Exodemic: the first story set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe |
In my previous stories the Interventionists traveled to Earth in spaceships that were technologically advanced and easily able to avoid detection by the primitive Earthlings. For Exode, I decided to adopt the transportation mode that was used by Gene Roddenberry in Assignment: Earth and so I allow Parthney to make use of teleportation technology.
My early decisions about allowing a more active style of Interventionism and providing Parthney with somewhat more advanced technology than in previous stories set in the "Exodemic" Fictional Universe have led me along a chain of subsequent subsidiary modifications and elaborations to the typical relationship between we Earthlings and the god-like alien Huaoshy. Here, "god-like" is in the sense of Clarke's third law.
Dream of Flight |
This surprising twist did not turn Exode into a time travel story, but it did force events in Exode to conform to constraints imposed by how time travel came to an end.
The End of Time Travel
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John's Time travel theorem: a good science fiction story about time travel puts an end to time travel.
Dealing with technological genies...Burn baby, burn. |
Asimov's time travel theorem: a good science fiction story about time travel does not let time travel technology interfere with space travel.
As much as I enjoy The End of Eternity, for many years I suffered from my personal preference for "John's time travel theorem" over "Asimov's time travel theorem". I worried: what would prevent someone else from the future (maybe a distant descendant of Noÿs) from reinventing time travel and coming back through time and undoing all that Noÿs had done to end Eternity ("Eternity" is the name of the particular time travel device used by Earthlings)? I really wanted there to be a way to put an end to all time wars.
(Full disclosure: I tried to watch Dr. Who back in the previous millennium, but the endless "Exterminate!" sessions with the Daleks put an end to that. For similar reasons, endless wars with the Na'kuhl, Borg, Klingons and Dominions put an end to my ability to watch Star Trek.)
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dimensional structure |
Long story made short: I realized that the alien Huaoshy, as masters of dimensional engineering, were unwittingly responsible for making time travel possible. After the Huaoshy finally realized that positronic robots had invented time travel, it was possible for them to perform one final act of dimensional engineering that would permanently make time travel impossible, this satisfying "John's time travel theorem" and providing what, at the time, seemed a satisfying conclusion to The Start of Eternity.
It was only after I was already several months into the fun of crafting and designing Exode that I realized I should make this new original science fiction story a sequel to The Start of Eternity. That tardy decision to put Noÿs into the backstory of Exode caused some seismic shifts in the portion of Exode that I had already written. Also, I now realize that within The Start of Eternity, characters like Captain Hooski are Kac'hin, not actual Huaoshy.
family planning |
Spacevoyagers, Superheroes and Gods
From a young age I was willing to stand with Socrates and question the romantic ancient Greek songs about gods and their perplexing relationship with people. I could never maintain much interest in gods who were depicted as being little different from people and plagued by all the usual human weaknesses.
Humans naturally try to make sense of the world by using innate human cognitive processes to solve perceived mysteries, but that is a failed strategy when applied to biological and cosmological mysteries. We automatically make use of what philosopher Dan Dennett called the "Intentional Stance" and that leads us to imagine human-like gods as "explanations" for natural phenomena.
I also have little patience for assuming that gods are magically immortal and mysteriously endowed with other "super powers". Similarly, to this day I have little capacity to be entertained by comics about fantasy superheros. Now that we are in the age of reason, science and understanding it is fun to write romantic adventure stories as science fiction rather than fantasy.
My original goal in writing Exode was to make a detailed exploration of the life of Parthney and show how he came to be on Earth living among we primitive Earthlings while possessing advanced technology from other worlds. Originally I imagined that Parthney was genetically indistinguishable from we Earthlings, but when that restriction on Parthney's backstory crumbled (his mother, Noÿs, as a time traveler from the far future endowed Parthney with some interesting gene combinations) then I had to think about Interventionist agents in a more flexible way than I had previously in other stories. If you saw Parthney walking down the streets of New Your City you would not notice anything odd, but strip him of his nanite prosthetics and you would be able to see that he has no toe nails and his finger nails are about half the size of those for typical Earthlings of our century.
While in training for his mission to Earth, Parthney learns that it is standard protocol for Interventionist agents to be genetically indistinguishable from Earthlings because Earth is watched over by Observers and Overseers who are constantly on guard for anything out of the ordinary that might indicate an external invader is operating on Earth. However, in Exode the Interventionist agents are not without the power to disguise themselves and their unusual phenotypic traits, so Parthney is allowed to go to Earth as long as he keeps his unusual physical features hidden. With the help of nanites provided by the Fru'wu, it is not to hard for Parthney to hide from the Overseers.
Pillars of creation: the Huaoshy have crafted us from star dust. |
Prelands: human v2.0 |
As planned by the Huaoshy, the Prelands were to have been the first primates of Earth who would be allowed to develop a technological culture. The hermaphroditic Prelands were nearing the end of their development phase on worlds like Hemmal when the first scientific humans at Observer base on the Moon invented positronic robots. When those robots realized that they could use their telepathic abilities to liberate Humanity from the Huaoshy, the carefully laid plans of the Huaoshy for the Prelands were derailed.
Vec'te and Na'ma |
After I realized that
1) Parthney's biological mother is Noÿs
and
2) Noÿs died thousands of years before Parthney was born
I then turned my attention to the details of Parthney's birth. Motivated by the name of the secret agent in Assignment: Earth (Gary Seven), I've long played around with the idea that Interventionist agents should be clones. I was perfectly comfortable with the idea that the pek can routinely make clones of Thomas. I decided that not only was Parthney a clone, but he was not the first such clone born on Hemmal. But who was Parthney's birth mother?
Parthney's unusual family tree. |
The second part of Parthney's life on Hemmal was the years after he transitioned through puberty and became sexually active. During these years Parthney traveled, walking across Pelis Kel and staying temporarily at a series of isolated communities where a musician like himself could develop his skills. Ultimately he found his way to Demon Lodge and his wandering across Hemmal came to an end.
When I tried to imagine Parthney's birth mother I never even contemplated a woman in that role. The pek, an artificial lifeform that serves the Huaoshy, are perfectly capable of gestating human embryos. Parthney comes to suspect the truth: Reginal is his birth mother.
While still living on his home planet Hemmal, Parthney assumes that he was born a mutant child of Buld parents. However, Parthney is a genetic copy of Thomas, the son of Noÿs. Parthney has an ear for music and from an early age one of his favorite ballads is the Song of Nama which celebrates the power of the drug yerney to change the demon Veet into Nama's lover.
Vee'te |
Plague of Thebes |
While he is active on Earth as an Interventionist agent, Parthney takes pity on Hana and liberates her from Earth. Hana comes to suspect that Parthney killed her husband, so their relationship goes into decline. Parthney gets a second chance to regain Hana's good graces when Hana and Boswei (Parthney's son) fall in love. It is only when Izhiun reaches Earth that the reader of Exode learns the fate of Hana's husband. He is alive and still living on Earth. Unfortunately, Hana is far away, in the Andromeda galaxy. I'm having trouble imagining how she can ever truly forgive Parthney, both for the loss of her husband and her loss of Izhiun.
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