Plot Summary Sirens of Titan

A Deserter in Time of War Analysis

The characters of Bee, who is actually Beatrice Rumfoord, and Chrono, her son with Constant, are introduced in this chapter. Constant displays the apparent independence that has made him a discipline problem. Of course once it is learned later in the story that all of the actions of not only Constant but also Rumfoord and every other person in history have been dictated toward a specific purpose, the question of Constant's independence becomes problematic.

In a scene that parallels Constant's first meeting with his own father, Constant meets with his son, Chrono, for the first time. The roles are reversed, however, as it is now the son who wants little to do with the father, and the father who yearns to connect.

Rumfoord fills the gap in Constant's memory for the reader, but Constant is still seemingly unaware that the story Rumfoord tells him is about himself. Rumfoord lets slip a remark that the Martian Army is about to be the first ever to die for a good cause. The remark catches Boaz's attention, but he does not know what to make of it. It is another foreshadowing of the intentionally disastrous invasion scheme. Vonnegut's ironic humor is displayed in the image of a complicated interplanetary "flying saucer" that has only one large "ON" button.

Victory Summary

For the description of the Martian invasion of Earth, the narrator now refers to the imaginary Pocket History of Mars by Winston Niles Rumfoord.

The severely under-armed Martian Army is massacred when it tries to take over Earth. Fighting with conventional small weapons against tanks, aircraft, and nuclear weapons, every single Martian is eventually found to be dead, captured, or missing. The automatic navigation systems of their spacecraft scatter them all over the globe, and the soldiers only fight as long as the real commanders have control of them. Once the real commanders are killed, they stop.

The Earth had begun bombarding the advance commando force that landed on the moon, which had started sending feeble bombs down thirty days prior to the main invasion. With such ample warning, the Earth is well prepared when the Martians land. Wave after wave of the invaders are easily overcome. The final wave of Martians is made up of elderly men, women, and children.

Rumfoord is the architect of the suicidal attack. The Martian army is funded by wise investments made by Rumfoord using his ability to see into the future. These investments are handled on Earth by his butler, Earl Moncrief.

The technology used by Rumfoord had come from Salo on Titan. Salo had provided Rumfoord with the expertise to build the space ships that carry the Martians to Earth, and also had given him some of his supply of UWTB for power. The parts for the space ships were built on Earth, without the manufacturers knowing exactly the intended purpose of each part. Under the direction of Moncrief, the first few ships had been assembled on Earth and used to fly the first recruits and machines to Mars to found the city of Phoebe, which was powered by UWTB.

The entire Martian suicide has been orchestrated by Rumfoord to produce a feeling of shame among the people of the Earth for having slaughtered the invaders. Into this culture of repentance, he intends to introduce a new religion.

Bee and Chrono are among the final wave of women and children to land on Earth. They crash land in the Amazon jungle in Brazil and are the only survivors from their ship. As they emerge from the wreckage, Chrono kisses his good luck piece.

Unk and Boaz also survive the invasion because their ship does not go to Earth at all. It is programmed instead to fly to Mercury. Rumfoord's scheme is to have Unk out of the way for a time while he spreads his new religion on Earth, then have Unk arrive on Earth as if by a miracle.

In their spaceship, Unk and Boaz wonder where the rest of their fellow soldiers are, unaware that most of them are dead on Earth. Boaz asks Unk where he thinks the other ships have gone. Unk replies that he does not care, that he does not care about anything, even the control box that Boaz has in his pocket. Boaz pushes a button on the box, but nothing happens to Unk. While Boaz was sleeping the night before, Unk had taken the box from Boaz's pocket and replaced the workings with toilet paper.

Back on Earth, Rumfoord and Kazak continue to materialize in the estate in Newport on schedule. The house has been taken over by a man named Marlin T. Lapp, who begins to sell tickets to the materializations. As people file past Rumfoord sitting in his small study, he talks to nobody except Moncrief, to whom he whispers instructions. Rumfoord materializes on the final day of the Martian invasion, and with a large crowd assembled finally speaks.

He introduces his new religion, called "The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent". The religion has two main tenets, Rumfoord says, "Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God" (p. 180). To give weight to his pronouncement, Rumfoord begins to make detailed predictions, all of which eventually come true.

Rumfoord tells the crowd a parable about Constant to illustrate the nature of luck. While Constant was born the richest child on Earth, that same day several other seemingly unlucky things happened to others. Rumfoord announces that on his next visit he will tell more about the new religion, and will bring a revised Bible and a history of the people of Mars.

Back in the spacecraft, Unk has fallen asleep, while Boaz has stayed awake. Unable to control Unk any longer, Boaz considers killing him in his sleep. He decides that having a real friend is more important than being able to control people, however. He begins to question why he had wanted to control anyone in the first place. Boaz begins to laugh at his predicament. He asks himself out loud how he managed to get where he is now, and who is controlling his destiny. Unk awakes and Boaz takes the control box out of his pocket. He throws it to the ground, announcing, "I don't want none of this crap!" (p. 183).