The Notteng Implant

Mary and Artep in Seelie Port.

This blog is highly focused on science fiction and since I suffer from "fantasy blindness", I never have much to say about forms of fantasy that drift free from a science anchor. Fantasy blindness is like color blindness: I just don't "get" most fantasy stories that are not intimately involved with technology or a scientific puzzle. 

Last year I mentioned the Probability Zero project of Astounding magazine which was an invitation to let some impossible fantasies slip into a science fiction magazine. With Probability Zero as a prod and inspiration, I went in a direction that I can't usually go and wrote some "science fantasy" stories about miniature flying replicoids (see "Final Change"). Since I can't really write fantasy, I provided myself with a security blanket by imagining that in some unexplained way, negative mass hierions could provide a scientific basis for oddities like the flying Synpaz.

cover art by Wayne Woodard

In the early 1940s, Isaac Asimov wrote a Probability Zero story called "First Law" that was rejected and not published until the October 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe. In that positronic robot story, Asimov explored the idea that a robot might build another robot and come to think of it as a "child".

For my fan fiction stories about Alastor Cluster, I imagine Grean the Kac'hin is in competition with R. Gohrlay, both of them trying to create powerful telepathic humans. To aid her efforts, Grean decides to start making use of robots to help engineer telepathic alien-human hybrids. The robots of Triskelion can make additional models of robot, as needed to support Grean's work. One model of Triskelion robot, the Nottengs, are crafted for use on Ottengla, where they play an important role protecting the settlers against starmenter raids. 

robots of Triskelion

Many robots of Triskelion have both 1) telepathic powers and 2) the ability (using sophisticated nanotechnology) to genetically engineer embryos and implant them inside women (see: blastipositor). The Notteng model robots can also gestate an embryo to term.

"Exploring Europa"
by rpreteau
license: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

In Asimov's story "First Law", Mike Donovan is surprised when one of the new MA model of positronic robots is more concerned about its "child" than about Donovan's safety. For this story, Asimov imagined living creatures such as the "storm-pup" on the cold (-290F) surface of the moon Titan. Donovan is lost in a storm on Titan and thinks he has run into a dangerous storm-pup. Not really able to see because of the violent storm, but taking no chances, Donovan points his blaster. 🔫 However, he is not confronting a killer storm-pup, but rather a "baby" robot. The MA robot leaps into action, picking up its "child" and taking it away to safety. Donovan is not happy that he is left behind by the MA robot while he is still at risk of dying in the terrible storm.

Robotic drone for exploring Titan.

I don't really understand why Asimov set "First Law" on Titan. I do like the idea that when we finally meet aliens, they will likely be in the form of artificial life forms. There was a time in the early 1980s when I gobbled up storied by James Hogan such as Inherit the Stars, The Genesis Machine, Thrice Upon a Time and Code of the Lifemaker. Maybe it makes sense to send robots to the surface of Titan, but people?

The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, etc.

The Immortality Option

In the case of Asimov sending poor Donovan to Titan, we must ask, "Why?" And also, we must wonder, if Asimov wanted to suggest that an MA model robot could build another "baby" robot, why have the action taking place on Titan? Maybe the native life forms of Titan were actually technologically advanced artificial life forms as depicted by Hogan in his story Code of the Lifemaker. 

Asimov never said anything in his short (3 page) story about the storm-pup or other "natives" of Titan being artificial life forms. However, if there was an alien source for robot parts on Titan, then maybe the "baby" of the MA model robot was actually a hybrid construct, made from a mixture of stolen positronic robot spare parts from Earth and other components manufactured by the Titans.

  Image made with Elena17
  by Eclesi4stiK available
under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

In Chapter 12 of "Meet the Phari", Eynta is told that she pregnant. This news is provided to Eynta by Niel, a telepathic Notteng robot of Ottengla. Eynta is about to embark on a journey to the planet Viole where she will try to raise enough money to buy a cheap spaceship and go to Kwenslo. On Viole, Eynta will earn money while working as an Embryonics technician and making use of her telepathic sashei to attract and handle her customers. Niel warns Eynta that she won't be able to successfully complete her Embryonics work if she is carrying her mind clone embryo. Eynta is talked into transferring her embryo into the body of a Notteng robot who will gestate the baby to term.

However, as depicted in Chapter 10 of "Meet the Phari", after Eynta reaches Kwenslo, the course of Time is altered. Kwystyk and Konywhn jump back 3 weeks into the past and inform Eynta that she no longer needs to go to Kwenslo. In this newly created Reality, Eynta is able to gestate her own baby mind clone.

Next: story illustration with Daz Studio

Related Reading: Chapter 11 of "Meet the Phari".

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