The Bumpha

Into the Primitive Era.

I've been playing "20 questions" with Gohrlay, trying to find out just how much she knows about the bumpha. The bumpha have been important collaborators with R. Gohrlay before, during and after the Time War. However, the Huaoshy are embarrassed by the bumpha and the bumpha themselves prefer to work quietly without attracting attention. R. Gohrlay has always honored the bumpha desire to stay in the shadows. I'm surprised that Gohrlay knows as much as she does about the bumpha.

The Downwhen Terminus
Leading up to the Time War era, the Kac'hin were tasked with developing time travel technology. The Kac'hin had stumbled upon the existence of time travel because of their interactions with R. Gohrlay's tribe of time traveling positronic robots. It was the Huaoshy, within the Sedronic Domain, who first suspected that the source of R. Gohrlay's power lay in having access to time travel technology. The Kac'hin were created as an "appendage" of the Huaoshy that could investigate the human species as a suspected case of Interventionism gone too far.

The End of Eternity

For about 10,000,000 years, R. Gohrlay tried to discover the scientific and engineering secrets behind the Huaoshy deployment of zeptites and their other sophisticated uses of sedrons. During all that time, R. Gohrlay was the undisputed master of time travel technology, but finally, the Huaoshy developed their own time travel technology and the Time War began.

A Sedronite family tree.

According to Gohrlay, there were a few technological innovations and accomplishments of the positronic robots that the Kac'hin could not replicate or understand. Gohrlay suspects that the bumpha shared advanced sedronic technologies with R. Gohrlay and helped discover a means to travel through time beyond the Downwhen Terminus.

Pelorat discovering the
secrets of robotics

R. Gohrlay's ability to freely send her robotic agents into the far past was a technologically driven option that was not available to the Kac'hin. When the Kac'hin needed a vast stretch of time for a project (for example, creating the Ek'col), they always worked into the far future.

Time travel is no longer possible because the Huaoshy recently altered the dimensional structure of the universe so as to put an end to time travel, but the practical application of time travel technology was described by Isaac Asimov in his novel, The End of Eternity. Asimov's knowledge of time travel can be traced back into Deep Time, tho when an analogue of Isaac Asimov became a time traveler in the Foundation Reality.

Noÿs Lambent and Andrew Harlan beside the time kettle.

In The End of Eternity, Asimov depicted the use of a special time travel device that took Noÿs Lambent and Andrew Harlan back into the Primitive era of Earth's history, before the invention of time travel technology.

Beyond the Downwhen Terminus
We can ask: just how far back in time did R. Gohrlay send her positronic robots? According to Gohrlay, there are clues in the nature of the "all human galaxy" that was described by Asimov in his Foundation Saga.

Our Reality Chain. The Grean Reality is
also known as the Asimov Reality

R. Gohrlay tried to turn our galaxy into an impregnable fortress that was to be defended against the Huaoshy by the advanced telepathic powers of Galaxia. Gohrlay believes that the Reality Change that brought into existence the Foundation Reality involved sending positronic robots back through time about 1,000,000,000 years in order to prevent the pek from ever exerting their own control over our galaxy.

And Telepathy, too
According to Gohrlay, it is true that the type of "sedron-mediated" telepathy that gave positronic robots their telepathic abilities also became impossible after the Huaoshy recently altered the dimensional structure of the universe. Strangely, the odd linkage between positrons, hierions and sedrons that was involved in telepathy was never fully understood before it was lost. R. Gohrlay simply made use of it in her struggles against the pek without ever being able to find a coherent scientific theory for its mechanics.

Reality Viewing

According to Gohrlay, the Spacer dream of using robots to prepare worlds of the galaxy for human colonization was realized by R. Gohrlay in the Foundation Reality. When humans spread through the galaxy, they found 25,000,000 worlds ready and waiting for human occupancy.

Foundations of Eternity

Although the Kac'hin never developed their own time travel technology for going back past the Downwhen Terminus, Grean did capture the Eternity time travel device that was located on the Moon (as told in Foundations of Eternity).

According to Gohrlay, even after gaining control of the Eternity device on the Moon, Grean was still severely restricted by the existence of R. Gohrlay's system for imposing a high degree of temporal momentum on Humanity.

Trysta views the future

Apparently Grean and the Huaoshy never learned how R. Gohrlay achieved temporal amplification. Gohrlay suspects that that innovation was also the result of a secret collaboration between the bumpha and R. Gohrlay.

However, the Kac'hin did discover one technological innovation of temporal engineering that was never available to R. Gohrlay: the ability to view Reality Chains. R. Gohrlay did have Reality Viewing technology, but she could only look "ahead" into the next Reality. Grean could look "further ahead" through a sequence of Reality Changes. Ultimately, that Huaoshy technological innovation for advanced Reality Viewing is what forced R. Gohrlay to a negotiated end of the Time War.

The bumpha
Given the important roles that the bumpha played in supporting R. Gohrlay, I began to suspect that it was the bumpha who were masterminds behind the creation of R. Gohrlay and positronics. However, Gohrlay insists that it is true that the pek really do take full responsibility for allowing humans to develop  positronics and for their own failure to recognize the existence of sedron-mediated telepathy.

Gohrlay's departure from Earth aboard Many Sails.

Yes, the bumpha Interventionists designed and crafted the human species through their agents, the Grendels, but it was a pek Overseer, Orbho Anagro, who was willingly moved into a gray area in the Rules for Intervention and who created the conditions that allowed for R. Gohrlay to come into existence.

According to Gohrlay, the bumpha do view we Earthlings as their greatest creation. It was bumpha Interventionism that brought the human species into existence on Earth and led to Orbho Anagro's fascination with Humanity.

Next: Gohrlay's past lives in Deep Time.

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers