Colorize

Figure 1. Xylo, Talia and
Dave on Elemach-z.

 Last year (see The Tool Maker) I began experimenting with AI-image generating software to make updated versions of old black and white interior art from pulp science fiction magazines. In my previous blog post, I put on display results from my latest experiments that are aimed at celebrating and re-imaging old science fiction artwork. 

 Illustrations of Alien Life. Back in 2022 (see Memory Phantom), I read "Vampires of the Desert" by A. Hyatt Verrill, which was published with black and white interior art depicting a strange plant-like creature. I'm currently writing a Star Trek fan-fiction story called "The Fesarians" in which the alien Neoma of planet Elemacha-z have the appearance of a plant-like creature.

interior art by Wesso

I made use of some interior art by H. W. Wesso as a reference image for WOMBO Dream. The original black and white art is shown to the left and the resulting color image is shown in Figure 1. 

The image in Figure 1 is a composite with parts from two separate AI-generated images for the same scene. The human figure in the lower left corner of the scene that is depicted in Figure 1 was generated in a separate image and manually pasted into this image, allowing this scene to include three of the major characters from my science fiction story "The Fesarians". Poor Dave lost the helmet of his environmental suit. The air of Elemacha-z is Earth-like, but the climate is very hot. 😓

Figure 2. Talia and Dave
with a Noema.

In "The Fesarians", Talia and Dave eventually identify the alien Noema as being highly intelligent plant-like creatures of Elemacha-z. The Noema are artificial life-forms that can take on any convenient shape. 

interior art by Ed Emshwiller

 Plant People. The AI-generated scene that is shown in Figure 2 began with the reference image that is shown to the left, which is interior art by Ed Emshwiller for a 1953 story called "Escape Me Never" by J. T. McIntosh. The woman in Emshwiller's drawing has bare breasts, but sadly Mr. Wombo dressed her in a more conventional top.

I manually inserted into the scene a green, plant-like Noema that is playfully generating some leg-like appendages and having some fun with Talia and Dave.

cover art by Mel Hunter

For the Noema that is included in Figure 2, I tried to have Mr. Wombo make a plant-creature that long skinny limbs, like the one painted by Mel Hunter for the cover art shown to the right that was an illustration for "Man of Many Minds", a novel by E. Everett Evans. The plant creature on the right side of the cover illustration is telepathically linked to the other humanoid (yellow lines). Visually depicting invisible telepathic signals is a serious challenge.

Figure 3. Another synapex
experiment with a Noema.

 Synapex Experiment. I had Mr. Wombo generate another scene depicting the formation of synapex linkages to a Neoma (Figure 3). Here, the AI-generated plant-creature looks almost like an Earthly plant. As for Figure 1, I made a special effort to include Xylo, Talia and Dave in this scene. The bottom part the scene in Figure 3 originated from another complex black and white interior art image that I rotated 90 degrees and appended to the bottom of the reference image.

interior art by Paul

 Reference Image. I got started generating the scene in Figure 3 by making use of some 1929 interior art by Frank R. Paul that is shown to the right.

Some modifications of the alien plant that is in Figure 3 are shown at the very bottom of this blog post. 

Figure 4. Alien plant experiment.

The image in Figure 4 was not modified in any way from the raw AI-generated image. I asked Mr. Wombo to generate an image depicting a man looking at a strange alien plant.

interior art by Frank R. Paul for "Electronic Baby"

To generate the image that is shown in Figure 4, I made use of some old art by Frank R. Paul. The original artwork involved a device that could gestate a human embryo (see the image to the left). I wanted Mr. Wombo to depict an experiment with a plant-like Neoma from the exoplanet Elemacha-z.

Figure 5. Xylo is monitoring an
experiment with a telepathic Neoma.

 The Neoma. I suppose it was obligatory in the 1930s to have a male scientist in a laboratory and to depict a plant-like alien as having a bulging head. However, I modified Figure 4 by inserting Xylo and a plant woman. The resulting image is shown in Figure 5.

 Synapex Linkages. After Talia and Xylo begin to understand that they can achieve telepathic communication with the alien Neoma, they manage to bring one of the aliens into Talia's home. Talia has access to sophisticated nanotechnology that can form a direct physical connection between the nervous system of the Neoma and the human nervous system.

In "The Fesarians", when Bailey and Dani arrive on Elemacha-z, Xylo performs a scan of Dani and discovers that Dani is a robot. I had Mr. Wombo generate an amusing scene depicting how Bailey reacts to the revelation that Dani is not human.

Figure 6. Dani the positronic robot by Mr. Wombo.

 Dani the Robot. The image that is shown in Figure 6 shows Dani with a human head, but the rest of her body is mechanical. I had Mr. Wombo make Bailey look like Steve McQueen. 

Text prompt for Figure 6: "a very young Steve McQueen with a robot, Steve McQueen is twenty years old, Steve McQueen has black hair, Steve McQueen is pulling electronic components out of the body of the robot, electronic equipment is falling out of the robot’s chest, a fractal complex array of wires spilling out of the robot".

interior art by Harry Harrison

I had Mr. Wombo generate Figure 6 by making use of some interior art by Harry Harrison from 1951 as a reference image (see the image to the right). Dani's head was manually pasted in from another image in which I had asked Mr. Wombo to make Dani look like Cintia Dicker. In "The Fesarians", Bailey is reluctant to believe that Dani is a robot because she appears to be a human woman. Only later when Bailey gets telepathic confirmation from Ylyndra does he accept the fact that Dani is an artificial life-form disguised as a human being.

interior art for "The Masquerade on
Dicantropus" by Peter Poulton

The image shown to the left is interior art for "The Masquerade on Dicantropus" by Jack Vance (1951). I wanted to see if Mr. Wombo could convert these aliens with webbed fingers into a credible version of the amphibious Merovae of Elemacha-z.

Figure 7. Dani and Dave with some Merovae.

 Merovae. The image in Figure 7 shows the colorized version of the Peter Poulton black and white reference image that was generated by Mr. Wombo. Sadly, no two of the Merovae in this scene look very similar, but maybe there are different varieties of Merovae and natural variation. 

Alternatively, maybe the Merovae have some shape-shifting abilities, although not as advanced as for the Neoma. The Neoma are composed of femtobots. The Merovae are cellular, but maybe their form can be modified by developmental control nanites.

interior art for "The Fires Within"

The image to the left shows interior art from Arthur C. Clarke's story "The Fires Within" (1949). Clarke  tried to imagine a type of life that would be at home 15 miles down inside the Earth at high temperature and high pressure. See my discussion of Clarke's story at this 2022 blog post.

Figure 8. Talia finds the rock creature.

 Rock People. In Part 3 of "The Fesarians" I imagined a life-form that could live inside the exoplanet Martiz 23 where Talia and her sisters grew up. Figure 8 shows the colorized version of this scene that was created by Mr. Wombo by using the black and white drawing from "The Fires Within" as a reference image. When Talia meets the creature from underground, she and her sisters are searching the vast forest that is near her childhood home on Martiz 23.

interior art by A. Williams

I used interior art from "The World Is Mine" (1943) as a reference image in an attempt to get Mr. Wombo to create a depiction of a synapex experiment that is aimed at linking the minds of two humans. The original black and white image by Arthur Williams is shown to the left.

Figure 9. Connecting brains by synapex links.

The colorized version by Mr. Wombo is shown in Figure 9. In my imagination, this scene could be on Martiz 23, not long after Talia was given synapex nanites by the rock people. For Figure 9, I pasted the AI-generated foreground image into a real-world classroom laboratory setting.

To get the image shown in Figure 9, I tried asking Mr. Wombo to show Talia with a hair dryer on her head. I don't think the WOMBO Dream training set includes pictures of old-fashioned hair dryers.

Figure 10. Mr. Wombo and hair dryers.

Figure 11. In the dryer.

 Drying Talia. Here is the text prompt that I used for Figures 9, 10 and 11: "a very young Kate Jackson is under a hair dryer, Kate Jackson a pretty twenty year old girl with long black hair, Kate Jackson is seen in profile view, Kate Jackson is sitting close to Meg Ryan, Meg Ryan is sitting under a hair dryer, Meg Ryan has blond hair, complex electronic equipment surrounds Meg and Kate". For Figure 9, a reference image was included. For the images in Figure 10, there was no reference image and Mr. Wombo was completely free to do what he wanted to do.

Sometimes Mr. Wombo seems too eager to please we humans. I kept asking for images of hair dryers, then finally Mr. Wombo put poor Talia inside a dryer (Figure 11). Maybe that is Gyulya who put Talia inside the dryer and her clone sister Lyssa can't believe it.

interior art for "Curative Telepath"

The image to the left is interior art from a 1959 John Brunner story called "Curative Telepath". I love the idea of having a part of the brain specialized for telepathy, but Brunner imagined that our brains contain the organ of Funck, as discussed in this 2021 blog post about telepathy.

Figure 12. Gallery of life-forms from Elemach-z.

 Menagerie of Elemacha. Using the image to the left as a reference, Mr. Wombo made the colorized image that is shown in Figure 12. In my imagination, this could be a depiction of Talia and her two clone sisters with Dave Bailey as they gaze upon a collection of alien creatures from the exoplanet Elemacha-z.  

Figure 12 is a composite with interesting alien creatures collected from several different AI-generated images. Mr. Wombo provided Talia with a perplexed look on her face.

interior art by Edward Cartier

Back in 2020 I blogged about "The Potters of Firsk", which was published in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1950. The image to the left shows interior art by Ed Cartier, illustrating that the ladies on the planet Firsk routinely go around topless.

Figure 13. Potted plant person.

 Plant Pottery. I provided the interior art by Edward Cartier to Mr. Wombo as a reference image. I wanted to add to this scene some alien plant-person pottery. The colorized image that was generated by Mr. Wombo is shown in Figure 13. This was one of the rare images where the free version of WOMBO Dream actually generated an image with nipples. In order to avoid a boring background, I pasted the AI-generated image on top of another image with additional pottery. In my text prompt, I asked to have her holding a potted plant and Mr. Wombo decided to add multiple plants to the scene.

by Virgil Finlay

Jack Vance published "New Bodies for Old" in the August 1950 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. The image shown to the left is interior artwork by Virgil Finlay for "New Bodies for Old". The lady in this image might be Letya Arnold, who has invented a faster-than-light spaceship propulsion system.

Figure 14. By Mr. Wombo.

 I was interested to see how Mr. Wombo would deal with all the "bubbles" in this reference image. As shown in Figure 14, Mr. Wombo cleared all of the "bubbles away from her face but incorporated them into the pattern of her dress. As a demonstration of the power of these diffusion algorithms, the sleeve leading to her hand was also cleared of all bubbles.

Figure 15. Dani with nanites.

I was trying to create a scene where Dani the positronic robot was being subjected to a modification of her positronic brain by femtobots that were deployed by the Neoma. Figure 15 shows the results from using Figure 14 as a reference with this text prompt: "Cintia Dicker inside a transparent cloud, a fractal complex cloud of sparkling lights surrounds Cintia Dicker, a very young Cintia Dicker as a pretty twenty year old, dressed Victoria's Secret style in a blue dress, Cintia Dicker has long red hair, Cintia Dicker is seen inside a cloud of sparkling flecks of silver and gold particles"

Figure 16. The nanites of Elemacha-z.

"The Lights of Zetar" was never one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek because the lights of Zetar were treated like a magical life-force, able to move through outer space at faster than light speeds yet also able to be driven out of Lieutenant Romaine's body by high pressure. Are the entities from Zetar "non-corporeal energy" or might they be physically composed of invisibly small nanites and thus present a serious challenge to a television producer who must visually depict them?

 Z as in Zetar. After several rounds of taking images like to one in Figure 15 and using them as reference images, Mr Wombo generated the view of Dani that is shown in Figure 16, which is an acceptable visual representation of Neoma femtobots moving into Dani's body when Dani arrives on Elemacha-z.

The Thought-Woman

 Thought Woman. "The Thought-Woman" was published in the July 1940 issue of Super Science Stories by Ray Cummings. The interior art on page 1 of "The Thought-Woman" (see the image to the left on this page) seems to show HiTek™ glass tubes. This interior artwork was uncredited.

Figure 17. Colorized by Mr. Wombo.

 Figure 17 shows Mr. Wombo's colorized version of this scene. Mr. Wombo spontaneously turned the woman around so that she could be facing the futuristic technology being displayed on the wall. 

I manually inserted the plant-like Neoma into the scene. Mr. Wombo also spontaneously turned the futuristic technology into some kind of telepathy experiment. In my imagination, that is Talia explaining to Bailey her attempts to telepathically contact the natives of Elemacha-z.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Next: Part 5 of "The Fesarians".

Compare to Figure 3, above. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers

 

The Next Question

Figure 1. Zarabeth and Aryal in the cave.

A common theme in many early science fiction stories was the idea that humans must always be searching for new challenges. Getting in your spaceship and going off to explore outer space can make for interesting adventure stories, but what if there are other ways to entertain yourself that don't require interstellar travel? This summer I re-watched Star Trek, including the episode "All Our Yesterdays". I've previously listed that episode as one of my favorites, mainly because as a young boy watching this episode I was greatly impressed by Mariette Hartley dressed as a cave girl. 

Interesting Biological Structures Come in Pairs. However, it seems to me that Zarabeth should have been serving time in Sarpeidon's Ice Age with her twin sister, Aryal. I had Mr. Wombo generate an image depicting this fantasy of mine (see Figure 1).

Figure 2. The Atavacron II from
Next Quantum Computing.

 Time Travel. The people of Sarpeidon apparently never developed space travel, so when they had to escape the catastrophic death explosion of their star, the entire population of the planet all traveled back into the past eras of Sarpeidon.

 Alien Technology. I've long wished that when departing from Sarpeidon, the crew of the Enterprise had beamed up the time machine that had been used to send the entire population of Sarpeidon into the past. The atavachron (Figure 2) was a mysterious [plot] device that ensured that Spock would not live happily ever after with Zarabeth in her cave. 😠

 Did Not Compute. Viewers of Star Trek were told that because Kirk, Spock and McCoy had not been "prepared through the atavacron", they could return to the future after having accidentally passed through the portal of Sarpeidon's time machine into the past. Seemingly wanting to stay in the far past with the fetching Zarabeth, Spock at first seemed prepared to live out the rest of his life in Sarpeidon's ice age, but eventually Spock did go back to the future (after some arm-twisting by McCoy). However, Spock and McCoy did not return to the Enterprise until after the frosty ice age air had tossed Zarabeth's hair for what seemed like a near eternity of emotionally charged screen time. 💇 What exactly was the atavacron? For Figure 2, I had fun re-imagining the atavacron as some sort of futuristic computing device.

Figure 3. The original black & white interior artwork by
Paul Orban as re-worked (colorized) by Mr. Wombo.

 Positronic Computation. In the 1960s, television audiences were becoming comfortable with the idea of large, powerful computers. Ten years earlier, Isaac Asimov began writing his Multivac stories. One of Asimov's favorite stories was "The Last Question", a story in which Asimov took magical disembodied brains to the extreme. In The Last Question, Multivac begins its artificial life as a computing device with HiTek™ positronic circuits, but ultimately (it takes trillions of years) Multivac becomes a god-like disembodied entity with the power to create a new universe.

The very first story in the Multivac series was "Franchise", first published in the August 1955 issue of "If" magazine. The name "Multivac" was Asimov's playful variation on UNIVAC, the real world computer that famously predicted the outcome of the 1952 presidential election.

Figure 4. Image source.

 In "Franchise", Asimov took readers into the future when even some large newspapers like the New York Times had COMPUTERS. Golly gee. But only the government had the Multivac. And in "Franchise", only men get to vote. Make that a man. One man. The events in "Franchise" all take place in the far future year of 2008.

In retrospect, it is interesting that Asimov depicted the future as being a place where for each election a man (and never a woman) is selected to vote. Asimov informs us that 2008 is the sixth Multivac election, so we might be tempted to guess that the first such one-person election was in 1998. 

Figure 5. Interior art by Sentz,
updated by Mr. Wombo (also Figures 6-9).

In the real world, the late 1990s was about the time period when computerized autopilots were good enough to fly airliners. However, in the story, Asimov states that 1988 was a Multivac election, so I'll assume that was the first one (one every 4 years). In the late 1980s the Cray Y-MP provided improved weather forecasting, but as shown in Figure 4, improvements in computerized weather forecasting have been incremental.

Electronic Democracy. In Asimov's imagination, a key part of his fictional "just one man votes" system was that Multivac could predict which person was the most representative voter in the entire country. Readers are told that before election day, Multivac has already collected almost all of the data needed for determining how people would vote in the election (if they actually had the chance). On election day, Multivac will have just a few questions to ask of Norman, the voter of 2008. In addition to verbal questioning, Norman is monitored for his physiological parameters like blood pressure (see Figure 3) while answering Multivac's questions.

Figure 6. Ken's fever-fueled
vision of Sandra.

Sadly, in this story, Multivac can't even speak (Multivac's abilities do improve in later stories). Multivac's questions are printed on paper and read to Norman. The one question from Multivac to Norman that readers are told about is: "What do you think about the price of eggs?" Norman never actually sees Multivac; they are linked by some kind of telecommunications network. In passing, Asimov casually mentions National Medicine, Inc., apparently some kind of national health care system.

 My Next Question. Where did Asimov get the idea of a computer that could predict the outcomes of every election in the country? I began this year by blogging about Inter Ice Age 4, a novel that included computers that could predict the future. However, Inter Ice Age 4 was published a few years after "Franchise". "Spy" was a novelette published by J. T. McIntosh one year before "Franchise" was published. In "Spy", McIntosh included the idea of a future where it becomes possible to more efficiently evaluate public opinion. I discussed "Spy" with Gemini...

Figure 7. Ken's spy mission:
discovering Earth's military secrets.

 Me: Gemini, are you familiar with "Spy", a novelette by J. T. McIntosh?

Gemini: Yes, I am familiar with "Spy" by J. T. McIntosh. It's a science fiction novelette that explores themes of artificial intelligence, consciousness, and identity. The story revolves around a highly advanced computer named SPY, which is tasked with infiltrating a hostile alien civilization.

Me: Gemini, your description of the plot of "Spy" is pretty funny and a great example of an AI hallucination. There is no computer called "SPY" in the story. However, in the first few pages of "Spy", McIntosh mentions the idea of a "new" method for accomplishing the same thing as an expensive public opinion poll, what is called "survey reporting", which apparently involves a way of recognizing and canceling out personal biases and which allows for meaningful surveys to be conducted with only a very few subjects being questioned.

Figure 8. Ken the spy.

 Gemini: You're absolutely right! I apologize for the incorrect information. It seems I conflated the plot of "Spy" with another science fiction work.  The idea of "survey reporting" that you mentioned in the first few pages of "Spy" is a fascinating concept. It's a clever way to address the limitations of traditional public opinion polls by introducing a method to minimize personal biases and obtain accurate results with a smaller sample size.

Me: It seems possible that Asimov got the idea for his story "Franchise" by reading "Spy".

Gemini: That's a very interesting observation!   It's certainly possible that Asimov was inspired by the concept of "survey reporting" in "Spy" when he wrote "Franchise." Both stories delve into the idea of using advanced technology to gather and analyze data about people in order to make predictions or decisions.  While I don't have specific evidence to confirm this connection, it's intriguing to think that McIntosh's work may have influenced Asimov in this way. Both authors were pioneers in the field of science fiction, and it's not uncommon for writers to draw inspiration from each other's work.

Figure 9. Beam weapon.

The spy in "Spy" is a man (Ken Corvey, see Figures 5-8) from one of the first exoplanets that was colonized by humans from Earth. Much of the story takes place in Ken's confused mind (he is suffering from an infection that causes him to hallucinate). In the end, we are told that the people of the colonies are paranoid, fearing that Earth is a military threat to the colonies. Thus, they send men like Ken to Earth to spy and learn about Earth's military powers (see Figure 9). However, having lived on Earth for many years, Ken has good friends including Dave and Babs (Figure 5) and Ken falls in love with Sandra (Figure 6).

No spoilers. You'll have to read the "thrilling" conclusion of "Spy" to learn what happens to Ken.

When he wrote "Spy", I wonder if McIntosh was influenced by Asimov's story The Caves of Steel, which depicts political tension between Earth and "Spacers". "Spacers" is the term used by Asimov to refer to the inhabitants of the human colonies on nearby exoplanets. I like to imagine that science fiction story tellers are always reading each-others work and discovering new ideas that they can incorporate into their next story and take in new directions.

Figure 10. See the original
cover art by Mel Hunter.

 Secret Base. I'm currently writing "The Fesarians", a science fiction story that pits R. Nyrtia against Balok the bumpha. Nyrtia is trying to keep secret the location of her base of operations which is hidden inside the Hierion Domain. As a positronic robot, Nyrtia must try to protect humans and she can never fully trust the alien bumpha.

In "Spy", McIntosh depicted Earth as having military superiority over the colonies because of Earth's larger population. There is no mention of robots in "Spy". Asimov made robots central to his stories about Earth's colony worlds, depicting the "Spacers" as being more technologically advanced than Earthlings and having the best robots. In "The Fesarians", Nyrtia is the master of the Hierion Domain and femtobots while Balok has technological superiority due to his access to zeptites, the Sedron Domain and time travel technology. There is also technology-assisted telepathy in "The Fesarians", which comes in several varieties. Dani and Balok both have telepathic powers, but one is based on hierions and the other involves using sedrons to send the telepathic signals.

Cover art by Mel Hunter.

As a positronic robot and a field agent for Nyrtia, Dani has some valuable information about the location of Nyrtia's secret base of operations in the Hierion Domain. Balok sets a complex trap for Dani in an attempt to obtain useful information from Dani's positronic brain. Dani's fate in "The Fesarians" is similar to Ken's fate in "Spy". 

I had Mr. Wombo re-work the original interior art for "Spy", changing the black and white images by "Sentz" into color images (Figures 5 - 9). I also used WOMBO Dream to update the cover art by Mel Hunter for the October 1954 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction (see Figure 10), which I take as depicting a secret rocket base. Another example of Hunter's cover art is shown to the right: that's a telepathic alien "plant person" with spindly vine-like limbs on the right hand side of the cover for "Man of Many Minds".

More cover art by Hunter (1971).

Mel Hunter made a cover illustration for Asimov's novel "The End of Eternity", making that the example of his art work that is most familiar to me. 

The first science fiction book cover illustration credited to Hunter at the ISFDB was for "Man of Many Minds". In that novel by E. Everett Evans (read it here) telepathic contact is established with "plant people" on the planet Algon. In "The Fesarians", the "plant people" of Elemacha-z (the Noema) can alter their physical form. Readers are never told what the original biological form of the Noema actually was.

Hunter painted many magazine cover images that depict metallic robots. The example that is shown to the left is amusing, given my obsession with the sport of baseball. Pitching machines were in routine use by the late 1970s.

Figure 11. Spock telepathically
probes Zarabeth's memories.

 Precognition. As mentioned above (at the beginning of this blog post), one of my favorite Star Trek episodes is "All Our Yesterdays" by Jean Aroeste. Apparently Aroeste had an idea for another Star Trek episode about some aliens who could perceive the future, but sadly that episode was never produced. In "The Fesarians", Talia Vance is depicted as having visions of the future. However, rather than this being a true vinculochronic ability, it may be that Balok simply provides Talia with information about the future in order to guide her through life to the distant exoplanet, Elemacha-z.

 Time loop. As described here, there were some sequel novels published by Ann Crispin for "All Our Yesterdays", built upon the idea that Spock was able to impregnate Zarabeth. Maybe the inter-fertility between Spock and Zarabeth involves the strange loop in time that makes Zarabeth a descendant of Spock? "Yesterday's Son" makes use of the Guardian of Forever as a means to return into Sarpeidon's past, after the sun goes nova. However, there is a more direct path to such a sequel story. When departing from Sarpeidon, the crew of the Enterprise could use teleporter technology to beam Mr. Atoz and the time travel machine up to the Enterprise.

Figure 12. Aryal & Spock.

 Telepathy. The "future technology" issue that I would like to explore in a sequel to "All Our Yesterdays" is the possibility of telepathic communication between Spock and Zarabeth. I'd start with Spock using telepathy to obtain information from Mr. Atoz about how to use the time travel machine. After Spock learns what he can from Mr. Atoz, the resentful and rather cranky Mr. Atoz would finally be sent into the past of Sarpeidon so that he can join his family there. 

 Violation of the Prime Directive? In "All Our Yesterdays", Zarabeth mentions Zor Kahn, who sent her into the past, stranding her in the ice age of Sarpeidon. In my imagination, Spock is able to telepathically examine Zarabeth's memories of Zor Kahn (see Figure 11) and he realizes that Zor Kahn was a time traveler from the future and was not a native of Sarpeidon. Sadly, Mr. Wombo really struggles to depict one person reaching out to touch another person (see Figure 11).

My sequel to "All Our Yesterdays". Spock's ability to telepathically access and "read" Zarabeth's memories creates a quandary for him: Zor Kahn was an outsider who interfered with the development of the society on Sarpeidon, but Zor Kahn was motivated by a desire to save the people of Sarpeidon from the impending explosion of their sun. Potentially, the crew of the Enterprise could travel back in time and prevent Kahn from carrying out his interventionistic mission on Sarpeidon. However, it is best for the people of Sarpeidon to allow the plan of Kahn to play itself out. Spock proposes to Kirk that they can at least use the captured time machine from Sarpeidon to go back in time and rescue Zarabeth, without themselves altering the historical development of Sarpeidon.

Figure 13. Mr. Atoz shows Spock
how to View events in the past.

Kirk questions Spock's analysis of the situation. He raises the question: might we just as well use this newly-acquired time travel machine to go into Earth's past and rescue Edith Keeler? In "All Our Yesterdays", Zarabeth mentions her family, but no specifics are given. In my imagination, Zarabeth had a twin sister, Aryal (see Figures 1 & 12) and Aryal's fate is a key concern in my imagined sequel to "All Our Yesterdays". 

 Mr Atoz: One Man to Process Them All. Fans of Star Trek have long been puzzled by the mysterious workings of the atavachron, a device that I imagine was used as a way to prevent time travelers from traveling through time twice. In the case of Sarpeidon, the time machine creates a kind of time portal that apparently remains open all the time, potentially allowing people who were sent into the past to return to the future at any time, simply by walking through the open portal. It might have been quite chaotic if even 5% of the population grew tired of living in their chosen time period of the past and returned to the Library, forcing the over-worked and irritable Mr. Atoz to spend precious time sending them back to some different time period of the past after the first choice did not work out. 

Figure 14. Mr. Atoz and Spock discuss
rescuing Zarabeth from the past.

Possibly the biggest danger would arise if the time portal were to remain functioning even after the sun went nova. I accept the plot element that most people sent into Sarpeidon's past were processed by the atavachron so as to prevent them from returning to the future.

 A Warning. It makes some amount of sense to assume that Zor Kahn might have used the atavachron on some of his enemies, but not all of them. I imagine that initially Zor Kahn wanted to threaten Zarabeth and Aryal (I imagine they were both reluctant to help him alter Sarpeidon's society) but he did not use the atavachron to lock them in the past ice age when they were sent there for the first time. 

Figure 15. Spock and McCoy (bottom right)
meet Zarabeth and Aryal in the ice age.

In my imagination, after being escorted to the cave by some of Kahn's soldiers (or, maybe like Mr. Atoz, , Kahn had some puppet-like replicoid copies of himself who could perform menial tasks) and after experiencing the harsh living conditions of the ice age for a few days, the two women returned through the portal to the future time of Zor Kahn. 

Aryal then agreed to submit to Zor Kahn's wishes and was not sent back into the past. However, Zarabeth refused the demands made by Zor Kahn. At that point, Zor Kahn processed Zarabeth through the atavachron and sent her back into the ice age, trapping her there "permanently". Although later Sarpeidon history described Zor Kahn as a tyrant, I don't imagine that he did much more on Sarpeidon than force the rich rulers of the planet to build time machines and Temporal Libraries such as the one of Mr. Atoz, using advanced alien technology that was provided by Zor Kahn.

Figure 16. Mr. Atoz examines the past.

 Screening Time Travelers. I put "permanently" in quotes because I assume that there is a HiTek™ way of reversing the effects of the atavachron. Sent into the past, Zarabeth does not have access to the technology that could reverse the changes that were made to her body by the atavachron, changes that prevent her from returning to the future through the time portal. However, I assume that Spock, McCoy and the other technical crew of Enterprise can study the atavachron and learn how to work around its effects. I assume that the time machine is designed to detect some "marker" that is inserted into people by the atavachron. When the time machine detects the marker, that person is not allowed to exit from the past, pass through the portal and emerge in the future. Thus, by inactivating that particular screening feature of the time machine, it becomes possible for Spock to rescue Zarabeth from the past.

Also. I also must assume that the Sarpeidon time travel machine also automatically marks the bodies of people who exit from a Time Library into the past of Sarpeidon. Such people are "marked" in such a way that should they pass through the time portal again, they will be automatically returned to the Library at a point in time close to the point in time when they exited from the future to go into the past. Other people of the past who a not "marked" by the atavacron and who have never traveled through time are unable to pass through the open time portal.

Figure 17. Mr. Atoz with a time viewing device.

 Visiting Kahn. However, before Zarabeth can be rescued, Kirk (not trusting telepathy) wants direct confirmation that Zor Kahn was a time traveler from the far future (after Sarpeidon's sun went nova) who brought alien time travel technology to Sarpeidon from another planet (or wormhole) of the galaxy. Spock agrees to go back in time and obtain the "time disc" for the historical period of when Zor Kahn was living on Sarpeidon. Spock visits the library and obtains the required time disc (they already have the time disc for the ice age, having teleported it to the Enterprise when they beamed up the time machine and associated equipment).

Figure 18. A copy of Spock
explains chronitons to Zarabeth.

 A Gift from Zor. Studying the disc that holds information about the time period when Zor brought time travel technology to Sarpeidon, Spock learns that Zor Kahn was assassinated shortly after sending Zarabeth into the past for the second time. Mr. Atoz shows Spock how to view the past and select a precise time destination. Spock then travels back in time and meets both Zor Kahn and Aryal (Figure 12). Spock confirms that Zor Kahn is actually a non-corporeal prophet who is temporarily using the body of a native of Sarpeidon. Before Spock returns to the Enterprise, Zor Kahn gives Spock a chroniton generator, saying: "Take this with you. You will need it in the future." Spock also tells Aryal about Zarabeth's great loneliness, living alone in the past era of the ice age.

Returning to the Enterprise, Spock consults with Mr. Atoz in preparation for rescuing Zarabeth from the ice age. Mr. Atoz discovers that Spock's visit with Zor Kahn has changed the historical timeline of Sarpeidon. After meeting Spock, Aryal joined her sister in the ice age. Mr. Atoz shows Spock the new alternative timeline that was created by Aryal, in which Spock and McCoy met both Zarabeth and Aryal in the past and decided to stay there with them (see Figure 15). Spock discovers that McCoy has vanished from sickbay, having been "erased" from existence when Aryal's actions created a new timeline for Sarpeidon.

Figure 19. Spock remains with
Zarabeth in the past.

 The Perfect Pair. The existence of this alternate timeline raises the possibility that Spock could also be erased from existence. Spock hypothesizes that the chroniton generator he obtained from Zor Kahn has protected him from being erased from existence. Mr. Atoz admits that he has his own chroniton generator which he has long used to remain protected from accidental changes to Sarpeidon's timeline arising from sending so many people into the past history of the planet. 

Using a "chroniton generator" to protect Spock against the effects of his actions in the past is analogous to the way Asimov used a "physiotime generator" to protect time travelers in his time travel novel The End of Eternity.

Once again, Spock travels back to the ice age. Spock explains to his other copy that there are now two Spocks. He explains to McCoy that it is possible to take both him and Aryal back to the Enterprise. One copy of Spock returns to the Enterprise with McCoy and Aryal, leaving the other copy of Spock with Zarabeth in the past.

In the original 1960s television program, Spock could not actually be shown making love to Zarabeth. In contrast, it was acceptable to show dozens of people being killed in Star Trek episodes along with other "entertainment" like physical torture, but naked breasts were against Hollywood's prime directive. In the glorious "civilization" of the 1960s, children could be exposed to sickening violence, but they could not be allowed to see beautiful naked bodies.

Figure 20. Mariette Hartley?

 WOMBO the Artist. I've been exploring the ability of WOMBO Dream to generate images that resemble particular actors and other famous people. I doubt if there were many images of Mariette Hartley in the training set for Mr. Wombo (see Figure 20). However, I was satisfied by the depictions that Mr. Wombo generated for Zarabeth and Aryal (Figures 1 and 11 - 19).

Figure 21. Leonard Nimoy?

In the case of Leonard Nimoy, apparently all of the images in the training set for WOMBO Dream are of him as an old man. I found it impossible to get Mr. Wombo to generate an image depicting Nimoy as a young man without a wrinkled face (see Figure 21). 

Here is the text prompt that I used for Figures 21 and 22: "A very young Leonard Nimoy, Leonard Nimoy is twenty years old, Leonard Nimoy is happy and smiling, Leonard Nimoy has black hair, Leonard Nimoy has pointy ears, Leonard Nimoy has smooth youthful skin". Strangely, some of the images generated with this text prompt were in black and white, which may be Mr. Wombo's way of saying, "That dude is old!"

Figure 22. Another Nimoy.

For the images of Spock that are shown in Figures 11 - 19, I took the AI-generated images and manually smoothed out most of the wrinkles. One more unaltered AI-generated image of Leonard Nimoy is shown in Figure 22. This is the image with the least wrinkled Nimoy that I managed to get Mr. Wombo to generate.

After I made Figure 2 by asking Mr. Wombo to depict Mr. Atoz as Steve Jobs, I continued using that strategy for Figures 13, 14, 16 and 17. I liked the appearance of this AI-generated version of Mr. Atoz better than Ian Wolfe, the actual actor who played Mr. Atoz in "All Our Yesterdays". I feel that Mr. Wombo's AI-generated images of Steve Jobs look more like a librarian. 

For the depictions of Ken the spy (Figures 5 - 8) I asked Mr. Wombo to make images of Steve McQueen.

Figure 23. Kirk and Miramanee.

 Humans Get Around. In my science fiction story "The Fesarians", I provide an explanation for why it is possible for the Enterprise to travel through the galaxy and find planet after planet that is populated by human beings; in the Ekcolir Reality, technologically advance aliens have periodically "transplanted" humans from Earth to other planets of the galaxy. Depending on factors such as how long ago these human variants left Earth and the possibility of genetic engineering, humans found on other worlds of the galaxy may or may not be inter-fertile with the crew members of the Enterprise.

My fan-fiction stories such as "The Fesarians" and my sequel for "All Our Yesterdays" build on characters and planets that were featured in Star Trek episodes and my stories include the possibility of Enterprise crew members being able to impregnate people found on other worlds, as was the case for Kirk and Miramanee (Figure 23).

Figure 24. Kirk gets to break bread
play in bed with slave girl Drusilla.

In "All Our Yesterdays" and many other episodes of Star Trek (example: "Bread and Circuses", see Figure 24), the existence of humans on distant exoplanets was not questioned. For my imagined sequel to "All Our Yesterdays" (outlined above on this webpage), I left unanswered the question: can Spock impregnate Zarabeth? I want to say "no" because I have to believe that if Spock lived out his life in Sarpeidon's ice age making babies with Zarabeth then some of Spock's descendants could have survived and altered the historical timeline of Sarpeidon. If the people of Sarpeidon did originate on Earth, their ancestors may have been taken off of Earth about 100,000 years ago. If the people of Sarpeidon evolved independently for 100,000 years, they might have become a human variant that is not inter-fertile with either Earthlings or half-Vulcans like Spock.

Next: Colorizing and updating old pulp Sci Fi interior art.

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