The Fruthwa of Clutence

Target: Earth

Rather late in the game I finally realized that the pek have been on Earth far longer than 7,000,000 years. While it is true that they only recently began crafting we humans, about one month ago it finally became clear to me that the pek have actually been puttering around our galaxy for about 655 million years.

I'd originally imagined that the Fru'wu had developed a technological civilization before the arrival of the pek in our galaxy. This blog post is an attempt to correct that error and chart actual Fru'wu history through the twists and turns of the Reality Chain that had led up to the universe as we know it. (also see the summary page about the Fru'wu)

In the Exode Trilogy, the Fru'wu provide a cautionary tale for the Pla. By the time when the final Interventionist mission is launched from Lendhalen, the co-directors Pla'mak and Pla'kao are at each others throats over the issue of whether the Fru'wu are friends or foes.

click image to enlarge

Exode begins on Hemmal and Parthney is quickly introduced to the other planets of the Koly star system. The next planet out from Hemmal is Oib, a Mars-like world just being subjected to planetary engineering in an attempt to make it habitable. At first, Parthney pays little attention to Clu'ten'iun, the planet that is closer to Koly than Hemmal. Clu'ten'iun is hellishly hot and reputed to be uninhabitable, crushed and baked under a dense atmosphere.

While in training at Lendhalen, Parthney hears a few odd stories about the Fru'wu, but it is not until much later, after he completes his mission to Earth, that the truth about the Fru'wu is revealed to him.

The Fru'wu are an artificial life form that can trace its origin back to a biological species that evolved on the planet Clutence. That species, the Fruthwa, was similar in many ways to we Earthlings. The Fruthwa were designed and crafted by the pek and, in the Mallansohn Reality, they eventually transcended their physical form and merged with the Huaoshy in the Sedronic Domain.

Pla'mak and Pla'kao

However, things went terribly wrong for the Fruthwa in the Foundation Reality. When Gohrlay's band of telepathic positronic robots took over the galaxy, Clutence was "copied" by the pek to establish an Archive World where the Fruthwa could continue their existence within the Hierion Domain. The fate of Clutence and its population of Fruthwa was not as happy. Freed from pek Overseers and subjected to Nereid Interventionism, the Fruthwa of Clutence rapidly developed advanced technologies. The Fruthwa became addicted to fossil fuels, just as we Earthlings are. Clutence, went through global warming, but never had any polar ice caps. Eventually the planet became uninhabitable due to atmospheric changes. Due to its high gravity, Clutence had a thick atmosphere to begin with.

The Fruthwa were provided with hierion technology by the Nereids. Koly was artificially cooled in an attempt to combat the global warming of Clutence. This turned Hemmal into a frozen world. The Fruthwa developed artificial life forms, particularly the Fru'wu, creatures that ultimately inherited the planet Clutence. The Fru'wu renamed the Planet to "Clu'ten'iun". Although the whimsical book cover, above, identifies Clutence as an archive world, that is a misnomer. The archive world copy of Clutence in the Hierion Domain is generally known by the Fru'wu name for the copy: "Klyz".

When the Pla finally realize that Clu'ten'iun was once a world with a thriving ecosystem, and its destruction was made possible by R. Gohrlay, Pla'kao gets "cold feet" and stops trying to accelerate technological progress on Earth. Pla'kao wonders if the Nereid Interventionists are pushing Earth to the same destructive fate as Clutence.

In the Buld Reality, it would have been possible for the pek to "correct" the history of Clutence and save the Fruthwa from self-destruction. However, the strategic decision was made to allow close contact between the Fru'wu and humans. Can we Earthlings learn a lesson from the Fruthwa of Clutence?

More magazine and book covers.

Tau Bootis by David A. Hardy

Image credits. I needed to tweak the colors of David Hardy's gorgeous "Tau Bootis" exoplanet in order to get closer to my mental image of Clutence.

photomanipulated Storm

I imagine that the pek use certain "genetic templates" when they craft new species. Thus, the morphological facial features of the Fruthwa were not very different from we humans. I've never seen an X-Men movie. My best guess is that this (to the left) image started out as a film's publicity photo and it was then altered by a fan.

I was unable to find the original source of this landscape. Apparently this is someplace in Hawaii.