The Exode Saga

cover art by Charles Vinh

Sadly, I've never read any stories written by Daniel Sernine. I'm intrigued by the idea that Sernine wrote a series of stories called "the Exode or Argus sequence" which apparently are "about a benevolent extraterrestrial organization keeping watch on the Earth".

Exodemic
Back in July of 2001, I began working on a story that came to be called Exodemic. That was a kind of alternative history novel in which the entire course of human civilization was changed because one Earth woman was accidentally saved from dying. Stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe all explore the implications of alien visitors having reached Earth many millions of years ago.

In this blog post I explore the origins of what I now call the Exode Saga, a sequence of linked stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe.

Exode

Exode (original cover)

As discussed here, it was not until May of 2012 that I began writing the novel called Exode. Exode was conceived as a stand-alone novel that would describe the adventures of an Earthling named Hana during her exploration of the galaxy and Genesaunt society.

Exode Trilogy
As discussed here, it took me about a year to realize that the story told in Exode is actually part of another story that I had already written called The Start of Eternity. So, in 2013 I began the task of crafting another novel (Trysta and Ekolir) that would fit naturally between the events described in The Start of Eternity and those of Exode. Also, I changed the name of the first book in the trilogy to Foundations of Eternity.

The Exode Trilogy

I soon discovered that weaving together the Exode Trilogy was a major project, much larger than I had initially imagined. Last year, I tried to summarize the first three years of play and investigations that were required to create the Exode Trilogy. During 2014, I had become aware of the the fact that the Exode story was really an example of investigative science fiction. In 2015, I blogged about the fact that the Exode story is also recursive science fiction.

For several years, I contented myself with the idea that I was writing fan fiction. My approach to creating the Exode Trilogy became rather formulaic: I viewed myself as an investigative science fiction story writer who was trying to discover the secret lives of my favorite science fiction authors as they had existed in the previous Realities of Deep Time.

The Exode Saga

The Exode Saga (image credits)

The demise of the Exode Trilogy came during 2016 when realized that I was integral to the Exode Saga. No longer could I keep separated my role as the Editor of the Exode Saga and my role as a character in the story.

My collaborating authors played a central role in the conversion of the Exode Trilogy into the Exode Saga. Back in April of this year, I listed 7 of my most important collaborating authors. Since then, there have been some changes, so here is an updated list:

Trysta Iwedon

1) Thomas
2) Parthney
3) Ivory Fersoni
4) Izhiun
5) Angela
6) Alpha Gohrlay
7) Zeta Gohrlay
8) Yōd

Syon and Gwyned

Of course, after I discovered that the Exode Saga is a recursive science fiction story, it became almost impossible for me to resist the impulse to depict most characters in the story as being writers. A good example of this is twist is provided by Grean, who has contributed text from her mission reports (example).

Trysta Iwedon has long been renowned as the mother of Thomas. We should attribute many of the personality traits of Thomas to the powerful influence of his mother. According to the infites that I obtained from Parthney, when Trysta was in her second life, living as Syon at Lendhalen, she was often bored and so she wrote several accounts of how she passed the time while waiting for the return of Rilocke to Earth.

Lost Literature

Spacetime Bubbles - original
cover art by Henry Van Dongen
and William Randall

The problem of missing stories such as Syon's 'Teleportation Vacation' is the vexing problem that must be confronted in the first book of the Exode Saga (A Search Beyond). The cover illustration shown here for 'Teleportation Vacation' (to the right on this page, above) is a reconstruction by Zeta. It may be that this story was never put "into print". Apparently Parthney saw the title 'Teleportation Vacation' as just one among the many stories that was present in the Lendhalen data-banks; it was of interest to him only as part of his attempt to understand his unusual relationship with Gwyned.

Of course, for those of us on Earth, information about Gwyned's study of alien teleportation technology would be quite valuable. Almost certainly, we Earthlings will never get to have contacts with technologically adept people such as Gwyned who have had a chance to study the advanced technologies that are available within Genesaunt Civilization. Some parts of Deep Time simply cannot be revealed to we who reside here in the Final Reality.

in Deep Time

It is incumbent upon the Dead Widowers and my other collaborators to assemble as much of the missing history of Humanity as we possibly can. It remains to be seen how much of the secret history of Humanity we will actually be allowed to share with everyone else! Sometimes it seems like we have been cursed: we struggle to reveal the past, but some truths about being human are not good for us to know...

Introduction to the Exode Saga

Next: investigating Deep Time

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Too much of a good thing?

The "birth" of R. Gohrlay, the first positronic robot.

Issac Asimov imagined a future in which robots served to help humans reach the stars. Then, it all went terribly wrong. On the spacer worlds, there were more robots than people and finally, humans mutated into a new form of life that lost the desire to spread itself across the galaxy. When it comes to robots, there can be too much of a good thing.

What's a robot graced with the Zeroth Law to do? Of course, Giskard must find a way to balance humanity on the knife edge between too many and too few robots. Twenty thousand years later we find Daneel still playing the balancing game and just enough robots on hand so that Hari Seldon can fall in love with one and the Foundations can be created.

Chaotic temporal attractors:
Age of positronics, Spacers, the Foundation.

Thus, Asimov told the story of how robots helped humanity through two chaotic attractors, but what about the story of the origin of the very first positronic robot?

The Age of Positronics
We might assume that the very first positronic brain was built by U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., but did Asimov ever really show how to pull that rabbit out of a hat? And what about the Laws of Robotics? Asimov depicted the "first three" Laws as arriving in the world almost wholly formed and then the "Zeroth" law being artificially grafted on later.

source

Foundations of Eternity gives a detailed account of the origins of the Laws and the first human-like robot with a positronic brain. The key thing to know about the origin of the Laws of Robotics is that there was never any group of computer nerds who sat down, at U.S. Robots or any where else, and just "slapped together" a robotic brain that could produce human behavior. Just as Daneel was the "story behind the story" of how the Foundation was created, another telepathic robot, R. Rycleu, was working secretly on Earth in the 20th century to bring into existence the first positronic brains on Earth. But those were not the first positronic brains.

The first positronic brain was created by copying the neural circuits of a Neanderthal named Gohrlay. When those human brain circuits were reconstructed as a positronic brain, the resulting robot was R. Gohrlay.

Foundations of Eternity is part of the Exode Trilogy. As a story that takes place in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, Exode explores the implications of Earth having been visited by aliens for millions of years and the struggle of Earthlings to discover the secret history of Humanity.

Asimov was forced to keep robots in the dark corners of the Foundations. In the Exode Trilogy there are may roles for robots and other artificial lifeforms. Even Isaac Asimov himself appears as a character in the story!

Images. Top: the creation of the R. Gohrlay, the first positronic robot with human-like cognition. Credits. The second image shows the structure of time in the Foundation Reality. Larger version. Creating the cover art for Foundations of Eternity.

Related Reading: blast from the past

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Exode Evolution

Exode pulped

This blog post is the first of three related posts that allow me to catch my breath and reflect on how the stories Exode and The Foundations of Eternity have been maturing.

This post allows me to reflect on the mysterious origins of my current fiction writing obsession, the science fiction story Exode. Exode tells the story of the Prelands, the newest primate species that was designed to replace we humans on Earth.

I recap some of the key design features of the story including all the alien species (such as the Fru'wu) and the various special subtypes of humans that appear in the story (including the Ek'col).

At the end of this blog post I mention some of the remaining parts of the story that I'm still actively piecing together. Along the way I'll include some of the art work for Exode and related stories that I mention.

Origins of Exode
2011 was a frustrating fiction writing year for me because I had very little time for writing. With 2012 approaching I played around with a story idea (The Olmec Intervention) that supposed Earth had experience a catastrophic disaster in the year 2012 of a previous Reality, but then time travel had been used to create a new Reality which corrected the fundamental cause of the disaster, saving we Earthlings. Hooray!

Actually, The Olmec Intervention is rather dark and it deals with human sacrifice. I tried to imagine how Interventionists might be allowed to act more aggressive on worlds like Earth if the Overseers could at any time "reset the game" and correct any problems...problems like the destruction of the human species. That writing project reminded me of the wisdom of Asimov's approach to time travel in his novel The End of Eternity, but I also gained some experience in thinking about how information might be "leaked" from one Reality to another. As I'll describe in the next two blog posts, Exode depends on some rather tricky movement of people from one Reality to another.

By the time 2012 arrived I was ready for a new fiction writing project. As a sufferer of Fanfiction Disease, I always feel temptation to extend and elaborate on the science fiction stories of others, so I spent the first part of 2012 on a few fanfiction writing escapades such as Departure from Nor'Dyren. I started thinking about the design of lifeforms for the purpose of facilitating interstellar travel at sub-light speeds. Eventually these ideas led to the Buld as a major element of Exode.

By thinking about how I might write a sequel to Sydney Van Scyoc's novel, Assignment Nor'Dyren, I was stimulated to look back at the first story ever written in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, the science fiction novel Exodemic. Exodemic is an alternate history story in which the fictional history of Earth starts to diverge from actual history back in the year 1759.

Starting with one woman who was saved from death by an alien-designed virus, the story follows her descendants a few generations to Franny who becomes one of the first female medical doctors in England. However, when the Overseers finally realize that she should not exist, Franny is taken off of Earth and she has a chance to travel between the stars and explore Genesaunt Civilization.

While blogging about the alternative history of Exodemic, I started to have some new thoughts about the backstory and motivations of the Interventionists who cause so much trouble in stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe. When I originally wrote Exodemic back in the early 2000s, I had no intention of allowing time travel to be a part of the Exodemic Fictional Universe. However, after my experience of writing The Start of Eternity, a fanfiction sequel to Asimov's time travel novel, I had become much more comfortable with the idea that there can be a role for time travel and other advanced technologies in shaping the modus operandi of Interventionists in the Exodemic Fictional Universe.


While blogging about Exodemic and related stories back in early 2012 I was reminded of Carl Sagan and how much I wish he had been able to produce a sequel to his movie Contact.

During March 2012, I finally allowed myself to indulge in the fun of sketching out my ideas for a fanfiction television series that would be a sequel to Carl Sagan's movie, Contact. Of course, I placed the Contact television series in the Exodemic Fictional Universe.

I had previously included teleportation technology in The Search for Kalid, but while thinking about the Contact television series I began to think about alternative ways to incorporate teleportation technology into stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe. I've now taken a similar approach in Exode.

Also, while planning the Contact television series, I developed some new ideas for how nanites might interact with human brains. I finally started thinking systematically about the roles for distinctly different "generations" of nanites: 1) nanites made of conventional matter, 2) nanites composed of hierions, and 3) nanites composed of sedronic matter. These ideas carried over into Exode where various types of nanites such as "Noÿs nanites" (advanced nanites of the Asterothropes) play important roles in the story.

left to right: Ellie, Palmer and Dr. Wye.

By April of 2012 I was fairly clear in my thinking about the importance of advanced nanites for Dr. Wye, a key Interventionist in the Contact television series.

I created the Encyclopedia of Future Science as a place where I could write down the backstory for the advanced technologies that appear in the Exodemic Fictional Universe.

Start Exode
During May 2012 I started the story Exode. I wanted this new story to incorporate some of the advanced technological tools that I had provided to Interventionist agents in the Contact television series (such as teleportation). I initially envisioned a rather flamboyant Interventionist agent on Earth who used the name Henry (Hank) Montpellier. As originally envisioned, in Chapter One of Exode, Hank would teleport an Earth woman, Hana Davyon, off of Earth, starting her on an exploration of the distant worlds of the Interventionists. My main goal was to provide a more detailed account of the motives and methods of Interventionists than I had previously written into any story set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe. My plan was for the reader to discover the motives of Interventionists by following Hana on her adventures.

Hank's House

Hank involves himself with Hana because the Interventionists on Earth have long been using women such as Hana as biological experiments. The Interventionists have been rather desperately trying to alter the human population of Earth so as to assure that Earthlings will be prepared to withstand the stress of their immanent First Contact with an arriving Buld spaceship.

Right from the start, there was some mystery surrounding Hana's husband. I explored the possibility of killing him off, but he was too valuable to meet such a fate.

In previous stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe I developed my thinking about how aliens, over the course of millions of years, guided the evolution of primates to produce the human species. Exode follows this guided evolution process to the next logical step.

Exode introduces the Prelands, an advanced primate variant that has been designed to replace us, the current inhabitants of Earth. I was concerned about making the Prelands too different from us...too alien...in particular, they seldom use spoken language. It is important that readers feel some anxiety about the idea that the Prelands were designed to inherit the Earth and that we, the current "owners of Earth", would be tossed on the trash heap of evolution.

Hank's birth name is Parthney. Parthney was born on the distant planet Hemmal. While I had originally planned to let Hana introduce readers to the worlds that give rise to Interventionist agents, I quickly switched gears and decided to let readers first experience Hemmal through the eyes of Parthney while he is just a kid, before he became an Interventionist agent. So, rather than begin Exode with Hank and Hana on Earth, the story starts on Hemmal, a world of the galactic core.

After realizing that I should begin Exode with the story of Parthney's origins, my thinking about the story quickly expanded to include other characters from Hemmal. Soon I knew that there should be a central role for a human woman from Hemmal, Kach, in "presenting the case" for allowing we primitive Earthlings to NOT be replaced by Prelands. I imagined Kach relentlessly searching for the aliens who were planning to let the Prelands inherit the Earth. How might she make an argument on our behalf? How would you? Sadly, Kach will never be satisfied with the results of her quest to contact the aliens who have created we humans. The Creators have very little interest in us...or any biological species.

Alien Fru'wu

By September 2012 I was busily constructing some of the backstory for Parthney and his fellow Interventionists. I Imagined two alien species who would support and work with the human Interventionists: 1) the Fru'wu and 2) the Nereids. The Fru'wu evolved on a planet in our galaxy, but the Nereids are from the Andromeda galaxy.

Parthney and Kach briefly meet before Parthney goes off to Earth. They are brought together again after he completes his mission on Earth and Parthney, to his surprise, learns that he has a son, Boswei. With help from the Fru'wu, Parthney, Kach, Boswei and Hana go to the Andromeda galaxy in an attempt to make contact with the mysterious Nereids. Kach mistakenly suspects that the Nereids are the Creators.

Not being particularly interested in Kach's fruitless search for the Creators, Boswei and Hana take up residence on the planet Luk'ru, at first unaware of the special role that that world has played as the origin of the Kac'hin. Years later, near the end of Exode, their first child, Izhiun, eventually travels to Earth.

Part of the fun in creating Exode is pretending that it is NOT fiction. Through all of The Foundations of Eternity and Exode the people of Earth remain unaware of the fact that our species was designed and created by aliens. However, by the end of Exode we humans have finally earned the right to learn the secret history of Earth.

Yandrey

In October 2012 I decided to pretend that I am Hana's husband. This allows me to play the role of someone trying to reconstruct the Exode story from information provided to me by Izhiun and Thomas. Around that time, the story was becoming clearly defined and constrained by the differences between Prelands, the Buld and the "false" Buld and the other human variants who appear in Exode. Some of the unique biology of these different human variants (such as the Buld "Change") are described in this blog post. Yandrey, a friend and mentor of Parthney on Hemmal, has avoided going through the change for 15,000 years! Several other characters in Exode are also ancient humans, kept alive through the centuries by "medical nanites".

In November 2012 I tried to decide on the role of religious faith as a motivating drive behind Kach's relentless search for the Creators of Humanity. This decision led to my eventual invention of the special biological background of Kach as a "false Kac'hin" (see below).

Parthney and Pla'va

In December 2012 I still had no clear idea of the motivations of the Nereids and the Interventionists in general. This blog post summarizes my thinking at the end of 2012 and explicitly asks some of the lingering questions I had about the story and how it would unfold. I was still in search of a satisfactory way to make sure that "Interventionists are not just a simple band of renegades".

Exode 2013
At the start of 2013 I was finally ready to send Parthney on his journey into outer space. I soon discovered that in addition to the Prelands and the Buld Clan, I needed another human group, the Pla. The first Pla who Parthney meets is Pla'va, the spaceship pilot who shuttles him away from Hemmal.

The Pla can make use of "partial change" and so retain some degree of resistance to pek nanites. The Pla constitute the core of the human Interventionists who are aided by the Fru'wu. Parthney is startled to discover that Pla'va has made an effort to abandon the hermaphroditic Buld phenotype and adopt the female gender and attain a conventional human female phenotype. Parthney is tempted to accept Pla'va's offer and stay with her, but something drives him onward towards the distant and mysterious planet -Earth.

Gwyned in her lab

I had originally imagined that the secret Interventionist training base was located under the surface of Oib. However, Oib is just the convenient "cover" used by the Pla. Pla'va takes Parthney to Oib in her spaceship, but then he is secretly teleported to Lendhalen, which is actually located on Clu'ten'iun.

Early in 2013 I finally settled my thinking about exactly when the events of Exode take place and I entered into the complex process of establishing the identities and backstories of the Exode characters who would train Parthney for his mission to Earth. In particular, Gwyned is an Earthling who resides at Lendhalen. Gwyned was originally imagined to be "the Hana of the previous generation", but her backstory quickly expanded in an unexpected direction (see Gwyned's Parents).

Also, I knew that there must be a special robotic character at Lendhalen, and that character's importance grew rapidly along with Gwyned's, although it took six month for me to realize that the robot's name was Syon.

By the end of January 2013 I had in hand a basic sketch of events that unfold during Parthney's time at Lendhalen, but I was still struggling to come to grips with the backstory and motivations for the Interventionists. And: why were the pek seemingly complicit with the scheming Interventionists by allowing Parthney to go off to Lendhalen?

I started sketching in details for the Interventionists at Lendhalen such as Leymaygn, Vozgrow, Pla'mak and Pla'kao. I decided that Parthney would not go directly from Lendhalen to Earth, but rather, would stop off at the Klyz teleportation hub. I began filling in some of the backstory for the thousands-of-years-long secret history of contact between the Buld and Earth.

Exode the Sequel

In February 2013 I made the discovery that Gwyned is the daughter of Noÿs Lambent. This led to the realization that Exode is a sequel to The Foundations of Eternity.

This discovery surprised me and caused a major shift in my thinking about Exode which was mostly complete by April. I added in some backstory for Noÿs, more clearly defining her biological nature as a human from the far future, although that process continues. I realized that Parthney, like Gwyned, is genetically related to Noÿs through the Ek'col. Further, Parthney is a clone of Thomas.

Similarly, Kach received a more interesting and complex backstory that explains her innate connection to the Creators. She is a "false Kac'hin". I was happy with this plot twist, because I had long been bothered by the idea that Captain Hooski is a Huaoshy. It makes much more sense to say that Hooski is Kac'hin, although thon might sometimes pretend to be Huaoshy.

Remaining Mysteries
As described above, much of the plot structure for Exode and many key characters have fallen into place and revealed themselves. I'm still feeling rather baffled by the way that Exode has grown and morphed during the past year!

I'm currently trying to clarify my thinking about how Gwyned should go about encouraging Parthney to look for her brother Thomas on Earth and how that leads to a meeting between Parthney and Janet Asimov. She gives Parthney a copy of a science fiction story that was written by Thomas under the pen name "Saul Greek".

"Moon Base" by Jon Hrubesch

Parthney quickly realizes that there are elements of truth in the fiction of Thomas...hints about the immanent arrival of a Buld spaceship. The Overseers of Earth have long searched for Thomas, so his interest in Thomas eventually leads Parthney into a trap and he is captured by Overseers and taken to the Moon. In the end, I want it to be clear to readers that Gwyned's presence at Lindhalen was designed to lead Parthney into the Overseer trap.

Another lingering issue is Hana's son, who she leaves behind on Earth...should he play any role in the later part of Exode? I'm tempted to transform "him" into a girl who will grow up and meet Izhiun when he reaches Earth (see Hilde).

One of the great ironies of Exode is that Kach is driven to seek out and contact the Nereids because she is a false Kac'hin. However, because she is Kac'hin, the Nereids don't want to have anything to do with her. This leads to great frustration for Kach. Eventually Kach goes to Earth and then returns (with the help of Izhiun). At that point, will the Nereids finally relent and satisfy Kach's curiosity?

I like the idea that after the Buld reach Earth, the Nereids will be willing to "lighten up" and trust Kach. I would not mind finding a way to get Kach and Parthney back together. Maybe the end of Exode should be a scene showing Kach and Parthney heading off on a new mission among the stars, again renewing Kach's search for the Creators.

There are several outstanding issues related to the long history of Interventionist activity on Earth. For the part of Exode that describes the time when Parthney is in training at Lendhalen I want to sprinkle in a few examples of Earthlings who came to Lendhalen as well as some tales about famous agents who were sent off to Earth.

Noÿs viewing Realities

In general, for the Interventionists at Lendhalen, the only source of information about what various Interventionist agents have done on Earth comes from the stories told by the Earthlings who those agents teleported off of Earth. Gwyned tells Parthney some stories about Deomede, the Interventionist agent who is her father. Parthney does not know that Deomede is "almost his father". Parthney is a clone of Thomas and Thomas' father was Ekcolir, the analog of Deomede in the previous Reality.

Timeline
Back at the end of March I put together a timeline for Exode. Since then, I've thought about how Exode can mesh with The Foundations of Eternity. In my next blog post I'll sketch out an updated summary of the various Reality Changes that lead to the Buld Reality, our Reality, the Reality of Exode. Then, in the final post of this series, I'll provide a more accurate timeline for events in the Buld Reality that reflects to plot changes and character additions that have come into focus since March. In some cases, I've changed the way I use certain names, such as affixing "Trysta" and "Merion" to Noÿs and Andrew as soon as they arrive in the 20th century.

Robots of Lendhalen

by Sabine Vogel

I've been sketching in details about the people who prepare Parthney for his mission to Earth. Parthney's training as an Interventionist agent is the subject of Chapter Three in Exode. For previous stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe the Interventionist agents have simply appeared on Earth and gone about their duties. Providing a detailed account of where Interventionists come from was one of my major goals for Exode.

Parthney spends nearly four years in training, learning to read and write and discovering how people live on Earth. During that time he only "interacts" with five other people: two Pla, two other Buld and one human from Earth. I put "interacts" in quotes because during his training Parthney has no nanites in his body and he does not come into physical contact with any source of nanites. The two Pla carry nanites in their bodies so they only communicate with Parthney by electronic communications. The other two Buld, like Parthney, have been cleansed of nanites. They live in the same small community with Parthney and a woman from Earth named Gwyned Iwedon. The Buld call this isolated little community "Lendhalen", meaning, in the ancient Buld language, roughly "tamed spring"; a name applied long ago with the intention that good things would hopefully flow from a place where people could live without interference from nanites. The exact location of Lendhalen is never revealed to Parthney; it has gravity like Earth's but since the Buld have technology that allows them to modulate gravity, Lendhalen might be anywhere in the Koly star system.

apologies to Cornelia Klimek
  and Liz Watt

In addition to the four human residents, there are some robots living in Lendhalen. These robots are of Buld manufacture, but they are not very sophisticated compared to the artificial lifeforms that Parthney has lived among his entire life: the pek. For the past 20,000 years the Buld of Oib have been slowly developing the ability to make complex devices. Initially they worked to build spaceships and by 15,000 years ago they had copied and come to understand much of the spaceship technology that had been originally provided to the Buld Clan by the pek. Originally developed as part of the Buld spaceship technology, they have the means to generate artificial gravity. A major limitation on the pace of Buld science and technology has been the small number of Buld scientists and engineers.

About 10,000 years ago the Buld learned how to make space elevators that were strong enough to lift people off of Oib. As was the case for Buld spaceship technology, Buld understanding of space elevators was possible because they could study and copy the space elevators installed by the pek on worlds like Hemmal.

Another major technology development project of the Buld has been the creation of humanoid robots. The Buld science of robotics reached its peak about 5,000 years ago when it became possible for them to manufacture humanoid robots that could comfortably live among the Buld as servants. It is not difficult to distinguish between these robots and people, but they have proven useful, particularly as assistants for those Buld who choose to live without the conveniences provided by pek nanites.

During the past 5000 years no star system of the Galactic Core has sent more humans to Earth than the Koly system. This productivity in recruiting and training Interventionist agents within the Koly system can be attributed to the strong influence if the Pla and their efficient utilization of humanoid robots. Not all of these robots take human form. Some Buld keep robotic pets that usually take the form of mammals like cats.

During the past 500 years the Interventionist agents from the Koly system have had unusually good luck avoiding capture by Overseers. This has been attributed to the fact that the Koly system has been provided with a fairly steady stream of humans from Earth. Occasionally the  Interventionist agents who are working on Earth teleport an Earthling off of Earth. All three of the Interventionist teleporters on Earth transmit to the main Interventionist base of the Fru'wu. The Fru'wu can greatly influence the final destination of these humans who arrive in the Galactic Core from Earth (see Klyz). In most cases the Fru'wu send these displaced Earthlings on to places like the Koly system where they can help train Interventionist agents for survival on Earth.

photoshop some eyes

Before Parthney arrives at Lendhalen for training, Gwyned has already been living there for three years. During that time, Gwyned has been "debriefed" by the Buld. For Interventionists, such debriefings are the main source of information about conditions on Earth. Gwyned had formed a kind of "family" with the Buld and the robots of Koly, but she is more than anxious for human companionship when Parthney arrives. However, she quickly dismisses Parthney as an ignorant and chubby kid. Also, due to her unusual parents, Gwyned is almost like a different species than Parthney, so they are not physically attracted to each other.

Twisted Interventionists

This past summer I started a new novel that would allow me explore the origins of the Interventionists who appear as characters in stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe. Previously, I had written stories from the perspective of people like you and I who live on Earth. In those stories, the Interventionists appear on Earth, magically arriving from the stars. Exode takes the magic out of their arrival. The story begins with Parthney on his home world, Hemmal. Eventually Parthney makes his way to Earth where he lives for 15 years as an Interventionist agent. The early chapters of Exode describe "The making of an Interventionist".

In previous stories about Interventionists I have portrayed them as confident adversaries in a kind of "spy vs spy" scenario where Overseers and Interventionists have opposing views about we Earthlings. Overseers fanatically try to make sure that the residents of Earth develop at their own natural pace without any outside interference....and without any true understanding of how it is even possible for the Interventionists to be "outside" (arriving on Earth from some other world). I've typically depicted Interventionist agents on Earth as struggling against the Overseers to find ways to speed the pace of technological advance and cultural development on Earth.

teleportation

The first scene of Exode that I wrote last summer did not end up as the first chapter. When I started writing Exode my goal was to put a specific new twist on the usual roles Interventionists and Overseers. In earlier stories, it had only been the Overseers who would remove Earthlings from Earth if they became aware of the fact that Earth is under constant Observation. For Exode, I started out by writing a new scene that depicted Parthney as having the technological means to send an Earth woman off to a distant world where she would need to struggle to understand the Genesaunt civilization that has spread to many planets in the core region of our galaxy. More important than just the fact that an Interventionist could do such a thing was the fact that he did it because it made life easier for himself.....and doing so had interesting repercussions....in particular, it allows the Exode story to not get stuck on Earth, but rather, to move on to more fully explore the detailed inner workings of the Interventionists as a group.

Thus, my decision to endow Parthney with the power to exile people from Earth quickly led to a second twist in Exode's depiction of Interventionists. I'd long had the important (although vague) idea that the Interventionists are not simply renegade Genesaunts intent on violating the ethical laws of their culture, but rather, they exist because they perform an important function, and they would not exist unless the Huaoshy themselves insisted that Interventionists exist.

If the Interventionists are not just a simple band of renegades then in order to elevate them to equal stature with the Overseers there needs to be a complex inter-galactic Interventionist movement. To start sketching in some details of what this broader coalition of Interventionists consists of, I brought an alien species into Exode, the Fru'wu.

by ReverendStrone

Judged by human esthetic standards, the Fru'wu are the opposite of what we would call "warm and cuddly"...so much so that they go out of their way to not let humans see their true form. The Fru'wu evolved on a world in our galaxy and they had already developed a technologically advanced civilization by 7 million years ago, the point in time when the Huaoshy first arrived in our part of the universe. In fact, the Fru'wu were engaged in the process of slowly spreading outward from their home star system to nearby stars. Unfortunately for them, the budding interstellar civilization of the Fru'wu managed to destroy itself by unleashing a plague of destructive nanoscopic artificial lifeforms.

Left to themselves, the story of the Fru'wu would have ended at that point, but a few members of the Fru'wu species were preserved and successfully "cultured" on another planet of our galaxy. To make a 7 million-year-long story short, some descendants of those rescued Fru'wu eventually came to the attention of the "inter-galactic league of interventionists". Now, there is no such organization, but if there were, a candidate for membership would be the Nereids. The Nereids are a partially artificial lifeform with its biological origin in the Andromeda galaxy. The Nereids long ago became aware of the Huaoshy and rejected the idea of going down the same evolutionary path that the Huaoshy went down about a billion years ago. The Nereids dedicated themselves to proving that, regardless of their biological limitations, they could maintain a healthy civilization over the course of millions of years. Further, they have an interest in helping other species such as the Fru'wu do the same.

by Zapato

With respect to Interventionism, the Nereids are like humanity's grandparents. Based on their vast experience, the Huaoshy view biological lifeforms as the "scum of the universe", much in the way we might view mildew on a shower wall. According to the ethical precepts of the Huaoshy, they are obligated to help primitive species like the Nereids, the Fru'wu and we humans to transcend our biological nature, as the Huaoshy did long ago. The Nereids, acting as Interventionists, long ago helped some of the Fru'wu establish a technological civilization that is free of direct Huaoshy oversight. Some of those "liberated" Fru'wu then took it upon themselves to intervene into the affairs of other species in our galaxy such as we humans. The middle part of Exode is concerned with Parthney's growing understanding of how his work as an Interventionist agent on Earth was made possible by the wider Interventionist movement, particularly the Fru'wu and the Nereid Interventionists.

After Parthney becomes aware of the Fru'wu and the Nereids, he is forced to concern himself with their motivations and he must decide if their interventions into human affairs are actually beneficial. Perhaps what the Huaoshy have in mind for humanity is the wisest course...maybe the Interventionists will only make things worse for Earth! Such nagging questions provide some of the basis for the horror elements in Exode. Finding himself off in the Andromeda galaxy, Parthney eventually reaches the point where all his worrying about Earth and humanity seems futile. Even if he knew what was best for humanity, how could he have any real impact on the course of events on Earth?

self-restraint

Finally, in the final part of Exode, events that were initiated by the Nereids (with the Fru'wu as their henchmen) are reaching a critical culmination on Earth. A fundamental question must be asked: might the wisest course for Interventionists be to act as to slow the pace of technological advance on Earth? Interventionists like Parthney must confront the possibility that if humanity is to survive then the Interventionists must restrain themselves.

Are you a slave if you agree to do your master's bidding? The angst provoked by such questions is why the Huaoshy work so hard to make sure that primitive creatures like we humans remain ignorant of our origins. Exode is the story of how Parthney and Koch push their luck by struggling to learn the truth about human origins. The ending of Exode drops the questions raised by Parthney and Koch into the laps of we Earthlings.

Intervention: the Manual

I'm feeling a bit guilty for having completed a first draft of the first chapter of Exode without including any mention of Interventionists. Worlds such as Hemmal are designed to produce Interventionists, but Parthney departs Hemmal without knowing what he is getting himself into. He has heard talk of Earth, but no detailed information about Earth exists on Hemmal. However, what little he has heard provides Parthney with a tantalizing alternative to creation myth of the Prelands, even if most of the Buld who live on Hemmal view Earth as mythical.

After leaving Hemmal, Parthney quickly finds himself on the planet Oib (so he believes) where he finally realizes that traveling to Earth is actually possible. He learns of the long evolutionary history of humans on Earth and the great puzzle that provokes Interventionists and focuses their efforts: the Overseers act like a police force, watching over Earth and making sure that outsiders don't disrupt the natural course of events on Earth.

Chapter Two of Exode is about Parthney's journey to Oib. Chapter Three describes his time on Oib and I want readers to exercise their skepticism about both the Preland view of reality that Parthney grew up with on Hemmal and the tales of Earth that he hears while on Oib. Hopefully readers will feel a great sense of anticipation...in particular, I want Chapter Three to end without revealing when it is that Exode is taking place. Will Parthney arrive on Earth at some time in our past, in our contemporary world or at some time in our future? What will Parthney be able to accomplish on Earth...how will he change our world? Perhaps most importantly, will the reader have anxiety about the consequences of Parthney's mission to Earth...will he help we Earthlings or just bring us grief?