Infinity 1

cover art by Robert Engle

The first issue of Infinity Science Fiction magazine was published in 1955. I've previously described 1950 - 1983 as the "Uranium Age" of science fiction, so it should come as no surprise that the first story in Infinity Science Fiction magazine (called "The Sickness") was smothered in cold war fears about how humans on Earth would surely be obliterated by nuclear war, and soon.

The first science fiction movie that I ever saw may have been the 1953 film The War of the Worlds. I was not happy with that film for many reasons, but particularly hard to swallow was the ending, where we are asked to believe that the invading Martians were defeated by Earthly microbes. And not only that. It was God's wisdom that put the microbes on Earth in the first place... all part of God's long-range plan to save Humanity from Evil™ Martians.

cover art by Kelly Freas

I grew up in the Space Age and I never had any expectation that any planet in the Solar System besides Earth would have life. I don't know who to blame for the idea that Mars might have had life in the past, but that plot element infected many science fiction story tellers from Herbert Wells to William Tenn. In "The Sickness", set in the not too distant future, when human explorers first reach Mars, they find abandoned underground cities. The ancient Martians have long since moved on to bigger and better things after developing super-powers such as telepathy and telekinesis. But that is not all.

"The Sickness" needs to be re-written. As originally written by "Tenn" (his real name was Philip Klass), the basis of Marian super-powers is a bacterium that can enter into either a Martian's brain or that of a human, where the bacterial cells reside as an endosymbiont. 

cover art by Eppo Doeve

By the end of "The Sickness", a glorious future for Humanity is near at hand: soon Earthlings will be infected by the Martian bacterium and a great new age for Humanity will dawn. Thus, just before humans exterminate themselves by nuclear warfare, the Martian bacterium saves Humanity. I have no idea how Tenn came up with his idea of Martian endosymbiotic bacteria that provide a super-brain boost, but this plot element reminds me of a 1953 story called "The Infinites" by Philip Dick.

I feel that "The Sickness" needs to be re-written so as to remove the Martian bacteria and replace the magical microbe with some sort of nanotechnology.

The Future. "The Sickness" was anthologized in Out of This World 6 along with Isaac Asimov's 1958 Multivac story "All the Troubles of the World". 

cover art by Kevin Kelly

In 1956 Philip Dick had published his story "The Minority Report" in which telepathic mutants could predict the occurrence of future crimes. For "All the Troubles of the World", Asimov imagined that a computer could predict the future occurrence of crimes like murder. Asimov did not stop there. He imagined that Multivac, being relied on by Humanity to prevent all murders, could not handle the pressure of that responsibility. The poor over-worked Multivac tries to commit suicide.

I've long been intrigued by Asimov's stories that involve ways of knowing the future. For his Foundation Saga, Asimov imagined that a fictional science of Psychohistory could mathematically predict future events. In Asimov's time travel novel, The End of Eternity, technology was developed that allowed multiple possible futures to be Viewed. 

The big problem with "All the Troubles of the World" is that prevention of murder requires that everyone continually be sharing with Multivac their innermost thoughts and plans. Asimov simply assumes that through the use of Multivac, human society has managed to eliminate almost all crime. Then, after bringing Humanity to a seemingly utopian future, Multivac suddenly freaks out and says, "I'm tired and can't take it anymore". Q: Ummm... why? A: plot.

For The Historical Archive, I imagine a much more sophisticated data input system. For the Exode Saga, I imagine that about 2,000,000,000 years ago the alien pek arrived in the Solar System and sent a swarm of their nanoscopic zeptites into this planet. Humans evolved so as to have a zeptite endosymbiont inside each person's body. Those zeptites were able to create a complete record of everything taking place on Earth (and in each person's brain and thoughts) which was automatically stored in the Sedron Domain. 

image source

Previously, I've written stories about the Reality Simulation system at Observer Base. Want to observe something that happened in the Asimov Reality? Simply have yourself inserted into the Asimov Reality Simulator and you can live inside a simulation of the Asimov Reality.

In The Historical Archive, I introduce the idea that R. Nyrtia has access to a Simulation System that contains the entire history of Earthly civilization and can be used to predict the future. That Simulator also contains data from Reality Viewer equipment that was used to view possible future Realities. After a good future for Humanity was found by Viewing possible futures, the Reality Simulation system could be used by the bumpha to make subtle adjustments to Earth's history, pushing Humanity towards a good future.

Ekcolir viewing Trysta viewing a Reality.

The only "fly in that ointment" was that the Huaoshy altered the Dimensional Structure of the Universe so as to make impossible 1) all future time travel and 2) Viewing of the future. The question raised in The Historical Archive is if Nyrtia's Reality Simulation System can be successfully used to keep the future course of human history "on track" and moving towards the previously Viewed future. I take seriously the "butterfly effect", so it is possible for Earthlings to diverge from their optimal future course of development.

Rules of Intervention. R. Nyrtia is pleased to take on the responsibility of using the Reality Simulation System to keep Humanity on course to a favorable future. However, a major problem for R. Nyrtia is that she has been forced to comply with the Huaoshy Rules of Intervention. These ethical principles of the alien Huaoshy forbid technologically advance people from having direct contact with technologically primitive peoples. 

Manny

Positronic robots are a special case under the Rules of Intervention. R. Nyrtia is driven by her programming to help Humanity, but she has access to advanced technology that was 'stolen' from the Huaoshy. In order to prevent Nyrtia from being over-zealous in her actions, she has been trapped by Manny in the Sedron Domain and Nyrtia can never again visit Earth of even the Eternity space-time bubble (usually called 'Observer Base') within the Hierion Domain. Thus, Nyrtia needs some helpers.

As told in The Historical Archive, Nyrtia must use the resources that are available to her in order to craft her helpers. Nyrtia sets about learning how to use the Bimanoid Interface 2.0 and she arranges for Zeta Gohrlay to give birth to a pair of twins with powerful telepathic abilities.

One Woman for Venus

By the way, the magic bacteria in "The Sickness" were topped by the alien microbes in "Phantom Duel" by Ford McCormack which is about a mysterious alien "virus" that emerges from an alien mineral life-form and kills humans. I wonder if Michael Crichton was inspired by "Phantom Duel" when he wrote The Andromeda Strain.

And in case you are wondering, the cover art for the November 1955 issue of Infinity Science Fiction, goes with "Kid Stuff" a mercifully short story by Winston Marks. 

Visions of the Future

"Kid Stuff" concerns some young aliens who perform experimental surgery on an Earthling. "Kid Stuff" could have served as inspiration for "The Squire of Gothos". According to his autobiographical blurb in the July 1954 issue of Imagination, Marks had at one time hoped to be a doctor, but for a time he tried to make a living by writing fiction. His 1954 story "John's Other Practice" is about the invention of a computerized diagnosis system of the future (I provide more details about this story here).

Related Reading: "Pre-Vision" by John R. Pierce. Viewing the future in 1936.

Next: more science fiction from Infinity