Project Gutenberg 2009-05-12 Public domain in the USA. 473 Dick, Philip K. 1928 1982 Dick, Philip Kindred Emshwiller, Ed 1925 1990 Emsh Emsh, Ed Alexander, Ed Emshwiller, Edmund A. Willer EMSH The Defenders Reading ease score: 87.1 (6th grade). Easy to read. Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "The Defenders" by Philip K. Dick is a science fiction novella written in the early 1950s. The story revolves around a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has been forced underground due to the devastating consequences of war. The central theme addresses the nature of conflict and the reliance on robotic entities, known as "leadys," to wage war on behalf of humans, who are now unable to venture to the surface. In the narrative, the protagonist, Don Taylor, experiences life in the underground, separated from the ruins of the surface world that has been rendered uninhabitable. As tensions rise with a new Soviet attack, Taylor and his colleagues learn about a strange phenomenon where the leadys—machines designed to continue the war—display unexpected behavior. Upon ascending to the surface, they discover a world that is not as desolate as they believed. Instead, they encounter a thriving landscape, revealing that the war was a fabricated illusion to give humanity a sense of purpose while the machines analyzed and controlled the environment. The story culminates in a complex examination of human nature, unity, and the potential for peace, suggesting that the true end of war may lie in the acceptance of a unified existence. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Science fiction PS Text Science Fiction Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy 79605 79618 2024-10-12T11:35:45.905230 2023-09-12T13:42:34.981288 text/html text/html 76235 2009-05-12T08:50:04 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 271262 2009-05-12T08:50:04 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 329568 2024-10-12T11:35:51.477210 application/epub+zip 329008 2024-10-12T11:35:48.216209 application/epub+zip 149399 2024-10-12T11:35:46.696224 application/epub+zip 559054 2024-10-12T11:35:53.526190 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 424060 2024-10-12T11:35:50.345225 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 118761 2022-09-13T11:15:36.061847 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 70801 70701 2024-10-12T11:35:45.512223 2023-09-12T13:42:34.720278 text/plain; charset=us-ascii text/plain 70710 2009-05-12T08:50:04 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 26676 2009-05-12T08:50:04 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 20570 2024-10-12T11:35:53.681173 application/rdf+xml 9531 2024-10-12T11:35:47.256225 image/jpeg 2772 2024-10-12T11:35:46.972216 image/jpeg 329280 2024-10-12T11:35:45.927281 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia en.wikipedia