Top 10

Former #1 most visited blog post.
Hierion Confinement

Back in April of this year (2019) I celebrated the first ten years of the wikifiction blog. Below is my Top 10 all-time list of wikifiction blog posts.

Guilty. One of my guilty pleasures is going back into my old blog posts and editing them. Sometimes I add a hypertext link to a future blog post. I'll be indulging in this practice while I gaze back at ten of the most visited wikifiction blog posts. So, to the time machine and back to the beginning of the wikifiction blog...

2009

Grendels

Diabolus ex machina was an early wikifiction blog post that touched on the issue of how we depict space aliens in our science fiction stories. I'm a fan of interesting space aliens, so the alien species that I write into my stories (for example, the Retair, the Nereids, the Grendels and the Fru'wu) are not savage warriors who rage across the galaxy behaving like psychotics.

artist's depiction of Grean

According to The Rules of Intervention, a species such as we humans should not expect to have contact with technologically advanced alien visitors from distant worlds. In keeping with this expectation, most of the aliens who appear as characters in the Exode Saga are very similar to us biologically. Furthermore, it is often the case that the non-human characters take pains to adopt a human appearance while they are interacting with human characters. Some of these non-human characters are artificial life forms composed of nanoscopic structural components and they can often take on any convenient physical form.

2010

image source

If there is one thing that I have learned during ten years of blogging about science fiction it is that including the word "Asimov" in the title of a blog post is a great way to attract readers. Asimov's struggle with aliens is the most popular wikifiction blog post from 2010. That blog post was my year 90 celebration of Isaac Asimov's fiction. (100 Years of Asimov)

Asimov and Aliens. The first printed science fiction story that I ever read was The Gods Themselves. For that novel, Asimov invented aliens who lived in another universe where the physical laws were slightly different than here in our universe. Since the day when I first saw an episode of Star Trek, I have believed that space aliens are the most fascinating characters and plot elements in science fiction stories. A good measure of a science fiction story writer is this: can you depict an interesting alien?

2011

Exodemic

The most popular wikifiction blog post from 2011 was Been Here, Done That, which was about ancient aliens. The Fermi Paradox is central to my personal science fiction writing obsession (the Exode Saga). Right when I was first discovering the science fiction literary genre, I read Chariots of the Gods. When I first began writing stories that were set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, I imagined that the first aliens to visit Earth arrived here on this planet about 7,000,000 years ago.

The Iidi

During the past ten years, I have several times pushed further back in time the arrival of the pek in our galaxy (to >2,000,000,000 years ago). Also, I have adopted the idea that there were already some highly sophisticated aliens here in our galaxy at that time, the Phari.

In addition to the ancient past, the Exode Saga includes plot elements related to the far future. In particular, I've enthusiastically adopted Asimov's idea that we might be visited by time travelers from the future. Thus, the Exode Saga includes the character Trysta Iwedon who is an Asterothrope from the future.

Ivory investigates a cell bioreactor.
At Phari Base in the Slave Craton.

2012
With the Exode Saga backstory full of technologically advanced space aliens, a constant theme is the question: is the behavior of we Earthlings controlled by the aliens? The most visited wikifiction blog post for 2012 has long been Slavery in Science Fiction. My favorite slave-related story from the Exodemic Fiction Universe is in a blog post called Slave Craton. Were humans destined to be slaves since the first arrival of the pek on Earth billions of years ago?

2013
The most popular wikifiction blog post of 2013 is Post-Singularity Science Fiction. In the Exode Saga, I imagine that the Huaoshy exist as a very ancient life form which long ago achieved complete mastery of science and advanced technologies. Sadly, we Earthlings don't get to interact directly with the Huaoshy. They reside in the Sedronic Domain as artificial life forms.

Priscilla the pek

In order to have some indirect interactions with we humans, the Huaoshy worked through their agents the pek and the Huaoshy caused the Kac'hin to be created. The pek are composed of zeptites and they can take on any convenient physical form. Back in the First Reality, the pek who were in charge of Observer Base were known as the Orbho. The pek take very seriously the idea that they must enforce the Rules of Intervention and they like to install Earth Overseers who keep humans in line.

image source

The other major political faction of the Huaoshy is less conservative than those who believe in the Rules of Intervention. The main manifestation of the "liberal" wing of the Huaoshy is what I call the bumpha. The bumpha enjoy experimenting with biological life forms, and it was their meddling on Earth that led to the creation of the first positronic robot, R. Gohrlay. Like the pek, the bumpha take on any desired physical form, so the image to the right is fanciful.

2014

image source

Reality Reviewing concerns one of the great science fiction plot devices invented by Asimov, which was introduced right at the end of his time travel novel, The End of Eternity. Noÿs says, "We, too, had Time-travel, you see, but it was based on a completely different set of postulates than yours, and we preferred to view Time, rather than shifting mass.

Four pages later, Noÿs adds, "We don't calculate alternate Realities. We view them. We see them in their state of non-Reality."

I could not resist making Reality Viewing an integral part of the Exode Saga. With time, I also made room for Reality Simulation, which allows for people to view events in Deep Time.

The End of the World, Clarke style.

2015
As of today, the most visited wikifiction blog post from 2015 is Syfy's Overmind. Most of my blog posts concern written science fiction stories and I don't enjoy most of the Sci Fi that graces television and film. Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End is a science fiction classic (1953) that presents us with Clarke's ideas about first contact with space aliens who are as far beyond we humans as we are beyond bacteria. Clarke's science fiction stories had a very strong influence on me and I like to celebrate his vision of aliens who might be impossible for we primates to understand.

2016

Nanomégas

Currently, the most visited wikifiction blog post of 2016 is Hierion Femtotubes. For the Exode Saga, I imagine that there are three related segments of the universe: the Hadronic Domain (the world as we know it), the Hierion Domain and the Sedronic Domain. Back in 2014 I got tired of describing connections between Earth and Eternity as "portals", so I invented the term "Hierion Tube".

Some of the characters in the Exode Saga are nanoscopic, so I imagined that there might be Hierion Tubes that are so small only someone like Qaz can pass through them. I enjoy making illustration for my stories. Of course, it is a challenge to depict a character who is invisibly small.

by Don Martin

2017
The most visited blog post from 2017 is currently Don Martin. In general, science fiction story tellers should not take themselves too seriously. Growing up in the 1960s, I knew Don Martin for his cartoon illustrations in Mad magazine. In the late 1950s, Don Martin got paid to illustrate a few pulp magazine stories and I'm glad I discovered them in 2017. Martin died 20 years ago 😢, but judging by the number of page views for Don Martin, many people roam the interwebs in search of his artwork.

2018

The tryp'At Guide to Oxypathin

In 2018 I celebrated the science fiction of Theodore Sturgeon who was born in 1918. My blog post called Fictional Chemistry is currently the most visited wikifiction blog post of 2018.

Sturgeon was a high school dropout, so nobody should expect him to have had anything coherent to say about hormones and their roles in the human body. In Sturgeon's story, progesterone is used inhibit the hero from having sex with his wife. 😕

I'm going to blame Sturgeon for the fact that I have created additional fictional chemistry for the Exode Saga. Thus there is now oxypathin and frenchkissin, two neuropeptides that were originally part of Asterothrope biology but which also play a role in development of the the Mind Clone Network.

wikifiction labels

2019
The eighth most frequently used "label" for blog posts here at the wikifiction blog is "telepathy", so it is surprising to reach the end of this blog post and only now mention telepathy. I've been making a special effort here in 2019 to settle my thinking about the role of telepathy in the Exode Saga.

Vulcan telepathy.

The most visited wikifiction blog page so far this year is Retrotelepathy. It would be fun to know what Asimov thought when he read Clifford Simak's 1939 story "Cosmic Engineers". Asimov went on to write stories about positronic robots such as Daneel and Dani who had telepathic powers and in turn those stories were highly influential on me.

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Related Reading: another
                                                    Top 10 List from 2015
  The annual wikifiction reviews - 2019 - 2018 - 2017
                                                     2016 - 2015 - 2014 - 2013

Next: Dune World by Frank Herbert

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The Ekcolir Intervention

The Asimov Reality

After a long week of working with Yōd to learn about how she got into the AR Simulator, I was tired and in need of an uninterrupted night of sleep. I had a new appreciation for the role of Mind Clones and the tryp'At in the creation of the Asimov Reality, but I was too weary to think through the implications of what Yōd had revealed about Dani the robot and Nyky the tryp'At. After posting my summary of Yōd's story, I fell into bed. However, Zeta was feeling neglected, so she did not let me rest until the small hours of the night were mostly past.

The Death of Dehla.

I slept most of the following day until I was shaken awake by Zeta. "Wake up. Rylla is on the vchat. She wants to show you something." Zeta had her little tablet computer there in bed.

My first priority was to empty my bladder, then I made my way to my big screen computer and linked in to the on-going vchat between Rylla and Zeta. Rylla said, "Hi, grandpa." She told me, "Take a look at the email attachment I sent you. That attached image file shows my attempt to understand the role of Ekcolir in Earth's Reality Chain."

Rylla's diagram of Earth's Reality Chain.

Ekcolir Intervention

The Ekcolir Intervention

It took me a while to establish rapport with Rylla's new diagram of Realities. I finally found "Ekcolir Loop" towards the center of the diagram. I muttered a question, "Did Ekcolir really come from the Asimov Reality?"

Rylla acknowledged that her diagram failed to make that clear. "The problem is, the Ek'col were made by the pek sometime in the far future of the Asimov Reality. After Ekcolir was born, he got dropped into his past, into the mid-20th century of the Ekcolir Reality."

I added, "Yes, and I feel fairly confident in charting the events of Ekcolir's life from that point on. He must have implanted the Thomas blastocyst stage embryo into Trysta soon after he arrived on Earth."

Early Asterothrope
embryo with a swarm of
development guidance nanites.

Zeta asked, "Have you abandoned the idea that the Ek'col were designed to have sperm that could fertilize Asterothrope eggs?"

Rylla replied, "It could be that both are true."

"Sadly, the infites that I received from Thomas include no information about blastipositors." I thought back to the day when I had received infites from both Thomas and Izhiun. Thomas had grown up while in constant telepathic contact with his mother Trysta. I suggested, "Maybe Thomas was a Mind Clone of Trysta."

Rylla nodded. "Why not? That would be entirely analogous to me being a Mind Clone of my mother."

Rylla's diagram indicates that the tryp'At created the Ekcolir Reality. I asked Rylla, "Do you think Lakum was the only tryp'At sent into the Upper Paleolithic?"

blastipositor

"No. Colleen has used the ER Simulator to check on that. Dehla was part of a constructed lineage. Lakum was the last of a series of tryp'At agents on Earth that made possible a genetically modified type of human that was inter-fertile with Ekcolir."

I said, "I'm assuming that both the tryp'At and the Ek'col were equipped with blastipositors. Do we know if Ekcolir impregnated Behgi the old fashioned way? He could have implanted a blastocyst in her."

Rylla shook her head. "No, Colleen has been able to sort that out. It is slightly confusing because it appears that Ekcolir was sent into the Paleolithic twice."

Zeta laughed. "Twice?"

The Genmod Virus

Rylla explained, "What we have called the Ekcolir Intervention had two parts, one on each side of the boundary that separates the Asimov Reality  from the Ekcolir Reality. In the Asimov Reality, Ekcolir's mission was to carry a genmod virus to Earth."

I asked, "What do you mean by 'genmod virus'?"

"That's what Colleen calls it; apparently a hybrid construct, part biological and partly composed of zeptites. Ekcolir implanted a blastocyst in Dehla that grew to become their son. However, Ekcolir also infected Dehla with the virus. The virus killed Dehla soon after she gave birth."

Reality Chain

Zeta suggested, "I bet the pek were embarrassed by the way that they acted as Interventionists. They were desperate to end the Time War, but they wanted to cover their tracks. That genmod virus was their way of erasing evidence of how they used the tryp'At to genetically modify Earthlings."

Rylla continued, "According to Colleen, Ekcolir was taken out of the Paleolithic soon after the death of Dehla. That was the end of the mission for Colleen's analogue in the Asimov Reality. She and Lakum went into retirement in the far future of Alastor Cluster. Nyky, the Mind Clone of Behgi, had also completed her mission, having made sure that Behgi fell in love with Ekcolir."

I nodded. "Yes, it makes sense. Ekcolir was extracted from the Paleolithic of the Asimov Reality just before the Reality Change took place. Then he went to live with Trysta in the 20th century. Then, shortly before the Huaoshy were going to put an end to time travel, Ekcolir was sent back to the Paleolithic of the Ekcolir Reality where he fathered the children of Behgi."

Trysta and Ekcolir

Zeta said, "Rylla's diagram shows that it was Trysta who carried out the Reality Change that brought the Buld Reality into existence."

"Yes, Ekcolir's descendants on Earth led to a world where there was no Roman Empire and a global warming catastrophe. When Trysta went back in time 10,000 years, she initiated a Reality Change that caused the early obliteration of the Etruscan Civilization, creating the world as we know it."

I told Rylla, "Good work. I like your nuanced explanation for Ekcolir's Intervention. Please pass along my thanks to Colleen for her investigative work inside the ER Simulator."

"Okay, Grandpa, I will. And get some sleep. You look like a truck ran over you." She terminated the vchat connection.

Next: the decade in review

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2019 Nuggets

Re-imagining "Cosmic Engineers"
by Clifford D. Simak.

This blog post is my review of wikifiction blogging during the year 2019. I'm going to return to a method that I have used previously: relying on the Google page views counter to identify the most visited blog posts of the past calendar year.

January
The most visited blog post for all of 2019 is Retrotelepathy. For that blog post, I got into my time machine, went back to 1939 and read "Cosmic Engineers" by Clifford D. Simak. The story includes aliens who are mysteriously related to humans, robots, telepathy, time travel and space travel to the far edge of the universe, all written as one might expect it to flow from the pen of a non-scientist in 1939. It is fun to imagine how stories such as "Cosmic Engineers" influenced the young Isaac Asimov right at the start of his writing career.

blastipositor

February
The most visited blog post for February 2019 is Gift Clone. The mysterious "Tricia" and Izhiun provide a "gift clone" to Zeta Gohrlay. Zeta's little Mind Clone grows up to become Tihri, who functions as a node in the Mind Clone Network.

"Tricia" previously played the role of Maria Green and erased from Earth's history the discovery of negative mass hierions. This act of theft was required in order to prevent a technological catastrophe on Earth.

"Gift Clone" introduced the idea that some human variants such as the tryp'At have a blastipositor that can be used to insert a blastocyst stage embryo into another person. 

cover illustration

March
The most visited blog post for March 2019 contains a story called "The Case of the Arlesheim Elf" which is part of what I think of as the "Sessily Trilogy". It is a First Contact story in which Thomas Iwedon discovers that an alien has secretly been living on Earth.

One of the characters in "The Case of the Arlesheim Elf" is Isaac Asimov. I like to imagine that Thomas and Isaac had a rather long and contentious relationship, but when it comes time to help an alien in need, they are able to bury the hatchet.

All works out well for Thomas; he also finds his soul mate, Cecilie, who is a miraculously instantiated version of woman who lived in the far future of the Asimov Reality.

The Mind Clone Network

April
The most visited blog post for April 2019 is The Mind Clone Network. One important function of the Mind Clone Network is to provide a telepathic conduit by which Yōd, who is inside the AR Simulator, can transmit information to the Editor, back on Earth.

As the brain of the Mind Clone node Roxzel (Yōd's daughter) grows and develops, the Editor is able to start receiving messages from Yōd. Unfortunately, this unusual telepathic contact comes while the Editor is asleep.

Three nodes of the Mind Clone Network constitute the MC1 sub-network, which makes it possible for information to flow from the ER Simulator and the Writers Block of Eternity to Earth.

Don Berwick

May
During May, I like to celebrate the science fiction stories of Jack Vance (he died on May 26, 2013). The most visited blog post for May 2019 is paraVance which concerns a story that Vance published in 1958 called "Parapsyche". In "Parapsyche", Vance provided an in-depth exploration of the idea that "ghosts" can exist within some sort of paraworld, "living" a "second life" as a remnant of a person's mind after their death.

It is easy to imagine how Vance's "Parapsyche" was influenced and shaped by his having read stories such as "The Phantom Farmhouse", a story that was originally published by Seabury Quinn in Weird Tales.

                                                                       June

The Buld spaceship visits Earth

The most visited blog post for June 2019 is Nereid Loop. As described in that blog post, there is evidence that when the human species was crafted by the Nereids, they made use of Preland genes from the future.

"Nereid Loop" includes the idea that Nora was able to telepathically communicate with her "copy" who left Earth with the Buld. It was that communications channel that eventually led to a second visit of the Buld to Earth during which they picked up "Tricia" and Izhiun. That was important for keep Earth in compliance with the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact.

Earth Day 1

July
The most visited blog post for July 2019 is Earth: Day One, which holds Part 1 of a 25,000 word science fiction story about Parthney's mission to Earth in the Ekcolir Reality. The Exode Saga originated with the story of how Parthney was sent to Earth as an Interventionist agent. He teleported Hana off of Earth, initiating her great adventure among the stars investigating Genesaunt civilization.

I originally imagined that Exode would be a stand-alone novel set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, but I later realized that it was part of the larger Exode Saga which includes Foundations of Eternity.

                                      August

Wendy's adventures

In August of 2019, as part of my celebration of Jack Vance, I wrote a new seven part story about Wendy's adventures in the Asimov Reality Simulator. Wendy gets to meet Kirth Gersen and play the role of Pallis Atwrode. The most visited blog post for August 2019 is contriVance 2019 , which describes the start of Wendy's adventure. Honorable performance in the rankings: Given Paws, featuring the positronic robot R. Oliveene Nhevrix.

retro-SIHA award winner

September
The most visited blog post for September 2019 is Cloonaris, which was part of a series of posts about Stanisław Lem's science fiction novel Solaris and related films. I decided that the 2002 film version of Solaris should be awarded a retro-SIHA as an interesting story about aliens.

                            October

The Phari Network

The Phari Network explores the idea that the alien Phari helped craft telepathic humans in the Asimov Reality. People such as Nova Prekus could have their telepathic abilities boosted by the Phari.

This blog post provides an account of Zeta, Rylla and Nora in the days just before they all give birth to babies who become nodes in the Mind Clone Network. There is speculation that the three fetuses are in telepathic contact and they are delaying their own birth.

Rylla is in telepathic contact with Georgy at Observer Base. Rylla tells us that: "While on Earth, Georgy was under the thumb of her mother. Now that she is on her own at Observer Base, she is still very young and her wild side has been liberated." In a later blog post, we learn more about Georgy's wild side.

November

hacking into the ER Simulator

The most visited blog post for November 2019 is Mary on the Moon. This blog post contains a story that is the sequel to a story that I wrote in 2016 called Fru'wu: Our Alien Prometheus. In that 2016 story, I tried to imagine how the analogue of Mary Shelley might have written a science fiction story in the Ekcolir Reality.

In "Mary on the Moon", Mary has been teleported off of Earth so that she can explore Genesaunt Society and the origin of the human species. Colleen Liscan is able to conduct an interview of Mary by hacking into the Ekcolir Reality Simulator.

source

December - Backdoor is the most visited of December's blog posts. The story in that post is part 1 of The Yerophet Experiment and also part 4 of "The Lakum Intervention". Lakum is a tryp'At hermaphrodite.

Related Reading: the decade in review - 2018 year in review

Next: Ekcolir and the genmod virus

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Rate of Change

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art by Hans Wessolowski

Here at the end of 2019, I am currently involved in my annual rituals of 1) looking back at the past year of Sci Fi blogging and story writing and 2) getting ready to celebrate the writing of important science fiction writers who were born 100 years ago. On January 1st 2020, I will post some commentary on Frank Herbert's (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) 1963 story "Dune World". On January 2nd 2020, I will post some commentary on Isaac Asimov's (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) 1952 story "The Currents of Space".

Galactic Empires
Before there were interstellar empires such as those depicted in Asimov's Foundation Saga (starting in 1942) and "Dune World" there was the evil Boskonian Empire as imagined by Edward Smith. As depicted in Ed Smith's 1937 story, "Galactic Patrol", the Boskonians were part of a vast intergalactic empire that was under the control of ancient aliens: the Eddorians. 

                                             Good vs. Evil
The Boskonian Empire was built around the kinds of governing principles that we might associate with a crime syndicate or 20th century fascism.

When "Galactic Patrol" was first published, Asimov was just starting to write science fiction stories that he hoped to publish in Astounding magazine. Asimov read "Galactic Patrol" and along with the rest of Sci Fi fandom, he was enthralled by the idea of interstellar space travel and life on distant exoplanets. A few years later, after Asimov had read Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he decided to model his own imaginary Galactic Empire on the Roman Empire.

mind control

Telepathy and Empire. About the same time that I first read the Foundation Trilogy, I also real the entire Lensman Series by E. E. "Doc" Smith and his earlier Skylark Series. Unlike Smith, who glorified mindless conflict between the evil telepathic Eddorians and the saintly Arisians (who could predict the future just by using their gigantic brains), Asimov depicted a balancing act between the First Foundation, which was devoted to physical science, and the Second Foundationers, who wielded their telepathic powers of emotional control. The Second Foundationers also wielded the imaginary science of Psychohistory, which Asimov depicted as the basis of their ability to predict the future.

Trantor: a planet covered by a single gigantic city.

When I discovered Asimov's Foundation trilogy in the 1970s, I was charmed by the quaint habits of the folks who lived in Asimov's imagined empire of the future. For example, they all smoke tobacco in the future! It was easy to see (but hard to accept enthusiastically) how Asimov had transplanted human behavior that was appropriate for ancient Romans to the future Imperials who ruled the galaxy from the planet Trantor. Asimov grew up in New York City and he imagined a capitol world for his empire that was a single gigantic city of 45 billion residents.

The Mule

1945

One of Asimov's great literary inventions is the megalomaniacal Mule, who has "mentalic" powers. Asimov used the term "mentalics" to refer to the ability of both the Mule and the Second Foundationers to alter the emotional make-up of human minds. The Mule was nearly able to take control of the entire galaxy by using his telepathic powers of mind control. In addition to making his subjects incredibly loyal, he could induce in his enemies debilitating depression and self-doubt. 

For me, what was most intriguing about the Mule was his ability to alter the minds of scientists and unleash their inventiveness. Asimov depicted his Galactic Empire, tens of thousands of years in the future, as being a place where the residents could barely keep their existing technologies running. There was essentially no social structure for scientific study and technological advancement. 

source

In Asimov's imagined Galactic Empire, even the idea of making an encyclopedia to document existing technology is unthinkable to all the trillions of inhabitants of the galaxy, except for "the great" Hari Seldon.

"How could the future be dominated by an 'empire'?" -David Berri 

Economics 10101010101

In an article ("Highly Illogical: What Sci-Fi Writers Get Wrong About the Future") from 2015 that was published in Time magazine, David Berri argued that an empire "would not generally promote the technological change necessary to settle and connect millions of planets".

In the fictional future imagined by Jack Vance, he depicted two eras of "future history" among the stars. When humans were first spreading outward from Earth, there was no central government. Later, in the twilight of the galactic era, Alastor Cluster was ruled by a single man, the Connatic, a kind of enlightened despot. Interestingly, as seen in Asimov's Galactic Empire, Vance's future does not feature significant technological progress.

extracting valuable kyrt from Floriana

Is the near-absence of scientific research and technological progress that Sci Fi fans often find in future Galactic Empires due to the fact that empires are simply not conducive to progress? Berri asserted that historically on Earth, empires have tended to feature "extractive institutions" much like what Asimov depicted for exploitation of kyrt on the planet Floriana (in The Currents of Space) and what Herbert depicted as the method by which House Harkonnen extracted spice from the planet Arrakis. However, Asimov depicted a kinder and gentler Trantorian Empire that worked against the Squires of Sark during the creation of his Galactic Empire.

I don't think that envisioning a Galactic Empire is an automatic fail for Sci Fi story tellers; I made my argument for this back in 2010. There is good reason for science fiction story tellers to want technological stagnation in their galactic civilization.

Extinction Curve; technology is dangerous.

Recognizing that it would take thousands of years to colonize millions of planets scattered through the galaxy and recognizing that over the course of thousands of years advancing technology could vastly alter human society (if not the genetic foundation of human species itself), why not make use of a rigid Imperial government to impose technological stagnation?

Foundations of Eternity

In the case of Asimov's Galactic Empire, he eventually depicted the positronic robot R. Daneel Olivaw as being in control of the Empire. It is easy to imagine that Daneel actively suppressed human technological progress during most of the Space Age. The Mule could reverse that imposed "suppression" and after the First Foundation took control of the galaxy, a new era of scientific study and technological advance suddenly began. Jack Vance imagined the Institute as an organization that systematically suppressed technological advancement.

For the Exode Saga, I imagine that there can be great dangers arising from rapid technological advances. Tool using primates might be their own worst enemy.

How can you adjust the rate of technological change?

in the Ekcolir Reality

In the December 1952 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, (along with Asimov's The Currents of Space) is a Raymond Fisher Jones story "Noise Level" which deals with the question of how to speed up the rate of scientific discovery.

I suppose "Noise Level" was a natural story idea for Jones who had training in "radio engineering" and also had experience working on equipment in the USA telephone system. In this story, to speed up the pace of scientific advancements all you need to do is provide scientists with a high level of "noise" (such as imaginative stories about levitation) and then apply an appropriate "filter". In "Noise Level", the filter used is to tell a team of physicists that antigravity has already been invented and they only need to turn it into a practical technology. Within a few weeks, the research team has a working antigravity device!

Phari endosymbionts

For the Exode Saga, I imagine that humans are hybrid beings, partly biological but also with minds that are partly composed of zeptite endosymbionts. While the pek were busy creating a replacement for humans (the Prelands), humans on Earth could be prevented from developing new technologies. The creativity and inventiveness of humans could be blocked by the zeptite components of their brains.

femtobiology

Lucky for we humans, there was a way to prevent our species from being replaced by the Prelands. This involved a "femtobot hack" and help from the ancient Phari.

Investigation 901

Related Reading: control of the pace of technological discoveries in the Asimov Reality
Also: The Yerophet Experiment
AND: more R. F. Jones
Next: 2019 Nuggets

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