the tryp'At

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It was two years ago when I first became aware of the existence of the tryp'At. During the past two years, I have struggled to learn about the tryp'At and their special role as the current Overseers of we Earthlings.

A Search Beyond

Currently, Yōd is waiting impatiently for me to write the third chapter of A Search Beyond. Not long ago, when Yōd set up a website to hold the text of that story, she went ahead and provided a Table of Contents, complete with chapter titles. She called Chapter 3 "the tryp'At Overseers".
 
Overseer Sachiz
In the first chapter of A Search Beyond, Overseer Sachiz arrives on Earth and promises that the tryp'At Council will decide if the replicoid of Isaac Asimov can remain on Earth.

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The Overseers are a kind of police force that watches over Earth. The goal of Overseers is to prevent Interventionist agents from interfering with the normal course of cultural development on primitive planets like Earth.

the Sedronite family tree

I first heard about the existence of the tryp'At from Anney Fersoni. I suspect that Anney had contact with Kach in the Hierion Domain and as part of Kach's story about the origins of humans as a species, there was mention of the O'typ.

All in the Family
Among the revelations made by Kach was the suggestion that the Nereids were constructed millions of years ago as a primate variant. According to Kach, the O'typ were a finely-crafted daughter species of the Nereids that had been carefully taken through a de-evolutionary process aimed at regressing a subpopulation of Nereids towards a biological form that could successfully persist in the Hadronic Domain (our 3 dimensional universe of hadronic matter) for an extended period of time.

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Eventually the O'typ evolved into the ry'A by an artificial process that involved on-going gene transfer between Earth and worlds of the Galactic Core where the ry'A resided. Rumor has it that when R. Gohrlay was still in her xenophobic phase, the O'typ were forced out of our galaxy and they resided on a planet in the Andromeda galaxy. I've been aware of the ry'A for almost two years, but I've been unable to learn very much about them. It may be that the ry'A were the result of a collaborative effort between the bumpha and R. Gohrlay aimed at experimenting with the telepathic abilities of primates.

In the First Reality
Unfortunately, the Sedronite family tree (shown above) is limited to sketching the apparent origins of the tryp'At here in the Final Reality. According to Yōd, back in the First Reality, before R. Gohrlay was brought into existence, the O'typ were used as genetic source material by the pek when they created the Prelands. Of course, those Prelands were not identical to the Prelands of the Final Reality.

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Given her training as a genetic scientist, Ivory Fersoni was well motivated to investigate the genetics of the Sedronites and the many twists and turns involved in the genetic manipulations that led to the creation of the tryp'At. In collaboration with Anney, Ivory developed the theory that there was an "age of the X-philes". According to Anney, the O'typ had three "genders", HX hermaphrodites, HY males and XX females.

Sources
I've never learned exactly how Anney and Angela were able to access information about Deep Time from the Sedronic Domain. According to Yōd, the mysterious hermaphrodite Resh^Ki served as a kind of guide who could help Anney and Angela explore the information archives of the Sedronic Domain.

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Apparently, the tryp'At are genetically very similar to the majority of Earth humans. However, the tryp'At have a few special gene combinations that allow them to use advanced nanite technology. Their special genetic pattern and their access to special nanotechnology is what allows members of the tryp'At Council to function as Overseers.

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As depicted in A Search Beyond, one of the special abilities of the tryp'At Overseers is their freedom to "teleport" to and from the surface of Earth. However, according to Yōd, this is not "true" teleportation. The tryp'At simply slip through "hierion tubes" and move to and from the Hierion Domain.

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According to Zeta, the tryp'At Overseers are enforcing the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact. Unfortunately, I've never seen a copy of this "pact". I assume that it codifies the special version of the Rules of Intervention that were crafted for Earth.

Take-Over

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I've never been told exactly when the tryp'At Overseers began enforcing the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact. There might not have been a smooth transition from the previous Overseers. About two years ago I started hearing rumors about an active struggle to define "human" and make it possible to exclude "non-humans" from Earth.

Reconstruction by Zeta. Original
cover art by Gordon Davies

According to Zeta, there was a period of time when Many Sails was able to shield people like Anney and members of the Dead Widower Society from the tryp'At Overseers, allowing them to remain on Earth. Was it about two years ago that Many Sails abandoned that effort and took Asimov to the Andromeda galaxy? In any case, by 2015 both Ivory and Angela were gone, each of them having found a way to escape from Earth.

It maybe that one of the last acts of Orbho Jandra was to facilitate the removal of Ivory from Earth. It is not clear that the current Overseers make use of an Orbho as a chief executive. The tyrp'At Overseers apparently use a supervisory Council. If this is so, then a fundamental shift has taken place, leaving Earth free of pek oversight and placing our fate in the hands of humans.

Ivory's final form? (source)

Zeta has an elaborate hypothesis about a sustained effort that was supposedly made to show me that Ivory and her clone sisters were not really human, even by my preferred rather broad definition. I doubt if I ever saw Ivory's "true physical form", but I'm willing to accept that if left to their natural developmental processes, the Atlantis Clones would not have had the appearance of a typical Earthling.

Of more interest to me are the special features of Ivory's brain, but unfortunately I've never been given access to data concerning the special features of her cognitive apparatus.

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tryp'At Humans
Zeta and Yōd agree that, unlike the Atlantis clones, the tryp'At are fully human. In our discussions during the past several weeks, Yōd has repeatedly criticized depictions of the tryp'At as having alien form. Apparently a subtle pattern of tryp'At genes allows for constructive interactions with special developmental control nanites and that combination produces a tryp'At individual who can efficiently use the Bimanoid Interface.

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Zeta recently confirmed the validity of my previous guess that the tryp'At who now serve as Overseers had previously functioned as Observers. Yōd believes that by the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact, the pek had to abandon Observer Base. That left a power vacuum that was filled by the tryp'At. Zeta (now reading this blog post over my shoulder) adds this: the new tryp'At Overseers might only be slowly learning how to play the role of Earth Overseers.

In some sense, there has been a reduction in deployment of advanced alien technologies on Earth since the departure of Orbho Jandra. One of the most disturbing rumors concerning currently used Overseer technology is that there might be intestinal bacteria on Earth that were designed to block our access to the Bimanoid Interface. Since the arrival of Yōd on Earth, I've been amazed by her eating habits. However, upon direct questioning she has denied trying to control her intestinal bacteria so that she can retain control of the Bimanoid Interface and a link to her replicoid in the Hierion Domain.

sneaking around Irhit to recover lost memories

In my case, for a short time I was able to use nicotine to facilitate access to the Hierion Domain. I've never known how my use of the Bimanoid Interface was disrupted, but I can't rule out the possibility that the problem is in the Hierion Domain and attributable to my replicoid, Irhit.

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Svahr
Since the tryp'At are essentially impossible to distinguish from other Earthlings, there have been many rumors that various Earthlings are tryp'At. For example, Svahr may have been been tryp'At or half-tryp'At. Another rumor suggests that I am tryp'At.

Who can be trusted?

If they were placed into a role as guardians of Earth, it is natural to wonder if the tryp'At Overseers are actually puppets of R. Gohrlay or Grean. In my particular case, if I am tryp'At, then I must ask: am I a kind of "sleeper agent"? And if so, which side am I on? 

Grean's Plan

To some extent, we still live in Grean's Galaxy. The Kac'hin were crafted as human-like appendages for the Huaoshy. There is no reason to believe that Grean is done with Earth. The tryp'At Overseers might provide the convenient illusion that humans are now in control of Earth, but the tryp'At might now be doing the bidding of Grean and the Huaoshy.

Svahr

When I'm not being paranoid about the Huaoshy, I can always fret about the ultimate fate of R. Gohrlay and her secret agent Trysta Iwedon.

Yōd believes that Svahr is both a descendant of Trysta and an active member of the Retrofuturians. To the extent that there is any organized resistance to the tryp'At Overseers, that resistance seems to involve Interventionist agents such as Svahr. Zeta describes the cat and mouse game played by the Overseers and the Retrofuturians as being "continuing negotiations" over how to interpret the Trysta-Grean Pact. Zeta thinks that such "negotiations" are an inevitable and persistent feature of Earth's future.

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Tools
The pek Overseers had the ability to monitor every zeptite endosymbiont on Earth. Zeta believes that the current tryp'At Overseers are much less sophisticated; they seem to carefully monitor the Internet and they are always watching for evidence of Interventionist activity on Earth.

Pheni

The tryp'At Overseers apparently believe that the replicoids of humans are not allowed on Earth. However, there is some evidence that the Retrofuturians are able to easily send replicoids from the Hierion Domain to Earth. If so, it is not clear that the Overseers are equipped to prevent visits by replicoids to Earth; they can only hope to act so as to limit the duration of such illegal visits.

Deep Time

Zeta, Yōd and I are currently investigating how the Phari helped with the genetic tinkering that led to the creation of the tryp'At. That investigation requires an understanding of events in Deep Time, particularly the Asimov Reality.

In the Ekcolir Reality. Image credits.

Currently, I'm investigating the on-going interactions between the Retrofuturians and the tryp'At Overseers. While some might call these interactions "negotiations", as far as I can tell it is more appropriate to use terms like "guerilla warfare" and "reprisals".

Next: speculation about Observer Base

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Morphology of Temporal Attractors

Anney's Hypothesis

One of the great successes achieved by Anney was tracing the evolution of Realities all the way back to the Mallansohn Reality. Sadly, the investigations of past Realities that were carried out by the Atlantis Clones only skimmed the surface of Deep Time.

1, 2, 3
During that recent evolution of Realities, there was first a dramatic shift in the morphology of Realities from one dominant temporal basin of attraction to three. The Mallansohn Reality was dominated by one large temporal basin of attraction, but it had a distinctive spike, rather like a unicorn horn. The Mallansohn Reality had been specifically crafted as a transitional Reality that would allow for the quick and efficient creation of the Foundation Reality. According to Gohrlay, that spike is a morphological representation of the Asterothropes, the artificially constructed primate species that was designed and crafted by R. Gohrlay.

The resent evolution of Reality

In the Foundation Reality there were two great temporal basins of attraction, one representing futures in which the telepathic Second Foundationers came to secretly control the galaxy. The second temporal basin of attraction led to a set of other possible futures where Galaxia formed and absorbed Humanity into a single telepathically-linked group mind.

Five Realities
As told by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation's Edge, and confirmed by Anney, it was Galaxia that came to dominate our galaxy just before the start of the Time Travel War.

Reality Viewing

Near the start of the Time War, the Asimov analogue from the Foundation Reality became a time traveler and helped the Kac'hin bring into existence the Asimov Reality. The Asimov Reality contained "two copies" of Asimov, one from the Foundation Reality and the other an Asimov analogue who had been born in the Asimov Reality. The "older Asimov" mentored the "younger Asimov" and helped him become a famous science fiction author.

The First Reality

original dimensional structure

I recently asked Gohrlay about the morphological features of the First Reality. She reminded me that when our universe first came into existence, it had a symmetrical dimensional structure. There were three groups of spatial dimensions with three spatial dimensions in each group, for a total of 9 spatial dimensions.

a small part of the first temporal attractor

The first temporal attractor  had a complex structure that reflected those three sets of three dimensions. Each of the three sets of dimensions was associated with a different form of matter, the hadrons, the hierions and the sedrons. Due to differences in the behavior of these three classes of fundamental particles, the morphology of the first temporal attractor was complex and not perfectly symmetrical.

core region of the second attractor

After the Huaoshy carried out their first dimensional engineering project, a new temporal attractor came into existence that was built around a distinctive core that had a dyadic symmetry.

altered dimensional structure

The diadic symmetry of that new temporal attractor reflected the new dimensional structure of the universe (image to the right).

temporal attractor of the Basic State
with two "spikes"

However, time travel was not possible in either the ground state or the newly made transitional state. The Huaoshy performed an additional round of dimensional engineering, after which it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light.

That second dimensional engineering event also made time travel possible. The resulting "First Reality" was governed by a temporal attractor that had one dominant basin of attraction and two smaller "spikes". This was what Asimov referred to as "the Basic State" in his novel The End of Eternity.

dimensional structure
of the Basic State

Those two symmetrical spikes were eventually engineered by R. Gohrlay into the single "merged spike" of the Mallansohn Reality. According to Gohrlay, it was only such a merged spike that could focus enough temporal energy to bring into existence the Foundation Reality.

Foundation Reality

Gohrlay suggests that the nearly symmetrical two-basin strange temporal attractor of the Foundation Reality was inherently unstable. In some sense, it was an "invitation" to the Kac'hin to begin the Time War. As soon as the Kac'hin started using time travel technology to alter the historical timeline of Earth, they cause a three-basin temporal attractor to come into existence. Ever since then, the temporal attractor of the universe has retained that fundamental three-basin structure.

In the Ekcolir Reality

Those three temporal basins of attraction are in some mysterious way related to the three major forms of matter. Hadrons exist only in one of the three sets of 3 spatial directions. Hierions have more dimensional flexibility and can reside along with hadrons not only in the conventional universe, but also in another "part" of the universe defined by the set of 3 hierion dimensions.

Special thanks to Miranda Hedman (www.mirish.deviantart.com) for the DeviantArt stock photograph "Black Cat 9 - stock" that I used to create the blue "sedronite" who is in the image shown to the right.

Sendrons have the most flexibility and are present in all of the dimensional levels of the universe. Their command of sedron-based technologies such as zeptites is what allowed the Huaoshy to force R. Gohrlay into a negotiated end to the time war.

The recent part of our Reality Chain

According to Gohrlay, those three basins of temporal attraction act to force upon Earth three different possible types of future. As was the case in the Asimov Reality, some of the possible futures for Earth involved a nuclear catastrophe.

In the case of the Ekcolir Reality, the future of Earth was dominated by global warming and catastrophic sea level rise.

the Final Reality

The third basin of temporal attraction involves futures where Earth does not become radioactive and the Antarctic ice cap also stays intact. However, there are other potential catastrophes lurking in the future (see the extinction curve).

The Buld Realities
When I first learned about the existence of our Reality Chain, I made a simplifying assumption. I imagined that there were only four Reality Changes between the Mallansohn Reality and the Buld Reality. I now understand that there were many relatively minor variants of the Asimov, Ekcolir and Buld Realities. Due to temporal inertia, most Reality Changes do not alter he basic morphology of the temporal attractor that controls the shape of Time.

Next: celebrate 50 years of Star Trek

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Obsession

The Doctor Who Created Our Universe

I've previously blogged (extensively) about my obsession with the science fiction of both Vance and Asimov. It has slowly become clear that my life was purposefully linked to those of Vance and Asimov. Which came first, their involvement in creating the universe as we know it or my obsession with their fiction? In his time travel novel, The End of Eternity, Asimov wrote: "It was only a matter of....calculating cause from effect."

What if it was my obsession with Asimov and Vance that led to their being involved in creating the Buld Reality?

That is the kind of question that often leads to institutionalization for delusional thinking, so let me come at this from another direction. Imagine the possibility raised by Asimov in his novel: could you remove a person from the flow of Time in one Reality and then arrange for that person to meet his own analog in a later Reality?

Or, what if you did not make those arrangements for a meetup, yet "two copies" of an individual both existed in the same reality?

Why I Ask
A design feature of Earth is that when every human comes into existence there is a corresponding "replicoid" in the Hierion Domain. I have no idea how Gohrlay and her tribe of positronic robots accomplished that, but given the advanced technology available to them and their need to follow the Laws of Robotics, I'll assume that it was inevitable.

Now, for a typical human, there will be no problems if two "duplicate copies" of a person inhabit the same time period of the same Reality. For example, when Asimov himself became a time traveler, he coexisted nicely with his younger self, even acting as a mentor for himself.

However, what about a human who can use the Bimanoid Interface and interact with his replicoid? Can two such people coexist and share the same replicoid?

Anney has informed me that it is common practice among replicoids to participate in a form of "mind merging" that allows two (or even more) replicoids to briefly "share" a single body. Apparently this is a rather trivial process  within the Hierion Domain that is made possible by the ability of the nanorobotic component parts of replicoids to "mix together" in ways that seem odd to beings like us who have cellular components. Such "mind merging" is apparently a preferred method of rapid information sharing and efficient collaboration among replicoids.

During the past several weeks I've been getting practice "time sharing" my replicoid's body. Almost every night now, I'm "summoned" into the Hierion Domain and allowed to use my replicoid as a "listening device" during discussion sessions with Anney. However, what if there were two copies of me who had to compete for control of a single replicoid?

Twins
I've asked Anney about twins. As an Atlantis Clone, Anney grew up in the world with other "copies" of herself (Ivory, Anna, Hilde and Angela). Apparently there is no such thing as "genetically identical humans" since during embryonic development there are always small genetic changes in cells. In any case, a unique replicoid is created for each human individual. In fact, Anney mentioned that there is no problem creating additional duplicate replicoids, and not only that, apparently such duplication is automatic and part of how the "inertia of time" has been boosted for humans, ensuring that each new Reality would almost always include the same people.

1977: Ekcolir Reality

Interestingly, one of the common "problems" with the replicoid system is that in two successive Realities there might be either one or two "copies" of an individual, depending on the chance production of twins. In fact, it is not all just chance: the more the "deck is stacked" to make sure that any given individual has an analog in a new Reality, the greater the chance that twins will be born. As an example, Anney has explained that in the Ekcolir Reality, there were twin bothers John and Jack Vance.

Even more strange, sometimes when an early human embryo begins to develop as twins, and after a replicoid has been created for each of them, one of the twins stops developing, leaving a "spare replicoid" in the Hierion Domain.

A Specific Case
Before Ivory died, she made certain that I understood how Trysta had looked into the future and found a Reality (The Buld Reality, the universe as we know it) within which we Earthlings would have a chance to survive our technological adolescence and spread among the stars of the galaxy. However, both Ivory and Anney have always been reluctant to explain my role in the future that Trysta tried to create for Earth. Apparently there is some important event still in my future that would be disrupted (with disastrous consequences) if I were to prematurely learn too much about what Trysta was able to foresee.

Last night I was discussing all this with Anney when I asked why Ivory could not have been the one to receive the infites from Thomas and Izhiun; it would have been easy for her to put together the threads of the secret history of Earth. Instead, Ivory had to establish awkward bridges between me and first Angela and now Anney.

Anney muttered, "There are always fuzzy places in any preview of a Reality."

I was familiar with that concept because Asimov had made it an important part of the plot in The End of Eternity. I asked, "My role as the Editor was not foreseen by Trysta?"

Anney shrugged. "Don't be absurd. Trysta worked long and hard to prepare you for your role. But she could not see and know every twist and turn of your life."

I reflected on what I know of my interactions with Trysta. According to Angela, when I was a young boy, Trysta stimulated my interest in science fiction, first showing me a copy of a science fiction novel that had been written by her son Thomas and then making sure that I became obsessed with Asimov's science fiction. Both the work of Thomas and Asimov's fiction was "contaminated" with important clues about past Realities and the secret history of Earth. I complained to Anney, "You know, I don't like the idea that my life has been planned and manipulated by your grandmother."

Anney have her head a stern shake, "Oh, get over yourself! This isn't about you being manipulated. You and Ivory were a Fixed Point in Time, an anchor nexus. You had to be interested in science fiction. It was your interests and your literary preferences that determined how Trysta had to act, who she had to manipulate."

I was rather stunned by the perspective that Anney was forcing upon my thoughts. "Now wait a minute. Are you suggesting that because I have certain preferences in the type of fiction that I enjoy, Trysta was forced to manipulate..."

She impatiently replied, "Yes, yes! Don't make it into such a drama. You couldn't control the way your brain took shape. The shape of your mind was a thing....a condition.....a prerequisite for what Trysta needed in order for the Buld Reality to turn out as she hoped it would. After finding you, she could not alter you."

I get the feeling that Anney has a lot of resentment stored up over the impact that I have had on other people, particularly her clone sisters. She probably blames me for the death of Ivory and the disappearance of Angela. Anna and Hilde are as good as dead since they left Earth and went off with the Buld. The was more I wanted to ask Anney, but at that point in our conversation I was kicked out of my replicoid.

So, I'm forced to ask, to what extent is my obsession with the fiction of Vance and Asimov responsible for the way they were "duplicated" and their "copies" deployed here in Buld Reality?

Return, Once Again
I've never understood why it was that in The End of Eternity, Asimov made such a big deal about the possible implications of a person meeting a copy of himself. However, I've been told that when the "copies" of Vance and Asimov were "brought into the Buld Reality", care was taken to make sure that there were never two simultaneous copies of either of them on Earth. Why should that be? Particularly since I know that there were two Asimovs together on Earth in a previous reality. The difference is, now, here in the Buld Reality, time travel is no longer possible.

Who's been using my replicoid?

In any case, that puzzle still left unresolved, it got me thinking about twins and replicoids. Sometimes I feel like I'm in the Goldilocks story and I want to cry out, "Who's been inside my replicoid?"

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I don't understand why it is so hard for me to use the Bimanoid Interface. Is it possible that my replicoid is "already taken", already in use by another copy of me? And, if so, is this the important secret about my life that cannot be shared with me?

What would it mean if I have a twin? Has that twin lived out a parallel life and "taken control" of my replicoid? Did something go wrong with my twin? Am I just the "backup copy" that must be pressed into service by the Dead Widowers in order to complete Trysta's great plan for the future of Earth? Next blog post: fact checking with Marta.

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