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| Hemmal |
At the
start of 2012 I began trying to imagine how
Parthney, a young man who grew up on the distant planet
Hemmal, would be prepared and trained for his mission to Earth as an
Interventionist agent. Parthney is trained at a secret base called
Lendhalen which is nominally controlled by the
Pla, however the alien
Fru'wu have long provided technical and doctrinal support to the Pla.
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| Syon |
Also at Lendhalen are robots. In particular, Parthney is assigned the robot
Syon as his personal aide and domestic helper. At first Syon seems backwards and clumsy, by far the most primitive artificial life form in the
Exode Trilogy. But slowly through his years of training, Syon changes and Parthney finds that she is a source of amazing insights into the true nature of the entire Earth Interventionist operation. When Parthney sings praises of Syon to his Pla handlers they don't believe him and he can't convince anyone else at Lendhalen of Syon's value. When ever anyone else is present, Syon is her old klunky self.
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| Gwyned |
In addition to the Pla and the robots there are some Earthlings who live at Lendhalen. The most recent arrival from Earth is
Gwyned, who is actually Parthney's half sister, although they are not aware of their familial relationship. The other Earthlings are all from deep in Earth's past, a living
human library that can provide Parthney with valuable insights into the history of Earth and how a long series of Interventionist agents who preceded Parthney to Earth have shaped the course of technological and cultural progress. While Gwyned is the most "modern" Earthling who Parthney works with at Lendhalen, Meropa is the most "ancient". Her Earthly origins can be traced back 10,000 years.
In the
Ekcolir Reality, Bermuda is completely submerged by the rising sea level after the Antarctic ice sheet melts. Looking into the future,
Trysta observes the disastrous effects for life on Earth from rising temperatures and rapid changes in ocean pH. As described in
my previous blog post, Earth is locked into a strange temporal attractor that causes ecological disaster either by nuclear radiation or global warming.
Trysta works long and hard searching through alternate
Realities of ever lower probability in an attempt to find a future in which humans can reach the stars without devastating Earth's ecosystem. One day, she comes upon a possible Reality in which there is only modest sea level rise due to fossil fuel use and global warming. Following her standard protocol, she then begins to look for a satisfactory
Reality Chain branching off from this promising Reality. In this way, Trysta makes her great discovery: the
Buld Reality is the Final Reality.
It takes a while for Trysta and
Grean to understand how it might be possible for the Huaoshy to put an end to time travel. Eventually, the deed is done: the
Huaoshy alter the
dimensional structure of the universe so as to make further time travel impossible. By that point, Trysta is in the Buld Reality and it is no longer possible to obtain any information from the future.
Image to the left. Location of one of the
pek-engineered Priabonian asteroid impact sites.
Below: the
pek-induced Priabonian crustal fracture lines are indicated, although most of these cracks are deep and have not yet been detected by Earthlings.
Bermuda Triangles
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| Mistastin crater: one of 10 Priabonian asteroid impacts. |
The island of Bermuda is quite familiar to Trysta. For the
Exode Trilogy I imagine that 7,000,000 years ago the pek began to alter primate evolution on Earth. However, the pek first visited Earth 655 million years ago. At that time, they initiated a plan for gradually improving the diversity of life on Earth.
When
Thomas wrote
Miners of Earth he had only a vague understanding of the long period of time during which the pek had been visiting Earth. The pek spent over half a billion years mining planet Earth for
sedronic matter before humans existed.
The last such mining efforts was initiated during the
Priabonian. The pek engineered the synchronized impact on Earth by 10 asteroids (at the locations shown by the arrows in the image above). This bombardment was prelude to extension of ongoing pek mining operations past the continental shelf and out under the growing Atlantic sea floor. This new phase of mining triggered the eruption that formed Bermuda. The older
Manicouagan crater marks the eastern edge of earlier pek mining operations further west and north under the North American plate.
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| Earth 655 million years ago |
The basic pek mining method was to teleport huge volumes of sedron-containing magma to an orbital processing facility. Most of processed magma was then returned to Earth, but this type of large-scale teleportation operation (in continual use for over 600 million years on Earth) also allowed the pek to buffer natural swings in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, thus moderating climatic changes and preventing any further "
snowball Earth" events.
By the Priabonian, the yields of sedronic matter from mining Earth were low and
climate control was the main pek concern. Sedron mining eventually became unnecessary after time travel was invented.
For about 10 million years the island of Bermuda was a convenient base for pek mining operations.
Then, with the evolution of larger brained social primates, the pek could no longer treat Earth as a mining depot. They ended all mining and removed some early apes from Earth and began experimenting with their directed evolution on other planets near the core of the galaxy.
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| Mintha and Meropa |
In the Ekcolir Reality,
Interventionists often used Bermuda as a convenient base of operations. When Trysta went back in time to help initiate the Buld Reality, she worked with an
Ek'col named Athlash. Their son, Hyanti, was raised on Bermuda before being sent from Earth to the
Koly star system. There, he and a
Kac'hin named Karonis had a daughter, Tayge. Tayge was cloned, resulting in many "sisters", including Meropa, Psamatha and Mintha. Meropa became an important collaborator with
Leymaygn and was one of the residents of Lendhalen during Parthney's training. An artificial life replica of Meropa became an important assistant to Interventionist agents on Earth during the 4th millennium BCE.
Atlantis
When Earthlings finally settled Bermuda, the Interventionists were comfortable using a nearby undersea facility as a base of operations. This secret base was sometimes jokingly called "
Atlantis". After the initiation of the Buld Reality, Grean had to change the rules for Interventionist on Earth. Grean stationed
Many Sails near Bermuda and denied the use of Bermuda to Interventionists.
It was only with the aid of the
Atlantis Clones that the Exode Trilogy became a story that could be told. As shown below, a linkage had to be made between
Ivory and Thomas: "
the editor".
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| Connections between Ivory and Thomas |
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| Ivory |
Neither Ivory or Thomas has many contacts with run-of-the-mill Earthlings. Ivory goes into seclusion at Atlantis and helps develop
Angela's ability to use the
Bimanoid Interface. Angela can sense the
Buld who are approaching Earth, but she has no way to contact the Buld spaceship or even verify that her "vision" of an approaching ship is correct. Ivory is the one to go out and get help from Paul Allen to establish communications with the Buld Spaceship.
Thomas is in a difficult position when he arrives in the
Buld Reality.
Trysta has viewed his future in the Buld Reality and Thomas knows that he has some role to play in the future of Earth, but he knows no details of his future life. When he arrives in the Buld Reality, the
Huaoshy alter the
dimensional structure of the universe and make time travel impossible. Thomas has long had the ability to receive information from the future, mostly in the form of contact with his future self and Trysta, a type of communication that was mostly at an unconscious level. When that connection to the future is lost, Thomas becomes very unhappy. He decides that he needs to remove all the nanites from his brain. That decision precipitates as severe mental breakdown. He only slowly recovers and he develops a long-lasting relationship with one of his doctors,
Janet Jepson. Thomas eventually takes back on board his
nanites, but in the Buld Reality he is never comfortable with them in his brain.
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| Anney |
After the Buld visit Earth, the
Nereid Intervention on Earth is terminated and the Overseers abandon their monitoring of Earth then all of the conditions of the agreement between Trysta and
Grean have been fulfilled. Everyone with knowledge of the secret history of Humanity from Thomas to
Izhiun to Grean to Angela's little "sister"
Anney depart planet Earth. However, Izhiun want's to leave the people of Earth with information about
Genesaunt Civilization. After consultation with Thomas, Izhiun and Thomas leave their nanites in "
the editor". At first, the editor has no real way to make sense of the information provided by those nanites. However, Ivory finally completes the connection and brings together Angela with key information from Izhiun's nanites, allowing Angela to finally make efficient use of the Bimanoid Interface to access data in the Sedronic Domain. This allows the
Exode story to be told to the people of Earth.
UPDATE. The following short story was originally posted to another website (biosgraphy.com, now defunct), so I'm reproducing the text of that short story here.
The Athlash Intervention
When Trysta set off on her final time
travel mission, she imagined that her years of motherhood were over
and done with. However, as a relatively young Asterothrope female,
Trysta still had time for further family building.
In a technical sense, due to the
wonders of time travel, Gwyned and Andy, Tryst's two children who
were born in the 20th century of the Buld Reality, were not Trysta's
"second brood". In the timeline of the universe as we know
it, Trysta's daughter Hyanti (who were fathered by Athlash) was born
some 10,000 years before Gwyned and Andy.
After successfully completing her
mission at Phasi, Trysta teleported herself to Bermuda. There, she
activated the second teleportation terminal on Earth that would allow
for direct long-distance teleportation of Interventionist agents all
the way from the Galactic Core.
While preparing Trysta for her final
time travel mission, Grean had been rather crafty. Trysta had been
allowed to assume that Earth's teleportation terminals would be used
by the so-called Grendels, the artificial lifeforms that had spent
millions of years bringing the human species into existence on Earth.
Thus, Trysta was surprised when Athlash, an Ek'col, was the first
agent to emerge from the Bermuda teleportation terminal.
Trysta was enjoying something of a
vacation while waiting for the Bermuda terminal to activate. It would
be thousands of years before Earthlings colonized Bermuda, so she had
the island to herself and she spent a few glorious summer months of
long sunny days on the beaches. When her nanites signaled a
teleportation event, Trysta quickly slipped into the Hierion Domain
where the teleporter was safely hidden away from the prying eyes of
the Overseers.
During this phase of her mission into
the past, Trysta was scheduled to provide support for any incoming
agents. Ten thousand years previously, Ekcolir had visited South
America and genetically modified a few plant species, providing them
with the enzymes that were needed to make some chemicals that would
eventually play an important role in Earth's history during the
Lendhalen Intervention.
At the moment when Trysta reached the
teleportation terminal, Ekcolir was long-since dead, although he
lived on as an artificial lifeform known as Rilocke. Rilocke was a
passenger on the Buld spaceship that was then on its way to Earth
from the Galactic Core. Trysta had seen into the future of the Buld
Reality and knew that the Buld would make First Contact with
Earthlings in the year 2012, but she had never been allowed to know
the fate of Ekcolir.
Ekcolir had been instrumental in
convincing Trysta to collaborate with Grean to end the Time Travel
War. Working on Earth and disguised as an Earthling, Ekcolir had won
Trysta's heart and her trust. The greatest shock and surprise of
Trysta's life had come when Ekcolir fathered her first son, Thomas.
Since no Earthling could have impregnated Trysta, the arrival of
Thomas blew Ekcolir's cover. He confessed to being an Ek'col, a type
of humanoid that had been specifically designed to allow Trysta to
merge her Asterothrope genes into the human gene pool.
Thus, Trysta could barely believe her
own eyes when she saw that the first Interventionist agent who
arrived at Bermuda by teleportation from the Galactic Core. He was a
man who looked just like her long-lost soul mate, Ekcolir. Stunned
into silence for a few moments, she simply watched him as he moved
around the teleportation chamber, checking the teleportation
transcripts and confirming that he had arrived at the Bermuda
terminal. He suddenly noticed Trysta, looked up from the data display
and fixed her with his bright-eyed gaze.
Joyfully imagining that Grean had
arranged to give her and Ekcolir a joint mission assignment on Earth,
Trysta cried out, "Ekcolir!" and rushed to throw her arms
around him.
Athlash stood rather stiffly, waiting
for her to realize her error. He asked, "Who is Ekcolir?"
Trysta pulled back to arm's length and
sent a swarm of nanites into Athlash. She quickly confirmed that he
was genetically identical to Ekcolir, but a different and unique
biological individual. With rising anger towards Grean (how could she
play such a nasty trick?) she asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm Athlash. Grean told me that
you would be expecting me to appear here and that you will help me
make some visits to South America."
Trysta let her hands fall to her sides.
"Sorry, you're a clone of someone I knew in the previous
Reality." The entire situation quickly became clear to Trysta.
Had Grean informed her that a clone of Ekcolir would be assigned to
Bermuda, Trysta would have objected. So here he was, sent without
warning, another Ek'col, designed, crafted and no doubt trained to be
exactly what Trysta needed and desired.
As an Asterothrope female, Trysta was
herself designed to help rapidly populate planets that were being
colonized. In essence, her body was an optimized baby-making machine.
And she had just spent three months alone on an island, with nothing
but her memories of Ekcolir and Deomede to keep her company. In an
instant she evaluated and categorized Athlash: young, innocent,
beautiful and an opposite pole of attraction that had been custom
made for Trysta.
The two of them rather awkwardly fell
into their designated roles as Interventionist agents. Athlash
methodically briefed Trysta on the details of his mission. She let
him talk, even though she had already assimilated the infites that
Grean had implanted in his body. Those infites carried an even more
detailed account of his mission than he had learned during his
training as an Interventionist agent.
The first task for Athlash came as a
bit of a surprise to Trysta. Knowing the dangers involved with
sending Athlash to South America, Grean wanted to bring in a more
experienced agent for support. Thus, as a "practice mission",
Athlash was first teleported to the other side of the world where he
emerged from the Phasi teleportation terminal. Noah was still in the
area, helping the residents of Phasi adapt to changes in their lives
that had been caused by the flooding of the Black Sea.
Taking advantage of the naïveté of
Athlash, Noah convinced him to spend two months helping to re-settle
the Phasians. What had been planned as a quick trip to recruit Noah
for help in South America turned into two agonizing months for Trysta
as she was forced to watch Athlash working with the Phasians.
Of course, the primitive Phasians were
fascinated by Athlash and thought he was some sort of god. In any
case, Trysta got plenty of practice using the Bimanoid Interface to
monitor Athlash during the months when he lived with the Phasians.
The only real "problem" was that the virtual reality in the
Hierion Domain did not include a replicoid for Noah. As an alien
Preland, Noah was not allowed access to Earth's virtual reality. With
much time on her hands, Trysta pondered the means by which she, as an
Asterothrope, had been granted special access to a virtual reality
that otherwise only contained the artificial life replicas of humans.
Eventually, Noah and Athlash arrived in
Bermuda. Trysta restrained herself from berating Athlash, but she
gave Noah a severe tongue lashing. Noah just laughed and told Trysta
to relax. "The Amazonian jungle has been there for millions of
years and it will still be there tomorrow."
They spent a week discussing plans for
the first trip to South America. Their goal was to introduce the
natives to various plants that could be used as sources of
mind-altering drugs. Noah would serve as Athlash's animal familiar.
The Preland morphed to take on the form a fantastic jaguar with a
half-human head. Athlash played the role of a shaman and morphed his
skin so as to take on the appearance of a native.
From the start of the first trip to
South America things went poorly. Neither Noah or Athlash were very
good with the native language and they knew little about the natives'
culture. Athlash nearly got himself murdered by a jealous warrior and
Trysta had to perform an emergency teleportation to extract him from
the life-threatening situation and bring him back to Bermuda.
While healing his wounds with her
advanced Asterothrope medical nanites, Trysta complained bitterly
about how quickly Athlash had antagonized the natives and how Noah
had done nothing to protect Athlash.
Dismayed by Trysta's anger and harsh
criticisms, Athlash assured Noah, "I saw you coming to help me.
Trysta just acted faster."
Noah, now back in Preland form, nodded
and patted Athlash's shoulder, "Ignore her. She's just in a
jealous rage."
Athlash misunderstood what Noah was
saying. "Trysta, I know I'm new at this. If you think could do
my mission more efficiently then let me stay here and you go out
there with Noah."
Noah laughed. "Athlash, Grean
played a sly trick on you. You were selected for this mission
because-"
Trysta interrupted Noah. "That's
enough, Noah! You go away...I'll tell him."
Noah exited from the teleportation
chamber. Athlash asked, "Tell me what?"
Trysta took him by the hand and led him
out into a glorious fall day on Bermuda. A strong breeze pushed waves
against the shore and for a time they walked together along a low
cliff top. Finally she said, "I've been so lonely, and then you
scared me today."
Athlash put a hand on her shoulder and
tried to understand the change in her manner. "You've always
seemed so angry at me."
Trysta shook her head and looked into
his eyes. "I'm angry at Grean. It was easy to predict the effect
that you would have on me. But I've already been through this. I told
myself that Deomede meant nothing to me...I held out against his
charms for almost a year....."
Athlash was only becoming more
confused. "Who is Deomede?"
"He is you.....a version of you
who will exist in the future."
"Ah.....Grean told me that you are
a time traveler. You've seen me in the future?"
Trysta laughed rather nervously. "No,
Grean allowed me no foreknowledge of you. I was shocked when you
arrived here." In fact, Trysta had a bad feeling about Athlash
and his future. Since his arrival on Earth, she'd repeatedly tried
using her Viewing Nanites to look into his future, but she had failed
to find evidence of him there. With a sense a dread, she could well
imagine him dying while on a mission in South America.
Athlash tried to imagine what she was
saying. He gently brushed a small tear from below her eye. "So,
I remind you of this Deomede?"
She took hold of his strong arms and
squeezed his biceps. "No, you are Deomede. You are Ekcolir. You
were crafted and designed to be my.....soul mate."
Athlash laughed, "Ah, that
explains it."
"What?"
"Even when you shout at me, I'm
still attracted to you." Trysta rested her head against his
chest and he put his arms around her. "Really, I can't be
Deomede. I can't be this Ekcolir who you knew. Can't you accept me?
Athlash?"
There, on that windy shore they became
lovers.
With time Noah and Athlash developed a
routine, a strategy for quickly and efficiently introducing tribes to
the wonders the drugs that could give them access to the Bimanoid
Interface. Trysta was always there waiting when the consciousness of
a native awakened in their replicoid's body in the Hierion Domain.
They set in motion the development of the first virtual reality community of
Earthling replicoids who had some understanding of the Hierion
Domain. Trysta shared with that growing replicoid community some of
the "future history" of Earth.
Then it ended. One day, Athlash
poisoned himself by selecting the wrong plant. When Trysta realized
what was happening it was too late. Her medical nanites swarmed and
extracted the poison molecules from his body, but it was a dead body,
laying there on the floor of the teleportation chamber. Athlash was
gone. Trysta teleported herself back to the Galactic Core. Her time
on Earth was over. But inside her was the daughter of Athlash. {the end}
Note: Hyanti was a
mind clone of the daughter of Athlash and Trysta, used by Grean for a special mission on Earth.
Related Reading:
The Case of the Superfluous Sedrons
