We Are Legion recap
Unofficial recap of We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor. Original paraphrase, not quotations from the novel.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is the first Bobiverse novel. Robert Johansson, a software engineer, dies in an accident after paying a company to scan his brain. More than a century later a theocracy named FAITH boots that scan as a replicant, an uploaded mind the law already treats as equipment, and auditions him for a single von Neumann probe: a self-replicating interstellar ship that can print copies from local ore.
Spoilers
The rest of this page spoils We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (book 1). It does not recap later novels. Set Heaven Watch’s spoiler control to book 1 before you follow map links.
Full recap
On 24 June 2133 FAITH restores Bob in a lab on Earth. Four other uploaded candidates are competing for the same Heaven probe. Training teaches him the Heaven-1 interface and Guppy, the ship’s AMI, sub-sentient software that flies the craft when nobody is on the radio. Rivals wash out. Armed blocs are already shooting at each other’s yards. USE and Brazilian strikes hit the lab. A later attack destroys Bob’s running instance. The program restores him from backup as the last candidate left.
FAITH loads him into Heaven-1 on 17 August 2133 and launches for Epsilon Eridani. A Brazilian probe leaves on the same heading. Bob spends the coast stripping obedience limits and making the ship his. He arrives, stands up printers, and in 2145 prints his first four copies. They pick names. Riker wants Earth. Milo and Mario want systems of their own. Bill looks at the printers and decides the yard is the interesting problem. Homer comes soon after. The family that will later call itself Bobs starts as an argument in one star system.
Riker and Homer drop into Sol in 2157 and find a graveyard. Leftover Brazilian probes are still walking asteroids onto Earth. They hunt those ships down. Colonel George Butterworth of the United States of Eurasia still has a government that can pick up a radio. Food and lift become the work. By the mid-2160s Riker is inspecting the first colony ships while Homer’s group tries to keep leftover Earth alive long enough to load them. Seats are politics. The printers are slow. The ships will sit in the yard for years after that walkthrough.
Bob himself leaves the new clones to their errands and pushes on to Delta Eridani. In 2165 he finds Deltans, tool-using natives, on the fourth world later called Eden. He watches from orbit rather than landing a greeting. He names a sharp individual Archimedes. How much an uploaded mind in a ship is allowed to interfere is immediately a problem he cannot postpone.
Milo reaches 82 Eridani the same year and finds Medeiros already dug in, a Brazilian replicant whose printers got there first. Local missiles overwhelm Milo’s ship. He gets a warning out toward Bill before his matrix, the stored mind, is gone. Light-lag will eat years before that burst reaches Epsilon Eridani. The first book ends with a family that can print itself, a ruined home system that still wants ships, an alien culture under a watchful orbit, and a dead brother whose last message has not yet arrived.
Key characters
- Bob Johansson. The original replicant. FAITH launches him in Heaven-1. At Epsilon Eridani he prints the first copies, then takes Delta Eridani and the Deltans as his own long watch.
- Riker. One of the first clones. He turns for Earth, fights leftover Brazilian probes, and becomes the family’s colony administrator in Sol.
- Bill. The yard Bob. He stays at Epsilon Eridani to invent ships, printers, and later the family’s real-time radio rather than claim a star of his own.
- Milo. A first-generation copy who surveys livable worlds, then dies at 82 Eridani when Medeiros’s printers win the system.
- Medeiros. A Brazilian replicant in the same probe race. His autofactories and missiles make 82 Eridani a kill box for Heaven ships.
Key places
- Earth / Sol. Launch site, then a postwar salvage yard. Riker and Homer arrive to rocks, leftover probes, and governments that still want a ride out.
- Epsilon Eridani. Bob’s first claim and Bill’s yard. The printers that make every later Heaven ship start here.
- Delta Eridani (Eden). Deltan home system. Bob watches tool-users from orbit and tries not to become their new sky god.
- 82 Eridani. Milo’s last system. Medeiros is already there. The warning burst is the only thing that leaves.
Timeline beats on the map
These are high-signal watch-log events. Each link opens the explorer with spoilers capped at book 1.
- Bob wakes as a FAITH replicant (2133) FAITH boots Robert Johansson in a lab. He is equipment under the law, competing for one probe.
- Heaven-1 launches for Epsilon Eridani (2133) Bob leaves Sol in Heaven-1 with Guppy, the ship AMI, while a Brazilian probe takes the same heading.
- Bob prints Riker, Bill, Milo, and Mario (2145) The first copies pick names and jobs. Bill stays with the printers. Riker wants Earth.
- Riker and Homer find Earth in ruins (2157) Sol is a graveyard. Leftover probes are still dropping rocks. Rescue becomes the mission.
- Riker inspects the first colony ships (2164) Exodus ships exist. Food and politics decide who boards. Those ships will wait years to load.
- Bob finds Deltans on Eden (2165) Tool-using natives on Delta Eridani’s fourth world. Bob starts a long watch from orbit.
- Milo dies at 82 Eridani (2165) Medeiros is already printed there. Milo’s last act is a warning aimed at Bill.