Monolith

Monolith is the name given by humans to the mysterious black slabs found scattered throughout the Solar System. The monoliths were created by an unseen alien race from a planet 450 light-years away, known only as the "firstborn". The first of the monoliths to be discovered was officially dubbed Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One, or TMA-1. Three of the other monoliths were also given "TMA" designations, although none of them except the Tycho Monolith were located on the moon, let alone Tycho.

The monoliths are capable of many different functions. TMA-0 and the Europa Monolith served as a catalyst for evolution, encouraging the development of sentience in lifeforms. TMA-1 was a sort of "burglar alarm", alerting the aliens that the humans had left the Earth. TMA-1 reported to its "brother", TMA-2, found in orbit around Jupiter. The Jupiter monolith served as a portal into some separate dimension, opening up when a decided specimen was found; in one case it was David Bowman, who was pulled into the monolith and was turned into the "Starchild", an immortal entity of pure energy.

The monoliths could also make exact replicas of themselves, generating a cloud, or rather a giant disc, made up of millions of monoliths. One such cloud was formed in order to create Lucifer, to instigate evolution on Europa. Two more clouds were formed one thousand years later, one to block light from the sun to Earth and the other to block light from Lucifer to the human bases on Ganymede in order to cause the extinction of the human race, as they posed a threat to the Europans. Because of this, the humans unleashed a massive amount of horrible computer viruses on the monoliths, and they were destroyed.

All the monoliths, though they vary greatly in size, were fashioned to the exact proportions of 1:4:9. This precise measurement ruled out any naturally occurring phenomena, and because the first of the monoliths were placed more than three million years ago, humans could not possibly have made them.

TMA-1

TMA-1, commonly known as the Tycho Monolith, was the first of the monoliths to be discovered by humans, but was presumably

TMA-1, partially eclipsing the sun, with the Earth directly above it.

placed on the moon at about the same time the other monoliths were placed. TMA-1 was discovered when a low-altitude magnetic survey was done on the moon, and an anomaly was shown in the data: an extremely intense magnetic field in the crater Tycho. At first, scientists thought it might be an outcrop of magnetic rock, but all the evidence was against it. Not even a giant nickel-iron meteorite could produce a field as intense as this. The source of the anomaly was found buried twenty feet below the lunar surface. What was uncovered was the monolith, which was dubbed TMA-1. Like all the other monoliths found later, it was fashioned to the proportions of 1:4:9.

During Dr. Heywood Floyd's visit to TMA-1, the sun rose over Tycho crater, and for the first time in three million years, sunlight hit the monolith, unleashing a powerful radio blast, aimed directly at Jupiter, specifically the Jupiter Monolith. After the blast, the monolith remained completely inert, and even its magnetic field had disappeared.

The Tycho Monolith was later moved to Earth, and placed in the United Nations building in New York City.

TMA-1 was destroyed along with the other monoliths when the virus was released on them shortly after the start of the 3rd millennium.

TMA-2

TMA-2 was the second of the monoliths to be discovered. It was found by Dr. David Bowman, the commander and only survivor of the Discovery 1 spacecraft. TMA-2 was found at the Lagrange point between Io and Jupiter, and was commonly called the Jupiter Monolith. The Jupiter monolith was exactly identical to the Tycho monolith, except for its size. The Jupiter monolith measured nearly two kilometers in length.

After Discovery reached Jupiter, Bowman parked the spacecraft in the Lagrange point between Io and Jupiter, as scientists back on earth had pinpointed this to be the place the radio signal was sent. Upon arrival, Bowman went out in a pod to get a closer look at the huge monolith. As he got closer, he saw that "the thing's hollow -- it goes on forever -- and... yowee!! It's full of stars!"

Dave Bowman was pulled into the monolith, going on a fantastical, almost surreal journey through time and space. In the end, Dave was turned into the Star Child, an immortal spiritual being of pure energy, capable of doing whatever he wanted, wilst obeying the subconscious orders from the monoliths and the firstborn.

When the Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov arrived at Jupiter, another strange chain of events occurred, the end result being the transformation of Jupiter into the mini-sun, Lucifer.

The Jupiter monolith disappeared towards the end of the Leonov's stay at Jupiter. It was later found that the monoliths are Von Neumann probes; that is, self-replicating machines capable of creating an exact replicate of itself. Thus, in a very short time, TMA-2 turned into a giant cloud of monoliths, condensing Jupiter's thick atmosphere, making nuclear fusion capable at its core.

TMA-0

TMA-0 was the third monolith to be discovered by modern humans, though it was the first to be met by any form of life. It was placed on the Earth, somewhere in the African deserts, around three million years B.C. It served as a catalyst for intelligence.

It was met by a tribe of ape-men, on the brink of starvation. By mysterious means, the monolith probed the ape-men's minds, carving the path to sentience. It taught them to use weapons out of bones and rocks, and many other life changing skills. After three days of this "training", the monolith disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared. Eons later, the end result was the birth of humankind.

In 3001, newly revived Frank Poole finds out that this monolith has been unearthed.

Connection to the Marvel Universe

It is implied in the 1999 Earth X mini-series, the Celestials are the creators of the Monolith.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey issue #8 (July 1977), a Monolith gave sentience to a robot named X-51 (also known as "Mister Machine"). Before encountering the Monolith, he is the only survivor of a series of robots, and raised as a human son of scientist Abel Stack, who was killed removing his auto-destruct mechanism. He eventually spun off his own title, Machine Man, who integrated him into the Marvel Universe. References from 2001 were mostly ignored.