Writing Backwards

A Search Beyond

Three years ago when I began writing A Search Beyond, I imagined that I could quickly create an introduction to the League of Yrinna and I would have a tidy starting point for the Exode Saga. However, as often happens to me, starting A Search Beyond was actually something like starting a nuclear chain reaction that went out of control.

Trouble with Telepathy
A major stumbling block for we humans is that a seemingly simple concept can often be revealed to conceal a complex can of worms. Human brains are constantly processing vast amounts of sensory input and struggling to devise easy-to-use concepts that allow us to get on with life. In doing this, we often over-simplify what is actually a complex situation.

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In the case of telepathy, I have had to slowly accommodate myself to the realization that there are multiple types of telepathy lurking in the Exode Saga.

Introduction of a role for telepathy in the Exode Saga can be traced back to the science fiction stories of Isaac Asimov. Back in the 1940s, Asimov imagined that a type of telepathy could be powered by capturing the weak electromagnetic signals that escape from our brains. In Asimov's imagination, this would allow not only for "mind reading", but a telepath might also have the magical (Asimov never explained how) ability to reach into another person's brain and alter their thought patterns, resulting in a form of imposed mind control. A dramatic example of this was provided by Asimov in his character the Mule.

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In his stories, Asimov was not content to simply depict telepathic humans. He also wrote stories about positronic robots who had telepathic abilities. So, are there actually two different types of telepathy: 1) robotic telepathy and 2) human telepathy?

Not necessarily. For the Exode Saga, I imagine that human brains are actually a complex mixture of hadrons, hierions and sedrons. What about positronic brains? Sadly, Asimov never concerned himself with the details of positronic brains. For the Exode Saga, I created my own origin story for the science of positronics. I imagined that early human scientists were forbidden from exploring artificial intelligence research through conventional electronics. With help from bumpha Interventionists, those human scientists were able to make positronic robots.

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Due to a strange feature of physics, positronic circuits are able to interact with a type of hierion: the twitino. It is by means of the exchange of twitinos that positronic robots could communicate telepathically.

Nirutam recently told me about the Clarke-Brunner Effect. I now have to wonder if the creation of positronic brains also involved a similar violation of the Rules of Intervention. Were the scientists who built the first positronic brain secretly provided with hierions?

Asterothrope

What about human telepathy? For the Exode Saga, I imagined that the positronic robots carried out a loooong research and development project that ultimately produced the Asterothropes, a human variant that had telepathic abilities. Then, in a final push, the positronic robots were able to make telepathic humans, not by inventing a new form of telepathy that is suitable for human brains, but by altering human brains so as to allow them to use twitino-mediated telepathy. How was this accomplished?

Telastid-mediated telepathy

Certainly not by having positrons running around through the synaptic connections between neurons. I imagine that human telepathy depended on the non-hadronic nanoscopic constituents of human brains, our femtobot endosymbionts and our zeptite endosymbionts. The positronic robots of Earth allied themselves with the Phari who were masters of the Hierion Domain. It makes sense to say that Asterothrope telepathy involved development of a sophisticated femptobot endosymbiont that could "take control" of the simpler human femtobot endosymbiont. However, that form of femtobot-mediated telepathy used twitinos and was essentially the same as the telepathy that was used by the positronic robots. We can say that the femtobot endosymbionts of humans were made to contain some positronic circuits.

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However, I imagine that once the Huaoshy realized that twitino-mediated telepathy is possible, they wanted to devise a form of telepathy technology that used sedrons rather than hierions. And, by doing so, they were able to make the telepathic Kac'hin, a human variant that was able to defeat the positronic robots of Earth and take control of Eternity.

The End of Telepathy
The Huaoshy were determined to put an end to time travel, deeming it too dangerous of a technology. They soon realized that they could alter the dimensional structure of the universe so as to make time travel impossible, and doing so would also make further twitino-mediated telepathy impossible.

Here in the Final Reality, we live in the post-time travel, post-twitino era. However, there are some situations in which it is convenient for humans to make use of telepathy. Thus, the positronic robots have allowed some humans to make use of a form of technology-assisted telepathy that is made possible by the Bimanoid Interface.

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The Bimanoid Interface was originally used to allow stored information in the Hierion Domain to reach humans in the hadron domain. There was a "tuning system" by which information stored in a Replicoid could reach the femtobot endosymbiont of that Replicoid's analogue in the hadron domain. This was the basis of temporal momentum.

How could the Bimanoid Interface be modified so as to allow telepathic communication between two humans? The "tuning system" had to be altered. One strategy was used by the tryp'At. The tryp'At were provided with their own special "tuned frequency" which allowed the tryp'At Overseers to coordinate their activity and take control of Eternity in the Buld Reality. Before that, in the Ekcolir Reality, the tryp'At were able to put an end to the misguided Fru'wu Intervention.

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Here in the Final Reality, the Bimanoid Interface was altered, making it impossible for the tryp'At to continue functioning as Overseers.

However, the Mind Clone Network was devised as one last means of providing a select group of humans with technology-assisted telepathy.

A major question is if the old, conventional Replicoid-based pattern of technology-assisted technology still exists here in the Final Reality. Is there any remaining temporal momentum or are humans free of such behavioral controls imposed from the hierion domain? And what about "G-sym" telepathy powered by sedrons?

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It does me no good to be in a hurry to resolve such mysteries. Currently it is my hope that I can use Nirutan's visit to Earth and her death as a stable starting point for the Exode Saga. Nirutam was constructed as a mind clone of Nora. I don't really want to think about the advanced pek technology that allowed Nirutam's brain to be tuned to Nora's.

Zeta has suggested the alarming possibility that Nora might also be a fain; a member of the same alien species as Nirutam. I'm not willing to entertain that idea. However, maybe Nora's human brain was crafted to be half of a bridge that can link a human mind to the mind of an alien fain.

Next: Alien Invasion

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