Speculative Anthropology

Early Homo skull (source)

When thinking of Jack Vance as a speculative anthropologist I always think of his story The Star King. Over dinner with Pallis Atwrode, Kirth Gersen theorizes about the extraterrestrial origin of Cro-Magnon man: "...let's just assume that some race able to traverse space visited Earth. Assume that they captured a tribe of Mousterian Neanderthals, and for some reason conveyed them to Ghnarumen." Gersen goes on to speculate that those Neanderthals might have evolved into Cro-Magnons who were then transported back to Earth.

In recent years it has been possible to sequence the genomes of several human subspecies (Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo denisova) and as discussed in a previous blog post, it does not seem possible that we evolved from Neanderthals, rather, we are just one of several alternative types of humans who originated from a common human ancestor (Homo heidelbergensis ?) along with the Neanderthals.

source

Vance allowed Gersen to speculate about how the natives of planet Ghnarumen had come to so closely resemble humans. Vance imagined that those aliens were simultaneous hermaphrodites and had the ability to pass acquired characteristics from one generation to the next. How could such an alien species adopt the human form with such exactitude that they could walk among we humans and go unrecognized (as did Attel Malagate who posed as a university administrator)?

Disguised as Human
How might a biological species efficiently pass acquired traits from one generation to the next? Humans have "mirror neuron" systems that allow us to respond to perceived facial expressions with motor neuron activity patterns that produce similar facial expressions. Seeing someone else smile automatically activates neurons in my brain that are also active when I smile.

Thaumoctopus mimicus

Here on Earth, mimicry has been studied as an adaptation that can evolve by Darwinian mechanisms. Some octopuses can control their appearance and even mimic other animals. This shows that it is possible for an animal to evolve a nervous system that can signal widely to the parts of its body in order to take on the appearance of another animal. Both the changes in body form and coloration changes in cephalopods involve regulation of skeletal muscle contraction.

Directed evolution
Could the camouflage mechanism of cephalopods be extended to include a mechanism for passing acquired traits into the genome and on to future generations? One easy to conceptualize mechanism for regulating gene expression involves simple sequence repeats. We can imagine a gene transcription regulatory process by which mRNA abundance in a cell is controlled by the number of repeats of a short nucleotide sequence in a gene's enhancer element. For example, more copies of a specific short nucleotide sequence might recruit additional proteins that increase gene transcription.

octopus brain (source)

How might use of a cephalopod's camouflage/mimicry system be coupled to lengthening and shortening inheritable gene expression enhancers? We can imagine a protein complex that regulates the insertion of additional simple sequence repeats adjacent to existing ones. We can also imagine a signal transduction mechanism that would respond to growth factor molecules released from active motor neurons. An individual that was frequently activating a specific pattern of motor neurons in order to mimic another animal would expose cells in its tissues to a particular pattern of growth factors. In the short term, this might enlarge or shrink particular tissues in some parts of the animal's body. If the protein complex that regulates the insertion of additional simple sequence repeats were sensitive to such growth factor signals, then genes for the control of muscle development could be altered.

oral sex

Fwai-chi

Vance imagined that the "proto-Star Kings" were hermaphrodites who reproduced by emitting spores. We are used to thinking of animals that have specialized organs for producing gametes, but for purposes of passing on acquired characteristics, I imagine an animal that can produce spores from any part of the body, allowing individuals to convert somatic mutations that arise in a tissue like skeletal muscle into germline genetic alterations.

Vance suggested that the proto-Star Kings released spores with their breath, evoking an interesting image of oral sex among the natives of Ghnarumen. Maybe enzymes in the mouth are required to activate spores, requiring that the desired spores for reproduction be nibbled from one specific part of the body. In Marune: Alastor 933, Vance described how the alien Fwai-chi reproduced by nibbling on each other and gestating young in their stomachs. Recombination of genes carried by the spores would allow generation of offspring with somatically-selected gene expression patterns leading to the growth of more muscle in a specific part of the bodies of those in the next generation.

dangerous snake: target for mimicry

As an example, imagine that an octopus needed to be able to mimic a dangerous snake. It might be possible for two of the eight octopus limbs to be selected for expansion and attempted duplication of morphological features of the snake. The other six limbs might actually be reduced in size over the course of several generations, eventually resulting in an octopus with two large limbs and six small limbs and great skill at taking on the form of the snake.

The Man Trap

What might be particularly effective would be if an intelligent animal could make use of its memory to judge which patterns of changes to gene expression would be most useful in the next generation. "Dang, most everyone else has been expanding limbs 2 and 6. I better do the same!"

The Man Trap
The "salt monster" was supposed to be able to use McCoy's memories against him, tricking him into imagining that he was seeing a human woman. The "salt monster" could telepathically manipulate the entire crew of the Enterprise, but in the end our heroes prevail because....well, you can't kill off the cast in the first episode of a three year television program.

When I was young I imagined that telepathy could not be the entire explanation for how the crew of the Enterprise was fooled...the "alien monster" in The Man Trap must have been able to physically take on human form. Which is more technologically plausible, that an alien could over the course of a few years learn to take telepathic control of human brains or that an alien could mimic the appearance of a human body?

Deltrijoshnypwannem

Genesaunt Civilization
For stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, I imagine that there is an intergalactic civilization with thousands of different species. They all have access to sophisticated technology for modifying their own genes. Typically, by the time species become part of Genesaunt Civilization, the Huaoshy have spent millions of years carefully crafting them into organisms that work and play well with others. The Huaoshy allow those many species a large amount of freedom to explore different genetic modifications, but the pek continually direct their evolution towards forms that will be able to smoothly make a transition from the domain of biology to artificial lifeforms than can "cross over" into the domain of sedronic matter and leave behind our dingy three dimensional universe of conventional matter.

Kac'hin
I've been thinking about the origin of the Kac'hin. I've been imagining that hundreds of millions of years after the biological source species of the Huaoshy transformed themselves into artificial lifeforms composed of sedronic matter, the Huaoshy would have lost interest in the universe of conventional matter. The pek, an artificial lifeform that was designed by the Huaoshy, can efficiently spread Genesaunt Civilization from galaxy to galaxy without close supervision. From the perspective of the god-like Huaoshy, creatures like we humans are not much more interesting than pond scum or weeds in a pasture.

But then, as told in The Foundations of Eternity,  positronic robots suddenly upset the quiet and calm of the pek. Positronic robots did what the Huaoshy assumed was impossible: they developed telepathy and time travel and so the Huaoshy suddenly needed to again pay some attention to an annoying biological organism...specifically: Homo sapiens.

I've been imagining that the Kac'hin become the "conduit" by which the Huaoshy can make a dramatic return to the world of conventional matter and deal with the pesky humans and "their" positronic robots. What is the backstory for the Kac'hin? What is the story of their biological origins and eventual use by the Huaoshy to put the upstart humans back in their proper place?

Hundreds of millions of years ago when the Huaoshy were perfecting the pek, there might have been a biological species that had gone down the evolutionary path that Vance envisioned for the natives of the planet Ghnarumen. Such a species would have been particularly well suited to the task of interacting with newly-discovered lifeforms, particularly those that already had technological civilizations before ever achieving first contact with the pek.

If that species were the original "Kac'hin" then they might have become a problem for the Huaoshy because of their superior ability to deal with other lifeforms. I'm imagining that the Kac'hin might have been an important part of the development of the Interventionist faction of Genesaunt Civilization. From an early time the Huaoshy might have found ways to "keep tabs on" the activity of the Kac'hin in order to regulate their interventionism and the extent of their interference with the cultural development of other species. This special relationship between the Huaoshy and the Kac'hin might have been the earliest origin of what eventually became the "bimanoid interface", the means by which the Huaoshy can have contact with humans in Exode and The Foundations of Eternity.

When Many Sails becomes aware of Orbho Anagro's little science project (the development of positronic robots), suspicions are raised about the "mental powers" of Neanderthals. Many sails is intrigued by the social cohesion observed among both Neanderthals and Denisovans and how it contrasts with the individualism of Homo sapiens. However, before Many Sails can sort out this mystery, R. Gohrlay develops a powerful form of telepathy that far outstrips the weak form of telepathy that is naturally present in Neanderthals. Using telepathy as a weapon against the orbho, R. Gohrlay takes control of Observer Base on the Moon. It takes many thousands of years for the Huaoshy to finally realize that the positronic robots of Earth have telepathic powers...by then, Galaxia is almost complete.

R. Gohrlay in the Assembly Room

The Huaoshy have two important technological advantages over the positronic robots: 1) advanced nanite technology and 2) more advanced space travel technology. In order not to allow their nanite technology to fall into the hands of the positronic robots of Earth, the Huaoshy place Kac'hin in command of Many Sails and the effort to regain control of Earth. The Kac'hin do have a symbiotic component that is composed of sedronic matter, but R. Gohrlay and her team have never developed the advanced technology that is required to detect those symbionts.

The pek are masters of shape shifting, but they rely on zeptoscale components that could be detected by R. Gohrlay's primitive hierion technology, so the pek are kept away from the positronic robots. The Huaoshy need the Kac'hin, but the Kac'hin have long been devoted to undermining and skirting the Rules of Intervention. The Huaoshy make use of the Kac'hin and start down a road that will put an end to positronics, but by involving the Kac'hin and Noÿs, they do so at the cost of having to compromise over the ultimate fate of Humanity.

Pallis at the Nautilus.

When R. Gohrlay takes over Observer Base, humans lose the benefits of "pek nanite" technology. Luckily, the small cadre of human scientists at Observer Base have long been distrustful of the orbho and they are generally aware of the existence of nanites. They have tried to live without orbho and nanites, so when R. Gohrlay destroys Anagro and the small group of executive orbho who control the programming of nanites, the human population of Observer Base survives. They struggle to develop their own technology, eventually developing "hyperjump" space travel, time travel and a primitive nanite technology...all with the help of the positronic robots.

The story of the struggle between the Kac'hin and R. Gohrlay over the fate of Humanity and the establishment of Galaxia is told in The Foundations of Eternity.

Smade's Planet

Road trip.

Back when I was in my own personal golden age of science fiction (12 years old) there was a  summer when, while traveling by car across the country, every turn and rise brought the discovery of some golden new place. On the radio late that August was the Elliot Lurie song, Brandy, evoking thoughts of distant ocean ports.

I've never done much traveling by sea, but the fiction of Jack Vance seems to explicitly elaborate on an analogy between travel from port to port by sea and space travel between planets. In Vance's Demon Princes novels the setting is a future when travel between the stars has become as convenient as a sea voyage between London and New York. Vance novels in the Demon Princes and Alastor Cluster series are spiced with "starmenters", the futuristic equivalent of pirates.

A port on a western bay.

In his novel Trullion, here is how Vance described the thoughts of Glinnes when he left his home world and joined the Whelm, the equivalent of the navy in Alastor Cluster: "He had envisioned a life more romantically adventurous; he had seen himself prowling the cluster in a patrol boat, searching out starmenter nests, then putting into remote and picturesque settlements for a few days shore-leave."

The Whelm is the key military force of the Connatic, who is absolute ruler of Alastor Cluster. As humans spread through the galaxy there is always an expanding central domain of civilized worlds (the Oikumene) surrounded by a frontier of more newly settled worlds: the Beyond. Inhabitants of the worlds of the Beyond constantly face danger from criminals and enslavement by starmenters. Sapient alien species are rare in the galaxy near Earth, but they include the so called "Star Kings".

Vance novels that include the Oikumene often depict space cruisers that carry passengers between the stars like ocean liners crossing the oceans of Earth. The rich and powerful have their own magnificent space yachts. Here is how the Connatic describes star voyaging on his flag ship to Jantiff: "The appointments are perhaps a trifle grand, but, adaptable as you are, you will quickly find them comfortable. The view, especially when the Ziaspraide coasts quietly among the stars, is superb."

Mother ship

locket that bears the name of the man that Brandy loves

In The Star King, Kirth Gersen tracks his adversary, Demon Prince Attel Malagate, to the planet Alphanor where it quickly becomes apparent to the reader that Gersen has been spending too much time alone among the scattered stars Beyond. After landing at Avante spaceport he has breakfast in the terminal where he quickly becomes distracted: "In a booth nearby sat a pair of pretty girls ... frivolity ... the two girls evidently had very little else on their minds. Gersen drew a deep breath. Undoubtedly he had lived a grim, cheerless existence." For 20 years Gersen has been in training for one dire purpose: to avenge the Demon Princes who murdered and enslaved his family during the "Mount Pleasant Massacre". He is devoted to hunting down and killing the five Demon Princes, but at the same time he longs to eventually have normal life once his murderous mission is accomplished. Sometimes Gersen is amused when his romantic yearnings threaten to derail his life's work.

Dinner at the Nautilus.

In each of the five Demon Princes novels Gersen becomes romantically involved with a damsel in distress. In The Star King, Gersen must save Pallis Atwrode, an office worker at the Department of Galactic Morphology, Sea Province University, in Remo, just down the coast from Avante. Gersen takes Pallis out to dinner at a swanky underwater restaurant and discovers that she is, "a warm-hearted creature without a trace of malice or acerbity." She makes Gersen tell her about Smade's Tavern and the Beyond because she likes a good shudder.

Unfortunately, the attention that Gersen pays to Pallis leads to her being kidnapped by the evil henchman "Beauty" Dasce who brags that his bizarrely mutilated face can paralyze dogs. Gersen must hunt Dasce across half the galaxy in order to free Pallis from captivity and Dasce's malignant attentions.

Model 9B spaceship.

At this early point in his career of killing Demon Princes, Gersen flies a simple model 9B spaceship. The model 9B is the standard spaceship used by planetary locators, IPCC weasels and other spacemen who can't afford anything better.

The Star King begins with Gersen stopping at  Smade's Planet. Gersen has just learned the names of the five Demon Princes, information that was hard-won by torturing an underling who once worked for one of them. After that sickening task, Gersen feels the need to collect his wits, so he visits Smade's Tavern, the only human dwelling on the planet.

Smade's tavern is known across human space as a rest stop for criminals and travelers to far worlds, poised conveniently near the border between civilization and the lawless Beyond.

Vance described the origin of Smade's Tavern: "The site was a narrow shelf of heath between the Smade Mountains and the Smade Ocean. He built to a plan as old as construction itself, using stone for the walls , timber beams and plates of schist for the roof." Smade lived there with his three wives and eleven children, sometimes going days or even weeks with no guests at all.

When Gersen arrives there is one other guest at the Tavern who Smade identifies as a Star King, an alien being from a distant planet where the native sapient lifeform long ago adopted human form. Gersen takes a room, planning to spend a few restful days on Smade's Planet. Upon coming down from his room for dinner, Gersen discovers a new guest, Lugo Teehalt, a locator of new habitable worlds who habitually "drinks rashly and talks wildly".

Teehalt tells Gersen a wild tale about a newly discovered planet, more Earth-like than Earth itself, but populated by plant-like semi-intelligent bipeds that Teehalt calls Dryads.

It is Gersen's chance encounter with Teehalt at Smade's Tavern that leads him to first contact with one of the Demon Princes: Malagate the Woe.

Clu'ten'iun
I'm currently writing Chapter Three of Exode, in which Parthney has left his home planet and arrives at Lendhalen for training in preparation for a planned journey to Earth. Vance has long been a master of sketching out intriguing details of strange new worlds like Smade's Planet and ports of call like Avante on Alphanor. Unfortunately, the true location of Lendhalen is kept secret from Parthney during the three years that he lives there. He has been tricked into believing that he is "under Oib", living in an underground city below the surface of Oib, an inhospitable planet that is only beginning to be terraformed with the goal of providing it with a breathable atmosphere. Actually, Lendhalen is located on an entirely different planet of the Koly star system which is also not hospitable for human life...for other reasons.

The Palace of Love

Rather than describe the planet where Lendhalen was carefully hidden, all I can do is describe the underground city itself. In Vance's stories, when the hero arrives on distant worlds he is usually at the controls of his spaceship. In contrast, Parthney is teleported to Lendhalen while he is unconscious, and he has few clues about his true location.

In The Palace of Love, the Demon Prince Viole Falushe invites Gersen and the mad poet Navarth to visit the Palace of Love, hidden on a secret planet in Sirneste Cluster. In an effort to keep hidden the world where the Palace is located, the spaceship that carries Gersen and Navarth through Sirneste Cluster does not provide them with an outside view. Still, Gersen is not fooled and he is able to deduce the true location of The Palace of Love.

a killing machine

While at Lendhalen, Parthney spends much time with Robin, an artificial lifeform that knows the true location of Lendhalen on the planet Clu'ten'iun. Robin has no good reason to inform Parthney of the real location of the secret Interventionist training base on Lendhalen. In fact, his usefulness as an Interventionist agent on Earth might be compromised were Parthney to learn how little he is trusted by his fellow Interventionists at Lendhalen. Robin decides not to reveal distracting facts to Parthney, so when he later returns to the Koly star system after serving on Earth he receives some surprises and finally realizes the extent to which he had been kept in the dark and manipulated during his years of training at Lendhalen.

I have mixed feelings about how Vance made use of Smade's Planet as the world where, some 20 years after the "Mount Pleasant Massacre" Gersen was finally able to lay eyes on the first of his adversaries, Demon Prince Attel Malagate. I've never understood why Teehalt traveled to Smade's Planet. Further, I've never understood why Malagate tells Smade that he is an alien Star King. The whole idea of Malagate flying off with Gersen's spaceship by mistake and then Gersen taking Teehalt's ship seems odd...doesn't anyone use door locks in the future?

Through the Demon Princes novels Gersen seems to have good luck or a "sixth sense" that serves him well. In The Killing Machine, Gersen just happens to sit down on a bench next to a man who mentions having seen a criminal on the street. That clue leads Gersen to Demon Prince Kokor Hekkus. Later, while being held for ransom at Interchange, Gersen happens to look in a magazine and obtain the final clue that allows him to start printing his own money, buy his way out of Interchange and then pay the 10,000,000,000 SVU ransom fee of the mysterious Alusz Iphigenia. In The Book of Dreams, Gersen just happens to look into a trash bin on the day when it holds the only existing photograph of Demon Prince Howard Treesong...neatly labeled "Treesong is here".

Penelopiad

Calypso and Odysseus

In Exode, both Parthney and Kach are guided through life by "a higher power", but I don't want the story to be punctuated by coincidences that seem so odd to the reader that they become a distraction. When I was in my "golden age" of discovering science fiction I was also exposed to the Odyssey and the idea of gods who might torment mortals, but who ultimately will allow a persistent and heroic protagonist to achieve victories over less heroic foes. When thinking about luck, fate and godly interventions it is easy to imagine parallels between Gersen and Alice Wroke in The Book of Dreams, Odysseus and Penelope, Parthney and Kach in Exode.

I like to think that Gersen's soul mate (Alice) had to be forged by the same kind of adversity that crafted Gersen's "dark side". All of Gersen's other romances collapse, dissipate and evaporate...clearly they are not meant to work out. For example, Pallis Atwrode is probably too kindhearted to be a match for Gersen. When abducted by Dasce, she turns inward and sinks into a deep depression that she can only slowly climb out of after being rescued by Gersen. She'll return to normalcy, happy to have Malagate's wealth as compensation for her suffering, but she'll also be essentially unchanged, a typical woman of the civilized worlds, unable to understand Gersen's troubled origin in the Beyond and the evil event that shaped his soul.

Early in The Palace of Love Gersen and Alusz (the 10,000,000,000 SVU girl) split up: "Never again, he told himself, never would he involve a woman with the dark necessities of his life: especially one so honorable and generous and kind..." Of course, he can't keep that promise to himself. By the end of The Palace of Love he can't resist "disturbing" the "immensely appealing" young woman who he thinks of as "Drusilla I", one of the clones of Jheral Tinzy, the girl who drove Viole Falushe to his life of crime. Vance never tells us what happens between "Drusilla I" and Gersen, but next, in The Face, Gersen romances Jerdian Chanseth. The love affair between Jerdian and Gersen goes down in flames, along with Gersen's fantasies about living a gay and carefree life with her as rich residents of Llalarkno in the fine house, Moss Alrune.

Planets

In The Star King, Vance introduces readers to more than three dozen planets starting with Smade's Planet and several other planets of the Beyond including the world where Brinktown is located and Gersen's home planet as well as Pharode and Blue Planet...two worlds where Gersen has worked as an IPCC weasel. Malagate, a Star King, is from the planet Ghnarumen, which I imagine is in the Beyond. "Tehalt's planet", the world of the Dryads, is far from Earth and newly discovered. The distant "planet" where "Beauty" Dasce holds Pallis captive is actually an ancient dead star that has "swept up" a surface layer of ordinary matter and achieved a surface gravity that makes it habitable.

Rigel

Other planets included in The Star King are within the civilized boundary of the Oikumene. One of Malagate's henchmen, Suthiro is from Sarkovy, a planet known for its poisons, a world where Gersen has learned the art of poisoning and which he visits briefly in The Palace of Love. Tristano, another of Malagate's henchmen is from Earth, where the young Gersen lived for a time with his grandfather and where Gersen visits the mad poet Navarth on his house boat in The Palace of Love. Euville, Valhalla, Vega's Alphanor, Boniface and Cuthbert and the 26 worlds of the Rigel Concourse (particularly Pilgham and Olliphane) are all mentioned in The Star King. Was there some ancient alien civilization that moved so many Earth-like worlds into orbit around bright stars so near to Earth? Were the the human-like Star Kings and humans themselves brought into existence by the meddling intervention of some ancient alien spacefaring lifeform?

In Exode, I imagine that the settled planets of the galaxy have a very different distribution than the worlds of Vance's imaginary Oikumene. Only at the end of Exode do we Earthlings begin to seriously contemplate our prospects for travel to another planet (Mars). However, for millions of years the alien Huaoshy have been carting lifeforms away from Earth and taking them to distant worlds where they can be cultured. Exode starts at the Planet Hemmal, a world towards the center of the Galaxy where humans have lived for thousands of years. There are hundreds of populated worlds towards the Galactic Core where the Huaoshy have systematically designed and evolved humans as well as other sapient beings such as the Fru'wu.

The Huaoshy don't think that we primitive humans are ready to be cruising around the galaxy. However, they have been forced to provide interstellar spaceships to the Buld Clan. At the end of Exode the first Buld spaceship finally reaches Earth after a 15,000 year long voyage from the galactic core. When Parthney travels from the Koly star system to Earth he does not have to bother with space flight: he uses teleportation technology.

Exode has both short space flights and long. In Chapter Two, Parthney makes the short trip from Hemmal to Oib. Later, Parthney and Kach travel to the Andromeda galaxy, using a Nereid spaceship. Kach wants to visit the home world of the alien Nereids. Hana and Boswei (the son of Kach and Parthney) quickly become tired of Kach's quest to meet the Creators and they settle on a quiet world in the Andromeda galaxy. What right do we humans have to settle and use other worlds as our own?

Vance considered the topic of human despoilment of planets. Smade's Planet only had primitive native lifeforms and Smade's "invasion" of the world, building the Tavern and keeping a heard of goats, had no significant impact on the planet's ecosystem. In contrast, Tehalt's planet and the life cycle of the Dryads seemed too fragile to withstand human occupation: Tehalt refused to fulfill his locator's contract and hand over the world to Malagate. After visiting Teehalt's planet, Gersen and two administrators from Sea Province University agreed that the world of the Dryads should remain hidden and not subjected to human settlement. In his Cadwal Series, Vance later expanded on the idea of a planet that was too rich in native life to be settled by humans.

The Huaoshy believe that humans should not be allowed to zip around the galaxy making a mess of Earth-like worlds. First of all, they are offended by the mess that we humans have made of Earth's environment. The Huaoshy selected planets of the galactic core as breeding stations for we humans because those worlds have frequently been blasted by gamma rays and lacked complex native lifeforms. I never understood the lack of female Cyclops in Greek mythology, but the Huaoshy often engineer mono-sexual lifeforms as part of their efforts to limit the population and spread of primitive creatures through space. Ultimately, the Huaoshy want to convert sexually reproducing creatures like we Earthlings into "domesticated" artificial life forms composed of sedronic matter. 

Breakfast at Smade's

The Huaoshy and many other species that originated as biological organisms have abandoned the universe of conventional matter and they view worlds like Earth as biological gardens that should not be destroyed by bumbling species like we humans.

See Also & more about Smade's Planet in 2019
Demons and Damsels
Related reading
A Star King by Ivory Fersoni