Gennady Komov

Gennady Komov (2103 - ?) is a fictional character in Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's series of science fiction novels set in the Noon Universe.

Biography

Gennady Komov was born in 2103 and by 2118 had proven himself as a man (at that time - still a boy) of action by organizing and nearly succeeding in a flight to Venus, together with his friends, Michael Sidorov, Paul Gnedyh and Alexander Kostylin. At that time, the "Venus Project" idea was extremely popular on Earth and Komov always dreamed of space flights (his role model was Leonid Gorbovsky)... but luckily for them, their mentor Tenin became aware of their plans and stopped this suicidal initiative. Later Komov received a Ph.D. in xenopsychology.

In 2133, Gennady Komov was the captain of an expedition to Leonida that made the first contact with Leoniders. But upon discovering a local civilization, Komov decided to leave the planet immediately and let the professional diplomats establish negotiations.

His next famous mission was that to EN-9173 in 2137, when Boris Fokin's rangers group discovered the so-called "Sarcophagus" (see "Stepchildren Case"). It was Komov's decision to classify all information about it, although later, as a member of Earth World Council, he anticipated activating the embryos stored within it since he believed they were potential agents in negotiations between humans and Wanderers.

In 2161, he was the leader of an ecologist group that was supposed to turn Ark into a planet suitable for the Pantians. However, as soon as a local civilization of Ark Megaforms was discovered, his objective changed to establishing contact with them, in which he failed after numerous attempts. By that time he was already a prominent member of COMCON.

In approximately 2162, Komov was promoted to the head of COMCON and personally supervised (as one of the leading Golovans-experts) the "Golovans in Space" project led by Lev Abalkin. This operation was, however, stopped abruptly and Abalkin was transferred to Hope, much to his dissatisfaction. On Hope, Komov personally directed the operation "Dead World", constantly keeping an eye on the Abalkin-Schyokn-Itrch duo.

His last famous activities in the 22nd century were those connected to the "Great Revelation". In 2199 he and his childhood idol, Leonid Gorbovsky, represented the human race in their negotiations with the Ludens (represented by Daniel Logovenko).

See also

Gennady Komov appears in "Noon: 22nd Century", "Space Mowgli", "The Little One", "Beetle in an Anthill" and "The Time Wanderers".