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| Ekcolir and Trysta |
"you have to build a new society if you want to write a good SF story" -Isaac Asimov
When I first imagined Exode, Parthney was a minor character: he only had to teleport Hana off of Earth. I'd imagined most of the story being told from the perspective of Hana while she traveled between the stars and explored Genesaunt society. During the past year Parthney became a more central character and Exode has expanded from a stand alone novel to the third book in a trilogy that starts with Trysta and Ekcolir and The Foundations of Eternity.
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| blog topics |
During the past year my planning and writing about Exode's plot and characters has dominated this blog. Parthney has been transformed into one of a series of clones of Thomas, the unlikely love child of Trysta and Ekcolir.
The Exode Trilogy now exists in draft form on the pages of a half dozen websites.
1) The Foundations of Eternity
2) Trysta and Ekcolir
3) Exode
4) The Encyclopedia of Future Science
5) The Exodemic blog
6) This blog
Most of my planning for Exode and meta-analysis of the Exode Trilogy exists here at this website. The three novels each have their own website. The Foundations of Eternity is about 90% complete. Trysta and Ekcolir and Exode are only about 10% complete, but during the past year I have successfully planned out and envisioned the rather complex setting and characters for the Exode Trilogy.
Twisting the Interventionists
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| Doubts about technology |
At the end of 2012 I was still wed to the idea that Parthney and Kach should be biologically identical to Earth humans. However, I was seriously exploring the possibility that the Huaoshy might have a convenient way to take control of Kach's brain and behavior, essentially using her as a puppet when they need to do so. But as 2013 unfolded, I came to realize that the biology of Kach and Parthney need not be as mundane as I had originally envisioned.
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| Nereid agent |
And in perverse symmetry, I realized that Overseer plans to abandon their policing of Earth might become a source of concern for the Interventionists. During 2013 I complicated matters for the Interventionists and made room for dissension and distrust among the Interventionist factions. For example, the Interventionist masterminds who train Parthney and send him off to Earth are nearly paralyzed by doubt about the trustworthiness of their Nereid allies. They endlessly debate among themselves if the lurking Nereid Interventionists are in need of a countervailing force that can prevent the Nereids from causing a dangerously rapid pace of technological advance on Earth.
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| Humans don't fit in. |
My new conceptualization of the Interventionists-Overseer dynamic is that it exists in Exode as a homeostatic control system, hastily designed and put into place within the Buld Reality in order to deal with a tricky problem: Earth and its pesky humans.
During 2013 I realized that the Exode Trilogy must confront the task of showing just how flexible Genesaunt Civilization can be. R. Gohrlay has pushed the pek to the limits of their abilities and forced the Huaoshy to emerge from the bastion of their sedronic domain of existence so that they can reach a negotiated settlement over the fate of Earth and Humanity.
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| Positions of Koly, Clu'ten'iun, Hemmal, oib and three Pla spacecraft at the time of Parthney's journey to Lendhalen. |
Quarter 1 of 2013
At the start of April I wrote a summary of how Exode grew and took form during the first three months of the year.
Place. Back in January I sketched out some details of the Koly star system where Parthney, Kach and their son Boswei are born. The vast majority of people in the Koly system live on the planet Hemmal. When Parthney leaves his home world of Hemmal he is tricked into believing that the Interventionist training base known as Lendhalen is on the nearby planet Oib. However, Lendhalen is actually on the planet Clu'ten'iun.
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| Fru'wu sighted on Klyz |
From the human perspective, Clu'ten'iun is a hellish world, but it is a friendly environment for the Fru'wu. The Fru'wu long ago provided the Pla with access to teleportation technology. Parthney is teleported from Oib to Clu'ten'iun without him even being aware that he has left Oib. In addition to short-range teleportation within the Koly system, Clu'ten'iun also has a long-range teleportation link to Klyz, a planet that is a major Fru'wu teleportation hub. Of particular relevance to humans, Klyz is the "jumping off point" for teleportation to Earth, so Parthney goes to Earth by way of Klyz.
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| Artist's conception of a Nereid |
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| proxy |
Prelands, Asterothropes, Buld, Pla, Kac'hin, Ek'col, Pek
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| Syon |
At the end of March, I was only part way towards populating Exode with its full variety of artificial life forms and primate variants. "Robin" sprang from my imagination as a rather simple precursor robot to the character who was to later become the more interesting "Syon".
The pek play an important role in Exode as the artificial life form that carries out the great plan of the Huaoshy to convert "wild" biological life forms (such as primates of Earth) into domesticated Genesaunt citizens of the vast intergalactic Huaoshy empire.
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| Pla'kao and Pla'mak |
The Buld and the Pla became the first human variants that I included in Exode. The Buld are a type of hermaphroditic human that was specifically designed by the pek for long-duration space voyages. The Pla are a kind of bastardized Buld, created with the help of the Fru'wu as revolutionary Interventionists who can live without the aid of pek-derived nanites.
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| Leymaygn and Vozgrow |
I originally envisioned Leymaygn and Vozgrow as the two Buld who would work most closely with Parthney at Lendhalen to prepare him for his mission to Earth.
The Change
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| Pla'va |
The presence of pek nanites in their bodies allows the Buld to have two types of reproduction. If there is a need to increase Buld population then a Buld can give birth to a new individual. Given the efficiency of pek medical nanites, a Buld individual can live for thousands of years. However, with nanite assistance, it is also possible for an Buld embryo to replace the cells of its parent (to the Buld, this makes it appear that an adult goes through "the change"). Thus, in a population of Buld such as exists on Hemmal, there are very few children.Some characters in Exode make use of "partial change" as away to survive for an extended period of centuries without the help of pek medical nanites. Leymaygn and Pla'va are very old, but with the help of Fru'wu nanites they can survive without dependence on pek nanites. The Interventionists all fear the pek and so they take extreme measures to avoid becoming dependent on the pek and their advanced nanites.
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| Syon and Vozgrow |
Parthney has trouble understanding the relationship between Syon and Vozgrow. Syon always listens respectfully to Vozgrow, then seems to do whatever "she" wants to do. Parthney never quite becomes comfortable trying to think of a robot as a "she".
Overseers
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| Belinda Tement and Parthney |
Due to the Inertia of Time, even when Gohrlay is prevented from taking control of Observer Base, Earthlings in the 20th century are almost identical to those of the previous several Realities. Just as Isaac Asimov wrote about the similar analogues of a famous writer in different Realities (on The End of Eternity), Asimov himself appears as a writer in several Realities that are included in the Exode Trilogy.
Asimov
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| Asimovs in our Reality |
Asimov then travels through time and he brings into existence the "Asimov Reality" within which he helps his younger self become a successful science fiction author, but his career is cut short by a nuclear war that occurs in the 20th century.
After another Reality Change, which prevents Earth's nuclear catastrophe, the Ekcolir Reality comes into existence. In the Ekcolir Reality, Asimov's writing career is some what different than what we are familiar with: influenced and goaded by Thomas, Asimov writes more fiction and less non-fiction.
Finally, in the Buld Reality, the world as we know it, Asimov's career proceeded as we know.
Understanding the chain of related Realities that lead to the world as we know it has been a mind-twisting effort during the past year.
The plot of Exode is entirely contained within the Buld Reality. Working together, Ekcolir, "Trysta", their son Thomas and Grean the Kac'hin conspire to bring into existence the universe as we know it. In our Reality, our "time line", time travel is no longer possible.
The second book in the Exode Trilogy, Trysta and Ekcolir, tells the story of events within the "Ekcolir Reality". I originally thought of the "Ekcolir Reality as the "Noÿs Reality", but I decided not to mention the name "Noÿs" in the Exode Trilogy. Noÿs uses the cover name "Trysta Iwedon" when she takes up residence in Wales during the mid-20th century.
Bimanoid Interface
In the Buld Reality, the people of Earth are hosts for zeptites, incredibly tiny devices that escape our notice. Those sedronic symbionts function as a kind of "lubricant", what I refer to as a "bimanoid interface".
People, like Kach, who take seriously the idea that humans were created, are susceptible to paranoia about the possibility that humans are little more than puppets for the Creators. Kach is particularly prone to such doubts because she is a Kac'hin, a human variant that was designed to make it possible for the Huaoshy to interact physically with humans.
Kach entered into my thinking about Exode in a rather innocent way. Originally I thought that both Parthney and Kach should be biologically identical to Earth humans. Kach plays a role in pushing Parthney off of Hemmal and, believing that she and Parthney are the only "false Buld" on Hemmal, she takes the opportunity to grab some of his gametes and give herself the opportunity to have children.
Kac'hin
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| Noÿs gives birth to a new world. |
While viewing Realities, Noÿs selected the Foundation Reality because Gohrlay allowed her the opportunity to observe events in her own future: what Noÿs interpreted as a future happy life with Andrew Harlan and the chance to have children in 20th century Earth. Noÿs believed that she carried the means to produce those children within her own body in the form of carefully packaged Asterothrope male gametes.
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| Asimov's Struggle |
Only from within the Ekcolir Reality does Noÿs begin to understand that her children, the children she first saw while viewing alternative Realities, are not Asterothropes. Grean, while working with Noÿs to find a suitable future for Earth, realizes a deeper truth. Thomas, or rather, his clone Parthney, must have a grandson (Izhiun) who will welcome the Buld spaceship when it finally arrives on Earth. Grean, a Kac'hin, realizes that the Kac'hin are another human variant that was crafted to be interfertile with Ek'col-Asterothrope hybrids. Thus, Kach (as a Kac'hin) is able to have Parthney's son, Boswei.
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| Lili in Washington |
I first introduced Grean as a time traveler in The Foundations of Eternity. In September I knew that Grean must be a Kach'in who works closely with Trysta (Noÿs) in Trysta and Ekcolir, but I have been having trouble deciding exactly what role Grean plays in the end game of Exode. Also, I've been seeking ways to provide the "editor" with objective evidence that Earth has long been visited by space aliens.
Such evidence could be derived from Andy, Gwyned's little brother, but this might require some assistance from Grean. I'm now imagining that Grean has a sister named Lili. While viewing the Buld Reality, Grean is able to see both Izhiun and Hana's daughter Hilde when they meet the first Buld spaceship to arrive on Earth. Grean is able to determine that Hilde is the granddaughter of Lili. Lili has several children with Andy in the 1960's including a boy* who is never named in Exode, but who is the father of Hilde.
At the end of Exode, the "editor" goes in search of the other children of Lili and Andy, whose unusual chromosomes are the only remaining objective evidence on Earth that can support the crazy story told in the Exode Trilogy.
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| The "editor" begins a search for the cousins of Hilde. (2014: newer version of this family tree) |
In September I also decided on some of the details of Lycaun, who is genetically identical to Kach. Lycaun gives up her life so that Kach can escape from Earth and continue her search for the Creators.
The reader must wonder: as a clone of Kach, did Lycaun have free will or was she designed and "automated" to efficiently carry out her suicide mission to Earth?
Does Kach feel any remorse or responsibility for the death of Lycaun? Not really. However, magnified through the lens of her experience on Earth, Kach feels more strongly than ever that there must be a reason for her burning desire to meet the Creators. Why would she be driven to continue her search unless the Creators wanted her to follow such a path through life?
The Editor
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| Hilde |
Hilde believes that her grandfather is dead, but she mysteriously informs "the editor" that she has always felt a kind of telepathic "connection" to other, unseen people on Earth. Are these "contacts" the other children and grandchildren of Andy?
In November I realized that the technological problem confronting Earth in Exode (global warming) might have a trivial solution...from the perspective of an advanced civilization. Originally I imagined that the problem of global warming would provide a reason for close and continuing cooperation between we Earthlings and the Buld. I had imagined the Buld using Mercury as a vast solar energy collector and transmitting that energy to Earth, allowing we Earthlings to abandon our use of fossil fuels. However, what if the Buld can easily prevent climate change on Earth without having to cooperate with Earthlings in any way? Should they just "solve Earth's problem" or must we Earthlings grow up and take care of ourselves?
With the three components of the Exode Trilogy still in need of authorial attention, I need to decide where to start writing in 2014. I'm tempted to start with some needed re-writing at the beginning of The Foundations of Eternity. Originally I had imagined having a Huaoshy commander of Many Sails, but in 2013 I realized that the Kac'hin are perfect for that kind of role in Genesaunt society.
Also, I've changed my perspective on R. Gohrlay. Rather than having to imagine that Huaoshy technological superiority accounts for the ease with which Grean defeats the positronic robots of Earth, I now imagine that it is R. Gohrlay's plan to appear weak and, by so doing, rush the Kac'hin into close contact with robots like Fengtol.
In the end, it is Gohrlay's sacrifice of her own brain that opens the door to an opportunity for we humans to reach the stars.
Related Reading: 2014 year in review
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| Thomas' novel Obsidia of Tar'Tron |
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*Note: This character was later (2014) given the name Peter.
2019 UPDATE: Lili's lineage on Earth.
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| Time warp: visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers from the future. |
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