Character Change Challenge

The planet Retfai.

Ten years ago, I blogged about achieving a balance between plot development and the development of story characters. I've always been more interested in the exploration of ideas through fiction than developing characters. When I write science fiction stories, the characters arrive just in time to fulfill their role in the plot and I normally give minimal attention to their needs. In this blog post and the next one, I want to challenge myself to invent a new character first and then explore how the needs of that character can perturb the events inside the Exode Saga.

Portia was the first character who came alive and began to take over a story that I was writing. Sometimes the demands of a character can become annoying and in the past I've often stifled demanding characters who began to take control of a plot. I want to challenge myself to experiment with allowing a character to instruct me and teach me things I don't know.

Can Gladia stop Vasilla's evil robots?

Isaac Asimov was an advocate for writing novels in which there were no obvious "good guys" or "bad guys". However, some of his characters were easy to categorize as having a screw loose. Secretary Balkis had his mind telepathically examined by Joseph Schwartz, revealing that he was as homicidal maniac, ready to use biological warfare to kill trillions of people. Vasilia Fastolfe (also known as Vasilia Aliena) has her mind examined by telepathic positronic robots who judge her to be such a danger to Humanity that they rewire her brain. The straw that broke that camel's back was when Vasilia tried to kill Daneel.

Several years ago, my character Sachiz was starting to become annoying and I wrote her out of the Exode Saga. Here in 2020, I want to develop a new character with the ability to annoy me and this time I want to let that character wreak a bit more havoc than I allowed Sachiz.

     More Firsts

In the Ekcolir Reality
The secret of going
hairless: the defollifier.
Original cover art by Lloyd Rognan
and see this

The first wikifiction blog post with a character's name in the title was "August Sennor on Time". However, the most interesting character in The End of Eternity is Noÿs Lambent. I decided that Noÿs must be an Asterothrope, a human variant from the far future; her original name was Skaña. Skaña adopted several different names during the times when she was actively engaged in her various time travel missions.

The Skaña Intervention

When Skaña was living in the 20th century on Earth, she used the name Trysta Iwedon. Trysta became an important character in the Exode Saga.

A week after I posted "August Sennor on Time", I included the name of a famous science fiction writer in the title of a blog post: "Asimov's struggle with aliens". That blog post is one of the most frequently visited pages on this blog.

Azynov the replicoid

I could not resist making Asimov be a character in the Exode Saga. I sent Asimov back in time to meet himself. As a time traveler, Asimov helped initiate the Reality Change that ended the Foundation Reality and brought into existence the Asimov Reality.

Later, a replicoid of Asimov was created and sent into the Asimov Reality Simulator. To avoid confusion with the real Asimov, that replicoid was called "Azynov". Inside the AR Simulator, Azynov works with Yōd to investigate the origins of human telepathy.

Hana

The first of my own characters to appear in the title of a wikifiction blog post was Franny. Franny, a character in Exodemic, was taken off of Earth and exposed to Genesaunt culture. After departing from Earth, Franny had the task of trying to understand the dynamics of the planet-wide chess game that is played by the Interventionists and the Overseers.

Later, I wanted another character, similar to Franny, who could be integrated into the story Exode. That new character became Hana. The only problem with Hana was that someone had to do the dirty work and teleport her off of Earth. That "someone" became Parthney, one of the clones of Thomas Iwedon.

                          The Editor

Earth's Reality Chain

I was having so much fun with Asimov as a character in my stories, I eventually tossed off all restraints and wrote myself into the Exode Saga. Other related characters followed, including Rylla. However, I'm now thinking that it would be useful to challenge myself to create a new and different type of character.

Change Challenge 2020
Each year I create an annual change challenge (for example, see 2017). For 2020, I want to create a new interesting alien character.

I have an annual search for interesting Hollywood aliens (SIHA). I was amused to see that my local newspaper ranked Arrival as the second best movie of the past decade. The heptapods in Arrival are cool, but I'm dreaming of an interesting humanoid alien.

Other things to avoid
I like to imagine that Asimov's fictional universe of the Foundation is based on events that took place in the Foundation Reality. That Reality was terminated by Grean, a Kac'hin. However, the Kac'hin were created as a human variant and they are not really alien enough for the 2020 change challenge.

I also like to imagine that Jack Vance's fictional universe of the Oikumene and the Gaean Reach is based on actual events from the Asimov Reality. In that Reality, the Phari were allowed to help create telepathic humans, but the Phari were "out of reach", existing inside the Hierion Domain. Just as we humans have not ever been in contact with the Huaoshy, the Phari only indirectly influence human affairs.

Hai'zek

The Overlords in Clarke's story, "Childhood's End" strongly influenced me when I selected the type of aliens who visit Earth in the Ekcolir Reality.  Recently, I finally created a specific Fru'wu character (Hai'zek), but then I chickened out and ended up with the idea that Hai'zek was really a human "in disguise".

I recently created a new positronic robot character known as Danni or Dani. However, as a humanoid robot, this character is not really new. Dani is in some mysterious way related to Asimov's famous robot Daneel. A humanoid robot of alien design and manufacture would qualify for the 2020 change challenge, but I'm not sure if I really want to create a non-biological character. I've tried that before and ended up with Man Bin.

Collaborators
I have fun creating imaginary collaborators who can help the Editor. Is there an alien character who could collaborate in telling the Exode Saga?

Also, I like Asimov's idea of developing characters who the reader cannot easily categorize as good or evil. I'm imagining an alien humanoid (for now, call this new character "NA_x") who becomes involved in the writing of the Secret History of Humanity, but the Editor is not certain that NA_x can be trusted.

a Preland

The closest I've previously come to this is a character named Henrike. However, Henrike is a Preland and there is a complex relationship between the Prelands and we humans, so Henrike is not alien enough. 1 idea: there were some interesting alien characters such as a Guiphoa (Fint) who came to Earth with Grean. It might be time for another alien from a distant galaxy. 2: why not an alien who can represent the views of the pek?

Related Reading: Nirutam and her pet cat
         2019 Change Challenge
     2021 change challenge
Next: Two Wrongs (make a right)

 visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers