The Time Teller |
Ten Years of Doubt
It was ten years ago that I was first allowed to begin recognizing connections between my science fiction story telling and odd events in my own life. As an example of one such odd event, I need only mention my own death, or, more importantly, how my death was avoided. When I died, time travel was still possible, so it was not difficult for the Time Teller to make a quick Microchange to Time, allowing me to avoid a stupid accidental death and live on.
Enlightenment |
Back in 2010, I was allowed access to the information content of some infites that previously had been provided to me by Thomas. I usually think of Thomas as my first collaborator from Deep Time, although prior to 2010 I had no knowledge of infites and no conscious memory of having met Thomas back in my college days. Still, Thomas had known Asimov well and so Thomas was the conduit by which I first learned an important truth: that the Foundation saga, as written by Asimov, reflected events in human history, past events from Deep Time.
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Beyond Asimov
Because Asimov (or, at least, his analogue) lived in the Foundation Reality, there is always the great temptation to accept his account of the events that took place in that Reality. However, the sources of Asimov's knowledge about the future Foundation must be taken into account. Much of his understanding of the Foundation era in human history came to him by way of a mind-bending invasion of his brain tissue by infites that had originated in a positronic robot. It is my belief that the Asimov of our Reality knew the basic outlines of the future history of the Foundation Reality, but then he used his fertile imagination and built creatively upon that thin layer of knowledge to produce the entertaining stories that we know as his Foundation Saga.
In the Ekcolir Reality. Original cover art by Michael Whelan. |
Special thanks to Miranda Hedman (www.mirish.deviantart.com) for the DeviantArt stock photograph "Black Cat 9 - stock" that I used to create the blue "sedronite" who is in the image to the left.
I have faced my own years of prodding by Thomas so that I finally came to understand how Daneel was guided by R. Gohrlay. According to Gohrlay, the analogue of Asimov who existed in the Ekcolir Reality had a much deeper understanding of events in the Foundation Reality. In his Robots and Foundation, Asimov revealed how it came to pass that Sedronites like Grean were able to put an end to the Foundation Reality.
In the Ekcolir Reality. Original cover art: Michael Whelan and Fred Gambino. |
Hyper Relays
For the past six years, I have worked hard to close the large gaps in my own knowledge concerning the Reality Change that brought an end to the Foundation Era and Galaxia. For several years I've struggled to understand the fact that the Huaoshy were masters of interstellar travel, using an odd mix of spaceship and teleportation technologies. How far did R. Gohrlay and her tribe of positronic robots go in their attempts to master the technologies of space travel?
Frustratingly, with no guidance from Asimov concerning the events in the Foundation Reality past the first 500 years of the Foundation Era, I had to put on hold my attempt to tell the story of the end of the Foundation Reality and my task of learning about the final technological advances that were made by R. Gohrlay. Now, with the "help" of Gohrlay, I'm again making some progress towards understanding what happened to R. Gohrlay and her cadre of positronic robots at the end of the Time Travel War.
Our Reality Chain |
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In the Ekcolir Reality. |
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Gohrlay insists that providing primates with knowledge of hierions is the quickest and surest way to ensure their self-destruction. Apparently the tryp'At Overseers of Earth are now taking pains to make sure that we Earthlings remain ignorant of hierion physics.
Next: creating the Foundation Reality
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