Childhood's End
Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Arthur C. Clarke
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction
Publisher	Ballantine Books
Publication date	1953
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages	214 pp
ISBN	978-0-345-34795-4

Childhood's End is a science fiction novel by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. It was originally published in 1953, and a version with a new first chapter was released in 1990 due to the anachronistic nature of the opening chapter (the first attempts to launch rockets into orbit by both the Americans and Russians are in progress but aborted suddenly when aliens arrive, with a sense of the death of a dream). This story was originally a short story dubbed Guardian Angel which Clarke first published in 1950 for the Famous Fantastic Mysteries magazine. It is basically the novel's section after the prologue, Earth and the Overlords but with some different text in certain places. Childhoods End may refer to: Childhoods End, a science fiction novel by Sir Arthur C. Clarke Childhoods End (Pink Floyd song), a song on the album Obscured by Clouds by Pink Floyd Childhoods End (Stargate Atlantis), an episode of the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008[2]) was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Ballantine Books, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine, is a major book publisher and is currently owned by Random House. ... Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... ISBN redirects here. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Look up sir in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008[2]) was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. ... Look up Anachronism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Plot summary

Childhood's End is about humanity's transformation and integration to an interstellar hive mind, the Occult, man's inability to live in a utopian society, cruelty to animals, and the idea of being "The Last Man on Earth". A group mind or group ego in science fiction is a single consciousness occupying many bodies. ... For other uses, see Occult (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Utopia (disambiguation). ... This article is about Earth as a planet. ...

The 1953 edition of the story begins when enormous alien spaceships one day appear above all of the Earth's major cities. The aliens, who become known as the Overlords, quickly communicate by radio, announcing benign intention and desire to help mankind. They quickly end the arms race and colonialism. They also arrange personal, though not face-to-face, meetings between Secretary General of the United Nations Rikki Stormgren and Karellen, the Overlord leader, albeit via one-way mirror, so that the earthman cannot see the extraterrestrial alien. Karellen has a special relationship with Stormgren, though short of traditional friendship. The Overlords promise to reveal themselves in fifty years, after which time mankind will have lost their prejudice, becoming comfortable with their presence. The Overlords are a species featured in Arthur C. Clarkes Childhoods End. They are bipedal cybernetic beings that are larger than humans both in size and proportion. ... The United Nations Secretary-General is the head of the Secretariat, one of the principal divisions of the United Nations. ... A mirror is a surface with good specular reflection that is smooth enough to form an image. ...

Mankind enters a golden age of the greatest peace and prosperity ever known, but at the expense of some creativity and freedom; not every Earthling is content with the bargain, nor accepts the beneficence of the Overlords' long-term intentions. Although Stormgren, with Karellen's help, survives kidnap by subversive humans suspicious of the Overlords, he secretly harbours lingering curiosity about the real Overlord nature and smuggles a device aboard Karellen's spaceship to see behind the screen. Yet, he later tells questioners the device failed; the novel strongly hints that Stormgren agrees with the Overlords that mankind is unready for what he saw revealed.

True to their word, fifty years after arrival, the Overlords appear in person. They are beings resembling the traditional human folklore image of demons: bipeds with large wings, horned heads, and tails. The Overlords are taller than humans and of proportionally more massive bodies covered with a hard, black armour shell. They are greatly photosensitive to yellow sunlight, because they are from a planet with a dimmer light spectrum, and, though they can breathe Earth air, they prefer their own specific atmosphere gas. Mankind accept them with open arms, and with their help, create an utopian world. The demon Satan In folklore, mythology, and religion, a demon is a supernatural being that is generally described as an evil spirit, but is also depicted to be good in some instances. ... See Utopia (disambiguation) for other meanings of this word Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to a hypothetical perfect society. ...

Although humanity and the Overlords are in good relations, the spread of equal goods and the ban on building space ships that can travel past the moon causes sects of humanity to believe their innovation and independence is being stagnated. In response, those sects establish the New Athens island colony.

1968 edition of Childhood's End.

After one hundred years on earth, human children (starting in New Athens) begin displaying telepathic and telekinetic abilities. Because of that, they soon become distant from their parents. Karellen then reveals the true purpose of why the Overlords came to Earth. They are in service to the Overmind, an amorphous being of pure energy. It has charged them with the duty of fostering humanity's transition to a higher plane of existence and merger with the Overmind. Also, the Overlords' resemblance to the devil of human folklore is explained with the concept of racial memory unlimited by humanity's linear concept of time; hence, fear of them was based upon instinct, the foreknowledge that they herald the end of the human species. Image File history File links Childhood_68. ... Image File history File links Childhood_68. ... This is an overview of the Devil. ... The concepts of racial memory and genetic memory refer to related hypotheses that an individual can inherit knowledge, memory, and/or motivational imperatives from his ancestors, even without contact with them. ...

Karellen announces that the children will be quarantined on a continent of their own and because of them, all hopes of humanity are over because it will only be the children who will merge with the Overmind. The Overlords are also shown to be trapped in an evolutionary dead end who will never merge with the Overmind, and thus are doomed to forever do its bidding. Because of this, Karellen states his race will forever envy humanity. Despite how the Overlords are trapped in their current forms, Karellen hopes that his race will learn what causes the stage that will be taken by the Overmind and that eventually his race will discover how. Following the quarantine, no more children are born; the narration subtly hints that most of the parents commit suicide, while their children evolve towards merging with the Overmind. New Athens is then destroyed by the leaders detonating a nuclear bomb on it.

The last man alive is Jan Rodricks, a physicist, who will witness mankind's final evolutionary transformation. He stowed away on an Overlord supply ship earlier in the story in a successful attempt to travel to the Overlord home planet, which he correctly guessed orbits a star of the Carina constellation. As a physicist, Rodricks knows of the relativistic twin paradox effect: however brief the round trip to the Overlord planet is in his subjective, personal time-frame, the shortest time elapsed on planet Earth, for a "twin" person of the same age, would be the round trip light-travel time. Given that the Overlord planet is forty light-years distant, at least eighty years elapsed on Earth before his return (eighty years is the lower limit, the actual time is longer). Carina (IPA: , Latin: ) is a southern constellation which forms part of the old constellation of Argo Navis. ... For a less technical and generally accessible introduction to the topic, see Introduction to special relativity. ... In physics, the twin paradox refers to a thought experiment in Special Relativity, in which a person who makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket will return home to find they have aged less than an identical twin who stayed on Earth. ... A light-year or lightyear (symbol: ly) is a unit of measurement of length, specifically the distance light travels in vacuum in one year. ...

Therefore, when Rodricks returns from the Overlord home world, he expects no one on Earth will remember him, nevertheless, he is unprepared for the return: mankind, as he knew it, died. About three hundred million naked young beings, physically human but otherwise with nothing common to Man, remain on the quarantined continent. They are the final, physical form of human evolution before merging with the Overmind. Life — not only human life, but all other forms on the planet — was exterminated by them, and the vast cities that Jan remembers are all dark, worldwide.

Although no human beings remain on Earth, some Overlords remain, studying the evolved children. The two whom Rodricks knows are Karellen and Rashaverak; they expected his return. They briefly remain after Rodricks's return, trying to understand mankind's transformation, which is denied to their race despite its great achievements in other realms. It also is revealed here that the Overlords have met and conditioned other races for the Overmind, and that humanity is the fifth race the Overmind will collect.

When the evolved children exploit their powers — altering the Earth's rotation, effecting other, dangerous planetary adjustments — making it too dangerous to remain, the Overlords prepare to leave. They offer Rodricks the opportunity of leaving with them, but he chooses to remain as witness to Earth's dissolution; mankind's offspring evolved to a higher existence, requiring neither a body nor a place, so ends mankind's childhood.

The story's last scene details Karellen's final backward look, through space, at the doomed Solar System. He is emotionally depressed, having seen yet another race evolve to the beyond, while he and his race are limited to their current form. Despite that, he renders a final salute to mankind, considering whether or not conditioning them for the Overmind helped his goal of deciphering the evolutionary secret for his race to merge with the Overmind. He then turns away from the view, the reader presumes, to await the Overmind's next order. This article is about the Solar System. ...

Similar themes in other literature

1956 edition of Childhood's End.

The idea of humanity reaching an end point through transformation to a higher form of existence is the main idea behind the concept of the Omega Point and of the technological singularity. The idea of self-transcendence appealed to devotees of psychedelic mind expansion, too, and Tom Wolfe would offer a quote from the novel at the conclusion of his LSD-soaked memoir The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Image File history File links Childhood_56. ... Image File history File links Childhood_56. ... Omega point is a term invented by French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe the ultimate maximum level of complexity-consciousness, considered by him the aim towards which consciousness evolves. ... When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ... For psychedelics, see psychedelic drug. ... Tom Wolfe gives a speech at the White House. ... Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly called LSD, LSD-25, or acid. ... As a literary genre, a memoir (from the French: mémoire from the Latin memoria, meaning memory), or a reminiscence, forms a subclass of autobiography, although it is an older form of writing. ... The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a literary journalism novel written by Tom Wolfe early in his career in 1968. ...

It is also reminiscent of the belief held by some Christians in the "Rapture", and has been used in a number of science fiction works written since Childhood's End, the most famous being Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Other examples include Blood Music, Darwin's Radio, and its sequel Darwin's Children by Greg Bear, the Vernor Vinge novels incorporating the "Singularity", Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker and, in Iain M Banks' "Culture" novels, the "sublimation" which advanced civilizations may undergo. For other meanings, see Rapture (disambiguation). ... A movie poster from the original release of 2001 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is an immensely popular and influential science fiction film and book; the film directed by Stanley Kubrick and the book written by Arthur C. Clarke. ... Blood Music is a science fiction novel by Greg Bear (ISBN 0-7434-4496-5). ... Darwins Radio is a 1999 science fiction novel by Greg Bear. ... Gregory Dale Bear (born August 20, 1951) is a science fiction author. ... Vernor Steffen Vinge (IPA: ) (born February 10, 1944) is a mathematician, computer scientist and science fiction author who is best known for his Hugo award-winning novels A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, as well as for his 1993 essay The Technological Singularity, in which... When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ... William Olaf Stapledon (May 10, 1886 – September 6, 1950) was a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction. ... Star Maker (1937) is a cornerstone work of science fiction by Olaf Stapledon, in which he undertakes the immense task of describing the entire history of life in the universe. ... Iain Menzies Banks (born on February 16, 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) writes mainstream novels as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks. ... The Culture is a fictional anarchic, socialistic and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain Banks and described by him in several of his novels and shorter fictions. ... The Sublimed are those alien civilisations in the science fiction works of Iain M. Banks (specifically his novels about The Culture) who have left the material universe behind to take up an immaterial existence. ...

Translations

• Russian: "Конец детства" ("Childhood's End"), 1988, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003.
• Czech: "Konec dětství" ("Childhood's End"), 1992, 2005.
• Hungarian: "A gyermekkor vége" ("Childhood's End"), 1990.
• Estonian: "Lapsepõlve lõpp" ("Childhood's End"), 1999.
• Norwegian: "Skygger fra fremtiden" ("Shadows from the future"), 1971.
• Spanish: "El Fin de la Infancia" ("The End of Childhood"), 2000, 2008.
• Serbian: Kraj detinjstva" ("Childhood's End"), 1992.
• Hebrew: "Ketz Hayaldoot"‎ ("Childhood's End"), 1985.

Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ... Hebrew redirects here. ...

Childhood's End in other media

Movies and television

• The BBC produced a two-hour radio dramatisation of the novel, which was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1997.
• A screenplay of the novel has for years been sold and traded in the movie business, but has not been produced yet. Actress Hilary Swank was once attached to the project.
• The story's opening scene, in which the spaceships appear over Earth’s major cities appeared in the openings of both the American television mini-series V and the movie Independence Day.
• The television series Babylon 5 features as one of its main themes the concept of "younger races" like humanity growing past its primitive stage and ascending to a higher plane of existence. The fourth-season finale, "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", depicts mankind one million years in the future as having evolved into true beings of energy, like in the conclusion of Childhood's End. The first season episode "Mind War" also touches on this theme, through the fate of Jason Ironheart.
• In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Decker (representing The Creator) and V'ger join and apparently ascend to a higher level of being. The starship Enterprise crew conjectures they saw the birth of a new life form and Man's possible next step.
• In Star Trek: The Next Generation 3rd season episode "Transfigurations", a humanoid with amazing powers is found by the starship Enterprise. He is hunted by his own species, which is on the verge of an evolutionary change (their rulers fear a loss of power and want to destroy the first members to go through the metamorphosis). Eventually the humanoid evolves into a form of energy and leaves, possibly to his homeworld so that others would have the chance to join him.
• In the final episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Ben Sisko becomes a Bajoran Prophet, or wormhole alien, who appear to be bodiless energy creatures.
• The Q species in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager also appears to be a species of energy beings on a higher plane of existence. To humanoids the Q seem omnipotent.
• Hideaki Anno, main designer and director of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, has stated that Childhood's End was one of his principal influences. The end of the novel seems to have directly inspired the Human Instrumentality Project. The final scene of his theatrical climax to the series, The End of Evangelion, also mirrors that of the book.
• The 15th episode of the Japanese science fiction anime RahXephon is named "Child Hood's End" (sic).
• Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis have the recurring theme of human evolution to a higher plane of existence as energy beings (referred to as "ascension" in the series). The ascended beings actively and passively help other humans ascend.
• "Childhood's End" was the name of a Stargate Atlantis episode, but there are no shared plot elements short of children.

For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... old Radio 4 logo BBC Radio 4 is a UK domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... Hilary Ann Swank (born July 30, 1974) is a two-time Oscar winning American actress. ... V is a science fiction TV franchise created by American producer and director Kenneth Johnson concerning aliens known as The Visitors trying to take over Earth. ... Independence Day is an American action movie about an attempted alien takeover of the Earth. ... Babylon 5 is an epic American science fiction television series created, produced, and largely written by J. Michael Straczynski. ... The Deconstruction of Falling Stars is the final episode of the fourth season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5. ... Mind War is an episode from the first season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5. ... The list of Babylon 5 Characters contains major characters from the entire Babylon 5 franchise. ... Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Paramount Pictures, 1979; see also 1979 in film) is the first feature film based on the popular Star Trek science fiction television series and is released on Friday, December 7. ... In the Star Trek universe, Willard Decker (played by Stephen Collins) was briefly captain of the USS Enterprise after its refit in 2270. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Vger (Vejur in the novelization by Gene Roddenberry) is a fictional character in the Star Trek universe. ... Enterprise or USS Enterprise are the names of several fictional starships, some of which are the focal point for various television series and films in the Star Trek franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. ... The title as it appeared in most episodes opening credits. ... Transfigurations is the title of an episode from the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. ... Space station Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (ST:DS9 or STDS9 or DS9 for short) is a science fiction television series produced by Paramount and set in the Star Trek universe. ... Captain Benjamin Sisko Benjamin Lafayette Sisko is a character in the fictional Star Trek universe, played by Avery Brooks. ... In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Bajoran Prophets are non-corporeal beings who inhabit the artificially constructed Bajoran wormhole which connects a distant point in the Gamma Quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant, near the planet of Bajor and the space station Deep Space Nine. ... The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ... The title as it appeared in most episodes opening credits. ... Space station Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (ST:DS9 or STDS9 or DS9 for short) is a science fiction television series produced by Paramount and set in the Star Trek universe. ... The starship Voyager (NCC-74656), an Intrepid-class starship. ... Omnipotence (literally, all power) is power with no limits or inexhaustible, in other words, unlimited power. ... Hideaki Anno (庵野秀明 Anno Hideaki, born 22 May 1960 in Ube, Japan) is a Japanese animation and video director. ... Animé redirects here. ... Original run October 4, 1995 – March 27, 1996 No. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... The End of Evangelion ) is a 1997 anime film written and chief directed by Hideaki Anno; it won the Japan Academy Prize for popularity. ... Original run January 2002 – September 2002[1] Episodes 26 Manga Author Takeaki Momose Publisher Shogakukan Serialized in Monthly Sunday Gene-X Original run September 2001 – November 2002 Volumes 3 Novel Author Hiroshi Ohnogi Publisher Media Factory DrMaster Published July 2002 – February 2003 Volumes 5 Movie: RahXephon: Pluralitas Concentio Director Tomoki... For other uses, see SIC. Sic is a Latin word, originally sicut [1] meaning thus, so, or just as that. In writing, it is placed within square brackets and usually italicized — [sic] — to indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, punctuation, and/or other preceding quoted material has been... Stargate SG-1 (often abbreviated as SG-1) is a science fiction television series, part of the Stargate franchise. ... Daniel Jackson and a Zen Monk meditate on the complexities of Ascension. ... Childhoods End is an episode of the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis. ... Stargate Atlantis (often abbreviated as SGA) is an American-Canadian science fiction television program, part of the Stargate franchise owned by MGM. Developed by longtime SG-1 producers Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper, it is a spin-off from the television series Stargate SG-1. ... A male Caucasian toddler child A child (plural: children) is a young human. ...

Music

• The final scenes of the book, in which Earth's children gather and become an entity of the Overmind, inspired the cover of the Led Zeppelin album Houses of the Holy.
• The lyrics in David Bowie's "Oh! You Pretty Things" from the album Hunky Dory recall the evolution of man as presented in Childhood's End and were probably influenced by the novel.^{[citation needed]}
• The novel also inspired a song of the same name by Pink Floyd on the album Obscured by Clouds.
• Iron Maiden also has a song entitled "Childhood's End" on the album Fear of the Dark; however, it is unlikely that the song (bar the title) was inspired by the book.
• Marillion also released a song entitled "Childhood's End" on their 1985 album Misplaced Childhood; again, it is uncertain whether the song was inspired by the book or instead is semi-autobiographical.
• The Genesis song "Watcher of the Skies" was inspired by the novel, as was Peter Gabriel's bat-winged stage costume.
• The song "A Childlike Faith in Childhood's End" by Van der Graaf Generator was inspired by the novel.
• The song "Exciter" on Judas Priest's 1978 album Stained Class is about an alien visitor who brings across the salvation of humanity through implied assimilation into a hive mind.
• The song "Childhood's End" by Kathy Mar on her 1983 filk album "Songbird"
• The song "El Fin de la Infancia" by mexican rock band Café Tacvba from their 1994 album "Re" is named after Childhood's End.

For the bands 1969 eponymous debut album, see Led Zeppelin (album). ... For the Led Zeppelin song of the same name, see Houses of the Holy (song). ... David Bowie (IPA: []) (born David Robert Jones on 1947 January 8) is an English singer, songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and audio engineer. ... Oh! You Pretty Things is a song written by David Bowie in 1971 for the album Hunky Dory. ... Hunky Dory is the fourth album by English singer-songwriter David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1971. ... Pink Floyd are an English rock band that initially earned recognition for their psychedelic rock music, and, as they evolved, for their progressive rock music. ... Obscured by Clouds is a rock album by Pink Floyd based on their soundtrack for the French film La Vallée. ... Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in the East End of London. ... Fear of the Dark is the ninth studio album released by British heavy metal band Iron Maiden. ... Marillion is a British Rock group. ... Misplaced Childhood is the third studio album of the progressive rock band Marillion. ... Genesis is an English rock band formed in 1967. ... Watcher of the Skies is the opening track on Genesis groundbreaking 1972 album Foxtrot. ... Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950, in Cobham,[1] Surrey, England) is an English musician. ... This article is about the band. ... For other uses, see Judas priest (curse). ... Stained Class is the fourth album by the British heavy metal group Judas Priest, released in 1978. ... Kathy Mar (IPA: , from Chinese ) worked as a professional folksinger and street performer in Denver, Colorado for many years before she discovered filk. ... Filk is a form of music created from within fandom, and performed generally late at night at science fiction conventions. ... Café Tacuba (often spelled Café Tacvba) is a musical group from Naucalpan, Mexico. ...

Games

• The 1998 console role playing game Xenogears contained a character named Krelian. The role of this character was to force the evolution of humans so they may ultimately become part of a man-made god. The name is an obvious reference to Karellen, the Overlord supervisor.
• The popular computer game StarCraft features a hive-minded alien race called the Zerg, a race which not only is ruled by a being called the "Overmind", but features lesser supervising creatures called "Overlords". The Terrans in the StarCraft backstory also have emerging psychic powers, and the actions of the Xel'Naga are similar to those of the Overlords in Childhood's End. In addition, both Overminds try to collect humanity in an attempt to merge it with itself. The Zerg also progress by assimilating other species into their own; needless to say, these infested individuals are controlled by the Overmind.
• In the computer game Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire, one of the factions, the Cult of Planet, may build a base named "Childhood's End".

Computer role-playing games (CRPGs), often shortened to simply role-playing games (RPGs), are a type of video or computer game that traditionally use gameplay elements found in paper-and-pencil role-playing games. ... Xenogears ) is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square Co. ... “Starcraft” redirects here. ... This page is about the fictional extraterrestrial race from the Starcraft series. ... Blizzard Entertainments 1998 bestselling real-time strategy game StarCraft revolves around interstellar affairs in a distant sector of the galaxy, with three species and multiple factions all vying for supremacy in the sector. ... This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long or excessively detailed compared to the rest of the article. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Sid Meiers Alien Crossfire, published in September 1999, is an expansion pack for Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri, a turn-based strategic 4X computer game. ...

Other

• An Overlord is illustrated in Wayne Douglas Barlowe's bestiary, Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. The Overlord is also on the cover, in the upper left position.
• Simon & Simon producer Philip DeGuere, who once wished to produce the movie, had a large model of Karellen in his office.