Matter Duplication

1953 in the Ekcolir Reality.
(alternate Reality)

The story below on this page is a continuation of "Terminus Planet", Foundation saga fan-fiction set in an alternate Reality. Not long before Ariel first meets Isaac Asimov, she is taken into the Hierion Domain. While there, Ariel meets Trysta Iwedon who is collaborating with the Grean the Kac'hin.

Ariel is recruited for a time travel mission aimed at making an adjustment to the course of Earth's history. Ariel must arrange for a subtle change in the sequence of events that takes place in 1939, ensuring that Isaac Asimov meets his future wife at a particular time and place. If everything goes well on that fateful day, the new paths of their lives will guide them all towards a more desirable alternate timeline of the future that has been envisioned by Grean.

_______________________

Time of Theurgency

"The best way to defeat a catastrophe is to take action to prevent it long before it happens." -Isaac Asimov

1. Grean's Workshop

Viewing Realities

Trysta and Grean had just spent many hours Viewing possible futures in which the impending damage to Earth's fragile ecosystem could be lessened. Trysta switched off her Viewer and focused her eyes on Grean. "I continue to be amazed by the temporal momentum behind the Fru'wu."

Grean had long ago accepted the fact that Humanity in the current Reality of Earth was doomed. All that remained was a mop-up operation designed to mitigate human misery and allow the bumpha Interventionists to save face and regain their confidence. "That momentum is the source of temporal energy that will be tapped to create the Final Reality. We can't avoid the havoc caused by Fru'wu technology, but we can demonstrate that an effort was made to lesson the resulting human suffering."

Trysta folded her arms across her chest and muttered to Grean, "I hate to see that flinty coldness in your eyes, Grean. How can you just shrug off the horrible catastrophe that is looming over Earth?"

"I feel the weight on my shoulders, but we have a job to do. I close my mind to the pain and devastation so I can get my work done."

Grean tenderly took hold of Trysta's hand, giving it a soft squeeze. "Now, tell me what you have seen in the future." 

It was as if an electric field moved from Grean to Trysta through their linked hands. Trysta squared her shoulders and straightened her spine. She pushed away thoughts of how Fru'wu technology would go terribly wrong in the hands of humans and successfully centered her thoughts on her work. As usual, Trysta had structured her temporal analysis around the four fixed points in Time: Asimov, Vance, Clarke and Gohrlay. Starting with the basic facts of the temporal analysis, Trysta told Grean, "It is clearly Asimov who is closest to the root of the needed Reality Change."

by Joan Vance in the Ekcolir Reality

Grean nodded in agreement, "Yes. However, to be quite sure, I took the time to trace the available options for Vance out to probabilities below 0.1%. What I discovered is that there seems to be a negative landscape of high dimensions blocking him out... both Joan and John simply cannot be touched during the temporal window for initiating the Change we must make."

Trysta felt a twinge of envy. Grean was so much quicker at Viewing and analyzing alternatives in Time. The Kac'hin had been genetically engineered by the pek for optimal ability to think through problems in high dimensional state spaces. For Grean, this Change was just routine, but Trysta was always surprised by the mysterious twists and turns that coalesced to create the future. Thinking about the methods that would need to be used to make this Change in Time, Trysta shook her head in dismay, "I'd assumed that either you or I could make this little Reality adjustment, but I was wrong. It looks like this is another job for Svahr."

Grean shrugged. "That is certainly one option that we have. Svahr could go back in Time and alter Gertrude's training. However, I believe there is a more elegant solution that involves the young girl, Ariel."

Trysta asked, "Ariel Adler, Marcia's friend?"

Grean the Kac'hin
image credits

"Yes." Grean explained, "Ariel and Marcia are far more than friends. For decades, that quisling duo went beyond just their artistic attempts to undermine the Futuria Movement. They remained together emotionally, as lovers, even after Marcia's marriage to Asimov."

Once again Trysta was impressed by how much detail Grean knew about 20th century Earth. Trysta had never investigated the life of Ariel Adler and she only knew of her as the college buddy of Marcia. "I never suspected that they were lovers."

Grean had been trained to make use of human emotions to guide human behaviors in desired directions. As part of that approach to making Changes in Time, Grean always investigated the sex lives of the humans who she needed to influence and control. She reminded Trysta, "Ariel met Asimov when they were in college and there was an instantaneous sexual tension between them. Who knows what might have happened had Marcia not been there to distract Asimov. She's got a high potential for telepathy and using the Bimanoid Interface so I think we should make use of Ariel."

Trysta thought about Asimov and his great loves. She knew that he'd had two wives and that while Marcia was the first, he had later married an engineer named Gertrude. "Show me what you have in mind."

Grean activated her Viewer and projected a temporal landscape in the air before Trysta. "Here is the critical temporal juncture for initiating this micro-change. Note this vortex of chaotic instability. I optimized my search by applying the assumption that by making use of Ariel as the agent of Change, there could be benefits for her, also. That allowed me to discover this temporal conduit that links 1939 to 1953 and 1972. Take a look; I've bookmarked the key events..."

Trysta took the controls for the Reality Viewer and checked the parameters of Grean's search. Trysta was surprised by the odd temporal linkages that had been found by Grean. Trysta asked Grean, "What does Deomede have to do with Asimov?"

Grean muttered her usual warning, "Be careful, Trysta. It is best that you not look into that aspect of this micro-change too carefully. You are simply too close to Deomede... attention paid to those details by you might create a Time paradox for Deomede."

After fifteen minutes of fiddling with the Viewer, she could find no flaw in Grean's proposed micro-change. "Amazing. I never would have found this in a million years." She looked at Grean with awe.

Reality Viewing

Grean giggled, "I've got the near-infinite computational power of the Sedronic Domain at my disposal. However, we also need your human insights into the best way to turn Ariel into a useful agent. Notice this remaining region of high uncertainty." She pointed to an odd red-highlighted region in the displayed landscape. If we slip into any of those red areas, the mission will fail!"

Trysta zoomed in on the core of the red regions and exclaimed, "We have to take Ariel into the Hierion Domain?"

Grean saw no other viable alternative. "Yes. And not simply Ariel. We must make a teleportation duplicate of Ariel and deploy her as our agent inside the Hierion Domain."

Trysta spoke quietly with a deep sense of wonder at what she was seeing in the displayed temporal matrices. "All this will take years. The duplicate will have to live with Svahr and the children..." Trysta was skeptical about the wisdom of mixing a human being in with Svahr's carefully selected collection of fain hybrids. "I hate this sort of patch-job repair work."

Trysta and Grean

"Don't knock a quick patch if it gets you to your destination" Using the display controls, Grean zoomed in on list of deployed alien hybrids who were at work on Earth. "Obviously, the easiest approach will be to disguise the Ariel duplicate as another fain hybrid. What I want you to decide on is how to program her developmental control nanites."

Trysta placed a hand next to Grean's and called up the nanite sub-display. Now Trysta could see a half dozen or so options for bodily alterations, each involving one of the special fain anatomical features that differed significantly from human body structures. There needed to be a way to clearly mark Ariel as being a hybrid, but that body sculpting could not be allowed to disrupt the close emotional bond that must form between Ariel2 and Gertrude. Using her intuition, Trysta adjusted the fine-tuner then Trysta showed Grean the optimal temporal sequence, "There. This one. This is it."

"Are you sure?" Grean glanced at Trysta for confirmation then nodded slowly while she checked the details of the specific solution Trysta had selected. "Good work... we agree. I suspected that this might be the best approach, but I wondered if my own personal biases were influencing my judgement."

Trysta tried to assure Grean that there was one objectively optimal choice that had to be selected among all the alternatives, "Just because you are an hermaphrodite yourself, that does not mean you should doubt the wisdom of giving Ariel2 a penis. Under the circumstances, there is no better way to mark her as a fain hybrid."

"But will Gertrude suspect..." Grean fell silent and tried to imagine the new web of thought processes that would develop in Gertrude's mind if she grew up in close contact with Ariel2. There was a chance that Gertrude would become obsessed with the uniqueness of Ariel2. None of the other fain-human hybrids were going to be sent to Earth equipped with the full fain genital anatomy.

Trysta placed a hand on Grean's arm, "Sure, I was startled the first time that you showed me your penis, but I was not traumatized. I was intrigued and Gertrude will respond in the same way."

Asterothropes: the females
are larger than
the hermaphrodites.

"Possibly, but you are not human. As an Asterothrope, you have always known about the existence of hermaphroditic Asterothropes."

"That's not true!" Trysta reminded Grean, "Not always. I was raised as a human woman and trained for a mission among humans. Only late in my training was I told the full truth about my own species."

Grean qualified her previous statement, "Ever since you have been here, in this Reality, you have known that hermaphrodites are common in the universe. In order to serve as a useful agent on Earth, Gertrude must be raised as a human. We've seen that Svahr can handle that task. However, what will Gertrude do when she learns that her sister is-"

Trysta interrupted and said, "They will be called 'sister' by Svahr, but the girls will all know that they not part of a biological family. I'll discuss with Svahr how best to prepare Gertrude for the course of events that will uniquely mark Ariel2's adolescence." Trysta slipped her arm around Grean and said, "Trust me on this."

"Very well. I'll leave those details to you, Trysta." Grean prepared to inactivate the Viewer. "My next task is to get the nano-programming team started on crafting Ariel2's developmental control nanites. Will you perform the duplication?" She pointed at the Time axis in the displayed data. The optimal time for the duplication of Ariel was shown as: July 23rd, 1939.

Trysta replied, "Yes, I've become proficient with the teleporter equipment here in your workshop. I'm almost as skilled with the teleportation system as I am with your equipment." Trysta playfully slipped a hand into Grean's skirt.

Grean giggled and put her arms around Trysta. She spoke tenderly into Trysta's ear, "I love the way you handle my equipment, dear, but I doubt if Ariel will like the idea of being duplicated. In my experience, humans resent the idea of not being unique." Grean inhaled the sweet smell that clung to Trysta.

Grean had full conscious control of her erectile tissue and she did not allow her penis to swell and pop out of her genital groove. Trysta briefly felt the wetness of Grean's labia then pulled her hand back out of Grean's skirt. Trysta was now living with Deomedes and had not made love to Grean for years, but it was nice to imagine that they could still revive their old sexual fires. Trysta wondered if maybe Grean was so nervous about this impending Change that she needed to be distracted by some hot sex. Trysta kissed Grean's cheek and asked, "Should we delay this Change and look at the parameters again in the morning?"

A story from the Writers Block.

"No, don't distract me with your sexual magic." Grean reluctantly pulled herself away from Trysta. Grean was constantly aware of the fact that Trysta had been trained from childhood in the arts of seduction. That training had been essential for the success of her Interventionist mission in Eternity and had also served Trysta well during the dreary days of the Time War. "Let's get this Change underway." She could not conceal her concern over their risk of failure.

Trysta tried to sound confident, "The probability of success is high" But not as high as Grean would have liked. The temporal stresses and strains in the 20th century were very intense because of the impending macro-temporal shift to what should be the Final Reality. "Ariel number one will never know that she was duplicated."

Grean shut down her Viewer. She warned Trysta, "In my experience, most humans notice when they are teleported, even if it is only for purposes of duplication. Be careful;  Ariel has sensitivity for hierion fields."

"Ariel might notice the teleportation event, but she will not know its significance." Trysta was more concerned about the second copy of Ariel. "I suppose I'll have to find a permanent place for Ariel2 at Observer Base, but that won't be difficult." She was thinking that Ariel2 should be happy to join the Writers Block.

The tricky part of this micro-change would be the newly created "hybrid", Ariel3. However, during the time she would spend with Gertrude, Ariel3 need not know the details of her origins as a teleportation duplicate of an Earthling. Trysta imagined that Ariel3 might become a useful Interventionist agent, with unique and valuable skills, much like Svahr. Of course, Trysta was not even imagining that Ariel3 would have an analogue in the Final Reality.

2. Duplication

The nation of "New England" as it was commonly known during the 20th
century (official name: Beverwijck en Nicotiana) in the Ekcolir Reality.

Ariel and Andrea arrived back in New York on July 22nd, returning from France. Two weeks earlier, they had flown to Paris carrying nothing but handbags, but now they both had several suitcases full of new European clothing.

Having gotten all of their luggage in through the front door, the two young women sat down on the settee in the entrance way. Ariel said, "Well, that was fun." She was too tired to put any enthusiasm into the declaration, although she meant it. Their just-completed trip to France had been her first time out of New England.

After catching her breath, Andrea stood up and tugged on Ariel's arm, "Let's change. We need to hurry to the show."

Ariel moaned and complained, "I'm tired." Andrea kept yanking on Ariel's arm and managed to pull Ariel off the settee. Ariel suggested, "You go without me." Andrea tucked a shoulder into Ariel's belly, lifted her off the ground and started carrying her towards the grand staircase. "Let me be! I'll go another time." Ariel was well aware that Andrea was a trained dancer with powerful muscles. She wondered if the other girl could actually climb up the stairway while carrying her. Deciding it was too dangerous to allow Andrea to try that stunt, Trysta slipped herself to the floor while saying, "Oh, very well... I'll go."

Andrea charged up the stairs. "This is opening night! Everyone will be there!"

Trysta marveled at Andrea's energy and wondered if the girl expected to see one of her lovers at the reception that night. Certainly the hot-blooded Andrea had not seemed to be striving for chastity while in France and Ariel suspected that there were many boy friends eagerly awaiting her return to New England.

from the film, Elevator to Paris

Ariel plodded up the stairs, suspecting that she would fall asleep in the movie theater. Andrea had an important part in the film, Elevator to Paris, which was her first major movie role. Ariel's mother had directed the movie and would be on hand at the Globe tonight.

At the top of the stairs, Ariel turned right and went down the hallway to her mother's suite, but nobody seemed to be in the house except Ariel and Andrea. Ariel sat down at her mother's desk and used the phone. Her first two calls were not answered, then she reached her father at the Hierion Entertainment studios. "Daddy? This is Ari. Andrea and I just got home."

"Welcome back. You two cut it tight... I'm going to leave for the theater in a few minutes. Will you be there?"

"We might be late, but Andrea argued and bribed us through customs in a mad dash to attend the opening night festivities."

"You sound down. I hope you two had a nice European vacation."

"Spectacular, but I'm exhausted. Andrea has not let me rest for two weeks."

"Your mother was worried about you."

"I wonder where she is. I can't reach her by phone."

"She's probably there already, getting everything lined up at the theater. And I should be on my way. Later!"

Just as Ariel put down the phone, Andrea came down the hallway carrying and armload of clothes. She looked through the doorway at Ariel and said, "Let's go, slow poke!"

Ariel ran past the naked Andrea and rushed to her room. "Give me a minute!"

Andrea was pulling on her dress and called to Ariel, "Why is it that for you a minute always turns into ten minutes?"

Ariel went to the big writing desk in her bedroom and searched through the mail that had accumulated in the past two weeks. She found the letters she was looking for and returned to the hallway. She went down the stairway, calling to Andrea, "I'll be in the cab before you are!"

Still buttoning her blouse, Andrea chased after Ariel and asked, "You are going to the theater dressed like that?"

Ariel held the front door open for Andrea. "Nobody will be looking at me."

They were quickly down the walkway and into the waiting cab. Andrea said to the driver, "To the Globe Theater, and don't doddle!"

Ariel opened a letter that she had received from New York University. She had gotten registered into all of her requested classes except she was on a waiting list for Ancient Art History with professor Homdek. She muttered, "Damn it."

Andrea glanced at the two letters in Ariel's lap. "Letters from your lovers?"

Ariel replied, "School... my fall classes." She now had open a letter that was from a boy who she had tried to entice into going to France. The letter was short:

Ariel- Thank you for your invitation. I'm in Montreal (Quebec) and replying to you after you have already departed for France. Hope you have fun on your adventure. I'll see you back at NYU this fall. -Joey

The third letter was from another of her school acquaintances.

Dear Ariel- I have a proposal. Let's work together in Dr. Sollar's class in the fall. Find enclosed a story idea that I hope you like. We could use it for our first assignment in Sollar's class. Give me a ring and let's get an early start on the course work. Love, Marcia. 

Andrea was prattling excitedly about her film friends and Ariel was sure that she had heard it all before. Ariel wondered if Joey would have said yes to going to France had he been informed of the trip in time. If only her mother had not so suddenly sprung the whole idea of a trip to France on she and Andrea. When Ariel had agreed to help "keep Andrea out of trouble" that summer, there had been no mention of whirlwind trips to Europe.

Ariel opened the folded pages of Marcia's story outline and saw that it was a plan for converting an ancient fable into a new science fiction story. Instantly, Ariel saw how her obsession with the alien fain could be integrated into this story. Noticing that Ariel was not listening to her, Andrea leaned over and snatched up the letter from Marcia. She asked, "Who is Marcia?"

"A student at the university. She's brilliant."

Andrea asked, "And gorgeous?"

Ariel did feel that Marcia was quite spectacular, but she knew that Andrea preferred boys over girls under all circumstances. "Not as gorgeous as Joey." Ariel handed Joey's letter to Andrea.

Andrea read the brief note from Joey and commented, "Good thing he did not join us. He might have scared away some of the French boys who we met."

Ariel looked at Andrea and sighed. She wondered: where does she get so much energy? While in France, Andrea had done much more than simply 'meet' her young French admirers. Ariel had seen a half dozen of them stumble away from Andrea's various hotel rooms on weak knees. Sadly, Ariel had been repulsed by the french custom that said manly men needed to smell like-

Her thought was interrupted by the driver who said, "We're making good time against the rush hour traffic, but one of the new radar check-points is up ahead."

Andrea handed the driver a hundred dollar bill. "I'll pay your speeding fine. Don't slow down." She turned back towards Ariel, "Tell me about Joey."

"I'd rather not. If you get interested in him then you'll do something nasty like call him up and invite him out on a date. I can't compete against a movie star."

Andrea laughed, "I wouldn't do that to you. Is he tall?" The taxi blasted through the busy intersection that had radar-triggered cameras. A flash of light indicated that the cab had been photographed.

Ariel shrugged, "I don't trust you with such sensitive information. Allow me to keep a few of my secrets."

Andrea reached out and grabbed one of the opened envelops. She held up and said merrily, "I have his address."

"That's his grandmother's address in Montreal."

Andrea looked at the envelop. "Actually, this return address says Cypress Avenue in Tabbs. Marcia Greenberg." She tossed the envelop to Ariel and asked, "Is that why you didn't screw any of the French boys... you prefer girls?"

Ariel replied, "I prefer to invest my time with people who have-" She was going to say 'brains', but Andrea was not the sharpest tool in the drawer. Why risk antagonizing her? "... shared interests with me." She added, "And people who bathe more than once a week."

Andrea laughed and explained, "If a boy is too dirty to pull into bed, you can always pull him into a tub. I've never met a guy who didn't enjoy being lathered up and rubbed down by a naked woman."

The taxi driver, a middle aged man who had been listening to the two girls, laughed and said, "Amen."

from the film, Elevator to Paris

Andrea discovered that the driver was happy to hear all about Elevator to Paris. While they chatted, Ariel took out her pen and started writing down ideas for how to integrate alien fain from the Andromeda galaxy into Marcia's story. She was moving on to writing on the back side of the second page of the outline when the cab came to a stop in front of the Globe.

Andrea immediately stepped out of the cab and sank into a throng of reporters. With flashbulbs popping, Ariel pulled shut the door of the taxi and told the driver, "Let me off at the side entrance." She folded up the letters and was thinking very seriously about simply returning home, but she knew that her parents would be expecting her to show up for the reception that evening. Still, Ariel was feeling the burn of writer's itch. She asked the driver, "Is there a stationary store near here?"

"Sure. Several." He thought for a moment. "C.L. Tiff is just a block over." He waved a hand towards the west.

"When do they close?"

"Market Street shops start closing at 9:00."

"Take me to the closest store where I can get a composition book then bring me back here." At the C.L. Tiff stationary store, Ariel bought a notebook and a pen with glow-in-the-dark ink. Returning to the waiting taxi, she said, "Back to the Globe."

By the time the screening of Elevator to Paris was over, Ariel had completed a rough draft of her new story. Ariel managed to incorporate both the key elements of the ancient fable suggested by Marcia and her own contribution: details about the alien fain and their interest in Earth. Ariel and her parents and Andrea gathered for a place in the reception line as the film ended. After briefly greeting Ariel and asking a few questions about her experiences in France, her parents centered their attention on Andrea.

Long before the long line of well-wishers and autograph seekers had passed, Ariel found that she could not stop yawning. She went to the banquet hall below the theater, found their table and sat down at the seat beside the place card that said "Ariel Adler". She resumed writing in the composition book, making character sketches for the main characters in the story.

Eventually her parents and Andrea came to the table and their food was served. Food was not really the point of the reception and there was a constant flow of film industry people coming and going to the table. Ariel was mostly ignored. Finally her father moved to the empty chair beside Ariel and asked, "What are you writing?"

Ariel looked up from the notebook, feeling like she was swirling inside a literary wild fire. Sometimes the story ideas just flowed out her, like fond memories of past events. After a moment of hesitation, Ariel remembered where she was. "This is a new story about aliens."

He bent over and looked closely at the page where Ariel was writing. "In the Andromeda galaxy?"

"Yes."

"The Fru'wu are from our galaxy."

Ariel stated the obvious, "The Fru'wu are not the only possible aliens in the universe." Her father chuckled briefly then wondered about his daughter's furrowed brow. He asked, "Is there a problem?"

Ariel nodded. "I'm struggling to find a good name for a character in the story. She is designing an alien-human hybrid and..."

"Why bother? Humans having sex with Fru'wu has been filmed a dozen times-"

"This isn't about sex, daddy."

He stood up and said, "Well, have fun with your story. Are you ready to go home? Things are winding down here."

Ariel replied, "I'm ready to go at any time."

"I'm guessing about 15 more minutes." Her father moved back to his place at the table.

Ariel looked around the reception hall and noticed that most of the guests had already departed from the party. Looking at her wrist watch, she saw that it was well after midnight. Ariel stood up and tucked her notebook under her arm. It was her intention to empty her bladder, but she never made it to the lady's room. Making her way across the banquet hall, as she walked past a table, she heard her name called out: "Ariel!"

She looked around and saw Joey, her friend from school. He got up from his place at the table and hugged Ariel. "How was France?"

"Wonderful. And how was Montreal?"

"Hot and humid... I should have stayed in New York. Too bad I did not get your invitation in time to join your great adventure. Did you travel to Europe alone?"

"No, of course not. I went with Andrea, the girl who played Becky in Elevator."

"I should have known. You get to trot around the world with movie stars."

"I'm not really a world traveler. This was my first time out of New England."

Ariel was swaying slightly from her accumulated exhaustion and a need to urinate. Joey, oblivious to the mission that Ariel was on, told her, "Do sit down. Join us. Meet my family." By the time the introductions to Joey's family members were done, Ariel was trying to deal with another desert that had been placed in front of her and she had to quickly field a half dozen questions about Elevator to Paris that were hurled at her by Joey's family members. Ariel kept looking back and forth between Joey and his little sister Diana. Ariel was trying to decide which of them was more beautiful.

What happened next, Ariel could not later recall. Ariel's memory stream was interrupted and only began once again at a later point in Time, when Joey was telling Ariel's parents, "Simple exhaustion, I suspect. She nearly fell into a bowl of ice cream!"

Ariel's mother said, "Well, thank you, Joey, for taking care of her. We'll get her back home right away."

Ariel had her head resting on Joey's shoulder and his arm was around her, holding her upright in the chair. She asked, "Why is everyone looking at me?"

Her mother replied, "You had some kind of a blackout. Joey brought you-"

Ariel suddenly knew the name of the character in her story. Ariel looked around, but her notebook was gone. She cried out, "Where is my notebook?"

Joey said, "I'll get it." He returned to his family's table and grabbed the notebook.

Trysta Iwedon

Ariel watched Joey walk away. She now knew that her story character in charge of designing human-fain hybrids was named Trysta. Strangely, Ariel could almost picture Trysta in her mind. A moment later Joey was back, returning with the notebook. "You left this at my table, Ari."

She jumped up and grabbed the notebook. She hugged Joey and said, "Thank you. Thank you."

"Give me a call. I want to hear all about France." He went to join his family members who were ready to depart from the reception.

Ariel opened the notebook and wrote down the name: Trysta Iwedon. Then she turned to her mother, "I'm ready to go home, but first, I really need to pee."

Related Reading: an Ariel deviation

Next: Part 3 of "Time of Theurgency".

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Alien Hybrids

discovery of hierions in the Final Reality

This is the last of the three blog posts that contain the fan fiction story "Terminus Planet". The beginning of the story is here.

In the middle part of the story, Isaac Asimov and his two new friends, Marcia Greenberg and Ariel Adler spent an evening at the Adler mansion, attending a meeting of the Futuria collective, a film industry group that was trying to prepare Earth for the anticipated arrival of space aliens: the Fru'wu. Isaac and Marcia shared an interest in resisting Futuria.

In parts 7 & 8 of the story (below), they work together on a project designed to repair the damage done to Earth by advanced technology obtained from the aliens and too eagerly adopted by the people of Earth.
 _____________________________

 7. Hierion Entertainment (read parts 1 - 4 here) (read parts 5 - 6 here)

A weak later, Asimov was in his office at the research laboratory, working late. It had been a busy week. He and his wife had agreed to the terms of their separation. This evening he was trying to catch up on work after weeks of conferring with lawyers. A few members of his research lab team were still at their benches. He was hoping to get back into a rhythm of simple day-to-day living and forget about his failed marriage as quickly as possible.

A woman walked into his office. Asimov looked up, puzzled. Then he recognized his visitor. "Marcia!" He got out of his chair and threw his arms around her, applying a bear hug. "I did not expect to hear from you." Two days previously he had mailed Marcia the script for Terminus Planet and a long list of demands for changes to the script. Unless those demands were met, he would not approve the film for production.

Image by Wombo Dream.

Marcia explained, "I meant it when I told you that we want to get everything right. Ariel and I went through your suggestions for the script and they are all good."

Asimov pressed the point. "Those were not suggestions. Not mincing words, they were my demands. I won't have Foundation butchered by Hollywood."

Marcia nodded. "We accept your demands. The only issue that I keep having to argue with Ariel about is the benefits of movies over television."

Asimov moaned. "Television. I'm not sure I could lower my standards that far."

"Try to keep an open mind, Isaac. One of these says Ariel will contact you and discuss her plans for a science fiction television show that you can control and turn into something special."

in the Ekcolir Reality

Asimov shrugged, "It sounds like Ariel has become my biggest fan. I never would have guessed, given the way we used to argue."

"She respected your ideas, so she had to argue the details. However, I prefer to think that it is you and I who have always been linked... even the first time I spoke to you, I could sense our deep connection."

Asimov could well remember the first time he had heard Marcia speak. Dr. Sollar had asked for an example of a fictional technology. Marcia had replied, "Hafren Wells invented cavorite and went to the Moon."

Marcia reached into the large bag that she wore slung over her shoulder and pulled out a sheet of paper. It was a contract for the filming of Terminus Planet. She handed the contract to Asimov.

He was surprised how short the contract was. It named him as a producer with story element veto powers. The funding source was listed as Hierion Entertainment. The film would be made by Gnome Films. Marcia had already put her signature on the contract. Asimov complained, "The money for this project is coming from those UFO nuts at Hierion?"

Ariel's spoof of the Futuria Movement
and the alien abduction
hysteria of the 1930s.

Marcia smiled a brittle little smile. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Isaac. They are the world's largest funding source for speculative fiction projects."

"That's fine, as long as they don't try to force any of their Fru'wu fantasies into the Foundation saga."

"I'm a bit surprised to see that you are still hostile towards the Futuria Movement." Two years previously, the Fru'wu had arrived on Earth. Contact with the aliens had gone almost exactly as predicted by the Futuria Movement and technology transfer from the Fru'wu to the people of Earth had begun.

"Ten years ago I complained that I'd never seen a UFO. Well, now I've seen the Fru'wu spaceship, but I'm still skeptical about the Futuria Movement."

Marcia shrugged. "Unimportant. Let's take their money and make Terminus Planet."

Asimov set the contract on his desk and signed it. He made a copy of it using the copy machine in the corner of the outer office next to his secretary's desk. Handing the original copy of the contract to Marcia, he said, "We have a deal."

At the edge of the galaxy...
the most important planet of the Empire

Marcia smiled and tucked the contract into her bag. She held out her hand to Asimov and he took it in both of his. "I'm so glad you are willing to humor Ariel and I." With her free hand, she pulled out from her bag a small box. "This means a lot to us."

Watching Marcia pull something from her bag, Asimov quickly recognized it as a video cassette box. The cover said, Terminus Planet. He released her hand and took the box. When he opened the box he saw that it was empty. Marcia said, "This is just a mock-up. If we can stay on schedule, the film will be ready for distribution in about 18 months."

Asimov was staring at the video box. "This is it."

Marcia asked, "What?"

Asimov pressed a hand to his forehead and he sat on the edge of the desk. "Do you remember..." He thought back to the day when he had first attended a meeting of the Futuria collective. On that day, he'd had a vision of Marcia giving him a book. He muttered, "Now I realize, it wasn't a book. It was this movie." He looked at Marcia and asked, "Would you like to go someplace and celebrate?"

Marcia was also thinking about the day of the Futuria meeting she had attended with Ariel and Asimov and the vision she's had of Dr. Sollar with an infant in her arms. "It is late. Your wife must be waiting-"

Asimov shook his head. "We're separated."

"Oh, I had not heard."

"I still love her, but it was the clash of our careers... She's an important materials engineer and has moved to the build site for the first of the planned space elevators."

Marcia asked, "She's working for the Fru'wu?"

Asimov nodded. Marcia took his hand, "Come on. I know the perfect place for celebrations." Ten years before she'd invited Asimov to her apartment and he never showed up. Now she held his hand firmly and took him back to her home.

_____________________

8. Birth of a Notion

Two years later, Marcia again visited the lab and stepped into Isaac's office. He was with one of his research students, going over the results of an experiment. Asimov jumped to his feet and guided Marcia to a chair. This was their one year anniversary of moving in together and now Marcia was very pregnant. After a few minutes the student went off to the lab and Asimov kissed the top of Marcia's head. He asked, "What's the news?"

"My doctor says Sven can come at any time now." She'd already decided that her son would be named Sven.

"Then you should be at home."

Marcia opened her handbag and pulled out a video tape box. Handing it to Isaac, she said, "I wanted to show you something. This one is not empty." During the past few months, Marcia had imagined herself in a race. Would Terminus Planet be released before she gave birth? On the spine of the video tape box was printed "Gnome Films #1"

Isaac shook the plastic box and heard the video cassette rattling inside. He pulled Marcia to her feet, kissed her again and said, "Congratulations darling. Thank you for bringing this to me. Somehow I never imagined that Foundation could be translated from print to video. You did it. Now, I'll take you home. We can celebrate." He began gathering together some papers that he could work on at home. He tossed papers and the video into his briefcase.

Marcia asked, "Do you remember the first time you took me home to celebrate?"

Asimov took her by the hand and they walked out of his office and down the corridor. "I didn't take you anywhere. You took me back to your place and ravished me."

"Thought and Space"

Marcia laughed. "I knew that you were the one who would give me Sven."

Asimov was well aware of Marcia's belief that she'd had a vision of Sven more than ten years ago. His own strange dreams about the importance of positrons had guided his research, first towards biochemistry and then into the field of chemical neurotransmission.

At the end of the corridor, Asimov pressed the elevator call button. Marcia leaned against him and endured a strong uterine contraction. The elevator arrived and they got into the car. "For a time, all I had was Rayann to assure me that I was not crazy."

Isaac asked, "Rayann?"

"One of my favorite writers. She also has visions of the future." The elevator stopped and opened.

They walked out onto the roof and hailed one of the new anti-gravity air-taxis. This was one of the first applications of Fru'wu technology. Ground cars could easily be retrofitted with a hierion-based anti-gravity modulator and converted into flying machines. Soon they were high up in the sky-stream on their way to Marcia's comfortable home out in Tabbs. Although Asimov still kept an apartment near the research lab and he slept there a couple of nights each week, he had long since moved into Marcia's home and he spent as much time there as possible.

Marcia leaned back in the seat of the aircar and put a hand on her abdomen for the duration of a powerful contraction. The contraction finally passed and she said, "That was a good one."

Asimov knew that by the best calculations, Marcia was a month past the expected due date. He asked, "How many copies of the video have been made?"

"We paid for a run of 50,000 but the distributor is a fan of yours, so she is making 100,000." Marcia did not mention that it was the deep pockets of Ariel she was referring to. She added, "It's hard to forecast sales of videos now that the new Fru'wu digital computers are rushing to market. Everything in the world of film is shifting from analog to digital video."

The driver of the aircar said, "Don't worry. Take a long view. Copies of GF#1 will be prized collectors items in the next century."

Marcia giggled then gasped and put a hand between her legs. She told Asimov, "I think this is it. Sven finally wants out." Amniotic fluid was flowing out of her.

The driver handed a big fluffy towel over her shoulder to Asimov. Without being asked to do so, the driver altered their course, sending them into a steep dive. Pulling her baseball cap firmly into place, she said, "We'll be at the hospital in just a minute."

Two hours later, Sven had arrived. Asimov sat in chair holding the baby and Marcia was dozing off. Suddenly she sat up in the hospital bed, her eyes wide open. "The driver!"

Both Asimov and the baby were startled by Marcia's sudden outburst. Sven began to fuss and Isaac handed him to Marcia. She let the baby snuggle against her chest. Without really thinking, Asimov had thanked the driver for having towels on-hand in the aircar and for quickly diverting to the hospital. Marcia spoke quietly now, her voice tinged with awe, "I should have recognized her! She hasn't changed a bit."

Isaac asked, "What do you mean, dear?"

Marcia pointed across the room towards a closet. "Get my bag."

Asimov retrieved her bag from the closet and set it on the bed next to Marcia. He sat down beside her and placed a hand on Sven's skinny bottom. The baby was in no danger of falling; he seemed to be instinctively clinging to Marcia who was rummaging through the contents of the bag. She pulled out her wallet and sorted through a small set of photographs that were crammed in her over-stuffed folding leather billfold. She handed Asimov a photograph.

It was an image taken at Marcia's graduation from N.Y.U. A group of students stood in front. Asimov recognized nobody in the picture except Marcia. Then, towards the back... "Is that Dr. Sollar?"

"She was at the graduation ceremony. And..." Marcia fell silent, staring off towards the window. A late afternoon thunderstorm had blown in and the sky outside was dark. She muttered, "How could I have forgotten?"

Asimov squinted at the image, thinking about Dr. Sollar. He had not thought about her much at all for the past ten years. He tried to remember the aircar driver, but from the moment when Marcia's water had broken, he had not been thinking about anything but their mad rush into the hospital. He recalled that as they dropped down onto the roof of the hospital, the driver had said quietly, "You'd be surprised how many baby's are born in taxis."

The door to Marcia's hospital room opened and in walked the aircar driver. She took off her cap and her long dark hair fell to her shoulders. She set her cap on a shelf. Asimov looked at the photograph in his hand and now he realized that this was Dr. Sollar and Marcia was right; the Professor looked little changed from when Asimov had first seen her back at N.Y.U., more than ten years in the past. She came to the side of the bed and gently plucked Sven off of Marcia. "Good work you two. He's perfect."

Marcia was the first to regain her ability to speak. She realized that this was her vision from long ago: Dr. Sollar holding an infant. "Who are you?"

"You might as well continue to think of me as Sollar, although I completely stopped playing that role as soon as you graduated. I just could not keep it up with all my other duties. I'd successfully set you two, and Ariel, on the paths of your careers and I was needed elsewhere. But I simply had to be here today."

Svahr the Interventionist

Asimov thought back to the day when he had firmly decided that writing would be just a hobby and that he would build a career as a research scientist. It had been the day when he'd read Dr. Sollar's final discouraging comments on his positronic robot story. He asked, "Who are you? Really?"

"I've used many names during my time on Earth in this Reality... they are all equally good. I'm a fixer... trying to repair this awful mess of a Reality. My operational code name is Svahr."

Marcia complained, "Do you mean that all..." She fell silent and then tried again, "When you talked about imagining alternative worlds..."

Svahr nodded, "That's what we do. We Interventionists are trying to make a better Reality for Earth, but it is very hard to counter the momentum of the Fru'wu. Still, we have high hopes for Sven. He'll be able to make a difference."

Marcia held out her arms and Svahr handed over the baby. Marcia looked at Sven as if for the first time then looked back at Svahr in horror. "A hybrid!"

Svahr nodded. "Ariel was the first to see it in a vision that reached her from her replicoid in the Hierion Domain. Sven is one of the human-fain hybrids who will be able to save Earth from the damage done by Fru'wu technology."

Asimov cried out, "Wait a minute! What are you saying? Sven is..." Words failed him.

Replicoids

Svahr did not bother trying to explain the details. Sven had been carefully designed with genes from many sources only two of which were Isaac and Marcia. Svahr explained briefly, "Sven is a hybrid; even now he is in two-way communication with his replicoid in the Hierion Domain. But don't be alarmed. Sven will be like your childhood friend Richella, knowing exactly what must be done without a need for schooling or training."

Asimov asked, "Richella? You mean..."

"Richella is one of the many fain-human hybrids that we have deployed on Earth." Svahr told Asimov, "Your Gertrude is another of our agents. She did her job quite well for ten years, then stepped out of the way. Nothing could stand in the way of Sven."

Marcia said, "Svahr, Sven... did you pick his name or did I?"

Image by Wombo Dream.

Svahr laughed. "Why ask such a question, Marcia? We Interventionists have been guiding your thoughts and behavior since the day you were born. Where is the boundary between you and I?"

Asimov asked, "Why are you telling us this now?"

"With the Fru'wu providing new hierion-based technologies, Earth is soon going to slip into a technological catastrophe. I don't want you two feeling bad about that and making Sven feel that there is no hope for the future. I want him optimistic and ready to help repair the damage done by the Fru'wu. You see, I feel guilt because of my own role in working to bring the Fru'wu to Earth. We Interventionists made a big mistake and now I must help correct the problems that I caused."

Marcia said, "Everyone is so excited to have Fru'wu technology available now. What are the problems?"

Svahr explained, "The main problem is that Earth will slip into an environmental catastrophe: global warming and sea level rise, acidification of the oceans and mass extinction of sea life."

"How do you know the future?"

Engineering a Reality Change

"I've viewed the future. Not only the future of this Reality, but also the new Reality that will come into existence."

Marcia asked, "You travel through time?"

"Not often. However, I have seen the future and I want you to know that things will be better in the Reality that is to come." Svahr turned, went to the shelf, put her baseball cap back on and tucked her hair up into the cap.

Marcia called out, "Wait? You can't just leave us. What is a replicoid?" Svahr looked at herself in a mirror and adjusted her neatly tailored driver's uniform to perfection. Marcia gaze at little Sven and lamented, "I have so many questions..."

Asimov asked Svahr, "You told us your name, but... what are you? A time traveler who never ages?"

Svahr asked, "Why do you ask such a question, Isaac? I'm going to have to deprive you of these memories..."

Marcia found it impossible to contain her curiosity. "Will we see you again?"

cover art

"I will check in with you after Sven has grown up. Teach him well. Don't puzzle over the fact that I never age. I was once a biological, but I now exist as an artificial lifeform." She turned towards the door then spoke over her shoulder to Isaac and Marcia, "All that really means is that my work never ends." She opened the door and departed.

Marcia and Isaac looked at each-other as if to confirm that the strange visitation from Svhar had actually occurred. Then they both gazed at 'their' son, knowing that he was a special creation. Almost at once their memories of Svahr began to rapidly fade, but they never again doubted that the future was bright and they raised Sven with confidence that he would help make a better world.

After giving birth to Sven and spending almost a year with him, Marcia was back at work full time. After another two years of hard work, she shepherded to completion the Gnome Films sequel to Terminus Planet.

Asimov took a sabbatical year break from directing his research lab to stay at home and care for baby Sven. As his memories of Svahr faded away, so did his aversion to writing stories about positronic robots with telepathic powers. He dug out his old draft of "Giskard" and began trying to expand it into a sequel to Stars End, the third film in Ariel's Foundation movie trilogy.

Mentalics in the Ekcolir Reality

Mirroring the plot of his expanded Giskard story on his own life, Asimov soon realized that he did not want to write a sequel. Now, in his mind was the notion that he had to go back to the beginning and account for the origins of the two Foundations. Thus, he found himself creating a prequel to Terminus Planet in which the telepathic robot Giskard guided Hari Seldon towards locating the First Foundation on Terminus.

Terminus, located beyond the rim of the galaxy, was chosen because it was the forward operations base of the alien fain, a humanoid species from the Large Magellanic Cloud. The positronic robots such as Giskard had been created in the far past by the technologically advanced fain. Positronic robots could be given human form and infiltrated into human society, but only up until the time when scientists of the First Foundation invented the technological means to disrupt the function of positronic brain circuits. However, the fain had also long been at work on a project aimed at creating a telepathic human-fain hybrid. It was those human-alien hybrids with mentalic powers who came to found the Second Foundation.

Related Reading: another alternative

Next: the continuing adventures of Ariel Adler.

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TXF-11

Agents Miller and Einstein

Five years ago I blogged about ten of my favorite Star Trek episodes. About a year and a half ago, after the all too brief "season 10", I shared some fantasies about how to move forward with The X-Files. And what I mean by "forward" involves new episodes that are oriented towards telling fun science fiction stories.

TXF-11. Now, with The X-Files "season 11" scheduled to arrive in 2018, I feel the need to look back affectionately at some (11) of the most hard-core science fiction X-Files episodes.

As a Sci Fi fan, I shy away from the many horror-oriented episodes of The X-Files. My hope is that "season 11" will be heavy on the science fiction and light on the explosions and horror. Rumor has it that some women will be involved as episode writers and directors in Season 11, so there might be a real chance for some positive changes.

Dr. Bambi and Dr. Alex: can
they defend Earth against aliens?

1. War of the Coprophages
When The War of the Worlds depicted a Martian invasion of Earth, we were supposed to believe that the hapless Martians were being sensible: their world was "dying" so they had to move to Earth. These days, whenever the tired Hollywood alien invasion machine gets fired up again, we must tremble in fear: fear that the aliens are here for our gold or some other absurd "reason".

Get off my lawn!

In the end, the technologically superior Martians imagined by Wells were defeated by Earth's lowly microbes.

The core Sci Fi theme of The X-Files is alien invasion, but we are continually encouraged to doubt what we see and to ask: are these "aliens" simply manufactured via disinformation or, possibly, by means of over-active imaginations? And, sadly, the creators of The X-Files have no intention of providing an answer to that fundamental question.

Dr. Bambi's theory: UFOs are glowing insect swarms.

Because this is Hollywood and everything revolves around $$$: the story can't ever make sense or get tied up in a neat bundle... if it did, the cash flow would end. According to the success formula for The X-Files, uncertainty must trump everything. Along the way, science, scientists and even the science fiction genre are mocked by Hollywood writers catering to an audience and sponsors and Chris Carter who seem more interested in horror and vast conspiracies than science fiction.

Her name is Bambi?

Alien Incompetence
For Herbert Wells, the incompetence of the invading Martians could be "explained" by the fact that they were not very technologically advanced and they were desperate. In The X-Files, we are teased with the running theme that an alien "invasion" has been in progress for a very long time. If so, how could the aliens be so incompetent that they have not yet completed their work?

alien probe

What if aliens have long been visiting Earth, but they really are not interested in revealing themselves to Earthlings? This may have been the "thought" behind "War of the Coprophages". Mulder finds a metallic roach that might be an alien probe. However, this "alien probe" crumbles to dust. As usual nothing definitive is learned by the end of the episode. Entertainment is the objective, not bumbling Earthlings gaining knowledge about life beyond Earth.

black oil

"War of the Coprophages" was played for laughs (and written by Darin Morgan), so don't bother thinking too much about the plot. If aliens have actually been sending probes composed of nanites to Earth, we'd never know about it and there would have been no episode with Scully asking over the phone, "Her name is Bambi?"

2. Piper Maru
This episode (written by Chris Carter) makes nanotechnology part of the core "mythology" of The X-Files. At least, I'm forced to conceptualize the "black oil" as being a manifestation of alien nanotechnology. Of course, it is advanced technology that was not designed to efficiently achieve a function; it is a Hollywood gimmick designed to keep a gullible audience seated in front of screens.

radiation burst emitted by alien nanotechnology

As a science fiction fan, I love the idea of advanced alien nanotechnology that allows alien beings to take control of human bodies like puppets. Of course, no matter how advanced the alien technology is, it must be flawed so that the hero of the show is not killed and there is always another $-making episode to come. And no matter how sophisticated their nanotechnology, the aliens must deploy dramatic Hollywood ray guns radiation flashes that leave behind squads of horribly burned victims.

Fermi Paradox
Chris Carter's solution to the Fermi Paradox is that technologically advanced aliens came to Earth to make television shows. The aliens deploy their advanced (but flawed) technology so as to keep themselves hidden (mostly) from Fox Mulder, but not hidden well enough to prevent some other bumbling humans (the extras) from seeing too much and then having to be exterminated.

Skinner's life is saved by a magic nose tube.

This Sci Fi tease formula gets repetitive and old quite fast, but never faster than during "Piper Maru" and its follow-up episode (Apocrypha). Really, this could have been a one hour-long episode exploring the power of alien nanotechnology, but it was two back-to-back episodes larded up with tear-jerking scenes of Skinner being shot and Scully re-living her childhood.

3. Pusher
In Hollywood, we need loud explosions and dramatic scenes, and the X-Files formula relies on never-ending misdirection and confusion, not explanations. Telepathic powers are a classic topic in science fiction stories, but don't expect to learn anything about ESP from The X-Files: all logic and explanations have been neatly replaced by explosions, crashes and gun fire. Boom! This is one of the many episodes from X-Files-fan-turned-show-writer, Vince Gilligan.

The Mule: a mutant and his music of the mind.

In "Pusher" there is no explanation for the perp's ability to take control of minds and make people kill themselves. Viewers are teased with the idea that a brain tumor is causing abnormal brain activity.

"The tumor remained operable right up until the end, but he refused to have it removed."

The Mule
Isaac Asimov teased his readers (back in the 1940s) with the idea that The Mule was a mutant, born with powerful "mentalic" abilities. Just before his death, Asimov wrote a scene for Forward the Foundation where telepathy was used in a courtroom to control the outcome of a criminal case. Asimov asked us to believe that there were people with telepathic powers scattered about on Trantor, just waiting to bump into each other, combine their powers and take control of the galaxy. And Asimov told us that Daneel (a telepathic robot) was working quietly in the background, having arranged for the formation of the Second Foundation.

source

Sadly, in The X-files, there is not the slightest glimmer of a rational account for how telepathic powers sometimes appear among the human population of Earth. We get various confused suggestions about alien-human hybrids and advanced nanotechnology, but nothing need make sense in Hollywood.

Technology-Assisted Telepathy
It is very difficult to concoct an explanation for how biological brains could power telepathy. I know how difficult it is because I've tried. Imagine that inside human cells there might be an organelle called a "telastid" that allows for information exchange my means of "T-particles", which are a type of hierion.

hierions and sedrons

I like to imagine that aliens engineered we humans and endowed us with telastids. Maybe sometimes the power of our telastids is revealed when they start to malfunction, but but we Earthling are too technologically primitive: we don't even recognize the existence of hierions and sedrons.

"Pusher" was designed like a Monster of the Week episode in which Mulder has to struggle against a murderous adversary. Much more on the fun side of the spectrum, "Sunshine Days" brought Scully to the brink of having a telepathic human who could be scientifically studied. Of course, at the end of the episode, the rug was pulled out from under us and, as usual, we learned nothing about the physical basis of human telepathy. Once during The X-Files we were told that within human "junk DNA" are the dormant genes that make telepathy possible, but, sadly, gene cloning has not yet been discovered by the fictional FBI in Hollywood, so we really don't know how telepathy works.

telepaths

Finally, in "season 10" (see this blog post), we were most recently teased by telepathic children who seemed to be able to combine their powers, much as depicted by Asimov in his Foundation Saga (Wanda).

Please, sir, I want more.
Of course, once again, since this is just Hollywood and The X-Files, nothing need be explained and nothing was learned about the imaginary science of telepathy. I suspect that telepathy will be back on our plates for Season 11.

non-fiction fiction

4. From Outer Space
Moving back towards the light-hearted end of the X-Files spectrum, "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" (written by Darin Morgan) is a comical look at pop culture UFOlogy.

I love the idea of "non-fiction fiction", a story about aliens that is based on reality, but perceived by readers as fiction. The X-Files also played with this concept in "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man".

beam me up!

Fantasy inside of delusion all wrapped up in disinformation. Humans dressed up like aliens who try to abduct two kids but who themselves get abducted by an alien. And a famous writer who is trying to write a book about it. To his credit, Mulder refuses to talk to Mr. Chung who comes across as a twitching and quirky half-alien creature himself.

This is not happening.
By the time Mr. Chung interviews Scully about a 3 month old alien abduction case, he has already given up all hope of learning the truth -Chung just wants to write a book about the case and make $$$. In her account of the investigation, Scully reports that her first guess was that good old fashioned lying, "sexual trauma" and suggestibility is what caused the two kids in the FBI case to tell tales of alien abduction.

Mulder: the pie-eating mandroid

And then the real head case (or, as Scully kindly puts it, "a fantasy-prone personality") in this case shows up, Mr. Roky Crikenson. He's a witness to the encounter with aliens and he's written down everything that happened. But he's nervous because he's been visited by Men in Black who have given him a warning: if he tells anyone what he saw then, the MIB assure him, "you're a dead man".

The apex of the episode is when yet another witness to the abduction (yes, out in the middle of nowhere there must always be at least three witnesses to an alien abduction) describes Mulder and Scully as men in black. Mr. Blain Faulkner, a self-proclaimed UFO nut fanatic, gives the classic X-Files eye-witness account:

"One of them was disguised as a woman, but wasn't pulling it off. Like, her hair was red but it was a little too red, you know? And the other one... the tall, lanky one... his face was so blank and expressionless. He didn't even seem human. I, I think he was a mandroid."

Blain and Dana getting to the truth about aliens.

Just when both Mulder and Scully are ready to abandon the idea that this is a case about aliens, a "dead alien" turns up in town. Then it turns out to be a man in a rubber alien suit. Falkner gets to shoot video during the autopsy when Scully discovers that the "gray alien" is actually a man in a costume. Sadly for the credibility of Scully, this home video recording was leaked and edited to make it appear that she must have covered up evidence for aliens.

Mulder and Lieutenant Schaffer
getting to the truth about aliens.

In second place for laughs during this wacky episode, when an Air Force pilot (Lieutenant Schaffer) shows up, psychologically traumatized and wandering through town, he crafts a small mountain out of mashed potatoes, as in Close Encounters.

In his book, Mr. Chung describes Mulder as a "ticking timebomb of insanity". We are left to believe that the entire case arose when a secret Air Force plane crashed and the towns folk were given false memories about alien abductions. The false memories were implanted by Air Force personnel using hypnosis to confuse those who saw a secret government aircraft.

5. Kill Switch

Ms. Nairn: cyberpunk goddess

This episode was written by William Gibson who exploited a natural good fit between the dark fantasy of cyberpunk and The X-Files. The cyberpunk genre and the stories of Gibson can be viewed as a dystopian literature written by postmodern English majors who knew nothing about computers and artificial intelligence. The plot of "Kill Switch", like every other logic and science-defying creation of Hollywood is piled high with loud explosions in an effort to hide its lack of coherence. As a time capsule of the 1990s, it is fun to look back at "Kill Switch" and see how it tries to bamboozle the audience by throwing around terms like "upload", "internet" and "orbital platform".

Mulder in a cyber trap.

We are asked to imagine that genius hackers created an artificial lifeform that evolved to consciousness within the internet. And ultimately, the freakish Ms. Nairn manages to upload her mind into the internet, apparently merging with the rogue AI.... or something.

ninja Scully

The most absurd part of "Kill Switch" is when the "conscious artificial lifeform" magically snaps a virtual reality headset on Mulder and suddenly takes control of Mulder's mind. Hollywood has milked this sort of idiotic "I don't know I'm in a simulated world" nonsense for decades, without bothering to show viewers a technology that might make it believable.

artificial life

Barbie Nurses
In Mulder's virtual reality experience, Scully appears as a kick-ass avenger who beats up a gang of fantasy nurses. It is not surprising, but rather sad, to feel obligated to include this episode on my list of 11 science fiction-oriented X-Files episodes. We can take this as a warning: when the folks in Hollywood are trying hardest to be hip and up-to-date, their work ages very quickly.

Artificial intelligence gone-bad is a theme that Hollywood endlessly milk$. The most recently uber-hyped entry in this category was the film Ex Machina. The saving grace of "Kill Switch" was that the regular staff tried to lighten the story up a bit during Mulder's "dream experience".

1930s Scully

6. Triangle
Mulder goes into the Bermuda Triangle and then time travel fun begins. Sadly, since this is The X-Files, we never really know if this is a story about actual time travel or just some sort of dream that Mulder has.

Inexplicably, unless this is Mulder's dream, an ocean liner from the 1930s ("trapped" in the Triangle) has passengers who look just like Scully (except for her hideous 1930s hair style) and Mulder's nemesis from the 1990s, the evil CSM.

After repeatedly getting the crap beaten out of him and almost drowning (consolation: he gets to kiss Scully), Mulder magically returns from the Bermuda Triangle and he can now verbally express his love for Scully, making this nautical episode a shippers delight.

Could what Mulder experiences during this episode possibly be some sort of alternate Reality in which Scully lives as a secret agent in the 1930's? For me, it is fun to imagine that it might be possible for Mulder to get a glimpse of an alternate Reality.

time twisted

The X-Files did sometimes play with the idea that time is more flexible than we like to believe. Two examples of X-Files episodes that explored flexible time flow are #7 and #8 on my list, below.

7. Dreamland

Let's do the time warp, again.

"Dreamland" was actually a two-part episode, but for my list I'm only counting it as one episode. Here, not only was the flow of time altered for our viewing pleasure, but Mulder's mind was exchanged with that of an actual "Man in Black", a secret agent at Area 51 who had the task of creating cover stories to hide advanced Air Force aircraft that made use of alien technology.

Backstory. The government has been using secretly held alien technology since it was "captured" in the 1940s. An anti-gravity equipped aircraft buzzes over Mulder and suddenly he finds his consciousness swapped with that of an Area 51 employee (Morris Fletcher).

The Fletcher kitchen.

Comedy ensues when Mulder has to deal with Fletcher's family and Morris (now inside Mulder's body) decides to take full advantage of being inside the FBI (and even inside Skinner's cute secretary). Scully finally figures out that this philandering "Mulder" is no longer really Mulder, but is there any way to correct/reverse this body swap?

Slingshot effect
We are supposed to believe that the alien technology of the flying machine briefly malfunctioned and caused a space-time warp. Then magically, the time warp "snaps back" and Fox and Morris are returned to their correct bodies.

Lucrative mind transfer.

Mind transfer. I've previously described mind transfer as probably the single most lucrative Sci Fi plot device ever deployed by Hollywood. Asimov used to describe time travel as an irresistible science fiction plot device, even when we know that time travel makes no scientific sense. Similarly, it is easy for people to imagine minds leaping from body to body, even if that is a scientific impossibility. In "Dreamland", we must go along for the laughs and not think too much about the implausibility of it all.

Pam is sacrificed so that Mulder can live.

8. Monday
The X-Files does Groundhog Day. There is something charming about the idea that the flow of time might not always be linear, that we might be able to keep repeating an event until we "get it right". In "Monday", Mulder seems to be teetering on the edge of being subtracted from the world by a crazy bank robber. But, strangely, not only does the day of his death keep repeating, he gradually begins to remember some events from previous turns of the time loop.

"...who's to say that if you did rewind it and start over again that it wouldn't end up exactly the same way?" -Scully

Eventually, a friend of the bank robber (Pam) sacrifices her own life, allowing Mulder to live and time to resume its march into the future. One interpretation of this plot is that Pam needs Mulder so that she can find a way to stop the crazed bank robber before he kills anyone. Maybe it is Mulder's openness to the unconventional that allows him to begin to notice that he is in a time loop?

bank robber

Strange choice. If you were going to repeatedly "rewind" the same scene for Scully, why would you have her in the most boring FBI meeting ever? I'd like a rewind of this episode so it could be crafted to depict Scully repeatedly doing something more interesting than attending a long,  idiotic meeting.

And while I'm playing Groundhog with "Monday"... how about a more interesting perp? The bank robber is portrayed as a complete incompetent, but at the same time he was able to assemble a bank-blasting bomb with such stealth that even informing the police about his plans before the robbery could not stop him?

Baseball-loving alien.

9. The Unnatural
This episode of The X-Files reminds me of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. In that movie, Nimoy was able to to take a rather tired Sci Fi franchise and propel it into fun new terrain: going back to 20th century Earth but still going where Star Trek had not gone before.

X-Files star David Duchovny both wrote and directed "The Natural", crafting a modern fairy tale set comfortably in the fictional universe of The X-Files.

Scene 1: nonfat tofutti rice dreamsicle

I like to imagine that advanced nanotechnology is what gave the aliens an ability to morph and take on human form. With technology that advanced, maybe it would be possible to transform an alien into exact  human form, right down to the correct color of blood. I've never understood the whole "human-alien hybrid" idea lurking in The X-Files, but if aliens were going to start living on Earth by making use of hybrid bodies then why not show off their high-tech biological alterations abilities to full effect?

Shut up Mulder and play ball

Both the starting scene of "The Unnatural" and the final scene with Scully and Mulder hitting baseballs nicely capture the working relationship of the two agents.

10. Field Trip

Will this be the fate of
Scully and Mulder?

This is the last in a run of five impressive Season Six Sci Fi episodes (#6-10 on my list). I like the idea that Earth might long ago have been "infected" by alien nanites. After millions of years of inactivity, might defective alien nanites activate and take the form of "black oil" or something more integrated into Earth's ecosystem, like a mysterious fungus?

source

Given the other powers attributed to alien nanite technology in The X-Files, why not assume that alien "mind control" nanites could put humans into a dream-like state and hold them there long enough to be "digested". "Field Trip" was a monster of the week episode, but it could have been linked into the show's long-running alien invasion mythology.

Dr. Scully's struggle

11. My Struggle II
Mulder's struggle, Scully's struggle, Chris Carter's struggle to remain relevant, our struggle as Sci Fi fans to find entertainment in Hollywood productions. Well, you know it ain't easy. I've previously complained about the low quality of the science in The X-files, but I have to give Chris Carter and the rest of the X-Files crew credit for trying to include some science fiction in "season 10". My main motivation for placing "My Struggle II" in this list of 11 science fiction episodes is built upon hope that between the end of season 10 and the start of season 11, Carter may have had time to shore up the crumbling walls of the "alien DNA" plot hole that he previously dug.

Related: one month until Season 11

Next: celebrating the life of Jack Vance

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