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

visit the Gallery of Posters

Replicoid Secrets

Image Credits

This blog post is an update on my efforts to gain access to the vast information resources of the Hierion Domain. During the past year, I've experimented with techniques for altering my brain's activity in the hope that I might gain control of the Bimanoid Interface.

With the help of first Ivory and now, currently, her clone, Anney, I've learned how to retain memories from those times when my conscious mind is "in control of" my replicoid. It appears that my replicoid must "invite me" to "take control", and so far, I can only use the Bimanoid Interface while I'm in a particular stage of sleep.

Special thanks to Miranda Hedman (www.mirish.deviantart.com) for the DeviantArt stock photograph "Black Cat 2 - stock" that I used the image shown to the right.

In effect, if "someone" such as Anney's replicoid wants to tell me something, then I can be "summoned" into the virtual reality of the Hierion Domain. Most recently, I was "invited" to the Domain so that Anney could share with me her paranoid views on the Overseer-Interventionist dynamic that she believes has shaped the history of human civilization on Earth.

Anney and Ajax. (image credits, + below)

When I "awaken" within the virtual reality of the Hierion Domain, I often find myself in one particular location. I think of it as "Anney's workshop". Sometimes there are others there, usually members of the Dead Widower Society, but it is Anney's special place where she works to explore the Sedronic Domain and share what she has learned with other Earthlings.

To give you a sense of Anney's power to control "her world", I've tried to depict her ability to use nanites to not only modify her own physical appearance but bring into existence the components and elements of her workshop. Shown to the left: Anney assembling her "pet" Ajax from nanorobotic components.

Ajax is one of the more alarming feature's of Anney's workshop. "He" acts like a human and speaks. According to Anney, Ajax originated as a "duplicated replicoid" and is a kind of sounding board for Anney while she is trying to "write up" her reports.

Example of another "place" frequented by Anney's
replicoid in the Hierion Domain (source)

I don't really have the proper vocabulary to explain what I mean by "reports". In the Hierion Domain, information is passed around in the form of infites: information nanites.

A visit to Anney's World involves me "awakening" inside the body of my own replicoid. Anney then  confirms that I have "arrived" and she sends a swarm of infites into me. Those infites trigger a kind of virtual reality experience, often allowing me to become aware of something that Anney has been studying, either in the Hierion Domain or in the Sedronic Domain.

Usually Anney herself is present in the physical form that she claims is her "natural form", the form that her biological body would have had if she had been allowed to fully express all of her Preland genes. Of course, she has complete control over the shape of her replicoid and sometimes she appears to me in alternate forms.

Atlantis Clones. "Atlantis" is another
"place" within the Hierion Domain.

Anney is frustrated by my slow progress. Some nights I fail to even "cross over" into the Hierion Domain. Other times I bombard Anney with so many stupid questions that she becomes sad and bored. I sense that there is a great strain on Anney and she has admitted that a crisis is looming. The Dead Widowers had expected to be able to share what they know about the secret history of humanity by publishing their accounts. However, the tryp'At seem to have disrupted those plans.

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Anney looks upon me as the only viable alternative to direct communications between the Dead Widowers and the people of Earth. She despairs when I'm bumbling around with my poor control of the Bimanoid Interface and making it obvious that I know so little about the secret history of Earth. I feel like I'm making great progress, but Anney seems to think I'm: "...too old to learn the Interface."

Like her sister Angela, Anney grew up using the Bimanoid Interface and she is at home in the Hierion Domain. For me, my experiences of the Domain are disorienting and difficult to remember once my conscious mind returns to the Hadronic Domain.

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Anney has warned me that some day I might return to the Hierion Domain and find that she and all the Dead Widowers have been exiled from the virtual reality that allows the replicoids of Earthlings to have a shared place in the Hierion Domain. According to Anney, the virtual reality could be "reprogrammed" so as to exclude alien-human hybrids like the Atlantis Clones.

The Resh^Ki Replicoid
My most recent "visit" with Anney in the Hierion Domain came to an abrupt end when Resk^Ki showed up. I woke up back here in the Hadronic Domain thinking that Resk^Ki wanted to tell me something, something that Anney did not want me to hear.

Anney has previously used the term "exphile", but now she finally tried to explain to me what it means. Millions of years ago, the basic Sedronite chromosome set was engineered by the pek. According to Anney, the pek were the original "X-philes". They designed a Sedronite chromosome set for which there were two sex chromosomes: X and H.

The Sedronite HXX chromosome set.

The "H" chromosome was a modified version of the primordial ape X chromosome that had been engineered to carry a modified version of the Y chromosome at one end. Most Sedronites are hermaphrodites with three sex chromosomes: HXX.

Sedronite hermaphrodites usually give birth to either hermaphroditic or female (XX) offspring. Female Sedronites can give birth to either hermaphrodites or female children. Quite rarely, an XY male can be born, but they are sickly due to only having one X chromosome.

"Family Tree" of the Sedronites.

Things got interesting when a dissident faction of the Nereids decided to transfer some of their artificial gene combinations back into the gene pool of the primates of Earth. Their efforts gradually resulted in the evolution of humans.

At the same time, the "dissident Nereids" (apparently they lived on a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy) were altering their own genes and the resulting life forms were known as the O'typ. The O'typ had three "genders", HX hermaphrodites, HY males and XX females. The XY chromosome complement did not produce viable offspring, but resulted in the growth of an endosymbiotic "soul brother" inside of its "mother".

Preland: almost human.

With time, some human gene combinations were transferred from humans into some of the descendants of the O'typ. This produced a new species, the ry'A that shared some of the telepathic abilities of the Neanderthals.

According to Anney, the pek were horrified by the entire Nereid intervention on Earth that resulted in the human species. Apparently there has long been an effort by the pek to find a way of replacing we humans with some other primate species such as the Prelands.

I've heard this tale of "Preland replacement" of humans from several sources, but I'm skeptical about its validity. As described in my previous blog post, I've begun to have a small amount of luck recovering memories from the time when Resk^Ki was still good friends with Ivory in the Hierion Domain. It has always been the contention of Resk^Ki that the Prelands were created as part of the Trysta-Grean Pact. Apparently there are other "unpopular" ideas that Resk^Ki would like to share with me, but Anney (and, maddeningly, also my replicoid) is now blocking my access to Resk^Ki.

see the faestock gallery

I don't enjoy the feeling that my replicoid is manipulating me and keeping me from having full access to the information that is available in the Hierion Domain. In particular, I'm quite curious to discover what Resk^Ki can tell me about the tryp'At.
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An alien X-Phile examines
a human embryonic male.
Image Credits

Image Credits.  To make the illustration of "Anney's World" (a depiction of her "workshop" in the Hierion Domain) I used three stock images from the DeviantART website. For the background setting, I used "Futuristic Columns" by E. Barbeau (visit the Cassy-Blue gallery of stock images). To depict Anney, I used "Jedi - Stock Pose Reference 21" by faestock. The cat is from "Snow Leopard Stock 19" by HOTNStock.

Define Human

Defined as members of the human species under the terms of the
Tyrsta-Grean Pact: all the humans who evolved on Earth,
the Giant Prelands, the Buld, the Pla, the Ek'col and the tryp'At.

Sometimes I wonder if I have more influence on my replicoid than one might expect. Well, regardless of whether I had anything to do with it, I finally got a chance to study a packet of infites that were passed from Resh^Ki to my replicoid.

The "Sedronite family tree" shown here (to the right) puts special emphasis on which descendants of the Sedronites are human. Of course, there can be conflicting definitions of any species, but what seems most relevant in this case is the definition that is in effect due to implementation of the Trysta-Grean Pact.

I've had a heavy reliance on Angela and Anney for help in understanding the past Realities that existed before the universe as we know it. Due to her biases, Anney would prefer to count herself as human and exclude Resh^Ki from the "human family", but making distinctions between humans and non-humans can be tricky when the Kac'hin are involved.

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According to Resh^Ki, the Kac'hin were designed to allow efficient communication between the alien Huaoshy and a few humanoids who could end the Time Travel War. In fact, the Kac'hin were "just human enough" to satisfy the definition of "human" that was used by Gohrlay's tribe of positronic robots. However, the Kac'hin are just a little too alien to qualify as human under the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact.

Alien-human hybrids
So, what about hybrids like Anney and Resh^Ki? Resh^Ki has confirmed my hunch that Anney's biological father was a tryp'At (Anney has denied this). If Resk^Ki is correct, then is there any reason to think of either Anney or Resh^Ki as being more human, and less alien, than the other?

One bit of evidence to support Anney's claim to be "more human" than Resh^Ki is that apparently Marta (Anney's biological mother) is still living on Earth. However, Resh^Ki denies that this is relevant.

According to Resh^Ki, both the Kac'hin and the tryp'At can function as "genetic editors" due to the fact that they can act as hosts for gene editing nanites. In particular, those gene editing nanites can be inserted into developing embryos where they can act either to 1) prevent the children of Kac'hin from retaining alien genes that would mark them as alien, or 2) simply alter the developmental program of the embryo so as to give it a physical form that is indistinguishable from a human.

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Anney is comfortable with the idea that the Kac'hin have not been allowed on Earth since 2012, but she is outraged that the tryp'At still claim the right to visit Earth. Anney seems particularly nervous about the idea that the tryp'At can come to Earth and bring along their sophisticated nanites. However, Resk^Ki says that while the Kac'hin are dependent on their nanite endosymbiont, the tryp'At were specifically engineered to have the capacity to host a genetic editor endosymbiont, but they can also survive and function as biological organisms without hosting any "extra" nanites.

In other words, the Trysta-Grean Pact appears to allow for tryp'At to be on Earth as long as they don't carry any nanites in addition to the standard human endosymbiont. Anney also objects the the fact that the tryp'At are hermaphroditic. Until the tryp'At recently revealed themselves, they were something of a secret weapon.

Image Credits (see also)

Rumors had long circulated that the pek had a plan to let the hermaphroditic Prelands colonize Earth and replace we humans. According to Resh'Ki, those fears were based on a paranoid misunderstanding that arose from the existence of the tryp'At, who have quietly existed on Earth for at least the past 20,000 years.

In fact, Resh^Ki claims that a team of tryp'At worked closely with Ekcolir when he visited Earth 20,000 years ago. Ekcolir acted as a vector for inserting Preland gene combinations into the human gene pool, but he lacked the tools to "fine tune" and manage that gene flow. Apparently the tryp'At took care of all the fussy genetic details. There is more from Resh^Ki about the tryp'At in my next blog post.

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers

Replicoids in Time

Original cover art by Ed Emshwiller.

Last night I got into a discussion of time travel with Anney. She agrees that time travel was "broken" some time in the late 20th century. Since the dimensional structure of the universe was altered and time travel is no longer possible, some people have trouble accepting the role that time travel played in creating the universe as we know it.

I asked Anney what she views as the best evidence for time travel. She surprised me by admitting that her sister Ivory had traveled through time. Well, almost.

According to Anney, Ivory had described being sent back in time to the year 1958. Actually what she provided was a "second hand" account from when her replicoid was sent into the past. In a sense, Ivory's conscious mind "went along for the ride" to 1958.

Marta and Adão

How close are the tryp'At to being human?

Ivory was born in late 1958, but the identity of her father has  been a source of mystery. Marta has always identified Ivory's father as Adão Fersoni, but nothing else is know about him.

At the time when Ivory's replicoid traveled to 1958, Ivory did not understand that she had some limited access to the Hierion Domain. During one particular sleep stage, the human brain can use the Bimanoid Interface and "bring back" some memories from the Hierion Domain. With Anney's help, I've been able to achieve some success in accessing my replicoid and we've been using that channel as a way to communicate. Anney can "insert" infites into my repicoid and I can remember some of what I learned from them after I "return" to the Hadronic Domain.

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Apparently Ivory and I went through the same kind of training in how to use the Bimanoid Interface. When Ivory took up residence at Atlantis, she developed some skill at "merging" with her replicoid. That allowed her to correctly interpret and understand some of her old memories that she had assumed were nothing more than dream experiences.

According to Anney, based on her "trip to 1958" Ivory was completely satisfied that her father had been a typical Earthling.

Of course, I've developed something of an obsession about the tryp'At. I asked Anney if it was possible that Adão Fersoni was actually a tryp'At, not a human. Anney said, "That's too horrid to contemplate." My "session" with Anney ended soon after that.

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I can understand that that Anney does not like the idea that her biological father might have been a tryp'At. Anney is in the middle of a battle with the tryp'At over differing interpretations of the Trysta-Grean Pact. However, when I was "dropping out" of the Hierion Domain, something odd happened. I'm not sure what happened, but I've been told that the conscious minds of replicoids are rather fluid. For example, two or more replicoids can "merge" their thoughts, apparently by mixing their nanites within a single replicoid's body.

The Editor
What might have happened was that Resk^Ki could have been "merging" thons mind into my replicoid. In an instant, I got the corner of an idea: maybe the tryp'At were designed to be a "device" for editing human genomes.

Was Adão Fersoni a tryp'At ?

If so, why is that important? Anney's ancestor's include an Asterothrope (Trysta), an Ek'col (Deomede) and Lili, a Kac'hin. As far as I can tell, when the Trysta-Grean Pact went into effect,  all aliens were removed from Earth, including Lili. Lili's plan was that Ivory and the Atlantis Clones would be able to remain on Earth. Ivory herself sequenced her own DNA, and while it was unusual, it was clearly human DNA.

What if the children of a tryp'At and a human-alien hybrid such as Marta has only a limited number of alien gene combinations? Just few enough to meet the criteria that are used for allowing one to have access to the "humans-only" virtual reality of the Hierion Domain? And what if those genetic criteria are what qualifies one as being an Earthling (genetically) under the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact?

Replicoid experiment.

 2023 update. In 2023, I began using AI-generated images to illustrate this blog and in 2024 I'm making plans to continue a story in progress which concerns how Tyhry tried to obtain advanced nanotechnology that will make it possible for her to make replicoid copies of herself. During the past ten years, replicoids have often played important roles in my science fiction stories, far beyond what I imagined in 2014. The image that is shown to the right was generated by WOMBO Dream. In my imagination this is an alien performing a telepathy experiment with a replicoid.

More about replicoids:

Alien Intervention

Replicoid Secrets

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers

Second Contact

I continue to be a source of amusement and frustration for Anney. However, she did provide constructive feedback for my first attempt to chart the relationship between we humans and the tryp'At.

The new version of the human family tree shown here (to the right) provides some insight into why the tryp'At and the Buld have both been allowed to set foot on Earth. There was a calculated effort to make both the tryp'At and the Buld  physically indistinguishable from we Earthlings, at least upon casual inspection.

First Contact

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Actually, the idea that either the tryp'At or the Buld have visited Earth is only the stuff of rumor and legend. I've been told that two years ago a few Buld set foot on Earth, but they quickly departed and have not returned. Anney believes that there are tryp'At Overseers keeping an eye on Earth, acting as vigilantes and enforcing their interpretation of the Trysta-Grean Pact. Of course, that enrages Anney since she thinks that the tryp'At were intentionally designed as a way to cheat and skirt around the terms of the Pact.

If we count the arrival of the Buld spaceship on Earth as "first contact" then we have to rate it as a bust. The Buld stayed just long enough to pick up a few "alien refugees" who wanted to get off of this planet. Nobody else noticed.

Second Contact
Can we count human interactions with the tryp'At as "second contact"? Anney suggests that the tryp'At have been present in the Solar System only since 2012, but how can we be sure? Anney has been troubled by the fact that Resh^Ki claims to be a hybrid Kac'hin-tryp'At. I recently recovered memories about Svahr from my replicoid in the Hierion Domain. Svahr claims to be a hybrid human-tryp'At.

If the tryp'At are nearly indistinguishable from humans and can reproduce successfully with both humans and Kac'hin, then how can we know when humans first had contact with the tryp'At?

Karonis
While writing my previous blog post I was trying to understand the origins of Resh^Ki. I now understand that Karonis, a Kac'hin hermaphrodite, was Resh^Ki's grandfather.

I've long been fascinated by the idea that the last use of time travel was by Trysta when she went 10,000 years into our past. However, Svahr insists that Karonis and Trysta's daughter Hyanti lived together in the Koly star system 10,000 years ago.

Athlash and Trysta

Anney insists that Karonis is alive and well and now living happily with Lili in the Galactic Core. Many questions remain.....

Is Karonis a time traveler? Are there multiple "Karonis clones"? Are there other means for "duplicating" (such as teleportation) that might account for multiple "copies of Karonis" to exist across a span of 10,000 years?

The Hermaphrodite Chronicles

source

Anney tells me that I've never faced up to the fact that the human species was engineered by the Nereids who, while themselves originating from Earthly primate stock, were engineered by the pek to have what Anney calls "the basic O'typ" reproductive system, a form of gynodioecy.

According to Anney, all Sedronites, including humans, carry genes that make possible hermaphroditic developmental programs. Among the Sedronites, the Ek'col and we humans are exceptional for having males. Among the Ek'col, a genetically engineered primate species with androdioecy, most individuals are hermaphrodites and only on rare occasions are males born. Ek'col males were brought into existence for only one purpose: to allow Asterothrope genes to merge into the human gene pool.

Svahr alters the fate of Isaac Asimov.
Art work by Boris Vallejo.

Of course, "the human gene pool" refers to the genes of we Earthlings and the source of  "Asterothrope genes" was Trysta. Anney and Svahr have convinced me that there has been ample opportunity for "Tayge clones" to insert Asterothrope gene combinations into the human gene pool during the past 10,000 years. To quote Svahr, who made this all very clear: "No Earthling should be surprised to learn that they carry gene clusters that originated from Trysta."

Anney insists that I'm wrong about this, but I can't help suspecting that Trysta was not the only alien "spicing up" the human gene pool. Ivory claimed that the people of Phasi all carried a genetic pattern that was brought to Earth by Ekcolir 20,000 years ago. The tryp'At seem to have been specifically designed to function as vectors for the stealthy dissemination of alien genes. The tryp'At might not have arrived on Earth in a spaceship, but they might have arrived long ago.....if so, maybe we Earthlings should count that as First Contact.

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