Collector of Humanoids

Figure 1. A humanoid with
blue skin and a tail.

 When I was 12 years old, I was impressed by the idea of the alien Balok flying around the galaxy in a mile-wide spaceship (called the Fesarius). In Star Trek, it was never explained why Balok was flying around the galaxy. I enjoy making alternate versions of stories such as "The Corbomite Maneuver" in which I can actually provide reasons for what happens, so I'm crafting a fan-fiction story called "The Fesarians" that explores the idea that Balok is a bumpha, a type of artificial life-form from a distant galaxy. As a bumpha, Balok is part of a billion-year-long effort to nurture humanoid lifeforms in the universe.

Figure 2. Talia: a human-
tryp'At hybrid who was
"transplanted" to Elemacha-z.

 Collecting Humanoids. In "The Corbomite Maneuver", Balok indicated that he is rather lonely and would like a member of the Enterprise crew to spend some time on the Fesarius, participating in cultural exchange. For "The Fesarians", I assume that Balok would not actually be alone in his mile-wide spaceship. Instead, I depict the Fesarius as being full of hundreds of different types of humanoids that Balok has collected from many different worlds of the galaxy. Think of Balok as a gardener, the Earth-like planets of the galaxy as his garden and sometimes Balok must transplant people from one world to another.

For example, imagine that Balok arranged for Talia (Figure 2) and Xylo (Figures 3 and 4) to move to the planet Elemacha-z so that they could help set a trap for Dani and the other remaining positronic robots of Earth who have long disrupted bumpha plans for the galaxy.

Figure 3. Xylo on her home world.

For my stories about the bumpha, I like to imaging that the bumpha played a role in guiding the evolution of life in our galaxy during the past 2,000,000,000 years. How could that be fit in with the fictional galaxy as depicted in Star Trek where humans can go out exploring and find planets like Scalos where the native humanoids are inter-fertile with Earthlings? Even when I was 12, I was certain that two humanoids evolving independently on different planets would not be inter-fertile.

Xylo in flowers.

A good solution to the mystery of finding human variants on exoplanets was provided by Jack Vance. In his novel Star King, Vance described the idea of technologically advanced aliens arriving on Earth and transplanting some humans to another world of the galaxy. Vance stopped there, but what if the bumpha transplanted humans to thousands of other Earth-like planets?

Upon arriving on Elemacha-Z, Xylo takes over as mayor of Port Cooway and her clone "sisters" adopt their pre-arranged roles in the new colony. 

Social mixer on Elemacha-z.

The colonists are all genetically modified humans, some of whom (like Xylo) are genetically engineered human variants called the Huxy. Xylo is pleased to be on a new world where her unusual anatomy is appreciated by the other residents such as power engineer Talia Vance. 

 The hermaphrodites of Elemacha-z. As human-tryp'At hybrids, Talia and her clone sisters are hermaphrodites, each with one ovary and one testis. Talia has has two vaginas and penis. More details about Talia's anatomy is provided in Part 3 of "The Fesarians".

At the time when Bailey and Dani arrive on Elemacha-z, one of the Talia clones has already been impregnated by Xylo's "sister", Aethe. Although Xylo has the appearance of a young woman, "she" is a male Huxy, a genetically engineered human variant (for more details about the unusual biology of the Huxy, see Part 4 of "The Fesarians"). All of the Huxy are used to being referred to as "she", even male Huxy such as Xylo and Aethe.

Figure 4. Big and little.

 The Clones of Elemacha-z. In my Exodemic Fictional Universe stories such as "The Fesarians", there is time travel technology, and there are human variants such as the tryp'At who in the future have been genetically engineered to have telepathic abilities. For "The Fesarians", there are human-tryp'At hybrids such as Talia who can interact with "conventional" humans such as Bailey. With help from her zeptite endosymbiont, Talia has some limited ability to receive information from the future.

In "The Fesarians", both Talia and Xylo are clones, with several clone sisters who are also colonists on Elemacha-z. Maybe it is common practice to make use of genetically engineered and cloned people to colonize Earth-like exoplanets. I can imagine that the Talia and Xylo clones were genetically modified to make them better able to survive the very warm climate of Elemacha-z.

Figure 5. Xylo arrives while Dani is
contacting the Hierion Domain.

 Robots. In addition to clones and genetically engineered human variants, "The Fesarians" includes Dani the positronic robot. Dani was designed to appear to be a typical human who could live among humans and function as a secret agent for R. Nyrtia, a positronic robot who lives inside the Hierion Domain.

There is a scene in "The Fesarians" when Dani tries to contact Nyrtia who is at her secret base in the Hierion Domain. For the image that is shown in Figure 5, I asked Mr. Wombo to create a science fiction scene with futuristic electronics. Maybe Dani had to modify the interstellar communications equipment of Elemacha-Z in order to signal into the Hierion Domain, resulting in a "shocking" surprise for Xylo, revealing to her the existence of her femtobot endosymbiont.

Figure 6. Dani calling Nyrtia.

 Balok's Master Plan. I had Mr. Wombo make an alternative depiction of Dani at the point in time when she is using the interstellar communications equipment of Elemacha-Z in order to contact R. Nyrtia in the Hierion Domain. In Figure 6, Dani has just sent a message to R. Nyrtia. Balok hopes that R. Nyrtia will try to rescue Dani and recall her secret agent into the Hierion Domain, and in so doing, reveal the location of the hidden base of the positronic robots. To make it appear to Nyrtia that it is safe to contact Dani, Balok makes use of his agents (Bailey and Talia) on Elemacha-z.

As a positronic robot, Dani can telepathically examine the minds of Bailey and Talia. Seeing that they know nothing about positronic robots or the Hierion Domain, soon after arriving on Elemacha-z, Dani becomes over-confident and tries to attract the attention of R. Nyrtia. However, Balok is carefully monitoring events on Elemacha-z.

Figure 7. Two hermaphroditic
humanoids from planet Exo III

 The Humanoids. Back at the end of June, I began to think about the physical appearance of the native Merovae as well as two alien Fesarians, Ylyndra and Ienaghwy.

I've still never read The Humanoids, but in 2021 I commented on the precursor story, "With Folded Hands", by Jack Williamson (1947). I'm going to blame old cover art for these stories for the fact that Mr. Wombo prefers to depict humanoids like cyborgs.

Figure 8. A humanoid.

I asked Mr. Wombo to generate an image depicting, "science fiction book cover, a very young humanoid woman with blue skin and large eyes, big bushy hair, the humanoid woman has a very large head, bulging cranium, the humanoid woman has blue skin, inside a laser physics laboratory". One of the resulting cyborg-like "humanoids" is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 9. Blue humanoid.

An even more mechanical "humanoid" is shown in Figure 9. I have no objection to imagining future space-traveling humanoids who are artificial life-forms with bodies composed of a mixture of biological and mechanical components, but for "The Fesarians" I am trying to remain within the boundaries of a fictional universe that reflects the biases of the original Star Trek television series. 

Admittedly, for 1960s television, the main motivation for making aliens have the physical appearance of humans was to save on costs. In the case of the Star Trek episode "The Squire of Gothos", we are never shown the true physical form of the aliens, so I am free to imagine the physical form of my character Ylyndra as being quite human.

Figure 10. Ienaghwy (left)

 Head size is relative. I'm working with the idea of the bumpha having spread humanoid genes to many distant exoplanets and then many humanoid variants of humans could evolve independently on those planets. I simply do not imagine Ylyndra as a cyborg. In my imagination, Ylyndra could look more like the large brained humanoids of Figure 7 than the "wild" humanoid in Figure 1 (above). However, I previously depicted Ylyndra as having a smaller head than Ienaghwy who is a human-Talosian hybrid.

Figure 11. Blond humanoid.

In Figure 10, Ienaghwy is depicted as being significantly shorter than the blue-skinned alien, but this might reflect the range of natural variation in height within species.

 Does Mr. Wombo prefer blonds? Shown in Figure 11 is one of the blond humanoids that Mr. Wombo generated. A similar image with more hair on the front half of her head is shown in the image at the bottom of this blog post.

Figure 12. Two Talia clones
and Xylo (right) experiment
with endosymbionts.

In "The Fesarians", characters such as Talia Vance enjoy the benefits of having zeptite endosymbionts inside their bodies, but Talia is not aware that zeptite endosymbionts exist. When Dani the positronic robot arrives on Elemacha-z, there is an opportunity for Dani to share with the residents of Elemacha-z what she knows about the femtobot endosymbionts that exist inside humans. At this time, Talia and Xylo are rather desperate to establish communications with the native aliens of Elemacha-z and hopeful that they might be able to find a way to co-exist with the natives who have sabotaged the electrical power distribution system of Port Cooway. Figure 12 provides a rather whimsical depiction of the idea that the human residents of Elemacha-z might try to harness the power of their endosymbionts in an attempt to establish telepathic contact with the Noema (plant-like aliens who don't come on stage until Part 3 of "The Fesarians").

Figure 13. Talia.

Another AI-generated version of Talia as a test subject in an experiment is shown in Figure 13. Although I'm still in the process of writing Part 3 of "The Fesarians", I'm leaning towards the idea that the human residents of Elemacha-z will ultimately have to depart from that world. Talia has had visions of the future which suggest that she is destined to live onboard the Fesarius with Bailey, sometime in the near future after leaving Elemacha-z. 

Also, I like the idea that Balok has brought Bailey and Talia together as part of the ongoing efforts by the bumpha to breed telepathic humans. As a human-tryp'At hybrid, it is possible that Talia will have some difficulty becoming pregnant. Maybe Figure 13 depicts a future time onboard the Fesarius when Talia is undergoing experiments aimed at increasing her fertility and making it possible for her to be impregnated by Bailey. Talia is technically a simultaneous hermaphrodite (she has a tiny penis), but physically she has the body form of a female human. The preference of the bumpha for crafting hermaphroditic humanoids can be traced back to the ancient alien Hua.

Figure 14. Talia and Xylo.

In Part 2 of "The Fesarians", I tried to create some mystery about how the underground power cables of Port Cooway had been cut. In my mind, the Noema would have used their advance nanotechnology to cut the power lines, but they would have been smart enough to try to make it look like some creature such as the Merovae had been responsible, possibly as part of their need to lay their eggs on land. I am reluctant to depict the human residents of Port Cooway as having nanotechnology because that was not really an explicit part of the original Star Trek. The image shown in Figure 14 began as an attempt to have Mr. Wombo generate a depiction of Talia and Xylo experimenting with nanites that were provided by Dani, but this AI-generated scene turned out looking more like some kind of mysterious red light therapy.

Failed human colony.

 Depicting plant people. The image shown to the right is another AI-generated imaginary book cover illustrating First Contact with the plant people who are discovered by the humans of the Port Cooway colony on Elemacha-z. 

The Noema Nanites.

The image shown to the left is a depiction of the idea that the humans on Elemacha-z eventually befriend the Noema and then the aliens provide repair nanites to Talia so that she can repair the power distribution system.

 However, the colonists no longer wish to remain on Elemacha-z because they respect the rights of the Noema to live on their world in peace without encroachment by humans. After becoming friends with the Noema, the human settlers depart from Elemacha-z

Figure 15. Two Talia clones
and a Xylo clone (bottom).

 Figure 15 shows two of the Talia clones of Elemacha-z and one of the Xylo clones working to re-balance the electrical power distribution pattern of Port Cooway after several power cables have been cut by the alien Noema near the start of the mysterious electrical power problems that threaten the survival of the human colonists on Elemacha-z, a world with dangerously high surface temperatures. 

Talia clones arrive on Elemacha

The image shown in Figure 15 is a variant of the scene in Figure 12 for which Mr. Wombo changed the orientation of Talia and Xylo and put them to work at the power distribution controls. I'm always pleased when Mr. Wombo makes it appear as if people are doing something rather than just standing around with their hands hanging at their sides (see the image to the left). 

Xylo and Talia.

At this point in time, Talia and Xylo have not yet begun to reduce the amount of clothing they wear as part of an effort to conserve energy by cutting back on cooling the interiors of the buildings.

Xylo and Talia in white.

The image that is shown to the left is an alternate view of Xylo and Talia that was generated by Mr. Wombo, doubling down on the white clothing. I too the AI-generated image and added a title for an imaginary novel by Rylla.

Talia's wire mesh suit.

For the image to the right, Mr. Wombo relented on all the white and provided Xylo with more interesting clothing. I wonder if those a really copper wires built into Talia's clothing. This could be soon after Talia and Xylo meet on Elemacha-z and Talia has decided to try to lead Xylo beyond their professional working relationship.

Power balancing.

Another Talia and Xylo scene is shown to the left. I'm curious about the device that Talia is wearing on her hip while she and Xyla adjust that glowing blue "hot plate".

Close collaboration.

The image to the right has one more example of AI-generated futuristic clothing worn by residents of Elemacha-z. After Talia and Xylo fall in love, the continually find excuses to be together, helping each-other with their work.

Figure 16. Two Talia clones
experimenting with synapex links.

One of the nano-technologies that I have sometimes included in my science fiction stories about telepathy gives people the ability to create synapex links between individuals who otherwise have only a weak telepathic connection. 

The image shown in Figure 16 could be a synapex experiment in which two of the Talia clones are trying to link their minds, possibly as part of an effort to improve their mysterious ability to receive information from the future.

Synapex experiment.

 Another synapex experiment. The image shown to the right is another synapex experiment, this time performed on Xylo. It would be interesting to know what images are in the AI training set that show women wearing shiny metallic clothing. Here, Xylo's thorax seems to be encased in some complex network of wires.

Figure 17. Bailey (left).

The image shown in Figure 17 could be a depiction of Bailey while on Elemacha-z. Maybe the translucent orange object in front of this Talia clone is some futuristic technology that I don't recognize.

Figure 18. Alien-human synapex link.

Eventually, Talia will realize that the plant-like Noema are responsible for disrupting the electrical power distribution system of Port Cooway. Figure 18 shows a rather whimsical depiction of an experiment involving the formation of synapex links between an alien and Xylo. I'm still not sure how the alien Noema should be depicted in "The Fesarians", but the red-colored AI-generated creature(s) in Figure 18 are amusing. In my imagination, the Noema begin to experiment with using their nanites to alter their physical form, mimicking structural features of the human visitors who arrive on Elemacha-z.

Figure 19. Plant creature.

I tried to get Mr. Wombo to generate an image depicting a sentient alien plant creature being caught in a trap in a forest. However, the AI did not gracefully depict a trapped plant creature. Figure 19 looks more like it might show the home of the creature, or maybe that is the place where it stores valuable items. In any case, the two Talia clones seem quite pleased with themselves; maybe this is First Contact between humans and the Noema.

Figure 20. Plant people.

 Figure 20 has an alternative depiction of three Talia clones in the research laboratory with several alien plant people.

Figure 21. Play time with Xylo.

When Bailey arrives on Elemach-z, he first meets Mayor Xylo. He views her as a woman, and only later learns that Xylo is a genetically engineered hermaphrodite who has been Talia's lover ever since they arrived on Elemacha-z. Although Talia tells Bailey that she has seen their future together as Fesarians, only when Bailey and Talia depart from Elemacha-z does Bailey learn that Xylo will also become a Fesarian. Bailey then realizes that by visiting Elemacha he has acquired an entire family consisting of three Talia clones and three Xylo clones.

Aethe impregnates a Talia clone
soon after they meet on Elemacha-z

 The image shown to the right has another view of Xylo with two of the Talia clones and now her penis can be seen.

Plant-human sexplay.

The image to the left shows a whimsical sexplay session that includes an alien Noema. The alien has begun to experiment with human anatomical structures, using its advanced nanotechnology to modify its body structure. Intrigued by Xylo's penis, this Noema has grown a human-like mouth/vagina and two small humanoid arms.

Figure 22. Gemini's plant person.

I asked Gemini to invent a "plant person" for a science fiction story and describe the plant person. "The Verdant Sentinel stands as a testament to the symbiotic relationship between plant and being. Its form is a blend of human and flora, its skin a deep emerald hue, dappled with veins of vibrant green. Its hair, a cascade of leaves and tendrils, shimmers in the sunlight.  The Sentinel's eyes, large and luminous, hold a wisdom born from centuries of growth. Its arms and legs are thick and muscular, capable of incredible strength. Yet, its hands and feet are adorned with delicate, leafy patterns, suggesting a gentle nature beneath its imposing stature.  The Sentinel's body is adorned with intricate markings that resemble bark and roots, a testament to its deep connection to the natural world". The image that was generated by Gemini is shown in Figure 22.

Figure 23. Mr. Wombo's
alien plant person.

I also had Mr. Wombo generate images of plant people using this text prompt: "a beautiful plant person with a green human mouth, the plant person has cute arms and legs covered with leaves, the plant person has green lips, the plant person has an open mouth and a green tongue, the plant person is seen in profile view, the beautiful plant person has a large open mouth and protruding green tongue".

Figure 24. Talia,
day 1 on Elemacha-z.
Not alien enough.

Neither of these AI-generated plant people (Figures 22 and 23) is alien enough in appearance to match my imagined form of a Noema. I'll have to continue searching for a way to force one of the AI image generators to more creatively mix alien plant and human anatomical structures. 

For the image shown to the right in Figure 24, I started with a reference image that had normal Earthly plants and asked Mr. Wombo to generate strange alien plants.

Figure 25. Alien plants.
Too alien.

I then used the image from Figure 24 as a reference image and had Mr. Wombo generate some even more alien looking plants (See Figure 25). I suspect that humans have evolved brains that recognize normal plant life, just as we have an innate sense of what constitutes a normal human face. There is an uncanny valley for alien plants, and trying to get AI-generated images of strange plant life that does not look too strange is a tricky problem.

I recently asked Gemini why AIs tend to show alien planets a desert worlds, and could not get it to admit that making depictions of alien plants is so challenging that it is simply easier for artists to make science fiction wastelands.

Next: Part 3 of "The Fesarians".

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