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Figure 1. "The Hua Nanites", AI-style
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Having just completed a 16,000 word science fiction story called
The Hua Nanites, I'm feeling pretty good about the shape of the story itself and also the way I resisted the temptation to expand the story and belabor some of the issues raised during Tyhry's adventure on Sermyth. However, now that the story is written, I do still feel the need to make a book or magazine cover for the story (see the completed cover image, below).
Mr. Wombo. I'm experimenting with AI-generated images, so I decided to try to create a cover image for The Hua Nanites using the WOMBO software. I began with a text prompt that I suspected would fail to generate anything useful: "The Hua Nanites". Sometimes I have to shake my head in dismay when dealing with artificial "intelligence" programs (see Figure 1). I've been working with WOMBO "realistic" style, but I can't even begin to imagine how someone could call these faces realistic.
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Figure 2. "Nanites"
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Educating Mr. Wombo. Normally, after seeing the AI software totally fail to get close to what I had in mind, I would have provided the software with a reference image. However, I wanted to know if "nanite" would have any "meaning" for Mr. Wombo (see
Figure 2). Innies?
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Figure 3. More nanites here.
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Next I tried expanding the prompt to: "nanites, alien technology, nanoscopic, exoplanet science, futuristic" (
Figure 3).
I then made a reference image which included the upper left corner of Figure 3 and also another "nanite" image that I found on the internet. I also slightly expanded the prompt to be: "nanites, alien technology, fractal complexity, nanoscopic, exoplanet science, futuristic". The very next image was looking pretty good and I felt that my efforts were heading in a reasonable direction:
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| Figure 4. "nanites, alien technology, fractal complexity, nanoscopic, exoplanet science, futuristic" |
I also wanted the cover image for The Hua Nanites to include some DNA. At the time of Tyhry's visit to Sermyth, the Hua have been carrying out sophisticated genetic engineering for thousands of years. The ways in which the Hua had altered their own biological nature plays a fairly major role in The Hua Nanites. I wanted to depict nanites as being used to help the Hua edit their genome. I ended up creating a fairly complex composite image of about two dozen AI-generated images (see Figure 5, below).
The Hua are aliens from a distant galaxy, and while they are very similar in appearance to Earthly humans, they have different skin pigmentation. In the The Hua Nanites I describe the Hua as having distinctive pink skin, the sight of which is difficult for Tyhry to adapt to when she visits Sermyth and lives among the Hua.
Image Credits. I also wanted there to be some human figures embedded in the cover image for
The Hua Nanites.
Zeptites are amazingly tiny and I've previously imagined
nanoscopic humanoid replicoids. There could easily be nanoscopic replicoids composed of zeptites who could fit into a molecular-scale scene where gene editing is taking place. For my new cover image, I included scaled-down versions of two human figures created by
Eclesi4stiK that are described
here.
Since there are also robots in The Hua Nanites, I included another scaled down image of a pink robot that can be seen at full size on this page.
I also included an AI-generated image of a Hua riding a horse (monne) that was similar to figure 14 as shown on this page. Can you find all five of these little humanoid surprises on the cover?
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Figure 5. The full sized version can be seen here.
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Figure 5 shows my cover image for
The Hua Nanites. I like to imagine that someday Tyhry might be able to publish accounts of her adventures inside the
Reality Simulation System. Those stories will have to be presented as science fiction, even if they are real adventures. However, right at the end of
The Hua Nanites, Tyhry is showing signs of losing interest in Sermyth, so it might be up to Rylla to interview both Tyhry and Onky and write the definitive book on the Hua.
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click image to enlarge
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I was tempted to put an image of a
Hua aircar into the cover image, but I restrained myself. However, one of the moons of Sermyth is present in the cover image. Can you find it? 🌖 Hint: find the zeptite cowgirl.
I had a lot of fun illustrating The Hua Nanites. By my count, I created about 25 new images for this story, many of them in the form of imaginary book and magazine covers (example).
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in the First Reality (see)
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The end of
The Hua Nanites arrives rather suddenly, and Tyhry does not tell readers if Mym returned to Earth from
Observer Base after she repaired the teleportation equipment. In my mind, the replicoid copy of Mym stays inside
Eternity and contributes stories about Sermyth to the archives of the
Writers Block. Maybe that copy of Mym becomes the friend of
Amiante.
Meta Writing. What about my
Change Challenge goals for 2023? So far, at least, I have felt no burning desire to create a prequel story for
The Hua Nanites. With luck, this story will remain the record holder as an account of the earliest known events in our universe. At the end of
The Hua Nanites, Manny removes Tyhry's bookmarked access coordinates for the Sermyth Simulation. Manny had briefly placed those coordinates into the control software of the Reality Simulation System. However, for some mysterious reason, Manny does not want there to be any other visits to Sermyth by Earthlings.
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Figure 6
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Right at the end of
The Hua Nanites, there is also a hint that Manny has edited Tyhry's memories of her time spent on Sermyth, possibly removing Tyhry's memories of all the good times that she had with Mym. My thinking is that if placed inside a Hua body (as was done for
The Hua Nanites), Tyhry could live happily ever after with Myn within Hua society, but things would not work out so well if they tried living together on Earth.
Teleportation. Maybe the Mym replicoid will build herself a new zeptite programming laboratory at Observer Base. Now that the Eternity teleportation system has been repaired, might it be possible for Tyhry to visit Observer Base? Both Mr. Wombo and I continue to struggle with how to visually depict teleportation in static images (see Figure 6).
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Figure 7. A message from the Blogger AI.
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Fig. 8. She was too hot for Blogger.
This imaginary magazine cover was
made by using an image
called "Elena9" that was created by
Eclesi4stiK under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
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Too Hot for Blogger. On the subject of dealing with artificial intelligence programs, I got a message from the Google AI (see Figure 7) that endlessly scans YouTube videos and Blogger blog posts for violations of the terms of use for these services. When I published my blog post called Nezzy Resort, it was flagged as constituting a violation.
Apparently the offending image was my depiction of Quyn Vye (see Figure 8). You can see the full sized image here. When I replaced that image, the Blogger AI no longer felt that my blog post was in violation of its standards.
My depiction of Quyn Vye included her huge breasts. As part of the alien Hua culture on Sermyth, social lactation is a common form of social behavior. The Hua have been genetically engineered so that they grow big breasts. An older lady like Quyn is fighting breast droop and typically has to wear an anti-gravity bra made of nanites. I guess her lacy bra showed too much alien nipple for Google's AI. 🤯
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too hot for YouTube (see)
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What is particularly frustrating about this whole affair is that although this image got flagged, it is
still on display at the bottom of another blog post:
The Search for the Hua.
I ran into a similar situation on YouTube two years ago. The Google image-scanning AI seems to pay extra attention to video thumbnail images and the first image on blog posts.
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Fig. 8.5. replacement part
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Fix Up. I wanted a replacement image that I could position at the top of "Nazzy Resort". I used this WOMBO text prompt: "pulp science fiction heroine wearing a futuristic jumpsuit and using advanced medical devices in the pediatric hospital, fancy belt, tight jumpsuit, big hair, blue eyes, foxy boots, flashy gloves". With this science fiction-oriented text prompt, Mr. WOMBO seemed to have trouble with the idea of a pediatric hospital.
To be fair to the software, it is best to see what the image-generating algorithm can do under optimal conditions. Shown below is the type of image that Mr. WOMBO can make when I don't force a Sci Fi scenario down his throat.
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Mr. Wombo's nurse.
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Wombo disease.
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Using a more conventional prompt Mr. WOMBO did much better at depicting a hospital. For the image to the left I asked for a pediatric nurse. For the image to the right, I also asked for some patients.
Sadly, these patients seem to suffer from Wombo disease. Mr. Wombo has trouble with human anatomy, particularly faces and fingers.
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pediatric hospital
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Mr. WOMBO did generate one "pulp Sci Fi" image that I could almost imagine being set in a hospital (see the image to the left). I was thinking about an imaginary book cover that would have something to do with the genetic engineering of the alien Hua an the planet Sermyth, but Mr. WOMBO was in the mood for creating robots and replicoids. The question became, what was that in her hand (
Fig. 8.5, above)? Maybe it is the last piece of the puzzle for the creation of an hermaphroditic replicoid.
To create this AI-generated image (The Hermaphroditic Robots of Sermyth, Fig. 8.5, above) I began with some pulp science fiction magazine cover art by Ed Emshwiller (reference image shown to the right).
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see the full image here
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Eventually, I settled for an imaginary book cover for Search for the Zeptites of Sermyth. I'm not sure what Angela Fersoni might have thought when she gained access to the Sedron Time Stream and began learning about the First Reality. In this case, I imagine that she shared her "visions" of Deep Time with her clone sister Ivory. So, Ivory gets the blame for writing Search for the Zeptites of Sermyth.
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text only
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text only
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The first two images show the results from using
only a text prompt with the online
WOMBO image-generating software. I began with this text prompt: "
alien
plants, botany, growing leaves, futuristic scientist, fractal
complexity, planter girl wearing jumpsuit, long hair, blue eyes, sky
flowers, god glow skin, human-plant hybrid, pretty face". I was particularly amused by the long purple hair seen in the image to the right.
I then began using the following visual reference...
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reference image (see)
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And I also changed the text prompt to: "alien
plant person, botany, growing leaves, futuristic scientist, fractal
complexity, planter girl wearing jumpsuit, long hair, blue eyes, arms
raised, bird on shoulder, human-plant hybrid, happy face".
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Planting Time
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The
software began producing image such as the on shown to the right. I
particularly liked this image because it is easy for me to imagine that
the woman in the golden jumpsuit has planted her foot in the flower pot.
Is she really a plant-person who just happens to look quite human?
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Chynsy the gardener.
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In
the image shown to the left, the image-generating software stopped
trying to include a human figure on the left side of the scene and
instead gave us a plant person seemingly at work... I'm not sure what Miss Chynsy is doing with those two long sticks.
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Adjusting the influence.
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clothing for plants
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The
software sometimes dressed the plant-person in clothing as shown in the
image to the right. There are frequent mysteries such as why the hands
in this image are rendered in blue. I guess "blue eyes" can be
interpreted in many ways.
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A garden of animals.
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In
some images (such as the one shown to the left), I could imagine that
the plant-person was at work growing small humans in its animal garden
and then harvesting them when ripe.
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Birds and Bees.
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The
WOMBO Dream software allows for some variation in how closely the
generated image conforms to the reference image. Below are three
examples for the weak, normal and strong settings all using the "Birds
and Bees" reference image that is shown to the right. Another mystery is
the varying degree to how much the figure on the left side of the scene
gets blurred.
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strong (left), normal (center) and weak (right)
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Botanical Elopement (see).
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The three images above were made using this text prompt: "
cute
alien plant-girl on the right side of the scene, pretty human girl
dressed in tight jumpsuit shown on top left side of the scene, some
birds and bees, some small elf figures".
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the AI-copy
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The
figure on the left shows my destination; a human is eloping with a
plant-person. This image was a Photoshop composite made from several
AI-generated images. The image to the right shows another AI-generated
image that was made using the image to the left as a reference and this
text prompt: "
side of a house,
tree on right side of image, cute alien plant-girl at the lower right
side of the scene, pretty human girl on top left side of the scene
climbing, botanical elopement at night"
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| Plant-girl. |
After seeing the AI-generated image that is above and to the right, I was unsure if "plant-girl" had any meaning for Mr. WOMBO.
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fractal jewelry
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The image to the left was generated by this prompt: "alien plant-girl with green skin and green elf ears and complex fractal jewelry". I was amused when this plant-girl was placed on a catwalk. Maybe this can start a new fashion trend. The image to the right shows an example of AI-generated "complex fractal jewelry".
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Fig. 9. See this 1954 pulp magazine cover.
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And Robots. For my science fiction story
The Hua Nanites I imagined that the Hua make use of household servant robots. To craft a depiction of Yrsy and Rysy, I started with "humanoid robot" as my prompt in the WOMBO AI-image generating software. The AI-generated robot is in the lower right corner of
Figure 9.
Ed Emshwiller's robot girl is more what I had in mind.
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| Emshwiller style? |
I next asked for "two humanoid robots and a human repair technician, Emshwiller style" and used Figure 9 as the reference image. Mr. WOMBO seems to be numerically challenged and on the first try, made an image with three robots, not two. On the second try, I got two robots, but with freaky hands (see the image to the left).
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Figure 10.
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There is a limit of 200 characters in the text prompt for image generation. I escalated to: "two humanoid robots, with cute heads, pretty faces, wearing miniskirts, hands with five fingers, include the legs and feet, repair technician, Emshwiller style". The resulting image (Figure 10) was pretty funny. One of the jobs for Yrsy and Rysy is cooking meals for their owners. The third arm coming out of the abdomen is really freaky.
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Figure 11. Full sized image here.
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My final version is shown in Figure 11. For the faces of the robots, I had to use two images from Eclesi4stiK; the image called "Elena9" that was also used to make a depiction of Quyn Vye (see Figure 8) as well as
"RedHairedBeauty02" by
Eclesi4stiK under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
The robots of Sermyth are composed of zeptites and they can alter their shape and appearance by rearranging their nanite components. In private, they often amuse themselves by taking on using the facial features of their Hua masters. They can quickly change their body parts into useful robotic appendages that are more efficient for tasks like cooking than are biological arms and legs.
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Figure 12.
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Figure 13.
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Vance Characters. I've been amusing myself by using
Jack Vance's verbal descriptions of characters as text prompts for the WOMBO image-generating software. Vance put some effort into "painting" his characters with his words. Here (
Figures 12 and
13) is "beauty" Dasce from Vance's novel
Star King: "a man, torso is a tube, long thin arms, head is tall and round, a ruff of red hair, chalk blue cheeks, red neck, cleft nose, blue eyes". According to Mr. WOMBO,
Figure 12 is "realistic" and
Figure 13 is a "figure".
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Figure 14.
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| Figure 15. |
I used the 1963 painting of Dasce by
Ed Emshwiller as a reference (
Figure 14) and got the AI-generated image shown in
Figure 15.
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Figure 16.
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When I added "Emshwiller style" to the text prompt I got Figure 16. I changed the prompt to: "three men and a rocket ship, closeup on right a man, torso is a tube, long thin arms, head is tall and round, a ruff of red hair, chalk blue cheeks, red neck, cleft nose, blue eyes, Emshwiller style".
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| Figure 17. Rockets. |
Rocket Man. As soon as I mentioned "rocket" the AI was able to figure out that the tall blue thing in
Figure 14 is a spaceship (see
Figure 17). Amusingly, it also turned Dasce's hair into a flying saucer. Jack Vance actually said that Dasce's cheeks were, "balls of bright chalk-blue, like a pair of mildewed oranges".
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Figure 18.
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I changed the prompt to "science fiction, blue rocket ship to the left, man on right side with long thin arms, glasses, head is tall and round, a ruff of red hair, blue cheeks, red neck, cleft nose, blue eyes". I finally got an image with a blue cheek (
Figure 18). I wonder what Vance would have said if he had lived to see this kind of "art".
Related: See this page for a teleportation animation.
Next: Depicting Marda
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