Startide Rising is the story of the Earth starship Streaker and its crew of humans, dolphins, and chimpanzees. The animals have been gifted with Uplifting, a process by which they were helped to self-awareness by gene therapy and other scientific methods, and are now part of Earth's society. The ship discovers derelict wreckage of ships believed to belong to humanity's own Uplifters and is embroiled in a dangerous chase as other Uplifted alien races descend, hoping to claim the legacy as their own.
In the year 2489 C.E., Terran spaceship Streaker — crewed by 150 uplifted dolphins, seven humans, and one uplifted chimpanzee — discovers a derelict fleet of 50,000 spaceships the size of small moons in a shallow cluster. They appear to belong to the Progenitors, the legendary "first race" which uplifted the other species. The captain's gig issent to investigate but is destroyed along with one of the derelict craft — killing 10 crew members. Streaker manages to recover some artifacts from the destroyed derelict and one well-preserved alien body. The crew of Streaker uses psi-cast to inform Earth of their discovery and to send a hologram of the alien.
When Streaker receives a reply, it is in code. Decrypted, it says only:“Go into hiding. Await orders. Do not reply.” Attempting to comply, Streaker is ambushed at the Morgran transfer point and pursued by opposing fleets of fanatical alien races— all of them wanting the cluster co-ordinates, and all of them desperate to prevent their enemies from getting them.
The novel begins about one month after the discovery in the cluster as Streaker arrives on the planet Kithrup in an attempt to hide and make repairs. Almost immediately, the aliens begin to arrive— dashing Streaker' s hopes of hiding, but some time remains for repairs when the alien armadas begin fighting each other.
A Thennanin dreadnought is damaged during the fighting and crashes into the ocean near Streaker' s hiding place. The resultant tsunami strands several crew and causes several of the uplifted dolphins (called NeoFins) to panic and revert to an instinctual, pre-uplifted mental state. Some of the stranded crew encounter pre-sentient natives (called Kiqui).
Meanwhile, on Streaker , several crew members secretly plan a mutiny and defection while the officers plan to salvage parts from the Thennanin wreck. Streaker cannot be moved for fear of detection and because of the ongoing repairs, and so the salvage team uses undersea transportation to get to the wreck. The salvage team discovers the wreck's hull is mostly undamaged, and the Terrans form a plan to hide Streaker inside the Thennanin dreadnought hull and make their escape. As a bonus, several crew members salvage the Thennanin dreadnought's micro-branch of the galactic library for comparison with the Streaker' s own copy, as Earth suspects their libraries have been sabotaged, with certain information redacted by the senior patron races.
The mutinous crew, led by Takkata-Jim, sabotage equipment, leading to Captain Creideiki becoming brain damaged, although he later recovers somewhat. Before he can be caught, Takkata-Jim flees in a shuttle, but the shuttle has been sabotaged by the loyal crew, and he is sent into the middle of the battle over Kithrup with his weapons set to fire when any ship approaches and his radio disabled. Takkata-Jim unintentionally draws off the two largest remaining fleets.
In the confusion, Streaker almost escapes without incident hidden in the Thennanin hull, but is confronted by several ships belonging to the Brothers of the Night (Brethren). Streaker is saved when six Thennanin ships, saving one of their "own", drive off the Brethren. Streaker then flees to the transfer point, but before fleeing, sends a mocking transmission to the alien armadas.
The dolphins in the novel speak three languages: Primal, Trinary and Anglic. Primal and Trinary are represented as haiku-esque poems (two of the human characters quote Yosa Buson), while Anglic is a hypothetical English-derivative (not to be confused with the actual Anglic family of languages containing modern English, its ancestors, and its close relatives like Scots), rendered for the reader as standard English.
The book shifts point of view frequently from character to character, ranging from humans, to dolphins, to a number of the alien races which are trying to destroy, capture, or help the Streaker . This allows the reader to get some idea of how the crew of the Streaker fits within the larger context of Galactic affairs. All of the alien races described in this book are further described and illustrated in the book Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's Uplift Universe .
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