3001

The book begins with a brief prologue. The prologue describes the aliens who created the Monoliths. They apparently evolved from "warm slime," and over the course of millions of years, turned into a space faring species. As they explored the galaxy, they saw that few intelligent species ever successfully evolved. Therefore, they traveled the universe and catalyzed the evolution of intelligent species wherever they went, including Earth, by increasing the evolving species odds of survival. Upon r