Most people who finish Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2015 sci-fi masterpiece, Children of Time, walk away thinking the uplifted spiders are just a brilliant flight of fancy. They aren't. Not entirely. While the Accelerated Evolution Virus (AEV) is definitely a bit of hand-wavy science fiction, the biological foundation of the Children of Time spiders is rooted in some of the most unsettlingly intelligent behavior found in the natural world. Specifically, the jumping spiders of the genus Portia.
Tchaikovsky didn’t just pick a random bug. He picked the Portia labiata. This is a spider that hunts other spiders. It’s a genius.
The Real-World Biology of Portia Labiata
In the book, the spiders—primarily the bloodline of Portia—develop a complex society, high-level technology, and a religious reverence for "the Messenger" in the sky. If you look at the actual Portia spider found in the rainforests of Southeast Asia or Africa, you start to see where the inspiration came from. These tiny arachnids exhibit what arachnologists call "trial-and-error" problem solving. They don't just act on instinct. They think.
Robert Jackson and Fiona Cross have spent decades studying these creatures. Their research shows that Portia spiders can plan routes that take them out of sight of their prey. Imagine that. A spider sees a target, realizes it can't reach it directly, turns its back on the food, crawls a long way around a branch, and reappears in the perfect spot to strike. That requires working memory. It requires a mental map of a 3D environment. This is exactly why Tchaikovsky used them as the basis for his uplifted species; the hardware for intelligence was already there.
The Children of Time spiders also rely heavily on "Understandings," which are basically genetic memories passed down through generations. While real spiders don't have a virus to pass down complex math or orbital mechanics, they do have incredibly complex innate behaviors. Real-world Portia spiders have a repertoire of "vibratory smokescreens." They will pluck the silk of a web to mimic a trapped fly or a mating partner, lures that vary depending on which species they are hunting. They learn which vibrations work by testing them in real-time. If a specific twitch doesn't work, they try a different frequency.
How the Children of Time Spiders Broke the "Bug" Stereotype
Most sci-fi depicts aliens as bipedal humanoids with forehead ridges. When we do get "bugs," they are usually a hive mind—think Starship Troopers or the Zerg. Tchaikovsky flipped this. His spiders are individuals. They have names (mostly Portia, Bianca, and Fabian). They have egos.
The culture of the Children of Time spiders is matriarchal. This isn't just a "girl power" trope; it’s a reflection of arachnid biology where females are significantly larger and more dominant. In the novel, the males (the Fabians) have to fight for basic recognition. This creates a fascinating social dynamic that feels more "alien" than anything involving green men in spaceships. They communicate through touch and vibration, using "taps" on silk. This is a direct parallel to how real-world orb-weavers sense their environment.
Communication and the Great Experiment
In the book, the spiders eventually develop a form of biological technology. Instead of smelting iron, they use chemistry and genetics. They domesticate ants. They use ants as living computers and biological processors.
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Honestly, it’s a stroke of genius. It solves the "how does a spider build a computer" problem. They don't use silicon. They use pheromones.
Real ants already do this. Myrmecologists like E.O. Wilson documented how ant colonies operate as "superorganisms" using chemical signaling. Tchaikovsky simply scaled this up. The Children of Time spiders use different strains of ants for different tasks—some for heavy lifting, some for calculating complex orbital trajectories. It’s a "wetware" approach to technology that makes our own metal-and-plastic world look clunky.
The Complexity of Arachnid Sight
You've probably noticed that jumping spiders have huge, forward-facing eyes. They look cute, kinda like little divers. In Children of Time, this vision is the gateway to their intelligence.
The eyes of a jumping spider are actually more similar to a telephoto lens than a human eye. They have a primary pair of eyes with incredibly high resolution and a set of secondary eyes that detect motion. This gives the Children of Time spiders a massive advantage in spatial awareness. In the novel, they eventually build "grand-scale" telescopes using silk and lenses, allowing them to look up at the "star" that is actually a decaying space station.
It’s worth noting that real jumping spiders have been shown to recognize human faces in lab settings. They track movement with an intensity that most insects lack. When you read about Portia in the book looking up at the sky and wondering about the nature of the universe, it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. They are one of the few invertebrates that actually "look" at things to understand them.
Misconceptions About the Spiders
A lot of people think the spiders in the book are "evil" because, well, they're giant spiders. But that’s the point of the narrative. The human survivors on the Gilgamesh are terrified of them because of ancient, hardwired phobias.
But if you look at their society, the Children of Time spiders are actually more "humane" than the humans.
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They don't have the same drive for total extinction that the humans show. Their "virus" encourages cooperation. By the end of the story, they don't conquer the humans through violence. They do it through empathy—forced empathy, sure, but empathy nonetheless. They use a modified version of the AEV to make the humans see them as "kin." It’s a non-violent (mostly) resolution to a planetary-scale conflict.
Why the "Fabian" Rebellion Matters
The male spiders, led by several iterations of Fabian, represent the struggle for equality. In early spider society, males were basically snacks or disposable labor. The book tracks the slow, painful process of males proving they have "inner lives." This mirrors real-world social movements, but through a totally alien lens. It also acknowledges the biological reality: in many spider species, sexual cannibalism is a real risk. Tchaikovsky uses this to create a high-stakes gender war that is eventually resolved through logic and necessity rather than just "getting along."
The Science of Silk as Technology
Silk is the backbone of their civilization. It's not just for webs. It's for architecture. It's for record-keeping. It's for data transmission.
Scientists today are still trying to replicate spider silk. It’s stronger than steel by weight and incredibly flexible. The Children of Time spiders take this to the extreme. They weave "Great Webs" that act as cities. They use different types of silk—sticky, structural, and signal-conducting—to build an infrastructure that can survive a planet-wide ice age.
- Vibratory Telegraphs: They send messages across continents by plucking giant strands of silk.
- Gliders: They use "ballooning" (a real thing spiders do!) to travel through the atmosphere.
- Biological Armor: They treat silk with chemicals produced by captive insects to make it as hard as ceramic.
It makes sense. If you were a spider, why would you want to build with stone? You’d build with what you can produce from your own body.
The Viral Factor: AEV and Intelligence
The Accelerated Evolution Virus is the "magic" in the story. It was designed by Doctor Avrana Kern to work on monkeys, but it hit the spiders instead.
In reality, viruses can drive evolution. This is called horizontal gene transfer. About 8% of the human genome is actually made up of viral DNA remnants. While a virus that makes spiders smart enough to build radios in a few thousand years is a bit of a stretch, the concept of a virus "editing" a species is technically sound. It’s basically CRISPR on a planetary scale.
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The virus doesn't just make them smart; it gives them a "purpose." It pushes them toward complexity. It’s a biological imperative to solve problems. This is why the Children of Time spiders don't just stay in the trees. They are driven to understand the universe.
Moving Beyond the Book: Real World Lessons
If you’re fascinated by the spiders of Children of Time, you shouldn't just stop at the fiction. The real world of arachnology is catching up.
We now know that some spiders can "hear" using the hairs on their legs, picking up frequencies from meters away. We know they have distinct personalities. Some are "bold," others are "shy."
The book forces us to confront our own "human-centrism." We assume intelligence has to look like us. It has to have two eyes, a nose, and ten fingers. But the Portia spiders prove that intelligence can be decentralized, chemical, and eight-legged.
What You Should Do Next
If you want to understand the "real" version of these spiders, check out the work of Dr. Robert Jackson. His papers on Portia are as gripping as any sci-fi novel. You can also look into the "ballooning" behavior of spiders, which has been found to use Earth’s electric fields to achieve lift—literally using "magic" physics to fly.
- Read the Sequel: Children of Ruin introduces an even more alien intelligence based on octopuses. It’s just as rigorous.
- Watch Macro Documentaries: Look for footage of Portia labiata hunting. Seeing them "think" in real-time changes how you view the book.
- Support Arachnid Research: Spiders are vital to our ecosystem. Understanding their intelligence helps us preserve the biodiversity that inspired Tchaikovsky in the first place.
The Children of Time spiders aren't just monsters in a story. They are a "what if" scenario based on the very real, very scary, and very impressive potential already sitting in a web in your backyard.
Honestly, next time you see a jumping spider, don't squish it. It might just be calculating the orbital mechanics of your ceiling fan. Or, more likely, it's just trying to figure out if your finger is a threat or a very strange-looking branch. Either way, it's thinking. And that's enough to make anyone a little bit more respectful of our eight-legged neighbors.