17.
Startide Rising by David Brin
I've read
Startide Rising before. It is book 2 of Brin's Uplift Trilogy (I can't find book one for some reason; I know I own it, but it's nowhere to be found).
The Uplift Trilogy takes place in the Five Galaxies, a group of galaxies including our own which are linked by hyperspatial travel and a common set of traditions, a 2-billion-year-old civilization. This civilization was started by the semi-legendary Progenitors, the first sentient species. Since the time of the Progenitors, every species has been linked in the Uplift Cycle. Sentient races find pre-sentient species, intelligent animals effectively, and, through a millennia-long process of genetic engineering, breeding, and social engineering raise them up to be starfaring, sentient, species. This cycle was first started by the Progentor, and since that time, it is believed that no species has evolved sentience on their own. Indeed, most of the species in the Five Galaxies believe that it is impossible for sentience to evolve without Uplift. The species that is uplifted is referred to as the Client, and the species that does the uplift is the Patron. Clients are expected to "repay" their Patrons with a 100,000-year-long period of indenture, during which the Patron race has tremendous legal power over their clients. There is little in the way of galactic government, each species (and any clients) is a nation-type entity. There are various institutions bringing them together, such as the Library and the Galactic Institute of Migration, which have some power over the various species. Galactic civilization is very slow-paced. Science and technology grow with extreme slowness, as most simply prefer to refer to the Library. Independent research is generally frowned upon, as, for one, it's often useless. Chances are, whatever you discover has been discovered before. Also, there is a strongly-engrained antipathy to innovation. Eventually, most species either die out or evolve onto another plane, and leave galactic civilization. In the final stages, they generally retire to a small number of worlds and cut off contact.
Some 300 years prior to the book, humanity made first contact with Galactic Civilization when they unknowingly violated Galactic Law by colonizing a planet that was off-limits to settlement (planets are regularly declared off-limits to allow for natural evolutionary processes to procede, and possibly produce new pre-sentients). As it turns out, humanity had already begun uplifting chimpanzees and dolphins on their own before encountering the Galactics, or "Eatees" as they are derogatorily known. Humanity was massively shaken by this encounter. Everything they were proud of, all their accomplishments, were now seen as hopelessly primitive. They were technological primitives in a dangerous galaxy, a galaxy in which many species were hostile towards humanity. Their unwitting violation of galactic law was forgiven, as they'd been ignorant of the law. More seriously however is the challenge to the generally-held doctrine that sapience cannot evolve. Most galactics assume that some unknown species must have begun humanity's uplift, and then abandoned them half-way. (There have been a few other stories of such species; but few "wolfling" races have survived long) Humanity initially rejected this view, holding fast to the view that they evolved on their own, but by the time of
Startide Rising, most had accepted the "lost Patron" view, though some "heretics" did still remain. Humanity was also looked upon with suspicion for their love of innovation and general ignorance of galactic civilization. In the past 300 years, humanity had incorporated a great deal of Galactic science, but still remained behind the rest of the galaxies. The fact that they had begun Uplifting chimps and dolphins gave them Patron status, but there are still many species which would like to wipe out humanity or have them declared a client.
In the midst of this tense situation, a mostly-dolphin-crewed Earth ship, the
Streaker, makes a startling discovery - ancient ships, over a billion years old, in an isolated region of space. They report their discovery back to Earth, and are immediately ordered to go into hiding, and avoid capture if at all possible. Their message had, however, been intercepted, and ships from dozens of powerful fanatic species attempt to capture them. Something about their discovery had religious meaning. The galactic religions all center on the Progenitors, and what their fate was. Many believe that the Progenitors will return some day, and different groups have different beliefs about how and when this will happen. These variations can inspire the same degree of religious hatred as Catholic/Protestant or Sunni/Shiite or other such divisions have among humanity. And so the
Streaker finds itself pursued by huge fleets of religious fanatics, saved only by the same fanatics fighting each other over the right to capture the
Streaker and gain the information they'd discovered.
The
Streaker hides on a mostly-ocean-covered world known as Kithrup, where they are discovered. The book takes place on Kithrup as the Earthlings tensely await the outcome of the battle in surrounding space, and try to find a way to escape. They also discover a pre-sentient race living on Kithrup. The story largely focuses on the events on the planetbound starship, with some of the dolphins reverting to less-sentient behaviors under the stress. This story is interspersed with brief chapters taking place on various alien ships.
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