May 24, 2014

Flirting with Fantasy

image credits at end of this page
I've previously described myself as "fantasy blind"...I just don't "get" fantasy stories. I suspect that my brain is, at some fundamental level, constrained to prefer rules. I can be a source of frustration to some people because I'm "so fucking logical".

I recently set a record for inclusion of the word "fantasy" in a blog post when I tried to examine the ways in which I'm flirting with fantasy in my current writing obsession, the science fiction story Exode. For the Exode Trilogy, I play fast and loose with mind transfer. In doing so, do I cross the line from science fiction into fantasy?

"Could humans have a conscious soul or a consciousness that transcends the boundaries of physical laws?" -Dal Burns

The transformation of
Dimensional Structure
through time.
One of the dramatic events in Exode, a real game changer, is that the Huaoshy change the dimensional structure of the universe. Their reason for doing so is that, after battling with the telepathic positronic robot R. Gohlay in a Time War, they want to make time travel and positronic-style telepathy impossible.

Imagine that the human tendency to believe in a non-physical soul was amplified by a form of unconscious telepathy that linked human minds before the Huaoshy put and end to telepathy.

Bimanoid Interface
More than a year ago I started trying to imagine communications between humans and the Huaoshy. I assume that any Earthling with the required gene combinations and brain structure acts as a host for a swarm of alien zeptites. Normally the Huaoshy have little interest in primitive creature like we humans, just as we would not try to have a conversation with a bacterium.

tubes on the brain
Exactly how can Angela use the "bimanoid interface" to obtain information from the Sedronic Domain? Previously Angela has suggested that she can enter into the Sedronic Domain, but that is an illusion, like having imagined going someplace in your thoughts.

Most recently I've realized that there is a Hierion Domain interposed between we humans and the Sedronic Domain. I've been having fun with the idea that Hierion Tubes connect from our Hadronic Domain to the Hierion Domain.

How does that Hierion Domain create for Angela a kind of "out of body" experience that she interprets and travel into the Sedronic Domain? Is it only through this sort of illusion that a human can communicate with the Huaoshy?


see the full size image
The image "Experiment 2" by Harri Honkala would make a great pulp science fiction magazine illustration for a "hierion tube". A small detail from part of "Experiment 2" is shown to the right. Take a look at the whole image in its full glory. See Harri's deviantART gallery of Scifi art.

Three Domains of Consciousness
In my dreams I can defy physical laws. Why is the human brain equipped with a special system for allowing our thoughts to slip free of the rules that normally constrain them?

Reality Reviewing
For the Exode Trilogy, I imagine that that the pek have carefully designed some special gene combinations that allow the Preland brain to adapt to the higher dimensional conditions of the Hierion and Sedron Domains. Some of those gene patterns have begun to appear in humans during the past 10,000 years because of the efforts of Interventionists to prepare Earthlings for their chance to escape from Earth and reach for the stars. However, the original purpose of these special genes and the cognitive abilities they confer was for the ability of the Kac'hin to function as Huaoshy "appendages" in the Hadronic Domain and so that they could facilitate the Reality Viewing that identified the Asimov-Ekcolir-Buld Reality Chain that could end the Time War between R. Gohrlay and the Huaoshy.

We humans can experience three domains of consciousness: normal waking consciousness, dreaming (which allows unconscious use of the human brain's "viewing module") and full "viewing mode" in which there is conscious use of the viewing module. While utilizing the viewing module, a human can interface with zeptites and obtain information from the sedronic domain. This involves  the human's zeptite symbiont "crossing into" the Hierion Domain from where it can communicate with the Sedronic Domain. Such communication into the Sedronic Domain is a type of communication with the Huaoshy in that information can only be obtained if there is cooperation by Huaoshy within the Sedronic Domain.

Viewing Reality Chains
The reason that R. Gohrlay is defeated is that the Huaoshy are masters of the Sedronic Domain. R. Gohrlay is just starting to understand sedronic physics when the Huaoshy develop their own time travel technology and attain the ability to view Reality Chains. R. Gohrlay can only view into "the next" Reality from the current Reality.

source
The pek create the Kac'hin as a humanoid variant that can use the Bimanoid Interface and allow identification of the Asimov-Ekcolir-Buld Reality Chain that ends the Time War between R. Gohrlay and the Huaoshy.

That Which Survives Remains
At the end of Exode, time travel is no longer possible, but an "Eternity Device" remains on Earth's Moon. It is not clear what the fate of Humanity will be, but Earth will remain a special place because of the fact that the Eternity Device can be used to produce sedronic matter. Under the terms of the Grean-Trysta treaty, the Moon's Eternity Device remains available for human use, but at first only Angela is aware of that. It is not clear that the humans of Earth will survive long enough to develop Hierion technology and gain control of the Eternity Device.

see
The Light Fantastic

see
"Trip the light fantastic tock the clock is crowings on the bird."

The "ultimate technology" in the Exode Trilogy that puts an end to R. Gohrlay's revolution is the advanced Huaoshy technology for viewing Reality Chains.

In Asimov's story "I'm in Marsport Without Hilda" (which I first read in the story collection Nine Tomorrows), the drug Spaceoline is able to effectively prevent the debilitating space sickness that would otherwise make space travel impossible for most people.

Spaceoline puts humans into an altered brain state in which they perform robot-like free association upon hearing someone speak. Similarly, when Angela uses the Bimanoid Interface, she becomes an oracle, speaking an a rather stream of consciousness fashion about the information obtained from the Sedronic Domain.

During the past 10,000 an occasional lucky combination of genes has given stray humans the ability to obtain information from the Sedronic Domain. Angela is the first Earthling to understand what it is that she is experiencing. Working collaboratively with Ivory and "the Editor", Angela is able to obtain useful information from the Sedronic Domain about past Realities, information that would otherwise be unavailable to we Earthlings.

by Pablo Amaringo
Does the information transfer from the Sedronic Domain to Angela have a scientific explanation in Exode or is it just a fantasy plot device? The visions experienced by Angela while using the Bimanoid Interface are experienced as a kind of "alternative visual" sense, a kind of psychedelic insight into the many-dimensional Sedronic Domain.

From the perspective of Earthlings, human contact with the Sedronic Domain might seem magical and supernatural, but his is really an example of where Clarke's 3rd Law makes advanced alien technology seem like magic.

Ivory listens to Angela's descriptions of what she experiences through her use of the Bimanoid Interface and tries to provide the Editor with a rational account. Only slowly do they discover the importance of the Eternity Device "on the Moon". Of course, it is not quite correct to say that the Device is on the Moon, although access to the part of the Hierion Domain that holds the Device is most easily achieved from the Moon.

The image to the right on this page is a whimsical fantasy book cover for Exode. I've been using images of actress Hilarie Burton to represent Ivory and the Atlantis Clones.

What would Ivory do upon realizing that the Eternity Device can be accessed from the Moon? Are there any prospects for we Earthlings to gain access to Observer Base "on" the Moon?

When the Overseers abandon Observer Base, do the remaining Observers retain knowledge of how to navigate the Hierion Domain, or are they trapped at the Base, able to monitor events on Earth but unable communicate with we Earthlings?

Related reading: late 2014 update on Observer Base.

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers
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Trophy Wife by michaelo
Image credits. For the silly image at the top of this blog post I wanted a way to depict a thought in a fantastic way. There's Syon, pulling open her head to reveal her dream of an Earth that is saved from global warming.

source
Hot planet. I couldn't find the original source for the fantasy image of Earth shown above.
Hilarie Burton
by jesu at DeviantART
by Lawrence Sterne Stevens



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