The Mysterious Maghy

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I've started on my "spring cleaning" project for 2015. I intend to compose a large number of blog posts that will provide accounts of important people, places and other things that exist within the Exode Trilogy. One of the first of these blog posts is about Grean, a Kac'hin who is among the most important characters in the Trilogy.

Previously, I've mentioned the "original Grean" (Delphys Ghreanamar), a Kac'hin hermaphrodite who lived 80,000 years ago. Grean is a clone of Delphys, genetically identical right down to the last base pair.

Clones play a major role in the Exode Trilogy. One of the features of Sedronite cloning technology is that it is a trivial matter to make either hermaphroditic, male or female clones from someone such as Delphys. Normally there are no male Kac'hin, but a male clone of Delphys appears as a character in Trysta and Ekcolir.

The Reality Chain that leads to the timeline of our universe.

All in the Family
The first male clone of Delphys was born on Tar'tron about 50,000 years ago. That clone of Delphys was named Denisov Maghylose. Later, his Selfie adopted the name Maghy. Readers of Trysta and Ekcolir first encounter Maghy at the end of Part I.

While on Earth, Maghy often uses the cover name Dennis McGee. When he is first introduced to readers, Dennis is working in New York City as the managing editor of Future Science Fiction magazine. Note that Maghy is present on Earth during the Grean Reality, the Reality that proceeded the Ekcolir Reality. However, Maghy is present "on Earth" (actually, much of the time he is in the Hierion Domain) during all of Vance's life and Maghy influences the development of John Vance's writing through influences imposed by Vance's replicoid).

Brothers John and Jack Vance
in a previous Reality.

In the Grean Reality, the science fiction author who we know as "Jack Vance" was born as a pair of identical twins named John and Jack Vance. As part of bringing into existence the Buld Reality, the universe as we know it, Maghy removes John Vance from Earth, substituting John's replicoid from the Hierion Domain.

The "John Vance" of the Grean Reality becomes a time traveler who will reappear in both the Ekcolir Reality and in the Buld Reality. Within the Ekcolir Reality, the time traveling John Vance from the Grean Reality lives for a time in the Hierion Domain with the replicoid of the John Vance who was born in the Ekcolir Reality. That replicoid has some contact with the John Vance of the Ekcolir Reality who is on Earth.

John Vance's account of
Michael Lefey's mission to Earth

One of the consequences of that contact (largely subconscious) is that the John Vance of the Ekcolir Reality becomes fixated on characters whose names begin with "M". In particular, Vance's character who we know as Ghyl Tarvoke is partially inspired by Maghy. In the Ekcolir Reality, the John Vance story that is the analog of the story Emphyrio (in the Buld Reality) is quite different and the protagonist is a woman named Machure LeGhere.

Eventually, the John Vance from the Grean Reality is brought into the Buld Reality to live out the end of his life. Thus, John Vance from the Grean Reality becomes a character in Exode.

In the Grean Reality, the original analog of the fictional character Ghyl Tarvoke was named "Michael Lefey" by John Vance. Thus Michael Lefey becomes a major character in Trysta and Ekcolir. By the twists of time travel, the character "Lefey" is inspired by Maghy and thons efforts to alter the history of Earth.

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Grean Reality

Trysta and Ekcolir

In my previous blog post I outlined some important differences between our Reality (the Buld Reality) and the preceding Reality (the Ekcolir Reality). For example, in the Ekcolir Reality "New York" is a city in Virginia. Here, I want to compare and contrast the love life of Trysta in the "Grean Reality" and in the Ekcolir Reality.

Almost nobody uses the term "Grean Reality". I found it convenient to use "The Grean Reality" as the title for Part I of Trysta and Ekcolir. Most of the time I call that particular Reality the Asimov Reality. I have occasionally toyed with the idea of categorizing the Grean Reality as a fully fledged Reality of its own, worthy of that status along side the Asimov Reality, but doing so would require that I change my view of how Isaac Asimov made a distinction between Reality Changes and micro-changes in his great time travel novel The End of Eternity.

Introducing the Kac'hin
"Hooski" is the name of the captain of Many Sails. Hooski was the first Kac'hin to appear "on stage" in my original temporal sequence for telling the story of the Exode Trilogy. However, I've now decided to start "in the middle of things" and make Trysta and Ekcolir the first book in the trilogy (see the green 2 in the Reality diagram in the upper right corner of this page). This makes Grean the Kac'hin character who readers will first be introduced to. Now, with Trysta and Ekcolir as the first book in the Exode Trilogy, there will be no good reason to even mention "Asimov" in the Table of Contents for Trysta and Ekcolir.

Science Fiction Romance

Asimov's The End of Eternity

Of course, from the perspective of Trysta's personal romantic universe, the big difference between the Grean Reality and the Ekcolir Reality is that her lover Ekcolir does not exist in the Grean Reality.

My decision to emphasize the relationship between Trysta and Ekcolir within the Exode Trilogy arose from my desire to honor the skill with which Asimov designed and depicted the relationship between Noÿs and Andrew in his time travel novel The End of Eternity.

In The End of Eternity, Asimov explained to us that, in the homewhen of Andrew Harlen, women were expected to be "pure-hearted mothers". Andrew, as a working Eternal, is appalled when he studies the behavior of women, including Noÿs, in the context of "her homewhen". Andrew is sickened by the idea of hedonistic women like Noÿs who are free to engage in casual romantic dalliances and produce children upon demand using artificial reproductive technology.

"The End of Eternity" by Donato Giancola

Of course, Noÿs slyly makes use of of Andrew's social-sexual prejudices and his emotional nature to bring down Eternity. At first, Andrew resents how Noÿs was able to manipulate his emotions and make use of his all-too predictable reactions. However, in the end, Andrew realizes that Noÿs did select the Foundation Reality in part because in that Reality, Noÿs and Andrew would love each other and live happily in the primitive 20th century of Earth.

The Reality Chain leading to our Reality.

The Grean Reality
However, when making plans for her life in the Primitive with Andrew, Noÿs was not able to see past the confines of the Foundation Reality. When Grean initiates another Reality Change and brings into existence the Grean Reality, the future life of Noÿs and Andrew begins to change.

Reminder: in the Exode Trilogy, Noÿs and Andrew use the "cover names" Trysta and Merion Iwedon.

In the first two books of the Exode Trilogy, time travel is still possible and new Reality Changes are to be expected. Trysta lives in the Primitive with constant fear that the timeline she carefully selected might be changed...she cannot be certain that someone from the far future will not return to their past and change the course of Time, disrupting the happy life she had foreseen for Andrew and herself. And her fears are realized: change does come. In particular, Noÿs and Andrew are separated from each other in the Grean Reality: Andrew is captured by Grean, ending his romance with Noÿs.

I imagine that when Noÿs goes back into the Primitive she carries advanced Asterothrope nanites that give her some ability to look into her own future. For a time, she knows that she will lose Andrew, but not the details of how. While she is still searching desperately through time for clues, Andrew is taken from her.

In the Foundation Reality, Noÿs was able to use her nanite implants to reproduce (Andrew believed that the resulting children were his). However, in the new Reality (the Grean Reality), with Noÿs knowing that she would not live out her life with Andrew and "their children", Noÿs was angry and prepared to lash out, sometimes recklessly.

Protective of Andrew's feelings, Noÿs was prepared to exercise restraint with respect to her hyper-excitable Asterothrope libido. Fearing Andrew's jealousy, Noÿs was committed to only pursuing extramarital affairs with 20th century women. The paucity of such opportunities in mid-20th century Wales was a source of great frustration for Noÿs.

Part I of Trysta and Ekcolir

When Grean eliminates Fengtol, attention shifts to the last remaining positronic robot on Earth: Reclue. Reclue has no qualms about making use of the simmering flames of psycho-sexual energy that are tormenting Noÿs. When Grean is finally able to track down Reclue, the easiest choice for me to adopt would be that the robot is destroyed, but I've previously decided that in the Ekcolir Reality it is possible for Reclue to escape and go into hiding. Similarly, there are several possible alternative fates for Noÿs and Andrew in the Grean Reality. In the Ekcolir Reality, Andrew is taken to the Moon by Overseers.

Thomas's cover for the Miners of Earth

Grean plot twists
The most simple way to remove Reclue from Earth and separate Andrew from Noÿs would be to have Grean destroy both the robot and the man. An alternative that makes more sense for the Grean Reality is to let Andrew be placed aboard Many Sails. This option leads to a dramatic confrontation between Grean and Noÿs. Upon realizing the implications of the Asterothrope DNA found on Andrew's body, Grean suddenly recognizes the "subtraction" of Reclue and Andrew as having been a catastrophic error, making it impossible to ever end the time war that rages within the Grean Reality. Thus, Grean is forced to develop plans for crafting the Ek'col and bringing into existence the Ekcolir Reality.

The Ekcolir Reality
I've already hinted at the rather slow development of the romantic relationship between Noÿs and Ekcolir. Thomas, the son of Noÿs and Ekcolir, is able to look into his mother's memories. I've been having great fun imagining Thomas as an author, creating fictional works such as Daveed the Luk'ie and Miners of Earth.

Mary and Malin in South Africa

In Miners of Earth, Thomas creates an imaginary Earth in which aliens have long extracted sedrons from our planet. He models the romantic relationship between Mary Goidel and Malin Crunn on the real (but concealed) relationship between his mother Trysta and Ekcolir. Only gradually, over the course of years, do Mary and Malin come together, move past the barriers that separate them and finally consummate their love.

Similarly, I've previously imagined that due to her Asterothrope libido, it is a rather trivial matter for Ekcolir to develop a physical relationship with Noÿs. It is much more difficult for Noÿs to actually trust Ekcolir and allow herself to be maneuvered into working with Grean to end the Time Travel War. Most difficult of all is the process by which Noÿs can dismiss Andrew from her thoughts and fall deeply in love with Ekcolir.

An important issue for the emotional landscape of Noÿs is the question of what she knows about the fate of Andrew after he is separated from her. If Noÿs can use her nanite symbiont to achieve some access to the Sedronic Domain by means of the Bimanoid Interface then she might be able to learn that Andrew has been taken to the Moon. At first this might motivate Noÿs to continue her struggle against Grean with her goal being to find a way to be reunited with Andrew. However, over the course of many years at Moon Base Andrew eventually gives up hope of ever seeing Noÿs again and he moves on and falls in love with someone new. Andrew's ability to move on with his own life allows Noÿs to develop a deeper relationship with Ekcolir and finally begin working with Grean to end the Time Travel War.

We can speculate whether Thomas was able to look into the future and see that Trysta and Ekcolir would find a way to successfully end the Time Travel War and make a future for Humanity. In Thomas' imaginary parallel universe of Miners of Earth, the story ends with Mary and Malin helping the alien Clyte win a future for the human species among the stars.

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