Gwyned's Parents

Gwyned

In Chapter Three of Exode, Parthney arrives at Lendhalen and he is introduced to Gwyned. Gwyned was born on Earth in 1939 and teleported off of Earth in 1964. For the Buld, Gwyned is an important source of information about conditions on Earth.

What does Gwyned know about her own early life on Earth? She was raised by her parents, Trysta and Merion Iwedon in Australia. However, Merion was not her biological father. Also, Trysta's real name is Noÿs Lambent.

Fanfiction Disease
I've previously incorporated Asimov's character Noÿs Lambent into a sequel for Asimov's time travel novel The End of Eternity. For Exode, I imagine that Andrew Harlan and Noÿs lived in Hampton Virgina in 1938 where they were trying to stimulate development of research into magnetic confinement of high temperature hydrogen plasma. As depicted by Asimov in The End of Eternity, Noÿs was a time traveler from the far future. When she traveled back in time to the year 1932 she had in her body advanced nanites that could be used for many purposes. However, Noÿs made the mistake of using those nanites to push too hard to facilitate the development (in the 1930s!) of research into fusion power. (Note: this blog post contains early ideas for integrating Noÿs into the Exode backstory. I later developed a more intricate series of events that involves an additional Reality Change beyond those I was thinking of here.) The fusion research at Langley attracted the attention of Overseers and was quickly shut down. Andrew was captured and taken to the Observer base on the Moon. With the help of an Interventionist agent named Ekcolir, Noÿs escaped and went to Australia with her son.

Robin the robot

Like Parthney, Ekcolir was born on Hemmal. Noÿs came to the attention of Ekcolir because of her son, Thomas. As part of the Interventionist effort to speed cultural development on Earth, agents like Ekcolir search Earth for human variants that are resistant to having their brains infected by pek nanites. In first grade at the age of 5, Thomas is found to be reading at the level typical for high school students. Upon investigation of the boy, Ekcolir quickly confirms that there are no pek nanites in his brain, but to Ekcolir's surprise, there are other nanites present in Thomas' body.

Noÿs admits to Ekcolir that she is the source of the unusual nanites in her son's body. Rather than explain her true origin, Noÿs passes herself of as another Interventionist agent. Gwyned's biological parents are Noÿs and Ekcolir.

Parthney and Gwyned
With the help and guidance of Noÿs, Gwyned grew up in Australia and began participating in a research project for study of magnetic confinement of plasma. By 1964 Gwyned has become frustrated by military involvement in fusion research. When the opportunity arises, Gwyned decides to leave Earth. That opportunity arises through her interaction with another Interventionist agent from Hemmal, Deomede. I previously mentioned that by the time Parthney reaches Lendhalen in 1967, Gwyned has been living among the Buld for several years. At first, she is excited to hear that another human will be arriving, however Gwyned soon realizes that she is ten years older than Parthney and, worse still, he is immature and ignorant; he can't even read and he knows nothing useful about science and technology.

Port Master Thorklet

When Gwyned is teleported off of Earth by Deomede, she is first sent to the Interventionist base at Klyz. The Fru'wu are startled to discover that there are nanites in her body with design features that they have never previously seen. Not knowing that these nanites are from the far future, the Fru'wu guess that they might be Nereid nanites. The Fru'wu decide that they must attempt to regain contact with the Nereids.

Robin the Robot
The two Buld who work closely with Parthney at Lendhalen (Vozgrow and Leymaygn) do not want Parthney to become too comfortable while he is living at Lendhalen. With critical events rapidly unfolding on Earth, they want him to quickly train for his mission and then move on to Earth. However, Parthney does not adjust well to life at Lendhalen and when he shows even a small amount of interest in possibly developing a romantic relationship with Gwyned, she quickly arranges for Parthney to have a robotic companion. Among the Buld, the mechanical assistants at Lendhalen are called "pek", although that is a misnomer. Gwyned introduces Parthney to the new Earth-derived term "robot". Gwyned has a staff of robotic assistants who help with her study of Buld technology and with daily chores. Gwyned has previously named one of her robot assistants "Robin" and she loans Robin to Parthney. This almost has disastrous effects when Parthney treats Robin like a bothet.

Port Master Thorklet

Clu'ten'iun

At the end of Chapter Two, Pla'va warns Parthney that Port Master Thorklet is waiting for him. Thorklet is the only resident of Oib who Parthney meets before he is teleported to Clu'ten'iun. Thorklet briefly describes the function of the automated space station where they meet in orbit over Oib then directs Parthney to ride a space elevator down to the surface of the planet. However, rather than descend to Oib, Parthney looses consciousness and he is subjected to a strong magnetic field that inactivates the pek nanites that are in his body. He is then teleported to the planet Clu'ten'iun. When Parthney wakes up at Lendhalen he is told that the magnetic treatment disrupted his memory. He assumes that he is on Oib, as do the other residents of Clu'ten'iun.

The main characters from Chapter Three of Exode. Top row left, Pla'mak, Gwyned, Thorklet, Pla'kao.
Bottom row left, Robin, Parthney, Leymaygn, Vozgrow. Robin is a robot, Parthney and Gwyned are human.
Thorklet, Leymaygn and Vozgrow are Buld. Pla'mak and Pla'kao are Pla.

Andrew Harlen. Parthney later (1984) meets Andrew when he is taken to the Moon.
Izhiun. When Izhiun is on Earth (2011) he gets to meet Noÿs Lambent and her son Thomas.

Related reading:

• Fusion research in 1938
• review of The End of Eternity