Pharȉ & Embroĩd Gameš of Ṧite Q

Figure 1. Updated by Whisk.

 This blog page (below) has Part 6 of my Decade in Review (DiR, see Part 1). All of the blog posts in this series have titles that contain unusual characters. This blog post is called "Pharȉ & Embroĩd Gameš of Ṧite Q" because in 2021 I had four major science fiction writing projects:
1) The Alastor Network, which introduced the plot device of telepathic embroids,
2) Meet the Phari, which was to have concluded a five-year-long story writing effort aimed at depicting the development of some form of human contact and communication with the alien Phari in Alastor Cluster,
3) Old Time Gaming, a story set in Australia that was to be a serious depiction of Manny the bumpha manipulating the fates of Earthlings so as to craft an acceptable future for Humanity, with particular emphasis on one resident of Earth, Rylla Onway and
4) Telepaths of Site Q, an exploration of how Asterothrope gene patterns shaped the human telepaths of the Final Reality.

Figure 2. The Asimov Reality.

 Story Illustration. As part of this Decade in Review DiR, I'm identifying old science fiction stories that I never completed while also using AI tools to make updated versions of old story illustrations. Figure 1 shows an updated version of an old illustration that was used to illustrate this 2019 blog post. The new version of the illustration that was generated by Whisk shows that Whisk can recognize the format of old science fiction magazine covers in reference images and Whisk then tries to make a new image in that style.

Figure 3. Updated by Whisk.

The image that is shown in Figure 2 was generated by WOMBO Dream using a story illustration from 2017 as a reference image. My text prompt for Mr. Wombo specified, "photorealistic high detail, sharp focus, emphasizing texture and materiality," and the AI-generated image was more like a photograph than either Figure 1 or Figure 3. Whisk is good at recognizing text in reference images that are imaginary book and magazine covers. The letters 'TION" in Figure 1 and all the text in Figure 2 was added manually by me.

The reference image that was given to Whisk for generation of Figure 3 is shown at the top of this 2021 blog post. The Kerub were featured in some of my older science fiction stories (see Part 5 of this DiR) and these telepathic human-alien hybrids of the planet Yerophet return in The Alastor Network.

Figure 4. Acyreff and Yurahs inspect Ra (image source).

 Science Fiction in 2021. The first part of my science fiction story called The Alastor Network is in a January 3, 2021 blog post called "Grandma Acyreff". The Alastor Network is quite explicitly Jack Vance fan-fiction set in Alastor Cluster.

In 2021, I began taking seriously the idea that when R. Nyrtia and Manny the bumpha were designing and crafting telepathic human variants, they both adopted the idea that humans could be trusted with telepathic abilities only if it was individuals who loved each other that could exchange information telepathically. 

Thus, my stories in 2021 did not avoid the fact that when breeding better human telepaths in Alastor Cluster, Nyrtia and Manny made use of sexual attraction to being together the genes of their telepathic test subjects.

Figure 5. cover image

 Sexbots. Along with the telepathic humans, Lo and Ra, two sexbots, were included as characters in The Alastor Network. I had previously imagined the planet Triskelion A as the source of advanced robots in Alastor Cluster, so I depicted Lo and Ra as having been manufactured on Triskelion (see Figure 4).

Due to the explicit linkage between sexual behavior and telepathy in my science fiction stories such as The Alastor Network, I placed this blog behind Google's "mature content" barrier in 2021.

The Alastor Network includes characters who have Asterothrope gene patterns and I adopted the idea that Asterothrope females had been genetically designed by Nyrtia so as to reproduce rapidly. As shown in Figure 5, some Asterothrope gene patterns can be used to craft human variants with four breasts.

Figure 6. Original illustration.

 Illustrating the Invisible. One of the challenges of illustrating science fiction stories such as The Alastor Network is finding a way to visually depict the invisible or the barely visible. The Connatic's wife, Acyreff, is guided through her life by an artificial life-form that she thinks of as a ghark. The ghark can be seen by Acyreff, but it appears to be no more than a "transparent gray smudge". Both Acyreff and the robot Lo can detect the presence of the ghark by smelling its nanite components.

The image shown in Figure 6 was made by me in 2018 using PhotoShop. I provided that as a reference image to Whisk and it generated the following text description: "The cover of "Unknown World" by Georgy White in a futuristic, photorealistic style features a fair-skinned adult woman in profile, her gaze directed to the left, set against a detailed landscape. The woman has shoulder-length, light blonde, slightly damp and tousled hair falling around her face, with a visible ear, a slight nose, and slightly parted lips. 

Figure 7. Generated by Whisk.

 The background shows a body of water meeting a hilly, rocky shoreline covered in green vegetation, beneath a sky that transitions from blue near the horizon to cloudy white and gray above. The text "UNKNOWN WORLD" is prominent in large, white, blocky serif font outlined in orange and red at the top left, with "by Georgy White" below in a smaller, cursive, red-orange font, and "Memory Nanites" further down in yellow block letters. In the lower left, behind the woman, is a blurry, fiery orange and yellow shape with a faint trail. The overall scene has rich, vibrant, and saturated colors with intricate photorealistic details, sharp focus, and a cinematic quality emphasizing texture and materiality, evoking a spirit of adventure and wonder typical of functional far-future designs" and the image shown in Figure 7. Whisk seemed to interpret the nanite swarm as being some sort of flame. Whisk prefers to use just one font for the text "by Georgy White". My preference is to have "by" and the author's name use different fonts and have different colors.

Figure 8. Generated by Whisk
with my text prompt.

I then modified the text prompt to, "A photorealistic, high detail, sharp focus science fiction book cover emphasizing texture and materiality depicts a young adult woman who is experiencing a Close Encounter with a mist-like swarm of nanites. This is a cover illustration for a book that has the title  "Unknown World" by the author Georgy White. The cover text "Unknown World" is in a large font, “by Georgy White” is in a smaller font below the title.

The young woman futuristic is shown in a photorealistic style that features the fair-skin of her face in profile, her gaze directed to the left, set against a detailed landscape. The woman has shoulder-length, light blonde, slightly damp and tousled hair falling around her face, with a visible ear, a small cute nose, and slightly parted lips. The background shows a body of water meeting a hilly, rocky shoreline covered in green vegetation, beneath a sky that transitions from blue near the horizon to cloudy white and gray above.

Figure 8a. Generated by Whisk
with my text prompt.

 Immediately in front of her face is a swarm of sparkling nanites. Each nanite is invisibly small, but when large numbers of the nanites aggregate and swarm, they appear as a sparkling multi-colored mist. The nanites are streaming into the young woman’s head.

The text "UNKNOWN WORLD" is prominent in large, white, blocky serif font outlined in orange and red at the top left, with "by Georgy White" below in a smaller, cursive, red-orange font, and the text “Memory Nanites" is lower down on the cover in yellow block letters. The overall scene has rich, vibrant, and saturated colors with intricate photorealistic details, sharp focus, and a cinematic quality emphasizing texture and materiality, evoking a spirit of adventure and wonder typical of functional far-future designs." and Whisk generated the two images that are shown in Figures 8 and 8a.

Figure 9. Generated by Whisk
with Claude's text prompt.

 Getting help from Claude.
Next, I asked Claude to generate a modified text prompt that would address these three issues: 1) most of the sparkling nanites should be visible as a mist-like cloud that is directly in front of the woman's face, 2) the nanites should appear to be streaming into the woman's body, 3) the woman has just emerged from the water of the lake that is in the background. Her shoulders should be bare and appear to be wet.

Claude generated this text prompt: "A photorealistic, high detail, sharp focus science fiction book cover emphasizing texture and materiality depicts a young adult woman who has just emerged from water and is experiencing a Close Encounter with a mist-like swarm of nanites. This is a cover illustration for a book that has the title "Unknown World" by the author Georgy White. The cover text "Unknown World" is in a large font, "by Georgy White" is in a smaller font below the title.

Figure 9a. Generated by Whisk
with Claude's text prompt.

 The young woman is shown in a photorealistic style that features the fair-skin of her face in profile, her gaze directed to the left, set against a detailed landscape. She has just emerged from the lake, with bare wet shoulders glistening with water droplets. The woman has shoulder-length, light blonde, wet and tousled hair clinging to her face and shoulders, with a visible ear, a small cute nose, and slightly parted lips. The background shows a body of water meeting a hilly, rocky shoreline covered in green vegetation, beneath a sky that transitions from blue near the horizon to cloudy white and gray above.

Directly in front of her face is a large, prominent mist-like cloud of sparkling nanites. The nanites appear as a concentrated, sparkling multi-colored mist hovering just inches from her face. The nanite swarm is actively streaming into the woman's body through her face and exposed skin, creating visible trails of glittering particles flowing toward and into her. Each nanite is invisibly small, but when large numbers aggregate in the swarm, they form a dense, shimmering cloud.

Figure 10. Generated by Whisk.

The text "UNKNOWN WORLD" is prominent in large, white, blocky serif font outlined in orange and red at the top left, with "by Georgy White" below in a smaller, cursive, red-orange font, and the text "Memory Nanites" is lower down on the cover in yellow block letters. The overall scene has rich, vibrant, and saturated colors with intricate photorealistic details, sharp focus, and a cinematic quality emphasizing texture and materiality, evoking a spirit of adventure and wonder typical of functional far-future designs." Using Claude's text prompt, Whisk generated the two images that are shown in Figures 9 and 9a. Whisk was confused about how many times to put the text "by Georgy White" on the cover.

I consolidated all mention of the text into the first part of the text prompt and then Whisk was able to generate the image that is shown in Figure 10. 

Yurahs and Heshlo share long-lasting periods
of telepathic linkage called orgasm trances.

 Numenes. The first scene of The Alastor Network is on Numenes, the Capitol world of Alastor Cluster. The Connatic's adopted daughter, Yurahs, has some capacity to access information about the future by means of what I would later call the Sedron Time Stream. Her brother, Heshlo, is a cadet in the Whelm and will be away from Numenes for a time, stationed on the planet Yerophet.

Also mentioned in Part 1 of The Alastor Network is an artificial intelligence of human design named Josef. Although The Alastor Network is set thousands of year in the future, human technological advances have been suppressed in the Asimov Reality, so Josef is among the first ever artificial intelligences made by humans in that Reality. Josef was designed to monitor the Phari interstellar telepathy network that links the inhabited worlds of Alastor Cluster.

Figure 11. Generated by
Mr. Wombo and Whisk.

 Mind Clones. Also mentioned right at the beginning of The Alastor Network is the idea that Yurahs is destined to give birth to a child (Lavany) who will be part of a Phari mind clone network, the idea being that such a network of telepaths will make it possible for humans to finally achieve contact with the alien Phari, who reside in the Hierion Domain.

The image that is shown in Figure 11 is a composite image, mostly generated by Whisk by starting with the image that is at the top of Part 2 of The Alastor Network. The woman in the upper left corner of that image is meant to be a telepathic human-alien hybrid known as a Kerub and that part of the image was made using WOMBO Dream, replacing another image of the blond woman that had been generated by Whisk.

Figure 12. Generated by
Mr. Wombo and Whisk.

An important feature of the royal palace of Lusz that is mentioned in Part 2 of The Alastor Network is the presence cats who reside in the palace. The image that is shown in Figure 12 is a composite image, mostly generated by Whisk, but the cat was made by WOMBO Dream. Whisk failed to place the cat on the chair and I wanted a cat with an unusually large head.

The cats of Lusz are a medium for another artificial life-form known as a hoo. The gharks and the hoo were introduced in a 2019 story and depicted as two different factions involved in breeding telepathic humans. In the Asimov Reality, both R. Nyrtia and Manny the bumpha (and Manny's helpers the Kac'hin) are working in Alastor Cluster to design and develop telepathic humans by borrowing useful gene patterns from aliens. In general, the human "breeding stock" for these experiments in directed evolution are kept unaware of the on-going efforts of Nyrtia and Manny to create powerful human telepaths.

Asterothropes

 Telepathic Space Pirates. Acyreff is told by a hoo that eventually "Chi mind clones will be needed on Marune", a topic that would be taken up later, in March 2021. Two other robots at the palace of Lusz are Hans and Xeralf. While the Connatic is away from Numenes, Hans usually plays the role of the Connatic, but it is Acyreff's job to meet visitors and make decisions. Acyreff meets representatives from Brevik, one of the more technologically advanced planets of Alastor Cluster, where work is proceeding on technology that can better protect spaceships against attacks by space pirates. Dr. Jeghtop is trying to find a defense against telepathic space pirates (that Jack Vance called "starmenters").

 Asterothropes. Yurahs learns that her adoptive grandparents, Eleyn and her husband Rujyan, went to visit Earth and are trying to obtain information about the Asterothropes, mystical people of the past who are rumored to have had telepathic abilities. Later in The Alastor Network, Eleyn returns to Alastor Cluster for a visit.

Figure 13. Generated by Whisk.

 Mind Control. Dr. Kasya Jeghtop (who works for a spaceship manufacturing company on Brevik) requests access to the top secret Josef technology that is being developed by the Whelm. Acyreff wants to know how it had been possible for Dr. Jeghtop to learn about the top secret Josef project and so she tries to get help from Hans to telepathically probe Dr. Jeghtop's mind. However, both Hans and Acyreff are being prevented from discussing telepathy, possibly as part of Grean's efforts to prevent time travel paradoxes.

Figure 13a. Generated by Whisk.

Dr. Jeghtop's technology development project is called the Shadow Drone Project (see Figures 13 and 13a). Acyreff becomes interested in Dr. Jeghtop's Shadow Drone project and they meet for dinner in Part 3 of "The Alastor Network". Can Kasya and Acyreff work together and discover how to use nanotechnology to defend spacecraft from the space pirates of Yrinna?  Can Acyreff trust Kasya?

Figure 14. Lo and Yurahs.

At dinner, Kasya and Acyreff are joined by Lo the robot and Yurahs. Lo and Yurahs are playing dress-up games and Yurahs is disguised as her brother Heshlo and Lo is disguised as Yurahs.  

Just prior to the arrival of Kasya for dinner, Lo and Yurahs were making love and while Yurahs experiences her orgasm, her telepathic powers are amplified. She links telepathically to Kasya. Having telepathically examined the thoughts of Kasya, now Yurahs knows that Kasya can be trusted.

I provided Whisk with the old story illustration from 2021 that is shown in Figure 14. 

Figure 15. Generated by Whisk.

Whisk then generated the updated image that is shown in Figure 15. I was amused that Whisk spontaneously changed "Lusz" (the name of the Connatic's palace)  to "Lust".  

Until telepathically sharing in Yurahs' orgasm, Kasya had only ever had a telepathic link to her sister (Twycky).  Kasya explains that when Twycky was taken by the starmenters, they were on their way back to Brevik from Triskelion. While visiting Triskelion, Kasya and Twycky had learned that Triskelion was supplying technology to the Whelm for the Josef artificial intelligence project.

Now Yurahs insists that Acyreff must work with Kasya to liberate Twycky from the starmenters. Kasya demonstrates a new hierion field generator from Triskelion which instantly inactivates Lo the robot. Kasya suggests a technology trade: hierion field generator technology for the Josef AI technology. Acyreff arranges for a military escort to accompany Kasya back to Brevik. Yurahs experiences a telepathic vision of the future and she senses that Acyreff, will be able to rescue Twycky from the starmenters.

image source

In Part 4 of the science fiction story "The Alastor Network", with the help of a ghark, the Connatic's wife, Acyreff, is able to establish a telepathic connection to Twycky across a vast interstellar distance. Kasya's husband Mando is telepathically sensitive, and he is able to detect the approach of telepathic starmenters.

Guide to character names (source).

In Part 5 of "The Alastor Network", a telepathic starmenter, Captain Lanting, tries to capture Kasya and falls into a trap that was set by Acyreff, now in her role of Commander Galzara Shermatz of the Whelm.

image credits

 Grean the Kac'hin reveals herself to Acyreff and a few key members of the Whelm along with Kasya and her telepathic daughter, Maghy; the team that will rescue Twycky from captivity on the planet Yrinna. Grean uses her advanced nanotechnology to put locks on their minds, preventing them from discussing Grean with anyone outside their group. 

Grean explains that R. Gohrlay gave advanced technology to the starmenters of Yrinna and now she is "re-balancing" technologies, allowing the Whelm to develop defenses against the hierion probe technology that Captain Lanting has used to knock spaceships out of Intersplit, the interstellar drive used in the Asimov Reality. 

Figure 16. Generated by Whisk.

In Part 6 of "The Alastor Network", it is revealed that Kasya can use a hierion probe to modulate her zeptite endosymbiont, allowing her to have telepathic connection to her sister Twycky across interstellar distances. Acyreff begins to make plans for how to extract Twycky from Yrinna.

In Part 7, using shared orgasm trances to amplify her telepathic abilities, Acyreff successfully contacts Twycky and tells her to expect the Whelm rescue team to reach Yrinna in exactly 40 hours. It is discovered that the starmenter trick for knocking spacecraft out of Intersplit can be thwarted by making a small adjustment to the Intersplit drive mechanism. Also, Acyreff is taken into the Hierion Domain where she briefly uses her replicoid's body, which has been given the form of a Kac'hin. Acyreff gets to experience Kac'hin-style sexplay with Grean.

The Pirates of Yrinna

 Flash Back. In Part 8 of the science fiction story “The Alastor Network”, having been abducted by space pirates, Twycky Jeghtop was delivered to the planet Yrinna and she began learning about her captors including Lord Doberthucain Gensifer, head of the Gensifer Clan. Lord Gensifer is part of a human breeding project that is aimed at producing humans with improved telepathic abilities. The space pirates of Yrinna collect telepaths from the many inhabited planets of Alastor Cluster and combine their gene patterns in new ways.

Figure 17. Generated by
Mr. Wombo and Whisk.

 On Brevik. In Part 9 of the science fiction story “The Alastor Network”, a bio-mechanical artificial intelligence system called QB5 is designated as the representative of Brevik that will coordinate with the Josef AI of the Whelm during the rescue of Twycky from Yrinna.

Figure 18. Generated by Whisk.

 The Embroids of Brevik. Along with computer circuits, QB5 includes an embroid, a modified human brain with telepathic abilities. Most of the image that is shown in Figure 17 was generated by Whisk, but the strange humanoid attached to the tail end of the embroid was generated by Mr. Wombo.

Figure 18a. My original embroid.

As shown in Figure 18, Whisk does not like to depict embryos. The original story illustration that was provided to Whisk as a reference image is shown to the left, in Figure 18a. Here is the description of the embroid that was generated by Whisk: "The creature is large and grotesque, featuring a veined, pinkish-tan appendage ending in sharp, claw-like points. At the top of this appendage is a fleshy, brain-like mass with deep convolutions. The creature appears to be reaching towards the woman with one of its clawed extensions near her face."

Figure 19a. Generated by Whisk.

I modified the text prompt to specify: "The red embryo creature seemingly floats in mid-air. The floating embryo creature is large and grotesque, featuring a veined, pinkish-tan appendage ending in sharp, claw-like points. At the top of this appendage is a fleshy, brain-like mass with deep convolutions. The creature appears to be reaching towards the woman with one of its clawed extensions reaching towards her face. The creature has the appearance of a large convoluted brain with a small embryonic mammalian body." The resulting image is shown in Figure 19. 

Unfortunately, Figure 19 fails to depict an interaction between the woman and the embroid, although my text prompt specified, "Her left arm is raised, as if in defense or surprise, towards a monstrous creature emerging from a circular opening in the background."

image source

In Part 10 of "The Alastor Network", readers learn that Acyreff has had a vision of the future showing that Twycky would be successfully rescued from her captivity on Yrinna. As Josef and QB5 begin to interact in preparation for the rescue mission on Yrinna, suddenly there is a vast amount of information transmitted from QB5 to Josef.

In Part 11 of "The Alastor Network", Twycky is liberated from Yrinna along with a teleportation duplicate of Rupert Gensifer and Lady and Lord Gensifer. With the help of Grean and the telepathic abilities of Joqueline and the human rescuers, there are no human casualties among the Whelm.

Josef and QB5 have merged to form a new telepathic mind called Joqueline which has traveled through time into the future... promising to return. 

Figure 19b. Generated by Whisk.

 Kac'hin Syndrome. At the top of Part 12 of "The Alastor Network", there is an illustration that I made in 2021 by using an old magazine cover image from the Winter 1951 issue of Fantastic Story Quarterly. Using the image that I made in 2021 as a reference image, I had both Whisk and WOMBO Dream make new, updated versions of the scene. The image in Figure 20 was generated by Whisk. The text prompt included "blonde hair with dark roots", but for some reason Whisk gave her half black hair and half blond.

Figure 19c. Generated by
Mr. Wombo.

 WOMBO Dream has a limited text prompt length, but Mr. Wombo made images such as the one shown in Figure 21. The image shown in Figure 21 is a composite image with some "embroid bits" cut from other images and pasted in to this one to cover up parts of the original image in the lower right quadrant.

There are some additional WOMBO-generated images at the bottom of this blog post. In Part 12, an effort is made to save the "body" of the QB5 embroid by implanting it inside Kasya.

Next: Part 7 of this Decade in Review.

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