Origin of the Nereids

Original cover art by
Boris Vallejo

Towards the end of last year, I gave an account of the origin of the Nereids. At that time, I knew that Kach had gone to the Andromeda Galaxy in search of the remnants of the Nereids, so I got comfortable making the assumption that the Nereids originated on a planet of that galaxy. However, Gohrlay claims that the biological origin of the Nereids was actually a planet located in the globular cluster known as M2.

By the time when the pek first arrived in our galaxy (possibly about 2,000,000,000 years ago), the world of the Nereids was already ancient. With almost no land and low levels of metals in its crust, that planet was the home to many aquatic species that had high intelligence, rather like dolphins on Earth.

Zan Zu of Eridu

According to Gohrlay, the pek were experts at looking through the rare but ancient worlds of globular clusters and finding "water worlds" where intelligent species can often be found. Thus, about 2,000,000,000 years ago the pek began a long-term project of altering the lifeforms that they found in cluster M2, a project that eventually resulted in the Nereids coming into existence.

The true physical form of the
alien Nereids is unknown.

Sadly, we might never know the whole story of Nereid origins because it is a topic that the Huaoshy don't like to discuss. The origin and history of the Nereids is all tied up with Interventionists and, ultimately, some changes to their ethical rules that the Huaoshy recently had to make. However, the idea that the Nereid home word is in the M2 cluster helps explain the importance of the Aquarius Sector for Earth's history and hidden history of Humanity.

Artist's depiction
of a Nereid.

Terrestrial planets are relatively rare in globular star clusters, but they do occur and some of them have survived for more than 13 billion years. According to Gohrlay, dozens of different intelligent species have evolved during the past 2,000,000,000 years on the Nereid home world. The Nereids are derived from only the most recent of these.

Sedronites

Since the Huaoshy originated as bipedal creatures not too different from Earthly primates, the pek have always tried to shape the intelligent species that they find scattered through the universe into the bipedal body plan.

 Special thanks to Miranda Hedman (www.mirish.deviantart.com) for the DeviantArt stock photograph "Black Cat 9 - stock" that I used to create the blue "sedronite" who is in the image shown to the right.

The use of a common body plan facilitates pek efforts to merge new species first into the vast intergalactic Genesaunt Society and then, ultimately, into the community of artificial lifeforms that reside in the Sedronic Domain. The Nereids were modified from their original body plan, that of an aquatic creature that evolved on an ancient "water world", into a fairly human-like species.

Grendels have occasionally taken the form of "sea monsters"

The beings that we know as the Nereids were part of the Sedronite family of creatures who contributed genes to the creation of we humans. They were long ago taken through the complete process of preparation for being merged into Genesaunt Civilization. Then there was a period of "devolution" during which an attempt was made by Interventionists to craft a biological species that would be well suited for existence in the Hadronic Domain. This effort was successful, but the Nereids became extinct several million years ago after converting themselves into a form of artificial life.

Grendels can take on any
convenient physical form.

One of the artificial life off-shoot civilizations that originated from the Nereids gave rise to the "Grendels", beings who were important "foot soldiers" for the Interventionists during the Time War. The only "Nereid agents" who ever visited Earth were actually Grendels. We don't know a true name of the Grendels any more than we know a real name for the Nereids.

Both of these names (Nereids, Grendels) derive from Earthly legend. The fact that we have two names for the same group of Interventionists reflects the fact that some of the time the Grendels who worked on Earth took the form of beautiful sea creatures while on other occasions they took the form of sea monsters. With their advanced nanite technology, the Grendels could take on any physical form that was convenient. Given their origins from the Nereids who arose on a "water world", it was natural for the Grendels to routinely operate from bases of operation that had their entrances hidden under bodies of water on Earth.

The Sedronite evolutionary tree.

The origin of the Nereids in globular cluster M2 eventually made the Aquarius Sector of the Galaxy a hotspot for their  Interventionist missions. According to Gohrlay, 5,000,000 years ago the home world of the Fruthwa came to the attention of the Nereids since it was located on the side of our galaxy closest to the position of the M2 cluster. The Nereids became involved in creating Fru'wu long before they began meddling in the evolution of primates on Earth.

The Nereids first came within 1000 light years of Earth when they set up a sedron mining station on a planet in the star system that we Earthlings know as beta-Aquarii. Some 5,000,000 years later, that planet (known as Sadal Suud Four) had become an important mining and transit center for humans of the Asimov Reality.

The legendary Vire Mine 1, supposedly
located deep under the city of Vire,
on planet Sadul Suud Four,
in the Aquarius Sector,
within the Asimov Reality.

The Asimov Reality
Vire, the capitol city of Sadal Suud Four, was originally established as a base of operations for the secretive Jarnell Corporation, the sole source of the "intersplit" spacedrive that allowed humans of the Asimov Reality to travel between the stars. According to Gohrlay, the Jarnell Corporation was a "front operation" for the Grendels, a way to provide Earthlings with sedrons. Each "intersplit spacedrive" engine was manufactured and pre-loaded by the Grendels with a supply of sedrons, but no human ever had any idea of the existence of sedrons or their special role in making interstellar space travel possible.

According to Gohrlay, the pek permitted this gross violation of the Rules of Intervention because they were trying to develop a new human variant, the Ek'col, who would make possible an end to the Time War. In other words, since the Huaoshy planned to "erase" the Asimov Reality anyhow, the Rules of Intervention could be bent and humans could be provided with space drive technology by the Grendels.

An agent of Zodiac Control using
nanites to control a woman's endo-
symbiont and erase her memories.

The Grendels were completely unaware of the existence of time travel and they had no clear understanding of how they were being used by the pek. In the Asimov Reality, during the era when Kirth Gersen lived, a widely-circulated rumor held that the Institute was scheming to acquire the Jarnell Corporation and once they did, then human use of space travel would be terminated or severely restricted.

In the Asimov Reality, having quickly found it so easy to supply Earthlings with access to spacedrive technology, the Grendels were then continually frustrated by their inability to provide humans with even rudimentary nanotechnology. The pek, by secretly exercising their control over human organizations like the Institute and through the machinations of their own secret service, Zodiac Control, were able to prevent humans of the Asimov Reality from making many obvious technological advances, or, when necessary, they could retroactively suppress and eliminate technologies and scientific discoveries, often by using the nanite endosymbionts that existed inside most humans.

source

In the Aquarius Trilogy novels of John and Jack Vance that were written in the Ekcolir Reality, Sirneste Cluster was the name used for globular cluster M2. In the Asimov Reality, the planet Sogdian in Sirneste Cluster was long used as a place where the Grendels could experiment on humans.

The Aquarius Sector

In the Ekcolir Reality, the prototypical Ek'col male, named Ekcolir, was able to bring an end to the Time War by convincing Trysta to work with Grean to find a viable future for Earth and Humanity.

It is ironic that the origins of the Ek'col can be traced (in part) to Interventionist research programs on worlds like Sogdian.

The Buld Reality

Trysta and Ekcolir

In the Buld Reality, Ekcolir (A.K.A. Enki) founded the first city on Earth (Eridu). Ekcolir rather jokingly started astronomy as an Earthly science by talking to primitive Earthlings about "the water worlds" of the Aquarius Sector and drawing a molecular structure for H₂O on the zodiac.

Eridu by Bad-Dragon
(Arne Cooper)

In The Palace of Love, Jack Vance depicted the mad poet Navarth as referring to a clone of Jheral Tinzy as "Zan Zu of Eridu". Jheral Tinzy had a brain that was particularly well-suited for interactions with pek nanites. Using the planet Sogdian as their base, the Grendels performed experiments on Jheral Tinzy and her clone daughters, exploring ways to alter the actions of the nanorobotic endosymbionts that resided in humans.

The Aquarius Trilogy

Later, after learning of the existence of the clones of Jheral Tinzy, Zodiac Control captured Drusilla I and investigated the special features of her nervous system.

As told in The Fomalhaut Planets, Kirth Gersen and Drusilla pushed their investigation of Zodiac Control too far. Because they had learned too much about the Time War, some of Gersen's memories were altered and Drusilla was taken for study by Zodiac Control.

Eventually, some of the uniquely useful gene patterns of Jheral Tinzy found their way to Earth during Ekcolir's intervention in 20,000 B.C.E. and they were also made use of in crafting the tryp'At.
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2019 update

Aliens? I'm still searching for Interesting Hollywood Aliens.

More about nanites and the artificial life forms that they make possible.

2019 UPDATE: the Nereid loop

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