image credits |
In his novel Star King, Vance tackled the mystery of our origin as a species. In the fifty years since the writing of Star King, we have entered into the era of genomics and we can now compare our own genes to those of the Neanderthals. Neanderthals and Denisovans were human variants and most living humans carry some "Neanderthal genes". However, while several human subspecies like the Neanderthals once simultaneously inhabited Earth, they all died out except for us: what we think of as "anatomically modern humans", jargon arising from the paleological study of the skeletal remains of long-dead apes.
cover art by Gino D'Achille |
In Star King, Vance provided this backstory for the human species in order to introduce an alien species that could live among humans and not be detected as being an alien creature. That alien species, referred to a the "Star Kings", evolved on Lambda Grus III. The proto-Star Kings had the ability to evolve rapidly by "transmission of acquired characteristics". While living on Lambda Grus III with humans for about 75,000 years, the proto-Star Kings came to closely resemble humans.
the tryp'At |
Kirth Gersen, the protagonist in Vance's Demon Princes saga, sees a Star King named Malagate at Smade's Tavern in the year 1524. By the end of Star King, Malagate is dead. Sadly, even though Vance wrote four more novels in the Demon Princes saga, there was no further mention of Star Kings and aliens. 😕
Cosmopolis, October 1923 |
According to Vance, there is a new calendar for the space age. The old Earth method for counting years was taken as a starting point, but the year 2000 of the old calendar became year zero for the new Space Age calendar. Thus, '1932' would actually be the year 3932 as we count the years. However, according to other dates provided by Vance, that was about 400 years after Smade lived on Smade's Planet. Odd.
A Feek, a newly evolved human variant from the world New Concept |
In Star King, Vance mentions an isolated religious group, the Tunkers of Mizar Six. The Tunkers use only a carefully defined set of 812 words. This religious sect was studied by Lugo Teehalt, an advanced student at Sea Province University from 1485 to 1489. Teehalt wrote a thesis titled "The Meaningful Elements in the Eye Movements of the Tunkers of Mizar Six". Was Teehalt interested in telepathy, possibly because of his own limited telepathic powers?
image source |
New Data from Yōd
Teehalt is a hard luck case. Here is what he tells Gersen about luck: "Where the luck lies, that I don't know. Good luck looks to be bad luck, disappointment seems happier than success... But then, bad luck I would never have recognized as good luck, and called it bad luck still..." Teehalt is speaking (rather incoherently) about his luck in having found a valuable Earth-like planet. Normally, such a discovery would be good luck and would lead to a high-paying bonus for a locater. However, Teehalt's sponsor is Malagate, the Demon Prince. Teehalt does not want to simply give the new planet to Malagate.
Research in the Department of Galactic Morphology. |
Yōd |
source |
Chemical substances such as psiloconocybis facilitated disruption of the normal linkages between a person's femtobot endosymbiont and their cortical neurons. It then became theoretically possible to transplant such a disconnected endosymbiont into a new brain, preferably that of a healthy young individual.
Teehalt woke up one morning in a back alley of Sailmaker Beach, most of his remaining memories from the past 25 years little more than a tangled heap of disorganized fragments.
Robin decides to stay on Teehalt's planet |
Teehalt's visions led him to the planet of the Dryads, a world that had long ago been home to a space-faring species. The Phari routinely assisted such technologically advanced species towards a type of physical transcendence that allowed them to end their existence as biological creatures and take up residence in the Hierion Domain as an artificial life form. With help from the Dryads, Teehalt realized that, were he to return to Alphanor, Malagate the Woe would gain possession of the planet of the Dryads.
source |
I've also previously suggested that the replicoid of Vance was given access to information from within the AR Simulator while in residence at the Writers Block. Vance's replicoid was able to pass information about the future of the Asimov Reality to Earth, leading to the creation of Jack Vance's stories such as Star King. Writing and publishing stories in the Ekcolir Reality, the two Vance analogues on Earth were able to provide very detailed accounts of how aliens guided human cultural development within the Asimov Reality.
However, it is easy for me to imagine that there were imperfections in the original data that were extracted from the AR Simulator by the replicoids of Asimov and Vance. I recently suggested that even Grean might become involved in trying to optimize the process of extracting more information from the AR Simulator.
the mind clones at work |
What mysteries remain? Yōd has hinted to me that her search for relevant information inside the AR Simulator has broadened. An important potential source of information about human telepathy are the positronic robots of Earth.
Several of Isaac Asimov's science fiction stories included as a character one of Asimov's most famous literary creations, the "humaniform" robot Daneel. The story of how Daneel was crafted by Dr. Han Fastolfe has never seemed credible. I've long suspected that Fastolfe received help from Interventionist agents.
cave robot |
Complaint
I'm frustrated by
1) the fact that Vance introduced readers to the alien Star Kings, then never mentioned them again after the end of Star King.
and also
2) Asimov's account of Daneel's origins, which is essentially in the pattern of other Sci Fi stories where a Mad Scientist invents something fantastic and then that invention can never be duplicated.
3) Gersen tells Pallis Atwrode that they will some day be able to return to the Planet of the Dryads, but Vance never managed to take readers back to that world. 😞
Asimov's account of how Dr. Han Fastolfe and his daughter created a telepathic robot seems like a teaser, a story fragment that leaves much of the truth untold. Once created, robots like Daneel used telepathy to make sure that nobody else would ever make additional humaniform or telepathic robots. However, Daneel did craft Galaxia and he found a way to confer some level of telepathic ability on humans. Yōd is now at work in the AR Simulator trying to reveal how information from the Foundation Reality about human telepathy may have been used during the development of human variants (such as the Ek'col and the tryp'At) with telepathic powers within the Asimov Reality.
In the Ekcolir Reality (source) |
Wendy's Avente Adventure |
Related Reading: The line of thought discussed above is continued at these blog posts... 1) "Star Queen" and 2) "Wendy's Avente Adventure". Grean the Kac'hin spearheads an investigation of Vancian mysteries in the Asimov Reality.
Next: a positronic robot in the AR Simulator
visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers |
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