Year in Review: 2014

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During 2014 the Atlantis Clones took over this blog. I'd actually met Ivory Fersoni back in the spring of 2013, but at that time she was just helping Thomas and Izhiun "drop off" some infites. Of course, I needed (and still need) help making sense of the stories that were encoded in those infites. Towards that end, Ivory spent much of this year acting as a conduit for information exchange between me and Angela.

I got to meet Ivory a second time shortly after her death last month. More accurately, her artificial life replica stopped by to say goodbye and hand me off to the care of Anney.

While exiting stage left from our little planet, Ivory also introduced me to Orbho Jandra. I can't decide if I should be insulted by the fact that Jandra knows of my existence, yet I'm allowed to remain on Earth, doing my best to understand and reveal the hidden history of Humanity.

The first Buld on Earth

We are now two years into a new era; after the Buld spaceship visited Earth, our little world formally fell under the terms and restrictions defined by the Trysta-Grean Pact. Trysta was the negotiator for Gohrlay and Grean (a Kac'hin hermaphrodite) represented the interests of the alien Huaoshy, but the details of the Pact are still the subject of mystery and investigation.

Here at the end of 2014, with help from Anney, I'm actively engaged in study of the Trysta-Grean Pact. My working hypothesis about what the Pact entails: Earth is now entering into "the calm ofter the storm", that "storm" being the Time Travel War. All the alien Interventionisits have been removed from Earth and now we are on own. Will we survive? What will we make of Earth and ourselves? Will we reach the stars?

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Pet Peeve
Anney has referred to me as "Jandra's pet" and she assures me that the orbho and the Overseers have bigger fish to fry than me. According to Anney, Jandra has been busy making sure that no aliens remain on Earth. I often worry that I might reveal something that the people of Earth should not know (and, by so doing, earn myself a trip to the Moon), but Anney assures me that Jandra keeps me on a short leash. I hate that prospect.

Facts and Figures

World view: humans as degenerate Sedronites.

2014 was a productive year with 125 blog posts and over 160,000 words blogged. During 2014, this blog has been my "scratch pad" for trying to make sense of our human origins and our relationship with the other Sedronites.

As shown in the diagram to the left, the Sedronites were a primate variant that was crafted by the pek to allow a primate from Earth to "cross over" and take up existence within the Sedronic Domain. But something went wrong. Some of the Sedronites became what Parthney named the "Nereids", a group of genetically-modified primates who rejected the idea of existing as artificial lifeforms in the Sedronc Domain. The Nereids took it upon themselves to make the O'typ, a primate variant that would happily exist within the Hadronic Domain.

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Accomplished scientists, the Nereids mastered nanotechnology as well as hierion and sedron physics. One of their creations was the so-called "Grendels": artificial lifeforms that were the helpers of the Nereids. One of the tasks assigned to the Grendels was to carefully introduce O'typ gene combinations into the primate gene pool of Earth. That effort caused the human species to evolve on Earth.

A major challenge for me during the past year has been creating depictions of the various aliens and human variants who I have been hearing about from Angela and Anney. To help with that task, I've been making heavy use of the image resources available at the DeviantART website. For the image to the right, I used "Open Space Background" by Bernhard Siegl. For the Grendel, I wanted a model with wet hair since Grendels like to live in the water. I used "Nude 03" from the lockstoc gallery of stock images. For the airship, I used "Space Ship 5" by Heather Miller.

True Fiction

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One of my favorite blog posts from early this year is called "True Science Fiction". That older post can be constructively read in tandem with "Investigative Science Fiction" from December. The image to the right always reminds me of one of the fun concepts that I discovered this year: Giant Prelands.

A Sedronite. Yes, we Earthlings are Sedronites.

The original Prelands had rather small body size in comparison to we Earthlings, always less than four feet tall. The Prelands are hermaphrodites. However, larger Prelands, the so-called "Giant Prelands" were crafted specifically to match the usual body size of we Earthlings. Anney can't resist spreading rumors about Giant Prelands being on Earth.

In fact, it appears that Giant Prelands are part of the human species, but Anney insists that the plain old Prelands are classified as aliens under the conventions of the Trysta-Grean Pact. Some progress was made this year is revealing the details of the Pact (if you are willing to believe rumors), but many mysteries remain concerning just who is in charge of Earth these days.

Alternative Worlds

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Angela made it a priority this year to educate me about the Ekcolir Reality. In particular, the history of the New World in the Ekcolir Reality unfolded in a significantly different way than what happened here in the universe as we know it.

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One of the interesting features of the Ekcolir Reality is that its pace of technological advance was a bit quicker than in our Reality. One of the consequences of this was that the New England Civil War was fought with machine guns and airplanes.

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Vast quantities of coal were burned in the Ekcolir Reality, triggering global warming and sea level rise. The question remains: will we meet a similar fate here in this Reality?

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Looking back, it is startling how little I knew about my collaborators Ivory and Angela just six months ago. Of course, Ivory felt obligated to keep many secrets from me and those barriers only started coming down when Ivory died.

One of the most intriguing parts of 2104 was my tentative contacts with the Dead Widower Society. I'm still baffled and confused by what I've heard about this group from Ivory and Anney. Earlier this year, Ivory hinted that Isaac Asimov is alive an well and off on some adventure among the stars.

As a fan of Asimov's science fiction, I'm intrigued by the idea that Asimov could return to Earth, but I often wonder if Anney is just teasing me and taking advantage of my interest in Asimov. She's been hinting that I've actually "met Asimov in the future". If so, I will eventually be able to confirm Ivory's prediction of Asimov's return. Of course, Anney refuses to tell me how she "knows" my future. However, I'm intrigued by the idea that science fiction stories from the Ekcolir Reality actually provide information about our future here in the Buld Reality.

May Flowering

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The month of May began with my fears that Ivory was preparing to do something dangerous. Little did I know that she would be dead six months later. I set a record during May for the most blog posts ever in a month. That flowering of output corresponded to Ivory responding to my request for better collaboration: she really opened the infite flood gates. I can see now that she was trying to provide me with as much information as possible before she was taken to the Moon. One of my fears is that Ivory included in what she told me certain nuggets of truth that we Earthlings are not allowed to know. If I posted such truths to my blog then I might have helped win Ivory her ticket to the Moon.

Given my interests in biology, I've been particularly pleased that Ivory and Anney have provided me with a significant amount of biological information this year (examples: origins of the Fru'wu, the book of Fru'wu, Preland biology). All of their information seems to have naturally led to my recent contacts with Resh^Ki and the idea that the tryp'At are an artificially crafted human variant that might be living here on Earth along side we "normal humans" (and if Anney is to be trusted, some Giant Prelands, as well).

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What particularly freaks out Anney is that the tryp'At are hermaphrodites, although they physically pass as normal humans upon casual inspection. I've recently learned that the basic biology of the Sedronites was devised and crafted so as to eliminate males from Sedronite society.

It is rather disorienting to contemplate the possibility that we Earthlings, with our 50-50 ratio of males to females, are the exception rather than the rule for gender among the variants of the human species, most of whom apparently reside on planets of the Galactic Core. Anney hates the idea that tryp'At hermaphrodites are free to operate on Earth under the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact.

Aunt Mayness (source)

Fun in May: I had several blog posts dealing with my on-going attempt to make a place for a fantasy element in the Exode Trilogy. More fun in May: a tribute to Jack Vance. (August Tribute)

Time
In addition to making progress on understanding previous Realities, during 2014 I've also refined my perspective on the past events of the Buld Reality, the universe as we know it. I've tried to sketch out some key events in my own life as they relate to the task of telling the secret history of Humanity. As part of my self-examination, I've begun to explore how I was prepared to function as "the Editor" for the Exode Trilogy (see also).

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My most recent outline of our Reality and some of the key time travel events that shaped it are in this blog post from September. As mentioned above, my collaborators, particularly Anney, have dropped a few hints about their knowing things about my future. I'd love to add such future events to the timeline!

To the left is one of my favorite images from 2014. This imaginary cover illustration for Thomas Iwedon's book Miners of Earth is meant to lampoon some of the "great" tropes of science fiction. Towards the top an alien Huaoshy (the blue alien) and a Kac'hin watch events on Earth. In the lower panel, enslaved Earthlings present newly mined gold to a pek Overseer.

Foundations of Eternity

June Cover Girl
In June I made some updated covers for the Exode Trilogy. I had a lot of fun making a new cover for Foundations of Eternity. Goal for 2015: make more accurate depictions of aliens who have all the Sedronite features including pointy ears, big eyes, long fingers and sharp teeth. Sadly, in this cover (to the right) Grean only got the eyes and the teeth. Backstory: the origins of Grean.

See also: new covers for Trysta and Ekcolir and Exode.

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In addition to working on "my own" books, I had too much fun in 2014 creating imaginary books and magazine articles that were written by my many collaborators including Thomas, Asimov, Ivory and Anney.

The image to the left is a depiction of Grean during a "mop up" operation aimed at removing all the positronic robots from Earth. Grean can use her nanites to alter her physical appearance. Also, she can pop into the Hadronic Domain (our world of conventional matter) from the Hierion Domain any time she needs to, even if it means appearing right in the middle of a televised baseball game.

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In June I made a whole series of imaginary pulp science fiction magazine covers. On the March 2014 issue of Future Science magazine (image to the right) that's poor Grean in need of "life reconstruction". Relax: I'm sure that in such an emergency the orbho at Observer Base on the Moon can patch Grean up.

Galleries of science fiction cover art: 1) at DeviantART, 2) at google. I've also been posting many of the book and magazine covers on Twitter. Related: the end of Twitter.

Alternate-Reality Television

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I had much fun in 2014 imagining the televised science fiction shows of other Realities. See: The Δ-Files, the Questor Reality and Time Travel Television.

Television programs from the Ekcolir Reality are particularly important for the Exode Trilogy because time travel was still possible during the entire Ekcolir Reality and Trysta was there, busily viewing the Buld Reality, the universe as we know it. Angela and Anney have "mined" those old Sci Fi shows for clues about our own future.

Trysta and Ekcolir

Starting Points
During 2014 I've given much thought to how to start the Exode Trilogy (see this and this and this). I currently have a new idea for the beginning of Trysta and Ekcolir. I'm working on a way to use time travel by replicoids as a way to introduce readers to the Exode story. In 2015 I'll probably just go ahead and make that bit of replicoid time travel the new starting point for Trysta and Ekcolir.

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Another surprise that I hope to fully reveal during 2015 is the identity of a member of the Dead Widowers who I've been hinting at for the past few months. Also on tap for 2015: more about nanites, nicotine and how Earthlings can use the Bimanoid Interface.

Asimov wrote that he would think of the start and the end of a story and then just start writing at the beginning and keep going until he reached his planned ending. In contrast, my path towards completing Exode seems to be to start and the end of the story and keep searching until I can discover the beginning. A major source of fun in this research/writing process is that for the Exode Trilogy it involves self-discovery: why did Trysta work so hard to make me "the editor"?

Quote of the year

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"Temporal engineering theorem: a rare and prized Reality requires an annoyingly complex process of  multiple carefully orchestrated interventions to bring about the desired Reality Change." -source.....in the same blog post: mention of a mystery.... a little-known science fiction author who might be Marta.

Honorable mention: "Behavioral theorem: anyone who learns the secret history of Earth will leave this world as quickly as possible". -source

An Archive World (source)

Galactic Core
During 2014, along with discovery of some backstory for the many Sedronites who have been crafted and cultured in the Galactic Core, I also sketched in a few details about some of the worlds of the Core such as Taivasila, Tar'tron and Rain World.
Related Reading: 2015 review - Back to 2013
SIHA 2014: The Signal is in THE SKIN

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