Robots and Hybrids

SciFi02 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

I occasionally blog about creating illustrations for science fiction stories (most recently, last year). When I was first using DeviantArt about 7 years ago, I discovered that some folks explicitly make their images available as "stock" that can be modified by other artists. Some people who upload files to DeviantArt simply use a Creative Commons license that gives other people the right to modify and reuse the image files. In this blog post I want to discuss the work of a few specific artists who I know by way of their DeviantArt accounts and who share their images under a Creative Commons license.

Since this blog is mostly about science fiction, my first example is SciFi02, shown to the right. You can support the creator of this image, Eclesi4stiK, at their Patreon page. When illustrating my science fiction stories, I often search the internet for "futuristic fashion" and hope to find images that might look like a person from the far future. Often my characters are humanoid robots and it is a challenge to give them a slightly different appearance than the human characters.

folks on DeviantArt that I'm watching

Currently I "watch" 24 DeviantArt accounts, shown to the left. Eclesi4stiK has had their account for 9 years and they have over 10,000 watchers. People have viewed the 500 or so images posted by Eclesi4stiK over 750,000 times. Many of those images are available for other people to use under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).  

Vacu; made using
SciFi02 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

In "The Alastor Network", one of the robot characters is Vacu, who has been stationed for several decades on a low temperature world in Alastor Cluster called Yerophet. I made only minor changes to SciFi02 by Eclesi4stiK in order to have a depiction of Vacu as I had imagined "her". Sadly, Vacu is not allowed to dress like this while on duty and working at the communications monitoring station of the Whelm. 😢

When Ryl Shermatz first visited Yerophet 25 years before the events depicted in "The Alastor Network", he attempted to reverse engineer Vacu. Vacu had been manufactured on the planet Triskelion and sold to the Connatic (Ryl's father) for a very high price. However, the nanoscopic components of Vacu resisted Ryl's analysis, and even during the time period of events in "The Alastor Network", the Whelm cannot build sophisticated robots. I like to imaging that while Ryl was studying Vacu, "she" had some fun distracting Ryl while off duty and dressed as shown in the image to the right.

Alien-Human Hybrids 

Konie's vision of the young Eleyn.
made with Leah01 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

For "The Alastor Network" I wanted some images that would depict characters who were alien-human hybrids. Ryl's mother, Eleyn, has many Asterothrope gene patterns. At the time of the events in "The Alastor Network", Eleyn's husband is on Earth investigating the origins and telepathic abilities of the Asterothropes. The Asterothropes are usually described as a human variant, created by R. Gohrlay in Deep Time. However, while genetically engineering the Asterothropes, R. Gohrlay's positronic robots had access to Preland genes, so some of the special abilities of the Asterothropes might be traceable to their Preland-like gene patterns. The Prelands were crafted by the pek as another type of human variant. It is clear that the pek used some gene patterns originating in alien species in order to make the Prelands. Those aliens originated in other galaxies and it has not been possible for human investigators to identify their home worlds.

Lora, Pepha, Konie and lo'Whots have large amounts
of Plesypy gene combinations. Blue = male.

A central plot element in "The Alastor Network" are human-Plesypy hybrids such as the Kerub. The Plesypy have blue pigmentation and are native to the planet Ottengla, but some Plesypy gene combinations have recently been introduced into the population of human colonists who live on Yerophet. The ancient Plesypy have powerful telepathic abilities that have recently been engineered into the Kerub such as lo'Whots. The Kerub also have some genes that originated in the alien Phet.

Lora with her head made up so as to appear human.
Made using AssaStudyroom by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Lora is an interesting case because she has long taken pains to hide her alien phenotypic traits while interacting with humans who visit the Trading Post. Twenty five years before the time of "The Alastor Network", Lora and Ryl had an intimate relationship and their daughter, Konywhn inherited traits like blue skin from her mother. Lora usually hides her blue coloration when she must speak to humans who would be alarmed by her natural appearance. 

It is commonly believed that all the Kerub live over the border in Kerub Territory, but Lora and her friend Pepha live on the human side of the boarder in Goslewenn because they inherited the human pattern of thermal regulation and can tolerate the warm temperatures that appeal to humans.

As seen in the Ekcolir Reality.
Konywhn and Voyt. Made using
Onboard2 & Redspec8 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

When Eleyn arrives at the Trading Post, Lora makes no attempt to conceal her blue skin. Eleyn is well aware that Lora is the mother of Eleyn's grand-daughter, Konywhn.

Konywhn is mostly human in appearance and works as a communications technician at the Whelm communications monitoring station in Frost Hills. She becomes friends with Ryl's daughter, Voyt, when she is deployed to the base in Frost Hills. Voyt has come to Yerophet in order to do research on the genetics of the human-alien hybrids of Yerophet. Konywhn will also appear as a character in "Meet the Phari" in which she will depart from Yerophet on a new mission. 

In the image shown to the right, Voyt is collaborating with Konie to correlate Asterothrope-like gene patterns with telepathic signal data being collected by Josef, an artificial intelligence system with telepathic abilities.

A depiction of Pepha made using Veronikaroom
by Eclesi4stiK available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Pepha plays an important role in "The Alastor Network" as the mother of lo'Whots. The father of lo'Whots is Wilken, Ryl's brother.

Pepha also contributes genes towards the creation of the Lavany mind clones who are produced on Yerophet. About one month after the end of the events in "The Alastor Network", Ryl's son Heshlo will impregnate Pepha. That human-alien hybrid embryo will be taken back in Time by Grean the Kac'hin and used as part of the process of making the Lavany mind clones. Heshlo and Pepha meet in part 21 of "The Alastor Network" at a time when Pepha is twice the age of Heshlo.

A depiction of Fi made with evesnow02 by
Eclesi4stiK available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

1.5 Partons. Pepha's mother is a human-Asterothrope hybrid named Berryfial, or "Fi" for short. One of the phenotypic features of Asterothropes is two rows of breasts. The smaller secondary breasts are the source of oxypathin, a chemical substance that can amplify the telepathic powers of Asterothropes.

Berryfial and Eleyn have similar Asterothrope gene combinations and they meet at the Trading Post in part 21 of "The Alastor Network". Berryfial's husband, Semoy, works at the secret genetic engineering facility in Goslewenn that is run by Lora. Fi and Semoy have long lived in the secret underground residential complex beneath the Trading Post. Semoy is a Plesyspy-human hybrid with four legs and two arms, rather like a Centaur.

A depiction of Maturin in the hot tub on Yerophet.
Made using redhead03 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Last year I introduced Nirutam as a new character in the Exode Saga. Nirutam was an alien Ret'fai from the Andromeda galaxy who died on Earth. However, Nirutam's selfie, Maturin, was assigned the task of making sure that Yōd did not pass some dangerous types of information back to Earth From Alastor Cluster. Yōd is briefly on Yerophet during the time period covered by "The Alastor Network", but neither she nor Azynov play a major role in the story. They do protect Glisten's unborn child from getting caught up in a damaging type of telepathic feedback with lo'Whots, but then they quickly return to Zeck where the climate is much nicer than on Yerophet.

A Kac'hin-Kerub hybrid made using
roxieoutd09 and blondeelf02 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

In the last chapter of "The Alastor Network", Maturin briefly walks across the stage at the end of the story. Nirutam had a rather unusual appearance with dark orange skin. Although Maturin is an artificial lifeform and can adopt any convenient physical form, she makes use of a body shape that is is similar to that of Nirutam when she meets up with Grean for some play time at the end of "The Alastor Network".

Another hybrid with significant amounts of Kerub, human and Kac'hin genes is shown to the right. A Kac'hin phenotypic trait is long pointed ears. This is a new character who appears in "Meet the Phari". In addition to the many images obtained from Eclesi4stiK, I also made use of some other images by additional folks at DeviantArt in order to make a few more illustrations for characters in "The Alastor Network". 

Original rendering: "Tiger Den" by henry1850.
Image available under the CC BY-NC 3.0 license

The scene depicted to the left is from the future, in a time about two decades after the end of the events that are described in "The Alastor Network". This is a gathering of mind clones during which their mind clone network is being used by Grean as a way to amplify human telepathic abilities and allow for contact between a human test subject and the Phari. The Phari reside in the Hierion Domain and no longer exist as biological organisms, so they are not depicted in this image.

While writing "The Alastor Network", I wanted some kind of futuristic image for the Brevik Drone Works where hierion field generators were being tested for their ability to protect passenger ships from space pirates.

As seen in the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art shown here and thanks to
Henry1850 for Energy Device (CC BY-NC 3.0)

The image shown to the right is pretty, but I have no idea what it is showing. Possible the depicted scene is an attempt to apply advanced technology from the future to the spaceship building processes of the Pegasus Company.

"Couple" by CakeOne
license: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

While writing "The Alastor Network", I wanted to illustrate the loving relationship between Kasya Jeghtop and her husband. I made use of the image shown to the left.

Below and to the right on this page is another composite image that uses a rendered image that is posted on the DeviantArt website with the following instructions: "You may use this as long it is placed on your backgrounds."

As seen in the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art by Milton
Rosenblatt and Ed Emshwiller
See also: mysticmorning

"The Alastor Network" involves the creation of a mind clone network that includes children who all share one identical cerebral hemisphere but have many other biological differences.

The exact scene shown to the right is not present in "The Alastor Network", but it conveys the idea of mixing together alien genes with human genes to make alien-human hybrids who can be telepathically linked as part of a network. The Plesypy of Ottengla have blue pigmentation as do the Kerub, so I made use of the "alien blue baby" by mysticmorning.

In "The Alastor Network", some of the characters appear more than once, occasionally as duplicate copies standing side-by-side. Technology exists that allows for copying a person and instantiating them inside an artificial body, a replicoid. In part 21 of the story, there is a scene where three copies of Eleyn are busily completing a small task for Grean the Kac'hin.

See "DAZ 11244" by jennova21.
Available under the CC BY-NC 3.0 license.

In the image shown to the left, those three replicoids are shown along with another character in the story who is amused to see multiple copies of Eleyn. That exact scene does not exist in the story, but this illustration captures the idea of duplicating a person.

For many of my illustrations I imagine that there was a science fiction author who used the pen name "Glisty Raven" in the Ekcolir Reality. In "The Alastor Network", one of the characters is Glisten Ravensroke. Glisten originated in the Jack Vance novel Wyst.

One last point... I find it extremely distressing that fun science fiction art from the past is no longer in circulation for the enjoyment of fans. A major theme in "The Alastor Network" is recovery of lost information from the past. Yōd and Azynov use the AR Simulator to explore the history of the Asimov Reality. 

As seen in the Ekcolir Reality.
Tuttuhr the Hui-chi and a friend.
This image was made using ElfHuman by
Eclesi4stiK available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

While at work inside the AR Simulator with Yōd, Grean has a chance to make alterations to the timeline of the unfolding simulation, thus the details of human society in Alastor Cluster that are seen by Yōd do not exactly match the actual sequence of events that took place in Deep Time. The AR Simulator uses advanced technology to access information stored in the Sedronic Domain.

I've previously imagined that some people can directly access information about Deep Time without using Simulator Technology. For example, the Fersoni sisters specialized in "viewing" events from their previous Reality (the Ekcolir Reality) and sharing their knowledge with the Editor. Also, some science fiction story tellers from the Ekcolir Reality were brought into the Buld Reality and worked in the Writers Block. From there, they could help other science fiction writers on Earth tell stories about actual events that took place in past Realities. 

As first seen in the Ekcolir Reality.
An image made with YennBlake & this by
Eclesi4stiK available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
This is a scene in "Meet the Phari".

That ongoing practice allowed for us, here in the Final Reality, to sometimes see old versions of stories and even whole copies of some Deep Time science fiction magazines from the Ekcolir Reality. This is why many of the illustrations included in "The Alastor Network" have the words "in the Ekcolir Reality" right there in the image caption. These "deviations" are thus my re-imaginings of pulp magazine covers from Deep Time.

Many thanks to all of the many artists who share their works with all the non-artists such as myself. As usual, if you don' like what I have done with your image, please let me know... I'll remove my offending deviation from the internet.

Related Reading: another re-imagining of old science fiction art

Next: "Meet the Phari"

visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers