Jack Vance was born August 28, 1916 and every August I like to create a new blog post to celebrate the passing of another year within the Vance Era (my
Vance-cel
ebratory blog post for August 2018 was called "
Vance Clones"). Here in 2019, I want to reflect upon how my own story telling is influenced by the writings of Vance. Clones are never very from from mind and I recently wrote a 25,000 word story (
Earth: Day 1) about the clone (
Parthney) who launched the
Exode Saga. I've also been on an extended mission to settle my thinking about the role of telepathy in the Exode Saga.
Paraworld
For my
Vancebratory blog post
in May, I looked back at Vance's 1958 story "Parapsyche" in which he gave a "spirited" defense of the idea that there might be a domain of the universe that extends beyond the limits of the physical world as currently understood by scientists on Earth. For the Exode Saga, I pretend that there are two such domains: the
Hierion Domain and the
Sedron Domain. A major theme of the Exode Saga concerns how hierions and sedrons can be used to endow humans with telepathic abilities.
Alastor Cluster
One of Vance's great literary creations is the
Alastor star cluster. In the future time period in which Vance's three Alastor Cluster novels are set, one man rules the 3,000 human-colonized worlds of Alastor Cluster: the Connatic.
Ryl Shermatz is one of the false identities that is often used by the Connatic. When the Connatic wants to move among the people of the Cluster without being recognized, he sometimes adopts the identity of Ryl Shermatz and plays the role of wandering journalist or a government official.
I like to imagine that humans settled the planets
Trullion,
Wyst and
Marune in Alastor Cluster at some point during the far future of the
Asimov Reality. Also, I imagine that Alastor Cluster is an artificial construct, having been brought into creation by alien beings: the
Phari. During the Asimov Reality, as part of the
Trysta Truce, the
positronic robots of Earth were able to get help from the Phari to craft a human variant that can make use of telepathy. An Earlier effort along those lines resulted in the artificial evolution of the
Asterothropes, but in a sense, that was a failed effort. The Asterothropes were a new humanoid species, unable to breed with humans.
I imagine that worlds of Alastor Cluster such as Trullion and Wyst were laboratories where experiments could be conducted; genetic experiments aimed at assembling the genes required to craft telepathic humans. To what extent was the Connatic aware of these experiments? Here is a quote from Ryl Shermatz while discussing the
Weirdland witches: "...
my advisers tell me that sound enters their brain at a subliminal level, they do not know they are hearing, but nevertheless they are invested with knowledge, much as telepathy affects the mind of an ordinary person." (
source)
Clearly, Vance wanted to imply that the Connatic was knowledgeable about human telepathy. I imagine that in the Ekcolir Reality, in preparation for the arrival on Earth of the alien
Fru'wu, Vance was allowed to write more openly about the role of Alastor Cluster as a laboratory of human telepathy and write
more than just three novels set in the Cluster.
Demon Princes
I've previously blogged about the
clones of Jheral Tinzy that Vance wrote into his novel,
The Palace of Love.
The Palace of Love is the third novel in Vance's Demon Princes series. Currently, I'm re-reading
The Book of Dreams, the 5th and final novel in the series of books about the interstellar adventures of
Kirth Gersen.
Penwipers
One aspect of Vance's writing that I greatly enjoy is his ability to create fictional places that I might like to visit. In
The Book of Dreams,
Gersen takes up residence in
Penwipers Hotel. In "Earth: Day 1", I invite readers to visit Parthey Mansion, as it existed in the Ekcolir Reality. This large New England house had a significantly different character in the
Buld Reality, being less of a mansion and more of an unpretentious family home.
 |
An Ek'col male and an
Asterothrope female |
When
Parthney first arrives at
Parthey Mansion, he finds himself inside a borrowed body: that of
George Parthey, an Earthling. Parthney was born far across space in the Galactic Core on the planet
Hemmal. As a clone of
Thomas Iwedon, Parthney's genome is an interesting mix of conventional human genes and special Asterothrope gene combinations.
If allowed to express themselves, those Asterothrope genes would have given Parthney some Asterothrope-like anatomical features. However, the embryonic development of Parthney was guided by
developmental control nanites, causing his body to become that of a normal Earth human.
 |
| Parthney's brain: shaped by nanites. |
I like to imagine that Parthney's body structure was crafted so as to make him well-suited for his special mission on Hemmal. In particular, Parthney grew up among the
Buld, who seldom made use of writing. Thomas was a
precocious writer who began creating stories at a very young age (see
Miners of Earth). In contrast, Parthney's brain was altered from the natural Thomas pattern so as to make Parthney a talented
musician.
In our
Reality, the
biological processes that allow our complex brains to build their fantastic neural networks are slowly being revealed by neuroscientists. For the Exode Saga, I pretend that space aliens (the Phari and the
pek) long ago inserted sub-nanoscopic structural components in the living creatures of Earth. Thus, we humans have evolved as hybrid creatures, partially composed of cells and chemical molecules but we also contain invisibly small nanites that can take control of the behavior of our cells. Developmental control nanites can re-wire a human brain, particularly during early embryogenesis.
In "Earth: Day 1", the unusual brain and genome of
Hilde comes to the attention of scientists on Earth. Dr. Kidwell is one of the neuroscientists who studies Hilde's brain. In the Buld Reality,
Peter became involved in an effort to guide the growth and development of the
Ivory Clones, but his work was never made public.
It is fun to imagine that in the Ekcolir Reality, Earthly scientists discovered the existence of a
femtobot scaffold inside the brain of one of the
Interventionist agents who had a mission on Earth in that Reality. Maybe when Fru'wu nanotechnology began to accelerate the pace of scientific ad
Vancement on Earth, it was one of the newly crafted artificial intelligences that discovered the femtobot scaffold that controls neuronal guidance, providing a mysterious clue for hidden alien influence on human evolution.
Other Clues
 |
| nanites edit the memories of Georgy |
I've previously imagined that hierions were almost discovered in our Reality when
Georgy White noticed some nanites inside a geological sample. Another such discovery in the Ekcolir Reality was finding a non-hadronic artificial life form, a kind of parasite of the Fru'wu that accompanied them to Earth. What became known as the '
teree', these creatures were designed by the
bumpha to be a nanotech tool that Earthlings could adapt for use against the
Overseers of Earth. Ultimately, these versatile and very light weight
teree allowed there to be almost unlimited Interventionist activity on Earth in the Ekcolir Reality, which led to a horrific
technological disaster.
Earthly knowledge of a femtobot scaffold inside human brains and experience with the
teree led to an attempt to create "pure" lab animal with no nanites inside its body. Using powerful magnetic field, it became possible to block
zeptites from getting into new embryos. Such embryos failed to grow and develop, suggesting the idea that all life on Earth was a mixture of cells and hidden nanoscale components of alien design.
A long research program was begun that attempted to construct an animal that could survive and grow without needing a nanite endosymbiont.
I've previously suggested that the odd behavior of
Howard Alan Treesong can be attributed to the invasion of his body by a special swarm of infites. For Vance, plot elements such as cloning and odd para-psychic abilities among his characters were never allowed to swell to grand proportions. In my own stories, I show less restraint. I'm always tempted to provide readers with details about the imaginary technologies that I include in
science fiction stories.
Vance had a lot of fun with the relationship between Kirth Gersen and his financial advisor,
Jehan Addels. When Gersen is trying to entrap Howard Treesong, he poses as
Henry Lucas, an employee of
Cosmopolis, who had been put in charge of a contest for readers of
Extant Magazine. For possibly the first time in his life, Gersen pretends to have a regular job (I'm not certain if
Benchmaster Dalt can be counted as being regular employment for Gersen).
 |
Alice Wroke flirting
with Henry Lucas at
their Extant office
|
When Gersen must go to the
Extant contest offices each day, he decides to reside in town, close to where he "works". Addels arranges for Gersen to live at Penwipers Hotel. The staff of Penwipers is appalled by the way that Gersen dresses. Each day they decide which clothes he should wear, providing Gersen with a great disguise. Even Addels fails to recognize Gersen when he is dressed in high Penwipers fashion.
During the brief time when Gersen resides at Penwipers,
Alice Wroke infiltrates
Extant and becomes Gersen's "private secretary". Soon enough, Gersen is smitten by the miraculous Alice. According to the descriptions provided by Vance, Alice is also a flashy dresser. We must wonder if Alice would ever have paid the least bit of attention to Kirth had she first seen him in his usual plain spaceman's attire.
Gersen puts an electronic listening device in Alice's hotel room and records her comments to Treesong. Initially frustrated by Gersen's evasiveness, Alice refers to Henry Lucas as, "a silly over-dressed fool but a rather cunning fool". Eventually, Gersen helps liberate Alice from Treesong's manipulative grasp.
 |
| after the end of Eternity |
The fathers of both Alice and Kirth were murdered by Treesong, and they eventually work together to bring the last remaining Demon Prince to "justice". Kirth does not want to involve Alice in dangerous activities, but Alice refuses to stay at home in safety. She stows away in Gersen's spaceship and tells him, "I've decided to never let you out of my sight again." She argues that she can help Gersen defeat Treesong, and in the end she is proven correct.
I like to imagine that
Asimov realized a deep truth about time travel stories: after your adventure traveling through time is complete, then your time travel story really should end with all further time travel being made impossible. Similar, I suspect that Vance came to the realization that telepathy needs to be used in subtle ways within science fiction stories: appearing as a plot element in such a subtle way that most of the people in your fictional universe seem not to notice the existence of telepathy.
Weak Telepathic Ability
I've previously suggested that Kirth Gersen had some telepathic ability. I like to think that there was a subconscious telepathic linkage between Kirth and Alice that made them a particularly effective team. Only later in the far future of the Asimov Reality did humans residing in Alastor Cluster attain the ability to have conscious control over their telepathic abilities. Then, after a thousands of years-long effort to achieve sophisticated human telepathy, the Huaoshy changed the
Dimensional Structure of the universe and eliminated all further use of twitino-mediated telepathy.
In the Exode Saga, I imagine that when all further time travel is made impossible by a change in the Dimensional Structure of the Universe, then further use of "natural" twitino-mediated telepathy also becomes impossible. However, it is still possible to engineer human brains so that they can make use of technology-assisted telepathy. This leads to an important role for the
Bimanoid Interface and a mind clone network that allows for technology-assisted telepathy.
However, it is not clear if technology-assisted telepathy can become widely used on Earth. In the Exode Saga, only a small, select group of Earthlings (see the
Mind Clone Network) have the ability to use the Bimanoid Interface for technology-assisted telepathy. They make use of that technology to obtain information about
Deep Time from the
Writers Block and from inside the
ER and
AR Simulators.
___________
In the Buld Reality, humans do not get a technology boost from the Fru'wu.
Grean scans for a possible Reality in which Earthlings will eventually discover that they are composite organisms with sedronic constituents, but they will not misuse hierion or sedron-based technologies and will safely develop a space-faring civilization, allowing humans to spread between the stars.
The term "sedron" first appeared on Earth within the
Final Reality in the year 2009. I like to imagine that
Vendela was working to push
the Editor towards writing stories about sedrons and hierions. Vendela's other great Interventionist mission was to create her daughter
Rylla. In turn, Rylla eventually had her own daughter, who she named
Marda. Given her telepathic linkage
Alex and Ami at Observer Base, Marda can play an important role in revealing the Secret History of Humanity. Marda's daughter, Llyndella, is the Earthling who finally obtains objective physical evidence for the existence of sedronic matter. Like Gersen, Llyndella only has weak telepathic abilities, but that is enough to allow her to be subconsciously aware of hints from her mother about some old forgotten stories from 2009 that first mentioned sedrons.
Related Reading: "The C-Laser" by Hafren Wells
and
"The League of Yrinna" - origins of human telepathy
2021: The Alastor Network and Meet the Phari
Next: more celebration of Jack Vance
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