Energy Beings

Entry updated 26 May 2025. Tagged: Theme.

Immaterial Alien intelligences have long been a popular sf concept, occasionally "explained" by some form of Imaginary Science such as self-sustaining electromagnetic vortices or standing waves in space/time. Notable examples include the benevolent Arisians who as Secret Masters of the galaxy have directed human and other Evolution in E E Smith's Lensman series, and the destructive AI creation the "Mad Mind" in the back-story of Arthur C Clarke's The City and the Stars (1956); the latter also features a more successful experiment along similar lines, the vastly knowledgable but friendly and childlike entity Vanamonde.

Energy Monsters and Villains frequently appear. These include the inimical "pure mentalities" of E E Smith's earlier Skylark sequence opening with The Skylark of Space (August-October 1928 Amazing; 1946; rev with cuts 1958); the parasite Vitons in Eric Frank Russell's Sinister Barrier (March 1939 Unknown; 1943; rev 1948); the eponyms of Fredric Brown's "The Waveries" (January 1945 Astounding), which though notionally harmless feed on electricity and put an end to our electrical Technology; the titular deep-space horrors of Cordwainer Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon" (March 1955 Galaxy); the angry Poltergeist-like entities of Keith Roberts's "Boulter's Canaries" (in New Writings in S-F 3, anth 1965, ed John Carnell); the not unsympathetic alien Rakasha (and associated "elementals") in Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light (1967); the deeply enigmatic Loarra of Terry Carr's "The Dance of the Changer and the Three" (in The Farthest Reaches, anth 1968, ed Joseph Elder); and multiple Id Monsters (see below) in the deep-past secret history unearthed in Colin Wilson's Cthulhu Mythos tale The Philosopher's Stone (1969). A conceptual shark-like monster – perhaps rooted more in Information Theory than physical energy – is central to Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts (2007)

Several varieties of energy being hail from Mars, as in Ray Bradbury's "The Fire Balloons" (April 1951 Imagination as "In this Sign"; vt in The Martian Chronicles, coll 1953 UK ed); in Isaac Asimov's David Starr, Space Ranger (1952 as by Paul French; vt Space Ranger 1973); in Robert A Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (1961; text restored 1991), where the dead stay around and play a part in Martian society (though different arrangements apply to humanity); in The Day Mars Invaded Earth (1962) directed by Maury Dexter; and in Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-1968), whose Mysterons are Mars-dwellers.

Heinlein's discorporated Martians are also examples of the frequent sf rationalization of the soul in Religion as a perhaps immortal and transferable energy being. Others include Eric Frank Russell's Sentinels from Space (November 1951 Startling as "The Star Watchers"; exp 1953; vt Sentinels of Space 1954 dos), Roger Zelazny's already cited Lord of Light (1967) – whose hero's atman or soul-equivalent is at one stage punitively projected into the "Nirvana" of an orbital magnetic cloud and later retrieved – Bob Shaw's The Palace of Eternity (1969) and Philip José Farmer's Traitor to the Living (1973). The notion is briefly touched on, in a context of Matter Transmission/Matter Duplication and continuity of Identity, in Clifford D Simak's Way Station (June-August 1963 Galaxy as "Here Gather the Stars"; 1963).

Further Cinema and Television examples abound, most famously the Id Monster in Forbidden Planet (1956) directed by Fred McLeod Wilcox. Other relevant films include Fiend Without a Face (1957 directed by Arthur Crabtree), Kronos (1957) directed by Kurt Neumann and The Alien Factor (1978) directed by Don Dohler. Energy beings and manifestations recur in Star Trek (1966-1969) and its many spinoffs, possibly because a simple special effect makes a change from complex makeup and facial prostheses. Babylon 5 (1993-1998) has its ancient, enigmatic and invariably armour-concealed Vorlons. There are numerous Comics Superhero characters: E-Man made his Charlton Comics debut in 1971 and in 1973 DC Comics introduced Wildfire, a young man converted by the traditional lab accident into "anti-energy" (whatever that might be) and requiring a containment suit to maintain humanoid form.

The notion that Posthumans might take the form of immortal energy beings as an end-point of physical Evolution has occasionally been explored, for example in the above-cited Skylark sequence and Sentinels from Space, in Eric Frank Russell's "Metamorphosite" (December 1946 Astounding), in Isaac Asimov's melancholy "Eyes Do More Than See" (April 1965 F&SF) and in David Langford's Parody "Outbreak" (in A Novacon Garland, coll 1985 dos). Entire civilizations may choose to "Sublime" and pass beyond material existence in Iain M Banks's Culture tales, though even the novel most concerned with this process – The Hydrogen Sonata (2012) – reveals almost nothing about Sublimed life. This form of Transcendence has been generally superseded in sf by the prospect of a Computer-based afterlife, as discussed in the entry for Upload. Also outside the scope of the present entry are entities born of Psi Powers, like the "god" Mahrt spawned by a planetary racial consciousness in The Warriors of Day (1953) by James Blish. [DRL]

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