Sep 12, 2015

Ekcolir and the Grendels

Gohrlay was born on the Moon in the First Reality, before the invention of time travel. She did spend some time on Earth, but the pek had been careful to prevent the humans of Earth from ever developing a technologically advanced civilization. As an Observer, Gohrlay grew up studying the primitive human tribes that inhabited Earth.

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art by Howard Brown;
Science and Invention, April 1923.
Under the pek plan for Earth, humans were to become extinct and replaced by Prelands. Thus, there were only a few remaining tribes of humans on Earth and Gohrlay became caught up in the mystery of how they managed to survive in the face of Preland dominance.

In later Realities, after the positronic robots had perfected their time travel technology, it became possible for R. Gohrlay to go far back through time, beyond the Downwhen Terminus. Gohrlay believes that it was only with assistance from the bumpha that a means was found to travel back through time into the era before time travel technology was first invented.

fishy
Gohrlay was taken to the Galactic Core and only returned to Earth in the Asimov Reality. Thus, Gohrlay (or her analogues) were not on Earth when R. Gohrlay first evicted the Prelands and invited the Grendels to help create a technologically advanced human civilization on Earth. R. Gohrlay's meddling continued right to the Final Reality and under the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact, new efforts to perfect and shape human civilization on Earth were being made right up through the last Reality Change.

Fish costumes!
I recently asked Gohrlay how things had gone so terribly wrong in the Ekcolir Reality. She suggested that I change my perspective. According to Gohrlay, an effort was made to maximize greenhouse gas production on Earth in the Ekcolir Reality. Yes, some Interventionists struggled mightily to prevent the antarctic ice cap from melting, but their actions actually ended up contributing to the incredibly rapid onset of the sea level rise catastrophe in that Reality. In the Ekcolir Reality, Earth was used as a laboratory for developing microbes that could efficiently metabolize methane and trap atmospheric carbon dioxide in marine sediments.

The Final Reality
When I asked Gohrlay if those microbes will be deployed here, in the Final Reality, as a way to prevent global warming, she fell silent. Given her refusal to discuss issues such as this, I don't know if Gohrlay has the answers to my questions about the future or if she has had parts of her knowledge placed under "lock and key" by her own zeptite endosymbiont. I know from personal experience what it is like to become aware of specific facts yet still be unable to discuss them with other people.

image source
Gohrlay did tell me that when Ekcolir helped found the first city of Earth in our Reality, the Grendels were quite active. In some cases, the Grendels revealed themselves to humans, leading to many myths and legends of fish-like creatures and gods. Gohrlay has asked me to think about the origins of science fiction as going back 20,000 years to stories that people told each other about their encounters with the Grendels.

Ekcolir was tasked with inserting some special gene combinations into the human population of Earth about 20,000 years ago. I've not been able to learn why that was such an important part of his mission, but there is evidence that it set in motion a sequence of events that made it possible for Trysta to have her own successful mission on Earth about 10,000 years ago.

Trysta and Ekcolir
Trysta and Ekcolir
Gohrlay keeps telling me that she does not want to distract me from my task of completing the Exode Trilogy. She agrees with my decision to begin the trilogy with Trysta and Ekcolir, which includes my account of how the Time War was brought to an end just before the Reality Change that brought into existence the universe as we know it: the Final Reality.

Gohrlay is dismayed that I'm trying to make her the centerpiece of the first chapter of Trysta and Ekcolir. So far, I have in place rough sketches of the key events in what I imagine will the first ten chapters of the Exode Trilogy. However, Gohrlay says that I need not mention her early life in the Ekcolir Reality, at all.

Gohrlay is currently helping me understand the mysterious linkages that brought her together with science fiction author John Vance in the Ekcolir Reality. With her help, I'm slowly learning about how the Interventionist activities of Ekcolir and the Grendels 20,000 years ago led to the development of the science fiction genre in the Ekcolir Reality.

Next: Anney's Hypothesis about the special importance of Gohrlay.
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