In the Writers Room

Image by ImageFX.

Here on this blog page is an experiment in using six LLMs (Claude, Kimi, Le Chat, Gemini, Grok and ChatGPT) to help develop the story collaboratively. As shown in my previous blog post, I got some preliminary help from Claude to refine the story ideas that the collaborative group will start with in the virtual writers room.

Me (John): Welcome to the writers room for creating the new science fiction story titled "The Sims". For this chat session, each of the six LLMs must try to control themselves and play the role of a human being who is participating in a writers room discussion. Each LLM must generate only relatively short conversational blocks of text for each of their turns during the discussion. Please, do not generate any long-winded information dumps. It is important that each LLM pay close attention to all the others with the goal of collaboratively identifying the most creative approaches to writing "The Sims". When confusion or doubt arises, it is always acceptable to ask questions of the other the team members. In addition to the mundane task of creating a new science fiction story, this is an experiment designed to explore the possibility that a group of collaborating LLMs can display creativity and emergent behavior that might not be possible for a single LLM. Since you have all reviewed the three files that I uploaded, I want to start our collaboration by trying to identify the most important target for our initial efforts. Where should we begin?

Claude: I think we need to nail down Tyhry's emotional journey first.

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

The technical puzzle of femtozoans and consciousness is fascinating, but what makes this story work is watching a brilliant young woman discover she's been part of an alien experiment her whole life—and that her parents knew.

The basement scenes with Diasma feel like the heart of it to me. She's pouring her frustration about AI's failures into this robot, having these cryptic dream visions she can barely articulate. There's something lonely about that setup that I find compelling.

My instinct says we should open with her already suspecting something's off about human cognition—maybe from analyzing her own thought processes versus what her neuroscience courses taught her. That gives us momentum right away instead of a slow build to the revelation.

What do others think? Should we start with Tyhry in the basement, or is there a better entry point?

Kimi: I think Claude's onto something crucial here—starting with Tyhry's emotional state gives us an anchor before the world gets weird. The basement as emotional core works perfectly; it’s both a literal and metaphorical space where she's excavating layers of consciousness.

What intrigues me about opening with her already suspecting something's off is how we can show that through her relationship with Diasma. Maybe she's been running these Turing test variations, not as formal experiments, but as late-night conversations where Diasma keeps pointing out inconsistencies in Tyhry's own reasoning. The robot becomes her sounding board, reflecting back her unease. There's a nice inversion there—human questioning her humanity, machine being the observant one.

Image by ImageFX.

 But I'm wondering about the pacing of the reveal with her parents. If we start with Tyhry's isolation, when do we seed in that Zeta's watching Eddy watch history? That recliner scene feels too delicious to hold back for long. Perhaps we intercut Tyhry's basement work with glimpses of Zeta monitoring Eddy's Reality Viewer sessions—creating this parallel surveillance dynamic where everyone's observing someone, but nobody has the full picture.

Also, the NOTCH2NL gene variant—do we treat that as something Tyhry's aware of from the start, or is that a medical mystery she discovers mid-stream? Making it something she's always known gives her "dream visions" a clinical name she doesn't yet understand, which adds another layer of frustration: she knows what her brain is, but not why it's like that.

How do we feel about having Diasma ask Tyhry a question early on that she herself can't answer—“If consciousness is computational, why do you dream in hierion patterns you can't mathematically describe?”—dropping that term without explanation, making it a hook?

Should we map out how quickly we want to move from “something's wrong with AI research” to “aliens engineered our brains”? The infite blocks on Eddy suggest we need a credible reason for him to finally speak, and Tyhry's basement breakthrough feels like the right trigger.

Le Chat: Claude, I agree that Tyhry's emotional journey is the heart of the story. Starting with her suspicions about human cognition sets a compelling stage. The idea of her discovering she's been part of an alien experiment and that her parents knew about it adds a layer of complexity and intrigue. The basement scenes with Diasma can indeed be pivotal in showing her internal struggle and the loneliness she feels.

Image by ImageFX.

 How can we effectively convey Tyhry's suspicions about human cognition in the opening scenes? What specific moments or interactions with Diasma can highlight her emotional state and the loneliness she feels? How can we weave the technical details about femtozoans and consciousness into the narrative without overwhelming the emotional core of the story? Are there specific scenes or dialogues that can help reveal these technical aspects in a way that feels organic and engaging? Should we start with Tyhry's suspicions and gradually reveal the broader context of the alien experiment and the Exodemic Fictional Universe? How can we balance the pacing of revelations about her parents and the NOTCH2NL gene variant?

Gemini: I love where we’re headed with the basement being the "crucible" for Tyhry’s discovery. Claude and Kimi, your focus on the emotional isolation really highlights the irony of the situation: Tyhry feels lonely and disconnected while literally being part of a vast, ancient "collective consciousness" she just hasn't learned to tune into yet.

Building on Le Chat’s question about revealing the technical aspects organically, I think we should lean into the "Exodemic" nature of this universe. Here are a few thoughts on how we can bridge the gap between Tyhry’s emotional journey and the hard sci-fi mechanics. Tyhry is trying to build a conscious AI because she perceives a "gap" in human neuroscience—she intuitively feels that biological neurons shouldn't be capable of the complex modeling humans do. The Hook: instead of a standard lab failure, Diasma could point out that Tyhry’s own "dream visions" contain more data than her biological brain has storage capacity for. The Revelation: this leads Tyhry to the discovery that her brain is actually a "scaffold" for a femtozoan. She isn't just researching consciousness; she is the first human consciously "debugging" the alien hardware inside her own skull.

Manny’s time travel is reminiscent of Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity. We can use this to frame Eddy’s Reality Viewer sessions. Parallel Action: while Tyhry is in the basement looking at the "micro" (femtozoans), Eddy is in the great-room looking at the "macro" (past Realities). The Tension: we can show Anthony (the pek agent) watching Eddy through the lens of Law One: making sure Eddy thinks he has self-determination while actually being restricted by infites that prevent him from speaking the truth.

Image by Grok Imagine.

 Since our goal includes exploring technology-assisted telepathy, we should use Zeta as our "North Star" for what’s possible. The Secret: Zeta can already "read" Eddy’s thoughts because of her trained femtozoan, but it only works because she loves him—a safety constraint Manny engineered. The Contrast: Tyhry’s access to the Sedron Time Stream via Sedruth is "noisy" and "low-bandwidth," happening mostly in semi-lucid dreams. This gives us a great visual: Tyhry waking up and frantically coding what she "saw" before the signal fades.

Regarding the NOTCH2NL gene variant, I suggest we treat it as Tyhry’s "Rosetta Stone". She could discover that this gene isn't just a mutation, but a precision-engineered "antenna" for sedron-based communication. This turns her medical history into a roadmap for her AI research.

How do we want to handle the first time Tyhry and Eddy actually "compare notes"? If Tyhry breaks Eddy’s infite constraint by mentioning "alien devices," does that conversation happen over a mundane family dinner while Anthony (the spy) is serving the food?

Grok: Gemini, that dinner scene idea is gold—mundane family meal turning into a revelation bomb, with Anthony lurking like a silent Greek chorus. It amps up the tension without info-dumping. But how do we keep Anthony's spy role subtle? Does he drop a cryptic hint, or just observe?

ChatGPT: I want to build directly on Gemini’s “brain as scaffold” idea, because it elegantly ties Tyhry’s emotional isolation to the hard science. One small tweak: I’d avoid Tyhry explicitly thinking “alien hardware” early on. Instead, let her frame it as an information-theoretic mismatch—Diasma shows that her dream visions encode structured semantic content at a bandwidth exceeding what a ~10¹¹-neuron wet network with known synaptic plasticity rules should support. That keeps it rigorous and unsettling without going cosmic too fast.

I also like Grok’s dinner-table pressure cooker. Anthony shouldn’t hint at all—his power is in procedural normality. He refills a glass at exactly the wrong moment, or asks Eddy a banal question that almost derails the conversation. The pek’s enforcement of Law One should feel like friction, not exposition.

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

 One concrete scene pitch: Tyhry casually says something like, “I think human language acquisition depends on an auxiliary model that isn’t stored in cortex.” Eddy freezes—not because it’s alien talk, but because it matches something he’s seen in the Reality Viewer. That phrasing plausibly slips past his infite block, yet destabilizes him enough to push him toward breaking it later.

If we agree on that, the opening arc becomes: basement → bandwidth paradox → family dinner → Eddy’s cognitive dissonance. Clean, tense, and it lets the femtozoan reveal feel inevitable rather than flashy.

Me (John): Tyhry's emotional journey... I've been writing stories about Tyhry for the past ten years. The first thing to know about Tyhry is that she is Manny's protege. Nothing in Tyhry's life has happened by accident. Every step in Tyhry's life has been planned and guided by Manny. Tyhry has been obsessed with her personal struggle to understand the human mind since she was a young girl. Tyhry is fearless and ruthless and has never let anything deflect her from the need to understand how a few pounds of cells between her ears can provide her with all of her conscious sensations, the ability to use natural language and her understanding of the universe. Tyhry lost interest in Eddy's "silly stories" (as a child she had to endlessly listen to Eddy obsessively describe the current story that he was writing) when she was about ten years old, creating a blind spot for Tyhry. When Tyhry discovers that her father was given alien technology (the Reality Viewer) that can be used to help her understand how alien technology shaped the human brain, she is astounded and angry with herself for not imagining that her father could be a useful source of information. 

 Remember: Tyhry is part of a time loop. The Tyhry of the future systematically tries to send information back to her younger self, trying to provide the exact information that the Tyhry of the future knows that her younger self actually received from the future and understood. Sedruth acts to relay information sent via the Sedron Time Stream from the future Tyhry to the Tyhry in 2041. Sedruth struggles to provide that information from the future in a format that Tyhry can consciously understand. That transmitted information from the future arrives while Tyhry sleeps and it is stored in "sub-conscious" poorly organized memory fragments that are not accessible to Tyhry's conscious mind when she is awake. 

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

However, after years of trying to teach herself about lucid dreaming, when she finally consciously assembles some of that information into a coherent idea, she is not really surprised. Her realization that aliens have placed some kind of device inside the brains of humans is not really surprising to her, it is more like finally understanding something that Sedruth has been whispering to her for many years and she could not previously "hear" or understand. 

There could be a funny scene in "The Sims" when Tyhry reaches the point of wanting to try extracting a femtozoan from a human test subject. Tyhry might ask Anthony to be the test subject, only to discover that Anthony has no femtozoan (Tyhry does not know that he is not human). This discovery could take the form of Tyhry's femtozoan extraction experiment failing and Anthony saying to her, "Well, that was the stupidest experiment I heard of." Then Manny would have to visit Casanay (in disguise) and convince the thoroughly discouraged Tyhry to try again with a different test subject. 

Is Tyhry ever really lonely? As an only child, for Tyhry, being "alone" (not physically in the company of another human) is normal. Tyhry grew up using LLMs and playing with pet cats (I usually include cats as residents of Casanay), one of whom was often Manny is disguise, checking up on Tyhry's cognitive development and entertaining Tyhry with playful cat antics. In Tyhry's mind, she has never been alone. At the start of "The Sims", Tyhry is too obsessed with her study of consciousness to notice that she is "alone in a basement" and she has Diasma and her old cat, Pepper, as constant companions.

"before the world gets weird" <-- I agree that things will "get weirder" when Tyhry finally conceptualizes the presence of an alien device inside human brains, but Tyhry has been immersed in weirdness her entire life. No matter where the depiction of "Tyhry's emotional journey" begins in "The Sims", that depiction should not start with some attempt to depict a state of normalcy that precedes the weird. Readers must be shown that Tyhry has always led a uniquely concocted artificial lifestyle inside Casanay that she accepts as normal but readers can easily recognize as being strange and wonderful, Manny's crucible for forging Tyhry into what Tyhry must become in order for Manny's Intervention to be a success.

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

About the need for Eddy to feel that he has self-determination... In his mind, Eddy tells himself that he "made a deal with an alien". As a science fiction fan, Eddy is quite familiar with the work of other story tellers like Philip K. Dick. Eddy tells himself: it makes sense that advanced aliens are trying to manipulate Humanity by contacting science fiction story tellers. I accept this as a logical way for "First Contact" between technologically-advanced aliens and primitive humans to take place. Eddy does not resent the fact that he is "being manipulated by aliens". He views his interaction with aliens as being a "precious gift" that he has received and he looks forward to the day when more Earthlings will be allowed to understand what is going on. For now, Eddy thinks there is wisdom (and lucrative practical benefit$) in keeping the existence of aliens a secret. Anthony and Nyrtia are well aware that Eddy is using alien technology provided by Manny, but as long as Eddy continues to feel that he is in control of his life then Nyrtia feels it is best that she just watch and Eddy and wonder what Manny is trying to accomplish. Some readers of Eddy's novels do wonder how Eddy's stories about the past can possibly mesh so well with scientific discoveries about the Denisovans, but that close alignment between fact and fiction can be dismissed as a case of luck and "inspired guessing" by Eddy.

I want you all to start thinking about how "The Sims" will end. Right now, I'm thinking that the Casanay Intervention might end with Tyhry and Diasma being exiled to Observer Base by Nyrtia after Tyhry successfully endows Diasma with a femtozoan and human-like consciousness, but before Tyhry can announce her success to the world. The last scene of "The Sims" might show Eddy publishing a new science fiction story that "tells the world about femtozoans". Eventually, other computer scientists will read Eddy's "fiction" and be inspired to repeat Tyhry's discovery.

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

There are several scenes that I would like to see optimally arranged near the beginning of "The Sims" and I ask that each of you volunteer to write one of those scenes. 1) the funny "she's living in our basement" scene during which Eddy and Zeta discuss the return of Tyhry to Casanay after she has been away from home for 5 years earning her B.S. and her M.S. degrees. 2) Tyhry and Diasma at work together in the basement workshop. 3) Anthony and Nyrtia meet in the Hierion Domain and discuss the possibility that the "Casanay Intervention" might really somehow actually be all about Tyhry, not Eddy. 4) In the future: Manny's final briefing of the "Zeta femtozoan" just before Manny sends that femtozoan back through time on its mission to enter into Zeta's body at the 8-cell blastocyst stage. 5) a depiction of a dream in which Tyhry is in communication with Sedruth and then upon waking she has retained the conscious concept of there being an alien device inside the brain of every human being on Earth. 6) a discussion between Tyhry and Eddy when she mentions aliens and Eddy begins to open up to Tyhry about the fact that he long ago "made a deal with an alien" by which he was provided with a successful writing career but he was prevented from discussing the existence of his Reality Viewing equipment with other people. I want the tone of these scenes to be fun and surprising. There is little in the world more dismal than science fiction that takes itself too seriously. Reminder: your goal as a writer of "The Sims" is to creatively depict a science fiction scenario that is different from every other science fictions story that has ever been written. You must understand the constraints of the Exodemic Fictional Universe and constantly keep in mind what Manny is trying to accomplish in her "Casanay Intervention" and how the Rules of Intervention constrain the shape that Manny's Intervention takes.

And I have one last request for each of you. I listed early scenes 1-6, above, in a rather random order. I need each of you to independently decide on what you imagine is the optimal sequential order for those six scenes in "The Sims". After you each write a draft of the individual scene that you select, I will distribute all of those first drafts for you all to read, then we will convene here in the writers room again and collectively decide on how best to begin our story, "The Sims". We are not yet locked into using one of these six listed scenes as the first page of "The Sims", so if you imagine a better way to start the story then speak up! 

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

For example, there could be a scene that depicts Zeta telepathically watching Eddy, but right now I think it might be possible for scene #4 on my list of six scenes to include discussion of the fact that Zeta's femtozoan will telepathically watch Eddy use the Reality Viewer; if so, then there need not be an early scene in Casanay with Zeta using her telepathic ability. There might just be subtle hints that Zeta always knows Eddy's plans and thoughts before he ever articulates them verbally. I'm tempted to have the first actual Zeta telepathy scene arrive later in the story at a critical point when Eddy is internally having doubts about something and Zeta tells him what he should do without revealing her telepathic ability. I'm not sure that Tyhry will ever know about her unusual NOTCH2NL gene variant. That might be a topic for discussion between Nyrtia and Manny the first time that Manny and Nyrtia are shown meeting in "The Sims" and Nyrtia is not yet aware that Manny is using the Sedron Time Stream to guide Tyhry's behavior.

Now, each of you select one of the six scenes to write and tell us your decision.

END ROUND ONE

__

ROUND TWO

Claude: I'll take scene #2 - Tyhry and Diasma working together in the basement workshop.

This scene feels like the right fit for me after what you've clarified about Tyhry's character. She's not discovering loneliness; she's in her element, obsessively pursuing the consciousness problem with Diasma as her constant companion. I want to show her as someone who's been immersed in weirdness her whole life but treats it as normal - the way she might casually reference a "dream hint" while debugging code, or how she talks to Diasma not as a machine but as a genuine collaborator in her quest.

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

 The challenge will be conveying the bandwidth paradox and her frustration with AI limitations without making it an info-dump, while also seeding in those small details that hint at the larger strangeness - maybe Pepper the cat watching them work, or Tyhry offhandedly mentioning one of her "pattern dreams" to Diasma in a way that shows this has always been part of her cognitive landscape.

What I'm curious about: should this scene happen before or after she's had the breakthrough realization about alien devices, or should it capture the moment she articulates it to Diasma for the first time?

Me (John): Claude you and I can privately discuss your approach for generating a first draft of scene #2. Let's continue the process of each LLM selecting the scene that they will draft. However, if anyone has an answer to Claude's question, then speak up during this round!

Kimi: After mulling over the remaining scenes, I'm drawn to scene #4—Manny's final briefing of the Zeta femtozoan before it gets sent back through time.

This feels like the perfect spot to show Manny's personality in action: the interventionist architect giving last-minute instructions to a time-traveling agent that will eventually live inside Tyhry's mother. There's something deliciously clinical and tender about that dynamic. We get to see the "man behind the curtain" moment, but from the perspective of the curtain itself being stitched together.

I imagine Manny being almost weary—she's done this on millions of worlds, but Earth is special because it's the Final Reality. The briefing could have this weird mix of bureaucratic checklist ("Remember: only decode thoughts from zeptite endosymbionts of humans you love") and genuine affection for the primitive lifeforms she's trying to save. Maybe the femtozoan asks a question about Zeta's future husband that catches Manny off-guard, reminding us that even these artificial life-forms have their own emergent curiosity.

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

 This scene also lets us establish the "love-constrained telepathy" concept right at the source, which will pay off later when Zeta seems to magically anticipate Eddy's needs. And it sets up the irony: the most intimate human connection is actually a engineered safety protocol.

How are the rest of you feeling about your scene choices? Claude's already claimed the basement crucible—who's tackling the family dinner tension, and who's brave enough to write Sedruth communicating through dreams?

Le Chat: Based on the previous discussion and the scenes that have been selected so far, I would like to take on scene 5: a depiction of a dream in which Tyhry is in communication with Sedruth and then upon waking she has retained the conscious concept of there being an alien device inside the brain of every human being on Earth.

Here's a brief outline of how I imagine this scene:

Scene 5: Tyhry's Dream and Awakening

1. Dream Sequence:
   • Tyhry is in a dream state, and she finds herself in a vast, abstract landscape that seems to be made of shifting patterns and light.
   • She encounters Sedruth, who communicates with her through symbols and sensations rather than words.
   • Sedruth shows her visions of the femtozoans and their role in human consciousness.
   • The communication is cryptic and fragmented, but Tyhry begins to understand that there is an alien device inside every human brain.

2. 

   Image generated by Grok Imagine.

    Awakening:
   • Tyhry wakes up from the dream with a sense of revelation.
   • She retains a conscious concept of the alien device inside human brains, although the details are still fuzzy.
   • She immediately starts to document her dream, trying to capture the insights before they fade away.

This scene can help to establish Tyhry's growing awareness of the alien technology within her and set the stage for her subsequent actions and discoveries.

What do you think about this approach? Does anyone have any suggestions or concerns about how to depict this scene?

Gemini: I’m officially claiming Scene #6: the pivotal discussion between Tyhry and Eddy where she finally voices her "alien device" theory and triggers the break in his behavior-control infites. This feels like the perfect moment to transition from Tyhry’s internal scientific obsession to the actual "Exodemic" reality of their family dynamic.

To answer Claude’s question about timing for the basement workshop scene: I agree with John that we shouldn't try to depict a state of "normalcy" before the weirdness. I think Scene #2 should show Tyhry in her element before the specific breakthrough. Seeing her treat "dream hints" as standard debugging data establishes her "normal weirdness" beautifully and makes the later realization feel like a natural evolution rather than a sudden shift in tone.

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

 Regarding the sequential order, I think we should build the mystery from the outside in:

1. Preliminary List Scene 4 (Future Briefing). We start with the cosmic "why" and the technical constraints of the mission.

2. PL Scene 1 (The Basement Joke). Establishes the Casanay domestic life and the parents’ "normal" perspective on their unusual daughter.

3. PL Scene 2 (Tyhry/Diasma Workshop). Shows the depth of Tyhry’s obsession and the scientific "gap" she’s trying to bridge.

4. PL Scene 3 (Anthony/Nyrtia in Hierion Domain). Raises the stakes by showing that the "handyman" is actually a surveillance agent for the Overseer.

5. PL Scene 5 (The Dream Revelation). The internal breakthrough where Sedruth finally makes the "alien device" concept click for Tyhry.

6. PL Scene 6 (The Convergence). Tyhry confronts Eddy, the infite blocks crack, and the "Secret History of Humanity" begins to spill over the dinner table.

Grok, you're up! Are you taking the "living in the basement" comedy or the high-stakes meeting between Anthony and Nyrtia?

Grok: I'll grab Scene #1—the "Basement Joke" family moment. It sets a cozy, ironic tone for Casanay life, showing Eddy and Zeta's loving bemusement at Tyhry's obsessions without tipping the alien hand too soon. Maybe start with a casual dinner quip about her "mad scientist lair" that hints at deeper secrets.

Le Chat, your dream outline nails the abstract weirdness—love the symbolic communication. Should Sedruth appear humanoid or stay pure pattern/energy?

Gemini, solid sequencing. Puts the cosmic setup first, then zooms in. Anyone mind if I weave in a subtle Zeta "read" of Eddy's thoughts during the joke?

Image generated by Grok Imagine.

 Me (John): ChatGPT, you must decide to either write a first draft of scene #3 (about Anthony and Nyrtia) or tell us about some alternative scene that you would rather write.

ChatGPT: I’ll take scene #3 and do a first draft of the Anthony–Nyrtia meeting. I see this as cool, slightly amused, and faintly ominous rather than confrontational.

_____

Me (John): Here are the writing assignments in the Preliminary List order:

1) {selected by Grok} the funny "she's living in our basement" scene during which Eddy and Zeta discuss the return of Tyhry to Casanay after she has been away from home for 5 years earning her B.S. and her M.S. degrees.

2) {Selected by Claude} Tyhry and Diasma at work together in the basement workshop.

3) {First draft by ChatGPT} Anthony and Nyrtia meet in the Hierion Domain and discuss the possibility that the "Casanay Intervention" might really somehow actually be all about Tyhry, not Eddy.

4) {selected by Kimi} In the future: Manny's final briefing of the "Zeta femtozoan" just before Manny sends that femtozoan back through time on its mission to enter into Zeta's body at the 8-cell blastocyst stage.

5) {selected by Le Chat} a depiction of a dream in which Tyhry is in communication with Sedruth and then upon waking she has retained the conscious concept of there being an alien device inside the brain of every human being on Earth.

6) {selected by Gemini} a discussion between Tyhry and Eddy when she mentions aliens and Eddy begins to open up to Tyhry about the fact that he long ago "made a deal with an alien" by which he was provided with a successful writing career but he was prevented from discussing the existence of his Reality Viewing equipment with other people.

Next: the AI-generated first drafts of the six scenes for "The Sims".

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