14 Years to 1914

Figure 1. Gohrlay on Earth

It was 14 years ago that I began writing a science fiction story called The Start of Eternity. It was fan-fiction, a story meant to unite Isaac Asimov's time travel story The End of Eternity with Asimov's famous Foundation saga. Then in 2013 I created a blog where I could continue working on that story and I changed the name to Foundations of Eternity.

Telepathic Robots. Back in the 1970s, I first read I, Robot and Asimov's positronic robot story, "Liar!", which featured a telepathic robot. Later, Asimov inserted Daneel into his Foundation saga as a telepathic robot who was secretly working behind the scenes to guide Humanity safely into the future. In his stories, Asimov suggested that robot telepathy originated as a kind of accident and it was due to a special pattern that could be built into a positronic brain.

Gohrlay's Brain

 Fan-fiction. For my story, I wanted a more satisfying explanation for the origin of telepathy. Asimov hinted that robots such as Daneel could detect patterns in the electrical signals emanating from human brains. But not only could Daneel "read minds", he could reach into brains and adjust them, a form of "mind control". Asimov never explained how that might be possible.

For The Start of Eternity, I imagined that telepathic robots had their origin with a woman named Gohrlay. There in Figure 1 is a depiction of Gohrlay, wearing a kind of camouflage suit while visiting Earth. Gohrlay was a Human-Neanderthal hybrid who grew up at Observer Base, a special observation post that was used by agents of the alien Huaoshy to monitor the development of human civilization on Earth. The story begins just as Neanderthals are being driven to extinction.

Zeta with the infite bottle.
Image (Zetana) made using
"shadow hunter portrait 6"
by Gretchen Byers

 Narrative Perspective. From the beginning, I was not comfortable serving as an omniscient narrator for the events of Foundations of Eternity. In an attempt to account for how that story could be told to Earthlings of this era, I began making use of two sources of information, infites and Angela. And of course, I eventually had to insert myself into the Exode Saga as a character that I originally called the Editor, but who I've recently started calling 'Eddy'. I was quite pleased when information about Deep Time began flowing to the pen of Eddy from Angela (she had access to the data of the Sedron Time Stream). In 2018, I even went as far as to imagine that Eddy had received "The Last Infites", but by then I was addicted to depicting Eddy as continually making new discoveries about the Secret History of Humanity. So, more batches of infites continue to be passed to Eddy from his "collaborators".

In the Ekcolir Reality.
The Asimov Replicoid is taken
into the AR simulation.
Original cover art by Hans Wessolowski.

 Reality Simulation. Back in 2014 I started developing my thinking about a role for Reality Simulation at Observer Base. In 2015, I began making use of Simulation technology to help train Interventionist agents for missions on Earth. After writing a story called "The Connatic's Library" I started getting serious about the possibility of Reality Simulation. In 2016, I began A Search Beyond which was intended to be a novel about how Azynov and Yōd would investigate the origins of human telepathy in the Asimov Reality. Thus, in 2017, my attention was centered on the Asimov Reality Simulator. At first, I made a big deal about how difficult it was to enter the Asimov Reality Simulation system and it was also hard for Yōd to relay information out of the Simulator to Eddy.

However, I eventually realized that there had to be a better way of transmitting information both from Yōd to Eddy and between Earth and Observer Base, so the Mind Clone Network was started.

orgasm trance

 Telepathy. Towards the end of 2019 I was starting to explore how hormones such as oxypathin might be able to amplify human telepathic powers. In 2021, as part of "The Alastor Network", I initiated a fairly detailed exploration of the "orgasm trace" as another way to amplify telepathic communication. Here in 2022, I started making frequent use of synapex connections as another way to boost telepathic linkages between people.

Most recently, I have described how Eddy was given access to the Reality Simulation System (see The Historical Archive). In "The Prisoner of L2", Eddy must use the Simulation System to investigate a telepathy research project in the far future, in Alastor Cluster of the Asimov Reality. As explored in "The Frenchyhysur Process", multiple copies of Eddy begin to accumulate inside various parts of the Reality Simulation System. 

Figure 2

Although time travel is no longer possible in the 21st century of the Final Reality, Eddy can receive some information from the future. Some components of the Mind Clone Network can access the Sedron Time Stream, which includes information about the future.

Here at the end of March, I wrote "Edison's Endosymbiont Experiments", a 17,000 word story about using the Ekcolir Reality Simulator to investigate what I call the Edison Intervention (see Figure 2). During the Ekcolir Reality, Nyrtia tried to give Earthlings early knowledge of hierions, even before the arrival of the Fru'wu. Eddy visited the year 1914 and explored how Reynette Cummings passed advanced alien technology to Thomas Edison. At the end of the story, a copy of Reynette is pulled out of the Simulator System by Manny and given a new life in the real world.

Nirutam

I feel like all the pieces are now in place for explaining how Eddy can finish writing the Exode Saga. However, a strange thing happened on the way to completing the novels of the Exode Saga. There has also been a parallel story of how Eddy and his collaborators slowly became aware of The Secret History of Humanity and attained the ability to research and explore Deep Time.

During the past 14 years, I've developed a much more sophisticated view of the alien Huaoshy (and their agents in our galaxy such as Manny) and the positronic robots like R. Gohrlay. New characters such as R. Nyrtia and Nirutam have arrived on the stage and taken on prominent roles. Most recently, Reynette has become the source of a new mystery: how was it possible for Yōd to take partial control of Rey's behavior while at the same time Rey could not be forced to reveal her deepest secrets, such as the location of Nyrtia's headquarters.

Rey duplicates

In "Edison's Endosymbiont Experiments", the possibility was raised that the telepaths of the Mind Clone Network might eventually be able to "turn the tables" on Nyrtia and reveal all of her secrets, including her special advanced knowledge of hierions. Nyrtia intends to use the Mind Clone Network to control the development of new technologies on Earth. There seems to be an opportunity to devise a new story about an attempt by humans to bring advanced nanotechnology to Earth, while Nyrtia, recognizing the dangers of that advanced technology, would try to prevent it from being made available to humans.

My first impulse is is to make this new story about a question looming over the Exode Saga: after the Huaoshy made time travel impossible by altering the Dimensional Structure of the Universe, did they also

simulation

make it impossible for other types of advanced technology to be used, such as teleportation or the type of faster-than-light space travel (the Jarnell Intersplit) that was given to humans in the Asimov Reality?

Another question left dangling at the end of "Edison's Endosymbiont Experiments" is whether Rylla can use the Index in Eddy's computer to gain access to the Reality Simulation System. Eventually, either Rylla or possibly Tihri is going to have to take over for Eddy. It seems quite likely that the "key" for using the Index resides in the form of a collection of nanites that are inside Eddy. If so, could those nanites be transferred to Rylla?

Figure 3

 New Story. Another major issue that was raised in The Historical Archive was the clytykynyn protein (see Figure 3). Eddy first began to understand the importance of this hormone when he read "The Miners of Earth". Having personally experienced the effects of high doses of clytyktnyn, Eddy now understands that the clyte made use of clytykynyn to control the minds of the poor miners that were depicted in Thomas' story.

Also awaiting some elaboration is the unexpected outcome of Zeta's Gamma pregnancy. For months, Zeta and Eddy expected that after Gamma was born, she would grow to be a powerful telepath, able to work and function as Nyrtia's agent on Earth. However, Gamma was never born. Zeta and Eddy were afraid to reveal the unusual nature of Gamma to Earthlings, so they never had any high resolution medical imaging performed in the real world. However, after using an ultrasound probe on herself, Zeta had an MRI scan inside the Simulation System. 

Figure 4

The results from that high-resolution MRI scan were startling. Zeta and Eddy were both horrified to learn that Gamma was developing as an embroid (see Figure 4) Then, even more surprisingly, the Gamma embroid began to shrink. Eventually, Gamma must have taken up residence inside Zeta as her third endosymbiont.

The presence of Gamma inside Zeta is what allowed Zeta to have a continuously available communications channel linking her to the twins, Alpha and Beta. I have to wonder how much of Zeta's subsequent inexplicable behavior was due to the telepathic influence of Alpha and Beta who, as artificial lifeforms, were aging rapidly within the Simulation System.

Next: Part 1 of a new science fiction story called "The Cythyrya Investigation".

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers