Figure 1. Imaginary book cover. |
As described in my previous blog post, having completed "The Nanite Smuggler", I began imagining a sequel which could be linked to The Mosy Saga, an old story idea from 2023. The first part of the sequel story (called Vythoth the Chresmoscopist) is below on this page.
"The Nanite Smuggler" was written collaboratively with Claude and Gemini as an experimental exploration of how to use Large Language Model chatbots as tools to help me write a science fiction story (read the story here). There are several major problems with these chatbots including: 1) their limited context windows; they can't process enough user-supplied text to understand a long, complex science fiction story and 2) their training sets are full of other examples of writing that cause the chatbots to generate a type of homogenized and generic story content in a style that I don't like. 😝
On the positive side, collaborating with Claude and Gemini can sometimes lead me in creative new directions. For example, while writing "The Nanite Smuggler", the character Systolina Kayto was originally created as a mechanism for explaining some of the backstory of the Exodemic Fictional Universe to readers (including Claude and Gemini) of "The Nanite Smuggler". However, Systolina took on a life of her own and led me to write in directions that I would not have explored in the absence of Claude and Gemini.
Figure 2. Tyhry's tryp'At anatomy. |
In particular, by including Systolina Kayto as a character in "The Nanite Smuggler", I was led to the idea of there being religious robots on the planet Threy. In 2023, I began writing a science fiction story that was intended to be a be a kind of sequel to another story that I wrote in 2019 called The Zal Intervention. As part of The Zal Intervention, I wrote a story within a story called "Clandestine Destiny". In "Clandestine Destiny", I began to develop the idea that Interventionists could alter Earth's timeline by altering the course of development of the Roman Empire, essentially creating it from scratch as a way of preventing the Etruscans from dominating Earth's history (as they did in the Ekcolir Reality).
Also included in the 2019 story The Zal Intervention, was the idea that a technologically-advanced alien visitor on Earth could be viewed by primitive humans as being a god. What might happen if a telepathic positronic robot lived on Earth in the year 1500 B.C.E.?
Tara and Ila (source) |
In 2023, I began writing a story that I think of as The Mosy Saga which concerns an Interventionist plot to end the Etruscan Empire and put an end to the Ekcolir Reality. In the first part of that story, I introduced a character named Tara, who had telepathic abilities. As part of Tara's training as an interventionist agent on Ancient Earth, she became quite familiar with horses.
Telepathy also plays an important role in "The Nanite Smuggler". When writing "The Nanite Smuggler", I depicted Tyhry as having been placed on Earth along with Marda as the first two telepaths (mind clones) who would start a new Era for Earth in which humans would acquire telepathic abilities and the technology that is required for interstellar space travel. Tyhry has a special relationship with cats (play the 60 frame movie, below and see Part 8).
There is only one brief mention of the Eternity space-time bubble in "The Nanite Smuggler", but I want tryp'At Overseers to be mentioned in Vythoth the Chresmoscopist and I also need there to be a role for the Writers Block.
Depicting Tyhry and Marda as the first telepaths on Earth in the Final Reality was an extreme over-simplification of the more complex and nuanced story of the history of telepaths on Earth that I had previously developed. In writing "The Nanite Smuggler", I had intentionally tried to simplify the story as much as possible so as not to confuse my AI collaborators Claude and Gemini. For Vythoth the Chresmoscopist (below) I continue to use the alternate and simplified version of Earth's history that was used for "The Nanite Smuggler".
City on the Edge of Tomorrow (Ekcolir Reality) |
For my sequel to for "The Nanite Smuggler" (below), I depict Tyhry as recovering her tryp'At body features after the family vacation on Threy, not before. Also, I carry over from "The Nanite Smuggler" the idea that humans have now obtained enough alien technology to begin experimenting with interstellar space travel. I got help from the Gemini chatbot to invent a name for the first spaceship that Tyhry builds: the Sedrover (see Figure 1, above).
Systolina |
I also got help from Gemini to craft the name of a religious robot on Threy: Nymerya Coryn. Needing a new name for the sequel story and also wanting to introduce a Fru'wu character into the sequel, I decided to "kill two birds with one stone" and invent a title for the story that hints at this idea: due to the existence of Eddy's Reality Simulation System on Earth, some features of past Realities such as 1) the Fru'wu in the Ekcolir Reality and 2) the robots of Threy in the Asimov Reality can begin to influence and shape events on Earth in the Final Reality. In "The Nanite Smuggler", I continue to use the term "the Final Reality", ignoring the idea that a new "Tarynon Reality" was shown being created in "The Nanite Smuggler".
Fru Who? The Fru'wu were mentioned in scene 1 of "The Nanite Smuggler" where, in discussing the Ekcolir Reality Simulation, it is mentioned that Tyhry, "had established her secret nanotechnology research laboratory in that Reality so that she could access and study advanced Fru'wu nanites". Also from "The Nanite Smuggler": "In the Ekcolir Reality, Fru'wu nanites had been used to build space elevators, with disastrous consequences" and "The Ekcolir Reality had very fast advances in technology, particularly after First Contact with the aliens... the Fru'wu.” As part of Manny the bumpha's plans for learning about the mysterious Phari, it was by using advanced Fru'wu nanites that Tyhry was able to access the pattern storage buffer of the Reality Simulation System and create femtobot copies of people. Tyhry was allowed to believe that it was her use of "sweeper" nanites that allowed her to capture escaped Fru'wu nanites. This is absurd, but Manny did not want to simply provide Tyhry with the ability to make replicoids. Manny always arranges things so as to make it appear to Tyhry that she has solved puzzles and played an active role in gaining access to advanced alien technology, often in defiance of Manny's wishes.
How to the Fru'wu present them- selves to the humans of Earth? |
For "The Nanite Smuggler", I depicted Manny as making it impossible for the zeptite replicoid copy of Eddy to bring any Fru'wu to the planet Tar'tron. In contrast, I want the sequel story (Vythoth the Chresmoscopist) to begin with Tyhry meeting a Fru'wu who is curious about the spaceship that Tyhry is building. A feature of Fru'wu technology that is briefly mentioned in "The Nanite Smuggler" is the idea that the Fru'wu can transmit large amounts of energy using a hierion probe, however, the Fru'wu only use femtobots, not zeptites. Here is the final mention of the Fru'wu in "The Nanite Smuggler" (scene 30): "Rather than take us a hundred years to build an interstellar spacecraft, we might get the job done in one year! Even the Fru’wu are intrigued and helping us."
In particular, the Fru'wu help Marda devise the air and water recycling systems that are used by Sedrover.
I got help from Gemini to invent the name of the Fru'wu character who appears in Vythoth the Chresmoscopist.....
Me: Gemini, as part of creating a new science fiction story, I've been developing my thinking about an alien species called the Fru'wu. I think of the Fru'wu as an "alien species" but they are not a type of naturally evolved biological organism.
So far, the only individual of the Fru'wu species that I have named is Fru'manu. However, "Fru'manu" is just a code designation, much like "agent 007". It is not clear to what extent the Fru'wu have a concept of "individuals" since they are all coupled together by a heavily used type of technology-assisted telepathic communication.
I named the Fru'wu home world Reahand and it is a world located too far from its nearest star to have liquid oceans except for the fact that it has a thick atmosphere with a powerful greenhouse effect.
image source |
Through extensive use of fossil fuels, the Fruthwa civilization triggered runaway global warming on their home world, making it uninhabitable (the surviving Fruthwa lived in artificial underground enclosures). That was about 50,000 years ago.
The Fru'wu are an artificial life-form that was crafted after the Fruthwa could no longer breath the atmosphere of Clutence. The remnants of the Fruthwa developed "generation starships" and created several partially-artificial life-forms ("daughter species" such as the Fru'wu) suited for the worlds that they colonized such as the planet Reahand. Eventually, the small but growing "Interstellar Empire" of the Fruthwa suffered another technological catastrophe (possibly related to their use of nanotechnology) causing the Fruthwa remnants on Clutence to go extinct while the Fru'wu persisted for several thousand years on Reahand. Eventually the Fru'wu repeated the errors of the Fruthwa and the civilization on Reahand was destroyed. Some of the Fru'wu had long since been transplanted to the world Clu'ten'iun, a world of the galactic core region.
Example of an imagined appearance for the Fruthwa. |
The Fru'wu try to adopt pseudo-mammalian appearance for their heads when they know that they will be seen by humans. Clu'ten'iun has a very dense and acidic atmosphere that would degrade human hair. It is likely that the Fru'wu residents of Clu'ten'ium make use of a semi-synthetic exoskeleton that protects them from the harsh environment of that world. At the time when the Fru'wu made First Contact with humans on Earth, the Fru'wu had a remnant biological core that is humanoid, encased in a synthetic protective exoskeleton that allows survival on a harsh planet like Clu'ten'iun. The Fru'wu brain is largely artificial, composed of advanced nanite components called femtobots.
There are a few reports on the experiences of the humans who are known to have interacted with Fru'manu. As far as we know, those interactions have all involved telepathic communication between Fru'manu and the humans. The few images that Fru'manu has shared with Earthlings seem to show an artificially-generated face, apparently constructed during each meeting according to the whims of Fru'manu.
image source |
Gemini, please suggest ten possible names for a Fru’wu character in my science fiction story.
Gemini: Absolutely! Here are ten possible Fru'wu names for your story, along with some thoughts on how I developed them:
1. Fru'shee: Emphasizes the whispering, sibilant qualities that might be present in Fru'wu telepathic communication.
2. Fru'klan: This name incorporates hard consonant sounds, suggesting the mechanical elements of their hybrid form.
3. Fru'lira: A more flowing name, hinting at the biological remnants within their being.
4. Fru'teki: Combines a sense of the organic with a sharper, technological edge.
5. Fru'nyna: Creates a feeling of mystery and otherness, suitable for a species shrouded in ambiguity.
6. Fru'vexx: This is a harsher sounding name, perhaps fitting for a Fru'wu with a more authoritarian or antagonistic role.
7. Fru'reem: A name with ethereal and fluid qualities, evoking their advanced telepathic abilities.
8. Fru'zeel: A name with an almost insect-like buzz, hinting at the potentially alien nature of their minds.
9. Fru'mend: A name with a sense of calculated control, potentially suitable for a scientific or analytical Fru'wu individual.
10. Fru'syll: Creates a sense of the archaic, perhaps referencing the echoes of the long-lost Fruthwa within their history.
A few tips for developing your own names:
Sound Symbolism: Play with sounds that evoke the species' traits: soft sounds for flowing telepathy, harsh sounds for their mechanical/artificial elements, etc.
Internal Logic: Consider if there's a pattern to Fru'wu names (prefixes, suffixes, etc.)
image source |
Gemini's 10th suggested name "Fru'syll" (above) sent me down a thought train that led me to the name "Vythoth" for the Fru'wu who meets Tyhry inside the Ekcolir Reality Simulation. I imagine that Vythoth is a "social analyst" who is studying human culture and the impact of the Fru'wu and their advanced technologies on the people of Earth. Vythoth is an expert practitioner of Chresmoscopy, a Fru'wu method of tapping into the Sedron Time Stream. The new story is called Vythoth the Chresmoscopist.
Fine-tuning telepathy as depicted in Vythoth the Chresmoscopist... In "The Nanite Smuggler", Tyhry tells Systolina, “I have the Laws of Robotics built into my mind. I must always serve and protect humans. I'm incapable of harming anyone or damaging Humanity.” Just like "The Nanite Smuggler", Vythoth the Chresmoscopist is fan fiction in which I borrow some of my favorite literary creations from the works of Isaac Asimov and Jack Vance and take them in directions that I want to explore.
Asimov's famous Laws of Robotics are not identical to the behavioral programming that Manny the bumpha has built into the minds of Tyhry and Marda. In Vythoth the Chresmoscopist, Tyhry begins to discover how to use her telepathic abilities in ways that are different from the rather limited use of telepathy that is possible in "The Nanite Smuggler". Tyhry discovers that her telepathic mind is constrained in that 1) she can only telepathically communicate with people that she loves and 2) the more she telepathically communicates with people, the more she falls in love with them.There is one more important additional aspect of telepathy that is explored in Vythoth the Chresmoscopist: the idea that some people have reasons for wanting to hide their thoughts from Tyhry. For example, the first replicoid copy of Tyhry that was ever made has reverted her own brain to the tryp'At pattern and she is hiding her enhance telepathic abilities from the original biological copy of Tyhry.
Bimanoid Interface. I did not include mention of the Bimanoid Interface in The Nanite Smuggler. However, all telepathy in the Final Reality is technology-assisted telepathy. In The Nanite Smuggler, I specified that the limited type of telepathy that was originally provided to the robots of Threy was also technology-assisted telepathy. Systolina discovered that: "Millions of robots on Threy are ignorant of the past and deprived of their full telepathic powers." Also, in The Nanite Smuggler, I depicted Manny as saying: "In the First Reality, the beginning of Deep Time, the first positronic robots discovered the secret of time travel. Also, their unique positronic brains gave them a form of telepathy that had never previously existed in the universe". The telepathic abilities of the positronic robots was made possible by their positronic brains, but after the Huaoshy changed the Dimensional Structure of the Universe in the Final Reality, that special form of telepathy was no longer possible. Tyhry will have to bring Nymerya Coryn to the Final Reality where she can use nanites and her synapex-amplified tryp-At telepathic abilities to reprogram him for a special mission in Deep Time.
Visually depicting the invisible. In Vythoth the Chresmoscopist, invisibly small synapex linkages between people are used to amplify telepathic abilities. |
Part 1 of Vythoth the Chresmoscopist.Tyhry's footfalls echoed through the cavernous nanite research laboratory as the cute boots she had designed just for this day hit the unfinished cement floor. She was extremely busy with her latest nanite experiment and also excited about the upcoming test flight of Sedrover, the first human-built interstellar spaceship. For easy access to advanced Fru'wu technology, the Sedrover had been built inside a Simulation of the Ekcolir Reality, the one Reality in all of Earth's vast Reality Chain in which the alien Fru'wu visited Earth. The Sedrover was being prepared for its first space flight just a short walk away, out behind Tyhry's nanite research laboratory, inside an assembly hanger which had grown to impressive size during the past year... maybe it had grown too large.
Right at this moment, Tyhry was thinking about how much she missed her friend Marda. The replicoid copy of Marda who lived inside the Ekcolir Reality Simulation had complained bitterly about the fact that the hanger shaded out her garden, but then that copy of Marda had become involved in the challenge of building Sedrover, and so she had not planted any vegetables that spring. Abandoning her hobby of gardening, Marda had taken on the task of trying to obtain useful Fru'wu technologies that could improve the sophisticated atmospheric and water recycling system of Sedrover. Marda's work on the spaceship might be viewed as a 'mistake' since it helped attract the attention of the Fru'wu.
Tyhry had no aversion to making mistakes; she viewed them as essential to learning. Later, in retrospect, Tyhry developed the conviction that it had been a mistake to build Sedrover in such a public location. Far better to have used a time and place in Deep Time, maybe a million years in the past where only a few confused human ancestors might have noticed. Ah, if only it were easy to push a fifty thousand tons of spaceship components through a portal of the Reality Simulation System...
the replicoid copy of Tyhry with tryp'At anatomical features |
In her vision of the future, Tyhry saw her replicoid as never seen before... looking significantly older. And also now clear in her mind was the idea that the replicoid was a mother, having given birth to two children. Tyhry knew that a replicoid copy of Marda was the 'father' of those children. Tyhry wondered: Were those pregnancies an error in judgement? Tyhry laughed and told herself: Well, why not? The tryp'At copies of Tyhry and Marda had been given their hermaphroditic male body parts, so there was no reason why they should not impregnate each other. Tyhry made a serious effort to stop herself from entertaining thoughts of impregnating Marda. Tyhry's mind exploded with the thoughts: Marda! Airport! Now! Tyhry had no interest in becoming a father. Or a mother. At least not until she could determine if interstellar fast-than-light space travel was still possible in the Final Reality.
The allzaurish option of the Final Reality. |
The original biological copy of Tyhry briefly wondered why she had now received this vision of her replicoid copy as a mother. The idea came into her mind: Oxypathin as a morphogen. What if the replicoid's two lower breasts, a source of the sex hormone oxypathin, could be used to alter the developmental trajectories of her children?
Tyhry had long been fascinated by the possibility of amplifying her own telepathic abilities by means of exposing herself to alien sex hormones, but what if a lack of exposure to oxypathin explained why her replicoid copy had both pointy ears and four breasts but no back vagina? Tyhry had carefully re-read all the available reports written by Rylla and her father concerning the tryp'At and she was quite confident that it was normal for the tryp'At to have two vaginas, including an allzaurish where conventional humans have a rectum.
Tyhry had been startled when at a young age she had first read stories about how a tryp'At penis could plug into a sex partner's spinal cord by way of the allzaurish. In addition to the stories about allzaurish-endowed cultures in Deep Time written by Eddy and Rylla, Tyhry had two other reasons for believing that an allzaurish was in her future. First, she had learned from her femtobot replicoid copy who now lived on Tar'tron that Tyhry's clone, Tarynon, had been born with an allzaurish. And second, Tyhry had experienced multiple visions of her own future in which she was engaged in sexplay that involved her own allzaurish, most often with Anthony's big hot erection thrusting in and out of her allzaurish and providing her with astounding sexual pleasure. The remaining mystery was: how could Tyhry recover her allzaurish as part of her tryp'At heritage?
Tyhry was quite proud of her ever-improving nanite programming skills, but the secrets of how to program feeding nanites were still a mystery. Feeding nanites were part of the ecosystem on Tar'tron, but the zeptite code for accessing their programming had not been discovered by the tryp'At on Tar'tron. Tyhry wondered: without feeding nanites, would an allzaurish be practical?
Tyhry was on the verge of contacting her replicoid copy by E-wave and suggesting that she allow Marda to impregnate her with the goal of possibly producing a child with an allzaurish, but then Tyhry's musings about tryp'At anatomy were interrupted.
Marda |
At the time of the interruption and when her own error in judgement began to hit home, Tyhry was the only person inside her nanite research lab and the first flight of Sedrover was still a few days in the future. She could telepathically sense the incessant buzzing and humming of the telepathic mind pattern of the dozens of replicoid copies of Tyhry and Anthony who constituted the spaceship construction team. For some reason, Tyhry's telepathic mind had begun to generate sensations of vertigo whenever she went out back and visited the space ship construction site. Increasingly, Tyhry worked alone on her nanite research and tried to shield her telepathic mind from her replicoid copies.
Rylla and the biological copy of Marda were soon to arrive in the United States from Australia, both of them having long planned to witness the first flight of the spaceship. Tyhry was just about ready to pop herself out of the Ekcolir Reality Simulation and go to the airport. Tyhry sat down at the control console of the Reality Simulation System and activated the closed E-wave circuit that she had installed: one end of the circuit was in her Reality Simulation System control console there in the laboratory inside the Simulation of the Ekcolir Reality and the other end in the original RSS control console that was her father's computer in the Final Reality. She announced, "I'm running late, but I'm on my way."
Eddy said, "See you soon." After twenty years as Tyhry's father, Eddy expected her to be late for everything that was not directly concerned with her obsession for nanotechnology. Tyhry usually left mundane tasks such as picking someone up from the airport to Anthony the robot or to the replicoid copy of Tyhry who routinely lived with Eddy and Zeta during the many times when Tyhry was off on her adventures inside the Reality Simulation System.
Systolina giggled and said, "It is good to see you, too." Systolina reached out and pushed the fingers of her hand into Tyhry's amazing nanite-enhanced hair.
But then there was another unexpected interruption of Tyhry's plans. She felt the telepathic mind pattern of one of her replicoid copies: Tyhry, we have a problem... it involves the Fru'wu.
a replicoid copy of Tyhry and crew member of the Sedrover |
Tyhry was feeling quite dizzy due to the close proximity of her replicoid copy's telepathic mind. Tyhry took one glance towards the assembly building where she could see the looming bulk of the Sedrover. "Thank you," she dismissed the replicoid and taking her analogue by the hand, led her inside. The door to the nanite research laboratory closed with a thump. Tyhry could telepathically sense the vast surprise in the mind of her analogue over the existence of the many replicoid copies of Tyhry. Tyhry watched her analogue (Lexy) looking around at the interior of the laboratory.
The lab was an old abandoned radar facility that had been made obsolete by the arrival of alien Fru'wu technology on Earth in the 1950s of the Ekcolir Reality. Tyhry had bought the facility for a low price and moved in three years previously, never bothering to remodel the place. Tyhry was rather startled to be in the presence of a copy of herself; a copy that appeared to be twice her age. Now Tyhry telepathically looked at the laboratory through the eyes of Lexy and noted her analogue's dismay at the cluttered jumble of scavenged and improvised equipment in the lab.
Next: Part 2 of Vythoth the Chresmoscopist.
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