Ocean — Warren Ellis

It is a ‘hundred years from today’. People take ‘ferry’ rides from Earth to space stations above in order to work — much like we take the metro. Space exploration has taken large strides. We can travel at the speed of light. We have at least one city on the Moon. We have space stations orbiting planets and moons that are being studied. We also have hollowed-out moons which serve as space stations. Also, most people have forgotten what a ‘book’ looks like.

And if you’re working a blue collar job, then you can pretty much forget having a personality. For the duration of your contract, the corporation will put an implant in your mind that shuts down your reasoning power and essentially make you an order-obeying zombie.

But not everything has changed. Muggings still happen (even on space stations).

This is the setting for Warren Ellis’ Ocean.

A research station orbiting Jupiter’s moon Europa has found a large number of life-sustaining pods that house humanoid aliens in stasis — the very first signs of intelligent alien life under the frozen sea. They’ve also found a weapons stash, and (what sci-fi geeks will recognize as) a Stargate — a device that lets you instantly travel to another point in the Universe.

Intrigued by the question of why an intelligent alien species decided to go to sleep without setting a wake-up call, the scientists decided to hack into the life support system computer. And after decoding the language, they realize that an extremely violent race of beings were in an intergalactic war — which ended with one species coming up with a cannon that blows away entire planets. The winning side (which is currently sleeping) was horrified at their own capacity for destruction, and decided to end their own existence (at least temporarily) by placing themselves in hibernation.

There’s another interesting fact. Before these guys went to sleep, they decided to plant intelligent life on Earth. So it’s a probably a good idea to wake them up to say ‘thanks’. But since the translation also showed that this race had over 160 words for ‘killing’, it’s probably not a very good idea to wake them up.

Unfortunately for the scientists, there’s also a corporate-owned space station nearby that wants those weapons, and way out here in space, they can pretty much destroy the scientists’ craft and get away with calling it an accident. And they’ve already hacked into the alien pods and initiated the process of waking them up.

Enter Nathan Kane — a weapons inspector for the United Nations. He’s every bit as suave, smart, and dangerous as James Bond. He’s even got a similar tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. He also has that impossible assignment to complete — less than 48 hours to save the scientists from the corporate baddies and stop the aliens.

With a story like that, Ocean is hard to put down. It’s action-packed, tightly edited, and while the art may not be seminal, it’s still definitely a visual treat.

But Ocean is more than just another sci-fi action story. Like Transmetropolitan, this one also uses ‘the future’ to look at society today. It makes you think of the aliens who put themselves to sleep. They were disgusted with what they did to others and because they were always at war. They had the technology to seed life on another planet as well as the power to destroy one. Yet, they deployed the latter before the former.

I think this one is about Ellis’ stand on war, and the story of the race of aliens is hauntingly close to our own. Its Ellis reminding us that we may have a responsibility towards life and its preservation… not taking it away en masse from those who think differently.

Don’t miss this one.