Renaissance: Ekcolir Reality

Poster by Milo Manara

As discussed in several recent blog posts, there are some dramatic differences between the Ekcolir Reality and the world as we know it. For example, the Etruscans established the dominant culture of Europe and built a technologically advanced civilization in which women attained the right to vote in the sixth century.

In the Exode Trilogy, Etruscan civilization causes the shape of the New World to diverge from what we are familiar with here in the Buld Reality. Interestingly, in many ways the Buld Reality is more similar to the Asimov Reality. The Ekcolir Reality is unusual in that paternalism never really dominated Western Civilization.

In his time travel story, The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov had fun with the idea of alternative -yet related- Realities. Asimov imagined temporal inertia that could keep two successive Realities in synchrony. In particular, Asimov explained that the same artist could lead distinct yet similar lives in multiple related Realities:

From Asimov's The End of Eternity

Katharina Kopernikus

While art historians might debate whether the Europe of the Ekcolir Reality ever really had a Renaissance period, in the century leading up to their Industrial Revolution, some aspects of their art and science developed along similar lines to the historical pattern we are familiar with. In many cases, women had a more prominent role in cultural advances.

The invention of the telescope was attributed to the Polish astronomer Katharina Kopernikus.

The use of spectroscopy to show that stars contain the same elements found here on Earth was attributed to Elizabeth Barrow in the Ekcolir Reality. Her husband, Isaac Newton noticed the red shift of distant galaxies.

Painting of Elizabeth Barrow and Isaac Newton honoring their work in spectroscopy as well as their 73 years
of marriage and scientific collaboration.

Elizabeth and Isaac were celebrated as perhaps the greatest husband and wife duo of scientists in the Ekcolir Reality. Another famous research team was Johannes Kepler and his collaborator Brygid Müller. Although they never married (that traditional institution then being used only about half the time on the Continent), their daughter Susanna continued the family's scientific tradition and discovered the existence of radioactive elements. Their son Ludwig was a biologist, the discoverer of natural selection as a mechanism for evolution.

"Brygid Aineri" by Elise Van Mander (daughter of Carel Van Mander)

Brygid invented the first practical photographic process and explored the usefulness of all the silver salts as light-sensitive agents. Johannes applied photography in both the field of astronomy and in his private life. Elise Van Mander's mural "Brygid Aineri" (Brygid Worshiped) graced the rotunda of the Museum of Industry in Berlin. It depicts Johannes photographing Brygid. Kepler's private collection of family photographs was not released by the family for public viewing until 20 years after Brygid's death.

viewing Realities

Trysta and Merion
When Andrew Harlan (A.K.A. Merion Iwedon) went back into the Primitive era (as told in The End of Eternity), he did not expect to stay there. The cave that sheltered Trysta and Merion and all of their supplies was protected against Change by a local temporal field generator. When Merion decided to stay in the 20th century with Trysta (A.K.A. Noÿs Lambent) there was a Reality Change and the time travel kettle disappeared.

However, that was only the end of Eternity, not the end of time travel. Later, when the Asimov Reality came into existence, Trysta was protected from Change by the swarm of Asterothrope nanites in her body. However, due to his relationship with Trysta, Merion was by then an integral part of the Primitive with a significant temporal inertia. How should Merion react to the Reality Chain linking from the Foundation Reality to the Buld Reality?

From the perspective of Trysta and Merion in Wales, the Asimov Reality is hardly distinguishable from the Foundation Reality. In fact, Grean is surprised by how tiny the changes are in this new Reality. In contrast, Trysta is pleased by many of the cultural changes that come with the Ekcolir Reality. For example, suddenly in the Ekcolir Reality Trysta finds it much easier to find female lovers in rural Wales of the 1930s. Poor Merion is particularly disturbed by the liberal social conditions of the Ekcolir Reality.

Related Reading: Reality Change
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Note: some of the images above contain modified versions of digitally processed art work (source). The fictionalized Ekcolir Reality astronomer "Katharina Kopernikus" is based on Maria Mitchell.