Lead Balloon

Figure 1. An anti-gravity lead balloon by Gemini.

 I've been contemplating the challenge of illustrating the futuristic flying drones that are a "future technology" in my science fiction story "The Fesarians". "The Fesarians" is set 200 years in our future, so my task of depicting futuristic drones is similar to getting into a time machine, going back 200 years and asking Pierre Laplace to imagine the features a spaceship that could travel to the Moon.

Imaginary technology. In search of innovative ideas, I asked Gemini for an imaginative verbal description of "the gondola of a steampunk balloon that was designed and built by technologically advanced aliens". Gemini's immediately generated some balloon images, which I had not asked for. 

Figure 2. Desert drone.

 Up, up and away. The image shown above in Figure 1 is a composite with parts from two different Gemini-generated images: 1) the highly reflective balloon above the valley landscape and 2) the gondola.

Futuristic drones. I asked Gemini to generate an image depicting a flying drone of the year 2224 that has infrared sensors and is being used by human colonists to search (during the night) the landscape of an exoplanet for alien animals that are moving among sparse and exotic desert plants. I modified one of the Gemini-generated images to produce the image shown in Figure 2. I played around with the lighting in an attempt to make it look like the drone was illuminating the alien animal.

Since I had asked for a scene at night, Gemini added into the AI-generated image a moon on the horizon. I manually added in the two yellow "light beams" and the yellow light burst that can be seen immediately under the drone.

Figure 3. Drone by Mr. Wombo.

Using Figure 2 as a reference image, I had Mr. Wombo make Figure 3 (text prompt: a flying drone that has infrared sensors and is being used to search (during the night) a desert landscape for alien animals that are moving among the sparse and exotic desert plants). Mr. Wombo got "creative" and added some pink spots to this flying drone.

Figure 4. No reference image.

 Infrared. Compare Figure 3 to Figure 4. The image shown in Figure 4 was made by Mr. Wombo without any reference image. I have to wonder: what is the mode of propulsion is for these colorful AI-generated drones?

Gemini suggested that 200 years in our future, drones might have, "A compact, high-energy density power source, possibly based on advanced nuclear fusion or quantum batteries, that will be seamlessly integrated into the drone's structure". I was tempted to ask Gemini to create an image of a fusion-powered time travel machine.

Figure 5. Done on the range.

The image in Figure 5 was generated as a more zoomed-in version of Figure 3. I wish there was an easy way to control the type and density of vegetation in these images. In my imagination, the human colony on Elemacha-z is not actually located in a desert. I had included "desert" in my text prompt because I wanted rather sparse vegation that woud allow an animal to be clearly seen. I had to have Mr. Wombo zoom in on this scene in order to have it recognize the alien animal that was in the original Gemini-generated image; at the original level of zoom, Mr. Wombo usually mistook the animal as a plant. I cut an alien animal out of another image that was similar to Figure 5 and manually pasted that alien animal into the image that is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 6. Xylo clones.

For Figure 6 , Mr. Wombo generated an image that includes two clones of Mayor Xylo along with a flying drone. The background of the original image was dark, so I pasted in storm clouds with lightening in an attempt to create a more visually interesting scene. The image ended up with a stormy sky and plants that look like the kinds of plants that you might find on Earth, not the alien vegetation that I imagine for the exoplanet Elemacha-z. I did originally ask for a single human figure in this scene, but Mr. Wombo spontaneously generated two women.

Figure 7. City drones.

When asked to generate an image depicting a woman running below a flying drone, left to himself, Mr. Wombo is likely to generate an image such as what is shown in Figure 7. In my imagination, the settlement at Port Cooway on Elemacha-z is relatively small, with a total human population of around 300. With the events taking place in "The Fesarians" occurring two centuries in the future, I certainly don't want story illustrations that look like Earth in our own time. 

When using AIs to create illustrations for my science fiction stories, there is a constant struggle to knock the image generating AIs out of the conventional world of the images that are in their training sets and move them into the world of the imagination where I want creative images of imaginary technologies that have never been seen before.

Figure 8. The drones of Elemacha.

For Figure 8, I used a background image with alien plant life that had been generated by Gemini (the plants are in the background in the bottom third of the image) and combined that with an image generated by Mr. Wombo that shows several drones flying above Mayor Xylo. I was pleased that Mr. Wombo even made it appear that she is looking up at the drones.

Figure 9. Talia Vance.

In Part 2 of "The Fesarians", Bailey climbs up a hill near Port Cooway and walks to the home of Talia Vance. The image that is shown in Figure 9 is intended to depict the unusual alien plant life of Elemacha-z under the intense sunlight of that world as seen from Talia's home. 

Two Thumbs. Using image processing, it was easy to convert Earthly green plants into imaginary red plants on an exoplanet, but I was hoping that Mr. Wombo should give them an unusual "alien" shape. I was tempted to do some repair to Talia's hand, but I ended up leaving it as generated by Mr. Wombo. Maybe Talia was genetically engineered to have two thumbs on each hand.

Figure 10. Survey of alien plants on Elemacha-z.

For the image shown in Figure 10, I made an effort to have Mr. Wombo generate some plants that would appear to be more alien.

Figure 11. Talia's cooling suit.

That's Talia in Figure 10, inside the command center during the search for the alien creature that is disrupting the electric power transmission network of the colony. On the video screen is Mayor Xylo. Due to the extremely high temperatures on the surface of Elemacha-z, it would be quite unusual for Xylo to be outside without an environmental protection suit. 

Figure 12. Alien-human relations.
An alien that eats humans.

 Alien Life. The image in Figure 11 shows one of the environmental suits that Mr. Wombo generated. I had asked for "alien plants" and was pleased to see the mushroom-like structures in the background. It might be possible to transform them into the type of solar/wind energy collecting structures that I imagine to be the key power source for the colonists living on Elemacha-z.

 No swords in Science fiction. I've been experimenting with Mr. Wombo's ability to create interesting "plant people", plant-like aliens from Elemacha-z. Figure 12 show a whimsical depiction of a plant person who likes to eat {chocolate} humans. I'm not a fan of the idea that humans will travel long distances to other planets and then be confronted by hungry aliens who like to eat humans or that human colonists on exoplanets will need to have sword fights (see Figure 13) with alien creatures.

Figure 13. Planetary Romance.
Swords for brain surgery.

 Alien Diversity. I've never read any planetary adventure stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, although "The Synthetic Men of Mars" has an interesting title. "The Synthetic Men of Mars" features brain transplantation. 

No swords in science fiction. I have to wonder if when Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote "The Synthetic Men of Mars" he may have been influenced by the artificial people that were a key plot element in "Rossum's Universal Robots" by Karel Čapek (1920). I have also previously blogged about "The Tissue-Culture King" by Julian Huxley (1927), another possible influence on Burroughs. Burroughs depicted the growth of synthetic men as taking place in vats full of some nutrient-rich culture medium.

 Brains, please. For Figures 13 and 14, I had Mr. Wombo make some variations (including brains) on old cover art by Rudolph Belarski, Luca Oleastri and Frank R. Paul.

Figure 14. Brain transplantation. see

 What is Brain? In "The Synthetic Men of Mars" Burroughs wrote about, "Ras Thavas's laboratory which contains the necessary paraphernalia for the delicate operation of returning your brain to your own body." Recently, I've been watching the original Star Trek episodes (I'm watching the "remastered" version). In the Star Trek episode "Spock's Brain", aliens have the technology required for brain transplants, but they can't make a computer that will run the ventilation system of their underground city. 

In "The Synthetic Men of Mars", Burroughs told readers that, "Ras Thavas, The Master Mind of Mars, had labored in his laboratory for nearly a thousand years." In "The Synthetic Men of Mars", the protagonist hopes that Ras Thavas might be able to save the comatose DejahThoris from death.

Figure 15. Talia investigating the plants of Elemacha-z.

 Telepathy. Apparently, Burroughs included telepathy in his stories (see). In "The Fesarians", telepathy is rather central to the plot. One of the key issues that must be confronted any time that telepathy is included in a story is the "range" of the telepathic communication. In Star Trek, Spock often has to place his hands on someone's head in order to improve his ability to "link minds". 

The type of telepathy that is used by the humanoids from the Fesarius who are the main characters in "The Fesarians" is based on the exchange of a type of energy that is as yet unknown to Earthly science. 

Figure 16. Telepathic plants.

The mysterious form of energy that is used to exchange telepathic signals between the Fesarians can be thought of as being something like electromagnetic radiation in that it is able to propagate rapidly over vast distances, but ultimately that energy is being both transmitted and received by the zeptite endosymbiont that is inside the telepath's body. The telepaths themselves are not even aware of the zeptite endosymbionts, although Balok knows about and understands the physical basis of the type of telepathy that his helpers (Ienaghwy and Ylyndra) use.

 Babel. However, there are also other forms of telepathy in the "The Fesarians". The sentient plant-like creatures who are native to Elemacha-z and the positronic robots (such as Dani) each have their own style of technology-assisted telepathy. Often in science fiction stories telepathy is depicted as some sort of "universal translator". 

Figure 17. Talia doing botanical research.

 Anti-Babel. For example, near the beginning of the Star Trek episode "Spectre of the Gun", the Melkotians telepathically communicate with the Enterprise and each member of the crew "hears" that telepathic signal from the Melkotians as if it was spoken in their own first language.

In the "The Fesarians", telepathy does not work that way. It is very difficult for the Fesarians to "tune" their telepathic reception system to the type of telepathic signals used by either the plant-like creatures who are native to Elemacha-z or the positronic robots. Some additional images with alien plants that are similar to Figures 16 & 17 are shown at the end of this blog post.

Figure 18. Cover art by Earle Bergey.

 Humanoids. Five years ago, I blogged about Isaac Asimov's story "Homo Sol". Here in 2024, I finally read "The Hazing", which is set in the same fictional universe as "Homo Sol", at a time soon after Earthlings have joined a vast galactic civilization as junior members. 

Asimov's "The Hazing" is not very interesting, but in that 1942 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories was also "The Molecule Monsters", a short story by Oscar J. Friend (who was editing the magazine). Friend put an illustration of his own story on the cover of the magazine (see Figure 18). Friend's story has nothing to do with molecules. The green creatures are from some parallel "dimension" that is populated with sentient "frog people". Don't worry about the bleeding frog person at the bottom of the cover illustration ("Joe"); these frog people have amazing thrilling regenerative abilities and can't be killed by mere knife and gunshot wounds.

Figure 19. Diana, human filament.

The woman who is being broken out of the giant glass tube (Figure 18, above) is part of an experiment for the transfer of minds between dimensions, and also the beloved Diana, daughter of supergenius™ scientist Dr. Singer. It is only when the protagonist of the story, Lattimer (the dude in the blue suit) sees Diana wearing "the flimsiest of garments" inside the glass tube that he suddenly realizes that he loves her. 

Just for fun. Using the Earle Bergey cover art from Figure 18 as a reference image, I had Mr. Wombo make use of the "Diorama v3" style to make the image of a woman inside a light bulb that is shown in Figure 19. I tried to find a way to get Mr. Wombo to convincingly create an image with flying shards of glass, but I failed.

Figure 20. Martha & Lattimer.

In 2021, I blogged about "Robot A-1" by Oscar Friend, published in the July 1939 issue of Startling Stories. I have to wonder how such stories by Friend might have influenced Isaac Asimov when he wrote his own stories about robots and strange life forms in other "dimensions" (see).

 Molecular children. I suppose Friend was trying to sell magazines and he probably asked Earle Bergey to put a provocative alien creature on that magazine cover, but in the story, the alien who grabs onto Lattimer is called "Martha" and she and the other alien end up staying in our "dimension" and refer to Lattimer as "papa". At the start of the story, Lattimer is puttering in the chemistry lab and he mistakenly believes that he created the two green aliens from the molecules in a chemical reaction.

Figure 21. A Blunder.

For the image in Figure 20, I had Mr. Wombo tone-down the horror aspect of the green alien. In "The Molecule Monsters", it is Dr. Singer who has his consciousness transferred to another "dimension" by an evil alien who takes over Dr. Singer's body on Earth.

 Don't touch that dial! For the image in Figure 21, I had Mr Wombo start with the cover illustration for the 1950 anthology "The Molecule Monsters" and again use the "Diorama v3" style, placing Diana inside another HiTek™ glass tube. What if it was Diana who transferred to the other "dimension" and into the body of an alien with green skin? In "The Molecule Monsters", Lattimer is trying to speed up a chemical reaction by placing a beaker on what he thinks is a hotplate in Dr. Singer's chemistry lab. However, the device is actually some sort of teleporter that, when switched on by Lattimer, brings Martha and Joe to Earth.

Figure 22. Matter transmission.

 Sequel. I had Mr. Wombo generate an image depicting a matter transmitter (see the image in Figure 22), a kind of teleportation device that Dr. Singer, his daughter and Lattimer would have continued to experiment with after the events depicted in "The Molecule Monsters". For this image, I started with the Ed Valigursky cover art from the April 1957 issue of Fantastic.

Alien invasion. For my story "The Fesarians", which is Star Trek fan-fiction, I do not hesitate to make use of teleportation technology. For "The Molecule Monsters", Oscar Friend depicted Dr. Singer as being funded by Lattimer to begin experimenting on techniques to "break matter down into sheer energy" and "congeal energy and force into solid matter". Lattimer accidentally discovers that a mysterious device inside Dr. Singer's laboratory can function as a teleporter, allowing him to stop an alien invasion of Earth.

Figure 23. First contact.

I had Mr. Wombo make an alternative depiction of one of the green aliens that was teleported to Earth by Lattimer. Figure 23 shows Diana with Nortisop (Lattimer uses the simpler name "Joe") of Elucelum. Joe (Nortisop) and Martha speak perfect English, which certainly speeds along the plot of "The Molecule Monsters", saving readers from Oscar Friend's account of the Elucelum language (the first thing Nortisop says to Lattimer is, "Hrrggl uggle?").

 I got better. When Lattimer refers to Joe and Martha as frogs, it hurts Joe's feelings and he kills himself. Every time that Joe kills himself (annoyingly, Friend repeated this useless plot device several times in the story) he quickly heals and is soon once again working to thwart the ambitions of the evil Suelcun of Elucelum, who has taken control of the Earthly body of Dr. Singer. I suppose Friend simply needed an excuse to put some blood on that cover.

Figure 24. Diana & Martha.

 The Green Dimension. I made an effort to get Mr. Wombo to generate a less monstrous humanoid alien than what is shown in Figure 23. For the image in Figure 24, I manually inserted the green crystal, imagining that it is an alien device that was hanging around Martha's neck and is of interest to Diana. Maybe this is the "universal translator" that allows Martha and Joe to immediately converse in English when they are teleported to Earth. 

I wonder what Oscar Friend imagined he was talking about when he described the green creatures of Elucelum as being from another "dimension". My guess is that this was Friend's way of referring to a "parallel universe". According to Gemini, "The story 'Sidewise in Time' by Murray Leinster, published in Astounding Stories in 1934, is often credited with popularizing the concept of parallel universes as we understand it today." 

Figure 25. See this cover.

Lucky for readers of "Sidewise in Time", Professor Minott is there to explain that he and his mathematics students have suddenly entered into a parallel universe where the Chinese colonized America, not Europeans. Previously, I mentioned "The Dimension of Chance" by Clark Ashton Smith, first published in the November 1932 issue of Wonder Stories. In Smith's story (set in 1975) an aircraft flies into a mysterious portal and emerges in a parallel universe with strange "natural laws". After a danger-filled adventure, our two aeronautical adventurers return through the portal to our universe. The idea of "parallel universes" is relevant to "The Fesarians" because the story is set in another "Reality", what I call the Ekcolir Reality.

Maybe in the Ekcolir Reality, one of the mathematics students of Professor Minott, Maida Haynes, was able to return to her home universe and write an account of her adventure in a parallel universe (see Figure 25).

Figure 26. see

I can't depart from the fictional universe of Oscar J. Friend without mentioning his 1940 story “Colossus from Space”, published under the name Frank Johnson. Apparently this story was also re-published in 1953 under the title "Filterable Virus" (see). I've previously blogged about "Liquid Life" by Ralph Farley which may have been where Friend first heard about filterable viruses. Friend took the idea towards the large side, imagining that Earth exists as a nested world, inside a another world from which the “Colossus from Space” originated and comes to Earth for a visit by shrinking himself enough to shift into our domain of existence. I've previously blogged about "The Diabolical Drug", another story about someone shrinking to very tiny size and discovering that there are "people down there" (Amazing Stories, May 1929). Figure 26 is Mr. Wombo's version of this 1940 Howard V. Brown cover illustration.

Figure 27. Hierion Domain.

 The very small. In my science fiction stories, the Hierion Domain and the Sedron Domain provide an imaginary technological means to stack three different modes of existence at three distinct size scales. I had Mr. Wombo use the "Diorama v3" style to make some "cities under glass". In my imagination, the image in Figure 27 provides a visual depiction of the idea of being able to enter into the Hierion Domain.

In 2020, I explored entry into the Hierion Domain in a science fiction story about a place called Nanoville. Maybe that city under glass in Figure 27 is a better visual depiction of Nanoville than what I was able to devise back in 2020. In the Hierion Domain, artificial life-forms composed of femtobots are 12 orders of magnitude smaller than we humans. In turn, zeptites are a form of artificial life that are composed of sedrons and 12 orders of magnitude smaller than femptobots. The telepathic communication between the Fesarians is made possible by the zeptite endosymbiont inside their bodies.

Figure 28. Lithium book cover.
Click image to enlarge.

 Planetary Adventures. In 2021 I blogged about the planet Lithia as presented by James Blish in 1953. I tried asking Gemini about why there is a place called Helium on Barsoom, but Gemini punted. Claude's best guess was that, "Burroughs likely chose the name 'Helium' to give his Martian civilization an otherworldly, science fiction feel". In 1912, did Burroughs have any actual concept of science fiction?

I got help from Mr. Wombo to make a visual depiction of a place called Lithium (Figure 28). This image is inspired by the exoplanet Elemacha-z where solar energy is collected during daylight hours and stored for use at night. Will lithium batteries be state-of-the-art 200 years in our future? The author Jamyly Wyllo was derived from a place called Jamile Wallow on the planet Dar Sai (in Jack Vance's novel The Face).

Next: more AI-generated images of the characters in "The Fesarians".

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