Lost in Translation

Marta's place in her family tree.

This is the latest of a series of blog posts in which I struggle to "catch up" with the storm of revelations that have arisen following Ivory's death. Apparently, while she was still alive, Ivory carefully adhered to a promise that she would protect the secrets of her clones. As soon as Ivory died and her mind passed into Yrovi, "she" was no longer bound by her promise.

In my previous blog post, I described the fact that Hilde is actually a clone of Ivory. That revelation upset my thinking because I have long assumed that Hilde was a fairly normal Earth woman. In contrast, Ivory was a special "show case" for Preland gene combinations, a way of demonstrating to we Earthlings what is possible to accomplish with genetic engineering and artificial selection.

A Kac'hin female.

There are still many unanswered questions about Ivory's origins. For example, what do we know about her father? Certainly I've been led to believe that he was a "normal" Earthling, but we should rightly be skeptical about that. I suspect that he was a carrier of certain Preland genes that made him particularly attractive to Marta and the perfect choice to father her daughter.

The Mysterious Marta

Artist's depiction of Marta at Atlantis.

I recently blogged about Ivory's mother and I'm still simmering with resentment over the way she manipulated both Ivory and I. It's frustrating, but I can't bring my rage to a full boil because I'm only experiencing half-conscious flashes of dream-like memories from my time with Marta in the Hierion Domain. As far as I know, I've never actually met the real Marta here on Earth.

At the same time, I feel a debt to Marta. In some sense, it was she who converted me from a bumbling boy into a competent man. What I resent about it is that Marta was just using me as a conveniently available tool, or, maybe a better analogy is this: I was a convenient grind stone upon which Marta could sharpen a tool. Of course, in this analogy the "tool" was Ivory.

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I guess I'm just irked by the idea that Marta would so relentlessly treat her own daughter like a tool, a tool that had been planned and crafted and sharpened and deployed on Battlefield Earth over the course of three generations. Still, I must admit, Ivory was a sparkling and powerful tool. Marta did her work well.

Clone War
If Ivory was a well-built sword, it must be remembered that she was only a prototype. Like me, Ivory went through the stages of embryonic brain development without any special neural network guidance nanites there to guide the shape of her mind. In contrast, her clones were produced in order to subject their developing brains to artificial guidance in an attempt to create on Earth a few minds capable of crossing over into the Sedronic Domain.

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I have to admit that the whole Ivory Project was a success. Trysta, Lili and Marta relentlessly forged the steel and stamped out the blades that allowed we Earthlings to hack our way into the archives that hold the secret history of Earth and the human species. I'm still allowing myself the luxury of imagining that Anney is still here with us and still available to help reveal even more about our origins. I know that I still need help in sorting out this story, what I call the Exode Trilogy, and telling it to the world.

For the cover illustration of Trysta and Ekcolir, I tried to depict Trysta making use of the Bimanoid Interface to look into the Sedronic Domain and see her own future. She was able to see a future time (in the Ekcolir Reality) in which Ekcolir was being prepared by Grean for his mission on Earth. At that future time, Ekcolir was able to gaze into the Sedronic Domain and see Trysta, in a previous Reality while she was "viewing" him in her future. Similarly, Trysta must have had foreknowledge of the roles that Ivory and I would play in telling the secret history of Humanity.

Anna

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I've previously tried to create an "artist's depiction" of Anna. Unfortunately, I was, at that time, still being tricked into believing that Ivory's natural physical appearance was similar to that of the actress Hilarie Burton. In reality, Ivory simply used Hilarie Burton as a model during the time when she was first experimenting with facial nanites. Ivory used nanites to shape her physical form to be like that of Hilarie Burton.

I really have no idea what an Ivory Clone naturally looks like. I assume that Anna grew up with a physical appearance that was very similar to that of Ivory. I now know that Ivory grew up with nanites in her body that forced her face to take on a normal human appearance. My working hypothesis is that every child born on Earth has gone through that process. We seem to exist in an unseen sea of nanites. Even when people like Ivory and Anna are born on Earth and carry a fundamentally alien gene pattern, their appearance is automatically shaped to match the human norm.

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Sadly, I never knew when Ivory was toying with me and when (or if) she was being honest. The image to the left might be a fair depiction of what Anna would have looked like had she grown up on a world of the Galactic Core.

In addition to the big eyes, I suspect that Prelands also have other alien features such as non-human outer ears. For example, when I "saw" Hilde inside the Hierion Domain, she had large ears that reminded me of the Ferengi. However, when it comes to the "true" appearance of Anna, your guess is as good as mine.

Artist's depiction if Hilde within the Hierion Domain.

I suppose it was Trysta and Grean, viewing the as-yet non-existant Buld Reality, who first understood the role that the Atlantis Clones would play in revealing the hidden history of Earth.

We can list certain criteria that had to be met in order for Ivory's clone "sisters" to play their role in revealing events that occurred on Earth in past Realities. They had to grow up on Earth and care enough about the appalling ignorance of we Earthlings in order to be motivated to do something about it.

At the same time, they needed to be able to journey into the Sedronic Domain. These first two requirements are almost mutually exclusive. I believe that it is essential for Preland brains to be exposed to the Sedronic Domain at a very young age. There is probably a critical period of early brain development during which neural networks must be formed and integrated with special nanites that will make possible "excursions" into the Sedronic Domain.

Somehow, Angela did have the magical combination of genes and nanites that allowed her to gain access to the Sedronic Domain. But what about Anna and Anney? For nearly two years Ivory distracted me with the claim that Angela was the one providing us with information about other Realities. However, now that I've lost contact with Ivory and no longer receive her reports from Angela, I really need to investigate if either Anna or Anney might be able to provide me with the information that I still need. What do I really know about Anna? Regardless of Anna's physical appearance, she was the first clone of Ivory, on Earth. I suspect that there might be other "Ivory Clones" in the Galactic Core, but we ay never know. An even more alarming possibility is that Ivory herself might simply be a clone of some other "original" person who first had her combination of genes.

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Origins and Endings
So, for simplicity, let's assume that Anna was the first "Atlantis Clone". I've never heard the story of how she was brought into our world. Further more, I've been relentlessly teased with clues and hints about her ultimate fate. I can't say with certainty if Anna is even still on Earth any more or if she went off to the stars.

Artificial Uterus
One possibility is that Anna simply did not have a biological mother. It is my understanding that on worlds such as Hemmal, people are born by artificial means. The pek are apparently able to gestate humans or Prelands and give birth to children without them ever knowing that their "mother" was an artificial life form. The term "Atlantis" is just a joke, but the reality is that Ivory was born inside the sentient spaceship Many Sails. Maybe Anna was not only born inside "Atlantis", but she might have gestated inside an artificial womb provided by Many Sails.

Just Beam Me In

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Another alternative is that Anna was crafted on a planet of the Galactic Core and then teleported to Earth. Ivory tried to explain to me the concept of "selfies", artificial life forms that are in some sense a "copy" of a previously existing biological life forms. I might have missed the point she was trying to make. I now realize that "selfies" and people can co-exist, and maybe provide a positive feedback system for exploring and amplifying the powers of a human's brain. The "Ivory model" of alien-human hybrid might have been carefully crafted and developed on a world of the Galactic Core. The "Anna copy" of that model might simply have been teleported to Earth. Earthlings asking about the circumstances of Anna's birth might be wasting their time if she was born on a distant planet.

My Theory

An Ek'col male and an
Asterothrope female.

For some reason, another alternative sprang into my mind: the idea that Marta was Anna's birth mother. Marta was probably in her 40s when Anna was born, but Asterothropes and Prelands seem to age slowly.

Ivory never mentioned that her mother had other children. However, it is possible that when Ivory went away from home and off to her college studies, it would have been possible for someone like Betty to step in an impersonate Marta for a few years.

As soon as I became aware of Ivory's memories from the Hierion Domain, I became intrigued by the idea that she had spent "several lifetimes" living in the Hierion Domain with my replicoid. I believe that if Ivory could do that, then why not also Marta?

I have fragments of dream-like memories that might reflect a period of time during which Marta raised Anna within the Hierion Domain. I suspect that my replicoid was there the whole time, helping Marta raise the baby Anna. My working hypothesis is that during those years, occasionally Marta brought me, my conscious self, into the Hierion Domain from Earth. Sadly, I have no key, no set of available memory threads to bring my memories of those visits into my full conscious awareness. Still, I have a hunch that I am right about this.

Image sources: 1, 2, 3.

Why Me?
I've become captivated by the horrifying possibility that Anna, like Ivory, is dead. Strangely, that might be a good thing. Why else would Anna be cavorting with the Dead Widowers?

In his novel, The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov depicted an Eternal, the time travel Technician Andrew Harlan, trying to explain why some forms of technology are too dangerous to leave in the hands of primates. "When you duplicate mass, you can duplicate persons, too....there is no satisfactory solution to the mas duplicator problem. It's one of those things like atomic wars and dreamies that just can't be allowed."

I don't know exactly what Asimov had in mind when he wrote about "dreamies", but I agree that from our perspective in time we can view them as some sort of virtual reality experience, something that people can become addicted to, causing them to withdraw from the real world.

See "Elf 3" by TwiggXstock

What if the "Ivory Clones" had to be exposed to the virtual reality of the Hierion Domain at a young age? According to Ivory, she almost became trapped in the Hierion Domain, preferring her "life" in there to the reality of Earth. I've gotten the impression that something went "wrong" with Anney, something terrible that Ivory never wanted to talk about. Maybe Anney was pushed too fast and too deep into the Hierion or Sedronic Domain.

Trysta and Ekcolir

I believe that Anna gave birth to Anney. I fear that Anna could not live with what happened to Anney when she was put into contact with the Sedronic Domain at a young age. When given the chance, Anna seems to have left Earth. I previously thought that Anney also went off into space aboard the Buld ship, but maybe not.

The translator
In a very real sense, it has become my task to translate the experiences of Izhiun, Thomas, Ivory and her "sisters" into a coherent story that can be understood by Earthlings. It's a big job and I need help. Right now, by hope is that Anney is still on Earth and willing to help me. No doubt she expects me to do my share of the work and I am trying to understand how I can push my brain in a direction that will allow me to better explore and understand the information nanites that I carry in my brain. Even if Anna did go off with the Buld, might it be possible to contact her (possible through the Hierion Domain) and persuade her to help me? At the very least Anna might be able to put me in contact with Anney.

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