When I began writing "
The Galaxiad" my goal was to do some thinking about events leading up to the completion of
Galaxia. When chatting with Golan Trevize in
Isaac Asimov's novel
Foundation and Earth, the 20,000-years-old
Daneel makes no secret of the fact that he is struggling to complete the group mind of Galaxia, all in an attempt serve the greater good of Humanity.
I began my
Exode Saga at a point in time when Galaxia was almost complete, say a few centuries after the ending of
Foundation and Earth. But two centuries is a short time for such a major change to Humanity: unifying 25,000,000 planets under the Galaxia group mind. "The Galaxiad" was intended to provide some answers: how did the positronic robots working with R. Daneel accomplish so much in so little time?
Asimov's formula for story telling was to provide readers with depictions of both sides in an argument, so I felt the need to include in "The Galaxiad" both a positronic robot (the probot Lunanna) and a character who would oppose the creation of Galaxia. Since I was writing during the run-up to a change of administrations in January 2020, I decided to give a definite political flavor to the story, depicting a political opponent of Lunanna.
That agent of opposition became my character Myquel who is the
very model of a modern Galactic Guardian; devoted to the defense against telepathic Second Foundationers, but completely out-matched when dealing with
fairies probots.
It is fitting that I include the soldierly Myquel in "The Galaxiad" because it was a drawing of
Private Willis that inspired the young Isaac Asimov to write his Foundation stories about a galactic empire.
Journey to Andromeda
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Vyky Dey
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The events depicted in "The Galaxiad" take place about two years before
Grean arrives in our galaxy. In advance of Grean's mission,
Many Sails has been on an expedition to our galaxy during which "she" has been sampling the biological diversity of Humanity, with special emphasis on finding human variants that have interesting telepathic abilities.
Upon performing a quick analysis of Vyky Dey's telepathic skills, Many Sails knows that she has made the most important discovery of her expedition and so she scoops up a copy of Vyky and returns to the Andromeda galaxy where Grean is being prepared for her mission to Earth.
Along with Vyky,
Many Sails and Myquel there is one other major character in "The Galaxiad", the probot Lunanna. Lunanna was named in honor of the fact that in the time of Golan Trevize, Daneel had his secret base of operations on the Moon.
Sedroid
All of the characters in "The Galaxiad" have their secrets, which are not revealed to readers until
part 2 of the story. Myquel believes that he is human, but
Many Sails reveals to him a startling fact: he is actually an artificial lifeform, what she calls a sedroid.
The Exode Saga is full of replicoids, artificial lifeforms that are composed of
femtobot components. Sedroids are similar, but they are assembled from
zeptites.
Many Sails has the ability to create and program sedroids and she uses them as her agents inside our galaxy. The probots have no way of detecting a difference between sedroids and humans beyond the fact that sedroids show an unusually persistent devotion to the cause of defending the
First Foundation against the Second Foundation.
Because of the efficiency of that defense, the probots have been forced to work more openly throughout the worlds of the galaxy while bringing into existence Galaxia. Many Sails feels confident that it is the probots are who are behind the development and implementation of Galaxia. Also, Many Sails is certain that Grean can use sedroids to defeat the probots. All that remains is for Many Sails to understand how the probots developed human telepathy and to rule out the possibility that the probots are hiding or holding in reserve some special form of telepathy that could be a challenge to Grean.
Having no understanding of the existence of time travel,
Many Sails can't imagine that the
Asterothropes existed in a previous
Reality. For
Many Sails it is a mystery: why now, at this time in the
Foundation Reality, are there suddenly so many human variants (such as the Werefe) with interesting telepathic abilities?
I like to think that
R. Nyrtia made several attempts to craft telepathic humans and one such experimental effort culminated in the Werefe. However, the lineage that led to Hari Seldon's grand-daughter
Wanda, the
Mule and
Bliss is the one that became the basis for constructing Galaxia.
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Laws of Robotics
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How did
Many Sails control her sedroids? I've never read
Caliban by Roger Allen, but I like the idea of altering the The Laws of Robotics as devised by Asimov back in the 1940. Asimov's modification was to insert the
Zeroth Law, adopted by Daneel and leading to Galaxia.
What does
Many Sails expect her sedroids to accomplish? Recall that at the end of Asimov's original
Foundation Trilogy, the First Foundationers have been duped into believing that there are only 50 members of the Second Foundation. However, on
Trantor there is a thriving community of Second Foundationers that the First Foundation is unaware of. The
First Speaker is confident that his telepathic comrades of the Second Foundation will continue to guide both Foundations to successful development of a new, second
Galactic Empire.
For "The Galaxiad", I assume that
Many Sails knows quite well that the Second Foundation has not been eliminated.
Many Sails creates an army of Galactic Guardians, each trained in the use of a
Mind Static device that can incapacitate any nearby Second Foundationers.
Also, recall (from
Prelude to Foundation) that it is possible to incapacitate positronic robots. During the dying days of the first Galactic Empire, before the Second Foundation existed,
Dors Venabili revealed herself to be a robot during her spirited defense of
Hari Seldon. Dr. Cinda Monay (an expert in "radiation physics") and mathematician Tamwile Elar created a device (called the electro-clarifier) that could incapacitate robots such as Dors. Asimov was careful to depict the invention of the electro-clarifier as being accomplished under the cover of on-going improvements to the
Prime Radiant, with nobody but Elar aware of its use as a weapon against probots.
Thus, it was still possible for the probots to operate secretly among humans and advance their plans for Galaxia, as long as nobody made use of the electro-clarifier technology. I imagine that
Many Sails shifted the Galactic Guardians from their original goal of defending against Second Foundationers towards protecting members of the Individual Freedom Party and helping them resist the Social Unity Party which became the human organization working to perfect Galaxia.
Why didn't Many Sails instruct the Galactic Guardians on how to modify the settings of their Mind Static devices, shifting their operation into the frequency range used by the electro-clarifier? I imagine that Many Sails came to recognize that there was an advantage to having the entire galaxy become absorbed into Galaxia.
Many Sails knew how to defeat Galaxia with advanced sedronic technology. The largest danger to Grean's plan to take control of
Eternity was the possibility that some unknown alternative form of telepathy might exist, one that Grean was not prepared to counter. Thus,
Many Sails searched the galaxy for human variants with unusual telepathic abilities. The most interesting examples, such as Vyky the Werefe, were collected by
Many Sails and taken back to the Andromeda galaxy for careful study.
So, initially the sedroids could have been programmed so as to defend non-telepathic humans against the telepathic Second Foundationers. However, within two generations, humans began experimenting with technology-assisted telepathy. For "The Galaxiad", I imagine that the Galactic Guardians were re-programmed to accept such technology-assisted telepathy as long as it did not involve alterations to the human brain.
Joining the Galaxia movement (and the Social Unity Party) came to be associated with the use of brain implants that would link individuals into the Galaxia network.
For the second half of "The Galaxiad" I had some fun imagining anti-SUP propaganda posters. Vyky may have seen some of these on the street and they may have contributed to her caution with respect to adjusting her Werefe telepaq to a frequency used by the Mysyny communications network. Even with her caution, nothing could protect Vyky from being "abducted" by Many Sails. I have to wonder what other "human variants" were also being transported by Many Sails back to the Andromeda galaxy along with Vyky.
Next: telepathic aliens on Koryphon
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