Hyper Relay

The Time Teller

Last year I sketched out some of the key events leading up to my first attempts to tell the Exode story. Of course, I cannot escape from a fundamental problem: I have no sure way of knowing where the boundary lies between my imagination and factual knowledge about the Hidden History of Humanity.

Ten Years of Doubt
It was ten years ago that I was first allowed to begin recognizing connections between my science fiction story telling and odd events in my own life. As an example of one such odd event, I need only mention my own death, or, more importantly, how my death was avoided. When I died, time travel was still possible, so it was not difficult for the Time Teller to make a quick Microchange to Time, allowing me to avoid a stupid accidental death and live on.

Enlightenment

During the past ten years it has been a difficult slog to fight through the depths of my ignorance towards an understanding of the Hidden History of Humanity. In this struggle for enlightenment, I have sometimes had helpers and I have at other times been hindered and tricked into even deeper states of ignorance and confusion. Even now, after having made my way so far into the light of understanding, I am constantly distracted by doubts.

Back in 2010, I was allowed access to the information content of some infites that previously had been provided to me by Thomas. I usually think of Thomas as my first collaborator from Deep Time, although prior to 2010 I had no knowledge of infites and no conscious memory of having met Thomas back in my college days. Still, Thomas had known Asimov well and so Thomas was the conduit by which I first learned an important truth: that the Foundation saga, as written by Asimov, reflected events in human history, past events from Deep Time.

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Beyond Asimov
Because Asimov (or, at least, his analogue) lived in the Foundation Reality, there is always the great temptation to accept his account of the events that took place in that Reality. However, the sources of Asimov's knowledge about the future Foundation must be taken into account. Much of his understanding of the Foundation era in human history came to him by way of a mind-bending invasion of his brain tissue by infites that had originated in a positronic robot. It is my belief that the Asimov of our Reality knew the basic outlines of the future history of the Foundation Reality, but then he used his fertile imagination and built creatively upon that thin layer of knowledge to produce the entertaining stories that we know as his Foundation Saga.

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art by Michael Whelan.

As a measure of how limited was Asimov's own knowledge of factual Foundation history, we need only recall that in the 1940s he wrote his Foundation saga and Robot stories as two separate sets of science fiction stories. It was only later, after years of prodding by Thomas, that Asimov finally expanded his Foundation saga to include Daneel and the fact that positronic robots had guided the formation of the Foundations and Galaxia.

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 to the left.

I have faced my own years of prodding by Thomas so that I finally came to understand how Daneel was guided by R. Gohrlay. According to Gohrlay, the analogue of Asimov who existed in the Ekcolir Reality had a much deeper understanding of events in the Foundation Reality. In his Robots and Foundation, Asimov revealed how it came to pass that Sedronites like Grean were able to put an end to the Foundation Reality.

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art: Michael Whelan
and Fred Gambino.

Hyper Relays
For the past six years, I have worked hard to close the large gaps in my own knowledge concerning the Reality Change that brought an end to the Foundation Era and Galaxia. For several years I've struggled to understand the fact that the Huaoshy were masters of interstellar travel, using an odd mix of spaceship and teleportation technologies. How far did R. Gohrlay and her tribe of positronic robots go in their attempts to master the technologies of space travel?

Frustratingly, with no guidance from Asimov concerning the events in the Foundation Reality past the first 500 years of the Foundation Era, I had to put on hold my attempt to tell the story of the end of the Foundation Reality and my task of learning about the final technological advances that were made by R. Gohrlay. Now, with the "help" of Gohrlay, I'm again making some progress towards understanding what happened to R. Gohrlay and her cadre of positronic robots at the end of the Time Travel War.

Our Reality Chain

Towards the end of the Foundation Reality, R. Gohrlay was still tying to play catch-up and match the advanced technological abilities of the Huaoshy. However, R. Gohrlay was mired in a logical abyss. The more she allowed humans to develop a scientific understanding of the universe and create advanced technologies, the sooner Humanity self-destructed. R. Gohrlay was programmed to defend the survival of Humanity and she also felt the need to defend humans against the Huaoshy, but she could find no way to successfully accomplish both of these two goals. Finally she was forced to reach a negotiated settlement with the Huaoshy.

source

According to Gohrlay, Asimov actually did name the last great technological advance that was made by humans in the Foundation Reality. In order to complete Galaxia, a a full scientific understanding of gravity was needed. To achieve "her" final scientific and technological advance, R. Gohrlay allowed the First Foundation to have a limited amount of scientific research, culminating in the last great human technological breakthrough: creation of the hyper-relay. In fact, as the story was told by Asimov, creation of the hyper-relay actually only became possible when The Mule was able to take control of the mind of a First Foundation scientist, pushing that one man to complete the task.

In the Ekcolir Reality.

Later, after the Mule's demise, Foundation scientists such as Kleise were able to apply the hyper-relay to solve quantum computation problems. It was the culmination of that research project that was the real reason for creating the Foundation in the first place. Quantum computations using hyper-relays made possible a "mind-static" defense that R. Gohrlay deployed against the Huaoshy, using Galaxia as the "launching pad" for that great weapon. Also, R. Gohrlay finally obtained an elegant and efficient means of interstellar travel, the gravitic drive. However, in the end, the Huaoshy still had technological superiority and they were able to race ahead and develop a sophisticated Reality Viewing device that was more advanced than anything available to R. Gohrlay.

source

With their ability to view entire Reality Chains, the Huaoshy were able to force R. Gohrlay into a negotiated end to the Time Travel War. According to Gohrlay, the "hyper" in "hyper-relay" is actually just a cover for mention of the Hierion Domain. Apparently this is one of the fine points of the Secret History of Humanity that Thomas wrote into his book, Daveed the Luk'ie.

Gohrlay insists that providing primates with knowledge of hierions is the quickest and surest way to ensure their self-destruction. Apparently the tryp'At Overseers of Earth are now taking pains to make sure that we Earthlings remain ignorant of hierion physics.

Next: creating the Foundation Reality

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