EX{ⓟℒ}ODE

Figure 1. In the Ekcolir Reality.

 Below on this blog page is Part 3 of my Decade in Review (DiR, see Part 1). For this series of blog posts, I'm using titles that contain unusual characters, thus the title of this post is: EX{ⓟℒ}ODE. In this DiR, I'm documenting all of my science fiction stories from the time period June 2015 to May 2025 that I never had a chance to complete while also updating old story illustrations.

At the end of Part 2 of this DiR, I had finished reviewing my science fiction story writing through the end of 2016. In a wikifiction blog post dated Dec. 25, 2016 (called "The Exode Saga"), I described how in 2016 I had moved past the Exode Trilogy to an Exode pentalogy. In that blog post, I mentioned that I had never read any stories written by Daniel Sernine. I had come across mention of Alain Lortie while searching the internet for the word "exode". Now, ten years later, I finally read one of his novels, Argus Steps In, which is available via the Internet Archive.

Figure 2. Soviet brain wave experiment.
Image generated by Leonardo.

 Argus. It is still in the era of the Cold War and the Evil™ Soviets are trying to weaponize a new device that can disrupt brain waves and cause people to lose consciousness. Argus is a super secret organization with access to anti-gravity equipped spacecraft and bases scattered through the Solar System from the asteroid belt to the Moon. When needed, agents of Argus visit Earth and carry out secret missions.

The secret mission by Argus agents that takes place in the short novel Argus Steps In is concerned with the rescue of a Soviet scientist who does not want his electroencephalography research to be used for military purposes. However, in the end, even when the scientist is given the opportunity to depart from Earth and join Argus, he decides to stay on Earth.

Figure 3. Cynthia in the tunnel under the castle.
Image generated by Whisk.

Apparently (see), Alain Lortie first published fantasy stories and only later wrote science fiction for his Argus series. Lortie's interest in fantasy is evident in Argus Steps In, which features an old cursed castle and an old man who likes to tell stories about the history of the castle and how it became cursed. The grand-daughter (Cynthia) of the old man explores passageways under the castle and when she witnesses the Argus agents using a laser to dig a new tunnel, she imagines that the bright light and heat might be due to a fire breathing dragon. At that point in the story, I started to skim, so I can't say that I actually read the entire novel.

Figure 4. An Argus base on the moon Umbriel.

For the image in Figure 1 (above), I modified an old AI-generated image that had been made by WOMBO Dream to include the book title "Argus Drop In". Maybe in the Ekcolir Reality, the analogue of Lortie wrote a novel called Argus Drop In. For Figure 2, I provided Leonardo with a reference image from a 2023 blog post called "The Phari Factor" (see Figure 5 in that blog post). 

Figure 5. One of the diagrams from Argus Steps In.
Click the image to enlarge.

I called this blog post "EXPLODE" because near the start of Argus Steps In there is an exploding hand grenade that almost kills Cynthia. The formula for writing Argus Steps In seems to have involved inserting a spaceship crash or an explosion every few pages, just to remind the reader that THIS IS EXCITING(!). This seems to be the same formula that was used to generate much of what came out of Hollywood in the previous millennium where there had to be a fist fight or a car chase every ten minutes in order to keep viewers' attention.

Figure 6. Chapters for
  Foundations of Eternity.

The spaceship crash comes in Chapter 1 of Argus Steps In when Marc is trying to learn to fly a spaceship (see Figure 4). Apparently, Marc is the main character of Those Who Watch Over Earth, the first book in the Argus series, which I have not read.

Figure 7. Chapters for
  A Search Beyond

I love books that contain maps and diagrams. Argus Steps In has several maps and diagrams of the castle and the area around the castle where much of the story takes place (one is shown in Figure 5).

 The Exode Saga. In a WordPress blog post dated January 18, 2017 and called "The Exode Saga", I outlined my thinking about the five books of the Exode pentalogy. Foundations of Eternity was the first of the novels that I wrote and it is complete, with 23 chapters (see Figure 6). 

I planned for A Search Beyond to be the first novel in the series and to have about 26 chapters, but only 18 were completed (see Figure 7).

I planned for there to be 25 chapters in Trysta and Ekcolir. There is a long "prelude" and a dozen chapters, but I never finished that novel. I completed six chapters of Exode and I barely got started on First Reality.

Figure 8. (source)

 Reality Simulation. Early in January of 2017 I had what I consider to be an important blog post called "AR Simulation". I like the idea that when the pek first arrived at Earth (billions of years ago) they inserted into our planet a form of advanced nanotechnology called zeptites. Those zeptites eventually became part of every biological species on Earth and formed what I call the zeptite endosymbiont that resides inside we humans. Those zeptites also created a detailed record of everything that has ever happened on Earth, making it possible to have detailed simulations of any past era and Reality of Earth's Reality Chain.

Figure 9. Earth's Reality Chain.

 As seen in Figure 8, virtual reality became a popular term about 1990, right about the time when Lortie published his Argus novels. The first chapter of Argus Steps In features a simulation of a spaceship landing on the moon Umbriel. In the case of my stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, I imagine that my story characters can be given access to advanced Huaoshy technology that allows for "Reality Simulation". I first used Reality Simulation technology so that characters like Isaac Asimov (yes, Asimov appears as a character in some of my science fiction stories) can "visit" what I call the Asimov Reality, part of Earth's Reality Chain (see Figure 9).

Figure 10. Applied femtobot technology.

Similar to the secret organization called "Argus" in Argus Steps In, for the Exode Saga there are what I call Overseers who try to guide the course of human civilization on Earth. In addition to the zeptites that are inside we humans, there is also a femtobot endosymbiont. For stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, the bumpha usually try to keep control of the more advanced zeptites while sometimes allowing humans like Tyhry to have access to less sophisticated femtobots. 

Time travel is a major fictional science element in the Exode Saga. In my imagination, Temporal Momentum is made possible by replicoids and the Bimanoid Interface, technologies that were invented by the positronic robots of Earth (see The Historical Archive for details).

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One of the major characters in Trysta and Ekcolir is Ekcolir, a human variant called an Ek'col. The Ek'col were crafted as a human variant with telepathic abilities that could defeat the last remaining Asterothrope on Earth, Trysta Iwedon.

Metafiction. A blog post from Jan 8, 2017 called "Ereus 20k B.C.E." holds a story that describes how Ekcolir traveled into Earth's past in order to insert some Ek'col gene patterns into the human gene pool. That story had a sequel in 2019 called The Lakum Intervention. However, in early 2017 I was still trying to put my science fiction stories in other locations besides the pages of the wikifiction blog. In Chapter 8 of A Search Beyond, the question is broached: might some Earthlings also be unconscious automatons? I then commented on that idea in a January blog post.

A Search Beyond (image credits)

 Is VR dangerous? In a blog post called "Password" from January 2017, there was this comment made by the Editor: "Yōd claims that I've been 'crafted' so as to dream of space travel and avoid thinking about the main danger facing humanity: that our species could curl up into a self-generated virtual reality and never reach the stars."

  The Exodemic wheels turn slowly. In a January 2017 blog post called "Sedron Pods" I wrote: "According to Zeta, in the Ekcolir Reality, Sam Jaqy wrote a novel called The Femtobot Paladins that explained the source of the femtobots that drove Howard Treesong to commit his monumental crimes." It was finally in 2025 that I gave an account of femtozoans, the artificial life forms that accumulated in Treesong. 

Hierion Confinement

In a blog post called "Hierion Confinement" and dated Mar 12, 2017 I introduced Colleen Liscan, who discovers that the particle physics data flowing from the Large Hadron Collider has been scrubbed of evidence that could lead to the discovery of hierions. For her trouble, Colleen is take off of Earth. In later stories, Colleen was shown getting into more trouble at Observer Base (for example, see "The Grean Guidance System").

Figure 11. By Whisk.

 Grendel Time. Having written both Isaac Asimov and Jack Vance into the Exode Saga as characters, I suppose it was inevitable that I would also write myself into the story. I've always been concerned with the exactly who would tell the Secret History of Humanity to the people of Earth. In a blog post dated  Mar 18, 2017 and called "Exit Edit", I jumped ahead to a point in time when the Editor was an old man and was depicted as departing from Earth after being with his grand-daughter, Tez, inside a Grendel base on Earth. Possibly Tez is the daughter of Tyhry, but it was not until 2019 that Zeta's daughter Tyhry was first named (at that time, mistakenly spelled "Tihri" by the Editor). The reference image that was provided to Whisk for generation of Figure 11 is at the top of "Exit Edit".

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 Yōd on Earth. In my blog post of June 24, 2017 called "Mars 123", Zeta and Yōd seem to know a secret about Mars that Zeta is reluctant to share with the Editor. That was the seventh is a series of blog posts featuring Yōd on Earth and functioning as a kind of collaborator with the Editor in telling the Secret History of Humanity. The Editor mentions the fact that he had long imagined that Observer Base was a secret base hidden on the Moon, but by 2017 he no longer believed that. 

Hearing Zeta and Yōd discuss Mars, the Editor was willing to entertain the possibility that Observer Base might be located on Mars. In later stories, I would return to the idea of Mars having once been of interest to alien visitors in our Solar System. Mars 123 is a story about what happens to the Editor after the events described in "Exit Edit".

Aunt Mayness at Eanru House (image source).

My blog post "Ta Ta" of July 8, 2017 has a link to "First Contact", a chapter in the novel Trysta and Ekcolir, that describes the first contact between the Editor and Trysta Iwedon, in 1971. The Editor was not allowed to consciously remember most of Trysta told him about the Secret History of Humanity, but that meeting served as inspiration for the Editor's life-long quest to understand his own alien origins and how the human species had been created by aliens.

Published in the Ekcolir Reality

 Jack Vance & Isaac Asimov Fan-fiction. In a blog post called "Change 2017" dated Aug 6, 2017 there is a fun science fiction story that features both Isaac Asimov and Jack Vance as characters. With the help of Grean the Kac'hin, Asimov initiates a Reality Change that prevents the death of Jack Vance. A key premise in that story is that in the early 1970s, there were tryp'At Overseers who would be willing to kill Vance in order to prevent him from publishing a story (Pharism) that revealed too many details about how human telepaths were crafted in Alastor Cluster.

 2018. At the start of 2018 I wrote another installment of what I call Yōd on Earth, an account of the time when Yōd was visiting the Editor on Earth. In "Rebottling", the Editor is concerned that it might no longer be possible for human beings to travel through outer space at speeds greater than the speed of light. 

Figure 12. By Whisk.

This fundamental question about the physical laws that govern the Final Reality is not resolved until 2025 and the story "D*". "D*" takes place in about the year 2043 of the Final Reality, at a time when the interstellar spaceship HySe travels to 61 Virginis.

 One of the major themes of the Exode Saga is that the Secret History of Humanity can only be told to Earthlings in the form of science fiction stories. In early 2018 there was "Let's Make a Genre" which played with the idea that alien Interventionists on Earth were responsible for starting the science fiction genre in the Ekcolir Reality as a way of preparing Earthlings for First Contact with the alien Fru'wu. "Let's Make a Genre" is set in 1917 (see Figure 12).

Figure 13. By Whisk.

In the middle of 2018 I wrote a science fiction story called "Exoditions on Cynk" that is set in the distant Alastor Star Cluster. "Exoditions on Cynk" quickly grew to be a 45,000 word novel that includes a "fusion" of R. Gohrlay and Alpha Gohrlay that Many Sails takes to the home galaxy of the Huaoshy. The image shown in Figure 13 is Whisk's version of the observation lounge on the top floor of Trysta's home on the planet Cync, with the replica of a large, multi-tentacular alien creature that Trysta had on display. Yōd, Zeta and the Editor are taken to Cync where they get caught up in an effort to help Grean and Ivory complete their mission on Cync which is aimed at learning about the Phari and their advanced nanotechnology. "Exoditions on Cynk" includes telepathic contact between the Editor and Ivory Fersoni, made possible by the Bimanoid Interface, which is the basis for a type of technology-assisted telepathy.

Bimanoid Interface

A blog post called "Bimanoid Interface 2.0" and dated Aug 4, 2018 is the tenth part of a thematically related series of blog posts for what I think of as a science fiction story called Yōd on Earth. As part of an effort to drive the tryp'At Overseers away from Observer Base, the Bimanoid Interface was altered. However, a side effect of that change was that Yōd was forced to depart from Earth.

At the end of the blog post called "Vance Clones", Yōd is gone from the Final Reality, having entered into the AR Simulator. This marks the end of Yōd on Earth, a story which took two years to write and complete.

infites

Immediately after the end of Yōd on Earth, was "The Last Infites", in which Zeta tells the Editor that she and her clone sisters could easily share memories by using infites and for, "Gohrlay clones, the easiest way would be if the memory pattern of one copy was reduced to infites. We were designed to smoothly take up infites into our Phari endosymbionts. That trick provided us with a major part of our education and training." The editor then takes up infites that were left behind on Earth by Yōd. The Editor takes into his body those "gift" infites and then he tells Zeta: "Yōd is gone. She's with Azynov inside the Simulator. They won't be coming back."

Bonny Lynn

 Statistical Chronodynamics. The September 2018 blog post "Bonny Lynn" has a story about 40-year-old memories recovered by the Editor. After receiving some information nanites (infites) from Yōd the Editor tries to imagine how it is that he has suddenly remember an even from his youth: meeting a woman who called herself Bonny Lynn. He speculates that Zeta's sister Yōd would have been briefed on his past by receiving a set of infites from Zeta. Eventually, those infites got handed along to the Editor, allowing him to remember an encounter with an Interventionist agent, the titular Bonny Lynn. 

Also appearing in "Bonny Lynn" is an artificial life-form assistant for Bonny Lynn named Cal. The character Cal is a tribute to Isaac Asimov's positronic robot named Cal.

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Also in September of 2018 was the blog post "Leapfrog" which holds a short story about the first visit to Earth by the Gohrlay clone called Phenence. Zeta explains to the Editor: "The Asimov Reality was going to be thrown away and replaced by the Ekcolir Reality. Trysta was R. Gohrlay's deep agent on Earth, but there was nothing for Trysta to do in the Asimov Reality. Most of the action within that Reality would take place on far worlds, not on sleepy old Earth. Trysta could relax and enjoy a pleasant life with her children, her husband and her other lovers."

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By this point, I had stopped developing the novel Trysta and Ekcolir, but I was still adding new chapters to A Search Beyond such as the 2018 story "The Final Reality" which featured replicoid copies of of both Isaac Asimov and Jack Vance. 

In "The Final Reality", Grean the Kac'hin is shown making a replicoid copy of Isaac Asimov and then using that replicoid to carry out the time travel mission that will change the course of events on Earth and save the life of Jack Vance. "The Final Reality" provides another perspective on the story that first appeared in "Change 2017".

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In 2018 I was placing some of my new science fiction stories (such as "The Irhit Intervention") at the A Search Beyond blog and some, such as "The Pasimov Project", here at the wikifiction blog. "The Pasimov Project" provides an introduction to Georgy White, after her death on Earth and at the time of her arrival inside Observer Base. The Pasimov Project is an effort by Eustacia "Stacy" Pasimov (actually part of a larger AR Project) using the Reality Simulation equipment at Observer Base to discover secrets from the far future of Earth in what was the Asimov Reality, a past Reality of Deep Time. Stacy's goal is to learn how to provide the people of Earth with what she views as their rightful heritage: access to technology-assisted telepathy.

Upon Georgy's arrival at Observer Base, Stacy first tests Georgy to make sure that she can be trusted. During this "testing phase", Stacy used nanites to disguise herself as a young man.

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I ended 2018 with the blog post "I, Clavius" which included an account of a visit by Nora to the Editor's home in Arizona. Nora was living with the Editor's son in Australia and had been involved in the dramatic events surrounding Georgy's discovery (with help from Rylla) of anti-gravity hierions. Nora warns the Editor that Rylla is on her way to Arizona and Nora tells the Editor that, "at Observer Base there has long been a theory: that Rylla is the true Editor, the Earthling who will actually write the Secret History of Humanity." 

At the start of "I, Clavius", Nora is teleported to Arizona, but then she is mysteriously unable to return to Australia by means of telepathy. Not until decades later and the events described in "D*" can the teleportation equipment at Observer Base be re-activated.

Next: Part 4 of my Decade in Review.

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