The Time Travel War

Exode Trilogy

Two years and two months ago, the Nereids began finding their place within the Exode Trilogy. During the past two years my understanding of the Nereids has shifted significantly. Originally, I imagined the Nereids as having a fairly young civilization and only having access to rather simple hierion-based technologies. Now I realize that that the Nereids, as a species, have been around far longer than I'd previously suspected. Also, the Nereids long ago transcended their physical existence in the Hadronic Domain and they now exist as artificial life forms within the Sedronic Domain.

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A major source of confusion is the fact that the creatures most people know as Nereids are actually "Grendels", artificial life forms that function as the agents of the Nereids within the Hadronic Domain.

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When acting on Earth as Nereid agents, Grendels often have operated out a hidden base (physically located within the Hierion Domain) with its entrance portals usually located under water. As shapeshifters, Grendels can take on any convenient form. Down through history there have been many puzzled artists who tried to depict the odd creatures who they saw lurking around marshes and bays.

Eternity Device

I recently discovered that the Nereids even attained the ability to use time travel. What we think of as "the Nereids" is really just a manifestation of an ancient Huaoshy faction, what I generally call the Interventionists. I've previously imagined the "Time Travel War" as taking place between R. Gohrlay and the Huaoshy, but it might actually be the case that competing time travel missions by Interventionists and Overseers became a serious problem.

I remain uncertain about the fate of R. Gohrlay. It might well be that Gohrlay and Grean were able to peacefully resolve their conflict. For the Huaoshy, a larger problem might have been the prospect of Interventionists and Overseers continually shaping and reshaping Reality with competing Reality Changes.

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I now suspect that the Huaoshy decided to make further time travel impossible for three reasons. First, they did not want to deal with an endless Time Travel War. Second, by putting an end to time travel, they also made positron-based telepathy impossible. Third, the shift in the dimensional structure of the universe that made time travel impossible, also gave the Huaoshy a monopoly on the production of sedrons. After the last change in the dimensional structure of the universe, their existing "Eternity devices" were no longer able to allow time travel, but they remained as the only source of new sedronic matter within the conventional four-dimensional universe of human experience.

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Related reading: The Sedron Monopoly