Trysta Iwedon

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"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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Reality Reviewing

Krell brain power boosting
technology from the 1956 film
Forbidden Planet

I often refer to The End of Eternity as "Isaac Asimov's time travel novel". However, in 1947 Asimov wrote a first draft (~40,000 words) of a story in which Joseph Schwartz travels through time from 1949 into the Galactic Era, a future time when humans have spread through the galaxy and established an Empire ruled from the centrally-located planet Trantor. This setting is in the same "future history" as the Foundation Saga that Asimov had been incrementally constructing one story at a time for publication in Astounding during the course of the 1940s.

The story of Joseph Schwartz's adventures in the far future was later published as a 70,000 word version called Pebble in the Sky (first printing in 1950, three years before he started work on The End of Eternity). After arriving in the future, Schwartz is viewed as a hairy and dim-witted evolutionary throwback and given a "brain boost" with an experimental synapsifier, a high tech device created by Affret Shekt.

cover art by John Bunch

The Stars, Like Dust, which became the first novel of the "Empire Series", was originally published in the first three 1951 issues of Galaxy magazine under the title "Tyrann". I read The Stars, Like Dust in novel form about 40 years ago and before today I'd never seen the illustration that is on the January issue's cover.

After 4 decades it is interesting to note the scenes from The Stars, Like Dust that stayed in my memory...Biron's departure from Earth and preparation for a "jump" through hyperspace, the "spirited wench" Artemisia's skill at horrifying her father...

Asimov introduced the Visi-Sonor in 1945 (The Mule) as another high tech device, one that could interact with -and amplify- "brain waves". In Tyrann, Asimov introduced the inventor of the visi-sonor, Gillbret, who is part of Artemisia's extended family. After being subjected to the influence of the visi-sonor, Biron becomes intensely aware of a strong desire to posses Artemisia.

page 45 illustration for Tyrann

With the help of Gillbret and his visi-sonor, Biron escapes arrest. Artemisia has been desperately resisting a political marriage to an elderly and repulsive Tyranni and she wants Biron to pilot a spaceship and help her run away. Biron and Artemisia begin a search among the stars for a long-lost document that can save Humanity from the tyrannical war lords who seem to endlessly exercise power over the human-settled worlds of the galaxy.

Exode

In the Exode Trilogy, Asimov is a character who is in the "wrong place at the wrong time". He find himself caught up in a mysterious struggle between positronic robots and space aliens. Asimov is invited to give a talk about science fiction at the Triversity. This is part of an effort by Thomas to make Asimov accept the idea that the Earth has long been visited by Genesaunts. In particular, Peter carries genes that originated in selective breeding projects carried out on distant worlds by the pek.

Asimov as a character

After his speech to the Triversity science fiction club, Asimov takes an interest in Toni Killian and starts flirting with her. Asimov's playful behavior ends up creating the conditions under which "the editor" of the Exode Trilogy can be "discovered" and eventually, many years later, be given the task of telling the story Exode.

"Asimov to some extent cultivated an image of himself as an amiable lecher." Along with Artemisia in Tyrann, Asimov populated several of his science fiction stories with young girls who were dodging the unwelcome advances of older men.

In "--And Now You Don't" (later published as Part 2 of Second Foundation: Search By the Foundation) 14 year old Arcadia Darell is confronted with the prospect of becoming the First Lady to a soldier, the belligerent Lord of Kalgan.

To the discomfort of some (including the long-suffering Trevize), Asimov later elaborated a romance between the 52 year old Janov Pelorat and the youthful Bliss, who was only in her early 20s. Trevize can't figure out what Bliss sees in Janov.

More of Asimov's Characters
Joseph Schwartz is 62 when he steps into the future and through his exposure to the synapsifier he develops a kind of telepathic ability called "Mind Touch". Affret Shekt's daughter Pola, is a university student and assistant in Affret's lab. Pola is impressed by Dr. Arvardan's seemingly heroic fight against an Imperial officer. With time, Arvardan decides that Pola is the most beautiful girl he's ever seen, so he'll do anything for her, even unseat the Emperor.

Trysta in orbit

In The End of Eternity, Andrew Harlan, an Eternal who is married to his work, falls in love with Noÿs Lambent and becomes her tool, eventually destroying Eternity, Earth's time travel device. Similarly, Dr. Arvardan has never been in love before meeting Pola.

Mentalics
Asimov had fun playing with the idea that telepathic abilities might provide a selective advantage if they could be used to control the emotions of others. In Nemesis, Marlene inherits "mentalic" abilities from her father Crile. Crile is like Raych, able to use his mentalic powers to make other people like him. Raych's daughter Wanda is able to "read minds" and along with Stettin Palver, with whom she can share thoughts and a strong emotional bond, she founds the Second Foundation.

Trysta viewing Realities

I imagine that positronic robots with telepathic powers were helping Noÿs maneuver Andrew into helping put an end to Eternity. Any time we see one of Asimov's characters suddenly having a strong and uncharacteristic emotional outburst be have to wonder if mentalic abilities and/or devices like the visi-sonor are involved.

Visualizations
When I saw John Bunch's cover illustration for Tyrann I was reminded of the cover I had made for Trysta and Ekcolir. I've made several previous attempts to depict the viewing of Realities and even the use of the Prime Radiant.

In The End of Eternity,  Noÿs explains to Andrew how using their advanced technology, people of her time, some 10 million years in our future, could view alternative Realities. When Noÿs is living out her life in the Primitive, I imagine that her nanorobotic symbiont endows her with a limited capacity to view Realities. When she collaborates with Grean, she is provided with advanced Reality Viewing technology that even allows for the exploration of Reality Chains.

Prime Radiant

In the Primitive, Noÿs uses the name Trysta Iwedon. Trysta must look for an alternate Reality Chain in which the human species is not replaced by the Prelands. Sadly, almost all Realities in which humans are allowed to develop a technological civilization on Earth and spread outward to the Stars result in a dramatic catastrophe for Earth.

Asimov described the fate of Earth in his Foundation Saga: Earth is rendered uninhabitable because of high radiation levels. Trysta and Grean are frustrated in their attempts to find a Reality in which nuclear disaster is avoided on Earth. They find that Earth is in the sway of a strange attractor. If the course of history is altered so as to keep radiation levels on Earth low, some other disaster then occurs, usually involving anthropogenic climate change and catastrophic sea level rise.

Trysta and Grean view the Buld Reality

A related "future technology" is the Bimanoid Interface. Fundamentally, this is an interface between a brain and the Sedronic Domain, a kind of cognitive amplifier that might at first seem similar to the Visi-Sonor. However, the Bimanoid Interface does not amplify telepathic or "mentalic" abilities. Rather, the Interface allows a connection to be established between our mundane world of three dimensional space and the higher dimensional Sedronic Domain.

The Huaoshy use the Interface to make contact with the Kac'hin. The Kac'hin are a special type of human that was designed by the pek to allow the Huaoshy to exercise some control over events on Earth. However, the Interface is really a two-way communications conduit, so people with the right combination of Kac'hin or Asterothrope genes can use the Interface to tap into the vast information content of the Sedronic Domain.

Nereid

My current conceptualization of the technology for Viewing Realities is that it is an advanced variant of the basic Bimanoid Interface that is made available to Earthlings like Angela through the meddling of Nereids in the history of Earth.

Diagrammatic depictions of the dimensional structure of our Reality

When Grean first notices the Buld Reality thon pays little attention to it. Grean is looking for a Reality Chain that will allow multiple Reality Changes, as needed, to remove the influence of Gohrlay from Earth and return control of Humanity's fate to the pek. Grean is at first puzzled as to why the Buld Reality has no connections into Reality Chains. Slowly, Grean realizes that in the Buld Reality the Huaoshy alter the dimensional structure of the universe and make further time travel impossible.

The Reality Chain that leads to the Buld Reality, the world as we know it.

original cover art by Dirk Schulz

Reality Reviewing
Once the Buld Reality was established and further time travel was made impossible, the technology for viewing alternative Realities could only be used to observe previous Realities. That was what Angela did, using her limited command of the Bimanoid Interface. At first, the information that she accessed from previous Realities was very confusing to Angela.

Future Fiction

What Angela could "see" in Deep Time only started to make sense in light of key information that was provided in the form of infites. Thomas and Izhiun gave their infites to "the editor". Thus, the true depth and meaning for the story of past Realities could only be told after Ivory began to function as a communications channel between "the editor" and Angela.

Editing the flow of Time.

 2024. Ten years after making the blog post, above, I've been trying to make use of AI-powered image generating software to illustrate my science fiction stories (see the 2024 blog post The Time Travel Game). The image to the right was generated by WOMBO Dream and in my imagination it hints at the ability of a time traveler to reach into the past and alter their own behavior. Imagine a cloud of infites that you could send into the past and use to alter your own behavior, preventing something terrible from happening. Creating images to illustrate invisible plot elements like infites is challenging.

Related Reading: Pebble in the Sky
                              The Currents of Space
                             The Caves of Steel

Next: the end of the world

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