Wiki Fiction: The Clones of Tiz

Feb 24, 2026

The Clones of Tiz

Late in 2025 (see my blog post "Return to Picacho") I began creating a new science fiction story titled "Plūribus ē Spatium" that was intended to include an example of interstellar teleportation, achieved in the Final Reality. For "Plūribus ē Spatium", I imagine that the Phari long ago placed a long-range teleportation system on Earth for use by Interventionist agents such as the Grendels. The first two chapters of "Plūribus ē Spatium" concern the solving of two problems by Tyhry Watson: 1) Tyhry obtains a set of infites from her father that she hopes will function as a "key" that can activate the long-range teleportation equipment and 2) Tyhry learns from Manny the bumpha that the planet Tiz is home to the tryp'At clones of her dream visions.

Due to Tyhry's access to information from her future self that arrives by way of the Sedron Time Stream, Tyhry believes that she will, in the future, reach the distant exoplanet Tiz, a world populated by tryp'At hermaphrodites. Chapter 1 of "Plūribus ē Spatium" is in my December 21st 2025 blog post "Station Y".

Image by Leonardo.

In Part 1 of "Plūribus ē Spatium", Tyhry has a brief session with Manny the bumpha in the Casanay hot tub. Tyhry learns from Manny the name of the exoplanet that that is the home world of a set of tryp'At clones: Tiz. Tyhry's encounter with Manny leads Tyhry to develop a plan for extracting stored infites from the body of her father, Eddy. Tyhry hopes that those infites can provide her with the ability to activated the long-range teleportation equipment that is located in the secret Phari facility under Picacho Peak.

In Part 2 of "Plūribus ē Spatium", Tyhry gets help from Zeta, her mother, and Nora. While Zeta and Nora distract Eddy, Tyhry uses her hierion field generator to extract a set of infites from Eddy. During a four-way telepathic hookup between Eddy, Zeta, Nora and Tyhry, Tyhry gets help from Eddy's femtozoan to extract a set of infites that had long ago been stored in Eddy by Ivory Fersoni's femtobot replicoid, Yrovi.

Image by Leonardo.

In those infites is a reference to a femtobot replicoid copy of a Grendel who is living in Arizona under the name "E. F. Young". Tyhry hopes that Young might be able to locate the teleportation coordinates for Tiz, but Young can't find Tiz in the teleportation directory. When they are inside the teleportation facility, a set of telepathic tryp'At clones arrives by teleportation from Tiz: the Ary. The Ary know that Tiz is located in the Galactic Core and so Tyhry prepares to use the interstellar spacecraft Hyse to take the Ary to Tiz. Tyhry begins to learn about the special biology of the Ary and the fact that each of the 8 clone sisters will soon have four femtozoans in their bodies.

Early in January 2026, I set "Plūribus ē Spatium" aside and completed the story "Downgrade". On January 14th I began creating a new science fiction story titled "The Sims". Finally, on February 14th, I began making plans for Chapter 3 of "Plūribus ē Spatium".

Image by WOMBO Dream.

During the voyage to Tiz, Tyhry re-activates the Grendel femtozoan that Ely placed inside Trib the cat. On Tiz, Tyhry obtains 3 "free" femtozoans and takes them to Earth. The Ary are going to depart from Tiz and colonize a new previously uninhabited exoplanet: Asha. HySe takes Ary to Asha while Tyhry is teleported back to Earth.

In preparation for Part 3 of "Plūribus ē Spatium", I asked Gemini for some information about words on the ancient Proto-Indo-European language...

Me: What is the historical origin and etymology of the English language word "Earth"?

Gemini: The word Earth has a deep linguistic lineage that stretches back several millennia, tracing a path from modern English through the Germanic family and ultimately back to the foundational roots of the Proto-Indo-European language.

The Germanic Foundations

The modern English word "Earth" evolved from the Middle English erthe, which in turn derived from the Old English eorþe. In the Old English period (c. 450–1100 CE), eorþe referred to the ground, the soil, the dry surface of the world, or the world as the dwelling place of mortals (as opposed to the heavens or the underworld).

Image generated by Grok.

The word is a common Germanic inheritance, with cognates appearing across the language family:

Old Frisian: erthe
Old Saxon: ertha
Old Norse: jörð
Old High German: erda (Modern German Erde)
Gothic: airþa

These all point toward a reconstructed Proto-Germanic root: *erþō.

Image by WOMBO Dream.

The Proto-Indo-European Roots

Going back even further—likely between 4,500 and 2,500 BCE—linguists trace the word to the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language.

The origin is generally attributed to the PIE root *er-, which carried the meaning of "earth" or "ground." Some scholars suggest a more specific extended form, *er-t- or *er-d-.

The "Arable" Connection: There is significant debate regarding whether this root is connected to another PIE root, *ar-, meaning "to plow." If this connection holds, the original conceptualization of "Earth" was specifically "the land that is plowed" or "the soil that yields food."
Cognates in Other Branches: While the specific er-t suffix is most prominent in Germanic, possible distant relatives include the Greek era (earth/ground) and the Welsh erw (an acre or a piece of land).

Semantic Evolution

Image by Leonardo.

Historically, "Earth" was not used as a proper noun to describe a planet in the astronomical sense until much later.

Soil/Substance: Originally, it described the material underfoot—dirt and clay.
The World: It transitioned to mean the "dry land" of the world (the "terra firma").
The Planet: It was only with the development of the heliocentric model and modern astronomy that "Earth" was elevated to a proper noun (often capitalized) to represent our specific celestial body among others like Mars or Jupiter.

Note on Mythology: Unlike the names of other planets in our solar system (Mars, Venus, Saturn), which were derived from Roman deities, "Earth" is the only planet name in English that is of purely Germanic/Indo-European origin rather than Latin or Greek.

Comparison of Etymological Layers

Period	Form	Meaning
Proto-Indo-European	*er-	Ground, soil
Proto-Germanic	*erþō	Land, soil, world
Old English	eorþe	Ground, dry land, the world
Middle English	erthe	The world, the soil
Modern English	Earth	The planet, the ground

Me: Is there any known linguistic relationship between "Tizh Tizh" {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizh_Tizh} and Tis {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tis,_Iran}?

Image generated by Grok.

Gemini: Based on current historical and linguistic research, there is a strong connection between the village of Tis and the historical name Tiz, though the specific phrase "Tizh Tizh" appears to be a separate, more niche designation.

1. The Relationship Between Tis and Tiz

The relationship between Tis (the modern village in the Chabahar County of Iran) and Tiz (the historical port) is well-documented and direct.

Historical Continuity: The village of Tis is the modern successor to the ancient and medieval port of Tiz. Historically, the name was consistently recorded as Tiz (or Tīz).
Image by WOMBO Dream.
Evolution of the Name:
- Classical Times: The site was known to the Greeks during Alexander the Great's campaign. It has been associated with the name Tesa in Ptolemy's writings.
- Medieval Period: During the Islamic Golden Age, it was a flourishing commercial port on the Makran coast, appearing in the works of geographers like Al-Biruni and Al-Muqaddasi as Tiz.
- Phonetic Shift: The shift from Tiz to Tis is a common phonetic evolution in the regional dialects (Balochi and Persian influence), where the voiced alveolar fricative /z/ often shifts to the voiceless /s/ over centuries of local usage.

2. "Tizh Tizh" and Linguistic Origins

Image by Leonardo.

Regarding the specific term "Tizh Tizh", it is essential to distinguish between the geographical name and the linguistic root:

The "Tiz" Root: In Middle Persian and earlier Old Iranian, roots like tiz or tēž (related to the modern Persian tiz meaning "sharp" or "swift") are common.
The Wikipedia Entry: The Wikipedia entry for "Tizh Tizh" typically refers to a specific cultural or mythological context or a minor geographical feature. In some Iranian dialects, "Tizh" or "Tiz" refers to a "sharp peak" or "cliff," which accurately describes the rugged, mountainous topography surrounding the village of Tis.
Repetition (Reduplication): The doubling of the word (Tizh Tizh) is a common feature in Indo-Iranian languages to denote emphasis, plurality, or a specific characteristic of the landscape (e.g., "many sharp peaks").

Summary of Etymological Layers

Following your interest in deep historical origins:

Period	Form	Significance
Old Iranian / Avestan	*tiga-	Root meaning "sharp" or "pointed."
Middle Persian (Pahlavi)	tēž / tēz	Sharp, swift; often used for peaks or promontories.
Sasanian/Early Islamic	Tiz (Tīz)	The primary name for the port, likely referring to the sharp cliffs nearby.
Modern Balochi/Persian	Tis	The current phonetic iteration of the ancient port's name.

Image generated by Grok.

Conclusion: Tis and Tiz are the same entity at different points in history. The term Tizh is the dialectal/archaic variation of that same root. While "Tizh Tizh" may refer to a specific landmark or a poetic description of the area's geography, it shares the same foundational Iranian root (*tiga-) as the town of Tis.

Me: For a science fiction story set in the far future: invent a fictional explanation for why a particular Earth-like habitable exoplanet was named Tiz by the human beings who settled on the planet.

Gemini: In this future history, the name Tiz is not a random syllable, but a "phonetic fossil" that survived a grueling interstellar migration.

The Fictional Origin of Planet Tiz

1. The "Project Tiga" Hypothesis (The Scientific Origin)

Image by WOMBO Dream.

In the early days of the Great Expansion, the planet was cataloged by an automated scout ship as T-IG-A 0907 (Terrestrial-grade, Iron-core, Gravitationally-Analogous). Among the specialized nanotech-engineers and terraforming crews, the designation was colloquially shortened to Tiga.

As centuries passed and the "Old Tongue" (Modern English/Persian) drifted into archaic dialects, the final vowel was dropped in a process of linguistic apocope. The settlers, descendants of a multi-ethnic diaspora that included a significant population of Iranian aerospace engineers, naturally gravitated toward the ancient root *tiga-, meaning "sharp" or "pointed."

2. The Topographic Reality

The planet is characterized by an extreme axial tilt, resulting in "The Great Spire" mountains—obsidian-glass peaks that pierce the upper stratosphere. These peaks were so visually dominant that the settlers revived the Middle Persian term Tēž (sharp/swift) to describe the landscape.

Image by Leonardo.

Over a millennium of isolation, the voiced "z" sound hardened. By the time the planet established a sovereign government, the official spelling had stabilized as Tiz.

3. The "Tizh Tizh" Folklore (The Cultural Origin)

The most popular legend among the planet’s "Deep-Time" archivists (who utilize technology-assisted telepathy to share ancestral memories) is the story of the Twin Echoes.

The planet’s atmosphere is unusually dense at sea level, causing a unique acoustic phenomenon near the coastal cliffs. Early scouts reported hearing a rhythmic, metallic "shimmering" sound produced by wind vibrating through crystalline rock formations. They recorded this sound as "Tizh... Tizh..." in their logs.

"We didn't name the world; the world whispered its name to us through the stone, a sharp, sibilant warning: Tizh Tizh." — Journal of Archon Valerius, First Landing.

Summary of Etymological Drift in the Story

Era	Designation	Rationale
Expansion Era	T-IG-A 0907	Technical alphanumeric cataloging.
Settlement Era	Tiga / Tēž	Cultural revival of the Iranian root for "sharp/pointed."
The Isolation	Tizh Tizh	Onomatopoeic folklore based on planetary acoustics.
Far Future	Tiz	The refined, monosyllabic Modern Standard name.

Integration into your Sci-Fi World

Image generated by Grok.

In your story, perhaps the nanotechnology used to stabilize the planet's "sharp" crust is actually failing, and the "Tizh Tizh" whispers are growing louder—a telepathic signal being picked up by the settlers that suggests the planet's original name was more than just a coincidence.

According to the Zoroastrian creation myth, Gayōmart, who was neither male nor female, was the first human {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyumars}.

For "Plūribus ē Spatium", the story includes the idea that some femtobot replicoid tryp'At lived on Earth in ancient times: the Arya. {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arya_(Iran)}. The Phari Interventionists intended that these non-biological tryp'At would first displace the ancestral humans of Earth, then be replaced by biological tryp'At in conventional human form. When the tryp'At Intervention was blocked by the pek, remnant traditions persisted among the local humans {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism}.

Image by WOMBO Dream.

Me: What is the linguistic relationship between "Gayōmart" and "Keyumars" {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyumars}?

Gemini: The relationship between Gayōmart and Keyumars is one of direct linguistic succession. They are the same name, preserved through different stages of the Iranian languages over several millennia.

In the context of Persian mythology, this figure represents the "First Man," and the evolution of the name mirrors the phonological shifts from the sacred ancient texts to modern Persian literature.

1. The Ancient Origin: Avestan

The name originates in the Avesta, the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism (composed roughly between 1500 and 500 BCE).

Image by Leonardo.

The original Avestan form is Gaya Marətan.

Gaya: Derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *gʷei- ("to live"). It means "life" or "vital force."
Marətan: Derived from the PIE root *mer- ("to die"). It means "mortal" or "dying."

Literally, the name translates to "Mortal Life" or "Living Mortal," signifying the first human being who, unlike the immortal sparks of the divine, was subject to the cycle of time and death.

2. The Middle Period: Pahlavi (Middle Persian)

As the Iranian languages transitioned into Middle Persian (approx. 300 BCE – 800 CE), the two distinct Avestan words fused into a single compound.

Image by WOMBO Dream.

The form became Gayōmart (or Gayōmard).

The hiatus between the two Avestan words was closed.
The final "-an" suffix was dropped or assimilated.
In Pahlavi texts (such as the Bundahishn), Gayōmart is depicted as the cosmic progenitor from whose body the metals of the earth and the seeds of humanity grew upon his death.

3. The Modern Period: New Persian

Following the Islamic conquest and the further evolution of the Persian language into its "New Persian" form (c. 9th century CE onwards), the name underwent further phonetic softening and stabilization.

Image generated by Grok.

The form became Keyumars (or Kayumarth).

G → K: The initial voiced velar plosive /g/ shifted to the voiceless /k/ in many dialects and transcriptions.
ayō → eyu: The diphthong shifted toward the more modern "eyu" or "ayu" sound.
marta → mars: The "t" sound was lost or transformed into a sibilant /s/ through Arabic script influence or regional phonetic drifting.

This is the version popularized by Ferdowsi in the Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), where Keyumars is reimagined not just as the first man, but as the first King of the World who lived in the mountains and taught humanity how to dress in leopard skins.

Summary of Phonetic Evolution

Stage	Language	Form	Literal Meaning
Old Iranian	Avestan	Gaya Marətan	Life Mortal
Middle Iranian	Pahlavi	Gayōmart	The First Man (Cosmic)
New Iranian	Modern Persian	Keyumars	The First King (Mythic)

Image generated by Grok.

___

Back in December, I ended Chapter 2 of "Plūribus ē Spatium" by introducing the unusual biology of the tryp'At of Tiz. Mentioned without much emphasis in Chapter 2 was the fact that Ely the Grendel placed some infites inside of Trib the cat. In Chapter 3, it is revealed that those infites provide Tyhry with historical insights into how the Grendels of Earth assisted in a past Phari Intervention during which some tyrp'At gene patterns were introduced into the human population of Earth. During the long space flight from Earth to Tiz, Thyry learns about that Phari Intervention.

Tyhry is told that Zoroastrianism is a remnant from a past Intervention around the year 2000 B.C.E. when the Grendels helped introduce some tryp'At gene patterns into the human population of Earth.

Main image by Grok.
Tyhry by WOMBO Dream.

When the tryp'At who were involved in that ancient Intervention were taken off of Earth, they were placed on a planet of the Galactic Core which they named Tiz. Now the Ary clones have been tasked by Manny with helping Tyhry colonize another Earth-like exoplanet (Asha), a world that can be used as a laboratory for introducing a social structure with technology-assisted telepathy into a population of humans. HySe transports the Ary and a long-range teleportation terminal from Tiz to Asha.

Upon reaching Tiz, Tyhry is teleported back to Earth and she invites the human residents of Observer Base to help colonize Asha. Alexina and Amiante are among those living at Observer Base who join Roxzel on Asha. Thyry says good-bye to her parents and teleports with Marda to Asha.

Videos for "Plūribus ē Spatium".

Video frame by Grok.

I used Grok to generate some videos (see below). Image text prompt: "A pretty female humanoid robot and a very young woman in the year 2300, the woman is being teleported, she has long red hair, tall and slender, the woman is wearing a futuristic glowing jumpsuit of sparkling silk lace, the female robot is at the teleportation control panel, the background is the interior of a futuristic laser research laboratory". For the videos, I used text prompts such as: "The woman has been teleported and she materializes inside the laboratory on the teleportation pad and then she hugs the robot while the robot says, 'Ary is completing long-range teleportation from planet Tiz'."

The Ary are a set of 8 cloned tryp'At. The tryp'At of Tiz are a human variant with unusual biology that is described in the science fiction story titled "Plūribus ē Spatium".

video frame by Grok

As seen in the set of video clips that are in the five minute-long video, above, Grok seemed to enjoy depicting teleportation events that involve spinning, jumping and plenty of flying hair. Although the robots were all depicted as having female body forms, in some of the video clips the voice of the robot seems male. In some cases, Grok added extra spoken dialog such as, "It worked! I'm here", "I made it" and "It's good to be back".

The next video, below, has only three of the 50 video clips that are shown above. In the first of the three video clips, the control console seems to give an indication that the teleportation is complete. In the second clip, I can imagine that some infites are transferred from Ary to the robot. The third clip was the one that mentions Tyhry by name (I don't agree with the the pronunciation of 'Tyhry' that Grok used).

Whisk

Whisk video frame.

I don't really like the way Grok depicts humanoid robots, but at least in some of these short Grok-generated video clips (above) the robot is given a human-like face rather than a plastic mask.

The video shown below was generated by Whisk. I started with the Wombo Dream and ImageFX-generated subject, scene and style images that are shown to the left.

My initial text prompt with Whisk was "The subject is a tall slender young blond woman standing in the foreground lower right and she is looking over the cement wall at the water flowing by in the channel." For the videos I used text prompts such as, "The woman lowers herself off of the retaining wall and into the water and walks through the water to the other side of the channel, she climbs out of the water and then begins walking towards the distant building."

Image generated by Whisk.

In the third of the Whisk-generated video clips shown above, I expected her to go to the other side of the water channel, but Whisk had another idea. For the first video clip in this set, my original text prompt specified that she should take off her dress before jumping in the water, but the puritanical Whisk refused to generated that scene.

For the 5th video clip, I could not get Whisk to generate any video that involved the woman moving.

Image generated by Grok.

The video clips shown below were generated by Grok. I began with the following text prompt for images: "A young woman with a house cat, the woman is seen in profile view, the woman has long wavy blond hair, the woman is looking at the ceiling, the woman is laying on her back, the woman is laying on a bed, a cat is laying on the chest of the woman, luxurious futuristic bedroom interior in the background" As shown to the left, in some of the Grok-generated images Tyhry was distracted by Trib and did not look at the ceiling.

Video frame by Grok.

For the Grok-generated video clips, I used text prompts such as: "The cat jumps off of the woman then the woman follows the cat to the door of the room while she tells the cat, 'The femtozoan of Ely the Grendel is inside Trib the cat'." In one of the Grok-generated videos, Tyhry followed Trib the cat to a window then she went right through the wall and the window and ended up outside the window, standing on a ledge and looking back in at the cat.

For the video frame that is shown to the right, the video prompt was: "The cat jumps off of the woman then the woman follows the cat to the window while she tells the cat, “The femtozoan of Ely the Grendel is inside Trib the cat."

The Grok-generated video clips shown below were not uploaded to YouTube.

Image generated by Grok.

The two Grok-generated videos shown below combine teleportation with a femtozoan. I began with the following text prompt for images: "A young woman with long red hair inside a futuristic physics laboratory, floating directly in front of her face at eye level is a perfectly spherical, translucent green orb about the size of a tennis ball, glowing with an inner luminescence, at her right shoulder is a shimmering, sparkling mist-like cloud creating wisps and tendrils of luminous matter, the background features an intricate array of advanced scientific equipment." An example of the Grok-generated images is shown to the right.

For the Grok-generated video clips, I used: "The woman materializes, having been teleported into the physics laboratory then she grabs the green orb and runs away while she says, 'Teleportation successful. I have the femtozoan. Ready to return to base'." I was surprised by the wide variation in pronunciation of the words "teleportation" and "femtozoan" in these short video clips.