Bron and Sam travel to Mongolia to lay low. Sam secures his release, but they are forced to keep silent about the ordeal, lest it worsens tensions between Triton and Earth. When they land on Earth, Bron is detained and tortured without explanation or due process. When the war between Neptune and Earth intensifies, Sam, ordered to Earth on a diplomatic mission, asks Bron to come along. The two have a fling before the troupe leaves Triton to continue on their interplanetary tour. During one of her performances, Spike incorporates Bron on the fly as a guest performer, piquing Bron’s interest. Bron is enamored by each artist’s earnest individuality. Spike, a street performer who belongs to a troupe of artists, visits Bron’s community. He has no romantic partner or friends having given up on the possibility of finding any, he spends his time playing strategic war games with an old man named Lawrence talks about politics with Sam, a government official and life coaches a boy named Alfred. However, Bron has not found a group where he feels belonging. This sorting method facilitates a peaceful coexistence between most people. Like most of Triton’s people, Bron lives in a commune in which individuals are grouped together by aspects of their identities, including sexual orientation, political views, education, job, and gender. Delany describes Triton’s government and social structure as fluid and hands-off, compared to the governments of Mars and Earth. The impact of the war is physically felt on Triton when its colony temporarily loses gravity during an attack that passes near the moon.
The other satellite colonies, including Mars and Neptune’s moons, have declared neutrality, but the common sentiment is that they will soon have to pick sides. Neptune is embroiled in an interplanetary war, and its primary adversary is Earth. Bron was born on Mars and moved to Triton when he became an adult. Trouble on Triton begins by introducing its protagonist, Bron. The novel won the 1976 Nebula Award for Best Novel. The novel is skeptical of certain virtues taken for granted as features of utopias namely, compassion, individuality, constructive dissent, and joy.
The distinguishing feature of Delany’s title is “heterotropia,” a word coined by mid-twentieth-century social philosopher Michel Foucault to represent the uncannily comforting, uniform, and hollow idealizations of society that tend to emerge when people try to imagine what a utopia should look like. The novel responds to another utopian sci-fi novel, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, by Ursula K. Set in the distant future on a human-populated Triton (Neptune’s largest moon), the novel delves into the psychology of Bron, an inhabitant who is driven mad by the conformity, complacency, and order of its utopia. Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia is a 1976 science fiction novel by American author Samuel R.
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