science

Sisters of the Vast Black

Sisters of the Vast Black is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sisters of the Vast Black rather than just read about it. In short: Sisters of the Vast Black is a 2019 LGBT science fiction novella, the debut novella by Lina Rather. It features a group of spacefaring Roman Catholic nuns performing charity work across the galaxy; eventually, they discover a conspiracy that will test their faith.

Key takeaways

Sisters of the Vast Black belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sisters of the Vast Black to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sisters of the Vast Black from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sisters of the Vast Black is a 2019 LGBT science fiction novella, the debut novella by Lina Rather. It features a group of spacefaring Roman Catholic nuns performing charity work across the galaxy; eventually, they discover a conspiracy that will test their faith.

Plot Decades prior to the start of the novella, a civil war between Earth Central Governance and its colony planets lead to the loss of Earth's authority. Millions of people died as a result of warfare and biological terrorism. The Order of St. Rita is a group of Roman Catholic nuns who live on the spaceship Our Lady of Impossible Constellations. The ship is a living organism resembling a slug. They travel to rural colony planets to perform charity work; as part of their mission, they visit a colony on the moon Phoyongosa III, where they bless marriages and perform baptisms. The Mother Superior is suffering from the early stages of dementia, leading to a crisis among the sisters. At the same time, the Earth Central Governance sends a priest to join the ship's crew, reasserting control over the previously independent sisters. Sister Gemma decides to leave the order when she falls in love with an engineer named Vauca. The ship received a distress signal from Phoyongosa III; the colonists are suffering from ringeye, a deadly plague. The nuns and Vauca's crew respond, only to find that Earth Central Governance has unleashed the plague in order to trigger another war and regain their power. The Mother Superior reveals that she was previously a member of Earth Central Governance before becoming a nun, and that her husband designed ringeye as a biological warfare agent. As penance, she takes the Our Lady on a suicide attack against Earth's ships. This allows the other nuns to join Vauca's ship, land safely, and save some of the colonists. After this, remaining nuns declare independence from the Catholic Church and vow to continue their mission of servitude and charity.

Themes The novel discusses the ethics of space colonization. It also discusses the ways in which religious proselytism can be used as a tool of political control. The novella also features a series of dichotomies. The contrast between science and religion is featured when the nuns debate whether it is permissible for their ship to mate. Sister Gemma must choose between following her vows and her love for another woman. The female nuns are contrasted with the young male priest from Rome; this conflict evokes similar contrast between modern-day activist nuns who have disagreed with the official positions of the Vatican.

Reception The novella received positive reviews. One reviewer praised its strong worldbuilding, characterization, and satisfying conclusion; others praised it as "accomplished, thoughtful" and compared it positively to the novellas of Lois McMaster Bujold and Martha Wells. A reviewer for Locus called it "elegant and eloquent ... warm and forgiving, with an explosive conclusion". A reviewer for Paste praised the pacing and felt that the novel succeeded in exploring big themes despite its small page count. Publishers Weekly gave the novel a moderately positive review. Their review praised the author's "expert control" over her characters and world, but found the novel's abrupt ending to be its "only significant flaw". A sequel, Sisters of the Forsaken Stars, was announced in August 2021, and published February 22, 2022.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sisters of the Vast Black

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sisters of the Vast Black claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sisters of the Vast Black before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sisters of the Vast Black ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sisters of the Vast Black

In research: Sisters of the Vast Black appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sisters of the Vast Black in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sisters of the Vast Black is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2010s LGBTQ novels, 2019 American novels, 2019 English-language novels, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sisters of the Vast Black outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sisters of the Vast Black in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sisters of the Vast Black means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sisters of the Vast Black out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sisters of the Vast Black in simple terms?

Why does Sisters of the Vast Black matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sisters of the Vast Black?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sisters of the Vast Black.