Sector General

"Sector General" is a series of science fiction books created and written by the Northern Irish science fiction author James White. The series derives its name from the setting of the majority of the books, the Sector 12 General Hospital, a huge 384-level hospital space station located in deep space, designed to treat a wide variety of xenobiological life forms, and to house an equally-diverse staff.

The structure can replicate the living conditions for practically any intelligent living species: from beings who breathe superheated steam, to beings made of crystals and methane who find temperatures warmer than 18 degrees Kelvin fatal, to the other extreme of beings who gain sustenance from the direct conversion of hard radiation. In between, there exist the assumed middle-ground of humanity and similar mammalian and avian species - which implies the weak anthropic principle. The hospital's infrastructure can be reconfigured to produce environments for previously unknown species.

The series of novels itself is a manifestation of White's pacifistic philosophy, which developed as a consequence of his growing up amid the violence of Belfast, Northern Ireland. White wanted to create gripping, suspenseful science fiction stories where the conflicts did not revolve around violence or war. Thus, in the "Sector General" universe, war is seen as a massive racial psychosis that is occasionally exhibited by insufficiently-advanced cultures, and violence of a more personal nature is also considered as an aberration. In place of the action or violence usually featured in more adventure-oriented SF, the central plot conflicts of the Sector General series usually revolve around xenobiological medical mysteries, often requiring the hospital staff to diagnose (and subsequently treat) medical maladies of species unknown to them.

This series is remarkable in unusually diverse and believable non-humanoid alien life forms. This series can be compared to common medical dramas like "ER" with the addition of a science-fictional setting.

Novel series

* "Hospital Station" (1962: collection of stories from "New Worlds Science Fiction" circa 1958-1961)
* "Star Surgeon" (1963)
* "Major Operation" (1971)
* "Ambulance Ship" (1979)
* "Sector General" (1983)
* "Star Healer" (1985)
* "Code Blue - Emergency" (1987)
* "The Genocidal Healer" (1991)
* "The Galactic Gourmet" (1996)
* "Final Diagnosis" (1997)
* "Mind Changer" (1998)
* "Double Contact" (1999)
* "Tales of Sector General" (1999) (An omnibus edition of "The Galactic Gourmet," "Final Diagnosis," and "Mind Changer")
* "Beginning Operations" (2001) (An omnibus edition of "Hospital Station", "Star Surgeon", and "Major Operation")
* "Alien Emergencies" (2002) (An omnibus edition of "Ambulance Ship", "Sector General", and "Star Healer")
* "General Practice" (2003) (An omnibus edition of "Code Blue - Emergency" and "The Genocidal Healer")

In addition to these books, several related short stories ("Countercharm", "Tableau", "Occupation: Warrior", and "Custom Fitting") appear in other collections by White.

ector General's physiological classification system

The hospital has a classification system, based on the Earth-human English alphabet, which allows easily classification of incoming patients according to size and shape and environmental and dietary requirements. The system uses 4 letters, with the first letter denoting the general environmental requirements (water breather, oxygen breather, chlorine breather, etc) of the entity in question. The second, third, and fourth letters, in combination, reveal information about the entity's metabolism, number of limbs, diet, and so on.

Letters A, B, and C in the first position indicate an aquatic intelligent species, letters D, E, and F in the first position indicate an oxygen-breathing life form, and so on. There are sometimes exceptions and special case rules scattered throughout the system, such as the vegetable-metabolism-based intelligent AACP lifeform (which, while not being a water-breathing lifeform, is nonetheless given a classification beginning with A). Also, any species with a functional psi ability is given a V as its first letter, regardless of any other factors. Human beings from Earth are classified as DBDG, as are at least three other bipedal, warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing species.

The complete list of physiological classifications mentioned in the series is as follows:

Educator tapes

One of the functions of Sector General is to allow species of widely (and wildly) varying physiologies to interact with each other. To that end, all members of the medical staff are expected to routinely provide medical care to members of other species. Doctors and surgeons, in particular, are expected to diagnose extra-species illnesses and to treat them. In order to provide a doctor with the basic medical knowledge necessary to treat patients outside of his/her own species, "educator tapes" are used.

Educator tapes are mental recordings of a team of great medical minds of a particular species. However, in addition to simple medical knowledge, the educator tapes also capture the personalies of the medical experts who recorded the tapes. Thus, having an educator tape active provides the recipient with a mild form of multiple personality disorder. To make matters worse, the new personality is from a vastly different species, and things which would not ordinarily trouble the recipient of the tape (e.g. food) can suddenly take on a repulsive apearance when seen through the eyes of the alien personality provided by the educator tape. Human doctors experiencing their first educator tape (which are usually left active for 24 hours or so) are often seen in the Sector General's cafeteria, eating a bland-looking sandwich with closed eyes.

As a doctor rises up through the hospital hierarchy, and if his mind proves to be sufficiently stable, he may find himself the permanent recipient of one or more tapes. "Diagnosticians", the lofty medical elite of Sector General, can have as many as ten different tapes active at one time.

The exclusive use of the masculine pronoun above is intentional. One of White's fictional conceits is that all females are psychologically incapable of allowing their psyches to be violated to the extent required by the educator tapes. This is not a human quality and is extended to other two-sexed species. Books written several decades into the series drop the concept but do not retcon it.

The genders of characters other than the species of the protagonist of a given story are rarely mentioned, with third-person pronouns being replaced by 'it'. This is explained as a linguistic convenience for 'species that have more than two genders or change sex during their lifespan'.

Regular characters

*Dr. Conway - An Earth-human DBDG, Dr. Conway is the main character of most of the stories and novels. He starts off as a junior intern and, over the course of the series, works his way up to Chief Surgeon and eventually Diagnostician in Charge of Surgery. It is only late in the series that his first name is revealed to be Peter. His physical appearance is never described in detail. Conway is a relative recluse, preferring extraterrestrial company to most members of his own species, and he has a downright irrational drive to heal together with a brilliant mind that can lapse into thinking aloud.
*Nurse Murchison - An Earth-human DBDG senior nurse in the Pathology department. She eventually becomes a doctor and a Pathologist herself, and also Conway's wife. She is described as being very attractive and quite buxom.
*Dr. Prilicla - An insectile lifeform from the planet "Cinruss", classification GLNO. Prilicla looks like a giant insect, with iridescent wings, multifaceted eyes, antennae, and a fragile, tubular exoskeleton. Cinruss is a world with only 1/8th the gravity of Earth, so Prilicla wears an array of gravity nullifiers while off of his home planet. Prilicla is also an empath, and it can sense emotions in other entities. He (his gender is finally revealed in the last volume) is known as the least offensive individual in the hospital.
*Major O'Mara - The Head of the hospital's psychology department, his job is to ensure that the various (and multitudinous) species of the hospital co-exist in something vaguely resembling harmony. Noted for his deep sarcasm and utter lack of pretense, O'Mara is a very irascible Earth-human DBDG.
*Charge Nurse Naydrad - A member of the Kelgian DBLF species, Naydrad looks like a giant furry caterpillar. The fur of a DBLF is in constant motion and accurately (and unconsciously) provides a complete road map to the true feelings of the DBLF in question to any other DBLFs in the area. As a consequence, lying is completely unheard of among DBLFs, and they are also considered to be incapable of tact.
*Thornnastor - A Tralthan FGLI, Thornnastor has a body like a six-legged elephant, mounted by a cluster of sensory apparatus. Thornnastor is the Diagnostician in Charge of Pathology for Sector General, and it carries ten Educator tapes. Its fascination with the gossip of the cryogenic methane wards is a running gag in this series.