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I was discussing Dan Simmons Hyperion books with a friend recently.
While we both could recall the immediate role the Cruciform parasites played in the novels, we couldn't remember where they - or the planetry wide tunnel system they lived in - fit into the larger Hyperion universe.

By whom were they created and what role did they / were they to play?

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Spoilers, obviously.

The cruciforms and the labyrinths were created by the TechnoCore, so that they could keep enough humans alive (but compliant) to keep using their brains to provide computational resources for use by the Core.

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    Yes, now that you say it I "remember" it. Gave me a damn creepy feeling those parasites, found it a too literal allegory for control the church used to have here in Ireland (same in many countries I'm sure)
    – user296
    Commented Jan 24, 2011 at 16:56
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    One of my favorite sci-fi series.
    – Brenton Taylor
    Commented Jan 24, 2011 at 18:26
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    Me too, although it takes almost to the full length of the series, a slow dawning awareness, to realise how bad they really are.
    – scope_creep
    Commented Jan 25, 2011 at 2:26
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    @Binary Worrier. I don't know of the core were gods. They failed to move the earth too far, when they said that it was consumed by a mini black hole. Instead it was intact and sitting somewhere else.
    – scope_creep
    Commented Jan 25, 2011 at 14:02
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    @scope_creep: Ah, I wasn't referring to the core. The actual future war was between the potential God the core would evolve into, and the God that evolved with Humanity (which could have been what Humanity evolved into, but was moving/acting backwards through time), this was all part of the Mystery uncovered by the Keats Hybrid. It was all fairly complicated and involved, and I may be only half remembering it, but I definitely did have an "Ah for fecks sake" moment when I realised the whole thing was a future God war, and that one of the Gods was God.
    – user296
    Commented Jan 25, 2011 at 15:04

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