Sep 28, 2014

Making the Kac'hin

What lies beneath.
British Antarctic Survey
More than a year ago I started receiving information from Ivory about the origins of the Kac'hin. In my previous blog post I speculated about the fate of one of our galaxy's extinct humanoid species, the Pharazen. Here, I want to explore the idea that Interventionists were heavily involved in crafting the Pharazen and, later, the pek made use of some Pharazen genes to help craft the Kac'hin.

Looking Deeper
I originally thought of the Nereids as a biological species that could physically interact with Earthlings, but we need to look deeper, past the deceptive level of superficial appearances. Humans can mistakenly believe the Grendels to be a biological organism, so it is likely that any human who seems to have been in contact with a Nereid was actually just interacting with a Grendel, an artificial life form. As shape-shifters, it is possible that the Grendels long ago carefully studied human reactions and adopted a physical form that we Earthlings find appealing.

I now realize that at least one group of Nereids crossed over into the Sedronic Domain from where they can have no physical interaction with we Earthlings. There may be other descendants of the original Nereids who still retain a biological form, but I can find no evidence of that.

Sedronic Domain
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Here on Earth, the Eukaryotic Domain of life includes many diverse types of life forms. Similarly, within the Sedronic Domain there are many different factions, the dominant one being the Huaoshy. The diversity of artificial life within the Sedronic Domain is vast, with many  biological species having crossed over into the Sedronic Domain during the past couple of billion years. There is a whole artificial ecosystem within the Sedronic Domain where artificial life forms can diversify, evolve and proliferate. However, I fear that our chances of fully understanding the diversity of artificial life in the Sedronic Domain are about the same as a bacterium understanding human behavior within our technological civilization. Genesaunt civilization is like the large intestine of the Huaoshy and in that analogy, creatures like we humans are the bacteria living in the colon.

Interventionists
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Having bluntly stated my belief that we Earthlings can't hope to truly understand the Huaoshy, I want to try to sketch out what we can know about the relationship between the Huaoshy and the Interventionists who have played such an important role in making it possible for we Earthlings to stand here on this rock with an opportunity to reach the stars.

About a year ago I received some interesting information about the Interventionists from Angela by way of her "clone sister" Ivory. The key idea that Angela had stumbled upon is that the origins of the Interventionists goes all the way back to the ancient era before discovery of the Sedronic Domain. In that time, about 2 billion years ago, in a distant galaxy, several sentient species had managed to start developing an understanding of sedronic matter, but they were only taking the first steps toward converting themselves into artificial life forms that could take up residence in the Sedronic Domain.

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Within that primordial Huaoshy civilization, there were various factions who held differing views about how to interact with primitive species. The primordial Huaoshy civilization had developed sophisticated technologies based on a fairly mature understanding of hierions and they had already harnessed the power of sedrons to make possible faster-than-light travel among the stars. Their first encounters with more primitive civilizations that they discovered on planets of their home galaxy were uniformly disastrous. When exposed to the culture of the more technologically advanced Huaoshy, the poor primitives found their civilizations quickly overwhelmed and destroyed by advanced technologies that they could not safely wield.

The Huaoshy examined themselves and their relationship with more primitive sapient species. Apparently the Huaoshy had themselves been something of a fluke. They had successfully developed a technologically advanced civilization that had not destroyed itself. Spreading through their galaxy, the Huaoshy found only a few living sapient species. They found the remnants of many more lost civilizations that had briefly flowered with technological exuberance then destroyed themselves with technological disasters. By sharing advanced technology with primitive cultures, the Huaoshy only accelerated their demise.

Bumpha
I previously had a glimmering of a concept: that there had been a biological species that we could call the "original Kac'hin". Angela called these beings the "bumpha", but I don't even know what language that term is from. I'll assume that the bumpha were an ancient species within the original Huaoshy interstellar empire and that they played an important role in the faction that gave rise to what we now think of as the Interventionists. Ivory suggested that the best translation of "bumpha" is "renegade", a term applied to the earliest Interventionists by the majority of Huaoshy. In some mysterious and possibly unknowable twisted path of history, the bumpha were eventually responsible for the ability of both the Nereids and the Pharazen to exercise some independence from the pek and the restrictions of Genesaunt civilization.

Andromeda Chained to the Rock by the Nereids
by Théodore Chassériau
Ivory liked to refer to the bumpha as a type of lubrication that prevented the otherwise conservative and ponderous Genesaunt civilization from becoming too homogeneous and rigid. Where the conventional direction of Huaoshy influence over biology was to strive to allow safety and the survival of sapient species, the bumpha specialized in risky explorations of the full potential of the various forms of sapient life that the pek found among the stars.

The Nereids existed long before there were humans. The Pharazen are also more ancient than we humans, but not as old as the Nereids. Ivory imagined that the Pharazen were "clients" of the Nereids in much the same way that we humans became dependent on the Nereids for independence from the pek. Ivory speculated that the Nereids (actually, their artificial life form descendants, the Grendels) were perfectly comfortable adopting the most convenient physical form that allowed them to establish good working relations with either the Pharazen or we Earthlings. Human history is full of stories about humanoid sea creatures, stories that might have arisen from contact between humans and the Grendels.

by Edward Burne-Jones
The name "nereids", that I have adopted to refer to the otherwise nameless Interventionists of Earth, is simply borrowed from Greek mythology. Angela found no evidence that the name "nereid" originated from the Interventionists themselves. We Earthlings just need some convenient way to refer to our alien "benefactors". However, the questions still remains: have the Nereids been a beneficial influence on our species? By pushing us into our own space age, have the Nereids condemned us to technological disaster and extinction?

The Kac'hin
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When the pek needed to provide an interface between we humans and the Huaoshy, they created the Kac'hin. Angela discovered that the pek made use of Nereid design features in order to provide the Kac'hin with a functioning "bimanoid interface".

Angela could only speculate about the true appearance of the Kac'hin. Ivory adopted and made use of Angela's depiction of a typical Kac'hin.

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The extent to which various gene patterns derived from the Kac'hin, the Ek'col and the Asterothropes have been infiltrated into the human gene pool of Earth is a matter for speculation. Given Ivory's interest in genetics, it is not surprising that she investigated this topic. She told me that I am a carrier of some "alien genes" and they account for some of my unusual physical features and my innate ability to interact with the bimanoid interface.

Related Reading: making the Ek'col

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