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| Kilian Richter by ImageFX. |
Me: Create
a fictional biography for a soldier who was born in Nuremberg in 1388
but somehow ended up in Venice in the year 1410 and then traveled to
Trebizond.
Gemini: Kilian Richter of Nuremberg (1388 – c. 1435)
Born: 1388, Nuremberg, Free Imperial City (Franconian Circle). Early Life: Kilian was the third son of a reasonably prosperous Schmied (blacksmith) who supplied wagon iron and armor repairs to the city garrison. As a citizen of a powerful Free City, he was granted a relatively high level of education, focusing on literacy, accounting basics, and German law.
Military Obligation: Like all able-bodied men, Kilian trained with the Nuremberg Bürgerwache (Citizen Guard). His early military service focused on manning the walls, drilling with the Hellebarde (halberd), and learning the logistics of garrison life. This training ingrained in him a deep appreciation for disciplined, infantry-focused defense—a skill set that would prove invaluable against the cavalry-heavy forces he would later encounter in the East.
Departure (1409): In 1409, a local political upheaval and a severe drought disrupted the local economy. Coupled with his father’s refusal to pay a large dowry for a desirable merchant’s daughter, Kilian found the prospects in Nuremberg too confining. He chose to seek his fortune outside the confines of the German territories. Using his small savings, he joined a group of traveling trade guards heading south along the Via Imperii towards Italy.
II. The Venetian Connection (1410)
Venice as a Nexus: Venice was the undisputed master of Mediterranean and Black Sea trade. Kilian quickly realized that the skills he learned in Nuremberg—discipline, basic accounting, and martial defense—were highly valued by Venetian merchant houses that needed to protect their high-value goods (spices, silks) across dangerous routes.
Employment: He secured work as an armed guard and ledger-keeper for the House of Zen, a prominent Venetian family involved in the profitable—and risky—Black Sea trade. His German background provided a useful air of neutral professionalism, unlike the often-factionalized local Italian guards. His role was simple: ensure the cargo reached its destination and protect the Venetian supercargo (chief merchant) from pirates, bandits, and rival Genoese interests.
III. The Journey East and Arrival in Trebizond (1410–1411)
The Voyage: In late 1410, Kilian boarded a Venetian galley bound for the eastern Mediterranean. The journey was long, stopping at Venetian outposts like Crete and Constantinople (which was then a shadow of its former glory).
Arrival (1411): Kilian was struck by the contrast: the orderly, wooden, gothic structures of Nuremberg were replaced by the sun-baked, stone, Byzantine architecture, and the polyglot chaos of the harbor, where Greek, Genoese, Persian, and Turkish were spoken in dizzying succession.
IV. Life on the Frontier (1411 – c. 1435)
Professional Role: Kilian settled into the role of a permanent security agent for the Venetian fondaco (trading post) in Trebizond. His duties included:
Caravan Guard: Protecting high-value silk and spice caravans as they moved inland toward Tabriz (Persia) or along the coast.
Garrison Duty: Manning the small fortified Venetian warehouse against the incursions of local Turkish tribes or opportunistic attacks by the Genoese.
Adaptation and Final Years: Kilian never returned to Nuremberg. He learned rudimentary Greek and enough Turkish to negotiate. He often hired local soldiers, introducing some of the robust, heavy infantry tactics he learned in Germany to the more fluid, skirmishing warfare of the Black Sea coast.
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| Kilian's fate. |
Me: What is known about the children of Geoffrey Chaucer?
Gemini: Only two children of Geoffrey Chaucer are known with certainty: a highly successful son, Thomas Chaucer, and a son named Lewis Chaucer, who is known solely through his father’s dedication of a scientific work.
Thomas Chaucer (c. 1367 – 1434)
Career and Status: Thomas had a highly successful political career in the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. His most significant and lucrative position was Chief Butler of England, which he held for nearly thirty years. He also served multiple times as the Speaker of the House of Commons and was a key figure in the landed gentry.
Marriage and Wealth: He married Maud Burghersh, a wealthy heiress, which cemented his financial position and social status.
Legacy: His daughter, Alice Chaucer, married William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, linking the Chaucer bloodline to the highest echelons of English nobility, possibly securing a lineage that reached into the extended royal family.
Me: Create
a fictional biography for a woman born in 1365 in London to wealthy
parents and who in the year 1388 travels to Paris. Describe how someone
would travel from London to Paris in 1388 including the optimal time of
year for such a journey.
Gemini: This is a great historical scenario, combining aristocratic travel with the specific political and logistical challenges of the late 14th century.
Here is the fictional biography of Lady Eleanor de Welles and the details of her journey.
Lady Eleanor de Welles (b. 1365, London)
Birth and Status: Eleanor de Welles was born in 1365 in the parish of St. Michael Paternoster Royal, a wealthy area of London. Her father, Sir William de Welles, was a successful wool staple merchant whose fortune secured a knighthood and allowed him to marry into a lesser baronial family. Eleanor thus grew up in an environment blending the wealth of the merchant class with the courtly aspirations of the minor nobility.
The Marriage Pact (1387): At age 22, Eleanor was betrothed to Lord Henri de Monceaux, a minor nobleman from the Île-de-France region whose family was strategically allied with the powerful Duke of Burgundy. The match was engineered by both families to diversify their holdings and political alliances—the Welles family sought a French foothold, and the Monceaux family desired English wool revenues. The year 1388 was chosen for the wedding and transfer of her dowry, as it followed a period of relative peace established by the 1388 truce between England and France.
Reason for Travel (1388): Eleanor traveled to Paris not as a visitor, but as a wealthy bride-elect, escorted by a substantial retinue of family guards, ladies-in-waiting, and logistical servants responsible for transporting her extensive trousseau and initial dowry payments (often in coin and valuable silver plate).
The Journey from London to Paris in 1388
The journey between London and Paris in 1388 was a major undertaking, taking approximately 6 to 10 days depending on weather, sea conditions, and the size of the retinue.
1. Optimal Time of Year
Rationale: These periods avoided the rough winter seas of the English Channel and the rutted, muddy roads caused by heavy winter rains. They also avoided the peak summer heat, which made travel uncomfortable and raised the risk of disease along the heavily-traveled routes. Eleanor’s wedding was likely scheduled for late spring to take advantage of this window.
2. Stages of the Journey
A. London to the Coast (3 days)
Mode of Transport: The journey began by land, often via a slow, stately procession. Eleanor would have traveled by litter (a luxurious, enclosed couch carried by two horses) or by covered wagon, while her retinue and goods were transported in heavy, spoked wagons.
Route: The most common route ran southeast from London, through towns like Rochester and Canterbury, heading toward one of the Cinque Ports.
Lodging: Being wealthy, Eleanor’s party would have stayed in comfortable monastic guesthouses or paid for lodging at major inns, rather than camping.
B. The Channel Crossing (1 day)
Port of Departure: The most common port was Dover, strategically located near the narrowest part of the English Channel.
Vessel: The party would charter an entire merchant or passenger cogg or barge. The journey across the strait would take approximately 6 to 12 hours, depending entirely on the winds and tides. The crossing was the most unpredictable and dangerous part of the trip.
Port of Arrival: The vessel would aim for the French port of Calais (which was under English control at this time, providing security) or Wissant (a French port slightly further south).
C. The Journey to Paris (3–6 days)
Route: From the French coast (likely Calais), the party turned inland. Eleanor’s retinue would have followed well-known Roman and medieval roads, often hugging the coast initially before turning southeast.
Security: This section of the journey carried the highest risk of attack by bandits or disgruntled soldiers (known as routiers). Eleanor's large, well-armed escort was crucial for safety.
Final Stretch: The journey would proceed through major cities such as Amiens or Beauvais before reaching the capital. As a bride to a French noble, her arrival in the vicinity of Saint-Denis (the traditional entry point north of Paris) would have been a highly ceremonial event, likely greeted by members of the Monceaux family before her formal presentation at the court of King Charles VI.
Origin and Ascent Born in 1335, William de Welles did not inherit nobility, but was instead born into a modestly prosperous lineage of drapers in the City of London. He broke from the cloth-making trade early on, recognizing the greater wealth and political power inherent in the export of raw English wool—the commodity known as the "sovereign merchandise and jewel of the realm."
The Staple of Calais (1363–1388)
William's most profitable years coincided with the period when the official Staple for wool export was fixed at Calais (from 1363). As a Merchant Stapler, William was required to transport his sacks of wool to Calais, where they were weighed, taxed by the Crown, and sold to foreign buyers (primarily from Flanders and Italy).
This system brought him immense wealth, but also immense risk. His duties included:
Payment of Customs: Paying the required customs duties and royal subsidies on exported wool, often serving as a short-term creditor to the Crown by paying taxes in advance.
Logistics: Financing, securing, and transporting huge consignments of wool across the English Channel, a route constantly threatened by French and Castilian privateers during the Hundred Years' War.
Financial Leverage: Using his profits to operate as a nascent financial agent, extending credit to lesser nobles and even occasionally providing emergency liquidity to the administration of Richard II.
Knighthood and Social Elevation
The Burgh and the Crown: Having served multiple times as a London alderman, William leveraged his position to support the Crown's war finances. In the late 1370s, he provided a substantial personal loan to the Crown to cover a deficit in the garrison payments for Aquitaine.
Sir William: In recognition of this critical financial contribution, he was granted his knighthood (Sir William) in 1384. This elevation secured his social standing, officially placing him within the gentry and granting him access to higher levels of court politics.
Legacy and Eleanor
Sir William ensured his wealth and new status would endure by arranging his marriage to a woman from the minor baronial de Verney family. This union blended his financial power with existing landed gentry status.
His final major strategic move was orchestrating the marriage of his daughter, Eleanor, to the French nobleman, Henri de Monceaux (c. 1388). For Sir William, this marriage was a practical insurance policy: it secured a politically valuable ally in the French sphere, provided an avenue for cross-Channel commerce during truces, and ensured his granddaughter would possess a strong position within the European aristocracy—a far cry from his own beginnings among the London drapers.
Lady Agnes de Verney, Lady Welles (c. 1345 – c. 1410)
Origin and Strategic Marriage
Agnes was born around 1345 into the minor, but ancient, landed family of de Verney in Kent. While her lineage was respectable—her father held feudal title and was often summoned to regional councils—her family, like many of the lesser baronage, had been financially strained by the costs of the Hundred Years' War and the erratic labor market following the Black Death. They possessed prestige and land but lacked ready liquidity and circulating capital.
Life as a Knight's Lady
Upon marrying, Agnes moved into the de Welles's grand London house, establishing a household that was expected to reflect both her husband's merchant prosperity and her own noble heritage. Her primary role became the transformation of the nouveau riche merchant's family into recognized nobility.
Social Director: She used her noble connections to secure the family's place in society, ensuring they were accepted by courtly circles and gaining access to necessary political patronage.
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| Generated by ImageFX. |
Securing the French Alliance
Agnes was the central figure in orchestrating Eleanor's marriage to Henri de Monceaux in France in 1388. For Agnes, the marriage was not simply commercial; it was a success on a feudal level, cementing her family's place in the pan-European noble network.
She understood the political necessity of diversifying the family's interests beyond England's unstable treasury. The marriage leveraged her own old connections to create a new, powerful alliance that benefited both the family's status and Sir William's extensive international trade network in the Low Countries and the Mediterranean.
Agnes de Verney was the stabilizing force who successfully merged the financial might of the London merchant class with the inherited prestige of the English gentry, ensuring her descendants, despite their merchant origins, would forever be considered part of the landed aristocracy.
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| Storybook cover generated by Gemini. |
Below is my version of Chapter 3 of "English Time", but first I'm going to pay tribute to "Demon with a Glass Hand",
which I saw on TV when I was very young. In that Harlan Ellison story,
there is a robot who "will resurrect the human race". In that case,
viewers were told that "brain-scans" of humans had been "digitally
encoded onto a gold-copper alloy wire" stored inside the robot's body. As a young boy, I was puzzled: how would this robot recreate humans from stored brain scans?
For "English Time", the femtobot replicoid 8ME (a fancy robot) carries
vitrified oocytes that can be used as genetic source material to produce new people on demand. Add in a femtozoan to the new embryo and 8ME could prepare a new human body for the next part of her mission.
Chapter 3 of “English Time” (Chapter 1)(Chapter 2)
From the 8ME mission report (2025).
Soon after Geoffrey had started writing The Canterbury Tales in English (1386) and I felt confident that my further direct influence on his writing was no longer needed, I arranged for Phillipa to die (1387) and I abandoned England for a time, re-located to the continent for the next 50 years.
I transferred my femtozoan from Phillipa into the body of a woman named Eleanor de Welles, thought by her father (William de Welles) to be the biological daughter of his wife, Lady Agnes de Verney, A.K.A. Lady Welles (c. 1345 – c. 1410). However, Eleanor had actually been created by me using a male pronucleus from William and one of the stored oocytes that I had brought with me from the future. Using my femtobot blastipositor, I was able to implant the Eleanor blastocyst inside Lady Welles with her ever noticing what I had done.
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| Eleanor and Marco |
From Paris, our next destination was Nurenberg, where I quickly broke the monopoly of Stromer on paper milling technology, initiating the spread of paper mills throughout northern Europe.
Next, I sent a letter to Goslar, in Lower Saxony, in which I shared with the local metallurgical guild some tips for making metal alloys with a favorable combination of low melting temperature and strength. That metallurgical know-how ultimately made for efficient metal type printing.
Most of my time while on the Continent would be spent in Germany, but by some strange quirk of Time, my most Eastward journey was made as part of helping Jan van Eyck develop oil-based pigments using methods that would later be adapted to make high-volume printing on paper practical.
Eventually returning to Germany after my time with Jan, I helped Gutenberg perfect his printing press, using techniques that were until then still closely guarded trade secrets in the paper industry.
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| Mara |
The Tale of Mara and the Origin of the Myrloks As told by Byrd the Story-weaver
Listen now to the tale of Mara, who learned the secret of our beginning.
In another time, before we Myrlok existed, among the tribes of the eastern forests, there lived a young girl named Mara. She and her people had golden hair and were different than we Myrloks. She was known for asking too many questions—questions about the stars, questions about the Eloy, questions about why the Lake of the Copper Scar lay empty and poisoned at the bottom of its great pit.
One morning, a red-haired Eloy came to Mara's village. She appeared as the Eloy always appear, pale-skinned, beautiful beyond the beauty of any Myrlok. The Eloy walked through the village, and her eyes found Mara.
"You ask many questions," said the Eloy. "Would you like to see the answers?"
Mara's heart trembled, but she said, "I want to know everything. Who are you to tease me with forbidden knowledge?"
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| Mara and 17K, image by Gemini. |
Mara looked down and saw her village growing small, saw the forests spreading like moss, saw the great rivers like silver threads. And then she saw it—the Lake of the Copper Scar, that terrible wound in the earth, its green waters gleaming like a poisoned jewel.
"How was it made?" Mara asked, for this mystery had always troubled her people.
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| manual color adjustment |
Mara shivered. "Where did the village go?"
"It remains in the sky: Polt," said the Eloy. "It is the red wanderer that crosses the night sky."
They rose higher, above the clouds, into the high domain where there is no air and no warmth, only the great celestial fires burning in the endless dark. Mara should have died there, but the sky cloud protected her, and she breathed easily.
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| Mara meets the uni-ape. |
Inside Polt, Mara found a living village where the people wore strange garments that shimmered like water. They touched stones and made light appear. They spoke, and their words appeared as glowing symbols in the air.
Mara approached them, but they looked at her with pity, the way an adult looks at a small child. She tried to ask them questions, but their answers made no sense to her. "We shape tools from nanites," one said. "We maintain our crops with hydroponics," said another. Mara could not understand the marvelous ways of the people of Polt or their magical abilities.
Finally, Mara cried out, "How did we begin? How did we come to be? Why am I kept in ignorance on Earth while you dwell here in knowledge?"
The Eloy took Mara's hand once more. "I will show you," she said.
They entered a time cloud—deeper magic than the sky cloud, stranger and more terrible. The time cloud was dark, and within it Mara felt herself stretching and compressing, as if she were being woven and unwoven. She heard voices that had not yet spoken, saw shadows of things that would never be.
When the time cloud cleared, they stood on Earth again—but an Earth Mara did not recognize. The trees were wrong. The air smelled wrong. No villages anywhere.
"This is the deep past," said the Eloy. "The time before your people existed."
Through the forest came a creature. Mara had never seen its like—a beast with four legs and a single eye in its forehead, dark as lava. Its coat was dark, its eyes were dark, and it moved with a strange grace.
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| Ape modified by Mr. Wombo. |
Mara could not believe it. "How? We look nothing like this creature!"
"You will be the bridge," said the Eloy. "You carry in your body the potential for transformation. The uni-ape will mix its essence with yours, and from you will come the first of the Myrloks—a new people who will think and speak wondrous tales."
The uni-ape approached Mara, and though she was afraid, she did not run. The creature touched Mara, and she felt a burning coldness spread through her body. In that moment, something changed within her—something in her blood, in her bones, in the secret core of her being.
The Eloy said, "You will bear children unlike any before. They will be the mothers and fathers of all Myrloks. And this is why the Eloy have watched over your people—because we were waiting for this day. We brought you forth. We shaped you. And we decide when you, Mara would be the source of a new creature: Myrlok. It is a great loop in time."
And Mara did have children, and her children had children, and her bloodline spread to form all the tribes. And in every Myrlok there remains a trace of that ancient uni-ape, that creature from the deep past, and that is why we are different than the Eloy and must wonder about the stars and ask questions that sometimes we should not ask.
The Lake of the Copper Scar remains, green and poisonous, a reminder that there are some secrets the Eloy do not wish us to know.
This is the tale of Mara. I have spoken it. Remember it well.
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| Eleanor and Marco |
After two glorious weeks in Paris, Marco was ready to take me (by sea) to Venice, but I had been at work on his memories and thought processes by means of my infites. I convinced Marco that we should travel to Venice by an over-land route that allowed me to complete my monopoly-busting mission in Nurenberg. While in Nurenberg, I implanted another blastocyst along with some of my femtobots in a local woman. That blastocyst became a man named Kilian Richter, who I would later transfer my femtozoan to and whose body I would use for my mission to the far east.
Marco and I continued on to Venice. He was thereafter often at sea for his very profitable trade with England while I managed his home in Venice. During my years in Venice, I learned about the remnants of the Byzantine Empire and sent many letters to Germany, spreading trade secrets that the guilds would have preferred to keep hidden. My efforts helped stimulate the German economy, preparing that land for the development of printing technology. Eventually, word came that Marco had died in a storm while at sea. The timing was right for me to then transfer my femtozoan into Kilian.
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| Kilian |
Establishing myself in Trebizond, I transformed Kilian's body into that of a woman, known only as Eudocia, and in that new identity I came to be known as a crazy alchemist who was seldom seen outside of my workshop.
I was a long time correspondent (in French) with the painter Jan van Eyck, enticing him with samples of oil-based pigments. Eventually, unable to resist my invitation, he came to Trebizond and study my pigement-making techniques. Jan had long felt the limits of the materials available in the court of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. It was that frustration, that drove Jan to obtain the Duke's permission to travel east in 1426, ostensibly on mission to obtain a source of silk for the Duke.
The mission was ostensibly to treat with traders in the Byzantine sphere, but Jan used his influence to steer the route toward the eastern shores of the Black Sea, a route that led him, in the late autumn, to a winding, forgotten valley near Trebizond, where I had my workshop.
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| Margaret and Jan |
I demonstrated my pigment making techniques to Jan: a complex process of washing and heat-refining the oil with certain powdered mineral salts—knowledge pulled not from the past, but from a pharmaceutical lab in the 51st millennium. The resulting medium was thick, clear, and perfectly stable, an almost resinous varnish capable of holding far more finely ground pigment than the common glazes of the era. The result, when mixed with an expensive cinnabar, was a crimson of such startling depth that Jan gasped.
“It is not merely paint, Margaret,” he whispered, “it is captured light.”
I smiled. My true purpose wasn’t the beauty of the paint, but the technical properties of the medium. The resinous quality of the refined oil meant it was hydrophobic and exceptionally viscous. This high viscosity was paramount; it would allow the ink of the future to cling precisely to the raised surface of a piece of type—a necessary physical property to enable the printing revolution.
Between 1427 and 1431, in Bruges, Jan and I operated a highly secretive enterprise. Jan used my pigment making techniques to create the luminous, detailed oil panels that would soon make him legendary. The profit from his paintings was high and carefully controlled. We would sell small, exorbitant vials of the pigment oil to select, wealthy patrons, always ensuring the exact composition remained a mystery.
The technique would later be made available at the right time and to the right person—Johannes Gutenberg, who would need an ink that worked with his movable type. When the time was right, I would allow a “leak” of the foundational oil chemistry, framing it as a breakthrough from a forgotten old-world alchemist’s note.
However, I was ensuring a far greater fortune: the survival of the English language and creating the timeline that would lead to a future literature of time travel stories. The stable oil that made his blues glow would eventually carry the black text of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales off the newly invented printing press and into history.
In 1432, our professional and personal partnership was formalized. I became Jan’s wife, Damoiselle Marguerite, the silent, astute woman who oversaw his atelier. But in the quiet hours of the night, I knew my true marriage was to the Paleographic Imperative. The foundation for the English literary tradition was now set, chemically and linguistically. The next phase involved placing the technology of mass dissemination into the right hands.
___End Chapter 3____
Me: Process the file that I just uploaded. Create a science fiction storybook for adults with illustrations of events from Chapter 3 of the science fiction story “English Time”. The illustrations in the storybook should have a photo-realistic style. The images generated for the storybook resemble full color high resolution movie stills.
Gemini: I've created a science fiction storybook for adults that covers the events of Chapter 3 of the story "English Time," with photo-realistic illustrations resembling high-resolution movie stills. Please note that the story may not be 100% faithful to any uploaded files or images.
I used the Gemini-generated storybook images to illustrate Chapter 3, above on this page. Other images on this page were made with either ImageFX or WOMBO Dream.
Next: Claude drafts Chapter 4 of "English Time".
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| Images by WOMBO Dream. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers |
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