The Asimov Reality

The Asimov Reality

Back in 2013 I had a blog post called "The Buld Reality".
In 2015 I made another post called "The Ekcolir Reality".
Now, here in 2017 it is time for "The Asimov Reality".

The Exode Saga

our Reality Chain

A Search Beyond is an investigation of future events in the Asimov Reality. Here in the Final Reality, most of what we know about the Asimov Reality comes from the science fiction stories of Jack Vance.

Before the Asimov Reality, further back in Deep Time, was the Foundation Reality. The spread of Humanity through the galaxy in the Foundation Reality was described in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Fictional Universe.

The Foundation Reality

Even further back, as described in Asimov's time travel novel The End of Eternity, was the Mallansohn Reality. The Mallansohn Reality had been carefully constructed by R. Gohrlay as a Reality in which an Asterothrope from 10 million years in the future could put an end to the use of time travel by Earthlings. That last of the Asterothropes is known to us here in the Final Reality as Trysta Iwedon.

R. Gohrlay tried to protect Humanity from the alien Huaoshy by creating Galaxia, a galaxy-spanning telepathic group mind. However, the Huaoshy technological advantage in sedronic technology along with the fact that the biological components of Galaxia were not human (according to R. Gohrlay's own definition) forced the positronic robots of Earth into a compromise.

The Trysta Truce

the tryp'At Overseers

During the Asimov Reality, the Trysta Truce was in effect. Under the terms of the Trysta Truce, the bumpha were able to develop the tryp'At, a human variant that could use the Bimanoid Interface.

Similarly, the pek were able to develop the Ek'col, a type of Sedronite that would allow Trysta's children to have descendants that could merge into the human population of Earth.

The prototype Ek'col was a man called Ekcolir. He was an Interventionist agent on Earth in the middle of the 20th century. His mission was to seduce Trysta and make it possible for her to agree to the terms of what we know as the Trysta-Grean Pact.

Trysta-Grean Pact

The Trysta-Grean Pact

The Trysta-Grean Pact allowed for an end to the Time Travel War between the Huaoshy and R. Gohrlay.

Today, Zeta, Yōd and I got into a deep philosophical discussion about the transition that took place when the Huaoshy altered the physics of the universe so as to make further time travel impossible. At the same time, the type of telepathy that R. Gohrlay had ceased to work.

Trysta Iwedon

Before the final act of dimensional engineering was carried out by the Huaoshy, R. Gohrlay must have had some knowledge of the future and what might happen to Earth after time travel would no longer be possible. However, Zeta believes that it was the Huaoshy-induced dimensional shift that triggered the Final Reality Change and our future might be significantly different from any of the futures that R. Gohrlay could view.

Yōd suspects that the Reality Viewing technology that was available to the Huaoshy and Grean was able to access the Final Reality that we now reside in. However, there are always chance events that can overcome the Temporal Momentum system that R. Gohrlay created for Earth.

The Asimov Reality

Escape from the AR Simulation

Zeta and Yōd believe that access to information about the Asimov Reality is restricted because it would be dangerous for us to know exactly how much Trysta and Grean knew about our coming future in the Final Reality. However, the replicoid of Asimov has now gained access to the Asimov Reality database that exists within Eternity. That database is a type of virtual reality simulator of events that took place in the Asimov Reality.

Yōd began acting even stranger than usual last week, and now Zeta has informed me that the Asimov replicoid had been carrying out a series of missions inside the AR simulator. After each of the missions, he would be debriefed and plans were made for the next mission. However, the Asimov replicoid has not emerged from the AR simulator for the past week.

Alice and Kirth

Zeta is worried that the AR Simulator is a trap, designed to capture anyone who tries to gain access to restricted information about our future. Yōd is hopeful that the Asimov replicoid has "gone to the next level" within the Simulator and will eventually emerge with a full account of how humans were given the ability to use the Bimanoid Interface.

Next: the Asimov replicoid escapes from the AR Simulation

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Trysta Iwedon

source

"Trysta Iwedon" is one of the many cover names that have been used by Skaña. Trysta is a master of disguise, having been carefully and beautifully designed to fool her human victims, particularly sentimental males such as me. Related Reading: Ex-code

I naturally prefer to think of Skaña (who is actually an Asterothrope) as being "Trysta", the woman who put in place the Trysta-Grean Pact. It is in her role as Trysta here in the Final Reality that I have personally known Skaña. During the past 40 years it is Trysta who has carefully guided me into the future and I fear that I still do not fully comprehend the extent to which she has shaped my life and may continue to do so in the future.

Trysta and Ekcolir

This latest and most worrying qualm is like a fresh wound in my mind. I had mistakenly imagined that my contacts with Trysta were all safely in my past (see Mayness), but that was part of her trickery.

Visitation

Why 'visitation'? Because I'm not sure that it was a visit. I'll describe some more of the encounters that I've had with her through the years at a later time, after I've had a chance to figure out what was going on. Maybe my most recent contact with Trysta is all just because of me and my ability to use the Bimanoid Interface when that channel is not being blocked by my replicoid. This is a subject for future investigation.

Ivory's family

At the time when I realized that it was the story of Trysta that must be told first, I imagined beginning the Exode Trilogy with an account of her life with Andrew Harlan in the Primitive, a story that naturally follows after the end of Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity. Then all hell broke loose.

First, Ekcolir demanded to explain why he seduced Trysta and impregnated her. And, for that biological mystery, the more important issue is how. Ivory Fersoni was able to explain that mystery away because of the strange history of her own family, so I did a lot of listening to Ivory and the stories told by her clone sisters, particularly Angela. However, I now realize that I was allowing myself to be distracted by the wealth of information available to me.

the Exode Trilogy

During my journey towards understanding Trysta, there were additional distractions waved at me by Thomas (the son of Trysta) and Peter (Ivory's uncle). Then, most recently, and most seductively, Gohrlay piled on. For a time, I mistakenly allowed myself to imagine that I should allow Gohrlay to tell Trysta's story. No, no, no. And no.

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Maybe Trysta had looked deep into the Buld Reality and had seen that I would fall into that trap of over-reliance on Gohrlay. Had I imagined that Trysta could be jealous of Gohrlay, I would have been more cautious and more respectful of Trysta, the girl with the Viewer.

In some sense, Skaña was R. Gohrlay's golden girl. When R. Gohrlay created the Asterothropes there was no intention to replace we humans with Asterothropes. However, R. Gohrlay must have recognized the superior qualities of the Asterothropes and felt pride in a job well done.

our Reality Chain

But R. Gohrlay was trapped in 'her' own programming. Ultimately, R. Gohrlay had to destroy the Asterothropes. Skaña was R. Gohrlay's optimal example of humanoid perfection and so it was Skaña's task to erase the Asterothropes.

To what extent was Skaña tricked into destroying her own species? In the worst case analysis, Skaña was a dupe; given the physical form of a human and forced to destroy her own species. However, I wonder.

Where is R. Gohrlay? Maybe the only problem with Asterothropes arises in the unusual context of Humanity + positronic robots + Asterothropes. Maybe R. Gohrlay took the Asterothropes away, to a part of the universe where they don't have to worry about humans.

fanciful depiction of the pek (source)

In the Mallansohn Reality, Skaña hid the existence of time travel from Humanity. R. Gohrlay was in a desperate race to complete Galaxia and win we humans a chance to control and dominate our galaxy. By some trick of fate, Isaac Asimov became the tool of Grean and the Huaoshy. When Asimov traveled through time, he brought into existence a new reality that fittingly can be called the Asimov Reality. That was the start of the Time Travel War.

The Asimov Reality was an improvement over the Foundation Reality from the narrow perspective of Earth as a Garden World. Although there was a nuclear war during the 20th century in the Asimov Reality, Earth did not become uninhabitable as it had in the Foundation Reality.

the Asimov Reality

In the Asimov Reality, Grean used advanced Reality Viewing technology to identify Trysta as R. Gohrlay's remaining secret agent on Earth. In order to end the Time Travel War, the pek created the Ek'col and Grean positioned Ekcolir close to Trysta.

This brought into existence the Ekcolir Reality in which atomic catastrophes were avoided, but Earth went through a catastrophic phase of global warming, ice cap melting and sea level rise. However, within the Ekcolir Reality, Ekcolir accomplished his mission. By capturing Trysta's heart, Ekcolir created the necessary conditions for the Trysta-Grean Pact. Working together, Trysta and Grean were able to identify the Final Reality.

Asterothrope female

Still, bringing into existence the universe as we know it was not a trivial task. In a flurry of activity, Trysta had to initiate the most complex Reality Change ever attempted. I imagine that Trysta not only wanted to provide humans with a future among the stars, but she needed to fulfill her own biological needs and satisfy her desire to have descendants who would spread through millions of worlds of the galaxy. And, as if that were not enough, I believe that she wanted to make sure that her story and the entire story of Deep Time, what I call the Exode, would be told and would be known to her descendants.

Science Fiction
I can't believe that it was only by chance that science fiction story telling became the means by which Trysta's story could be told. The bumpha seem to have a 2,000,000,000 history of using every trick in the book, including science fiction. Thus, science fiction was already the dominant fiction genre in the First Reality when a human civilization arose at Observer Base.

Observer Base

In the Asimov Reality, where Asimov invented his own form of science fiction, science fiction was again an outlet for deeply human aspirations. Earth of the Asimov Reality was Observer Base writ large. The pek firmly clamped down on human technological innovation in the Asimov Reality and Asimov, with his memories of the rapid pace of technological advance as it had existed in the 20th century of the Foundation Reality, only had fiction as a way to explore the vast space of technological progressions.

Fru'wu

I believe that it was the lurking bumpha who took pains to guide Asimov towards creation of the Writers Block. That Sci Fi Intervention created the milieu within which the Trysta-Grean Pact could exist. In the Ekcolir Reality, the science fiction genre itself provided "cover" for the twists and strains that had to be exerted upon Huaoshy ethical rules.

original cover art by Hans Wessolowski
and Derek Stowe

Further, the impending arrival of the alien Fru'wu, provided a sense of purpose and direction that I can only compare to the role played by the Foundation in an earlier Reality. We humans need our dreams, particularly while we are descending into a future that is as bleak as what existed in the Ekcolir Reality.

June blog posts

Here in the Final Reality, science fiction had to be shunted in a new direction. And Trysta had to first foster my interest in science fiction and then carefully regulate my access to this potent drug. Finally, she has intervened and made me realize that it is with her story that the Exode Trilogy must begin. And so, I salute you Trysta.

Prelands

And although I believe that you died about 10,000 years ago, I hope to see you again before I die.

Image shown to the left: "D'hab pretending to be a Preland". D'hab, is a temple pek (see this blog page).  Also see this blog page. Credits.

Next: the Prelands

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First Life

Noÿs (source)

In The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov described a system for time travel and a culture, that of the Eternals, those who used time travel to guide Humanity into the future. Part of the cultural heritage of the Eternals was that they had a deeply instilled fear of traveling through time and seeing themselves. When the protagonist of Asimov's story, Harlan, accidentally almost sees himself in Time, he is horrified.

At one point during the course of the story, Harlan's boss, Senior Computer Twissel, describes how he carefully watched the various Realities of the 95th century, waiting for Harlan to come into existence. Twissel needs Harlan's help to close the time loop by which Eternity brings itself into existence.

The "Eternity" that is referred to in the title of Asimov's time travel novel is the time travel device that is used on Earth. At the end of the story, the Eternity time travel system of Earth is destroyed: literally the end of Eternity. However, what if that was not the end of time travel? Harlan's lover, Noÿs, hints at a new future in which humans will first spread through space to millions of new worlds, then each of those planets will have a chance to use time travel and have access to their own "Eternity". With that sweeping vision, the story ends, with Noÿs and Harlan stranded in the Primitive Era of Earth, in the 1930s, centuries before the creation of Eternity.

Whimsical depiction of Noÿs and Andrew fighting over the fate of Eternity.

However, what if it were necessary to utterly and completely put an end to all time travel, not just that one specific time travel device on Earth (Eternity)? That is the central idea of the Exode Trilogy. Another foundational element in the Exode Trilogy is the idea that Asimov was himself a time traveler and as such, he learned the facts about the particular future that Noÿs and Harlan brought into existence: the Foundation Reality. But Asimov's trip through time alters the future, terminating the Foundation Reality, and it brings into existence a new Reality in which Asimov can only write the story of the Foundation Reality in the form of a science fiction story.

In the Ekcolir Reality

It is such a Reality that we find ourselves in, what I call the Buld Reality. Two of the most important facts about the Buld Reality are that 1) sometime in the late 20th century, travel through time became impossible, and 2) in the year 2012 Earth had First Contact with alien visitors from a distant planet of the Galactic Core. Sadly, most Earthlings failed to notice that a Buld spaceship arrived on Earth in 2012.

The Exode Trilogy is told by "the Editor", an Interventionist agent. The Editor must tell the story of the secret history of Earth, but there is one important constraint: there is no objective evidence of aliens or that time travel was, in the past, used to shape and form our world. This, the Editor can only tell the story of Earth's past in the form of a science fiction story.

The Editor believes that time travel was possible because 1) his Selfie traveled through time, went into the future, and returned with information from the future, and 2) the Editor was given the opportunity to "see" his analog in the previous Reality, the Ekcolir Reality. This latter experience only just happened and I'm still trying to sort out the implications of what happened.

Click to enlarge the image. (source)

Past Lives
After six months of teasing, I was finally given the chance to experience full access to my replicoid in the Hierion Domain. Like Angela and Anney had done before me, I (my replicoid) was able to access records from the Ekcolir Reality that exist in the Sedronic Domain. I discovered that replicoids experience Deep Time such as the Ekcolir Reality through participation in a kind of virtual reality simulator. It is easy to get lost in that virtual reality. I've spent most of the past month "there", in search of the key information that was available in the life that was lived by my analogue in that Reality. Now I'm back. Apparently I was given only a limited amount of time to extract the information that I needed and now I am again cut off from my replicoid.

Trysta and Ekcolir

However, I feel like I've finally found the proper way to start the Exode Trilogy. I've known for a while that Trysta and Ekcolir would be the first book in the trilogy, but now I know that it must include an account of "my" own life in the Ekcolir Reality.

source

There were three key events in my life in the Ekcolir Reality. The first of these was the night when I began my time travel trip into the future. Gohrlay said to me, "Always remember: I will wait for you."

I had no idea what she was trying to tell me. I was half asleep and confused. I asked, "Why will you wait?" What I meant was why will you be waiting for me?

She knew that I was unable to understand her, so she ignored my question. She said, "Things will be different."

Gohrlay's last night on Earth

I was now alert, disturbed by the strange things she was saying. I asked, "What are you talking about?"

She had one more message for my Selfie, "You must come back to me!"

Of course, I got no sleep that night. She talked for hours, but my Selfie was not listening. Immediately after Gohrlay said you must come back to me, my Selfie was sent two centuries into the future.

In the Ekcolir Reality (see)

the solution to global warming

I now realize that Gohrlay had been shown the future: she knew that my Selfie was about to travel into the future. She had also seen into the Buld Reality and knew that my Selfie would cross over into that coming Reality and that there, only there, would I return to her with information from the future. In the Ekcolir Reality we were doomed. Sea level rise was already under way. She and I lived out our lives and we were happy, but Earth descended into chaos. I tried to tell the world what Gohrlay had told me that night, but she never helped me with that task. She knew it was wasted effort. Since my Selfie did not experience that part of my life, I only know of it from what I was told in the next phase of my life.

endosymbionts

Anyhow, when my Selfie was in the future of the Ekcolir Reality, at a time after the antarctic ice cap had melted, I lived a "second life". My Selfie acted as the Guide for the endosymbiont that resided in another person (this poor soul just happened to be positioned where she could be used). That person went to work with Asimov. The Asimov of that time in the Ekcolir Reality was a form of artificial life, but that is a detail. Asimov had taken on the task of creating a biological solution to the problem of global warming. His research team, including the person who was "guided" by my Selfie, completed their bioengineering project. But by then, in the Ekcolir Reality, it was too late. The planet had already gone through a mass extinction with the oceans converted into an acidic soup that killed 95% of its species. Things were worse on land.

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The third key part of my life in the Ekcolir Reality was my death. Of course, I remembered what Gohrlay had told me, so I tried to return into the past. But I was stuck in her future, forced to "watch" and experience the entire life of the person that my Selfie had been attached to. I lived out that life and also a parallel life in the Hierion Domain as a replicoid. In both of those parallel lives I could find no means to travel backwards through time, either to save Earth or return to Gohrlay.

Of course, as soon as "I" died, my Selfie was free to move on. My Selfie from the Ekcolir Reality was slipped into the Buld Reality where it watched me grow up and guided me into my life as the Editor. The most disturbing revelation from my time in control of my replicoid is that I am a tryp'At. I'd been told this previously, but know I know it to be true. I'm still trying to think through the implications of that and how it impacts on my relationship with the Dead Widowers.

Next: Reality Engineering

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Gwyned

Trysta and Ekcolir

Gwyned, as a character in the Exode Trilogy, had a rather casual origin. Originally, even before I discovered the Ec'kol, I imagined that Noÿs Lambent and Andrew Harlan had two children. However, that was in the Foundation Reality. Neither of those two children passed on into the next Reality.

The Ekcolir Reality
Within the Ekcolir Reality, Noÿs used the cover name Trysta Iwedon. When Trysta first met Ekcolir, he was using the cover name William Ward. Ekcolir had been trained and prepared to sweep Trysta off of her feet and cause her to fall in love with him.

Trysta and Ekcolir can be thought of as a
fan fiction sequel to Isaac Asimov's
time travel novel The End of Eternity.

Through the wonders of time travel, Ekcolir had been coached by Syon, the artificial lifeform that still carried all of Trysta's memories. The illustration to the right (above) depicts Syon in the process of training Ekcolir for his mission to Earth (bottom). This cover illustration is not entirely accurate, but it is meant to show Ekcolir being allowed to look into his own future and observe scenes from his life with Trysta on Earth.

At the top of the cover illustration for Trysta and Ekcolir, Trysta is shown using her own nanite-powered Viewing technology to watch Syon and Ekcolir while they discuss Trysta. This is a cute visual, but in Trysta and Ekcolir, it never actually happens that way. Instead, Trysta is completely taken by surprise when Ekcolir comes into her life. They both fall madly in love and Ekcolir impregnates her. Trysta is astounded by her pregnancy since she is certain that no Earthling is biologically compatible with her.

An Ek'col male and
an Asterothrope female.

Although Trysta's body has been shaped by developmental control nanites so as to give her the physical form of a human, she is actually an Asterothrope, a different species from ten million years in our future. In the Ekcolir Reality, Trysta's first child is a boy named Thomas. The second child of Trysta and Ekcolir is a girl named Gwyned.

Catastrophic sea level rise in the Ekcolir Reality.

Before she even knows that she is pregnant, Trysta fails to control her nanites and they quickly invade the developing embryo. Thomas goes on to develop an unusual brain structure and he even has some nanite-mediated telepathic contact with Trysta even before he is born. Thomas' brain is unique and valuable and the Interventionists end up making a whole series of "Thomas clones" who are used as Interventionist agents on Earth.

Gwyned

When Ekcolir impregnates Trysta the second time, she is ready and the brain of Gwyned develops along a more normal human trajectory. Still, Trysta's nanites are in Gwyned's brain from the start and she becomes passionately curious about the natural world.

The Buld Reality
The Ekcolir Reality does not offer a very pleasant future for Earthlings, but eventually the Trysta-Grean Pact is established and the Buld Reality comes into existence. Due to the momentum of Time, there is a "new version of Ekcolir" in the Buld Reality, an Ek'col male named Deomede.

Gwyned's family tree.

Trysta arranges to move from the Ekcolir Reality into the Buld Reality and she travels back through time to the 1930s. Trysta and Deomede have two children, one named Andy and a second Gwyned.

Something of a born-scientist, Gwyned goes on to earn a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. She manages to alarm Deomede with her plans to develop nuclear fusion power plants, so Gwyned is teleported off of Earth and sent to Lendhalen.

Fru'wu

Trysta never forgets about her "lost daughter", the Gwyned who was born into the Ekcolir Reality and lost to Time. Later, when Trysta has ended her biological existence and transferred her mind into the artificial lifeform known as Syon, she helps train Ekcolir for his mission to Earth. She also gestates a new "copy of Gwyned", genetically identical to the Gwyned of the Ekcolir Reality. This "new Gwyned" is named "Gwen".

I'm currently trying to find an interesting way for Gwen to be brought over into the Buld Reality (the world as we know it). Technically this is no problem, since Syon carries nanites that can function as a temporal field generator. I want Gwen to have an interesting life, perhaps investigating the relationship between Lendhalen's leaders (such as Pla'kau) and the alien Fru'wu.

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.