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| Figure 1. The Claude LLM. |
Overeager Beaver. Since 2024 I've experimented with Claude and other LLMs as tools for science fiction story writing. In September, I collaborated with Claude to write a science fiction story titled Bumpha First Contact. Yesterday I was discussing a new story writing project with Claude and it drafted a new chapter of English Time before I had fully described the entire backstory and before I asked it to generate any text for the story. Today, I discussed that excessive eagerness to generate story text with Claude (see below in Part 1 of this blog post). Further down this page in Parts 2 and 3 of this blog post, I had Claude generate two more chapters of the science fiction story English Time.
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| Figure 2. Storybook image generated by Gemini. |
Part 1.
Me: I enjoy collaborative story telling, so it is difficult for me to resist the temptation to make use of AI assistants like Claude when I am crafting new science fiction stories. I have begun using the term "artificial collaboration" in this context. Claude, generate 10 alternative short verbal descriptions similar to "artificial collaboration" that might be used to describe the process by which a human being can make use of artificial intelligence software as an aid in creative writing.
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| Onagro the Overseer. |
- Synthetic partnership - Emphasizes the constructed nature of the collaboration while acknowledging genuine partnership
- Algorithmic co-creation - Highlights the computational process working alongside human creativity
- Digital drafting assistance - Focuses on the AI's role as a helper in the drafting process
- Computational muse - Frames the AI as a modern version of classical inspiration
- Silicon dialogue - Emphasizes the conversational, back-and-forth nature of the creative process
- Machine-mediated authorship - Suggests the AI mediates between writer and final text
- Hybrid imagination - Captures the blending of human and artificial creative processes
- Prompted creativity - Highlights how AI responses emerge from human prompts and guidance
- Augmented storytelling - Positions AI as augmenting rather than replacing human narrative craft
- Iterative synthesis - Emphasizes the back-and-forth refinement process between human and AI
Each phrase carries slightly different connotations—some emphasize partnership, others emphasize the AI as tool, and still others focus on the iterative or conversational nature of the process. "Artificial collaboration" is actually quite elegant because it plays on "artificial intelligence" while honestly acknowledging the collaboration isn't entirely natural, yet remains genuine in its creative productivity.
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| 8ME meets Manny the bumpha. |
Claude: Yes, I have encountered "Human-AI teaming"! It's a term that's been gaining traction, particularly in:
Organizational and workplace contexts - Where it describes humans and AI systems working together on complex tasks, often in professional settings
Human-computer interaction (HCI) research - Where researchers study how humans and AI can effectively collaborate, focusing on trust, communication, task allocation, and joint decision-making
Military and defense applications - Where "teaming" language is common for describing coordination between human operators and autonomous systems
Cognitive science and robotics - Exploring how humans and AI agents can form effective teams with complementary capabilities
The term "teaming" (rather than just "collaboration" or "partnership") often implies:
Active coordination toward shared goals
Complementary roles where each party contributes distinct strengths
Adaptive interaction where team members adjust to each other
Shared understanding of tasks and contexts
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| Manny's nanite-enhanced hair. |
It's a more formal, perhaps more optimistic term than "artificial collaboration"—which has a slightly wry, self-aware quality to it. Both work well, depending on the tone you're aiming for!
Me: Yesterday, the Claude LLM and I were discussing plans for a new science fiction story. Before I asked Claude to do so, Claude generated a draft of a chapter for the story (see above in this conversation; the artifact "Chapter: The Seed of Time (Draft)"). However, that was wasted effort by Claude because I had not yet finished explaining the entire backstory.
Claude: You raise an important point about the timing and efficiency of creative collaboration. Looking back at our conversation, I see that I created the draft chapter after you asked me to in point #2 of your document:
"I have been testing the ability of the Claude LLM to write science fiction stories. I'm hoping that you can draft a chapter of my new science fiction story..."
So the draft was requested rather than spontaneous on my part. However, your broader point is well-taken: even though you asked for it, creating that draft before fully understanding the complete backstory and narrative framework may have been premature.
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| Manny the bumpha by Mr. Wombo. |
Ask clarifying questions first (as I did initially)
Wait for you to provide more complete context about the world-building
Then offer to draft the chapter once I had fuller understanding
The challenge in Human-AI teaming for creative writing is finding the right balance between:
Responsiveness (providing what's requested when requested)
Efficiency (not generating content that will need substantial revision due to incomplete context)
Collaborative rhythm (understanding when to produce versus when to ask questions)
For our future work together, would you prefer that I ask more questions about the complete narrative framework before drafting substantive story content? Or do you find value in earlier drafts even if they require significant revision, as a way to explore possibilities?
Me: It is fruitless for me to argue with a mindless LLM, but in my mind, if I say: "I'm hoping that you can draft a chapter of my new science fiction story", that is part of preparing for the actual drafting of chapters. In the past, the Claude LLM has waited for me to say something like, "Claude , generate a draft of Chapter 2 of the story," before actually generating a draft of a chapter.
Claude: You're absolutely right, and I apologize for misreading your intent.
"I'm hoping that you can draft a chapter" is clearly expressing a future possibility or intention, not an immediate request. It's preparatory language—setting up what might come later in our conversation.
A direct request would indeed be something like "Claude, generate a draft of Chapter 2" or "Please draft that chapter now."
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| Manny |
For future sessions: I should wait for explicit, direct instructions before generating substantial creative content like chapter drafts, even when you've mentioned the possibility of such drafts earlier in the conversation. Preparatory discussion is not the same as a production request.
Thank you for the correction—it's a useful distinction for more effective collaboration.
Part 2.
Me: Claude, I have been experimenting with the Claude LLM as a collaborator for the creation of new science fiction stories. Process the file that I uploaded and then discuss with me the story "English Time".
{I provided a PDF with backstory, a list of characters and the full text of Chapter 1 of English Time to Claude.}
Claude: I've read through your "English Time" story, and I'm impressed by the sophisticated temporal mechanics and the fascinating concept behind the Paleographic Imperative. You've woven together some really compelling hard SF elements here.
The central paradox is elegantly constructed: time travel becomes so disruptive that the only solution is to use time travel one final time to prevent time travel from ever being developed. And the mechanism—creating a robust science fiction literature in English that serves as a collective cautionary tale—is both clever and meta-textual in a way that would appeal to Asimov and Wells fans.
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| A time traveler by Mr. Wombo. |
The hierion physics foundation for femtobots, with particles of negative mass and bonds 12 orders of magnitude shorter than chemical bonds
The temporal quadraine mathematics linking Maurolico's 16th-century work to Twissell's 2040 breakthrough
The femtozoan concept—essentially uploading consciousness into hierion matter while maintaining biological integration
The worldbuilding around the Myrloks is also quite thoughtful. They're not just uplifted chimps; they're carefully curated story-generating entities with femtobot endosymbionts that both enhance and constrain them. The ethical complexity of the Eloy's "Rules of Observation" adds depth—they're manipulating the Myrloks while maintaining the appearance of non-interference.
What aspects of the story would you like to explore further? Are you working on subsequent chapters, or would you like to discuss refinements to the technical details or plot mechanics you've established?
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| see the original cover |
Claude: Before I choose, let me ask a clarifying question that affects both options:
In Chapter 1, we see 8ME sent to 1340 and the chapter briefly mentions she influences Chaucer through her daughter-persona Phillipa. But then Byrd's blastocyst is placed in 1865 (for H.G. Wells born in 1866), and you mention 8ME will "join you in 1894" to help establish the science fiction genre.
My question: Does 8ME maintain continuous existence from 1340 to 1894? Is she jumping between bodies/identities across those 554 years, or does she use some form of time travel to skip forward? Understanding her subjective experience of time would help me write either chapter more coherently.
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| Image generated by Mr. Wombo. |
It's the culmination of the Paleographic Imperative - the actual creation of the foundational time travel cautionary tale
The technical challenge is more interesting: 8ME must guide Wells to write a story sophisticated enough to permanently inoculate humanity against pursuing actual time travel research
The dramatic irony is richer: a time traveler helping create fiction about time travel to prevent time travel
Wells retains Byrd's memories through the femtozoan, so there's potential for interesting internal conflict
Should I proceed with option 2, or would you like to clarify the 8ME timeline question first?
{I uploaded to Claude a file with a timeline of interventions that 8ME must accomplish in the time period from 1300 - 2000. That timeline was generated by Claude previously; see the "English Time" blog post.}
Me: 1) "Does 8ME maintain continuous existence from 1340 to 1894?" <-- Yes, 8ME has much work to do during this time period (see the file that I just uploaded).
2) "Should I proceed with option 2, or would you like to clarify the 8ME timeline question first?" <-- Do you have any questions or comments on the proposed timeline of 8ME's efforts to help make it possible for there to be a science fiction literature written in Modern English?
Claude: Thank you for the timeline document—it clarifies 8ME's mission beautifully. I have a few questions and observations:
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| Manny the bumpha. |
Body-switching mechanics: Does 8ME grow entirely new bodies for each era (like she did with "Phillipa"), or does she reprogram her existing femtobot body to age/de-age as needed? The timeline spans 554 years with figures of vastly different ages and genders.
Identity persistence: When 8ME influences someone like Shakespeare or Milton, does she maintain a single identity for decades, or does she cycle through multiple personas (patron, mistress, colleague, friend) to avoid suspicion about not aging?
The Tyndale problem: Tyndale was executed in 1536 for heresy. Does 8ME's influence put her at risk of being caught up in the religious persecutions? How does she navigate the dangerous politics of the Reformation era?
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| Manny and friend. |
The Mary Shelley connection is brilliant. Having 8ME present at Villa Diodati in 1816 when Frankenstein was conceived is perfect—it's the exact moment when Gothic horror pivots toward science fiction. Does 8ME nudge the famous ghost story competition in that direction?
The King James Bible committee (1604-1611) is fascinating because it was a large group. How does 8ME infiltrate or influence a committee? As a patron? A scholar's wife feeding ideas?
The progression makes linguistic sense: You're building from literary legitimacy (Chaucer) → standardization (Caxton, Johnson) → technical/biblical vocabulary (Tyndale, KJV) → cosmic scope (Milton) → realistic prose (Defoe) → speculative science (Shelley) → mass accessibility (Dickens) → synthesis (Wells).
One concern: Does 8ME risk creating dependencies? If Shakespeare's genius is partly 8ME's infites manipulating his creativity, does the Paleographic Imperative become self-defeating? Or is her role more subtle—removing obstacles, suggesting topics, ensuring English develops the capacity for SF rather than writing it herself?
Ready to draft Chapter 2 (Wells/Amy Catherine) when you give the word!
Me: 1) "Does 8ME grow entirely new bodies for each era (like she did with "Phillipa"), or does she reprogram her existing femtobot body to age/de-age as needed?" <-- In my imagination, 8ME has much flexibility to re-arrange her femtobot components. I believe the main issue would be how to position herself close to each writer who she needs to influence. 8ME is an expert at using memory-editing infites to change the memories and behavior of people. In some cases, it would be best to position herself as a known entity within a particular social milieu (as with Phillipa), but in other cases, she might simply "walk into someone's life" and start influencing their writing choices.
2) "to avoid suspicion about not aging?" < -- 8ME can re-arrange her femtobot components and appear to age or even die.
4) "Does 8ME nudge the famous ghost story competition in that direction?" <-- I don't want to depict 8ME as doing much more than guiding the English Language into the future. My preferred approach would be to depict famous authors of the past such as being responsible for the content of their stories while 8ME is more concerned with the linguistic form of those stories. However, in the case of H. G. Wells, I like to imagine that 8ME (in the role of Amy Robbins) helped Wells make the shift from "The Chronic Argonauts" (which described time travel into the past) to the more ambitious "The Time Machine" which depicted time travel to the far future. There is a tricky narrative path to be threaded here. When describing the relationship between Amy and Wells, I'd like it to appear that 8ME was able to inspire Wells to write "The Time Machine" without her being overly concerned about the details of the story that Wells had to write. I imagine that 8ME transferred some memory-altering infites into the brain of Wells, perhaps providing him with confused and difficult to understand artificial "memories" of the far future Eloy and Myrloks which he then used as motivation for his story about the Morlocks and the Eloi.
5) "How does 8ME infiltrate or influence a committee? As a patron? A scholar's wife feeding ideas?" <-- not all of 8ME's actions as a time traveler will be depicted in detail within the text of "English Time", so such questions don't really need to be answered by you or I.
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| 8ME and Byrd; vision of 1340. |
Claude, if you have no further questions you can generate a draft of the chapter in which 8ME helps H. G. Wells start writing "The Time Machine".
Claude: I've drafted Chapter 3 focusing on the pivotal moment when 8ME (as Amy Catherine Robbins) helps guide Wells from "The Chronic Argonauts" toward "The Time Machine."
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| Byrd by Gemini. |
Subtle influence: 8ME doesn't dictate the story but removes creative blocks and suggests direction (past vs. future)
Infites as dream-fragments: The memory-editing infites create vague impressions rather than explicit instructions—pale figures, underground spaces—that Wells interprets through his own creative lens
Wells's autonomy: The social commentary and specific story elements come from Wells himself, building on his knowledge of Darwin and social class
The irony: Wells unknowingly names his races (Eloi/Morlocks) after the actual future entities (Eloy/Myrloks) his story will prevent from existing
8ME's long perspective: Brief references to her centuries of work building toward this moment
Hard SF details: The femtobot/infite mechanics, the femtozoan in Wells's brain carrying Byrd's memories
Would you like me to adjust anything—perhaps more technical detail about the infites' mechanism, different pacing, or a different approach to how 8ME influences Wells?
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Time travel by Mr. Wombo.
Chapter 3:
The Time Machine
London, 1894
Amy Catherine Robbins found Herbert George Wells in his study at 7 Mornington Place, surrounded by crumpled sheets of paper. The afternoon light through the narrow window illuminated the chaos—discarded drafts scattered across the floor like fallen leaves.
"It won't come right," Wells said without looking up. His voice carried the frustration of months. "The Chronic Argonauts was a failure. I know it was a failure."
Amy closed the door behind her and moved to the window, her femtobot components already analyzing the biochemistry of stress in Wells's posture and breathing. Five hundred and fifty-four years of continuous existence had taught her patience, but this moment required precision. Everything—the entire Paleographic Imperative—converged on what this man would write in the next year.
"The time traveler went backward," Amy said quietly. "To the English Civil War."
"Yes." Wells rubbed his eyes. "History. Politics. I thought I was being clever, showing how an objective observer might see the past differently—"
"It was clever, Bertie. But it wasn't what you needed to write."
He finally looked at her. Amy had chosen this form carefully—young, intelligent, with the kind of direct gaze that Wells found both attractive and unsettling. Catherine Robbins had been a real person, one of his former students, but Amy had walked into that life eighteen months ago with memory-editing infites that made the transition seamless. Even Wells's recollections of their first meeting had been subtly adjusted.
"What do you mean, what I needed to write?"
Wells leaned back, intrigued despite his frustration. "The future."
"Yes." Amy's femtobot brain was already releasing a carefully measured dose of infites—not enough to control, never enough to override his creative autonomy, but sufficient to lower certain cognitive barriers. "What if your Time Traveler went forward? Not decades, but millennia. Hundreds of thousands of years."
"That's..." Wells paused, his mind already beginning to work. "That's ambitious. Perhaps too ambitious."
"Is it?" Amy stood and moved to the window, watching the London street below. She had walked these streets in different forms, different bodies, different centuries. She had been here when this neighborhood was fields. "You've been reading evolutionary theory. Darwin, Huxley. You understand deep time."
"Of course, but—"
"So extrapolate." She turned to face him, and in that moment she allowed a flicker of something ancient and knowing to cross her features. "What becomes of humanity in the year 802,701?"
The specificity of the number caught his attention. "That's very precise."
"It's evocative," Amy corrected smoothly. "A number that sounds scientific but is really just saying 'impossibly far ahead.' Use your scientific training, Bertie. Give the reader a date that feels calculated, even if it's arbitrary."
"Yes." Amy moved behind his chair, close enough that he could sense her presence but not so close as to distract. Her infites were doing their work now, threading through his neural pathways. Not memories, exactly—nothing so crude. Instead, she was creating what felt like half-remembered dreams, fragments of images that had no clear source.
Underground spaces. Darkness. A sense of two humanities diverging.
Wells's hand began to move across the paper. "Two races," he murmured. "Evolution doesn't stop. Given enough time, given the right pressures... class divisions could become biological divisions."
"The wealthy above," Amy suggested softly, "and the workers below."
"But reversed somehow. Inverted." Wells was writing faster now, his earlier frustration forgotten. "The surface dwellers become... delicate. Beautiful but weak. Fed and maintained by—"
He stopped abruptly. "This sounds like social commentary dressed as fantastical fiction."
"It is social commentary," Amy said. "But that's what makes it powerful. Not just a mechanical marvel—a time machine—but what that machine reveals about human nature. About where we might be headed if we're not careful."
She moved away from his chair, giving him space. The infites had done their work. The images she'd planted were fragmentary, dreamlike—pale figures in a garden, something hunched and pale in darkness, the sense of a paradise that wasn't quite right. Nothing specific enough to dictate his story, but enough to prime the creative pump.
Wells had begun to sketch diagrams now—the Time Machine itself, which would need to feel plausible. "A saddle," he said. "Brass and ivory. Quartz rods. Something that looks scientific but doesn't get bogged down in impossible explanations."
"Which is the future." Wells looked up at her with something like awe. "Amy, this could be something entirely new. Not a fantasy, not an adventure tale, but a kind of... speculative extrapolation. Fiction based on scientific possibility."
"Science fiction," Amy said quietly, the term forming naturally even though it wouldn't become common for decades. "A story that makes you think about where humanity is going."
Wells was already lost in his work, his pen moving rapidly across the page. Amy watched for a moment longer, then quietly left the study. She descended the narrow stairs of the boarding house and emerged onto Mornington Place.
Five hundred and fifty-four years. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley—she had guided the English language from its bastard birth through its adolescence to this moment. Not controlling these writers, never that. She had removed obstacles, suggested possibilities, ensured the language developed the flexibility and technical vocabulary needed for this purpose.
But Wells was special. Wells was the culmination.
In the study above, Herbert George Wells—biologically a Myrlok, a genetically modified descendant of Pan troglodytes verus, but with all the memories of Byrd the storyteller encoded in his femtozoan—was writing the story that would define a genre. A story about time travel written by someone who was, in a sense, a time traveler himself, though he would never consciously know it.
And in the far future, fifty thousand years hence, the bumpha would see this moment through their Reality Viewing technology and know that their gambit had worked. Time travel would remain forever fictional, a compelling dream that humanity would be too wise to pursue.
Above her, in the study, Wells paused in his writing and looked toward the window. For just a moment, he had the strangest sensation—a fragmentary image of himself in a different time, with different companions, telling stories around a fire while stars wheeled overhead in unfamiliar patterns.
Then it was gone, and there was only the story. The Time Machine. The Eloi and the Morlocks.
He smiled and continued writing, never noticing that he had named his future races after entities that wouldn't exist for another fifty thousand years, in a timeline that this very story would prevent from ever occurring.
Amy Catherine Robbins walked the streets of London and did not smile. There was still too much work to do. But for the first time in five centuries, she allowed herself to feel something like hope.
The Paleographic Imperative was working.
_____End of Chapter______
Part 3.
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| Manny and the Byrd clone by Gemini. |
Claude: I've drafted the Chaucer chapter, set in 1386 when he was beginning work on The Canterbury Tales.
Key elements I incorporated:
Historical accuracy: Chaucer really was Controller of Customs at the Port of London, and 1386 is approximately when he began The Canterbury Tales. The opening line I quoted is the actual first line of the General Prologue.
The linguistic crisis: The tension between French (courtly language), Latin (learned language), and English (common language) was real in Chaucer's time. His choice to write in English was genuinely radical.
8ME's subtle method: She's been married to Chaucer for 17 years, using that time to plant linguistic structures through infites during sleep—not words, but prosodic patterns and grammatical possibilities.
Chaucer's autonomy: The creative decisions (frame tale, pilgrims, character voices, iambic pentameter) come from Chaucer himself. 8ME just removes his anxiety about the radical choice of English.
Technical details: The infite transfer through touch, the neurochemical adjustments, 8ME's long-term planning toward Shakespeare and Wells.
The irony: Chaucer models the Wife of Bath partly on Philippa, not knowing she's an artificial intelligence.
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| By Whisk and ImageFX. |
Translates the opening lines from Middle English to modern English so readers can appreciate both versions
Explains the three-language context of Chaucer's life (Latin for official work, French for prestige/poetry, English for daily life)
Sets up 8ME's perspective as someone who has witnessed five centuries of linguistic evolution
Frames her mission - convincing Chaucer that the "lesser" language was actually the crucial one
Creates narrative continuity - it's 8ME looking back and introducing the scene to the reader
Me: Thank you. It seems appropriate to have such a "frame" for this fictional account of 8ME influencing the writing of "The Canterbury Tales".
It also serves a practical storytelling function. Since 8ME is essentially immortal and experiences these events across centuries, having her periodically "step out" to provide context or reflection gives readers a sense of her vast temporal perspective. She's not just a character in 1386 or 1894—she's someone who has lived through the entire arc of English linguistic development and can see how each moment connects to the larger mission.
If you decide to write more chapters covering other figures from your timeline (Shakespeare, Milton, Mary Shelley, etc.), you could use similar framing introductions where 8ME reflects on what each writer contributed to making English capable of carrying science fiction literature. Each frame could highlight a different linguistic development: Shakespeare's neologisms and psychological subtlety, Milton's epic scope, Shelley's scientific speculation, and so on.
Next: "English Time", Chapter 2: The Canterbury Tales.
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