The Alice Investigations

from the Asimov Reality
Original cover art by Michael Koelsch
and Lawrence Stevens.

Every year when August roles around I celebrate the birth of Jack Vance (last year). I like to imagine that the characters Vance included in his Demon Princes novels were actual people who lived about 1,500 years in our future and in the Asimov Reality.

The main protagonist of Vance's five Demon Princes novels is Kirth Gersen. In the final book of the series, Gersen meets Alice Wroke and they work together to defeat the last remaining Demon Prince, Howard Treesong.

Fanfiction
I like to imagine that Kirth and Alice discover that Treesong and his odd life were made possible by advanced technology deployed by hidden aliens as part of their effort to alter the genetic nature of the human species. Treesong was "possessed" by alien infites. Those infites conferred a type of multiple personality disorder on Treesong.

The Alice Investigations
Kirth and Alice first began to understand that Treesong was not biologically normal when they read his autobiographical Book of Dreams.

Other Demons
One of the technologies that Vance included in his stories of the Oikumene is human cloning. By creating several clones of Jheral Tinzy, the Demon Prince Viole Falushe was able to discover that Jheral was genetically predisposed to function as his nemesis.

In his Notes on the Psychology of Jheral Tinzy, Falushe explored his obsession with Jheral and mentioned his sense of helplessness in his seemingly endless pursuit of Jheral. Upon reading Falushe's Notes, Alice deduced that unlike Treesong (who was accidentally invaded by infites), Falushe was himself part of a secret experiment on human nature intentionally performed by hidden aliens.

in the Buld Reality

As part of her investigation of the Demon Princes, Alice became aware of how Karalin Umdys had worked with Kirth to trap Retz and reveal the secret mind control techniques that he had used to control the behavior of Falushe.

Karalin had died in that effort and Kirth was reluctant revive that failed investigation. However, Alice was unwilling to leave the clones of Sogdian in the past. She suspected that like Falushe, her own father might have been targeted by Zodiac Control or the IPX.

The adventures of Gersen and Karalin

Kirth was led to believe that Karalin had died during their investigation of the Fomalhaut star system. However, according to Zeta, there is evidence from the Asimov Reality that Karalin (or her replicoid) lived on and worked with Alusz to investigate advanced alien technologies that had been deployed on the "lost world" of Thamber.

The adventures of Karalin and Alusz

The investigations Karalin and Alusz revealed that Ailett Mayneth was an agent for Zodiac Control.

Pantechnic
Zodiac Control and the IPX worked for centuries to bring into existence a new type of human brain that could function as a Bimanoid Interface. That great effort was not completed until long after both Kirth and Karalin were dead.

From Marune

Eventually, humans expanded through the galaxy and reached Alastor Cluster. Through direct contact with the Phari in Alastor Cluster, a new human science was perfected, the Pantechnic Metaphysic.  Even in those times, more than 1,500 years in our future, humans did not understand the physics of hierions and sedrons, but a few hierion and sedron-based technologies had been given to humans, allowing them to spread between the stars.

in the Ekcolir Reality

In the Ekcolir Reality, Jack Vance was able to publish a much fuller account of events in Alastor Cluster than was the case here in the Final Reality.

With the help of Yōd, I have slowly been filling in our knowledge gaps and constructing a "future history" of events in Alastor Cluster, including the story of how Glinnes and Duissane made contact with the Phari. We are still working to reveal how Vance and Asimov came to be involved in making the hidden history of the Phari accessible to us here in the Final Reality.

August 2018: looking back at Jack's 1952 clones.
July 2018: The Hierion Heretic
Next: investigating the speed of telepathic communication

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