The End of Eternity

1971 - Cover art by Paul Lehr.
This was the edition of The End of Eternity
that I first owned during my SF golden age.

I don't write conventional book reviews, so it is best to view this blog post as my nonreview of Isaac Asimov's time travel novel, The End of Eternity. Below, spoilers abound, so read the novel before reading all of this page.

1956 - Harlan and Noÿs
The beginning of Infinity

I've read many novels and short stories that were written by Asimov, but his one story that I have re-read most often is The End of Eternity. No, I have not read The End of Eternity 100 times, but I might get there before I die.

Many of Asimov's novels are not easy reading and once you know the plot there is not much reward from reading them again. What makes The End of Eternity different? Why do I keep returning to read this novel Time after Time?

Cover art from the 1st edition, 1955

The End of Eternity is an unconventional love story. Asimov, as a writer of plot-driven stories, has often been criticize for not being much concerned about his characters, particularly his female characters, but Noÿs Lambent, the only female character in The End of Eternity, is one of the classic female characters from the Golden Age of science fiction.

SPOILERS

1956 Urania magazine 

Noÿs does not come on stage until 20% of the novel has already been presented. In that first fifth of the story, Asimov provides readers with a plot that reads like a hypertrophied example of male-dominated Golden Age science fiction. Don't worry! Keep reading....a neat switcheroo is coming.

Our protagonist, Harlan, is part of Eternity, a kind of club for men only, a technology-driven system for guiding the course of human civilization into the future.

1984 edition
my current copy

The Eternals, although they exist in an artificial space-time bubble outside of normal Time, can travel through Time and alter Reality, eliminating dangerous technologies and social extremes. The Eternals themselves are each ripped out of the century of their birth, never to return. Raised like cult members, the Eternals become dedicated to the ideal of using time travel to provide Humanity with "the greatest good for the greatest number".

1958 Love and betrayal

When Noÿs walks on stage, with sensual swaying of her hips, Harlan is immediately unhinged. He forgets his job and his Eternal's Oath; all he can "think" is, "a girl such as this! And in Eternity!"

Harlan is smitten, but his complete inexperience with women and his dedication to Eternal ideals causes him to react with anger, lashing out at his boss, Computer Finge. When he learns that he must under-take a mission in Time and reside for a week with Noÿs in her comfortable home in the 482nd century he objects: "there is some mistake".

Only later does Harlan learn that this is no mistake, but rather Harlan is being used to test the rumor that women of the 482nd century have come to believe that by making love to an Eternal they can live forever. Noÿs proceeds to confirm the rumor, apparently the rumor was started by her -all as part of a plot to make use of Harlan as her tool, the tool that she needs to destroy Eternity.

2003 edition

And finally, at the end of the story, we learn that Noÿs is not actually a woman of the 482nd century, but rather, an agent from 7,000,000 years in the future, sent back through Time to make use of Harlan as part of a plot to destroy Eternity and give Humanity a chance to spread among the stars.

Am Ende der Ewigkeit

When Harlan learns that Noÿs is from the far future and that she has used his emotions to manipulate him like a puppet, that she has used his love for her to turn him against Eternity, he plans to murder her. However, Noÿs is able to sweet-talk Harlan and get him to recognize that it is the mere existence of Eternity that condemns Humanity to a slow decline and an ultimate extinction.

La fin de l'éternité

Given the tool of time travel, humans keep making the "safe" choices in history, eliminating the wars and the disasters, but at the same time preventing Humanity from taking the great chances that would lead to ultimate freedom....an endless expansion among the stars.

By the end of Asimov's story, we see how the weaknesses of the male-dominated Eternity made the organization an easy target for Noÿs. Like a house of cards, Noÿs was able to bring down Eternity simply by pulling on one card- Harlan.

21st Century Sci Fi Propaganda

If repeated often enough then does it become true?

Asimov lived in the previous millennium and wrote The End of Eternity in the 1950s when, so we are told, "...the purpose of a woman in 50s science fiction was to make the man look good..." Try applying that claim to The End of Eternity. Other science fiction watchdogs promote the idea that we should climb up on our soap boxes and condemn science fiction stories that do not have at least two female characters. I'm in favor of fiction with plenty of interesting female characters (not to mention hermaphrodites and asexual artificial life forms), but I'm not ashamed to proclaim my complete satisfaction with stories such as The End of Eternity and Assignment Nor'Dyren (by Sydney Van Scyoc), stories that "only" have one female character.

An Ek'col and an Asterothrope

The End?
At the end of Asimov's novel, Eternity has been destroyed. Harlan and Noÿs are in the Primitive, ready to live out their lives in the 20th century. But is that the end?  For decades I was not satisfied to abandon Harlan and Noÿs to their new life in the Primitive. The Foundations of Eternity was intended as a sequel to The End of Eternity. Noÿs is revealed to be an Asterothrope, a new species from the far future, crafted from human genes, but designed to facilitate the colonization of new worlds.

Turnabout is fair play. I later discovered that there was more to the story than could fit into The Foundations of Eternity. Trysta and Ekcolir tells the story of how, once in the Primitive, Noÿs discovers that her mission to change the course of history is not yet complete. Harlan is abducted by aliens and taken to the Moon. Now using her cover name, Trysta, Noÿs is herself targeted by a mysterious secret agent, an Ek'col male from the Galactic Core. Trysta falls in love with Ekcolir (he was designed by Grean to be her soul mate) and begins a collaboration with Grean to chart a new future for Earth, one in which Humanity will spread among the stars.

Related Reading: the man who invented Eternity
 Time Travel and Aliens
More commentary on The End of Eternity
Time Travel in 1949: 'The Red Queen's Race'.

How Asimov's fiction inspired my story Exodemic...
 2019 video. Watch the Exodemic teaser video on YouTube.

Quantum Change

Конец Вечности

Within the Exode Trilogy I describe the writing career of Isaac Asimov (and his analogues) in a series of linked Realities. My little project of imagining the kinds of books Asimov might write in an alternate universe arose from my decision to write Asimov into The Foundations of Eternity as a character. In Asimov's time travel novel, The End of Eternity, the protagonist, Andrew Harlan, wanders through a library in Eternity and takes notice of the collected works of a famous writer in Earth's history (Eric Linkollew of the 575th century). The sets of books, each from a different Reality, are of various sizes, illustrating the strange fact that there is a mysterious force of temporal inertia that gives alternate Realities similarities, yet the lives of individuals are able to diverge in interesting ways. I imagine that in the Foundation Reality, Asimov wrote very little science fiction and his writing career centered on investigative science writing.

The End of Eternity

Quantal Leap
Sometimes when I read online reviews of science fiction novels I wonder if there are alternate versions of the story out there for people to read. In the case of The End of Eternity, this is literally the case. I've never read it, but apparently Asimov's original version of the story did not depict Nöys Lambent and a time traveler from the far future. I've also never seen the 1987 Russian film (Конец Вечности) that was based on Asimov's novel, which according to the Russian Wikipedia, included a mysterious character with no spoken lines who is shown several times shadowing Nöys. This intrigues me because I like the idea that Nöys was just acting as a sort of puppet for R. Gohrlay.

In his review of The End of Eternity, Glenn McDonald wrote: "The book casually shuffles in mind-bending concepts from quantum physics".

"quantum change", an early version of the Reality Change

Similarly, in "A history of time travel fiction" we are told by Jeremy Gordon that The End of Eternity: "incorporates concepts such as quantum physics".

Quantal Concept
In the original version of the story by Asimov, he described "Reality Changes" as "quantum changes". As Asimov put it: "Quantum changes are big changes." In his longer version of the story which I have read (the novel), Asimov wisely dropped the "quantum change" terminology and simply used "Change" with a capital "C" to refer to a Reality Change and those major timeline changes were contrasted with small "c" changes, the "micro-changes" (a term that also did exist in the original version).

cover art by Christopher Foss

Thus, Asimov's imagined time travel is interesting because it includes both temporal chaos and temporal momentum. If a time traveler is careful, he can visit his own past, make some "micro-changes" and yet not change his own existence. However, if you want to, you can travel into your own past and make more dramatic alterations to the timeline that will even erase yourself from Reality. At the same time, you can remain in existence, protected by a personal temporal field generator that insulates you from the Reality Change that you cause.

Just because Asimov used the term "quantum change" in the original version of The End of Eternity, that does not mean that the story is about quantum physics or includes concepts from quantum physics. The term "quantum change" has been used in many situations to simply refer to a "big change" (example). That was the game that Asimov played.

 Grean observing herself in Time.

In the Exode Trilogy, I freely mix together Reality Changes with micro-changes. For example, the world as we know it, the Buld Reality, is brought into existence by a complex combination of time travel events. Trysta, Ekcolir, Thomas and Grean all travel through time to create the Reality Chain that finally causes the Ekcolir Reality to change into the Buld Reality.

Trysta first enters into the 20th century of our Reality from the Ekcolir Reality. She has two children with Deomede and then Trysta departs from the 20th century and goes back in time, finally living out the end of her life some 10,000 years in our past. While in our far past, Trysta cause some micro-changes in the Buld Reality such as making possible the first ever written record of one of Earth's many flood myths.

The End of Eternity

Trysta, Ekcolir, Thomas and Grean constitute a kind of "secret sauce" that is needed to bring the Buld Reality into existence. Asimov depicted Andrew Harlan as initiating Reality Changes by stepping into time and moving an object from one shelf to another. To bring into existence the world as we know it, Trysta, Ekcolir, Thomas and Grean all entered into carefully selected points of time, each with a specific (but complex) mission to accomplish. Had the final time travel missions of Trysta, Ekcolr and Thomas not been conducted as a single coordinated operation, we could count each of them as having initiated their own Reality Change. For simplicity, we can say that they worked together to convert the Ekcolir Reality into the Buld Reality.

All in the family.

Trysta is an Asterothrope from a time in the far future after the human species has become extinct. Ekcolir is an Ek'col, a human variant that was crafted by the pek. As a male Ek'col, Ekcolir is able to impregnate Trysta. Their first child is Thomas. Ek'col/Asterothrope hybrids like Thomas are able to mate with female Kac'hin. The Kac'hin are another human variant that was crafted by the pek. Parthney (a clone of Thomas) and Kach have a son (Boswei) who is able to successfully breed with Earthlings. For example, Boswei and Hana have a son, Izhiun.

A book by Ivory Fersoni

The pek send a message back into time 200,000 years to initiate the design and production of the Kac'hin. Grean (a Kac'hin hermaphrodite) later travels back 40,000 years to start design and production of the Ek'col, bringing into existence the Ekcolir Reality.

Ekcolir helps initiate the Buld Reality by going back in time 20,000 years and using his charms to seduce Gohrlay and prevent the creation of positronic robots. Trysta goes back 10,000 years and helps establish the first Fru'wu teleportation terminal on Earth. Thomas only goes back as far as 1940 where he helps alter the career of Asimov. Ultimately, the children of Deomede and Trysta (who uses the name "Nöys" in The End of Eternity) both play important roles in allowing we Earthlings to become aware of the secret history of Humanity.

strange temporal attractor

As told in the Exode Trilogy, after Trysta first arrives in the 20th century, Earth is locked in a bi-stable temporal attractor. The future of Earth either involves the crust of our planet becoming dangerously radioactive or global warming and catastrophic sea level rise.

Grean is eventually able to transition Earth into a new Reality where there is a third option, labeled "Buld" in the diagram to the right. By bringing into existence the Buld, the Pla, the Ek'col and the Kac'hin it finally becomes possible to create the Buld Reality, a timeline for Earth in which we humans have a chance to survive and reach the stars. 

quantum telepathy

Of course, I could not resist the opportunity to allow Asimov himself to help bring our Reality into existence.

2019 Update: another mission in the past for Grean. 

 2023 update. In 2023, I've been making illustrations for my science fiction stories using image-generating software such as WOMBO Dream. Sometimes an unexpected image is generated by Mr. Wombo, such as the one that is shown to the left which is depicting an isolated human head that is telepathically linked to a quantum computer. See this story about telepathic embroids.

___________________________
Quantum Fiction
Related Reading.

visit the Gallery of Posters

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers

Cover The Foundations

version 1.0 cover

About a year ago I decided on a title for the second novel in the Exode Trilogy: Foundations of Eternity. Since that time, I've altered my thinking slightly about how to illustrate a key feature of this science fiction story: time travel.

For the version 1.0 cover art (shown to the right), I depicted a model being sent through time by a machine that could be easily mistaken for a teleportation terminal.

As described in a previous blog post, I've been updating the cover art for the Exode Trilogy. For my science fiction stories I like to include images of models that have been photomanipulated so as to create a somewhat alien appearance. In Foundations of Eternity, a major character is Grean. Grean is almost human. Grean is actually a Kac'hin, but she carries a swarm of zeptites in her body that allow her to change her facial features. For the version 2.0 cover, Grean's appearance is rather whimsical (see below) and does not really reflect what happens in the story. I just wanted to experiment with alien teeth...she's not a vampire!

Tori (left), Grean the Kac'hin (right)

I made use of Tori Calderwood (see this collection of Tori deviations) as the model who represents Grean on the new cover. Tori is another of the models that was photographed by Cathleen Tarawhiti and shared at deviantART for non-commercial use. As discussed in an earlier blog post, Cathleen imposes no restrictions on the types of photomanipulations that can be performed on her stock images (more unrestricted dA stock images). The lower panel in the depicted scene shows Grean within the Hierion Domain, a place outside of Time, prepared to travel through Time. For the background inside this node of the Hierion Domain, I used and image from Da Jinz at deviantART.

source

On the display screens behind Grean are two events within the flow of Time that are being carefully monitored by Grean. These scenes take place within the Buld Reality. Towards the right on the wall display is an image showing the arrival of a Buld spaceship in Washington D. C., the "first contact" that occurs in the final book of the Trilogy, Exode.

Towards the left on the wall display is an image of the future Grean, shown for dramatic effect on top of the Washington Monument in an imaginary scene that actually has nothing to do with the story. There is a dramatic showdown at this time, but that is a rather complex affair with multiple characters involved and it does not take place on top of the Monument! This is just a "Hollywood-type scene", a literal cliff-hanger.

Model Rose Wood (left),
Grean the Kac'hin (right)

Grean the Kac'hin

Imagine that Grean finds herself in a dangerous situation and she must use time travel to rescue herself. At the lower left of the version 2.0 cover illustration for Foundations of Eternity, she is shown standing inside a time travel device, ready to go off on just such a mission.

I used the body pose from another model (Katrina Chadwick) to depict Grean standing in the time travel device.

blue adjustment layer

Foundations of Eternity is a story about the invention of time travel, inspired by Isaac Asimov's time travel novel, The End of Eternity. In his story, Asimov described how colors shift depending on whether the Eternals are viewing the past or the future. To depict Grean moving through time towards the future, I placed her in a blue temporal beam.

Ivory Fersoni
Ivory Fersoni (an imaginary character in Exode) has been acting as an intermediate between Angela and "the editor". Angela might be the only person on Earth (if, indeed, she has not departed) with efficient access to the Sedronic Domain, allowing events from the Foundation Reality to be told in the Exode Trilogy.

Cover 2.0

The Foundations of Eternity, cover version 2.0
See my description on this blog page for image credits.
Who is off stage to our right, distracting Grean before she travels through time?

Here is the version 2.0 cover for Foundations of Eternity (image to the right). That's the White House at the top, behind Grean as she clings to the top of the Washington Monument.

There are only two characters from the story depicted on the cover, Grean and an as yet un-named Buld (shown here dressed in white). The Buld spaceship is there at the lower right. This depicted scene is rather misleading since the spaceship is "cloaked" and would not normally be visible.

During the past year I've become comfortable just using the title "Foundations of Eternity" without a leading "The". The story is a fan fiction sequel to Asimov's novel Foundation and Earth.

Asimov appears as a character in Foundations of Eternity. I pretend that when Asimov was born into the Foundation Reality he became involved in Grean's attempt to eliminate the last positronic robot from Earth.

If I wanted a "true Hollywood moment" to be shown on the cover, I'd put in the legs and feet of an evil clanking robot into the upper panel, stepping on poor Grean's hand and trying to make her fall to her death.

I can see the headlines: "Vampire found at the base of the Washington Monument".

Next: Grean on pulp magazine covers.

book and magazine covers at deviantART -
visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers

5 Realities

This is the second of three related blog posts. In the first I reflected on the origin of the science fiction story Exode. Here I explain the role of time travel in the backstory of Exode. In the third post I'll provide a timeline for events in Exode.

The science fiction novels The Foundations of Eternity and Exode span across five Realities. Exode takes place entirely within the Buld Reality, which is the universe as we know it.

The Foundations of Eternity is a fanfiction sequel to Asimov's novel, Foundation and Earth. It also shows events leading up to Asimov's time travel novel The End of Eternity.

Asimov hinted at the idea that positronic robots were involved in the discovery and utilization of time travel. The Foundations of Eternity presents the story of the creation of the first humaniform positronic robot: R. Gohrlay. The mysterious physical properties of positrons allow the positronic robots to develop some amazing technologies, including time travel technology.

R. Gohrlay and a few other positronic robots find themselves in a struggle for the fate of Humanity. Those robots are hehaviorly constrained by the programming of their positronic brains: they must prevent harm from being done to Humanity.

R. Gohrlay objects to the fact that mysterious aliens have been secretly watching Earth and shaping the evolution of humans. Those aliens created the human species, but they also plan to replace we humans and hand Earth over to the Prelands. The robots attempt to use time travel technology to form a perfected human civilization on Earth and protect Humanity from the aliens.

Five Realities

However, as described by Asimov in The End of Eternity, it is discovered that the mere existence of time travel inevitably leads to the extinction of the human species. Using Noÿs Lambent, a woman from the far future as their tool, the positronic robots eliminate Eternity, the time travel device of Earth.

Mallansohn Reality
Traveling back in time to the 1930s, Noÿs and Andrew cause a Reality Change that prevents Eternity from coming into existence. Asimov referred to the Reality that was ended by Noÿs and Andrew as the Mallansohn Reality. Noÿs wanted to create a new Reality in which humans would quickly develop nuclear power and interstellar space travel and spread Humanity to millions of planets in our galaxy.

Foundation Reality
I call the Reality that was brought into existence by Noÿs the Foundation Reality. The events of the Foundation Reality were described by Asimov in the many stories of his Foundation Series and related "future history" in some of the stories in his Robot Series.

Bliss and Pel

The Foundations of Eternity is a story that provides a fanfiction sequel to Asimov's Foundation and Earth by expanding on the idea hinted at by Asimov: that there are aliens "out there", beyond our own galaxy, waiting...watching. Who are these mysterious aliens?

The Foundations of Eternity and Exode are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe. About a billion years ago an alien species, not too different from we humans, evolved on a distant planet and began spreading from galaxy to galaxy. The alien Huaoshy, or at least their artificial life devices (known by various names such as "orbho" and the pek), reached Earth about 7,000,000 years ago and began guiding the evolution of primates, resulting in the creation of we humans.

source

The orbho maintained a secret base under the surface of the Moon from where they watched Earth. R. Gohrlay ejected the orbho from Observer Base and eventually the orbho and other elements of Genesaunt Civilization retreated entirely from our galaxy, unable to thwart the mysterious power wielded by the positronic robots.

The Huaoshy began a waiting game and tried to understand the mystery of Earth by making use of the Kac'hin, the human variant that was best adapted for interaction with the Huaoshy. Occasionally the Kac'hin sent exploration missions back to our galaxy, but little could be learned about Gohrlay and the positronic robots.

Thousands of years later, when Galaxia was nearing completion, the Kac'hin finally realized that positronic brains make possible a form of telepathy. By this time, the Huaoshy had developed their own science of positronics. Equipped with the technological tools to disrupt positronic brain function, Captain Hooski of the Kac'hin was sent on a mission to Earth.

Daneel

At first it seemed that Hooski and his crew defeated Daneel and the other positronic robots who had brought Galaxia into existence. However, Daneel was the "public" face of positronics shown to the Kac'hin by Gohrlay. R. Gohrlay simply made use of time travel to go back in time and thwart Hooski's attempt to return to the Huaoshy control of Observer Base on the Moon.

However, R. Gohrlay had finally tipped her hand and the Kac'hin now realize that Gohrlay had time travel technology. The Huaoshy expanded their science of positronics and developed their own time travel technology, including the ability to view "Reality Chains". Gohrlay long had the ability to view alternative Realities, but only as far as the horizon of the next possible Reality Change. With their superior technology for viewing Realities, the Kac'hin defeat Gohrlay by quickly creating first the Asimov Reality and then the Noÿs Reality.

Noÿs

However, a puzzle still remains. Some powerful and unseen force is still at work, perturbing the course of events on Earth. Noÿs remains on Earth, protected by her "physiotime generator"...no Reality Change, even one that prevents R. Gohrlay from ever evicting the Huaoshy from our galaxy, can sweep her into oblivion.

Finally, in 1970 the Kac'hin establish contact with Noÿs and negotiate a deal. Noÿs agrees to stop deflecting the course of human civilization on Earth in exchange for a promise that humans will be given a chance to freely spread themselves between the stars. The pek have already made significant progress towards their goal of replacing humans with the Prelands. However, unable to defeat Noÿs and also stymied by a mysterious Nereid presence on Earth that they cannot dislodge, the Kac'hin agree to the demands of Noÿs.

Gwyned

Working together, the Kac'hin and Noÿs must bring into existence the Buld Reality, the final Reality. By this time, the Huaoshy have realized that they have the technological means to end all time travel. They want to establish an acceptable and stable Reality and then put an end to all further time travel.

Noÿs is allowed to use the sophisticated equipment of the Huaoshy for viewing possible Realities. Noÿs discovers the Buld Reality, a reality in which humans retain dominance on Earth and spread outward to the stars.

galactic core

Noÿs finds that the Reality Change that will cause the Buld Reality to come into existence is rather complex. Her son, Thomas, must be shifted from the Noÿs Reality to the year 1940 in the Buld Reality. Thomas' father, Ekcolir, must travel back in time 20,000 years where he will prevent R. Gohrlay from launching her positronic revolution and establish the conditions that will, at the correct time, start a Buld spaceship on a mission from the galactic core to Earth. Noÿs must insert herself in the year 1936 of the Buld Reality where she meets Deomede, the analog of Ekolir in the 20th century of the Buld Reality. Noÿs and Deomede have a daughter, Gwyned, who grows up on Earth until 1964 when she is teleported off of Earth. Gwyned is present at Lendhalen during the time when Parthney is trained for his mission to Earth.

Gwyned tells Parthney that she has a brother, Thomas, on Earth. When Parthney is on Earth (he arrives in 1971) he tries to contact Thomas using clues provided by Gwyned. Parthney had been told (by his handlers at Lendhalen) to try to contact the mysterious Noÿs by first finding Thomas.

Syon

However, Parthney's efforts to track down Thomas and Noÿs on Earth run him afoul of the Overseers. In 1984, Parthney is captured and taken to the Moon. This was planned by the Interventionists. They watch carefully when Parthney is captured and learn how to penetrate Observer Base.

Parthney's efforts to contact Noÿs were futile. Noÿs left 20th century Earth just about exactly the same time that Parthney arrived. Noÿs, who, in the Buld Reality, has lived on Earth since 1936, departs from 1971 and travels back in time 10,000 years. Noÿs is present when the Fru'wu establish the first teleportation terminal on Earth. Noÿs is teleported to Klyz where she transfers her advanced nanites from the far future of the Mallansohn Reality into a primitive Fru'wu robot. Eventually that robot (who uses the name Syon) is present at Lendhalen when Parthney is being trained for his mission to Earth.

After Thomas and Noÿs have completed their time travel, the Buld Reality is complete and the Huaoshy initiate a dimensional engineering shift that makes any additional time travel impossible.

Timeline of the Buld Reality
The story told in Exode does not involve time travel. The events of Exode all take place in the Buld Reality, which I define as the universe as we know it, the universe after time travel is no longer possible. I provide an updated timeline for the Buld Reality in my next blog post.

_________________________

Note: I later decided to refer to the "Noÿs Reality" as the "Ekcolir Reality"

Gohrlay's Horrific Demise

spoof inspired by The Island Of Doctor Moreau
Hana's last name is Davyon. On the planet Luk'ru
she crafts her own version of Humanity.

Towards the end of last year I considered Exode as a horror story...with no blood, no monsters, no deaths...just the usual ignorant and bumbling humans worried about the ultimate fate of Humanity.

Horror is one of the genres that repels me, so I've challenged myself to broaden my interests and work at the task of finding something about horror stories that I can enjoy or appreciate.

Now, since having realized that The Foundations of Eternity is a prequel to Exode, I should give some more thought to the horror elements in that story, particularly the gruesome death of Gohrlay.

Spoiler
Of course, the first thing to say about Gohrlay's horrific demise is that her death by "destructive brain scan" is carefully staged. Orbho Anagro made "two copies of Gohrlay" and kept one in storage: a clone of Gohrlay that was kept in reserve and which had no purpose in life but to be put through the destructive brain scanning process. But the reader does not know about this subterfuge until after reading: "The nanites in her brain switched off her consciousness and a robotic surgeon cut off Gohrlay's hair and began removing her skull."

Gohrlay's Brain
So, the first two and a half chapters of the story trick the reader into thinking that Gohrlay is murdered by Overseer Doltun and that her brain is broken into microscopic bits as part of converting her neural circuits into functionally equivalent positronic circuits.

Using the primitive brain scanning technology that was developed by her fellow Neanderthals, it will take many days to scan the structure of Gohrlay's brain. Each cell has to be exposed and analyzed. First her blood is cooled in order to limit cell death during the prolonged scanning process.

I found an old Horror Stories cover that reminded me of poor Gohrlay's body being chilled down in preparation for the destructive brain scan.

The dude in the rubber suit, the klunky lab equipment and the ice cube girls in the back did not fit with events as described in The Foundations of Eternity so some modifications were needed. However, I just had to keep the retro thermometer!

I looked at a large number of pulp magazine covers and it was difficult to find a human figure that I could swap in and make look like it was involved in running the chiller tank equipment. I certainly was not opposed to including another female figure, but most of the young women depicted in old pulp magazine covers were doing little more than cringing in horror.

I found an issue of Avon Fantasy Reader that had a dramatically posed lady holding a knife; the out-stretched arm was what I needed. Her shear "lab coat" makes a nice contrast to the original rubber suit.

Spock's Brain
This was one of the more disturbing episodes of Star Trek. Supposedly written by the person who came up with the idea that Star Fleet follows the Prime Directive, in the end, the crew of the Enterprise happily throws a monkey wrench into the culture of Sigma Draconis VI. In need of a computer to maintain the infrastructure of their underground city, the Eymorgs instead steal Spock's brain and put it to work running their sewage plant and ventilation fans.

Spock and McCoy collaborate to successfully paste Spock's brain back into his body and our heroes ride off into the sunset, the Eyemorg having been told to abandon their underground city and go live on the surface where they can suffer through the raging ice age along with the brutish Morg.

There should have been a sequel to this episode in which, as soon as the Enterprise departed from Sigma Draconis VI, Kara was off in her spaceship to pick out another brain, possibly that of Harry Mudd.

Having his brain be used to run the plumbing of a city for 10,000 years seems like a fitting punishment for Mudd's crimes.

Brain Switch
In The Foundations of Eternity, Gohrlay is quietly slipped out of Observer Base. She wakes up wondering if something went wrong with the brain scan.

Jeed and Many Sails patiently explain that she was tricked, and that there was never any intention to destroy her brain. Orbho Anagro simply wanted the scientists at Observer Base to believe that their brain scan technology had been used on Gohrlay. Instead, Anagro secretly used more efficient Huaoshy technology to scan Gohrlay's brain and convert its functionality into positronic circuits.

When R. Gohrlay "wakes up" after the scanning session, "she" has a working copy of Gohrlay's mind...plus, telepathic powers. As the first positronic robot with a human-like mind, R. Gohrlay begins her struggle to defend Humanity against the alien Huaoshy, culminating in the formation of Galaxia.

Gohrlay never really knows much about the Huaoshy. Resenting how she was tricked and used for Orbho Anagro's little science experiment, R. Gohrlay makes sure that all positronic robots are programmed with the Laws of Robotics.

For the 30,000 years of R. Gohrlay's existence, "she" is in a nightmare-like struggle against the Huaoshy. Had she known exactly what she was up against she might never have led a revolt against the orbho of Observer Base. Every move she makes is ultimately countered by the Huaoshy. However, in the end, the Huaoshy recognize their own faults and the deficiencies that were inherent in Genesaunt Civilization. Prompted by Gohrlay's heroic resistance, the Huaoshy make some changes and Homo sapiens is given the  opportunity to survive.

Horror Tease
I've started giving some thought to the ending of The Foundations of Eternity. I like happy endings and I originally imagined a pleasant ending for The Start of Eternity. However, since The Foundations of Eternity is a prequel for Exode, I'd be willing to change the tone of the last chapter and even turn it into a horror-tinged teaser for the follow-up novel.

It would not be hard to depict Earth and Humanity as stripped bare of its defending positronic robots and totally at the mercy of the alien Huaoshy. At the end of The Foundations of Eternity the reader could be left wondering if we Earthlings are going to return to being just another soon-to-be-obsolete primate along the way to the Huaoshy ideal of a species that is worthy of joining Genesaunt Civilization.