Lendhalen

Leymaygn and Vozgrow

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

Exode table of contents

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

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

Pla'mak

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

Pla'kau

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

Syon the robot.

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

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

Gwyned

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

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

Gwyned's family

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

An Ek'col male and Asterothrope female.

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

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

Counter Revolution

I'm in the middle of writing Chapter Three of Exode where Parthney meets his first Earthling: Gwyned. She was trained as a physicist and now trying to understand the advanced technological gizmos at Lendhalen, the secret Interventionist base where Parthney is being trained for a mission to Earth.

Gwyned has a chip on her shoulder. Nothing seems to work out well for her. First of all, she got booted off of Earth. Second, she got booted out of Klyz, the Fru'wu base that controls Interventionist missions to Earth. Third, when she finally meets Parthney, things are not going well for Gwyned at Lendhalen. Surrounded by amazing technological devices, the secrets of their functioning are not revealed by Gwyned's systematic attempts at reverse engineering.

While on Earth, Gwyned did not develop a good working relationship with Deomede, the Interventionist agent who preceded Parthney to Earth. As far as Gwyned can tell, Parthney is just a younger and even more ignorant version of Deomede. Gwyned has been asked to help train Parthney for survival on Earth, but her heart isn't in it.

Pla'kao (fake covers)

When writing fiction I don't usually go out of my way to create a villain, but I've started wondering if I should paint Gwyned as an outcast, possibly a Trotsky-like figure within the revolutionary cabal at Lendhalen. Gwyned does not stick to the party line. She is asked to help keep secret from Parthney several of the important ways that aliens have helped the Earth Interventionists, but Gwyned blurts these out at her first meeting with Parthney.

If this analogy holds and Gwyned is like Trotsky then who plays the role of Stalin in Exode? Some of the Buld begin to wonder if the Earthlings are rushing towards their own destruction because of their inability to avoid technological disasters. Gwyned has some sympathy for those who are beginning to question the wisdom of the 20,000-year-old Interventionist program on Earth, but her perceived solution for Earth's troubles is more technology for Earth, not less. The top two directors at Lendhalen are Pla'mak and Pla'kao. Pla'kao has been the main developer of the idea that it is time to stop trying to push the Earthlings ever faster towards science and technological advance.

The fake magazine cover featuring Pla'kao is silly: in 1925 the people of Earth certainly don't know about the existence of the Buld Clan and their rebel off-shoot group, the Pla. However, there is information transfer from Earth to Lendhalen and soon after the application of 19th century science and technology such as chemical warfare during the "Great War" become known to Pla'kao, thon has the realization that the Buld, by living in an artificial and protective environment designed by the pek, are unable to imagine the kinds of technological horrors that can arise on Earth. After 20,000 years of scheming to bring Earthlings out of the stone age, the Buld begin to feel a moral responsibility for the misuse of advanced technology on Earth. Pla'kao can't avoid the thought: maybe there is a good reason why the Overseers have worked so hard for so long to prevent Earthlings from developing a civilization based on science and technology.

Gwyned

When Deomede is trained for his mission to Earth, he becomes the first Interventionist agent to shift away from helping Earthlings to develop new technologies. Rather than help Gwyned with her plasma physics research, fearing that she will greatly advance nuclear technology on Earth, Deomede teleports her from Earth to the Interventionist base at Klyz.

After spending time at Klyz, Gwyned resents the fact that the Interventionists are not doing everything that can possibly be done to bring to the people of Earth the advanced technologies that have been available to the Buld for thousands of years.

Another fanciful magazine cover is shown to the left. Gwyned is born in 1939. By 1953 Gwyned is already scheming to involve herself in physics research. Unfortunately, her efforts to research fusion power as an energy source are derailed by Cold War military research.

By the time Parthney arrives at Lendhalen, Gwyned is trying to find a way to get back to Earth. Knowing that Pla'kao's cautious position is now dominating Lendhalen, Gwyned doesn't trust Parthney to take needed action on Earth to help the Earthlings move away from primitive "first generation" technologies like burning coal towards more advanced and cleaner energy technologies like fusion power. Gwyned is also feeling guilty about being tricked by Deomede and losing her chance to stay on Earth and work to prevent nuclear war.

Gwyned views the people of Earth as being trapped in some kind of horrible experiment that is being conducted by the pek or the Huaoshy. She is willing to risk her own life in an effort to get help to Earth, even in the face of dire warnings from the Buld and the Fru'wu about past events when Interventionist forces pushed their cause too aggressively, provoking push back with resulting elimination of entire Interventionist bases. Pla'kao tells Gwyned that prior to the existence of Lendhalen, there was an earlier Interventionist base in the Koly star system that was simply obliterated, presumably by the Huaoshy.

Pla'kao is not a dictator. Pla'mak and Pla'kao are co-directors of Lendhalen and Pla'mak favors Gwyned's bold strategy for trying to help the Earthlings towards a level of technological sophistication more on par with that of the Buld who will soon arrive in the Solar System. With support from Pla'mak, Gwyned is able to get access to even the critically important teleportation terminal at Lendhalen that is used to send agents to Earth.

Initially dismayed by her inability to understand the control circuits of the teleportation terminal, by the time Parthney arrives at Lendhalen she has begun to imagine that the Buld revolutionaries have never had a viable research and development program. The earliest recorded history of Lendhalen describes success in creating humanoid robots, but Gwyned can find no detailed description of robotics research or evidence of any further progress in robotics research during the past 5,000 years.

Gwyned suspects that all of the technology in use by the Buld has been given to them by the pek. If Lendhalen is a hot bed of revolution against the pek, then why does it seem that nothing has ever happened in the course of that revolution without the help of the pek? Gwyned manages to pass these doubts along to Parthney before he is sent off to Earth.

Counter Revolution
How can it be a "counter revolution" if it comes 20,000 years after the start of the revolution? Slowly grinds the mill of the Huaoshy. Key Buld revolutionaries like Yandrey and Pla'kao have worked together in their rebellion against the pek for thousands of years. It is Pla'kao who pioneered use of the term "Huaoshy" to refer to the hypothetical alien creators of the pek. Pla'kao is a pragmatist, willing to accept that the Buld are puppets of the Huaoshy: any puppet who gets out of line and defies the wishes of the puppet master will be harshly punished. Pla'kao is willing to work for change on Earth within the constraints imposed by the Huaoshy. Pla'kao is sympathetic to Gwyned's idealism, but unwilling to risk violating the fundamental rules of the game being played out on Earth.

Pla'kao hypothesizes that the Huaoshy do not allow themselves the luxury of revealing their existence to the people of Earth. However, the Huaoshy long ago removed primates from Earth and "cultured" them on worlds of the Galactic Core like Hemmal, thus creating "domesticated" primates. In a slow and gradual process of gene flow, new gene combinations that arose in the Galactic Core were transferred back to Earth. All such intervention into the course of events on Earth is made possible by the Interventionists and regulated by the Overseers. Pla'kao does what is possible to help the Earthlings while working within the constraints that have been imposed on the Interventionists. Gwyned is far too undisciplined to function as an Interventionist agent on Earth, but Pla'kao wants to make use of Gwyned as an agent of change so that the Interventionists can remain flexible and quickly adapt to changing conditions on Earth.

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This is the second part of three blog posts in which I sort out the end game for the Interventionists who have been working for 20,000 years to bring we Earthlings out of the stone age.
Part One.
Part Three.

Time Trace

time twist

Last month I decided exactly when Exode takes place then I complicated the story's temporal setting by dropping a time traveler into the plot. I was driven to this time twist by the need to provide Parthney with some additional technology.

I have been struggling with the issue of what kinds of high-tech gizmos might be available to Interventionist agents like Parthney while they live on Earth. Last summer when I started writing Exode, I wanted Parthney to have a robotic assistant as well as access to nanites and teleportation equipment so that he could send Hana off of Earth. 

A nanite experiment.

A major source of advanced technology (including nanotechnolgy) for Parthney is the Fru'wu species. However, the Fru'wu managed to destroy their home world in a technological disaster, so they are cautious when it comes to providing advanced technology to the primitive humans of Earth (see City on the Edge of Tomorrow). 

Rather than take the easy road and imagine that the Nereids would be less cautious than the Fru'wu, I realized that Asimov had already provided another solution. I decided to make use of Asimov's famous time traveling heroine Noÿs Lambent as a new source of nanotechnology that Interventionist agents on Earth could obtain without the involvement of aliens. And since Noÿs is an agent working for positronic robots (see R. Nyrtia), it need come as no surprise that meddling robots  are a source of nanotechnology for Earth.

Noÿs/Trysta 1964

I need never mention the name "Noÿs" in Exode, but I can provide plenty of hints suggesting the true identity of Trysta Iwedon...providing a hidden nugget for Asimov fans and a tip of the hat to Asimov.

Similarly, I'm in no rush to inform readers about exactly when the events of Exode take place. Part of the fun of Exode is allowing for lingering doubt among the readers over just when the Buld spaceship will arrive on Earth.

At this time, I need to settle my thinking about Noÿs/Trysta and the nature of the nanites that she brought to the 20th century from the 111,394th century. I've written the first 6,000 words of Chapter Three of Exode and Parthney has just met Gwyned at the secret training base of Lendhalen. Gwyned is the first Earthling that Parthney gets to meet while he is still in the Koly star system and being trained for his mission to Earth. Gwyned is the daughter of Noÿs/Trysta and an Interventionist agent named Ekcolir (in the Noÿs Reality, he is called Deomede in the Buld Reality) (although while on Earth, Gwyned knew her father by the name "Merion"). When Gwyned is transported off of Earth the Fru'wu at Klyz are able examine the nanites that Noÿs brought from the future. They begin to realize why the pace of technological advance on Earth is spiraling out of control, but the Fru'wu mistakenly suspect that the Nereids are the source of the mysterious nanites found inside Gwyned.

The Robots of Eternity

Gohrlay the robot

In the same way that the pek are a source of nanites that infect human brains, I imagine that the positronic robots who secretly established and guided human time travel (The End of Eternity) developed and used primitive nanites (primitive when compared to the more advanced ones of the ancient Huaoshy). In particular, those robot-derived nanites were used to replace/displace the nanites that had originally been placed in human brains on Earth by the pek. Prior to the arrival of Noÿs in the 20th century and her collaboration with Ekcolir, the Interventionist agents on Earth had no way to detect and remove pek nanites from human brains. However, the Interventionist agents on Earth had slowly been introducing new gene combinations that limit the ability of pek nanites to inhibit human capacities to read, write and create and use tools.

In order for Noÿs to carry out her mission to destroy Eternity, she was made aware of the nanites that she carried in her body and how to use them to modify and guide the behavior of Eternals like Andrew Harlan. However, those nanites did not allow Noÿs to share her knowledge of nanites with anyone else. With the help of Ekcolir, Noÿs was able to remove the blocks imposed on her behavior and memory by the nanites in her brain and together they learned how to replicate those nanites and use them to remove pek nanites from the brains of Earthlings. Of great relevance to Exode, Gwyned became a carrier of the type of nanites that her mother brought to 20th century Earth from the "Hidden Centuries".

Betty the Robot
Ekcolir and other Interventionist agents on Earth have been provided with some Fru'wu technology. They have nanites that they can use to modify the behavior and memories of Earthlings and they also have a few robotic assistants of Fru'wu design. Ekcolir's robotic assistant eventually gets passed along to Parthney. In the scene of Exode where Parthney agrees to send Hana off of Earth, Hana meets Parthney's robotic assistant who is using the name "Betty" at that time.

With time travel and Reality Changes in the Exode backstory, things get a bit complicated. Ekcolir is replaced by a different Interventionist agent (Deomede) in the Reality that we live in (The Buld Reality). Deomede has "Betty" as his assistant at that time, and it is actually Deomede who hands Betty over to Parthney. Betty is composed of a mixture of nanite components and macroscopic parts. If an Overseer suddenly arrives, Betty can decompose and the nanites slip away, able to reassemble into a functional robot at another location.

Gwyned's Fears

Betty the robot

When Gwyned is sent off of Earth, her mother hopes that Gwyned will have a chance to discover why the Interventionist agents who arrive on Earth have never been told that Earthlings have pek nanites in their brains. Gwyned is not at all sure that the Fru'wu are working with the best interests of humans in mind. Gwyned tells Parthney the truth about there being nanites inside Earth humans, but she asks him to keep that knowledge to himself. Also, Gwyned has been told by the Fru'wu not to warn anyone about the fact that Interventionist agents are never sent directly from the Koly star system to Earth. Gwyned fears that the Fru'wu do not want others to know these truths, but she goes ahead and tells Parthney and encourages him to take as much Fru'wu technology a possible from Klyz to Earth. Gwyned asks Parthney to seek out Noÿs/Trysta when he arrives on Earth and provide her with a report describing what he learns on Klyz.

Gwyned has learned from Pla'mak that although the Buld have been given access to teleporter technology by the Fru'wu, the Fru'wu retain control over where teleported humans go. Gwyned is trying to reverse engineer the teleporter device at Lendhalen and discover how to control the destination for teleportation. Pla'mak is worried that the Fru'wu will be upset if they find out what Gwyned is trying to accomplish. Rather than allow Gwyned to experiment with the existing teleporter, Pla'mak insists that Gwyned build a second teleportation device. During the time that Parthney is at Lendhalen, Gwyned is very busy with her attempt to make a functioning teleportation destination control device.

Noÿs
When Noÿs was sent back in time to the 20th century she was aware of the existence of alien species on other planets in our galaxy, but she did not understand the extent to which the Huaoshy and the pek control the development of technological civilizations throughout the galaxies of the nearby universe.

Asterothropes: the females
are larger than
the hermaphrodites.

Upon learning from Ekcolir about the interactions between pek and humans on worlds like Hemmal, Noÿs/Trysta guesses that the pek must be allowing the Fru'wu to help prepare Earth for the imminent arrival of the Buld spaceship. Noÿs/Trysta remains frustrated by the continual cat and mouse game that must be played with the Overseers. She begins to formulate a plan that will allow the Interventionists to penetrate the Overseer Base of operations that is located on the Moon.

Noÿs, as a human from 10,000,000 years in the future, has some biological differences from contemporary humans. Most dramatically, her brain is adapted for constructive interactions with the nanites that are inside her body. Significantly, her natural life span is longer than that of "modern" humans of the 20th century. Noÿs is still alive when Izhiun reaches Earth in the 21st century well, almost....I later decided that Noÿs could not wait around for Izhiun to reach Earth...before he arrives, Noÿs travels through time again into the deep past of Earth).

Note: I later decided that Noÿs is an Asterothrope.

______________________
Just saying....

There have been more than 25 posts to this blog about Exode and Parthney.

The Klyz Teleportation Hub

Pla'kao

I've been making decisions about the nature of the secret training base for Interventionist agents in the Koly star system where Parthney is prepared for his mission to Earth. One of the key issues is the location of Lendhalen. The directors of Lendhalen, Pla'kao and Pla'mak, believe that the locations of Interventionist training bases must be kept secret from the pek. This belief arose because of the fact that some Interventionist bases have been quickly and efficiently eliminated.

The truth is, it has never been possible for the Buld to keep secret the location of the bases where they train human agents. Such training facilities are allowed to operate as long as the Interventionists are playing the role that is desired by the Huaoshy. What the Huaoshy object to is Interventionists who try to undermine on-going efforts to keep primitives like the people of Earth unaware of the existence of the Huaoshy.

During the past 10,000 years, the greatest danger for Buld Interventionists has been the continual possibility that a group of true revolutionaries will arise at places like Lendhalen, revolutionaries who could start to disrupt the plans of the Huaoshy. This has happened many times, most recently in the Koly star system about 1,000 years ago.

16th century England becomes a hotbed for Interventionism

After the previous training base in the Koly star  system was eliminated, Pla'kao and Pla'mak established Lendhalen and for the past 500 years they have been very effective at training Interventionist agents with the result that the English-speaking people of Earth came to play an important role in the scientific and technological development of Earth.

One of the keys to the success of Pla'kao and Pla'mak has been their lifestyle as Pla. As described in Chapter Two of Exode, the Pla must periodically undergo a "partial change". They must auto-fertilize and allow most of the cells in their bodies to be replaced. Although not all of their brain cells are replaced, this greatly disrupts their memories and after a "partial change" a Pla individual must undergo extensive re-education. Pla'kao and Pla'mak have been careful to alternate their cycles of going through "partial change" and they take turns re-educating each other so that their strategies and methods do not significantly change through the centuries.

Center: Parthney's residence while at Klyz.

Pla'kao went through "partial change" about two years before Gwyned arrived at Lendhalen. Gwyned's description of recent events on Earth (she left Earth in 1964) startled Pla'mak and so Pla'kao has been re-educated under conditions that make her believe that the Earthlings have become a serious danger to themselves. Thus, Parthney is trained for his mission to Earth while Pla'mak and Pla'kao are in disagreement about what is best for the people of Earth and, in particular, if the effort to advance scientific and technological development on Earth has been pushed along too quickly by the Interventionists.

Klyz Teleportation Hub
While at Lendhalen, Parthney begins to wonder if he will live out the rest of his life on Earth. He is told by Pla'mak that most Interventionist agents on Earth are captured by the Overseers. Gwyned explains to Parthney that the Fru'wu have teleportation technology; she was teleported off of Earth (to part of the Klyz community, see below) and then later teleported to Lendhalen. Parthney believes that when he is on Earth, if he ever comes to the attention of the Overseers then he will be able to teleport off of Earth.

Belinda Tement

In fact, working conditions for Interventionist agents on Earth are quite different from what the Buld Interventionists suspect. The Fru'wu interventionists make use of the Buld to supply humans who are teleported first to a Fru'wu base (Klyz), not to Earth. Upon reaching Klyz, Parthney believes that he is already on Earth. There is a community of humans from Earth who reside at Klyz where they are debriefed and where they provide instruction about their future duties on Earth to new arrivals like Parthney. Further, the Fru'wu infect the brains of new arrivals with Fru'wu nanites. The human residents of Klyz never actually meet any Fru'wu, but at Klyz there are artificial life forms of Fru'wu design who pretend to be Fru'wu.

At Klyz Parthney is paired with one of the artificial life forms who will be teleported to Earth along with Parthney and who functions as his assistant while Parthney is on Earth. The Fru'wu have been working to introduce into the population of Earth some gene combinations that will allow Earthlings to survive the dangers inherent in advanced technology and the coming contact with the Buld spaceship that is on its way to Earth. While at Klyz, Parthney is trained to be aggressive in seeking out opportunities to advance this Fru'wu agenda. While on Earth Parthney's activity attracts the attention of an Overseer using the identity Belinda Tement.

1554: Jane is teleported to Klyz

The pek have designed human brains to function in two different modes. Most human brains have existed in a type of symbiotic relationship with pek nanites. In this mode humans are predisposed to tribalism and religious faith. In the absence of pek nanites humans are able to think creatively about tool use and the invention of new tools and technologies. Humans with no pek nanites in their brains are unable to understand what drives other humans towards "group think" and faith in the supernatural.

Among the first in England to have very low levels of pek nanites were Henry VIII and Jane Grey. Contrary to later constructed legend, Jane was not executed: after being dethroned she was teleported to Klyz and then subsequently resided at Lendhalen for the rest of her life.

After attaining gene combinations in Earthlings that made their brains resistant to infection by pek nanites, the Fru'wu continued to seek additional beneficial gene combinations. In particular, they wanted to produce Earthlings who would be genetically predisposed towards ethical behavior. Parthney is engaged in the pursuit of this goal when he is discovered by Overseers, captured and then taken to Observer Base on the Moon. The Fru'wu take this opportunity to infiltrate Observer Base and ultimately Parthney is teleported back to Klyz.

Related Reading: Earth Day 1

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Pla'mak and Pla'kao

Pla'mak

Exode
Pla'mak and Pla'kao are the masterminds behind the training base for Interventionist agents at Lendhalen. For thousands of years they have taken pains to conceal the existence of their on-going contact and collaboration with the alien Fru'wu. The Fru'wu Interventionists are nervous about the possibility of provoking the pek, so they are careful about not revealing too much about themselves to the Pla.

Pla'mak and Pla'kao only know their Fru'wu contact by the code name "Fru'munu" and they have never actually seen the physical form of the Fru'wu species. Pla'mak and Pla'kao have learned from Fru'munu that the Fru'wu are aware of on-going changes at the Observer Base on Earth's Moon. Overseer activity on Earth has been in decline and the Fru'wu suspect that Observer Base will be closed when the Buld reach Earth. A Buld spaceship is almost in the Sol star system after its 15,000 year long trip to Earth from the Galactic Core.

When Parthney has completed training as the most recent Interventionist agent from the Koly star system, he is teleported to Earth. In the past, Interventionist agents sent to Earth arrived unconscious and were never told about teleportation. Parthney is the first agent sent to Earth with knowledge of how teleportation allows for travel from Earth to Lendhalen (Gwyned tells him). How the Buld came to have access to teleportation technology is a rather long story.

The Origin of Interventionists

banded iron formation

The story if interventionism goes back almost 1,000,000,000 years to when the Huaoshy were first spreading between the stars of their home galaxy. At first, the Huaoshy were eager to make contact with other technologically advanced life forms on other planets. In their travel from star to star the Huaoshy made gruesome discoveries: the dead remnants of once glorious civilizations. Caution began to seem wise...the Huaoshy had to wonder: was there something waiting in space, some eager force that would snuff out a growing technological culture like their own?

Eventually the Huaoshy did have contacts with other sapient species on other worlds, but with disastrous consequences. When the Huaoshy tried to help bring the other species out of their condition of primitive barbarism, invariably, everything went wrong. Slowly, the Huoashy realized that they had been lucky to survive their own technological adolescence. Most technology-wielding species manage to find a way to destroy themselves. The Huaoshy view the attainment of a technological culture by biological species in roughly the same way we view the transition of a planet from a reducing to an oxidizing atmosphere. There is always the danger that biological species will not survive such a dramatic environmental change, but if you want advanced lifeforms then you are willing to make that transition and take the risk.

Early Huaoshy efforts to intervene in the cultural development of other species always met with disaster, so the Huaoshy began to develop a new ethical code. Fundamental to those ethical precepts is the idea that primitive species must be protected from knowledge of their comparative primitiveness. In their spread from galaxy to galaxy, the Huaoshy reached Earth 7,000,000 years ago, but the Huaoshy have been careful to prevent Earthlings from becoming aware of the fact alien visitors have been watching over Earth for millions of years.

The Huaoshy learned that by slow and careful domestication it is possible to craft life forms that are compatible with advanced technology. Across thousands of galaxies and hundreds of millions of years the Huaoshy have helped many species merge into a vast intergalactic Genesaunt community. Thousands of these Genesaunt species have subsequently transcended their physical form and become artificial life forms like the Huoashy themselves. For the Huaoshy, their ethical code neatly accommodates the presence of Interventionists within Genesaunt culture.

1947: Gwyned's family moves to Australia

Since the earliest formation of Genesaunt civilization there have been biological life forms that resisted the conventional Huaoshy path to transcendence by way of an hermaphroditic end stage of biological existence. This minority faction that has always resisted the conventional Huaoshy path of social development has become known as the Interventionists. The name is misleading in that it might lead some to imagine that the Huaoshy do not intervene into the affairs of primitive cultures, but the truth is that the Huaoshy only try to make primitives believe that the Huaoshy do not intervene in their affairs.

Over the course of millions of years, the Huaoshy found that a stable Genesaunt civilization and the most efficient facilitation of the long-term survival of sapient species is achieved by allowing for a system of counterbalanced Overseers and Interventionists. If the Interventionist agents working on Earth become too bold in their efforts then the Overseers will notice their presence and capture them.

The Nereids long ago brought some Fru'wu to the Andromeda galaxy. 15,000 years previously the Nereids provided those Fru'wu with a spaceship that was equipped for faster-than-light travel. Those Fru'wu visited our galaxy and helped the Buld acquire the technological means to make their own spaceships, however, the Buld spaceships can not travel faster than the speed of light. The Fru'wu visited Earth and occasionally brought humans to Earth, thus beginning the practice of sending human Interventionist agents to Earth.

Overseer

About 10,000 years ago the Fru'wu decided that the Buld could be trusted to directly teleport human Interventionist agents to Earth. The Fru'wu had placed a teleportation target on Earth about 15,000 years ago and they now gave its transmission code to trusted Buld. The Buld in the Koly star system received the code about 5,000 years ago and became quite efficient at training Interventionist agents about 1,000 years ago. During the past 500 years no other star system in the Galactic Core has had as strong an influence on the pace of cultural development on Earth.

Parthney's Mission to Earth
When it is time for Parthney to go to Earth, the Fru'wu want to find out what the Overseers are planning to do when the Buld arrive on Earth. Previously, the Fru'wu managed to capture an Overseer. Now, the Fru'wu want to intercept an Overseer on the way to the Moon and use the Overseer as cover for a spy mission that will reveal the secrets of Observer Base. There is an Overseer who has been spending a large amount of time on Earth (using the cover identity "Belinda Tement"). Fru'munu suggests to Pla'mak and Pla'kao that it might be possible to use Parthney as "bait" to lure that Overseer into a trap. Parthney is sent off to Earth not knowing how he might be used by the Fru'wu.

Time Warp

The events in Chapter One of Exode all take place within a 24 hour period, the day when Parthney abandons his life on the world where he was born, Hemmal. Chapter Two describes Parthney's journey from Hemmal to the nearby planet Oib, a trip that only takes a couple of days. Counted in Earth time, Parthney is 18 years old when he leaves Hemmal.

Chapter Three of Exode encompasses four years of Parthney's life, the years during which he is trained for his mission to Earth. Jack Vance's novel Araminta Station starts with a similar chronology. The main character, Glawen, is 16 years old at the start of the story. The first two chapters (147 pages) describe Araminta Station on the planet Cadwal as well as Glawen's budding romance with Sessily Veder and her mysterious disappearance. The first six pages of Chapter III outline the next three years of Glawen's life: time spent by Glawen in his studies at the Araminta Station Lyceum and in training as a cadet in the local police force.

Gwyned Iwedon

As is the case for the first section of Chapter III in Araminta Station, the first pages of Chapter Three in Exode must mesh with the events that brought the end of the "innocent years" of the protagonist's early life. Parthney arrives at Lendhalen, the secret base of the Buld revolutionaries who have liberated themselves from their pek masters. Most of the elements of Pathney's past life begin to fade away, including his rather bumbling romantic adventures with Reginal, Muchlo, and Pla'va. At Lendhalen, Leymaygn and Gwyned teach Parthney to read and write and also how to use musical notation. Parthney is fascinated by the musical instruments of Earth, but repulsed by the more dreary aspects of life on Earth: hunger, disease, crime and war.

After Parthney has lived for three years at Lendhalen he is seriously considering the possibility of living out the rest of his life there and never going to Earth. The co-directors of Lendhalen, Pla'mak and Pla'kao, must reveal more than they would like to Parthney about the dangers facing the people of Earth. It is 1970, Earth is struggling with an exploding population, pollution, and a nuclear arms race.

Earth

For seven million years the Overseers have guided the course of primate evolution on Earth. The people of Earth have never known that alien visitors arrived on Earth long ago, but now a Buld spaceship is nearing Earth after a 15,000 year long journey from the Galactic Core. Pla'mak and Pla'kao inform Parthney that if the Buld make contact with the Earthlings then the Overseers might abandon their management of Earth. Parthney is led to wonder: could humanity survive on its own or might human civilization self-destruct, as happened to the alien Fru'wu? By explaining that events on Earth are reaching a critical juncture Pla'mak and Pla'kao manage to rekindle Parthney's desire to go to Earth.

At the end of Chapter Three, Parthney must say goodby to Gwyned. He likes the idea she return with him to Earth where they could work together as Interventionist agents, but she is left behind at Lendhalen, still struggling to make sense of the alien technology that has been given to the Buld. Gwyned makes Parthney promise that if he ever has the chance to liberate someone like herself from Earth he will do so, even if he would personally prefer to do otherwise. She offers her opinion, "Earth is giant mistake, a world of the half-living...you owe it to yourself, for the sake of your own sanity, to aid anyone who wants to get out."

So Chapter Three must have two lengthy time warps, one jumping over most of Pathney's first three years at Lendhalen and another over his final phase of training. Parthney matures dramatically and goes through many changes during his years living at Lendhalen. The care-free days of his youth are put behind him and he leaves for Earth with many doubts and great apprehension, having been informed that he has a good chance of being recognized and captured by Overseers soon after his arrival on Earth. So great is that risk that he is not even told how he will reach Earth so that he cannot reveal that secret if he is identified as an Interventionist agent and captured.

Poster
The Exode poster, above, is having some fun with an old James Bond poster (image to the right). Since Parthney arrives on Earth from Oib (so he thinks; he never knows the true location of the Lendhalen training base) I put in an image of Earth. The woman at the computer terminal is meant to be Hana. Like Gwyned, Hana is a physicist. Parthney uses the name "Henry Montpellier" during some of his time on Earth, in particular, at the time when he reveals his true identity to Hana and then teleports her away from Earth.

In the original poster, I suppose that the woman behind Bond is meant to be Daniela Bianchi, in the role of a soviet intelligence agent who is used to lure Bond into a trap. In Exode, Parthney must duel with an Overseer who lives on Earth using the name Belinda Tement. Belinda's search for the source of new gene combinations that have been appearing on Earth leads her to Hana's son. Belinda befriends Hana and ultimately captures Parthney, taking him to the Observer Base on the Moon. The woman standing in the background beside Parthney is meant to be Overseer Tement.

Exode Back Cover

At the end of 2012 I made the first draft of a front cover for Exode. I've now made a back cover and a blurb that could go just inside the front cover of a print version of the novel.

For back cover images I used the images from Chapter Two. These images depict Parthney and Pla'va when they are approaching the planet Oib.

For the inner blurb I tried to weave together Hemmal, the pek, Prelands, the Creators, Earthlings, the Buld Clan, Kach, Parthney and the Nereids:

Exode - change your world...or else!

On Hemmal there were four types of people: the alien pek, a shape shifting artificial lifeform; the hermaphroditic Prelands, newly crafted by the Creators as the desired replacement of the barbaric Earthlings; the Buld Clan, engineered to have an extra chromosome that makes them suited for travel between the stars; and two mutant Buld, Kach and Parthney, genetically identical to Earthlings, but born 15,000 light years from Earth. Everyone has plans for Earth...the pek, the Buld, the alien Nereids, but do any of them care if humanity is erased, replaced, forgotten? Kach and Parthney, two false Buld, reached Earth in a last minute attempt to save the human species from elimination...but why bother? After all, aren't humans defective and obsolete? Wouldn't Earth be better off if it was populated by Prelands rather than Humanity? Could Kach and Parthney help the Earthlings change their world -change themselves- or was it simply time to get away, escape from Earth before the Creators swept the human species from the planet, the superseded humans neatly replaced by Prelands?


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Would it make sense to the average reader to have the Prelands described as hermaphrodites and then see the term "thon" applied to the Prelands, replacing "he" in the famous saying, "We have met the enemy and he is us"?

The Prelands are "humans, version 2.0", they are like we Earthlings (we barbaric Earthlings) only better: designed by the Creators to have a chance of surviving in a technological civilization.

I'm currently writing Chapter Three of Exode which describes how Parthney finally achieves a reasonable understanding of Earth and the primitive conditions under which humans live there. Parthney arrives for training at Lendhalen with a very naive view of Earth. While on Hemmal Parthney heard stories about Earth from Yandrey, stories that filled Parthney's imagination with ideas about what it might be like to live on a planet full of other humans. But then, while at Lendhalen, the more Parthney learns about Earth the less enthusiastic he is about going to live there. As Pla'va tried to warn him, "It is a terrible place, full of war and disease and death."

While living at Lendhalen, Parthney is trained by two Buld, Vozgrow and Leymaygn, and a human from Earth, Gwyned Iwedon. Vozgrow and Leymaygn are similar to Yandrey; they are ancient Buld who have lived for thousands of years. Vozgrow and Leymaygn have vast experience gained from studying Earth and training Interventionist agents like Parthney. Gwyned lived on Earth for 25 years then, when given the chance, took her opportunity to leave Earth and join Genesaunt culture at the Galactic Core.

image source

Gwyned is vastly more sophisticated than Parthney, who can't even read when he arrives at Lendhalen. Gwyned was doing research in plasma physics when she decided to leave Earth. At Lendhalen she is studying Buld spaceship technology and trying to apply modern scientific knowledge from Earth to understand Buld spaceship propulsion.  One thing that Gwyned and Parthney have in common is a love for music.

Guiding the training of Parthney for his mission to Earth are two Pla, Pla'kao and Pla'mak, who have begun to question the entire Interventionist plan for accelerating cultural development on Earth. Gwyned has brought word of the thermonuclear arms race on Earth (she leaves Earth in 1964). Pla'kao and Pla'mak have long been collaborating with the Fru'wu to to prepare Earth for the impending arrival of a Buld spaceship. However, by making it possible for Earthlings to develop a technological civilization will Earth face the same fate as the Fru'wu home world? As if the danger of nuclear war is not bad enough, Gwyned brings an additional warning about increasing levels of carbon dioxide on Earth. The Pla begin to realize that Earth is between a rock and a hard place. Is there no way to save the Earthlings from a technological disaster?

Apocalypse New

It is 1967 when Parthney arrives at Lendhalen

Long ago, before the arrival of the pek in our galaxy, the Fru'wu became a space-faring species. The budding interstellar civilization of the Fru'wu was destroyed by a technological disaster: nanites gone out of control. The pek managed to preserve and culture some Fru'wu on worlds of the Galactic Core. Similarly, the Nereids took some Fru'wu to the Andromeda galaxy where a distinctive Fru'wu civilization grew. It is these descendants of the original Fru'wu that have since come in contact with the Buld and participated in the development of the means by which human Interventionists like Parthney are sent to Earth.

Pla'kao and Pla'mak are the two Buld who have contact with the Fru'wu. Their Fru'wu contact is known as Fru'munu. Fru'munu hints to Pla'kao and Pla'mak that Parthney is needed on Earth for a special mission in advance of the immanent arrival of the Buld spaceship in the Sol system.