Apr 28, 2019

The Mind Clone Network

Creating the Mind Clone Network.
What follows is an account of how I first achieved telepathic contact with the mind clone network during a dream.

The Intruder
I've never been able to control my dreams; I simply drift through my dreams. If I become aware that I am dreaming then I wake up. The events that I experience during my dreams are generally familiar to me and relaxing, mostly jumbled up refractions of my waking experiences. That all changed when an Intruder began appearing in my dreams.

It was probably after the fourth or fifth nocturnal visit from the Intruder that I awoke and remembered having experienced something odd. I thought back to the unusual dream that I'd had when I was 12 years old: my dream of having met God. Actually, that had not been much of a meeting. It was more of a feeling that the energy of the universe had briefly run through me. There had been nothing as mundane as spoken words in that dream.

But now, the Intruder had told me: Listen to me.

The first light of morning was illuminating the swimming pool outside my window. I wondered if I had experienced an hallucination. Zeta was sleeping soundly. I went down the hall, fed the cats and started my exercise routine. Thinking back into my fragmented memories of the past few nights, I felt like I had on several occasions been contacted by the Intruder. The sensation was like déjà vu. I could almost remember thinking about the Intruder the previous morning while I exercised. However, soon my thoughts were back in the world of my daily concerns, particularly the ever-present, ever-growing fact that Zeta, Rylla and Nora were all pregnant.

That was a lot to think about and soon the Intruder slipped from my thoughts. Then as I completed my workout, the content of my dream returned to my conscious thoughts and I began thinking about Ivory Fersoni. I asked myself: Why Ivory?

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Something about the Intruder reminded me of Ivory. But no, that was not correct. Ivory's infites had been particularly aggressive at making a place for themselves in my mind and all subsequent infites seemed to have had to compete with my memories of Ivory for space in my mind. No, I decided on second thought, this Intruder had the feel of Yōd. A very distant Yōd, signaling to me and trying to attract my attention.

Which was odd. Yōd had never had trouble getting my attention or holding my attention. And I even had dreams about Yōd. Then my phone rang and the day had begun. Again I forgot about the nocturnal Intruder who had been lurking in my dreams.

That night, I was drifting into sleep when Zeta said, "Well, it was nice while it lasted."

I mumbled, "What?"

There is one thing in this world that can perturb Zeta: me thinking about another woman like her sister Yōd when we are in bed. "Almost a month went by without you bringing Yōd into this bed."

I had almost been asleep and it took me a moment to recapture what I had been thinking about. The Intruder! I rolled over and put an arm around Zeta. "I've been having an odd dream. It is as if someone is trying to communicate with me."

I could feel Zeta using our telepathic connection, sifting through my mind, searching for my dream memory. She complained, "It's a jumble. I can't quite make it out..."

For a while I ran my hand over Zeta's abdomen, feeling the ever-expanding bulk of the baby she was gestating. An idea popped into my head and I blurted out, "Do you think-"

Zeta cut me off. "Just stop. I really don't want Yōd in this bed."

"But..." I said no more, but I could not stop myself from thinking. I started to get out of bed.

"Oh, come back here, silly." Zeta grabbed my hand and pulled me back beside her. "Tell me what is on your mind."

I said, "We can talk about it in the morning."

"Tell me."

I tried to frame what I had to say with some background context. "It is all rooted in this mind clone mumbo-jumbo. What exactly is a mind clone?"

"You tell me." Zeta turned and put her big belly between us. "What do the infites that you got from Nora tell you?"

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"I'm not sure that Nora knows much more than we do. When she was at Observer Base, she heard the term 'mind clone' being used, but that is just a label. Maybe slang. It just seems to mean adapting a developing mind so that it can link telepathically to another mind, making use of the type of technology-assisted telepathy that was originally designed to link replicoids to humans."

Zeta asked, "What does this have to do with Yōd?"

"If Yōd is inside the AR simulator and if she was trying to communicate with us and if these mind clones are a way to use the Bimanoid Interface to link us to people at Observer Base then..."

the AR Simulator
Zeta completed my thought, "...could Yōd use a mind clone to communicate with us?"

I added the last step in the hypothetical chain, "Maybe Yōd is pregnant now, too."

Zeta laughed. "Yōd does not like being pregnant."

I had felt in Yōd's mind her aversion to having a living baby inside her, kicking and squirming. "But she did say that she would be happy to be the mother of Azynov's child."

Zeta raised her head off of her pillow and rested it in her hand. "You know, the AR simulator might be the perfect place for Yōd to have a baby. If she and Azynov are living in the far future of that Reality, they could gestate a baby in an artificial womb."

For a while we were quiet. I was wondering about how the Asimov Reality Simulator worked. Finally I asked Zeta, "It is a virtual reality simulation, right? Could Yōd actually have a baby while she's in there?"

Zeta explained, "It is just like Nora. She's an artificial life-form. If you can't detect any difference between Nora and a human, do you ask how it is possible for her to have a baby?"

Nobody had ever explained to me how it was possible to simulate an entire past Reality of Earth's Reality Chain. "Do you mean that Yōd is no longer human? She was converted into an artificial life-form when she went into the AR Simulator?"

Zeta asked me, "What about me? I was not born on Earth. When I was teleported to this world, a copy of me was made. Does that make me an artificial life-form?"

As usual, I found myself in a trap: meandering through my ocean of ignorance. "I suppose I can't even prove that we are not living inside a simulation."

"So don't worry about Yōd. Now, let's get some sleep. I'm tired."

Zeta was soon asleep, but I was thinking about the possibility that Yōd was trying to contact me. Maybe there was something that I could do to help. Finally, I fell asleep.

Two Intruders
Then there were two women there, invading my dream.

Woman 1: He's going into REM.

Woman 2: He noticed us.

Woman 1: Don't get excited, now... you'll wake yourself. I've been trying to link to Earth. You and Rylla finally noticed.

I was in a dream state. My thoughts were sluggish and my senses were not functioning. The active part of my brain was providing me with a dream experience. I was in a low-fidelity dream world, dominated by the pressure of Yōd's thoughts, and the thoughts of others, all mingling with mine. I asked: It is you, Yōd?

Yōd: You know my mind pattern.

Yōd's mind pattern
I could certainly sense Yōd's mind, the pattern of which I knew from back before she had departed from Earth. But there was more in my mind than just Yōd's thoughts. I felt like I was being watched. Simultaneously, I had a wavering image of Yōd in my thoughts.

Yōd told me: I finally realized that I'd have to suppress Zeta's thoughts in order to connect to you. I had to recruit Rylla to do the work of pushing Zeta out of the way.

I wondered: Out of the way?

Zeta must be out of her body... she is off visiting with Georgy, now. This mind clone network is fluid... push on it here and it bulges out there.

In my dream, I seemed to be able to feel Yōd. I could feel her bulging abdomen. I imagined that I could feel her arms around me. I had to ask: Speaking of bulges... are you pregnant, too?

How else could I join the network?

source
And you are still in the AR Simulator?

Yes, this is now my home. I'm quite happy here with Azynov. And besides, there does not seem to be any way to get out. We are both trapped here.

I was just about to ask Yōd if she had made any progress towards learning about the origins of the Ek'col or the tryp'At when I awoke. Zeta was there beside me. We kissed and as I came up from my dream state, I sensed that there was something odd about Zeta. I felt my heart go cold as she seemed to slip into unconsciousness. "Zeta? Zeta!" I grabbed her arm and shook her. I checked her breathing and her pulse. I was starting to panic and then she woke up again.

Zeta Returns
Zeta asked, "What is it?"

I held her in my arms and tried to think logically. "Were you with Georgy?"

Zeta replied, "I was... inside Georgy. I was sharing the consciousness of her baby..."

"You what?"

"And I could communicate with Georgy. It was like a dream, but she was telling me about how she met Rylla and.... I saw it in her mind. How she died."

I was still on edge and upset. "Rylla is dead?"

"No, silly, Rylla was here." Zeta explained, "Her consciousness was inside of my body. I had to kick her out of my body to get back here to you."

I was too surprised to keep talking. This is too weird. I realized that as I awoke from my dream of Yōd, I had been kissing Rylla.

Zeta could follow my thoughts. She was more interested in what I had learned from Yōd than what Rylla had been doing while her roving mind had been inside Zeta's body. You were right... Yōd is part of the mind clone network, too.

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I wondered: Why didn't Yōd just contact you?

Zeta replied, "We have to face the possibility that this whole mind clone network has been assembled just to link you to Yōd. Your tryp'At brain may be the only remaining data channel by which Earthlings can retrieve information from the past Realities of Deep Time."

I asked, "Does Georgy know what is going on?"

Zeta shrugged. "I don't know. Her baby is learning Georgy's mind pattern, but the thoughts of a fetus are rather like a dream. Maybe the link to Georgy's baby will get stronger as the mind clones grow and develop." After a minute of silence Zeta added, "Don't worry about Rylla. She was mostly inside our baby and her memories of being here in this bed will only be dream memories."

Next: dead aliens
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Apr 13, 2019

Nemesis

On the Amber Road
We were slow departing from our cabins in the Oak Creek canyon and did not arrive home until late afternoon. After staying up all night reading Rylla's story, I slept during the long drive. As before, Zeta, Nora and Rylla were in the other car, but my son was linked to them by phone most of the way, so my dreams were filled with pieces of their ongoing conversations.

When we came in the house, it was immediately clear that our cats were annoyed, having been abandoned for a day. Zeta and I were thoroughly scolded. However, soon the cats made clear that they recognized Nora as a special attraction; somehow they sensed that she is not an ordinary human being.

The cats remained close to Nora for the remainder of her visit. I felt certain that at a subconscious level, my son also recognized that Nora was not a typical Earthling, but I saw no reason to tell him that Nora is an artificial life form. If cats don't care about such things, why should we humans?

For dinner, we set up an array of fondue pots and everyone enjoyed their own dips whether they be cheese, chocolate or tomato. That evening, our conversation slowly meandered in many directions until my son grew sleepy and went to bed.

Rylla is skeptical about the whole idea that time travel was once possible, but has now been eliminated from the universe by the Huaoshy. With her father out of the room, Rylla bluntly asked Nora, "How do we know that you are not shaping the flow of time even now? Changing our lives and pushing us in directions that we should not be moving?"

Nora leaned back in her seat and rubbed a hand across her protruding abdomen. She admitted, "It is a dilemma, particularly for someone young like you, born after the end of the Time Travel Era. For me, the best evidence of the Dimensional Shift was that other technologies were also altered when the dimensional structure of the universe changed. You've only known technology-assisted telepathy, but I lived for centuries in the presence of natural telepaths. Some of them had powerful telepathic abilities and believe me, it was quite a shock for them when they suddenly lost their telepathic powers."

Zeta asked, "What about you? Didn't you have telepathic powers?"

Nora replied, "I was part of the new generation, equipped with some limited capacity for technology-assisted telepathy by means of the Bimanoid Interface." She patted her belly. "Of course, my telepathic powers have been amplified since the recent upgrade of the Interface. And who knows what will be accomplished with the growing network of mind clones? But to answer your question, like many humans I probably had some minimal capacity to link to other minds by way of my telastids, but only at a subconscious level. I never really missed that ability when it went away. No, it was Trysta, the last Asterothrope, who was most dramatically impacted by the end of telastid-mediated telepathy. And her part-Asterothrope children such as Thomas."

Rylla suggested, "Someone on Earth must have noticed such a profound change in human nature."

Nora shrugged. "I suppose many people did, but they probably attributed the shift in social cohesiveness to the rapid changes then occurring in technology and the resulting alterations to the structures of human societies."

Zeta added, "It is probably no coincidence that just when social science was developing the observational tools and statistical methodologies to prove the existence of telastid-based human telepathy, that form of telepathy was erased from existence by the Huaoshy."

Rylla asked, "Erased?' She glanced at me, "But don't the telastids still exist inside our cells?"

I replied, "Telastids are simply too similar to mitochondria. Nobody has noticed them yet."

Nora added, "And when they are finally noticed, they will be called defective mitochondria and targeted with drugs as a way of achieving weight loss."

Rylla wondered, "You've seen into the future?"

Reality Viewing
Nora nodded, "I've had glimpses into the future. Remember, part of the advanced technology of the Time Travel Era was the existence of Reality Viewing equipment."

I waited patiently, wondering if Nora might tell us something about our own future. After a thoughtful pause in our conversation, Rylla muttered, "I'm not sure I'd like to know my future." For a moment I caught Nora's eye, and I felt certain that Nora knew something about Rylla's future. However, Nora was going to respect Rylla's wishes and not say anything about Rylla's future life.

I was still curious about how Nora had become stranded on Earth, unable to teleport. I suggested, "Teleportation technology must be one of the advanced technologies that the pek feel we Earthlings cannot be trusted with, along with true telepathy."

Nora shrugged. "That's an interesting idea, but I don't know. One of the reasons that I was allowed to stay on Earth is that many of my memories were edited and suppressed. I must have known much more about telepathy back in the days when I routinely teleported back and forth between Earth and Observer Base. Of course, it is clear that teleportation was also impacted when the Huaoshy changed the physical structure of the universe, but I can't provide an account of that change in terms of sedronic physics. I never personally had any control over the teleportation technology that was used to occasionally send me to Observer base... I just went along for the ride. With pek lurking off stage and the Huaoshy as a hidden force behind the pek, we Earthlings tend to wonder if we ever really control anything. More likely, the pek can't trust Earthlings with knowledge of hierions or sedrons, and you can't understand telepathy or teleportation without knowledge of hierions and sedrons. So, we just drift along, stumbling into a future that has been planned for us."

Rylla complained, "It all seems so fantastic! I've never met a Huaoshy and I doubt if anyone else has, either. It seems absurd to believe in something that is beyond our experience." Rylla glared at Nora. "The ancients used to call it 'fate', all you do is throw up your hands and mumble about unseen forces: the pek and the Huaoshy."

Artist's depiction of a Fru'wu
Nora laughed. "Nor will you ever meet any alien, not even a Fru'wu. You'll have to be satisfied to read stories about them that were written by folks in the Writers Block." She added, "The Huaoshy are completely inaccessible to hadronic beings like us; they reside in the Sedronic Domain."

Zeta told Rylla that once, as a child, back on her home world, she had met a pek. "I wonder if the pek can shift themselves out of the hadronic domain and cross over into the Sedronic Domain."

I shook my head. "Evidence is hard to come by. Apparently the pek believe that the Rules of Intervention restrict their movements. For example, they have a taboo against setting foot on planets like Earth."

Nora looked at me and said quietly, "Rules are made to be broken."

Zeta suggested, "The Rules of Intervention may not actually apply to the pek. Those Rules may have been written for lesser beings such as the Nereids."

Nora shrugged. "Who knows? Has anyone actually seen a copy of the Rules of Intervention? The problem is, the pek are masters of disguise. They can take on any physical form that is convenient for them to use. There could be a million pek living on Earth and we would never know."

Rylla nodded and exclaimed, "Exactly! And they might still be making use of time travel technology."

Nora sighed. "No, we all need to stop imagining that we can be rescued from our mistakes by time travel. We are now stuck with the world that we create by our choices and actions. No more second chances. That terrifies me." Nora reached out and placed a hand on Rylla's shoulder. "When I was young, I did not have to worry about making mistakes. Oh, the stories I could tell!"

I wondered if Nora might actually open up and tell us some of her secrets. I suggested, "Tell us about one of your past missions on Earth."

Nora laughed nervously, "Oh, my!" She explained to Rylla, "I've been trying so hard to forget about the past and just live as an Earthling with your father. But, since he's asleep and in the other room, I suppose I could tell you about my first pregnancy." Nora leaned close to Rylla and whispered, "Just don't share this story with your father."

Rylla said, "If it is a good story then it will end up being told to everyone in the world."

Nora asked, "Told as a science fiction story?"

Rylla giggled. "I don't like science fiction. I don't write science fiction."

Nora nodded knowingly. "You might not try to write science fiction, but the people of Earth will view your stories as science fiction. You have no physical evidence of alien visitors to Earth. Anyhow, when I had my first child I was living in Europe. It was the time when the Roman Empire was at its peak. As an Interventionist agent, my mission was to bring the secret of papermaking to Europe."

I burst out, "What?" I was skeptical. "You taught the Romans how to make paper?"

"Well, I tried, but in the end, my effort to bring printed books to the Romans were reversed by the Overseers. However, that is another story. We were talking about the pek, not paper. The story I want to tell you now is about one particular pek. You see, I found a pek 'living' on Earth."

Isaac Asimov's Nemesis
"I had established a small paper manufacturing plant beside the Danube at Drobeta in Dacia. In those days, I was only concerned with technological progress and I paid little attention to religion. After successfully producing my first batch of paper, I was trying to use available materials to build a printing press."

Zeta giggled. "Imagine a Roman Empire with printed books and a scientific revolution!"

Nora nodded. "Yes, that was the plan. Being concerned only with science, I toiled away in my workshop and I gave no thought the religion of the Empire... not until the cult of Nemesis arrived in Drobeta and began construction of a new temple."

Nora explained, "Temples of the cult of Nemesis were little more than covers for an altar. Of course, in Drobeta, the altar was there first, before they built the temple around it..."

----   Clandestine Destiny as told by Nora Stone ----

I'd selected Drobeta as my base of operations because it was a growing trade node on the Amber Road. I enjoyed living with some luxury, and I did not want my lifestyle to seem outlandish. Among the wealthy traders of Drobeta I could lead a comfortable life. I wanted easy access to a supply of trees, the manufactured goods of the Empire and the markets of the Mediterranean world that I expected would be eager to sell books printed on paper. The port of Drobeta on the Danube river provided me with easy access to the rest of the Roman Empire.

The site selected for the new temple of the cult of Nemesis was on the little hill up behind my paper mill. I'd bought my land from a Dacian family that lived on that hill and farmed the surrounding fields. I was contracted to clear the forested land on the ridge beyond their homestead and it was those trees that provided the wood pulp for my paper manufacturing.

At the time of the arrival of the cultists, a young woman, Rescuturme, was the only Dacian who remained in her family's hilltop compound. Everyone else in her clan had moved into town, abandoning their agricultural lifestyle and adopting the ways of the Roman merchants. One evening Rescuturme arrived at my workshop, a rather cramped space that was perched above the paper mill. She called to me, "Nerilla! Nerilla! Let me in!" I invited her in, but she was insistent that I go with her up the hill. She was wild, seemingly in a state of panic. I saw that she was carrying a small oil lamp and its light cast her face into a mask of fright. Rescuturme still raised horses on the sloping pastures. She trained and exercised the horses in her heard, each year selecting those that were strong and clever, which she then sold to the Romans. I wondered: what had so terrified the girl? My telepathic powers were not well tuned to her mind, so I could see little detail beyond the emotional turmoil of her thoughts. Frustrated that my plans for the evening were being disrupted by an histerical girl, I reluctantly abandoned work on my experimental printing press and followed Rescuturme out into the dark night.

As we walked, the moon popped above the horizon and Rescuturme extinguished her lamp. She told me how she had sold the old vineyard at the very top of the hill to the cult of Nemesis. Excitedly, she told me about events of the past two weeks. "At first, there was only Marcus, who paid me for the land in gold and also sold me his fine horse. Then last weak, Tulio appeared. Both are mercenaries, guards of the cult. Marcus arrived on a great Tracian stallion, but Tulio... well, there was strange glow in the forest the night of his arrival. I assumed that Marcus was clearing the temple site and burning the slash. But the next day, when I investigated, I found no ashes, only the stone altar of the cult in a little clearing among the trees that hold up a canopy of vines. The forest has grown up and carried the grape vines into a high canopy."

I had previously visited the ancient vineyard on the hill. "Yes, I know the place."

We went around the side of Rescuturme's villa, a heavy castle-like structure of stone. I could see flickers of light up ahead and a glow above the top of the hill as we continued walking through the back gardens of the villa and then up into the forest. Rescuturme paused to re-light her lamp then we proceeded up the little trail through the trees. She whispered, "Two nights ago the strange lights returned. I came up here and saw that the altar was bathed in light, almost like the light of the sun! Marcus and Tulio were there, beside the altar. They seemed to be waiting, so I waited, watching secretly from the edge of the clearing. Suddenly the altar lit up and then Zephyrus appeared atop the altar. He stepped down and the lights went away, like blowing out a candle."

I had a good idea what it was that Rescuturme had witnessed. The only question was why she had been allowed to remember seeing a teleportation terminal being used. My heart started to pound. Because of my training as an Interventionist, thoughts of teleportation made me suspect that an Earth Overseer might be involved. If so, I was in great danger.

We were now close enough to directly glimpse the lights that illuminated the altar. Rays of bright light reached us through little gaps in the forest foliage. Again Rescuturme extinguished her lamp. She whispered to me, "Yesterday I came up here and spoke to Marcus, Tulio and Zephyrus. I asked them about the strange lights I had seen."

I asked, "What did they say?"

"They said that they had been burning fires and trying to signal their goddess and attract her to come down to Earth and dedicate the new temple site. I knew they were lying, but I changed the subject. I asked Zephyrus, 'Where is your horse? I'll I buy it from you. Ask Marcus, I paid him a fair price for his mount.' I knew that Zephyrus had not arrived on horseback, but I wanted to hear what he would say."

I warned Rescuturme, "Best you not tell these three mercenaries what you know."

I could sense that Rescuturme was afraid that she knew too much, but she was compelled to learn more. Rescuturme continued with her story. "Zephyrus chuckled and told me that he had arrived on the wind."

I suddenly realized that there was one good reason why Rescuturme had been allowed to witness a teleportation pad in use: so that she could tell me about it. I suspected that we were walking into a trap, but I was also too curious to turn around. Rescuturme and I crept up to the edge of the little clearing in the forest where Marcus, Tulio and Zephyrus waited near the alter.

The mind of a man who has learned to read and write is different. I could sense that Marcus was well educated and in his mind I could sense that he anticipated another teleportation event to occur. He turned his head and looked in our direction. Marcus called out, "Rescuturme, don't hide. Come join us. Bring your friend."

Rescuturme glanced at me and then led the way out into the open. Rescuturme asked, "Marcus, what is this strange rite? What is the source of this odd light?"

Indeed, there was no fire burning, but the area around the altar was well-lit. Marcus said to me, "Welcome to our sacred place, Nerilla."

I wondered if Marcus could extract my name from the pattern of my thoughts. More likely, during the previous week Rescuturme had probably spoken to Marcus about me and used my name. I stepped forward and examined the altar. It looked like simple carved stone. I asked Marcus, "Who are you waiting for? Who is going to arrive tonight?"

Marcus made no attempt to hide the truth. "Our goddess. She wants to have a word with you."

Rescuturme pulled me away from the altar. "It is a magic stone! Watch! It will change into light."

Once more I contemplated running away, but I knew that I would not be left in peace. I imagined that my presence in Drobeta and my role as an Interventionist agent had been discovered by the Earth Observers. It seemed likely that the "goddess" who Marcus expected to arrive would be an Overseer, sent to collect me and put an end to my Interventionist work on Earth. I said to Marcus, "I don't believe in gods."
_____________________________

At this point in the story, Rylla asked Nora, "You weren't afraid?"

Nora explained, "Interventionist agents are trained to expect capture. I knew that if I was taken off of Earth and imprisoned at Observer Base, then a copy of me would be made and that copy would be sent to Earth on a new mission."

Zeta said to Nora, "So, you were a foot-soldier in the Time War..."

Nora nodded, "Yes. And I thought I knew my mission. My work at Drobeta would vastly accelerate the development of European civilization if I could provide paper and a new industry of printed books to the Romans. But I could sense in the thoughts of Marcus that there was another reason for my presence on Earth at that time."

Nora continued her story.....
_____________________________

Marcus came and stood close to me. I thought he looked silly in his fancy soldier suit. He said to Rescuturme, "No magic, just the divine power of the goddess." Marcus turned directly towards me and I could smell his ripe body odor. "You will see for yourself: Nemesis knows all. She promised me that you would be beautiful like a god, but also warned me that you are not to be mistaken for a god."

I could sense in the mind of Marcus a rising lust. He reached out and placed his hand against the side of my face. A fear filled my thoughts: had the Overseer promised Marcus that he could have me as his slave and concubine?

At that moment, the altar flashed to life and became a functioning teleportation terminal. A humanoid figure appeared on top of the teleportation pad and I came as close to getting religion at that moment as I ever could. The three mercenaries gave out a cry of welcome: "All hail the goddess!"

God, alien or zeptite-based artificial life form? The being that had suddenly arrived in our midst by teleportation looked essentially like a human woman. She looked like one of the human variants from the Galactic Core, with long ears, big eyes and pointy teeth. I had some type of telepathic contact with her, but only to the extent of providing me with an involuntary compulsion to worship her. I knew that this was no Overseer.

She pointed at Rescuturme and spoke to Tulio and Zephyrus, "Take the lady back to her home. She has performed her task well. Reward her."

Tulio and Zephyrus each took hold of one of Rescuturme's arms and they led her away.

The "goddess" stepped off of the teleportation platform and immediately it transformed back into a stone altar. The lights of the clearing dimmed and the three of us stood there in the moon light. I found my voice and asked, "Who are you? What are you?"

She waved a hand in my direction and I felt a swarm of infites slip into my brain. Suddenly, I knew her to be a pek; an hermaphrodite, but she looked almost like a woman. "You can call me Priscilla." As my eyes adjusted to the lower light level, I could see that Priscilla's dress emitted its own soft glowing light.

Marcus was not satisfied to hear his goddess label herself with a mundane name like Priscilla. He told me emphatically, "This is the great goddess, Nemesis!"

Priscilla laughed, flashing her long white fangs. She put an arm around my shoulders and told me, "The whole Nemesis thing originated long ago as an Interventionist plot. During the past few centuries, I've often found it useful to adopt the role of Nemesis. I'll admit, I can have a lot of fun playing the role of a god!" Priscilla guided me away from Marcus and off across the clearing. "Marcus only knows me as Nemesis, his goddess. I must say, such trickery does make for loyal servants."

Marcus was following along behind us and he had no difficulty hearing what Priscilla had told me. He complained, "I gladly serve you, Nemesis."

Priscilla ignored Marcus and said to me, "I see in your thoughts that you have guessed the purpose in my plan for bringing together you and Marcus."

I was a bit sickened by what I had seen in the thoughts of Marcus. "You really expect me to be the mother of his son?"

Priscilla glanced back over her shoulder at Marcus. We had stopped walking and now stood at the edge of a little precipice. The Danube river could be seen in the distance, glimmering in the moonlight like a silver snake. "Why not? He cleans up nicely. The only problem is, he is getting old, so I want to make a copy of him. You will give birth to his clone. You see, my dear Nerilla, I must plan for the future. Your plans for the future must be modified and subjugated to mine."

Marcus asked, "Clone?"

Priscilla ignored Marcus and spoke to me. "I make use of whatever tools are available here on Earth and you will be the perfect tool to provide me with a copy of Marcus. I only expect to get about 20 years of service out of a typical Earthling, then I need a replacement copy."

I asked, "Who are you? How can you operate in this way on Earth, using men as your slaves?" Even as I spoke those words I was feeling a growing cognitive dissonance. Part of me wanted to fall to my knees and worship Priscilla as a god, but the rational part of my mind wanted an explanation for how an alien creature could operate so openly on Earth.

Priscilla tried to make me understand. "You Interventionists think you can alter the pace of technological innovation on Earth, but you are really only allowed to be here by we pek because you provide a source of genes for evolving humanity and preparing for the future."

"You are pek?"

"That should not surprise you. Who else but a pek could teleport around Earth and build an Empire from scratch. Yes, that has been my task for the past six centuries, building up the Roman Empire as an alternative to the Etruscan Empire."
__________________________

I'd long known that a dominate Roman Empire is a recent feature of Earth's Reality Chain, but I had never heard an explanation for how Rome had been able to control such a vast territory. I complained to Nora, "Wait, now. Are you saying that the pek were responsible for replacing the Etruscan Empire with a gigantic Roman Empire?"

Nora nodded. "Of course, R. Nyrtia must have agreed that the benefits arising from the Rome Empire meant that the Etruscans should be almost completely erased from Earth's historical timeline. The Huaoshy were god-like in their ability to view alternative Realities and select the optimal future."

Zeta asked skeptically, "Optimal for who?"

Rylla said, "I've read some of what grandpa wrote about the influence of the Etruscans in the Ekcolir Reality." Rylla glanced at me then turned back to Zeta, "Somehow, their influence led inexorably to a global warming catastrophe for Earth."

Zeta was not ready to accept the idea that centuries of Roman rule had been good for Earth. "How could the mere existence of a Roman Empire avert the global warming catastrophe?"

I suggested, "I think I understand the point that Nora is trying to make. The Etruscan Empire was supported and propped up by R. Nyrtia and the Interventionists. When we humans look back at the Ekcolir Reality, we like what we see. In that Reality, Earth was a more peaceful world, with a quicker pace of social and technological progress. However, it was also a trap, leading to certain catastrophe. Earth needed something like cool Huaoshy objectivity and pek ruthlessness in order to put our world on a safe trajectory into the future."

Nora added, "We might not like the heavy-handed way that the pek imposed the Roman Empire on human civilization, but we must accept it. When I was dealing with Priscilla I was helpless to resist..." Nora continued her story.
__________________________

When Priscilla arrived and derailed my life, I was not happy with the idea of the pek taking control of Earth and interfering with my mission on Earth. However, Priscilla was good at her work. For one thing, Priscilla was an expert at using infites to control human behavior. She could talk to me about topics like cloning humans and then casually erase all memory of such things from the minds of people like Marcus.

I believe that Priscilla was trying to educate me and provide me with a broader perspective on Earth history than what I had received when I had trained as an Interventionist agent. With time, I lost my resentment of Priscilla and her role in shaping Earth's history. And we had plenty of time. Since Priscilla was going to revert the Reality of a Rome with paper and printing, she let me live out a fantasy existence in which I did bring those technologies to Rome. During that time, Marcus built a great temple for Nemesis in Drobeta and then he helped Rescuturme turn her family's villa into an academy of learning.

Priscilla with a Marcus clone.
Rescuturme and I had many children during the decade after Priscilla diverted the courses of our lives. My first-born son was a clone of Marcus and I saw him grow to become a man. Similarly, Rescuturme gave birth to clones of Tulio and Zephyrus. Marcus and I had additional children and I was happy living in Drobeta, believing that in exchange for providing Priscilla with a clone of Marcus, the pek were allowing my Interventionist mission to succeed.

I lived out my biological life with Marcus as my husband, then most of that life was erased by the pek. Two of my children lived on in Earth's Final Reality. After my biological life ended, a replicoid copy of me was made at Observer Base, a copy that retained the memories of my erased life with Marcus on Earth.

After many years of living with Marcus and of quizzing him about his youth, I realized that the mother of Marcus was an earlier Interventionist agent who raised him to "be civilized". I did the same for the next Marcus clone, and I was left wondering how many previous copies of Marcus there had been.

I know that Priscilla started her work in ancient Greece. She had worked tirelessly to create the Roman Empire as alternative to the Etruscan Empire of the Ekcolir Reality, making use of Interventionist agents such as me whenever we arrived on Earth. Maybe all around the Mediterranean sea, each temple to Nemesis marks the spot of such an intervention.
__________________________

After Nora finished her story about her past life during the Roman Era, we cleared away our dishes and the fondue pots. After helping clean up, Rylla was tired and went off to her room to sleep.

Nora, Zeta and I sat for a while longer, discussing artificial life forms. Watching the cats snuggle up to Nora, I asked bluntly, "What are you, Nora?"

She replied, "Nobody ever bothered to explain that to me. I suspect I am and artificial life form, composed of femtobot components. However, no Earthly diagnostics could detect a difference between me and an actual human being."

Zeta suggested, "You seem to be a perfect physical specimen. Do you age?"

Nora shrugged and a sly grin danced on her lips, "I can appear to age."

I asked another indelicate question, "And what of the baby that you are carrying? Is it real? Biological?"

Nora nodded gravely. "I don't have the ability to make more artificial beings like myself. However, I can gestate human embryos. I'm doing my part to build a network of mind clones that will make possible information flow between Earth and the Hierion Domain. Making these mind clones seems to have been a planned part of the Trysta-Grean Pact."

That night, Nora, Zeta and I made our own pact, to work together to make sure that Rylla would be happy and live a productive life. Nora suggested that Rylla should return home to Australia and complete her education. I did not argue the point, knowing that Rylla would do exactly what she wanted to do, no matter what anyone else thought was proper and appropriate.

Next: That night, Rylla and the mind clone network create a shared dream...
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Apr 7, 2019

SIHA 2019: Start Searching

Brewing up some alien tea.
One quarter of the way into 2019 and it is time to begin my Search for Interesting Hollywood Aliens (SIHA) in films from the year 2019. Last year I turned to the film industry in Japan for help in finding an interesting story about aliens (SIHA 2018).

The qualifier "Hollywood" in "SIHA" can now be applied to the "Hollywood of the East", the "Oriental Movie Metropolis" in China.
Hollywood of the East (source)

Maybe 2019 is the year for a film from China to provide Sci Fi fans with an interesting space alien.

Humor
Crazy Aliens
Sometimes science fiction stories can take themselves too seriously. Apparently Crazy Alien will never strike any viewer as being a serious depiction of First Contact. Sadly, I see no hint on the interwebs that Crazy Alien will be made available in the United States any time soon. Apparently there are plenty of jokes about incompetent American government agents in Crazy Alien.
Fearless Leader in China

Given our Fearless Leader's trade war with China, it might be that nobody on this side of the Pacific is willing to market Crazy Alien to Americans.

My big fear about science fiction stories arriving from other countries is that they will be rip-offs and recycling-mashups of old movies that were made in Hollywood. Thus, I start to worry when I see movie posters like the one below (left):
Been there, done that.

Shanghai Fortress
I have no interest in military science fiction and my fantasy is that some other nation, such as China, might be able to tell stories about aliens that do not come to Earth for our coal or our gold. Sadly, films like Shanghai Fortress make me wonder if there is any hope for creativity among science fiction movie makers on this planet. Sci Fi globalization progress: now aliens can go Boom! in Chinese.

Speaking of derivative re-hash, this summer there will be Men in Black: International. Is there any chance that this 4th film in the MIB series will have something interesting to say about aliens? The only goal might be to have fun blasting evil aliens, and maybe nobody will notice if there are no interesting aliens.
Bigger, better: the bunny blaster!


The unlikely comic book evolution of Captain Thunder.
Ms. Marvel
I'm a huge fan of "ancient astronaut" stories in which highly advanced aliens exist on other worlds of the galaxy while we humans bumble along, unaware that aliens often secretly visit Earth. Don't ask me to explain the origins of Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, Binary and Warbird or how alien Kree DNA is inserted into an innocent human by an explosion -or maybe it is just magic energy from a kablewy star ship engine that transforms Carol into a superbeing... "the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe".

red sash
I've never read a comic book nor have I seen a superhero movie. When I was a kid, there was a silly Superman television show that quickly soured me on superheros. Will I be seeing Captain Marvel in 2019? No, but I must ask: does this film have anything interesting to say about aliens or is it just a sorry rehashing of Earthly politics dressed up in absurd comic book fashions?

As someone who has happily ignored superhero pop culture since I was a kid in the 1960s, I also have to ask: why did capes go out of style? If capes are out of style, maybe female superheros of the current millennium only need to wear a strategically placed red sash.

Capel Green
Rendlesham Forest
Capel Green
I have no idea if Capel Green will even deal with space aliens. However, it is fun to have an active UFO industry turning out films, even if aliens are not involved.

2017 SIHA
2018
Related Reading: 2019 SIHA Summary
2017 SIHA winner
2016 SIHA awards
SIHA 2015
SIHA 2014
SIHA 2013
SIHA 2012
2009 retro-SIHA | Retro-SIHA 2002 | 2001 retro-SIHA
Next: Nora's first clone baby
Visit the Gallery of Posters.

Apr 4, 2019

Decade in Blogging

Ȃ: First Contact with the Buld
I started the wikifiction blog on April 4th, 2009. At that time, I had survived a few years of experimentation with collaborative fiction writing. I say "survived" because it is not easy to find collaborators who want to write in the same direction at the same time. I had also been experimenting with fan-fiction, which can be viewed as a kind of collaboration.  : What might be accomplished with a blog that was devoted to science fiction writing?

April 2009 - April 2019
To celebrate 10 years of the wikifiction blog, I'm going to partake in one of my self-indulgent navel gazing disquisitions...

Investigational Fiction
Cellular Civilization
About one year after starting this blog, I was scheming how to write a story that would allow me to investigate the hidden mysteries of what I call Genesaunt Society, a galactic civilization that I had begun to explore in my alternate history novel Exodemic. My initial strategy was to pursue this investigation by making use of an existing character from Cellular Civilization (Charlie Parker) as an example of an Earthling who would travel through the galaxy and explore Genesaunt Society. However, at that time, I became very busy at work and I was forced to put my fiction writing on hold for a time. 😢

Parthney's family tree.
Hana
When I was once again able to think seriously about fiction writing, I switched directions and began exploring the life of a newly created character named Hana and that quickly led to my discovery of the Interventionist agent who would remove Hana from Earth, Parthney.

Hana was to have become the focus of my fiction writing, but quite unexpectedly Parthney became the center of my story telling world for a while.

source
One of the reasons for this was the fact that Parthney grew up on a distant world in the Galactic Core: Hemmal. I imagined that Hemmal had an artificially constructed surface with some geological features that match those of Earth. In fact, Hemmal had been crafted (by the pek) as a world where the Prelands could be designed and evolved, with the ultimate goal of replacing we Earthlings with Prelands when the time was right.

Asterothropes: the females
are larger than
the hermaphrodites.
After getting to know him, I discovered that Parthney has a rather unusual genetic background. His genetic mother was Trysta Iwedon, an Asterothrope from the far future. Pathney's father was Ekcolir, the special Interventionist agent who was sent to Earth on a mission designed to end the Time Travel War. Parthney is actually a clone of Trysta's son, Thomas.
Eternity pulped.
source

An Argument with Asimov
My character Trysta Iwedon originated as Isaac Asimov's character Noÿs Lambent. In his novel, The End of Eternity, Asimov imagined that due to the existence of the Eternity time travel system, further evolution of the human species was halted. However, Noÿs was from about 10,000,000 years in our future, a time beyond the influence of Eternity (within the Hidden Centuries).

Asimov creates Noÿs
Asimov might not have agreed with my view, but by reading between the lines of The End of Eternity and extrapolating, I believe that Noÿs actually had some limited telepathic abilities and we should think of her as being a special primate variant created by R. Gohrlay and her cadre of positronic robots. I also assume that Noÿs had command of some advanced technologies including infites.

Noÿs and Andrew
travel into the Primitive
Either by means of telepathy or by using infites, Noÿs was able to transfer ideas into the mind of her lover, Andrew Harlan. In that way, Noÿs was able to make use of Harlan as her tool and bring Eternity to an end. Together, Noÿs and Harlan traveled into the past (to the 1930s) and helped bring into existence a new Reality: the Foundation Reality.

original cover art by Swen Papenbrock
I assume that the Asterothropes provided R. Gohrlay with a proof of concept, a demonstration that a primate brain could achieve telastid-mediated telepathy at nearly the level attained by positronic robots. In the Foundation Reality, R. Daneel took on the task of creating Galaxia as a defense against the Huaoshy. This may have involved using the children of Noÿs and Harlan as a source of needed gene combinations that allowed for the development of humans who could function as the telepathic components of the Galaxia group mind.
source

Recursive Fiction
Another important element of the wikifiction blog has been the development of the idea that science fiction novels can include shorter science fiction stories. The first such story-within-a-story was the Legend of Uvadekoto. This move into recursive fiction came soon after I decided to make Isaac Asimov appear as a character in Foundations of Eternity.

source
Eventually, I realized that it is great fun to include well-known authors as characters inside my own stories. Thus, Jack Vance, Arthur Clarke, Carl Sagan and even Jack London have found their way into the Exode Saga. After that, it was an easy step to write myself (as the Editor) and several members of my family (such as Rylla) into the story as well. Sometimes I write stories that are set in past Realities and the characters are the analogues of famous science fiction story tellers such as Stanley Grauman Weinbaum.

Imaginary Collaborators
source
After I began including myself in the Exode Saga, several imaginary collaborators stepped forward to help write the story. Among the most important of these has been Ivory Fersoni. There are many imaginary books that I have attributed to Ivory and her sisters. Ivory has been a particularly useful collaborator because her sister Angela was able to access hidden information about the past Realities of Earth.

Rylla's first Sci Fi story
More recently, two clones of Gohrlay named Zeta and Yōd have been valuable collaborators. Most recently, my grand-daughter Rylla has begun writing accounts of the Secret History of Humanity.

Beyond Exode
X-Files fan-fiction
During the past ten years, the Exode Saga has grown to become my major fiction writing obsession. However, there are some other elements of the wikifiction blog that don't directly involve my own story writing. Back in 2012 I started my annual Search for Interesting Hollywood Aliens (SIHA). So far, I have done one retro-SIHA for the year 2009.

When 2016 came around, I was still mourning the loss of Jack Vance, who was born in 1916. Since 2016, I try to celebrate the stories of Jack Vance in both May and August. Other anniversaries also get recognition in the wikifiction blog... examples: Asimov, John Boyd, Theodore Sturgeon, Arthur Clark and Asimov again. I also did a series of blog posts for the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. The only other television show that gets similar amounts of attention at the wikifiction blog is The X-Files.

Software
Exoditions on Cynk
Sometimes I blog about software, particularly Blogger and Twitter. Last year I had a series of blog posts about one particular science fiction-oriented computer game. In my experience, science fiction-oriented books, films, television programs, blogs, tweets and even computer games can all provide stimulation to my own story writing.

After playing Beyond Earth and blogging about that game, I wrote some fan-fiction incorporating some elements of that game. Of course, my story was set in my own Exodemic Fictional Universe, but that exercise helped me think through the ultimate fate of Ivory and also led me to make an adjustment to the Bimanoid Interface.

Illustration
from Google Photos
Back in the 1990s I started using Photoshop to make illustrations for my science fiction stories.

image #1 (see)
The first image that I displayed on the wikifiction blog was an illustration of a space elevator for Mars (image to the left). All of the images uploaded to this blog have been automatically archived:

April 2, 2009 to Mar 24, 2013
Mar 24, 2013 to Sep 16, 2014 
Sep 16, 2014 to Dec 26, 2015
Dec 26, 2015 to Jan 15, 2017
Jan 15, 2017 to current 2019

Originally the images from Blogger blogs were archived by the Picasa web service. In 2013 I made an archive for a Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers. Google eventually destroyed Picasa, but I was able to transfer my book covers archive and my Posters archive to their Photos system.

One of the features of Google Photos is that it tries to label particular people in your stored images (see the images to the right). Google is sometimes able to recognize famous people like Gillian Anderson in an uploaded image, but their facial recognition system sometimes mis-identifies other people as being Gillian. I often make illustrations for human variants such as the Kac'hin. I told Photos that one such "person" is my character Grean. Other such images automatically get labels such as "alien humanoid".

Zal Time
About 5 years ago I began making some images for this blog by using stock images that are available at the DeviantArt website.

2019




Dear Diary
source
The wikifiction blog began as my diary, a place where I could think about collaborative fiction writing and software tools that support story telling. Eventually, I began posting my fiction on blog pages. My first movement in that direction was in early 2012 when I sketched out a story idea.

Soon I blogged about my ideas for a Contact television show. My fan-fiction addiction quickly led me to start thinking about how to place the science fiction stories of Jack Vance into the Exodemic Fictional universe. Eventually I would realize that if the stories of Isaac Asimov explained the Mallansohn Reality and the Foundation Reality, then Vance's fiction might be set in the Asimov Reality. This idea eventually had a major impact on the shape of the Exode Saga.
the Exode banner
Exode cover

Exode
By September 2012 I began blogging about my new story called Exode. At that time, I decided that I should put the Exode story on its own website. I imagined that I could keep my commentary about Exode here on the wikifiction blog.

Foundations of Eternity
About 9 months later, after I realized that the Exode story was actually part of a larger Saga, I made another website for Foundations of Eternity.

Trilogy 13
Then came Trysta and Ekcolir, and I was into the era of the Exode Trilogy.

Golden Age
The First Reality
The years 2014 - 2016 were the Golden Age for this blog. Here are hypertext links to some past blog posts that summarize my blogging during that golden era:
Year in Review: 2014
2015 in Review
2016 in Review
During those years, I out-grew the Exode Trilogy and the Exode Saga became a set of 5 linked novels, including The First Reality and A Search Beyond. Important events in this blog during 2017 and 2018 were summarized here.
Reduced color palette animated GIF (above). See the full 1080p Exode Saga video near the bottom of this page.

Rylla being observed by a Kac'hin.
I've created an animated cover image for the entire Exode Saga (above). That's Rylla under the light of a full moon, at a time when she was in the process of learning about her grandfather's investigations of the Secret History of Humanity. In the image, she has fallen asleep while reading Exode. At the same time, Rylla is being watched by an alien Observer.

source
Much effort has gone into making Earthlings (such a me) imagine that Observer Base is located on the Moon. Actually, Observer Base is inside the Hierion Domain.

In some sense, Rylla has replaced Hana as the "star" of the Exode Saga. I'm now imagining that readers can be introduced to the Exode Saga through the eyes of Rylla as she learns about the past efforts of her grandfather to tell the Exode story to the people of Earth.
Twitter-versary.

Twitzone
Ten years ago, I began experimenting with both Twitter and blogging about my interests in science fiction. At one time, I would announce my wikifiction blog posts on social media shortly after the time when I would create a new blog post. Eventually I discovered that there is a period of time after creating a new blog post that I continue to edit it and link it to other pages of my blogs.
Twitter

Illustrated tweets ("Media")
Currently, I am 4 months behind in announcing wikifiction blog posts on Twitter.

Future Fiction
Who is this?
Blog posts such as this one allow me to reflect on the past and think about the possible future direction of this blog. I did not have any particular Kac'hin in mind when I created the image shown to the right. I need to settle my thinking about exactly who remains at Observer Base, so maybe there is still a Kac'hin hermaphrodite at Observer Base.

source
As discussed here, the Kac'hin carry sophisticated endosymbionts that endow them with the ability to perform genetic engineering. Rylla must come to realize that R. Nyrtia provided humans with a Phari endosymbiont that could ensure the sort of temporal momentum that was invented by Isaac Asimov in his time travel novel, The End of Eternity. What is special about the Ka'chin is that they can take conscious control of their ability to perform genetic engineering and Rylla must confront the fact that her own genome was designed by a Kac'hin agent at Observer Base. Here is the Exode Saga teaser video:

Watch the Exode Saga video on YouTube.
SIHA 2020
Future SIHA 
Plans. This blog is my playground, so I don't like to make work for myself here, but maybe during the next ten years I will be able to award a retro-SIHA for both the year 2010 and 2011. (update: 2001 retro-SIHA)
Related Reading: the most visited wikifiction blog page.
                          - top 10 blog posts - And: the end of Twitter.
Next: Searching for Interesting Hollywood Aliens in 2019
visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers