Origins of Ariel

TPTT: fan-fiction set in the Ekcolir Reality.

What is the backstory and origins of the linked science fiction stories "Terminus Planet" and "Time of Theurgency"? Here in 2020, I'm celebrating the stories of Isaac Asimov, so it should surprise nobody that Asimov is a character in these stories. In order to facilitate discussion, I'm going to introduce some horrific jargon and call these two tales in combination "TPTT".
 
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SIHA: Search for Interesting Aliens

The central character of TPTT is Ariel Adler. In the Ekcolir Reality, Ariel's life becomes linked to that of Asimov. Here in this blog post, I'll explain how Ariel originated as a character. It started with two blog posts that I wrote last month:

1) Recently, the Search for Interesting Hollywood Aliens traveled back through time to the 1950s and I had a chance to think about my initial reaction {mind blown} to the film Forbidden Planet and its depiction of the advanced technology of the alien Krell.

Terminus: located at the edge of the
galaxy, how does it become the most
important planet of the Galactic Empire?

2) Last month, I also allowed myself to contemplate the possibility that there will soon be a television show based on Asimov's Foundation saga.

With those two ideas simultaneously swirling in my mind, I found myself asking some amusing questions, starting with: what if a Foundation movie had been made back in the early 1950s?

As a young man, Asimov was performing his own conceptual juggling when he decided to write a science fiction story about a Galactic Empire with 25,000,000 human-colonized planets. Having read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he decided to create a story about the collapse of a vast Galactic Empire. That decision eventually led to a series of Foundation stories that he sold to pulp Sci Fi magazine editor John Campbell.

Planetary gods.
image source

Because Asimov could not accept Campbell's idea that humans must be naturally superior to all aliens, he did not include any aliens in the Foundation saga.
 
Terminus Planet
There was a Roman god called Terminus. Here is a line from Gibbon's book: "It was an ancient tradition, that when the Capitol was founded by one of the Roman kings, the god Terminus (who presided over boundaries) alone refused to yield his place to Jupiter himself."

In Asimov's Foundation saga, the planet Terminus becomes the home world of the First Foundation. The first people to live on Terminus are part of a project aimed at preserving all human knowledge and archiving it in advanced of the anticipated collapse of the Empire and subsequent dark age.

agent from Tar'tron

Encyclopedia Galactica
Terminus was selected as the site of the Encyclopedia Foundation because it was a world located far from the heart of the Empire, a place where physical scientists could begin a new renaissance of scientific advancement after the fall of the old, stagnant Galactic Empire.

A Second Foundation was also established which had its headquarters on the planet Trantor, located in the galactic core. Previously, I've imagined that Trantor was known as Tar'tron in other Realities besides the Foundation Reality.

The ancient Romans had the quaint idea that all roads led the the temple of Terminus in Rome. Similarly, Asimov made it central to his Foundation saga that Trantor was at "Star's End". Asimov imagined a type of psychohistorical symmetry linking Terminus to Trantor by which the last planet settled by humans (Terminus) would inevitably become the Capitol of a new galactic empire.

Map of some Roman provinces including Asia.
Smyrna was an important Roman era city
on the west coast of Asia.

Some fans of Foundation have suggested that Asimov named the worlds of his Four Kingdoms after cities in the Roman Empire (such as Smyrno = Smyrna).

I like to imagine that when he was creating his stories about the early years of human settlement of Terminus and the struggle of the Foundation to survive during times of anarchy, Asimov must have been imagining plot elements by thinking in analogy to a more peripheral part of the ancient Roman world than Asia.

Terminus was close to the Province of Anacreon, far out in the galactic periphery. Anacreon Province splintered into the Four Kingdoms after the Galactic Empire went into decline.

The four Kingdoms of Ireland.

By ancient tradition, some have divided Ireland into four parts, representing four kingdoms. I'm more interested in the idea that during the peak of the Roman Empire, Romans in England traded with people living in eastern Ireland. In my imagination, west-central Ireland was relatively unaffected by the Romanizing influences of this trade. I like the romantic idea that monks in Ireland helped preserve some ancient knowledge from Roman times. So, I prefer to model the Province of Anacreon on Ireland.

How I imagine Terminus, near
Anacreon, at the edge of the galaxy,
just beyond the border of the Empire.

Sadly, Asimov did not provide his readers with a map of his Galactic Empire showing the boundaries of the Province of Anacreon, the peripheral province closest to the planet Terminus. 

In the map for Anacreon Province shown here, I imagine that the planet Terminus, just a short distance beyond the outer border of the Empire, was relatively close to the Kingdom of Anacreaon in the time of Salvor Hardin.

In my imagination, the Anacreon province was settled because it is a remnant of a dwarf galaxy that collided with our galaxy. Relatively rich in stars but far from the galactic core, Anacreon province was one of the last parts of our galaxy to be settled by human explorers.

What if?

image source

What if the analogue of Isaac Asimov in the Ekcolir Reality had a long and successful career as a scientist? For "Terminus Planet" and TPTT, I imagine that Asimov wrote a few science fiction stories and was fairly well known for his series of linked Foundation stories that were written during the 1940s. However, that version of Asimov did not publish any robot stories in the 1940s. Then, in the early 1950s, a trilogy of science fiction films was made about Asimov's Galactic Empire.

The Origin of Ariel
Who might have been properly motivated to make the three movies? I imagine that Ariel was the Ekcolir Reality analogue of Allen Adler while Marcia was the Ekcolir Reality analogue of Martin Greenberg.

image source

In our Reality, Allen Adler helped write Forbidden Planet. For TPTT, I imagine that Ariel Adler wrote most of text for the screenplays of the Foundation trilogy.

In our Reality, Allen had a connection to New York University. In the Ekcolir Reality, New York was founded in Virginia, but it also had its own version of New York University and that is where Ariel met fellow students Marcia Greenberg and Isaac Asimov.

In our Reality, Martin Greenberg was a founder of Gnome Press, the first company to publish Asimov's Foundation stories in book format. In the Ekcolir Reality, Marcia established a company called Gnome Films and recruited her old school friend, Ariel, to adapt Asimov's Foundation stories to film format.

Writing about the Bimanoid Interface
in the Ekcolir Reality.

I've long imagined that in the Ekcolir Reality, the early days of the science fiction genre were dominated by female authors. In fact, the culture of New England was distinctly matriarchal in the Ekcolir Reality. In order to populate the Ekcolir Reality with imaginary authors, I often invent female analogues of male science fiction writers and that is exactly how Ariel Adler came into existence.

Space Aliens
Since I never had to deal with an intellectual bully like Campbell, I've never shied away from including aliens in my fan-fiction stories that are set in the Foundation Fictional Universe.

View towards our galaxy
from the dwarf galaxy of the fain.
source

In my case, this year I've been inserting stories about the alien fain into my own Exode Saga. I imagine that the fain home world was in another dwarf galaxy some distance even further out from the Galactic Core than the Province of Anacreon. However, when the fain began to have contact with humans, it was natural that they visit worlds in the galactic periphery closest to their own home planet. Terminus was such a world.

The fain lurk in the background of TPTT, but Ariel has always had "visions" of the fain and faith in the idea that they might provide a counter-balance to the alien Fru'wu. In TPTT, there are fain-human hybrids secretly working on Earth to mitagate some of the problems caused by advanced Fru'wu technology.

Theurgency

Grean the Kac'hin

Yes, I made up the word "theurgency", but think about combining the meanings of "theurgy" and "urgency". Back in the early 1970s, I fell in love with the idea that humans living in pre-technological societies might have been tempted to view space aliens as gods. In TPTT, 20th century Earth is being watched over by aliens who are rather desperately trying to find a stable path to the future for Humanity.

In TPTT, during her entire life, Ariel has been provided with "memories" of her future life by her replicoid. When a copy of Ariel is teleported into the Hierion Domain, she does not assume that Grean the Kac'hin is some kind of god. However, through her access to advanced Huaoshy technology, Grean can travel through time and View possible alternative futures. Thus, from the perspective of some Earthlings, Grean does have seemingly god-like powers and she's in the business of using the tricks of time travel to alter events on Earth.

Dani

1939  A copy of Ariel is taken into the Hierion Domain where she becomes the partner of Deomede the Ek'col. This newly created copy of Ariel adopts the name Relda and helps prepare one particular fain-human hybrid for her mission on Earth: Gertrude Blugerman.

1972  In an act of devine alien intervention, Grean also deploys Relda and Deomede as her agents on Earth in the year 1972. They act to win financial support for a new Foundation for Science Fiction.

About this time, the on-going neuroscience research in Asimov's laboratory is getting close to the discovery that femtobot endosymbionts reside inside humans. How will this discovery change how Earthlings interact with aliens?

Petra Nicholls and Gina Hay.

A follow-on story for TPTT shows what happens when Petra and Sven, working in Asimov's neuroscience research lab, discover how to modulate the activity of the femtobot endosymbiont inside Petra's brain.

Mind Clone Network
With Gina on Earth as part of a mind clone network linking Relda to Ariel, it becomes easier for the Writers Block to send stories to the writers on Earth who are given financial support by the Foundation for Science Fiction. I'm thinking that when Asimov's research team discovers the existence of femtobot endosymbionts, that might lead to a practical application of what I previously called the "Clarke-Brunner Effect".

collaboration with the Witers Block

However, the "Clarke-Brunner Effect" is dangerous technology when first made available on Earth in the Ekcolir Reality. I'm imagining that positronic robots such as Dani must carefully control how the "Clarke-Brunner Effect" is used. I'm thinking that the researchers in Asimov's laboratory will learn how to detect the rare individuals who are consciously aware of how their replicoids modify their memories.

In the Ekcolir Reality;
a story from the Writers Block.
In the Final Reality.

After meeting Asimov, Petra Nicholls becomes a test subject in his lab and she is able to develop a type of two-way telepathic communication with the analogue of Asimov who works at the Writers Block. In this way, Petra can collaborate with the analogue of Isaac Asimov who was brought into the Ekcolir Reality from the Asimov Reality.

The other part of TPTT remaining to be expanded upon is how the alien fain first make contact with humans in the Foundation Reality, in the time of Salvor Hardin.

Related Reading: an alternate Asimov

Next: the Foundation Reality Simulator

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Dimensional Transmutation

In the Ekcolir Reality
Original cover art by Earle Bergey

One month ago I was forced to reconceptualize the boundary between the Ekcolir Reality and the world as we know it (the Final Reality). I've long been aware of the fact that time travel is no longer possible. For several years I imagined that the dimensional shift which made further time travel impossible occurred within the Buld Reality. However, a casual comment by Gohrlay finally forced me to take seriously the idea that it might be best to view that dimensional shift as the true start of the Final Reality.

temporal attractors

The transition from the Ekcolir Reality to the Buld Reality was very complex. In fact, there may have been dozens of Reality Changes between the end of the Ekcolir Reality and the start of the Final Reality. "The Buld Reality" might be a misnomer. It might be more sensible to say that there was a group of linked "Buld Realities" within which the Buld made First Contact with Earth in the late 20th or early 21st century. The Final Reality is thus the last of the "Buld Realities".

Trick or Treat

Just before the Final Reality
Original cover art by Virgil Warden Finlay
and Frank Kelly Freas

Identifying the precise beginning of the Final Reality might be perceived as an academic hair-splitting exercise, except for the fact that the Huaoshy tricked Trysta into agreeing to the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact and then made a last minute change to the Final Reality.

Upon learning that the future had somehow been "hidden" from Trysta, I immediately suspected that she had made an error when she trusted the Reality Viewing equipment that was available for her use in Grean's workshop. However, Gohrlay insists that Trysta's Viewer was not tampered with. The problem was, any Reality Viewing device must always emphasize those potential future Realities that are the most probable.

source

According to Gohrlay, Grean was able to surprise Trysta because a favorable, low-probability future was identified by the Kac'hin of planet Tar'tron. It may be that the telepathically-linked group mind of the population of Tar'tron was able to access a vast quantum computational power that is normally only available to the Huaoshy within the Sedronic Domain.

Knowing that dozens of micro-changes would be effecting Earth during the creation of the Final Reality, the Kac'hin searched for improbable futures that optimized alignment of Earth and Humanity with Huaoshy ethical principles. By doing so, they identified a future in which Thomas Iwedon and the Dead Widowers never published any accounts of First Contact with the Buld. In that Reality (within which we now exist) it falls entirely upon a single Earthling (the Editor) to release the entire story of how the Huaoshy long ago reached Earth and set our world on its path towards the Final Reality.

prepared for publication by the Dead Widowers

Having been tricked in such a devious way, it might seem that Trysta would harbor resentments. However, it was impossible for Trysta to complain because the new Reality that was forced upon her by Grean was significantly better than the "original Buld Reality" that had been the basis of the Trysta-Grean Pact.

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 this image.

History Of Earth in the Buld Reality

spatial dimensions

One of the great secrets of the universe is the exact time when the dimensional structure of the universe was changed, making any further time travel impossible. I suspect that Deomede was able to figure out the exact time of that dimensional transmutation.

The Rossi Intervention

According to Gohrlay, Deomede departed from Earth on the Buld spaceship in 2012. It remains to be determined if he was allowed to leave behind a copy of his great opus, History Of Earth in the Buld Reality. Apparently the Dead Widowers tried to publish several accounts of the Secret History of Humanity including The Trysta-Grean Pact by Ivory Fersoni, but the tryp'At Overseers did not allow those efforts to succeed.

Next: The Rossi Intervention

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Lendhalen

Leymaygn and Vozgrow

Lendhalen is where Parthney was trained for his mission to Earth. When Parthney arrives at Lendhalen he has no appreciation for the conditions under which Interventionist agents operate while stationed on Earth. He is alarmed to learn that humans are viewed as a kind of disease organism by aliens and that the Interventionists must scheme and struggle in order to try to win a future for Humanity. It is not hard to win Parthney over to the Interventionist cause.

Exode table of contents

However, Parthney finds conditions at Lendhalen to be chaotic and it seems like nobody is really in charge. There are competing factions among the interventionists and Parthney can't judge which of the different views of Earth's future is most likely to be correct.

Some of the Interventionists (Pla'mak and Vozgrow) are intent on continuing to push forward the same agenda that has previously guided missions on Earth. Through the centuries, Interventionist agents have worked to accelerate the pace of human technological advancement on Earth. Parthney gets to meet several former residents of Earth who were teleported off of Earth by other "Thomas clones" who in the past served on Earth as Interventionist agents.

Pla'mak

Among those former Earthlings is Gwyned, the sister of Thomas. Gwyned is very much committed to the idea of pushing ahead the pace of technological advance on Earth. She tries to prepare Parthney to bring to Earth new technical knowledge related the development of fusion power, but he is not convinced that it makes sense to meddle with the pace of technological advances on Earth.

Pla'kau

Other Interventionists, (particularly Pla'kau) question the wisdom of helping Earthlings push towards new technologies. In fact, Pla'kau wants to send Parthney to Earth with ideas for solving the global warming problem

Syon the robot.

Pla'kau, Pla'mak and Vozgrow don't have direct contacts with Parthney. Parthney's training within Lendhalen is in the hands of Leymaygn, Syon and Gwyned.

Leymaygn is the Buld who is assigned the task of keeping Parthney with his nose to the grindstone. However, Parthney is not one to work very hard and he soon diverges from the rigorous training schedule.

Gwyned

Parthney ends up spending much of his time at Lendhalen with robots like Syon. He forms a new megepi and neglects his studies of Earth.

Pla'mak decides to work with Gwyned and help her study the technology at Lendhalen, most of which was provided by the Fru'wu. Gwyned makes little progress in understanding nanites, teleportation and hierions, but she does manage to crack the Fru'wu teleportation codes and she sends a "copy of Luri" to Earth with Parthney.

Gwyned's family

Gwyned is the daughter of Deomede and Trysta. She is the half sister of Thomas. Recognizing that Parthney is fascinated by the idea of finding human females to socialize with and not at all interested in having a physical relationship with him, Gwyned provides Parthney with the robot, Syon.

An Ek'col male and Asterothrope female.

Although nobody at Lendhalen knows it, Syon is a sophisticated artificial lifeform that originated as the Asterothrope who readers of the Exode Trilogy know as Trysta. Syon provides Parthney with the key piece of information that he needs to pass on to Thomas after being sent off on his mission to Earth.

In the next chapter of Exode ("Klyz and Earth"), Parthney completes his training at Lendhalen and is teleported to Earth. When Parthney is teleported away from Lendhalen, he is first sent the the Fru'wu base at Klyz where the artificial replica of Luri is waiting.

Motives and Mystery

Hilde

I've been giving some thought to the backstory of Hana and her husband. Originally I had the idea that Hana was one of the Earthlings used by the Interventionists to introduce Preland genes into the human population of Earth.

Because of her endowment of Preland genes, Hana's daughter, Hilde, had an unusual (for Earth) brain structure. In the absence of pek nanites, her brain did not develop "normally". She was developmentally delayed.

The paternity of Hilde is a lingering mystery in Exode. The reader might decide that Deomede is the father of Hilde, although I imagine that the story is a bit more complicated than that.

Deomede has a problem. He wants to use Hana as "breeding stock", but Hana is a hard-working student and a virgin. With the help of nanites, pheromones, and some alcohol, Deomede is able to entice Hana into an intimate relationship with a classmate. When Hana discovers that she is pregnant, she and her classmate get married, but the boy is not at all convinced that he is the father of Hilde. Eventually he has genetic tests done that prove he is not Hilde's father. Unable to deal with Hilde's developmental problems, he goes off to graduate school, leaving town and leaving Hana to continue raising Hilde, alone. Hilde, as a single mom, also pursues a graduate degree. However, eventually Hana burns out, and when the opportunity arrives, Hana leaves Earth and Hilde behind. From that point on, Hilde grows up under the care of Betty who, using her shape-shifting ability, flawlessly assumes the role of "Hana".

genetic evidence

The Editor
Many years later, Izhiun reaches Earth and seeks out Hana's husband, who ends up being the "editor" for Exode. I've been trying to come to some decisions about exactly what happens to Hana's husband when he is suddenly provided with access to the memories of Parthney and the nanorobotic symbiont that carries memories from a positronic robot, Asimov, and Thomas. I've toyed with the idea that his mind might literally be blown and he might have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction, reality from fantasy.

I originally imagined that "the editor" of Exode would decide to present the story of Parthney, Thomas, Hilde and Izhiun as a science fiction story. However, I later started imagining that there might by some pieces of physical evidence that support the factual basis of "the secret history of Earth" that "the editor" suddenly becomes aware of. Might "the editor" try to gather all such available evidence and actively try to convince others that Parthney's story is more than fiction? This question got me thinking about other science fiction stories that have tried to present fiction as fact.

Fiction as Fact
The Exode Trilogy is full of adventure, mystery, puzzles and play. The "What if?" game I play asks, "what if we Earthlings suddenly became aware that aliens first visited Earth millions of years ago and those aliens created the human species?"

Some science fiction stories go a step beyond presenting an amusing "What if?" scenario. Sometimes fiction is presented as non-fiction.

Mary Shelley

Imaginary science is common in science fiction stories, but some science fiction authors play the game of asking the reader to pretend that an imaginary scientific discovery or technology is real.

For example, Mary Shelley invited readers to imagine that Dr. Frankenstein actually discovered a way to reanimate corpses, although she did not try very hard.

Sometimes speculative fiction authors make a special effort to blur the boundary between fantasy and "what if" science fiction.

In Dan Brown's novel "The Lost Symbol", he tried presenting a pseudoscience as science fact. The reader is asked to play the "What if?" came and imagine that recent scientific research suddenly confirms the validity of "noetic science".

Washington's time capsule

Brown had fun by inviting readers to imagine that far in the past people discovered how to use "mental powers" to control physical reality. Of course, those ancient "mental powers" were dangerous and so began a long-lasting conspiracy to both hide and keep alive the secret of "mental powers". It is fun to imagine that historical figures like George Washington carefully hid these mystical secrets "right under our noses".

Brown also had fun weaving Freemasonry fact and fiction into his story. The 33 degrees of "Scottish Rite" Freemasonry feature prominently as a plot device in "The Lost Symbol".

Similarly, Jack Vance long ago integrated the secretive and conspiratorial "Institute" into his Demon Prince novels. Members of "The Institute" ascended through a hierarchy of "degrees" to the highest position of the Institute, the "triune", rank 111. Vance's stories were set far in the future so it is not as if he expected readers to believe that the Institute existed, but he did hint that it might have had its origins in our time.

In an alternate reality, Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park could have been a fun exploration of the biology of extinct creatures revealed through biotechnology. He decided to start out with the premiss that any powerful new technology will be used for profit. In the case of ancient gene cloning, the clear path to profit was a Hollywood movie about lawyer-eating carnivores.

It turns out that DNA molecules cannot remain intact over the course of a hundred million years, so the idea of using ancient DNA obtained from Jurassic fossils to make dinosaurs is not realistic.

M. A. Foster imagined a newly designed human variant, "The Ler", who would be superior to we "garden variety" humans of today. For example, the Ler were engineered to have two thumbs on each hand.

In the Exode Trilogy, I imagine that many different varieties of humans have been designed during the past million years or so.

Hilde

Hilde is an odd hybrid of Preland genes and the more pedestrian genes that we Earthlings carry inside us. At the time when "the editor" abandons Hilde and Hana, he only knows that he is not Hilde's father, and he feels guilt about not helping Hana with the hard work of raising a developmentally abnormal child.

Only later does "the editor" learn that Hilde was designed and crafted for the purpose of introducing new gene combinations to Earth.

In some ways "the editor" is relieved to learn that Hilde was an "experiment" and he was simple a convenient "bystander" to whom paternity could be linked. In Foster's story of "The Ler", conflicts arose between the Ler and we "old fashioned" humans. In Exode, "the editor" must decide if it is wise to reveal the existence of humans on Earth who have an extra chromosome that makes them suitable hosts for nanorobotic symbionts.

Right now I'm leaning towards the idea that "the editor" might contact such "mutants" and try to find a volunteer to help process information from the nanites that have been deposited in his brain. There could be a scene in which Hilde is offered the chance to become a "helper" of "the editor", but I imagine she refuses and goes off with Izhiun into space with the Buld who briefly visit Earth. The editor of Exode might then need to contact other Earthlings with an extra pair of chromosomes in search for a volunteer helper.

I like the idea that Earthlings with Preland-like chromosomes (and with the help of "the editor") would be given the opportunity to "adopt" nanite symbionts and have nanites available to guide the brain development of their children.

Related Reading: 2019 update on Hilde

Deomede and Lycaun

Fru'wu

When I began creating Exode I had the idea that Hana would be teleported off of Earth and begin an adventure among the stars in search of the aliens who created the human species. The Nereids have an important role in Exode as technologically advanced aliens from the Andromeda galaxy, but Hana only manages to have interactions with the Fru'wu, another species from our own galaxy.

Luk'ru

Hana learns that the Fru'wu, with help from the Nereids, have worked for thousands of years to help establish a technological civilization on Earth, but she makes no real progress towards understanding the mysterious origins of the human species. Hana ends up on the planet Luk'ru where she strives to form a new human civilization that will be better than what she left behind on Earth.

R. Gohrlay

The Nereids have a long history of making visits to Earth, but they must be careful not to run afoul of the Overseers who guard Earth against outside interference. The Nereids long ago devised a training program by which they prepare humans to function as their "representatives" on Earth.

Then, suddenly, R. Gohrlay terminates the Earth Observation program of the orbho and the Nereids have an unprecedented opportunity to help the Earthlings develop a technological civilization.

The orbho had no intention of allowing humans to build a technological civilization on Earth. On worlds of the Galactic Core, the pek have been methodically crafting the Prelands, a replacement for humans. Book One of the Exode Trilogy, The Foundations of Eternity, tells the story of how the Huaoshy regain control of Observer Base on the Moon.

Time Travel
As a science fiction story, the Exode Trilogy includes many imagined technologies including time travel machines inspired by Isaac Asimov's Eternity. R. Gohrlay and her fellow positronic robots were the first to discover that time travel is possible. R. Gohrlay exploited her monopoly on time travel to search for a Reality in which humans would retain control of Earth and not be replace by Prelands.

However, the Huaoshy eventually realized that Earth has been taken from their control by telepathic positronic robots with time travel technology. The Huaoshy develop their own time travel capabilities and, on the strength of their superior nanite technology, they regain control of Earth. However, they agree to a negotiated settlement with R. Gohrlay's forces which is designed to give the humans of Earth a chance to survive and not be replace by the hermaphroditic Prelands.

Hemmal

Deomede
When Deomede is trained for his mission to Earth he is prepared for the task of caring for the humans of Earth who have unusual gene combinations introduced from the worlds of the Galactic Core. Deomede was born on Hemmal, one of the worlds of the Galactic Core where the pek have long crafted the Prelands.

Asterothropes

Deomede is a male Ek'col. The Ek'col are a human variant crafted by the pek for a special role. In the far future of the Mallansohn Reality,  R. Gohrlay's best intentions for Humanity were met with utter defeat. By the programming of her positronic circuits, R. Gohrlay must strive to do what is best for humans, but after 10,000,000 years humans become extinct, replaced by a new species of their own design: the Asterothropes.

R. Gohrlay carefully trains one Asterothrope for a time travel mission to the 20th century. This is Isaac Asimov's heroine, Noÿs Lambent, from The End of Eternity. Asterothropes are not human, but Noÿs has nanites in her body that gave her a human form during embryonic development. The Ek'col have been carefully crafted to be inter-fertile with Noÿs, although Deomede is unaware of this.

Deomede believes that he is a "false" Buld and genetically identical to Earth humans. He has been trained (at Lendhalen) to make contact with Noÿs when he is on Earth and provide her with support. Deomede believes that Noÿs is another interventionist agent like himself. On Earth, Deomede uses many "cover" names. When he is in Wales he uses the name "Merion Iwedon". Noÿs uses the name "Trysta".

In 1936 Trysta arrives in Wales from the future and meets Merion. They slowly develop a romantic relationship and in 1939 they have a daughter, Gwyned. Later, Trysta and Deomede have a second child, a boy named Andy. Soon after Andy is born, Trysta moves her family to Australia. Merion occasionally visits Trysta, but mostly he is absent and Gwyned is only vaguely aware that he is her father. Also, Gwyned knows that she has an older brother named Thomas who her mother has occasionally mentioned.

Gwyned

Gwyned develops an interest in nuclear physics and the goal of making nuclear fusion a viable source of energy to replace fossil fuels. She is frustrated by the fact that funding for nuclear physics is dominated by the goal of making nuclear weapons. In 1964 Gwyned visits the headquarters of Alternative Energy Concepts, a think tank devoted to the development of alternatives to fossil fuels. She is amazed to discover that the small team at AEC has been disrupting her efforts to obtain funding for fusion power research. Worse still, she learns that Trysta, as a member of the AEC board of directors, has been involved in the on-going efforts to sabotage fusion power research.

Furious, Gwyned returns home to Australia intent on confronting her mother. However, both Merion and Trysta are there and Gwyned soon finds herself teleported off of Earth by Merion. After spending some time at the Klyz teleportation hub, Gwyned ends up at Lendhalen.

Parthney
In 1971 Deomede meets Parthney, the new Interventionist agent who has just arrived on Earth after being trained at Lendhalen. While at Lendhalen, Parthney learned about Gwyned's family.

Parthney asks Deomede about Trysta. Deomede tells Parthney that Trysta is gone, but they begin searching diligently for Thomas. Parthney gets a copy of Thomas' book "Daveed the Luk'ie".

In 1980 Deomede tells Parthney that he suspects that the Overseers can now detect teleportation events. He arranges for Parthney to gain access to his list of contacts among the Earthlings in case he is captured. Deomede is captured by Overseers shortly after he teleports an Earthling to Klyz.

Betty

Parthney "inherits" Betty, Deomede's robotic helper. Betty is familiar with all of the Earthlings who Deomede has worked with. Hana is one of Deomede's "contacts" who becomes of special interest to Parthney. There is a "Hana" mentioned in Thomas' "story" about Izhiun and the Buld. Parthney discovers that Hana has been having "email" communications with Thomas. Parthney suspects that Thomas is another Interventionist agent working on Earth.

End Game

Trysta viewing Realities

My ideas about Deomede have changed significantly since I first began sketching in his backstory here. Deomede spends most of his time helping a population of Earthlings with Preland genes introduced from the Galactic Core. He never thinks too carefully about Trysta and just assumes that she is another Interventionist agent like himself.

Deomede, Parthney and Gwyned exist entirely within the Buld Reality and they are not aware that time travel was previously possible. Both Trysta and Thomas arrived in the Buld Reality from the previous Reality, The Ekcolir Reality. Thomas becomes aware of Izhiun and the Buld by way of his contacts with Trysta in both the Ekcolir Reality and the Buld Reality. 

Book Two in the Exode Trilogy, Trysta and Ekcolir, describes events in the Ekcolir Reality. In the Ekcolir Reality, Trysta had the opportunity to view alternative Realities. She was able to look into the Buld Reality and see her own future. She shared some of what she saw with Thomas, so he knows that in the Buld Reality a Buld spaceship is on its way to Earth.

Syon

Trysta knew Demomede's analog in the Ekcolir Reality: another Ek'col male named Ekcolir. Ekcolir has heard the name "Deomede" from Syon. Syon is a robot at Lendhalen that carries the nanites that originated as a type of symbiotic artificial lifeform inside Trysta. To bring the Buld Reality into existence, Trysta and Ekcolir both had to travel back in time. Trysta arrived first in the past (about 10,000 years in our past) and created "microchanges" including the transfer of some stray information to Ekcolir about what she saw in the Buld Reality. In this way, it was possible for Trysta's memories of Deomede to be carried back to the future inside Syon. Ekcolir once heard Syon talking about Deomede. When Ekcolir went 20,000 years into the past, even more dramatic changes were made to the timeline, but due to the "inertia of time" 20th century Earth is very similar in both the Ekcolir and Buld Realities.

Overseer Tement

Moon Base
Not too long after Deomede is captured and taken to the Moon, Parthney is also captured by an Overseer who uses the name Belinda Tement on Earth. Deomede and Parthney discover that there is already a renegade faction at Observer Base trying to find ways to either escape from the Base or disrupt the work of the Overseers. However, there seems to be no way to defeat the technologically superior Overseers. The Overseers have some level of control over the nanites that are in their bodies. For example, they can alter their facial appearance and voice qualities.

Thomas and Parthney

The Overseers are astounded by the unusual genetics of Deomede and Parthney and they are driven to a heightened level of paranoia about Interventionist activity on Earth. The Nereids are suspected by Overseers of being involved with the appearance of Deomede and Parthney on Earth.

It turns out that Parthney is a clone of Thomas. After Parthney is taken to the Moon, Thomas teleports himself into Observer Base. Thomas teleports Parthney away, and with the help of the "Noÿs nanites" he carries in his body, Thomas passes himself off as the much younger Parthney. Thomas and Deomede become friends at Observer Base and Deomede realizes that there was a "swap" of Thomas for Parthney.

Grean's Theorem

Lycaun and Kach

When Trysta views Realities and selects the Buld Reality, she is assisted by Grean, a Kac'hin. Trysta has a difficult time finding a Reality that avoids the dominant effect of a strange temporal attractor. It seems that all Realities in which humans are allowed to develop a space-faring civilization on Earth result in either a nuclear catastrophe and a dangerously radioactive Earth or a future in which there is global warming and catastrophic sea level rise.

Finally Grean finds a solution to this problem. As long as Kac'hin agents like thonself remain in the Solar System, the Nereids will not relent in their efforts to help speed technological and social progress on Earth. With the Kac'hin pushing in one direction and the Nereids pulling in another, Earth remains locked in the grip of the chaotic attractor and there are no good futures for Earth and Humanity.

By viewing Realities, Grean eventually discovers how the Nereids can be contained. Thomas, Deomede and Kach eventually come together on the Moon. Working together they are finally able to figure out where the "Nereid base on Earth" is located and they help the Overseers clean out that base and finally put an end to Nereid interventionism on Earth.

Clones
I've been having fun sprinkling clones throughout the Exode Trilogy. Gohrlay is a clone and it is a "Gohrlay clone" that is actually sacrificed to the destructive brain scanning process. Gohrlay is carried off to the Galactic Center and I have contemplated the possibility of using another  "Gohrlay clone" to be the human who orders Nehan to surrender Eternity.

Also, multiple clones of Thomas are made. Parthney is the "latest" of these, but there have been others such a Rechmain, an Interventionist agent who worked on Earth 500 years ago.

Lycaun and Kach

By the time when Thomas, Deomede and Kach finally guide the Overseers to Space Energy Missions headquarters, then functioning as the Nereid Interventionist base on Earth, Izhiun has arrived in the Solar System with a "Kach clone". Izhiun believes that it will be possible to liberate Kach and let the clone take her place. This clone of Kach is called Lycaun.

Lycaun was crafted as a special Kac'hin agent. Lycaun's mission on Earth is to destroy the Nereid teleporter system. Lycaun allows Izhiun to believe that she will simply take Kach's place as a prisoner of the Overseers.

In the Overseer raid on the Nereid Interventionist Base on Earth, Deomede dies along with Lycaun, but Kach is successfully teleported off of Earth.  The Overseers are never aware that the dead body of Lycaun is not Kach.

Near the end of Exode, with the termination of Nereid-sponsored Interventionist activities on Earth, the negotiated terms of the agreement between Trysta and Grean have now all been met. The Overseers stand down and the Buld spaceship arrives, briefly visiting Earth.