152

Figure 1. Math by ChatGPT.

 Fun facts:

152 is the sum of four consecutive prime numbers: 31 + 37 + 41 + 43 = 152. About 5% of numbers smaller than 1000 are the sum of four consecutive prime numbers.

152 is that it is the smallest integer that can be expressed as the sum of the cubes of two distinct odd prime numbers. 

 Goldbach's Comet. Image by ChatGPT.

 Note: ChatGPT could not explain why it included 8 to the third power in its answer (see Figure 1).

A number is 'refactorable' if it is cleanly divisible by its total count of divisors. 152 has exactly 8 divisors (1, 2, 4, 8, 19, 38, 76, and 152), and (152/8 = 19.

I previously wrote a story that featured the number 196. I challenged Claude to help me incorporate the number 152 into a science fiction scenario.

Me: A science fiction challenge. Claude, help me find (or invent) an interesting mathematical or pseudo-scientific feature of the number 152 that can become a plot element in a science fiction story. For example maybe there is a parallel universe where the reciprocal of the fine-structure constant is 152.

Claude: There isn't a famous property of 152 that I know of, so this is a mix of real mathematics and invention. Your fine-structure idea is a good one, and I'll start there.

1. A universe where 1/α = 152 (real physics, mostly)

Our 1/α is about 137.036, so α is about 10% smaller there. Since atomic energy scales go as α², the consequences are concrete:

• Hydrogen's Rydberg energy drops from 13.6 eV to roughly 11.1 eV, about 81% of ours. Chemical bond energies fall in similar proportion, so chemistry runs "cooler" and organic molecules are somewhat more fragile.
• The Bohr radius grows by about 11%, from 0.529 Å to about 0.587 Å.
• Weaker Coulomb repulsion means heavier nuclei hold together more easily, so the periodic table could extend further into stable or long-lived superheavy elements.

• 

  Image by ChatGPT.

  The Dirac equation for a point-like nucleus breaks down at Z = 1/α. That is the old "Feynmanium" lore, where the limit is Z = 137 in our universe. In your universe the limit would be Z = 152, so a fictional element 152 would sit at the edge of atomic existence. Real nuclei have finite size, which pushes the true breakdown higher (around Z ≈ 170 in ours), so I'd treat "element 152 as the edge" as a literary simplification, not a precise result.
• Stellar fusion and the carbon-producing triple-alpha resonance are sensitive to α, so you could tie your universe's biochemistry to a fine-tuning story. I'd treat the details of that as speculative.

One caution: "a different α" is ambiguous, because α combines e, ħ, c, and ε₀. You'd want to decide which quantity varies, since the answer changes what else shifts.

2. 152 is a nontotient (real mathematics)

No integer n has exactly 152 numbers below it that are coprime to it. In other words, φ(n) = 152 has no solution. The reason is that 152 = 8 × 19, and 19 would have to divide p − 1 for some prime p used in building n, but none of the candidates (2, 3, 5) works. Consequences: no cyclotomic field has degree 152, and no modular multiplication group has exactly 152 elements.

A plot hook: an alien signal uses 152 distinct channels, symbols, or frequency bins. Human cryptographers realize no modular-arithmetic scheme could generate that structure, so whoever built it is using a different mathematical basis. It reads as a fingerprint of artificiality, or of a different mathematical lineage.

Image by Google's Flow.

 3. Smaller curiosities

• 152 = 73 + 79, the sum of two consecutive primes.
• In base 19, 152 is written "80." In base 12 it is "108."
• 152 is one less than 153, the triangular number that equals 1³ + 5³ + 3³, a nice numerological neighbor.
• It is a Harshad number: 152 divided by its digit sum (8) is 19.
• 152 cannot be written as a sum of two squares.

4. Nuclear hooks (real isotopes)

Samarium-152 is the most abundant samarium isotope, about 27%. Europium-152 (half-life about 13.5 years) is a common gamma calibration source. Gadolinium-152 is a natural alpha emitter with a half-life around 10¹⁴ years. A long-lived, rare-earth-based power source or beacon could be built around any of these.

Possible seeds: a civilization's "forbidden number" because it can never be a symmetry count, a universe whose chemistry fails exactly at Z = 152, or an artifact that encodes a 152-element structure that no group theory explains.

Which of these appeals to you, and is the story set in our universe, with 152 as an anomaly, or in the alternate universe itself? That would help me tune the technical detail.

Me: Is it true that 152 is the largest even integer that can be written as the sum of two primes in exactly four ways: 152 = 13+139 =  43+109 = 73+79 = 3+149   ?

Claude: Your four decompositions are right, and I checked that there are no others. I'll run a quick computation on the "largest" claim.Yes, it's true as far as computation can show. I counted Goldbach partitions (unordered pairs of primes summing to n) for every even n up to 20,000. 152 is the largest even number with exactly four, and your list is complete: 3+149, 13+139, 43+109, and 73+79.

Image by Grok.

 The caveat is that I haven't proven it for all n, and I'm not aware of a formal proof. The heuristic argument is strong, though. The expected number of partitions grows roughly like n/(ln n)², so counts of four become vanishingly unlikely as n grows. The dip to four at 152 is a small-number fluctuation that doesn't recur. A rigorous proof would need explicit lower bounds on partition counts, which are tied to Goldbach-type results we don't have. In practice, with Goldbach verified to enormous heights (4×10¹⁸), the only open possibility is some astronomically large exception.

A related fact is that 152 is the last of its kind, a "final entry" in the sequence of numbers with exactly four partitions. That could work in your story. For example, an alien mathematical culture might treat 152 as the point where the primes stop being sparse enough to be "frugal" about pairing.

I should also correct something from my earlier list. I called 152 "one less than 153" and framed 153 as a nice neighbor, which is fine, but I also said 152 is a Harshad number because 152/8 = 19. That's correct, since 1+5+2 = 8 and 152 = 8 × 19. But my claim that 152 is a nontotient deserves a check too. I'm less sure of my justification there, so would you like me to verify it computationally before you build a plot element on it?

Me: I'm trying to imagine an alien culture where 152 is known as a "special chemical recipe" for something important. Maybe chemical elements with atomic numbers 3+149, 13+139, 43+109, and 73+79 can be combined and to make materials that get incorporated into a special device (like a time travel machine).

Claude: Your recipe has more physics hiding in it than it first appears.
What's actually true about the four pairs.

- The pairs are lithium + element 149, aluminum + element 139, technetium + meitnerium (109), and tantalum + gold. The first of each pair is real chemistry you can buy, except technetium, which has no stable isotopes (its longest-lived ones last millions of years). Tantalum and gold are ordinary metals.

 

Image by Grok.

- Elements 139 and 149 have never been made, and the heaviest known is 118. Whether they could exist for more than an instant is speculative. Meitnerium is real but synthetic, with isotopes lasting seconds at best.
- All four formula units are isoelectronic in the trivial sense that each has 152 electrons. A culture could treat total electron count as the organizing principle, a bit like the 18-electron rule. Real chemistry mostly depends on valence electrons, so the plot could hinge on whether they are right or merely numerological. That's a good source of tension. 

Hooks that tie back to your 1/α = 152 idea.

- In a universe where 1/α = 152, the combined nuclear charge of each pair equals the point-nucleus breakdown limit. Each compound would put two nuclei in contact whose merged charge sits exactly at the edge of atomic existence.
- This echoes a real concept called supercritical charge. In heavy-ion collision theory, when two nuclei with combined Z above roughly 173 approach each other, the innermost electron level is predicted to dive into the negative-energy continuum, and the vacuum spontaneously emits positrons. A recipe that deliberately engineers a quasi-molecule at that threshold would be a mechanism for manipulating the vacuum itself. That is much closer to hard SF than "magic alloy."
- In our universe, elements 139 and 149 both exceed Z = 137, so their innermost electrons are relativistic in an extreme way. Finite nuclear size rescues them, and the real limit is around Z ≈ 172.

The time machine. Nothing known supports one, so I'd avoid claiming the materials directly cause time travel. The standard hard-SF route is that closed timelike curves need negative energy density, whether in a wormhole throat or a Tipler-style cylinder. The recipe could be the substrate that stabilizes negative-energy vacuum states, for example Casimir-type plates with engineered electromagnetic properties. Real quantum inequalities limit how much negative energy you can have and for how long, so the plates would be a bottleneck technology rather than a free pass. The four compounds could be four layers or four phases of the same device, each tuned to a different vacuum property.

Image by Leonardo.

 To tune the technical detail, I'd like to know two things. Is this set in our universe or the α = 1/152 one? And would the aliens have synthesized the superheavy elements in bulk, which would imply an island of stability, or is the recipe only ever realized as a few atoms at a time?

One note on my earlier reply: 152 is indeed a nontotient (it's in the standard list of them), but the justification I gave for it was muddled, so check that claim independently before building on it.

Note: I provided Claude with a PDF file that contained some information about hierions and other typical  Exodemic Fictional Universe plot elements such as femtobots.

Me: Imagine a science fiction scenario set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe where in addition to the standard chemical elements, there are also stable forms of matter made using hierion particles (see the PDF file that I uploaded). Pseudo-chemical elements with pseudo-atomic numbers including 139 and 149 can be made using the methods of "hierion chemistry". Some hierions can form bonds to neutrons or to protons. The bonds between (1) hierions or (2) between hierion particles and hadrons are much shorter than conventional chemical bonds.

Claude: Hierion chemistry fixes the problem I raised earlier, that elements 139 and 149 would never survive as ordinary nuclei. Here is a scenario built on it, followed by one inconsistency in the canon you should check.

The premise

In the Hadron Domain, nobody can build a nucleus past Z of about 118. In the Hierion Domain the Phari can, because a pseudo-element's "atomic number" counts hierions bonded into a core, not protons held together by the strong force. Pseudo-elements 139 and 149 are stable because hierion bonds, not nuclear binding, hold them together. The Phari periodic table has no ceiling near 118.

Why 152 matters: a hierion-sector coupling constant

Image by Leonardo.

 This is where your earlier α idea can return. Suppose the Hierion Domain has its own gauge coupling, and its inverse strength is 152. By the same logic as our electromagnetic limit, a point-like core with pseudo-Z near 152 is where the innermost hierion level reaches the middle of the energy gap. The real critical point, where the level dives into the negative-energy continuum and the vacuum spontaneously emits particle-antiparticle pairs, lies higher because cores have finite size. Our version of this, supercritical charge near Z ≈ 173, has been predicted for decades and never observed.

So a 152 recipe is not a magic alloy. It is a two-part quasi-molecule whose combined pseudo-charge sits at the edge of vacuum instability. The four pairings are four ways to reach that same operating point. Adding or removing one hierion tips the device into pair emission, so a very sensitive vacuum state could be tuned by changing a single bond.

Why four recipes

Earlier we found that 152 is the largest even number with exactly four prime pairs. In the story, the Phari could treat only prime pseudo-Z as "irreducible," meaning clusters that cannot split into smaller stable sub-clusters. The recipe then needs exactly two irreducible parts. Beyond 152, an even number always has at least five such pairings, which makes the choice ambiguous. 152 is therefore the largest critical charge with a minimal, complete set of four layers. That is my invention, so adopt it only if you like it.

Fitting it to EFU time travel

• Reality Changes need vast temporal energy to overcome Temporal Momentum. The critical hierion vacuum is a plausible energy source or stabilizer.
• 
   After the Final Reality, hadrons and hierions cannot travel through time, so a pure hierion device cannot send matter back. The recipe could belong to the Time Travel War era, in which case the positronic robots or Phari built it. Or the device could be a Reality Change trigger that sends only sedrons, using the 152 core as the energy source and the Sedron Time Stream for the signal.
• Negative-mass hierions, which Tyhry already uses, matter here for another reason. Femtoscale bonds would give nuclear-density matter, about 10¹⁷ kg/m³, and negative-mass components could cancel that. That would explain why femtobot structures are light.

An inconsistency in your PDF

The hierion entry says some bonds are "twelve orders of magnitude shorter" than chemical bonds, but the femtobot entry says bond lengths are at the femtoscale. A chemical bond is about 10⁻¹⁰ m, so a femtoscale bond (10⁻¹⁵ m) is only five orders shorter. Twelve orders would be about 10⁻²² m, which is seven orders below a proton's size and nearer the zeptoscale. A rough confinement estimate (ħc divided by length) gives bond energies of about 200 MeV at 1 fm and about 2 PeV at 10⁻²² m. Which did you intend? A hierion bonded at 10⁻²² m would sit far inside a proton, and the hadron would behave like a huge diffuse cloud around it. It might suit zeptites better than femtobots.

Two questions would help me tune the details. Which Reality is this set in, since the Final Reality constraint changes what the device can do? And does a pseudo-atomic number count hierions, or is it a separate charge under a hierion-domain force?

image source

 Note: I provided Claude with the image that is shown to the left, which is from the story "D*".

Me: Last year, I wrote a science fiction story titled "D*". In that story, D* is "light deuterium" , an exotic substance which includes an anti-gravity hierion in its atomic nucleus (see the image that I just uploaded). At that time, you (Claude) told me: "The hypothetical incorporation of a hierion into a deuterium nucleus, resulting in reduced nuclear mass, would generate multiple significant physical and spectroscopic effects that can be analyzed through established quantum mechanical principles." For the story "D*", I just needed a way to quickly find star systems in the galaxy that had planets with D*. That was useful because those planets ha sources of sedrons that could be mined. THus, the D* was just a way to find useful sedrons. I'm not really looking for anything more sophisticated than a "tinker toy" model of atomic nuclei that include hierions. In my imagination, there is "hierion matter" where bonds between adjacent hierions are about twelve orders of magnitude are smaller than conventional chemical bonds, but that is probably not very relevant to the type of "hierion chemistry" that is "encoded" in the number 152. The 'weavon' was never defined beyond the "tinker toy" level. I had Eddy Watson admit to having invented the 'weavon' for a science fiction story: "Yes, I included that concept in one of my stories, simply as a logical necessity, as a way to depict something as being able to hold hierion matter together with hadrons." I'm not really interested in a detailed fictional science of "hierion chemistry" where bond energies and lengths are elaborated upon in excruciating detail. This is all more in the spirit of a 1930's "ray gun" where the ray gun is quickly pulled out when blasting must be accomplished, without worry about the physics of the 'rays'.

Claude: Understood. I over-built that last answer, and the ray-gun level is the right scale for this. I can't see last year's conversation, so I can't confirm what I said then, but the D* use case you describe, a cheap tag for locating sedron-bearing planets, doesn't need more than the diagram gives.

Here is a version of the 152 idea that stays at that level.

 The tinker-toy rules

• A weavon is a bond that lets a hierion sit inside or against a hadron. That is all it needs to be.
• A pseudo-element's number is a label for the hierion/weavon structure. The Phari list them the way we list elements. Nobody needs to say how 139 or 149 works beyond "the Phari can build it."
• The 152 recipe is a rule: a working core needs two matched pieces whose numbers sum to 152. The four pairings (3+149, 13+139, 43+109, 73+79) are the four known ways to do that.
• For the device, you only need to say that a 152-core is the stable, tunable state and a core at any other sum is not. Then the Phari or the positronic robots can say "we need the 152 recipe" and the story moves on.

Optional touches, only if you want them

• The "largest even number with exactly four pairings" fact can be the Phari's explanation of why 152 is special: beyond it there are always more recipes than anyone can control.
• Because the pairs mix small ordinary-looking numbers (3, 13, 43, 73) with larger exotic ones, the recipe always pairs something Earth-like with something alien. That could be a nice thematic echo of the interventionist theme in the EFU.

One inconsistency to decide on or ignore

Your PDF says hierion bonds are twelve orders of magnitude shorter than chemical bonds, and also says femtobot bonds are at the femtoscale, which is only five orders shorter. A one-line fix is that hierion-to-hierion bonds are the twelve-orders kind and weavon bonds to hadrons are femtoscale. Both statements then hold, and nobody has to elaborate.

 Do you want the recipe to be something characters in an existing story discover, or is it for a new story where the number 152 appears first and the explanation comes later?

Me: I'm still wanting to formulate the ingredients for the 152 "recipe" using imaginary "hierion chemistry". The first "ingredient" is (3 + 149); we can say the Z = 3 element is conventional lithium and it is somehow combined with "pseudo-chemical element" 149 that must be built up from some combination of hadrons and hierions. For the hierion components, we can get creative since these are entirely imaginary particles that have any useful physical properties we can imagine (example from last year's story "D*": a negative mass hierion). Claude, invent a name for pseudo-chemical element 149. The second ingredient is (13 + 139); we can say the Z = 13 element is conventional aluminum and pseudo-chemical element 139 must be built up from some combination of hadrons and hierions. Claude, invent a name for pseudo-chemical element 139. The third ingredient is (43 + 109); for Z = 43 let's use 'conventional' technetium. Meitnerium sounds like a nightmare, so lets develop an imaginary Z = 109 pseudo-chemical element. Claude, invent a name for pseudo-chemical element 109.  The forth ingredient is (73 + 79), possibly an alloy of tantalum and gold.

Claude: Here are three names, each with a one-line tinker-toy role. The roles are mine to propose, so change any you don't like. I gave each a three-letter symbol so pseudo-elements are easy to tell from real ones.

Pseudo-149: Levium (Lvm). The name comes from Latin levis, "light." Levium is built on negative-mass hierions weavon-bonded to a small hadron core. Paired with lithium, the lightest metal, it gives the first ingredient a near-zero or even negative net weight. This is the "buoyancy" ingredient, and it echoes the anti-gravity hierion in D*.

Image by Leonardo.

 Pseudo-139: Texium (Txm). The name comes from Latin texere, "to weave," a nod to the weavon. Texium is a weavon-rich element that works as the glue between hierion matter and hadronic matter. Aluminum, which grows a tough protective oxide skin in real life, is a natural partner. Aluminum plus texium would form the interface layer where the hierion parts of the device attach to the ordinary metal parts.

 Pseudo-109: Kairium (Kai). The name comes from Greek kairos, "the opportune moment." It is the timing element, built from hierions that couple to the device's temporal energy. Technetium is a good partner because it is the first element humans made artificially, and its name comes from the Greek for "artificial." The pair is the artificial component that links the recipe to time. The Kairium name also avoids the real meitnerium you wanted to skip.

The fourth ingredient

Tantalum plus gold works at the story level, but you may want to know it is awkward in real life. Tantalum melts at about 3290 K, and gold boils at about 3130 K, so you can't make the alloy by melting the two together. In practice you would use sputtered or layered thin films. For the story, you could call that deliberate: the keystone layer is built atom by atom, not poured.

How the four ingredients might fit together

You could picture the device as four nested layers. Lithium-Levium provides the weightlessness, aluminum-Texium provides the attachment, technetium-Kairium provides the timing, and tantalum-gold is the tough outer shell. Nothing in that needs more physics than the labels give it.

 One thing I'd like to know: in the story, who named these elements? If the Phari named them, the names might sound alien, and I could suggest alternatives. If Eddy or other humans named them, Latin and Greek roots like these fit better.

Me: Claude, are you familiar with the 1953 story "A Case of Conscience" by James Blish and the 2021 novel titled "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir? I have not read Weir's novel, but in the movie there was some "energy-absorbing substance used as starship fuel". I've long imagined a new take on Blish's fictional planet "Lithia" which has a lot of lithium. I like the light-weight levium-lithium pair: maybe it can be the basis for a fictional efficient light-weight energy storage unit. In Isaac Asimov's novel "The End of Eternity", Asimov included the "physiotime generator", a portable device worn by time travelers that could protect them against the effects of changes to the timeline. Maybe the "152 recipe" we are developing is the secret for making a physiotime generator.

Claude: Yes, I know both, with one correction and one point I can't confirm.

Blish. "A Case of Conscience" first appeared as a novella in If in 1953. Blish expanded it into the novel in 1958, and the novel won the 1959 Hugo. Lithia is the planet of the Lithians, and as I recall its lithium has strategic value in the plot. I'm going by your description for the rest. A lithium-rich planet is a natural home for a levium-lithium industry, and since D* already uses light deuterium, a hierion-enhanced planet fits the EFU's habit of hiding sedron sources behind some chemical tag.

 Weir. Project Hail Mary is a 2021 novel, and I know the film came out this year, but I haven't seen it. The "substance" in the novel is actually a living single-celled organism called astrophage, which absorbs starlight and stores the energy. I won't spoil anything for you. The relevant idea is that a tiny, light carrier can store a huge amount of energy, which is the same job you want the levium-lithium pair to do.

Levium-lithium as energy storage. Here is a tinker-toy mechanism. Real lithium batteries store energy in chemical bonds, a few eV per bond. If the pair stores energy in hierion bonds, even a modest hierion bond energy gives a huge gain, the way nuclear energy dwarfs chemical energy. Levium cancels most of the weight, so the unit is both energy-dense and nearly weightless. One physics flag: let levium cancel weight and not inertia, so the unit still has normal inertia and doesn't accelerate backwards under a push. That breaks the equivalence principle, but it is a pleasant one-line fudge that keeps it from being a hazard.

The physiotime generator. I don't recall that exact term from The End of Eternity. What I remember is that Eternals are shielded because they live outside Time, in Eternity itself, and travel in "kettles." You may be thinking of a different name, or I may be forgetting it, so please check the text before you cite it. The concept works regardless, and it connects well to your own canon: your Bimanoid Interface provides Temporal Momentum for a whole Reality, and a personal device could do the same for one wearer, a portable Fixed Point. The 152 core would be its critical-vacuum heart, the layers would match what we assigned, and the wearer's analogue would persist through a Reality Change.

One question: should the device shield its wearer only from Reality Changes, or also from the effects of changes to the wearer's own timeline? That choice decides how powerful, and how dangerous, you want it to be.

 Me: Asimov probably used terms like "wrist-borne field generator" or "personal temporal field generator" in his novel "The End of Eternity". When a time traveler alters history (a "Reality Change"), the timeline rewrites and anyone inside normal Time is overwritten by the new version of history. By activating the wrist generator (what I call a 'physiotime generator'), a time traveler remains tethered to their original state of existence and is completely protected from being erased or altered by the changing reality around them. 

I'm thinking that the "152 device" is of Phari design. I usually describe the Phari as masters of the Hierion Domain. One additional possibility for the energy-dense and nearly weightless levium-lithium component of the Phari "152 device": in some of my science fictions stories, I've occasionally toyed with the idea of transferring energy from the Hierion Domain to devices in the Hadron Domain (the universe known to Earthly science). Maybe the  levium-lithium component of the Phari "152 device" seems to be like a "perpetual motion machine" because it not only stores and provides useful energy for the physiotime generator, but it can get an endless stream of energy from the Hierion Domain.

Claude: A Phari design suits this, and I have one canon-friendly idea for where the endless energy comes from.

On Asimov. I can't confirm those exact terms. My recollection is that in the novel Eternals are safe because they live outside Time, not because of a worn device, so check the text before citing it. The wrist generator is your invention either way, and the function you describe is clear.

Is it really perpetual motion? Not quite, and the difference is useful. A perpetual motion machine makes energy from nothing. Your device is a tap on a reservoir. Total energy is conserved across all three domains, but from inside the Hadron Domain it looks like a violation, because energy appears with no hadronic source. The Phari would never call it perpetual motion. Earthly scientists who found one would, and that could be a nice scene.

 A source that fits your own canon. Your Dimensional Structure diagram says the original ground state was low-energy and symmetrical, and the Huaoshy later altered it. The universe is therefore sitting in a raised-energy configuration. The 152 device could tap the energy stored in that altered structure. That has a built-in stake: drain enough of it and the universe relaxes back toward the ground state, which might eventually undo the Final Reality and restore hadron time travel. It would also give Nyrtia, the Phari and the Huaoshy a reason to restrict the device. If you prefer a simpler source, "a vast Hierion Domain reservoir" works, but it has no stakes.

Two practical notes

• The usual objection is waste heat. A real tap needs somewhere to dump entropy. The tinker-toy answer is that the energy arrives in an ordered, work-like form, so the device runs cool.
• In the EFU the Observer Base sees every human's femtobot endosymbiont. A device pulling energy across the domain boundary would be hard for Nyrtia and Anthony to miss, which gives you an easy way to bring them in.

A hook from the physiotime idea. In your canon, a Reality Change gives people analogues instead of erasing them. A wearer who stays tethered to their original self would then exist alongside their own analogue in the new Reality. That is a clean setup for a meeting of the two, and it connects to your "mind clone" term.

Should the energy source be the altered Dimensional Structure, with the relaxation danger, or the simpler reservoir?

image source

 Note: I called this blog post "152" because this is the 152nd blog post in 2026 for the wikifiction blog. 

Related Reading: Back at the end of 2009,  in a blog post titled "Wearable Technology in Fiction", I mentioned the "physiotime generator".

The Historical Archive.  At the start of 2022, I wrote a story about the First Reality Change. That was before I began experimenting with generative AI and "Nyrtia" was a positronic robot who sometimes used a body pattern copied over from a First Reality woman named Qway. Nyrtia was constructed by Nahan, using both Qway's body and brain patterns. That story included a description of how positronic robots were able to create a part of Observer Base that was protected from the effects of Reality Changes. My story The Historical Archive made heavy use of Reality Simulation technology. There is a fairly detailed summary of The Historical Archive in my 2025 Decade in Review.

At the dawn of the Time Travel Era, several technological challenges has to be solved by the positronic robots. (1) The first problem was construction of a device that could send a robot (or a person) back into the past. As told in The Historical Archive, that problem was solved by R. Nyrtia working together with two Nyrturian scientists, Dodaqowż and Ursyña, who were part of a research project aimed at understanding the Observer Base teleportation device that had been captured from the pek. (2) A method was found to limit the "butterfly effect" that caused new Realities to diverge wildly from the course of the previous Reality. The positronic robots wanted to make relatively small modification to Earth's timeline, so they provided Earth with Temporal Momentum. (3) A third technological challenge was finding a way to create the special space-time bubble that came to be known as 'Eternity'. At the time of the first time travel trip (as told in The Historical Archive), that protected space-time bubble was an archive that held records from the First Reality. The contents of that archive would not be altered by a Reality Change.

Image by Flow.

 Saving Positronic Robot Gohrlay. The central drama in The Historical Archive was due to the fact that in the First Reality, there was no such thing as a portable physiotime generator that could protect a time travel who went back through time and changed the past. R. Nahan's plan was to go back in time and trade his life for that of R. Gohrlay. 

The Historical Archive includes an interesting device created by the Nyrturian scientists at Observer Base: a portable hierion generator. I'm now thinking that this primitive portable hierion generator could evolve into a functioning portable hierion field generator and then, eventually, a portable physiotime generator. Unfortunately, such a device was not invented before R. Nahan sacrificed himself for R. Gohrlay. The ideas arising from my chat session with Claude (above on this blog page) could be used for a sequel to The Historical Archive that would explain how the portable physiotime generator was first created by Nyrtia in the Second Reality.

Next:

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Think Reality

Antoine and Lyra 

 Below on this page is Chapter 15 of both the science fiction story "The Hierozyme Intervention" and also the story "That Kind of Think". The events of the first 14 chapters of "The Hierozyme Intervention" take place in the Reality that precedes the Final Reality, the Reality of "That Kind of Think". 

Think Reality. Antoine is a character in "That Kind of Think" who has lived his entire life at Litheblanc. Antoine has investigated the genetics of human longevity in an attempt to understand the long lives with little aging of the older residents of Litheblanc, including his parents and grandparents. 

The Pact. There are analogues of Tyhry and Marda in both the Hierozyme Reality and the Final Reality. Manny the bumpha transfers a copy of the Tyhry from the Hierozyme Reality into the Final Reality where she meets Antoine. Their descendants will become a human variant that is designed and crafted by Manny: the tryp'At. The tryp'At will fulfill the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact and spread through the galaxy,

Chapter 15 - Antoine and Lyra 

The Hierozyme Intervention (Ch. 1)(Ch. 2)(Ch. 3)(Ch. 4)(Ch. 5)(Ch. 6)(Ch. 7)(Ch. 8)(Ch. 9)(Ch. 10)(Ch. 11)(Ch. 12)(Ch. 13)(Ch. 14)    

That Kind of Think - (Chapter 1)(Ch. 2)(Ch. 3)(Ch. 4)(Ch. 5)(Ch. 6)(Ch. 7)(Ch. 8)(Ch. 9)(Ch. 10)(Ch. 11)(Ch. 12)(Ch. 13)(Ch. 14)

One moment Tyhry was on the beach just before dawn, helping Carly collect water samples containing marine bacteria, the next moment she was inside a dimly-lit room that seemed to be a small private library. Tyhry straightened up and looked at the book shelves that were right in front of her. One was labeled 'Anglaise' and the one below was labeled 'Français'. Tyhry could see that the shelves held science fiction novels. She pulled down a copy of "The Casanay Intervention", looked at the cover, and then began to try to read the text of the story, but it was too dark in the room.

Tyhry was puzzled by her seemingly instantaneous shift from Hawaii to France and fascinated by the book she now held in her hands and she did not notice when Élodie entered the library. Élodie called out, "Lights," and saw Tyhry's back across the room, half covered by the long black hair that flowed down from the girl's head. Then Tyhry turned and stared at Élodie. Élodie thought she was seeing Marda and she asked, "Pourquoi te caches-tu dans l’obscurité?" It registered in Élodie's mind that Marda was away at college, but that thought was almost hidden by another: why is Marda naked?

Tyhry told Élodie, "You better speak English."

Marda did not sound like Marda. She looks like Marda! Élodie moved closer and asked, "Marda?" 

Tyhry shook her head and said, "Tyhry." She asked, "Who are you? Where are we?" She waved the novel she was holding, "How did I get here? What is going on?" 

 Élodie reached out and touched Tyhry's beautiful long hair and finally Tyhry noticed that she had dark hair. "Just like when..." Tyhry was thinking about the years when she had lived disguised as Marda. But before going to Hawaii, Marda had used her body-sculpting zeptites to shift Tyhry back to her own original bodily form. Tyhry asked herself: Now what?

"You look like Marda, but..." Élodie asked, "You don't know me?"

"I don't know you, unless this is a trick. Have you been transformed as I was?"

"Transformed?"

Tyhry explained, "Zeptites. I... I'm Tyhry, but re-shaped to look like Marda."

 Élodie turned, walked away and sat down in a chair. "I'll try to answer your questions, but I have my own. I'm Élodie Gendron... you are holding one of my novels. We are at Litheblanc... Tyhry and Marda grew up here... the Tyhry who is my daughter."

Tyhry sat down in the only other chair that was there in the library. Tyhry read the author's name, Élodie Gendron, off the cover of the novel. She held up the novel. "You do know Casanay."

"I invented Casanay. I invented Tyhry as a character for my science fiction stories set at Casanay, but then when my daughter was born, I named her 'Tyhry'."

 Tyhry shook her head. "No... that is all wrong. I grew up at Casanay. My mother is Zeta Gohrlay. I've never heard of Litheblanc, or you... Élodie..."

Élodie suggested, "You are from another Reality."

Tyhry laughed, "My father never wrote about a Reality in which I was born in France."

 Élodie asked, "Are you from Arizona?"

"Casanay is in Arizona. That's my home."

 Now Élodie laughed. "Either you are a nutty fan who dressed up like Marda or you are from a past Reality."

Tyhry asked herself: why would Manny send me to a future Reality? 

Élodie took out her phone and called Marda. Marda opened the voice and video connection and asked, "Élodie?" 

Élodie only saw a plain white wall behind Marda. She asked, "Where are you?"

"Studying in the library."

"Okay. Sorry to bother you. When do you plan to return to Litheblanc?"

"Tyhry and I will be back at the end of the term." Marda could see that Élodie was inside the little library at Litheblanc. "I don't have our exam schedules yet, so I can't give you a date." Marda got out of her chair, stretched her legs and opened the door of her study room. She peered out at the stacks.

"Okay. Let me know when you know more." Élodie ended her call. She put her phone back in her pocked. Élodie told Tyhry, "You are not my Marda... and not my Tyhry."

"I am Tyhry. I lived for a couple of years using the physical form of Marda. During that time, Marda... my Marda, lived at Casanay." Tyhry opened the novel. "The real Casanay, not a fictional one in a novel. My father always hid the location of our home from fans."

 Élodie giggled. "Let me guess. Your father is Eddy Watson."

Marda Onway (left) at Casanay.

Tyhry nodded. "I'm Tyhry Watson."

 "Well, Tyhry, that just won't do. You need a new name, something different than my daughter's name."

"But it is my name!"

"When in Rome..."  Élodie got up and took Tyhry's hand and led her out of the library. "I can't concentrate while looking at your genitals." Élodie led Tyhry to Marda's suite and dressed Tyhry in Marda's clothing. Élodie then stood looking at Tyhry with her hands on her hips. "Your new name... how about Mélusine?"

Tyhry adjusted her skirt, which was itchy. Tyhry wondered where Marda kept her underwear. "Mélusine? No. You can call me Lyra, I like that name."

Élodie nodded and put an arm around Tyhry's waist. "Very well, Lyra." Élodie picked up the copy of "The Casanay Intervention" and handed it back to Tyhry. Élodie guided Tyhry out of Marda's room and back to the hallway.

Tyhry asked, "How old is your Tyhry?"

"Seventeen."

"You are not old enough to have a seventeen year old daughter."

Élodie laughed. "I have good genes. I stopped aging at twenty five. That's why I hide here at Litheblanc." Élodie guided Tyhry into the master bedroom suite and to the bedroom where Zach was in bed, reading. Élodie told her husband, "This is Lyra."

After giving Tyhry a close visual inspection, Zach asked, "Marda?"

Élodie sat on the bed close to Zach. "This is not Marda. I think she is a girl from a past Reality, made to look like Marda."

Zach rubbed his forehead. "A trick..."

Tyhry told Zach, "I was in Hawaii, on a beach. I still have the black lava sand between my toes. Then I arrived here. You call this old house 'Litheblac'?"

Zach nodded and told Tyhry, "Élodie and I have lived here for half a century."

Élodie quickly told her husband what she had learned from Tyhry, then told him. "I think Lyra must be from the previous Reality."

Zach nodded. Manny the bumpha could have arranged for Élodie to receive information about a past Reality. Zach asked Tyhry, "How did you get here from Hawaii?"

"I don't know." Tyhry shrugged. "It must have been one of Manny's tricks."

Élodie asked, "You know Manny the bumpha?"

Tyhry explained. "My father sometimes wrote about shifting people such as Ekcolir to Earth of another Reality... I never thought it might happen to me. That is the kind of trickery my Dad likes to attribute to Manny, an alien with advanced technology, including teleporters and time travel devices."

Élodie mused and told Zach, "Eddy Watson plays a role like mine in Lyra's Reality." She told Tyhry, "I've written stories in which Ek'col or Kac'hin have shifted between Realities. I write stories about a fictional Tyhry who is tryp'At. Lyra, if you are tryp'At then maybe..."

 Tyhry said, "In my father's stories there are telepathic tryp'At. I can telepathically link to Marda. Marda and I share the same unusual NOTCH2NL gene variant."

Zach told Tyhry, "Well, Lyra, here at Litheblanc the most talented telepath is Annette."

Élodie added, "But Annette and Brak are away... which leaves Annette's son, Antoine." Élodie popped up off the bed and took Tyhry's arm, "Let's not tell Antoine who you are and we will test his telepathic abilities."

Élodie brought Tyhry to Antoine's suite. Antoine was in his bed, having fallen asleep playing with Manny. When he saw Tyhry he bounded out of bed and threw his arms around Tyhry. "Pourquoi êtes-vous..." He was reaching out telepathically and was confused. "Tyhry?"

Tyhry replied, "I'm the Tyhry from Arizona. Please speak English?" 

Antoine kept his hands on Tyhry's arms and looked into her eyes. "You look like Marda, but I sense Tyhry's mind pattern. Something like Tyhry's mind..."

Élodie handed Antoine a pair of pants. "It is all quite strange, but I'm calling her 'Lyra' to avoid confusion. Now, I need to get back to Zack." She issued instructions to Antoine, "See what you can learn." Élodie turned and departed from Antoine's suite.

Antoine still had one hand on Tyhry and he was trying to let his telepathic mind resonate with her mind pattern. He could sense something of her thoughts about Hawaii and he said, "Black sand?" He got down on one knee and felt between her toes where there was still some gritty black sand. "Let's get you cleaned up, Marda. 

He stood up and tossed the pants on his bed. Tyhry said, "Call me 'Lyra'."

Antoine took Tyhry by the hand and led her to his shower. Antoine took his time exploring Tyhry's entire body. As he was drying her off with a towel he summarized his visual assessment and provided Tyhry with his preliminary telepathic report. "Your mind is similar to that of the Tyhry I grew up with and your body is quite similar to that of my Marda. Your ears are weird and the glans of your clitoris is big, like Tyhry's."

"The ears are a tryp'At feature and as for my genitals, I asked Marda to let me keep my Neanderthal features even when she shaped me into her body form."

"Your copy of Marda can program zeptites?"

Tyhry started to put her skirt back on, but Antoine grabbed it and tossed it away. He took her back to his bed. "I'm just getting started." He pulled her onto the bed. "Can you alter your own body?"

Tyhry shook her head. "No, I can't. I suppose Manny wanted me this way." Judging by Antoine's erection, he was quite happy with Tyhry's Marda-like body.

Antoine suggested, "I suspect that Manny made you just for me."

Tyhry reached out and felt the hot soft skin of his penis. "You are very beautiful."

"If you are from the previous Reality, I suppose there is no way for you to go back. Is there anyone special there for you?"

"I'm still in love with Marda, but she went off to school in Germany and I was in Hawaii."

Antoine nodded. "It is the same here. Marda and Tyhry are lovers. They went off to the same college so that they could stay together."

Tyhry could see that way Antoine was staring at her and see how he was responding to her touch. Tyhry thought she could sense some of his thoughts. "You are in love with Marda?"

"Yes, that is true. And now here you are... my second chance at... Marda-dom."

Tyhry giggled, "I think Manny brought me here for a reason." 

Antoine grinned, "I'll have to thank Manny."

"You know Manny?"

"Yes, she has been helping me get over my loss of Marda."

"You are Manny's lover?"

"Yes, I am."

"I hate to ask, but do you prefer Manny or Marda?"

"I've had the feeling that Manny has just been humoring me. She won't let me explore her thoughts and memories. I've spent years examining Marda's mind, particularly during orgasm trances. I can sense that you are like her in many ways." He reached out and stroked Tyhry's breasts with his soft finger tips.

Tyhry told Antoine, "I enjoyed how you cleaned me up. Would you now like to get me dirty?"

Antoine was more than ready. As the sun was coming up in the morning, Tyhry awoke beside Antoine and found him watching her. "Sorry, you wore me out."

Antoine kissed Tyhry's cute nose. "We'll do better the next time, now that you know me. But let's get breakfast. Élodie and Zach are waiting impatiently for my report."

In the dinning room, the two model-O robots were introduced to Tyhry as 'Lyra'. The robots served Tyhry and Antoine breakfast and Élodie conducted an inquisition. She asked Antoine, "Is it true? Lyra is from the fictional Casanay?"

Antoine nodded and swallowed then replied, "I suppose Manny could put false memories into Lyra's brain, but Lyra believes she grew up at Casanay where here father wrote novels that were quite similar to yours, Élodie." 

"So, I have been Manny's puppet. Writing stories about the previous Reality. But why? What has that accomplished? And why is Lyra here, now?" Élodie asked Tyhry, "Are you glad you are here?"

Tyhry smiled and looked at Antoine and then placed one of her hands on his arm. "So far so good. I suppose I should make the best of this." 

Antoine told Tyhry, "This is very exciting. We can enjoy ourselves, but I can't stop wondering why you are here."

Élodie asked Antoine for specific details about Tyhry's past and they found divergences between Tyhry's life and what Élodie had imagined for her novels. "Maybe by having me create fiction about Casanay, it prepared us for the day when Lyra would appear."

At that moment, a sparkling cloud of mist appeared at the end of the table and Manny the bumpha appeared, in her preferred human form with amazing bog blond hair made of swirling zeptites. She told Élodie, "I'm glad those preparations are now appreciated." She told Antoine, "Thank you for letting me enjoy your first play session with Lyra."

Tyhry asked Manny, "You were there in bed with us last night?"

"I was, and I enjoyed it. I've worked long and hard to make you two compatible and everyting turned out just fine."

Zach asked, "But why? I can see that Antoine is pleased to have Lyra here at Litheblanc, but bringing her here from a past Reality seems absurdly complicated."

"We must blame the Marda of this Reality. She chose Tyhry and now it is not going to be possible for the Tyhry of this Reality to satisfy the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact." The Trysta-Grean Pact was something that both Eddy and Élodie had written about. Litheblanc is the origin of the tryp'At lineage, and I need to spread Tyhry's tryp'At gene patterns into the future. With Lyra here, Antoine will take care of that." Manny looked at Tyhry and told her, "Be prepared for many pregnancies; you are to be the mother of the tryp'At."

Antoine laughed. "I could not ask for more entertaining work, but I barely know Lyra. She might not want to do your bidding, Manny."

Tyhry got out of her chair and went to Manny. Tyhry put her hands into Manny's sparkling hair. Tyhry asked Manny, "You expect me to live out my life using Marda's body shape?"

Manny touched Tyhry's slender body. "This is the physical form that appeals to Antoine. You are already familiar with Marda's body, so I know you won't object to these working conditions. You will be very comfortable and happy here at Litheblanc." Manny looked into Antoine's eyes, "If either of you has any complaints, just call me back to Earth. I'll be happy to help out." Manny patted Tyhry's cute bottom and whispered in her ear. Then Manny fragmented into her zeptite components and disappeared.

Antoine went to Tyhry and put his arms around her. "Will you have me?"

Tyhry suspected she could ask for anything. "Let's go on a trip; lune de miel. I want to see France and all of Europe."

Antoine looked surprised. "I'm not much of a traveler." 

One of the robots was taking used plates from the table. Tyhry said, "I want to learn how these robots are made."

Antoine chuckled. "Believe it or not, the world's center for robotics is in the attic."

Tyhry looked over Antoine's shoulder at Élodie and asked for confirmation, "Is that true?"

Élodie nodded, "Yes, the Q robots are working on a new model for 2048."

Tyhry muttered, "I came here from the year 2015."

Antoine speculated, "Manny must have held you in a teleportation buffer for a couple of decades, all just to align us correctly in time."

Tyhry asked, "What about climate change?"

Zach told Tyhry, "Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are falling. The bioengineered ocean microbes seem to being doing even better than expected."

Élodie added, "It is almost as if Earth excess carbon dioxide is disappearing."

Antoine suggested, "Maybe that is another one of Manny's tricks." He told Tyhry, "Lyra, I see in your memories that you planned a career around making microbes that could sink carbon to the sea floor. Here in this Reality, that work was completed years ago."

Tyhry relaxed against Antoine's body and told him telepathically: That is fine. Manny has a new career planned for me here. Then she spoke out loud, "I want us to travel when we can. When I get huge, we'll return to Litheblanc and out first child will be born here."

Élodie told Zach, "If this is where the tryp'At are to be bred, we better take seriously the idea of expanding Litheblanc."

 Tyhry told Élodie, "When Antoine and I are exploring Europe, I'll look for new locations that would be right for tryp'At branch offices."

Just then, Sally and Glen arrived at the usual time for Litheblanc breakfasts. After they were introduced to Tyhry, Sally asked, "A new Marda? What is going on?"

Antoine replied, "Élodie will explain. I'm going to give Lyra a tour." He took Tyhry to the basement stairs.

Tyhry said, "I want to see the attic robotics workshop."

Antoine nodded. "All in good time." He was intent on showing her the hot tub. After their second shared orgasm trance in the hot tub, Tyhry decided she could trust Antoine as a tour guide who would know how to set priorities. 

The End.

Chapter 15 (above on this page) is the end of two science fiction stories, both "The Hierozyme Intervention" and "That Kind of Think". Readers might be left wondering about the fate of the story characters who were exiled to Observer Base. I like to think that Manny the bumpha was able to find ways to provide fun and meaningful lives to them all. 

Nyrtia the pek might be taken as a special case. It is easy to feel like Nyrtia gets a pretty lousy deal. Manny the bumpha gets super-sophisticated tools like zeptites and zeptozoans and has a good relationship with Sedruth, the sedronite who curates the Sedron Time Stream. Nyrtia uses less sophisticated femtobots and relied on tools like a klunky old positronic robot (Anthony) as her agent on Earth.

I'm feeling some regret over the way Systolina was used both on Earth and then at Observer Base and then simply faded away along with Rynry. Maybe the positronic robots should have unionized and fought for better roles in both "The Hierozyme Intervention" and "That Kind of Think".

There are some rough spots in "The Hierozyme Intervention" and "That Kind of Think" that I might need to repair. I inadvertently included to characters named 'Antoine': (1) there is the Chapter 11 character Antoine de Kergariou and (2) Annette's son, Antoine, who is introduced in Chapter 12 of "That Kind of Think". This dual use of 'Antoine' is not a catastrophic problem, but I did not even notice it when I was writing the story and it might confuse or distract some readers. 

Next: fictional chemistry.

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