile, the monoliths—implied to have been forgotten by their creators when they ascended to a higher state of being—continued to watch over their subjects.

3001 follows the adventures of Frank Poole, the astronaut killed by the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. One millennium later, Poole's Jovian moons Ganymede and Callisto. TMA-1, the black monolith found on the Moon in 1999, has been brought to Earth in 2006 and installed in front of the United Nations Building in New York City.

Poole integrates into the society of 3001, but is prompted by a friend to revisit Europa, a cradle of nascent life from which the monolith had banned humanity almost a thousand years earlier. It is believed he might be the first person allowed to visit there. On Europa he is greeted by the voice of David Bowman and computer HAL 9000, who have now become a single entity—Halman—residing as digitized lifeforms in the monolith's computational matrix. In subsequent conversations he learns that the monoliths themselves are mechanisms, answerable to an unknown superior monolith, or perhaps lifeforms, almost 450 light years away.

Thirty years later, Poole is married, and a member of a small team responsible for monitoring Europa. Halman contacts him to warn that following the events of first contact. Since this report took place shortly after the wars of the 20th century, Halman believes the response just received after the 900-year round trip contains instructions to destroy the human race, as a failed species. Unsure whether they can physically harm the Monolith, the Europa team decide instead to infect it - as a computational mechanism - with a virulent and subtle computer virus, that will confound its calculational capabilities. Poole requests Halman to act as a Trojan Horse and place the virus inside the monolith, where it will be executed. Suitable computer and biological viruses already exist in the Pico Vault, an ultrasecure storage on the Moon, used for the most dangerous agents of these kinds. The Europa team also agree to leave a petabyte-capacity holographic 3D storage medium on Europa to allow Halman and other lifeforms in the monolith to upload themselves and escape the monolith's failure.

The monolith does receive orders to exterminate humanity, and starts a duplication, whereupon millions of monoliths form two cascade screens to prevent Solar light and heat from reaching Earth and its colonies, but the monoliths all quickly disintegrate as a result of the virus. The monoliths makers' response to its destruction will occur in another 900 years as the earliest possibility.

The petabyte storage device, containing Halman and other lifeforms, but also infected with the virus, is subsequently sealed by scientists in the Pico Vault. At the close of the story, Poole and other humans land on Europa to start peaceful relations with the primitive native Europans. A statement is made that the monolith's makers will not determine humanity's fate until "the Last Days".