Showing posts with label Hemmal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hemmal. Show all posts

Apr 22, 2015

Parthney

Parthney (right), shown with
two members of his megepi.
In my previous blog post, I described the origin of the character Parthney who appears in Exode. Growing up on a planet of the Galactic Core, Hemmal, Parthney becomes a musician.

source
For the residents of Hemmal, Earth is little more than a place of myth and legend, but Parthney becomes intrigued by the mythology of Earth. Parthney develops an inconvenient idea: that the mythological world Earth would be a better place to live than Hemmal...and he can't resist singing about his preference for the fantasy culture of Earth. Eventually, Parthney wears out his welcome on Hemmal and he gets kicked off of his home world.

Garage band Parthney.
Parthney enters into training as an Interventionist agent. His training takes place at Lendhalen, a secret base of the Interventionists.

For the past two years, while trying to sort out the rather complex back-story of Exode, I've rather mercilessly made fun of Parthney and his youthful follies. Parthney reminds me of "Chauncey Gardiner" in the film Being There. Parthney is sent to Earth with very low expectations. The Interventionist masterminds who plan his mission to Earth expect Parthney to just bumble around on Earth for a few years before being captured by the Overseers who watch over Earth and who are always on the lookout for Interventionist agents.

Parthney is a "Thomas clone".
When Parthney arrives on Earth, he is rather dismayed to discover that Hana is well on her way towards "blowing the cover" for a major Interventionist project on Earth. Parthney decides that he must teleport Hana off of Earth in order to prevent her from revealing to the whole world that aliens have been secretly guiding human evolution and crafting a primate that can successfully develop a technologically advanced civilization on Earth.

Parthney is half Asterothrope and half Ek'col.
Parthney's genetic mother was Trysta, an Asterothrope. As a time traveler from the far future, Trysta arrives in the 20th century with plans to reproduce by artificial means.

However, she bumps into Ekcolir, an Ek'col male who has been specifically designed to be inter-fertile with Trysta. Trysta is surprised when she becomes pregnant. Growing up inside Trysta, her son Thomas soon develops telepathic communications with Trysta.

Thomas, and all of his many clones, including Parthney, have a strong genetic predisposition towards lives full of artistic endeavors. Thomas becomes a writer and Parthney is a musician while living on Hemmal, although later in life he takes up the pen and writes books such as Last Night on Hemmal.

Whimsical poster depicting Parthney
as a suave secret agent (source).
As a clone of Thomas, Parthney is not quite human. However, Parthney grows up with nanoscopic devices in his body that carefully guide the development of his physical form, ensuring that he has the body structure of a human male.

Syon and Vozgrow at Lendhalen.
Due to the wonders of time travel, there have been many other "Thomas clones" before Parthney. Those earlier "versions of Parthney" were also sent to Earth on Interventionist missions. Their performance on Earth was carefully studied by Vozgrow and Leymaygn and it was hoped that their understanding of Parthney's personality and Syon's knowledge of the future could be used to successfully prepare Parthney for his mission to Earth.

Gwyned
The largest "fly in the ointment" is Gwyned, the sister of Thomas. Parthney develops the inconvenient idea that Gwyned is much better qualified to go to Earth as an Interventionist agent than he is. Eventually, after some arm twisting, Parthney goes off to Earth. However, Gwyned does arrange for a "copy of Luri" to go to Earth with Parthney.

Izhiun is born on the planet Luk'ru
in the Andromeda galaxy
While Parthney is on Earth, his son, Boswei, grows up on Hemmal. At the time, Parthney has no idea that he is a father. Suspecting that Parthney would be her only opportunity to have children, Kach managed to "trick" Parthney into becoming the father of her son, Boswei.

Later, Hana and Boswei meet and fall in love. Their son, Izhiun, ends up playing an important role in allowing the Editor to tell the secret history of Earth.

Book three of the Exode Trilogy.
After being captured by the Overseers, Parthney only spends a short time as a prisoner. Thomas arranges to "take Parthney's place"in the Overseer prison. Parthney gets to return briefly to Hemmal and collect Kach and Boswei. During their mission to the Andromeda galaxy, Kach and Parthney fall in love. However, Kach keeps relentlessly searching for the Creators of the human species until she mysteriously "disappears".

Whimsical pulp cover (source).
Parthney's efforts to find Kach  eventually provide to motivation for Izhiun to go back to Earth where he can take part in the First Contact event involving the Buld spaceship that reaches Earth early in the 21st century.

When Parthney and Kach are finally reunited, they set off on a new mission among the stars, again searching for the Creators.
Related Reading: Parthney in the Ekcolir Reality.
Next: I start my 2015 search for aliens.

Sep 7, 2014

Timeline - the Exodemic Trilogy

The books of the trilogy:
Trysta and Ekolir,
The Foundations of Eternity
and Exode
Most of the time I simply say "Exode Trilogy", but for this blog post I want to emphasize the fact that within the Exodemic Fictional Universe a story must deal with how we lowly humans of Earth confront knowledge of the Huaoshy, the "ancient aliens" who have been visiting Earth for billions of years.

Previously, I've imagined that the Huaoshy have existed for "only" about a billion years, but during the past year, I've had to change my thinking about some key aspects of history. The timeline that I constructed back in 2013 (twice) needs to be updated again so as to reflect new information that has been obtained by Angela and Ivory.

Reminder: this timeline is for the Buld Reality, the universe as we know it. Some of the key events are due to the arrival of time travelers from the previous Reality (the Ekcolir Reality), and I've marked those in green, below. Time travel events within the Buld Reality are marked red. The key event by which Grean initiates the Ekcolir Reality is marked in blue.

~2.5 billion YBP. The original biological species that gave rise to what we Earthlings know as the Huaoshy first developed technology for faster-than-light travel. Their home galaxy was far, far away from Earth. Not much later, the Huaoshy transcended their biological nature and began a new existence as a form of artificial life in the Sedronic Domain.

~ 2.0 billion YBP. The pek reach our galaxy. The pek are an advanced artifcial life tool of the Huaoshy, so when I say that the Huaoshy "have been visiting Earth", that means that the pek visited Earth. About two billion years ago the pek began engineering terrestrial planets (such as Rain World, see below) of the galactic core for use as "incubators" of sapient species that arise on the Earth-like worlds of the galaxy.

~7,000,000 YBP. In the Andromeda galaxy, the pek revealed themselves to the Nereids. The Nereids had by then already existed for several million years as a non-technological sapient species on their metal-poor home world and had only recently developed a space-faring civilization.

Artist's depiction of a Fru'wu
At about the same time, the pek began taking special interest in the primates of Earth. Some early human/chimp ancestors were taken from Earth to Rain World. The pek began experimenting with how to biologically transform an ape into a life form that could transcend its physical existence in three dimensional space and become an artificial life form existing in the higher dimensional Sedronic Domain.

At this time (about 7 million years ago) other biological species in our galaxy such as the Fruthwa (see below) have already long been "domesticated" by the pek.

Extinction curve, based on pek data.
~6,000,000 YBP. The initial interstellar civilization of the Fru'wu that had spread out from the home world Reahand was destroyed by a self-inflicted technological disaster involving their primitive nanotechnology. The biological species that originated on Reahand and gave rise to the Fru'wu is called the "Fruthwa", but humans have had no contact with the Fruthwa since that species was extinct long before humans existed. The Huaoshy had preserved some domesticated Fruthwa on worlds of the galactic core. What we Earthlings know as the Fru'wu were actually derived from a variant of the original Fruthwa; a subspecies that evolved further on the the planet Clutence.

By this time (six million years ago), the Nereids had transformed themselves into artificial lifeforms that existed within the Sedronic Domain, but their artificial life creation, the nanorobotic Grendels, had by then given rise to an important new faction of the Interventionists.  The Grendels began having Interventionist contact with some of the Fru'wu. In general, humans have only ever had contact with Grendels, so in the timeline below, mention of "Nereids" should be thought of as meaning "Nereids acting through their agents, the Grendels".

724,000 YBP. Some early humans were taken from Rain World and cultured on Hemmal, another world of the galactic core. Creation of the hermaphroditic Prelands begins. By the present time, the biology of the Prelands has been radically transformed by the pek and they are nearly ready to be moved to Earth as a replacement for we Earthlings.

source
200,000 YBP. Needing a tool that will allow them to infiltrate and defeat the Eternals, the Huaoshy begin to develop the Kac'hin, a human variant that can be used like humanoid puppets by the Huaoshy. Captain Hooski is one of the Kac'hin who appear in The Foundations of Eternity. The Kac'hin are developed on the planet Luk'ru, a world that later becomes the home of Hana and Boswei and their children. By 150,000 YBP the Kac'hin development project is mostly complete.  Only further refinement of the special ability of the Kac'hin to link into the Sedronic Domain is attempted on Luk'ru. Some Kac'hin are sent to live on Rain World. Later, Tar'tron becomes the main Kac'hin world and it is there that the Kac'hin "selfies" are developed.

~80,000 YBP. Delphys Ghreanamar, a hermaphroditic Kac'hin, lives on Rain World. Wyzalex Torvaya, a female Kac'hin, lives in the same time period. Much later, Grean, a clone of Delphys, plays an important role in shaping the Buld Reality. Similarly, Kach and Lycaun are two clones of Wyzalex who live in our time.

Trysta and Ekcolir
~40,000 YBP. The Nereids help establish a faction of Fru'wu rebels on a hidden (within the Hierion Domain) world of the galactic core (known to Earthlings as Klyz). Those Fru'wu were able to maintain independence from the pek right up to the present time, although some of their agents were occasionally captured by the pek. Starting about this time, there were some early interactions between the Nereids, the Fru'wu and the Buld. These Fru'wu were all hybrid lifeforms with some biological components and some nanorobotic elements. The Nereids monitored events on Earth and occasionally they managed to work through the Fru'wu and the Buld and helped bring a human from the galactic core to Earth. However, there were Overseers stationed at Observer Base on the Moon who prevented Interventionists from interfering much with the course of events on Earth.

At about this time, Grean arrived from the future of an earlier Reality and began the creation of another human variant, the Ek'col, on Rain World. The Ek'col males were designed to be reproductively compatible with Asterothrope females.

From this time onward, there was also a fairly large population of "liberated" Fru'wu in the Andromeda galaxy. This group of Fru'wu had been taken there from our galaxy by the Nereids. To facilitate interactions with the Buld, the Nereids also moved some Fru'wu to the planet Clu'ten'iun.

~20,000 YBP. Ekcolir, a modified human (an Ek'col) from the galactic core in the Ekcolir Reality who had been brought to Earth as an Interventionist agent, arrives in the Buld Reality from the future. He lives among a group Earthlings near the end of the last glacial maximum and passes his Preland genes into the human gene pool of Earth. For that crime, he is captured by Overseers and taken to Observer Base on the Moon where he completes his mission to the past by preventing the development of positronic robots. At about the same time, the pek allow the Fru'wu rebels to make it possible for some Buld to transform themselves into the Pla, a group of rebel Buld.

source
~15,000 YBP. The Fru'wu provide the Pla with the location of Earth. A Buld spaceship, traveling close to the speed of light, begins a journey from the galactic core to Earth which will take about 15,000 years.

Syon
~10,000 YBP. Trysta arrives from the future and lives among a group of Earthlings near the Black Sea who have retained Preland genes that originated from Ekcolir's intervention into Earth history about 10,000 years previously. Trysta helps these Earthlings develop a written language and learn to read and write. Noÿs talked to these primitives about her origins and describe to them the far future of Earth and the danger of sea level rise from melting ice caps. Trysta's time in the neolithic coincide with a dramatic Black Sea filling event, which combined with her explanations of glacial ice melt contributed to the popularity of flood myths on Earth.

Luri
Trysta helps the Fru'wu establish their first teleportation terminal on Earth. When her work on Earth is done, Trysta is teleported to Klyz where she transfers her advanced Asterothrope nanites from the far future of the Mallansohn Reality into a primitive Fru'wu robot, allowing Trysta to have a "second life" as the artificial life form known as Syon. The Interventionist agents of the Pla later started working on Earth with robotic assistants containing "Trysta nanites". The pek collect some nanites from Trysta and use them in their human breeding program to perfect the Ek'col and phenotypically craft them into their final human form.

~2,000 YBP. Thrukta, a "Thomas clone" carries out his mission on Earth. His main mission on Earth is to assist in the shift of cultural momentum from the Mediterranean towards northwestern Europe. He teleports Luri to Klyz. Luri eventually has an important influence on Earth through her work at Space Energy Missions (see below).

~1,500 YBP. Rathuf, a "Thomas clone" carries out his mission on Earth. Stationed in England, he helps bring advanced technologies like glass manufacturing to England. He teleports Rotharkin to Klyz. While in training under Oib, Rathuf meets Luri, who seems to have an elastic personality. In fact, "Luri" is two people: one a newly instantiated copy of the original biological woman while the other "copy" is an artificial life form, designed to resemble the original. Only after their arrival on Earth does Rathuf learn that his partner in adventure is the artificial Luri.

Rathuf
~750 YBP. King Henry III's daughter Katherine is teleported off of Earth when her unusual interaction with Earth's nanites is noticed. She lives out her life at the Urgark training base in the Koly star system and helps train Humget for his mission to Earth (~ the year 1270).

Syon runs a primitive scientific laboratory at Urgark where she trains Katherine in the principles of metallurgy, steam power and coal-fired furnaces. Katherine and Humget meet at Urgark when they are about 12 years old. Since they have never before known other humans, they grow up experimenting socially with each other as well as learning how to make guns and cannons. A thousand years later, Parthney is not pleased when he learns of the role of Humget in the death of Llywelyn.


~500 YBP. Lendhalen is established as the last in a series of Pla training bases for Interventionist agents. Syon is present at Lendhalen and arranges to have an efficient training program in place for Parthney. The "magnetic pulse" method that is used to inactivate pek nanites has no effect on the "Trysta nanites" that are inside Syon.

Jane Grey is one of the first Earthlings who is brought to Lendhalen. Rechmain is the first "Thomas clone" trained at Lendhalen for a mission to Earth.

1910. Deomede is born on Hemmal. He is later trained at Lendhalen and teleported to Earth. Deomede is the Buld Reality analog of Ekcolir.

1936. Trysta arrives from the future and meets Deomede. They have a daughter, Gwyned (born 1939) and then a son, Andy.

1940. Thomas arrives in the Buld Reality from the future. Born in the Ekcolir Reality, he was the son of Trysta and Ekcolir. He carries nanites of several types that provide Thomas with an unusual collection of memories, including some from the Isaac Asimov of the Foundation Reality. Thomas transfers his nanites into John Campbell. This allows Campbell to help the Asimov of the Buld Reality start writing science fiction stories that are based on events from the Foundation Reality. Without the nanites in his brain, Thomas needs intensive psychiatric care during the 1940s.

Gwyned
1949. Thomas retrieves his nanites from Campbell. Thomas develops close friendships with Janet Jeppson and his writing becomes known to Asimov. Ideas from Thomas help stimulate Asimov to write The End of Eternity and to develop his interest in global warming.

1964. After working to develop alternatives to fossil fuels, Gwyned is teleported off of Earth by Deomede. She arrives first at Klyz and then moves on to Lendhalen. She tries to understand the advanced technologies that are available to the Buld including teleportation and the robot assistants of Lendhalen. She is not allowed to remain consciously aware of the fact that Syon carries advanced nanites that originated with her mother, Trysta.

1965. Parthney arrives at Demon Lodge on Hemmal. He meets Yandrey and begins to learn about Earth as a real planet, the home of Humanity, rather than a place of legend.

Yandre
1967. Parthney arrives at Lendhalen for training as an Interventionist agent on Earth. Gwyned and Parthney both suspect that there is more to Syon than meets the eye. Syon has a physical appearance that reminds Gwyned of her mother and Syon tells Gwyned that she has 10,000 year old memories of Trysta from the time when Trysta first arrived at Klyz. Parthney is impressed by Gwyned's knowledge of Earth and advanced technologies.

Katherine and Humget
When Parthney stops his training with the expectation that Gwyned should be the one to go to Earth, Syon convinces Parthney that he is the one who must go to Earth. Parthney asks Syon about Trysta and the robot suddenly and mysteriously delivers a message from Trysta: "Thomas, remember to meet Izhiun on the mall". This is the last time that Syon acts outside of the normal behavioral pattern for the robots of Lendhalen. Gwyned asks Parthney to look for her mother (Trysta) and a mysterious half-brother (Thomas; who Gwyned has never met) when he reaches Earth.

In addition to his interactions with Syon and Gwyned while in training at Lenhalen, Parthney also receives information about conditions on Earth from Luri, Jane, Katherine and Rotharkin.

Grean and Delpha
1970. [From the Asimov Reality, Grean is passaged through the "Eternity" time bubble on the Moon and then sent back through time, first to ~200,000 YBP to begin development of the Kac'hin then to ~40,000 YBP to initiate development of the Ek'col (see above). This creates the Ekcolir Reality]

Betty
1971. From within the Buld Reality, Trysta travels back in time to 10,000 YBP (see above). Before this final time travel event, working with Grean, Trysta gets a chance to look into the future of the Buld Reality. She confirms that the desired future is becoming increasingly more likely. Also, in the guise of "Aunt Mayness", Trysta makes sure that The Editor is able to read a copy of Thomas' book The Miners of Earth.

After Trysta travels back in time, the Huaoshy initiate a shift in the dimensional structure of the universe which makes time travel impossible. In the Buld Reality, Parthney and Luri are teleported to Earth where he meets Deomede and the robotic assistant Betty. Deomede tells Parthney that Trysta is gone, but they begin searching for Thomas.

Trysta & Ekcolir
1972. [From the Ekcolir Reality, Ekcolir (the Interventionist analog of Deomede) is passaged through the "Eternity" time bubble on the Moon and then sent back through time about 20,000 years to initiate the Buld Reality.]

1973. [In the Ekcolir Reality, Thomas was kept inside the time travel device on the Moon during the time when the Ekcolir Reality was changed into the Buld Reality by Ekcolir. Thomas was then sent back to 1940 of the Buld Reality (see above).]

1974. [Trysta, who originated in the Mallansohn Reality and lived on Earth through much of the 20th century, is passaged through the "Eternity" time bubble on the Moon and then sent back through time from 1974 in the Ekcolir Reality to 1936 in the Buld Reality (see above).] Trysta lives through much of the 20th century again, this time in the Buld Reality, until 1971 (see above).

1977. Parthney's search for Thomas is mostly futile, but the trail of people who have known Thomas and have corresponded with him leads Parthney to Janet and Isaac Asimov. Isaac Asimov digs out an old manuscript from Thomas: a "fantasy story" about a man named Izhiun who meets some mysterious "Buld" who appear on Earth in the year 2012.

In 1977 Asimov attends a science fiction mini-convention at the Triversity. He meets Peter, Thomas and "the Editor".

Asimov never took seriously the idea that "Daveed the Luk'ie" should be published because it was written like some kind of spoof of Asimov's science fiction style. Of course, Asimov is unaware that some events in the story are based on what Trysta saw while looking into the future from her perspective in the Ekcolir Reality when she was viewing alternative Realities and making plans with Grean for establishing the Buld Reality. Janet is not able to say much since Thomas was her patient for many years, however she tells Parthney that Thomas believed that his "science fantasy story" about the Buld was not fiction, that events would actually happen as described in the "story". Asimov has only corresponded with Thomas. Janet further mystifies Parthney by asking him, "Is Thomas your brother?" At that time, Parthney does not know that he is a clone of Thomas.

Trysta views
Realities
Before traveling back through time, Trysta arranged for Thomas to give a presentation at a SciFi "convention" being held on a university campus. Thomas talks about his science fiction, including The Miners of Earth, but he mysteriously disappears right after the talk.

1980. Deomede tells Parthney that he will test the idea that the Overseers can now detect teleportation events. He gives Parthney his list of contacts among the Earthlings in case he is captured. He is captured by Overseers shortly after he teleports an Earthling to Klyz.

1984. Parthney has come to believe that one of Deomede's contacts, Hana, might be the "Hana" mentioned in Thomas' "story" about Izhiun and the Buld. Parthney has discovered that Hana has been having "email" communications with Thomas by means of messages sent over CSNET. The man on Earth who meets the arriving Buld spaceship is described in the "story" as, "Izhiun, son of Hana, born in the Andromeda galaxy." The story describes Hana as having been born on Earth.

Klyz
Parthney teleports Hana off of Earth and soon he is captured by an Overseer and taken to the Moon. Hana has a daughter, Hilde, who is six years old when Hana leaves Earth.

Thomas, having been warned by Trysta to watch carefully when Parthney is captured, uses his nanites to sneak into Observer Base right after Parthney is taken in.

Thomas and Parthney confirm that Observer Base is being phased out in preparation for the arrival of the Buld spaceship. They make use of the hierion-based communications equipment at Observer Base to contact the Buld spaceship which has now dropped below light speed on approach to Earth. Thomas uses the teleportation terminal at Observer Base to send Parthney back to Klyz. Thomas takes the place of Parthney as a prisoner of the Overseers and the swap goes undetected since they are genetically identical.

Kach
1985. The Fru'wu at Klyz want to send a human delegation to the Andromeda galaxy to make contact with the Nereids. Believing that Parthney was responsible for the death of her husband, Hana refuses to work with Parthney.

1987. Kach and her son Boswei leave Hemmal and go with Parthney to the Andromeda Galaxy. Hana, Muchlo and Steph go along.

Hilde
1991. Hana and Boswei settle on Luk'ru in the Andromeda galaxy. Their son Izhiun is born.

1998. Kach goes to Earth on a mission to contact the secret Nereid agent who is on Earth. She is captured by the Overseers and taken to Observer Base. Kach meets Thomas who is still living at Observer Base.

2001. Hilde contacts the man who she believes might be her father. She passes along what she has been able to learn from her contacts at Space Energy Missions. The Editor begins to write Exodemic.

site of the Buld visit to Earth
2011. Izhiun arrives on Earth with a clone of Kach, Lycaun. According to the arrangement that was made between Trysta and the Huaoshy, the Nereids are supposed to stop interfering with Earth. The Overseers try to capture the secret Nereid agent on Earth. To the Overseers, it looks like Kach was killed in the raid, but Kach is teleported back to Klyz. Izhiun contacts Hana's husband who is still living on Earth.

2012. The Buld spaceship makes a quick visit to Earth. The existing Overseers retire. The Nereids agree to back off and work through the Buld to indirectly influence events on Earth. The Buld know that the Earthlings need a clean, safe energy source.

Foundations of Eternity
  Izhiun meets the Buld at the Washington Monument and obtains instructions for how to build an energy receiver that will collect energy transmitted by hierions from a solar energy collection station that the Buld can put on Mercury. Izhiun finds Hana's daughter, Hilde, and learns that her company (Space Energy Missions, including people like Luri) is designing a solar energy facility that can be easily converted to receive energy from Mercury.

The Huaoshy make the remaining Observers on the Moon into the next Overseers, but they begin operating under a new set of rules that allows Earth to receive some technological assistance from the Buld. Hana's husband begins placing the Exode story on the internet. Izhiun and Hilde leave Earth and they go with the Buld to start constructing the solar energy collector on Mercury.

The Atlantis Clones
Thomas returns to Earth from the Moon and gives up his nanites, wishing to end his life living as a "normal" Earthling. Thomas and Izhiun deposits their "information nanites" with "the Editor". Ivory contacts "the Editor" and they begin a collaborative effort to make sense of the secret history of Earth. It soon becomes clear that Angela's ability to use the Bimanoid Interface can allow "the Editor" to decode the information provided by Thomas and Izhiun.

2013. Working together, Angela, Ivory and "the Editor" begin to make sense of the Reality Chain that led to the universe as we know it.

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Jan 12, 2014

Let There Be Light

art by Ian Barton
I'm not a fan of short fiction.
I prefer mega fiction sagas, fictional universes that have been intricately crafted and lovingly evolved over the many long decades of an author's life, stories that have been bled out of the veins of an author who was, at a young age, possessed by a demonic muse and forced to imagine an alternate universe that will puzzle, challenge and delight me, a fictional alternate world that I want to visit on the printed page more than I want to exist in our mundane world of reality.

Fictional Universes
The first such fictional universe that I got to explore in the golden science fiction age of my youth was "Doc" Smith's Arisian Universe. The image to the left is a re-imagining of a Lensman cover by William W. Connors.

Then I immersed myself in Heinlein's "future history". His Time Enough for Love includes a character (Lazarus Long) who lives for thousands of years.

Sky with no night.
Those fictional universes were "child's play", for me. I later explored Vance's Oikumenical Universe and Asimov's Galactic Empire and knew that I had arrived "home", I had found my place among the stars.

Sadly, not all of Asimov's science fiction fits into his sweeping saga of the galactic empire...for example, Asimov's story Nightfall, which I was forced to read while in school. If it is the greatest or "best science fiction short story" of the golden age of science fiction then I must lament the quality of the competition. Stories that are constructed as a wordy way to encapsulate a "punch line" and be sold to the editor of a magazine often set my teeth to grinding. To "meet the requirements" for a world where civilization would suddenly collapse, were it ever to become dark, Asimov had to write about an unpleasant place that I would never want to visit. However, the idea of a world with no real night intrigues me.


The bright night of Trullion, by Ian Barton
Alastor Clustor
Jack Vance lovingly invented the world Trullion, a planet nestled in Alastor Clustor, and populated it with a cast of memorable characters.

The folk of Trullion enjoy "sky watches". As imagined by Vance, the night sky of worlds like Trullion are a "flamboyant display of star-streams, luminous webs, sparkling nodes."

and

"at night the stars of Alastor Cluster blaze in profusion: the sky quivers with beams, glitters and errant flashes."

Galactic Core
Contact
In his novel Pebble in the Sky, Asimov wrote about "the unbearable glory of the skies of the Central Worlds, where star elbowed star in such blinding competition that the black of night was nearly lost in a coruscant explosion of light".

Asimov's planet Trantor is morphed into "Tar'tron" in the Exodemic Fictional Universe.

In Sagan's Contact, Ellie has a vision of a "crowded" sky as seen from some point near the center of the galaxy.

Hemmal
The story of Parthney's life begins on the planet Hemmal, a world that is located in the central part of the galaxy. I imagine that the night sky of Hemmal would be quite bright with the combined light of all the nearby stars of the galactic core.

In the night when Parthney leaves his home at Demon Lodge on Hemmal, there is a storm...the clouds are thick and the sky is unusually dark. In order to find their way down the trail, Kach and Parthney need an artificial light source. The fanciful cover to the left depicts the two on a clear night.


Science vs Religion
In Nightfall, Asimov imagined a world where scientists could learn the astronomical truth about their world: once every couple of thousand years an "eclipse" blocks out all sunlight and the stars can finally be seen. However, it is a world full of religious fanatics who feel obligated to argue with the scientists and deny that astronomical truth in favor of belief in their own religious dogma: that blasphemous scientists will bring the wrath of God and cause the destruction of the world.

Such "science vs religion" stories can be tedious and ugly. If I want to contemplate religious bigotry I need only look at our own world...I don't need fictional accounts of ugliness. Sorry, but I don't want to pay young Isaac to waste his time writing about such an ugly subject.

In his novel Contact, Sagan managed to depict a rather tediously long discussion between scientific explorers and religious seekers of Truth. I'm grateful to Robert Zemeckis for bringing to the screen a slim version of Sagan's story in which the religious Palmer and the scientific Ellie are able to "find common ground and bring down the barriers that had kept them apart".

Sthelany
The Darkest Hour
After sweeping readers off to Alastor Cluster, Vance decided to include among its 3,000 human-inhabited worlds a planet (Marune) where night falls only about once a month. During this brief period of "Mirk", the Rhunes experience a kind of temporary madness.

According to Vance, the Rhunes are disgusted by sexuality. However, "about once a month, the land grows dark, and the Rhunes grow restless...sexual activity occurs only as a night-deed."

Fwai-chi
Both Efraim and his friend Lorcas can't help but be fascinated by Sthelany. During Mirk, both men can't resist the temptation to visit her chamber in Benbuphar castle. Efraim escapes alive, but Lorcas has been lured into a trap by the waspish Sthelany and he is murdered.

Whirling Suns, Dancing Stars
At the dramatic climax of Marune: Alastor 933, Efraim is given back his memory by the Fwai-chi. Efraim experiences the return of his memories as a kind of vision of past events. He suddenly recalls growing up and coming to know Maerio: the sweet discovery that "her company was extraordinarily stimulating" and that she was "remarkably pleasant to look at".

What are we to make of the Fwai-chi "medicine" that restores Efraim's memory? Vance suggests that the alien Fwai-chi are better in tune with a paracosmic medium that lies beyond normal human senses. Has Efraim, with the aid of Fwai-chi nanites, been allowed to tap into a "new" source of knowledge?
Belrod Strang: Efraim comes by aircar to visit the home of Maerio.

Syon
Bimanoid Interface
Imagine that the Fwai-chi long ago had a technologically advanced civilization. All that remains are bands of wanderers who cling to the surface of Marune, now a world invaded by humans. The Fwai-chi lead a dual existence: partially in the universe of conventional matter but also with special access to the Sedronic Domain, the part of the universe that is characterized by sedronic mater which can move through additional compact dimensions.

In Exode, Kach is fascinated by the religious faith of the Prelands. The Prelands are hermaphroditic, designed and constructed by the pek to be replacements for we humans. The Prelands know that Hemmal was created for them. In their temples, the Prelands commune with their Creators by a kind of telepathic connection established by femptoscale devices composed of sedronic matter, tiny devices that exist as symbiotic artificial life forms inside the Prelands. Syon refers to this "hotline to the Creators" as a "bimanoid interface".

Asterothrope
Kach is a Kac'hin, a human variant that was designed to facilitate the passage of Asterothrope gene combinations into the human gene pool. Because of her genetic background, Kach has some innate ability to use the bimanoid interface. She can sense the existence of the Creators and she is driven to make more complete contact with them.

Parthney also has his fair share of Asterothrope gene combinations. He is a clone of Thomas, the first child of an Asterothrope and an Ek'col to ever be born on Earth. The Ec'kol are another human variant that was crafted by the pek to be inter-fertile with Asterothropes.

Asterothropes are from more than 10,000,000 years in the future of the Mallansohn Reality, a time after we humans became extinct. The Asterothropes were designed and constructed by Gohrlay as a tool for spreading people out to the stars from Earth.

Gwyned
When Parthney was young, no attempt was made to adapt his developing brain for efficient interactions with either "pek nanites" or the "bimanoid interface". Parthney views belief in "Creators" as the result of religious indoctrination by the pek. After Parthney has completed his mission to Earth, he is recruited by the Fru'wu to go to the Andromeda galaxy and try to make contact with the Nereids. Parthney returns to the Koly star system where he hopes to recruit helpers for this new mission to Andromeda, but neither Syon or Gwyned want to go with him.

Parthney returns to Hemmal where he finds that Kach is tired of her efforts to understand Preland culture. She has made no progress in her attempts to learn the basis for Preland faith in the existence of Creators. Parthney is surprised to learn that he is the father of Kach's son, Boswei. On the journey to Andromeda Parthney falls in love with Kach and he tries to understand her relentless quest to find the Creators. For a time she explores the hypothesis that the Nereids might be the Creators.
The journey to Andromeda

Planetary art by Geoffroy Thoorens
Now that Kach is older and no longer dresses like a Preland, Parthney is also intrigued by her resemblance to Syon. Long ago, Gohrlay developed a protocol for shaping Asterothropes into human form and that same developmental sculpting program was adopted for the Kac'hin.

After Boswei and Hana decide to settle on Luk'ru, it is eventually discovered that the Kac'hin were designed and created on that world in the Andromeda galaxy. However, by that time Kach has been lost to Parthney. With time, he is able to interest his grandson, Izhiun, in the puzzle of Kach's disappearance.

Izhiun finds the remaining Kac'hin on Luk'ru and learns the secrets of his grandmother's origin and the fact that she has gone to Earth. He agrees to participate in the rescue operation that will try to free Kach from Observer Base on the Moon.

I previously decided that Kach would contact the Nereids on a planet near the core of the Andromeda galaxy.

I'm now thinking that the planet Luk'ru should also be in the crowded central part of the Andromeda galaxy. It is one of the worlds engineered by the pek as a place for crafting special human variants like the Kac'hin during the time when Gohrlay was in control of our galaxy and the pek had to create human variants in another galaxy.
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There are more thoughts about the Fwai-chi in my next blog post.

Note: for more about the Bimanoid Interface see my blog post on Cory Corneigh.

Related Reading: more on the role of nanites and artificial life forms in Alastor Clustor.
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