May the Fourth be Time

I was reminded that some Star Wars fans think of May 4th as Star Wars Day when I saw a list of popular topics on Twitter (image to the right on this page). That got me thinking about the only part of Star Wars that I've enjoyed: the lowly midi-chlorian.

Several years ago when I finally got involved in writing a Space Opera story that included "mental powers" (The Search for Kalid) I tried my hand at formulating a "fictional science" of telepathy. I imagined that the key to human telepathy was the existence of imaginary "T-particles" and a fictional organelle called the "telastid". In a previous blog post I discussed my bias towards including such fictional science "explanations" of mysterious "future science" plot elements in science fiction stories.

When I developed the imaginary science of Telastids, I was struggling to create a physical mechanism that would allow people to have telepathic abilities. That physical mechanism depended heavily on conventional matter and the only new physics that I introduced were the imaginary T-particles and their associated twitinos, which in my thinking were the basis for telepathic information transmission.

More recently, I have developed a much more extensive extension of physics into the realm of imaginary science. For the story Exode, I imagine that the ancient Huaoshy long ago discovered many new fundamental particles that can be grouped into two types, hierions and sedrons. The advanced scientific and engineering skills of the Huaoshy allowed them to transform themselves into an artificial form of life with god-like powers. The artificial lifeform of the Huaoshy is composed of "sedronic matter" for which the bond lengths between sedrons are only about 500-fold larger than the Planck length.

Related Reading: Rooms at the Bottom.

Artificial Life

More photography by Chiara Fersini

For Exode, rather than imagine a biological basis for telepathy, I make use of a purely technological basis for telepathy-like communications.  Human brains can be "infected" by tiny machines that function as symbionts within the human body and provide the mechanistic basis for "telepathic communication". Typically I refer to these tiny symbionts as nanites, but there are three distinct types of symbionts with only those composed of conventional matter having nano-scale components. Devices made from hierions might better be called "zeptites" because of the zeptoscale lengths of hierion-hierion bonds. The Huaoshy use sedronic matter to make even smaller devices. These various "symbionts" are colonies of mechanical nanites (or zeptites, etc.) and are best classified as sophisticated artificial lifeforms. Pek nanites make telepathic communication possible because their structure contains hierions and they can transmit and receive hierion-based communications signals and integrate them into the brains of a host humanoid.

Time Travel
The backstory of Exode is built up around the conflict between the alien Huaoshy and humans from 10,000,000 years in the future. The plot of Exode does not involve a classic struggle between good and evil. The Huaoshy created the human species. Noÿs, a human from the far future, wants to make sure that the human species has a chance to thrive and survive. The Huaoshy have been hard at work crafting the Prelands, a new primate species that they hoped would replace we humans in the same way that Homo ergaster was replaced. Noÿs is able to force the Huaoshy to alter their plans and give we humans a chance to prove that we can survive within a technologically advanced culture without destroying ourselves.

I've read that George Lucas wanted God, good and evil to be included in Star Wars. As discussed above, Exode is not about good and evil and there are only beings with god-like powers based on advanced science and technology, no actual gods. What about religion in Exode? In my view, religion is a human enterprise arising from mistaken belief in supernatural/spiritual powers. It seems inevitable that pre-scientific societies formed by sapient beings will develop religious belief systems. People try to understand the world, but naked human senses can't reveal fundamental features of nature like tiny atoms. It is natural for people to imagine non-material spirits that might account for mysterious aspects of our world. In Exode, there is an additional source of religious beliefs.

The Huaoshy are about as interested in revealing themselves to humans as you might be in making your existence known to the scum of bacteria found growing on a plant pot. The pek are a type of artificial lifeform that acts as an intermediary between the Huaoshy and primitive creatures like we humans. The pek make use of the human penchant for religious mysticism. Due to the ethical rules of the Huaoshy, the pek are not allowed to explain the details of human origins and so it is often convenient for the pek to allow humans to hold religious beliefs about their Creators. In Exode, there are opportunities for information to flow from Noÿs to humans and I have been having fun imagining how some religious beliefs on Earth have been influenced by "cultural contamination" and human misunderstanding of the relationship between our species and the Huaoshy.

Clone humor.

Virgin Birth
In Star Wars, Lucas had fun suggesting that Anakin had no father. I have no idea what Lucas had in mind, but I've seen it suggested that the midi-chlorians were able to cause the virgin birth of Anakin. In Exode, Parthney is "created from scratch" by the pek. It is a trivial technological trick for the pek to create a new human who has the exact genetic pattern of any other human if the pek have that genetic pattern on record. In this case, the pek have long had the genetic pattern of Thomas, the son of Noÿs. Parthney is simply the most recent of several "incarnations" of the Thomas genetic pattern on Hemmal. Why the pek feel it is important to keep making cloned copies of Thomas is mostly the result of a silly mistake, but shit happens.

Robin

The closest Parthney comes to having a chance to talk to his biological mother is when he is with Robin (Chapter Three of Exode). Noÿs died thousands of years before Parthney is born, but Robin carries nanites that were originally inside Noÿs. Parthney was raised by pek and never thinks much about his biological origins. Thomas is the son of Noÿs and a "false" Buld who lived on Earth as an Interventionist agent. Robin is able to pass on some critical information to Parthney about Thomas and his friendship with Isaac Asimov. Those hints become important when Parthney reaches Earth and he gets to meet Asimov. It ultimately works out well that Parthney is a genetic copy of Thomas...Parthney's physical appearance provides a suitable "calling card" that allows him to ingratiate himself with Asimov and his wife, both long-time acquaintances of Thomas.

Pla'mak

The strange behavior of Muchlo and Robin combined with Pla'mak's "Bimanoid Theory" finally get Parthney thinking about the possibility that there can be meaningful contacts between the Creators and humans. I've reached this same point in my own thinking and I've been trying to imagine an earlier Interventionist agent (possibly another "instantiation" of the Thomas gene pattern) that might have carried some advanced scientific knowledge from the Huaoshy to the people of Earth, creating a kind of "cultural contamination" that would be known to Isaac Asimov because of his study of religion.

A great irony in Exode is that the human Interventionists have long struggled to speed technological development on Earth while they have never been able to make their own technological advances. The Fru'wu and the Nereids are potential sources of information about advanced technology, but the Huaoshy are rather ruthless is preventing aliens from interfering in the culturally development of Earth.

Gates of Light

In my thinking, I keep returning to the conclusion that Noÿs might be the only source of significant "cultural contamination" that could influence the development of a religion on Earth. The Huaoshy are very persnickety: some times they do reveal themselves to humans like Kach, but then the Huaoshy are very careful to make sure that such "contaminated" humans can't share what they know with Earthlings. I previously decided that within Exode there will be a link between future global warming and sea level rise and the popularity of flood myths. That "link" is made possible by the fact that Noÿs is a time traveler from the future.

Previously I was imagining that while there had been earlier "incarnations" of Thomas on Hemmal, none of them had ever made their way to Earth. I've grown uncomfortable with that rather arbitrary decision. It would be more fun if other "incarnations" of Thomas precede Parthney to Earth.

Back at the end of last year I decided that Exode should include an example of "cultural contamination" dating to about 500 years ago. I'm now thinking that there can be an "incarnation" of Thomas who is on Earth early in the 1500s: he grows up on Hemmal as a "false" Buld named Rechmain and he uses several other names while living in Europe during the first half of the 1500s.

Rechmain was one of the "practice versions" of the Thomas genome that were "instantiated" on the planet Hemmal in the centuries leading up to Parthney, the main character of Exode. As such, Rechmain spent time at Lendhalen with Robin and Annike. Annike was one of the many sisters of Thomas that the pek created. Rechmain and Annike became intrigued by physics and learned the basics of dimensional engineering and the importance of compact dimensions for the behavior of hierions and sedrons. Robin provided Rechmain with a mental image of the canonical three dimensional representation of the higher dimensional structure of the universe as it is known to the Huaoshy. A simplified two dimensional map of the dimensional structure (Ground State) of the universe is shown in the image to the left on this page.

May the Fourth Dimension be Time?

Cigar: ready to explore the 4th dimension.

Imagine that in this map (above) the shaded triangle represents the three extended spatial dimensions of our every day experience. If we are asked to locate an object in the universe we do so by specifying three spatial coordinates and make use of an additional temporal coordinate to locate the object in time. For Exode, I imagine that the Huaoshy long ago discovered that when our universe came into existence there were six additional spatial dimensions which formed "compact dimensions" rather than extended dimensions.

Teleportation

One of the imaginary technologies in Exode is teleportation. Huaoshy teleportation terminals constantly perform a calibration routine and display a holographic representation of a ten dimensional manifold that allows quick identification of potential disruption of the teleportation process between two points in space. Huaoshy teleportation terminals are too small for use by adult humans, but a human who stumbles upon one can carry on a conversation with the terminal or Huaoshy who are linked into it from a remote location. In one of the more famous examples of "cultural contamination" on Earth, an Earthling once had such a conversation with a Huaoshy teleportation terminal and came away describing the diagnostic animation as a "burning bush".

cultural contamination

Only rarely have Huaoshy teleportation terminals been accessible to Earthlings. However, a few less sophisticated teleportation terminals of Nereid design have been present on Earth for the past several thousand years. The default diagnostic animation displayed by Nereid teleportation portals is a three dimensional representation of the dimensional structure of the universe. In 1505, Rechmain rather carelessly allowed Paolo Riccio to witness a teleportation event. Paolo later showed Rechmain his own two dimensional drawing of what he could remember of the animated portal diagnostic. Rechmain proceeded to number the "leaves" of the tree using binary notation, written in the script used by the Buld scholars.

Poor Paolo was baffled by Rechmain's description of the dimensional structure of the universe, but intrigued by the four-character labels that Rechmain had placed on each "leaf" of the tree diagram. Later, Paolo modified the tree for use in illustrating the names of God and the Sephirot. Rechmain was particularly interested in mathematicians and astronomers such as Nicolaus Copernicus, but he recognized the importance of breaking down the entrenched power of European religions for the future advancement of science. Towards the end of his time on Earth, Rechmain spent his time in England working to stabilize the religious schism between England and Rome. Rechmain finally departs Earth, teleporting back to Klyz with Jane Grey. While Parthney is in training at Lendhalen for his mission to Earth, Rechmain is used as an example of how not to behave as an Interventionist agent on Earth.

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Exode is still under construction...collaborating authors are welcome.

Size matters?

Clones in Exode

I previously described Hemmal as a planet "where knowing your parents can have no possible benefit". I made that statement in the context of receiving help from one's parents to "get ahead" in life. Kach and Parthney, two major characters in Exode were born on Hemmal and they do not know who their parents were. That is normal for Hemmal.

Kach and Parthney were raise by pek, artificial lifeforms that normally do all the parenting of false Buld who are born on Hemmal. I'm forced to say "normally" because Kach provides an exception to this general rule by having a son (Boswei) and raising him herself. Boswei becomes the first person born on Hemmal who knows his parents.

False Buld
Not very many false Buld are born on Hemmal. It is theoretically possible for false Buld to arise spontaneously, but on Hemmal such things are not left to chance. The pek generally monitor (and frequently control) Buld pregnancies. For example, Kach is the first female born on Hemmal. Prior to the need for Kach, all the false Buld ever born on Hemmal were males. Like Parthney, those false Buld were all intended to be trained at places such as Lendhalen for missions on Earth as Interventionist agents.

The pek keep great records. For example, they have "on file" the genomes of everyone who has ever lived on Hemmal. They also have the technological means to produce a cloned individual who is genetically identical to any of the previous residents of Hemmal (or anyone else for whom they have the gene pattern).

I previously mentioned that in Exode, when Parthney finally does arrive on Earth, Janet Jeppson notices the close similarity between Thomas and Parthney. It turns out that Parthney is genetically identical to Thomas. How can that be?

Thomas is born on Earth and Parthney is born on Hemmal about 15 years later. When Noÿs is teleported to Klyz (see the timeline) she provides the pek with the genetic pattern of her son Thomas and shares with them a plan: when the Buld spaceship arrives at Earth, "Thomas", a carrier of the advanced nanites that Noÿs brought from the future, must be there to meet the Buld. The pek interpret this to mean that they must clone Thomas and have the clone on Earth when the Buld arrive. Parthney is a clone of Thomas and the pek make sure that Parthney arrives on Earth in the 20th century.

However, the situation is even more complicated than that, because Noÿs, as a time traveler, reaches Klyz about 10,000 years before Parthney is born. During the subsequent 10,000 years, the pek  produced multiple clones of Thomas and test how they respond to life on Hemmal. The pek discovered that these "copies of Parthney", like Thomas, are creative individuals who tended to have fun on Hemmal participating in artistic/cultural endeavors...and they never really wanted to leave Hemmal, even when told that they can go to Earth. When it was finally time to send Parthney to Earth, Kach was brought into existence as a woman who could efficiently push Parthney off of Hemmal and send him on his way towards Earth.

The Other Clone
One other clone figures in Exode. The pek are not the only source of clones. The Nereids have a fairly advanced level of technology and they can also produce copies of humans. When Kach arrives in the Andromeda galaxy she persistently investigates the Nereids, at first suspecting that the Nereids are the Creators. Parthney is "along for the ride" and he is carrying some of the special nanites that originated from Noÿs. I previously mentioned that some of the Buld develop a "Bimanoid Theory" which, in its form that appeals to Noÿs, says that the Creators are constantly lurking within every human. The Nereids have a similar theory and their history documents times when a few Nereids seem to have "channeled" the Huaoshy.

The nanites inside Parthney simulate such a "channeling" of information from the Huaoshy to the Nereids by way of Parthney. Noÿs, when looking into the future, saw the role that Kach must play in the Solar System. Parthney delivers a message to the Nereids that convinces them that Kach must be sent to Earth. Kach does not believe that she can learn anything useful about the Creators by going to Earth, but she agrees to go as long as she is given the "Parthney Option"...a way to escape from Observer Base. As was the case when Parthney made his escape from the Moon, the Nereids must arrange to "spring" Kach from Observer Base without alerting the Overseers to the fact of her escape. They make a clone of Kach and send the clone to Earth with Izhiun. When Kach completes her mission in the Solar System, Izhiun makes it look like Kach was killed, but it is the clone's body that is recovered while Kach is teleported safely out of the Solar System.

Avi Katz's Vision

What Makes Kach Tick
So, what makes Kach persistently seek contact with the Creators? I assume that unlike Parthney, there is nothing special about her genes. What is it in her environment that makes her special?

As mentioned above, Kach is the first woman born on Hemmal. For the unfolding plot of Exode, her experiences as a woman are important, particularly her desire to be a mother. However, Kach is on a quest to make known the unknowable: what makes her persist in that quest under conditions where nobody else around her can understand what drives her?

Part of "Bimanoid Theory" suggests that if a human does become intrigued by the mystery surrounding the Creators then the Creators can "step in" and suppress or terminate that curiosity. So, the question becomes: is Kach simply not subjected to any efforts to dissuade her from an obsessive desire to meet her makers or do the Huaoshy actively "step in" and encourage her to keep searching? Since Exode is told from the perspective of Parthney and Izhiun, this puzzle is never explicitly answered for readers.

Some Buld know about the evidence for biological evolution on planets like Earth. However, many Buld do adopt the religious beliefs of the Prelands. Even before leaving Hemmal, Parthney is exposed to "free thinkers" like Yandrey who are well aware of the fact that Earth has had an evolving biosphere for billions of years. Parthney is a skeptic: if there are Creators then why don't they show themselves? Parthney dismisses the matter from his thoughts, but Kach is not so easy to satisfy. Kach actively goes in search of the Creators while adopting the assumption that they have a reason for staying out of sight.

Nereid Intervention

When I wrote The Start of Eternity I was using a rather simplified conceptualization of the struggle between Overseers and Interventionists on Earth. A major goal for me in writing Exode has been to create a more detailed understanding of Genesaunt Civilization. In particular, I wanted to answer this question: where do Interventionists come from?

At the most fundamental level, the answer to that question is that interventionism springs from the natural desire of people to help others. From the time long ago when they were still biological organisms, the Huaoshy have always struggled to find just the right balance between 1) letting primitive species like humans solve their own problems and 2) giving a helping hand. Maintaining the continual competition between Overseers and Interventionists is how the Huaoshy allow "wiggle room" for some possible "interventionism" without allowing it to go too far and get out of control.

In Exode, the the story concerns an unusual situation where the balance between Overseers and Interventionists has been disrupted by a freak discovery: the invention of positronic robots by humans. Sorting out the implications of that discovery requires the Huaoshy to pay unusually close attention to events on Earth. Primitive creatures like we humans normally do not come to the attention of the Huaoshy, no more than individual blades of grass in a field are of concern to a horse rancher. However, if a poisonous weed starts growing in a pasture then a concerned rancher is likely to take action before all the horses are killed by the poison. In this analogy, because of the creation of positronic robots, we humans became something like a dangerous weed.

When positronic robots were created on the Moon, the Earth was left without its normal complement of Overseers, but some "backup" help could be brought in from outside the Solar System. However, the dynamic of cultural development on Earth was dramatically changed because there were no more human Overseers available for duty in the Solar System. Under these new conditions on Earth, the Nereid Interventionists were able to assure that the Earthlings began a slow climb towards development of a technological civilization on Earth. Essentially, what changed due to the loss of human Overseers was that important advances like the development of agriculture and use of writing could no longer be prevented from spreading on Earth.

In the Buld Reality, Noÿs negotiates a deal with the Huaoshy. As a consequence of that deal, time travel is used so as to make sure that the development of positronic robots is prevented and the Huaoshy are given back control of Observer Base on the Moon, but the Huaoshy agree to allow the Earthlings to rise from the stone age and establish a technological civilization, as occurred in the Reality when positronic robots existed. The Huaoshy agree to activate a "timer" that establishes a fixed point in time for Earthlings to begin making the transition from their long ignorance of the existence of Genesaunts towards having regular interactions with Genesaunt Civilization. Historically, such transitions only occur on primitive worlds like Earth when the Huaoshy feel that a young sapient species like humans can safely sustain a technological civilization. The Huaoshy do not feel that Earthlings are ready, but they agree to give humans on Earth a chance to prove themselves worthy of greater independence.

In an effort to increase the chances that Earthlings will survive their technological adolescence, the Huaoshy allow the Interventionists to start shifting Preland gene patterns to Earth. This process of genetically modifying the human population of Earth is complicated by the fact that the Huaoshy also obtain the genetic patterns of Noÿs and other humans from the far future. In Exode, the reader is never given a look at the far future of Humanity: the story ends with lingering doubts about our future.

When Noÿs is given the change to look into the future of the Buld Reality it is not yet clear exactly what form the future will take. As discussed previously, the structure of the Buld Reality is dominated by three attractors, three patterns that the future can adopt, but even very small changes in what people like Noÿs do can shift the course of the future between those three patterns. However, even given that uncertainty, the Huaoshy manage to "harvest" human genetic patterns from the far future.

The diversity of types of human genetic patterns available to the Huaoshy is never explained within Exode (however, see Kac'hin), but the presence of these genomes in the hands of the Huaoshy helps explain how the Huaoshy are able to improvise and work to convert Earthlings into a form of humans that has a chance to deal constructively with the powers and risks afforded by advanced technologies. The Nereid Interventionists are able to play an important role in facilitating the movement of useful gene combinations to Earth during the 15,000 year-long trip of the Buld spaceship from the Galactic Core to Earth.

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Note: Ekcolir and Deomede are not clones, they are two versions of the same person in two different Realities.
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Note: A clone of Gohrlay is subjected to destructive brain scan. I've also hinted that Gohrlay is a clone of a previous resident of Observer Base. I later decided to include additional clones of Thomas in Exode. Also, see The Atlantis Clones. Time warp to clones in 2018.

You Are Being Watched

CoversByRobin

Are some people naturally susceptible to mind control? I've never been able to "buy into" one of the popular myths of our culture: that an all-seeing God watches everything we do. The origin of such myths and the power that they hold over some people puzzles me. It is fun to imagine science fiction plots that might explain such puzzling features of human culture.

For stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, Observers are a small group of humans who live at a secret base hidden under the surface of the Moon. The Observers believe that their job is to constantly observe events as they unfold on Earth; they keep a record of the past course of human civilization. They believe that their observations are of vital importance for the Overseers, an even smaller group that functions as a kind of police force on Earth.

Policing a Planet
From the perspective of the Overseers, the worst crime possible is for members of some advanced extraterrestrial civilization to visit Earth and provide the Earthlings with new technology or knowledge that will alter the course of development of human civilization on Earth. According to the Rules of Observation, the people of Earth must be allowed to develop at their own rate and they must not be told certain truths: 1) Earth was first visited by space aliens millions of years ago, 2) there are humans living on other planets, 3) humans are "domesticated primates" that evolved under artificial conditions on distant worlds, 4) Earth is under constant observation.

Cherie Logan

In the story Exode, the Observers are not actually needed for making observations: the alien Huaoshy have a fully automated system for observing events on Earth. However, the Overseers do need the services of the Observers. In much the same way that you cannot look directly at the Sun, the Overseers cannot tap directly into the "Bimanoid Interface" that is available to the Huaoshy. The Observers function as a kind of filter that provides a "low fidelity" interface for the data stream from Earth; essentially, the data that reach the Overseers is restricted to just the information that the Huaoshy want the Overseers to have. By controlling the fidelity of the Observer data channel, the Huaoshy can precisely regulate the efficiency with which the Overseers can do their police work.

Of course, the Observers and the Overseers have no real understanding of the Huaoshy. What the Overseers do know is that in the Galactic Core there are many worlds populated by humans. They also know that there is an almost irresistible temptation for some of those extraterrestrial humans (the Interventionists) to visit Earth and try to alter the course of development of human civilization on Earth. This puts the Earthlings at risk of being rushed along towards an advance technological civilization before they are ready to make wise decisions about the use of powerful and dangerous technologies. The Overseers believe they are protecting the people of Earth from such dangers.

Cheryl Pelkey

So, within each human on Earth there is an invisible swarm of zeptoscale devices integrated into our brains. That swarm constitutes a "bimanoid symbiont" that is actually an integral part of the artificial lifeform that is the alien Huaoshy. Using that "bimanoid interface" the Huaoshy can monitor everything we do and think. Is there any way for we humans to make use of our bimanoid symbionts for our own needs and purposes?

In Forward the Foundation, Asimov described how Wanda and Stettin Palver discovered their "mantalic" ability to communicate telepathically. In Exode, humans can communicate by means of nanite-mediated telepathy, but for the most part the information that is exchanged is processed by unconscious brain activity. The Huaoshy have been designing a new primate species as a planned replacement for humans, the Prelands, who have mostly abandoned spoken language in favor of telepathy, but they are only mentioned within the Exode story...the Prelands remain off stage. In fact, the Prelands are only tentative, at best, as a species. They are at the border between biology and artificial life and cannot reproduce without the help of the pek.

Thus, we are all very close to having direct, two-way communication with the god-like aliens who have watched over us for millions of years, but the Huaoshy view we humans as primitive creatures. The Huaoshy are as interested in the lives of individual humans as we are interested in the individual blades of grass in a pasture.

Noÿs the time traveler

Noÿs
But what about Noÿs? Noÿs arrives in the 20th century from the future and she carries within her a type of nanite that is only available in the distant future of Earth. I imagine that her special nanites give Noÿs some capacity to tap into the "Bimanoid data stream" of Humanity...this gives her a chance to stay a step ahead of the Overseers and complete her mission in the 20th century.

Part of that mission is to pass important information on to her daughter, Gwyned, who will in turn share knowledge of the future with Parthney. At Lendhalen, Gwyned is asked to make a written record of her experiences on Earth. In Chapter Three of Exode, Gwyned passes along to Parthney an account of a strange story that Noÿs told to Gwyned shortly before Gwyned was teleported off of Earth. Noÿs never explicitly told Gwyned about time travel, but Noÿs hinted about the idea that certain myths and legends might contain meaningful information about Overseers.

Noÿs spends more than 30 years in the 20th century and near the end of that time she finally gets to meet an Overseer. Noÿs is briefly given full access to the "Bimanoid data stream": she learns the point in Earth's past when the Earthlings began to develop and use written language. That closely corresponded to the point in time when a Buld spaceship began its 15,000 year journey to Earth. Noÿs believes that it is her advanced nanites from the future that give her access to the "Bimanoid data stream", but the Huaoshy "step in" to the Overseer and give Noÿs access to the data she is seeking.

Joseph Finley

A few years after Gwyned leaves Earth, the Interventionist agent named Ekcolir travels through time, going back to near the end of the last glacial period. Noÿs is sent back only about half as far into the past where she tells stories to the primitives about the fateful decision that must be made for Earth: will humans have the chance to develop a technological civilization or will the humans simply be thrown into the trash heap of evolution, replaced by the Prelands?

One of the central myths of humanity is derived from their stories of the future. Their description of how sea level rises when glaciers and ice caps melt in the future gets warped into tales about a great flood of the past. Noÿs helps get the ancient Earthlings started towards using written language. 10,000 years in our past is when Interventionists start frequently arriving on Earth; new gene combinations are made available on Earth that might help the Earthlings survive in a technologically advanced civilization.

After Noÿs and Ekcolir reach their destination in the stone age, the Huaoshy pull the plug on Eternity. But that is another story.

Robert Henry Charles

Fallen Angels
One of the major plot elements in Exode is the process by which genes are transferred to Earthlings from worlds of the Galactic Core. Last summer I staked out my position: There are no angels in science fiction. However, it is amusing to hint in Exode that that various human ideas like "angels" might have been influenced by visitors who came to Earth from other planets. How would stone age humans make sense of someone like Noÿs telling them stories about trying to introduce gene combinations into the human population of Earth so that Earthlings could survive entry into a coming age of science and technology?

The text of Exode only hints at the possibility of time travel. When Parthney arrives on Earth he tries to find Noÿs, but Noÿs is gone by then; she went into the past, to a time about 10,000 years in our past.

I'm having trouble deciding if Parthney should become infected by the nanites that Noÿs brought to the 20th century from the future. Right now, I'm thinking that only Deomede carries those nanites and not Parthney. However, those nanites somehow need to be "smuggled" into Observer Base on the Moon.

The Great Flood
Noÿs is from a Reality in which human-induced global warming melts the Antarctic ice cap and causes the sea level to rise 200 feet above current levels. She is also allowed a peek into the future of our Reality (the Buld Reality) and she knows that Earth is at risk of suffering a technological disaster. It is fun to imagine that stories told by Noÿs to stone age humans might contribute various "flood" stories that become converted into ancient myths about a great flood in the past. Noÿs lives out the end of her life on Earth during a warm period about 10,000 years in our past. The rising sea levels of that time are hardly noticed by stone age humans.

As told in Asimov's The End of Eternity, Noÿs was able to view alternate Realities. Her goal was to go back in time and cause a new Reality to come into existence, one in which there would be no further time travel. At the end of Exode, hints are given suggesting that with the help of the Buld and information passed from Noÿs to Gwyned and on to Parthney, it might be possible to prevent the Antarctic ice sheet from melting.

In general, the "Bimanoid symbionts" that are inside everyone on Earth automatically prevent anyone from "spilling the beans" and informing Earthlings about the existence of Genesaunts. Noÿs is an exception, since she is from a future time when Earthlings have the technological means to liberate themselves from their "Bimanoid symbionts". While living in to 20th century Noÿs is amused by certain ancient myths that she suspects came into existence because of things she will tell stone age humans before she dies.
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See: Prophecy by Time Travel, my next blog post, which describes how Noÿs helps to bring our Reality (the Buld Reality) into existence.

Bimanoid Interface. For more about the Bimanoid Interface see my blog post about the  "Kac'hin".

Bimanoid Theory

Excalbian

I previously mentioned the idea that in Chapter Three of Exode the protagonist, Parthney, achieves a form of tenuous contact with the alien Huaoshy through the medium of Robin, a seemingly unsophisticated robotic assistant at Lendhalen. For stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe I generally imagine very little direct interaction between humans and the Huaoshy. Sure, if there is an emergency, as in The Start of Eternity, then the Huaoshy will step in to set things straight and they might come as close as possible to taking human form so as to facilitate a needed change to human civilization. In Exode, is Parthney facing some kind of emergency when Robin starts "channeling" the Huaoshy?

Pla'kao, co-director of Lendhalen, has plans for Parthney. A Buld spaceship will soon visit Earth and the ancient Interventionist/Overseer dynamic on Earth is threatening to crumble. Pla'kao does not want to risk Humanity becoming the next sapient species in our galaxy to destroy itself in a technological disaster. As he learns about Earth's history, Parthney can't help wondering if he'd only make thing worse by visiting Earth. Maybe Gwyned should return to Earth: isn't she better equipped to manage the technological difficulties that are now facing the Earthlings? When Parthney loses interest in going to Earth, the Huaoshy step in (literally "step in" to Robin) and nudge him back into line, back on the path to Earth.

Robot, woman, alien Huaoshy?

Instantiation
I was never certain what Gene Roddenberry had in mind for the Star Trek episode The Savage Curtain. Did we ever see the "true form" of the Excalbians? Had they developed beyond the biological limitation of having a physical form? Maybe they just looked into the thoughts of Kirk and borrowed from his mind a rock-like body form that Kirk was most likely to believe could be used by a creature from a planet like Excalbia where the whole surface was covered with molten rock and lava flows. Could the Excalbians instantiate themselves in any convenient physical form?

In the case of the Huaoshy, they long ago transformed themselves from biological organisms to artificial life forms composed of "sedronic matter". However, when needed, the Huaoshy can integrate swarms of their zeptoscale components into people or robots, essentially instantiating a locus of Huaoshy consciousness in a convenient chunk of conventional matter. In Exode, this is how Robin suddenly becomes more than a just a robot.

Presidents in space

Creators
Pla'mak, the other co-director of Lendhalen, has long worked to establish a process by which advanced technology might be transferred from Genesaunts living on worlds of the Galactic Core to Earthlings. However, the Huaoshy seem to carefully control the pace of technological advancement on worlds like Earth, so Pla'mak has long felt frustrated. Pla'mak long ago became convinced that the Creators constantly observe the actions of Genesaunts, leaving them little room to intervene into the course of Earthly affairs.

Pla'mak can never forget that prior to the establishment of Lendhalen there was another Interventionist training base on Oib....until the day when it was suddenly and completely obliterated. Interventionists at training bases like Lendhalen try to conceal their rebellion against the pek, but Pla'mak suspects all efforts geared towards secrecy are wasted effort. It might be a simple matter to exclude the pek and their nanites from Lendhalen, but the Huoashy could have as yet undetected ways of monitoring events inside Lendhalen. It turns out that Pla'mak's intuitions an paranoia are well justified!

Let me explain why I've called you here this evening....

For the past 20,000 years the Buld revolutionaries have worked diligently to strip pek nanites from their bodies and cloister themselves in places like Lendhalen where they can live free of pek interference. Pla'mak is correct to suspect that the Creators do not rely on anything as primitive as pek nanites to monitor the actions of the Buld and she long ago initiated a research program aimed at testing the idea that even after a powerful magnetic field is used to inactivate pek nanites in a person's body some other foreign material remains "stowed away" inside humans. Although that research effort has never succeeded, it is true that there are other tiny symbiotic elements inside humans that can replicate and allow for direct interactions between humans and the Creators.

In the theory developed by Pla'mak, the term "bimanoid" is used to refer to the never-interrupted linkage between humans and the Creators. Pla'mak has suggested that every human is continually a functional duality: part biological organism, part non-biological Huaoshy symbiont. This concept has leaked into the general awareness of the Buld revolutionaries and it has developed into the common belief in a "soul" as the homuncular component that is hidden away inside people.

macroscopic symbiont

The typical effort to experimentally confirm the bimanoid theory is to collect tissue from humans, digest away the biological components and attempt to identify a remaining non-biological residue, possibly something like a pek nanite, but different. Sadly, Pla'mak and her Interventionist friends don't have the technological means to detect the swarms of tiny devices, even smaller than pek nanites, that are inside their bodies. A popular science fiction theme is macroscopic symbiotic organisms that can reside in human bodies, but what if there was no way to physically detect a symbiont that was hidden away inside us?

Reincarnation
Last year when I was sketching a fan fiction sequel to Sagan's story Contact, I needed a way to account for the ability of Sagan's Hadden character to be so in tune with the aliens. I proposed that it is possible for a collection of nanites to move from one human body to another, essentially carrying a mobile consciousness from one human body to another. Following his death, the symbiotic collection of nanites that was inside Hadden and which allowed him to function as an Interventionist agent leaves his body then migrates and takes up residence inside Kate. To what extent can we say a conscious being exists as that swarm of nanites...maybe such a swarm is only a
"potentially conscious being"? Does that "being" only really exist after being "incarnated" by the nanite swarm establishing a symbiotic relationship with a human body?

The search for new life and new civilizations leads to...

a planet with rivers of lava!

For Exode, I imagine that the pek keep a record of each person's genome. The truth behind Pla'mak's theory of the bimanoid is the presence in each person of zeptoscale nanite-components that function as symbiotic extensions of the Huaoshy. Can we define a human being as a particular body formed around a specific genome in combination with a particular "bimanoid symbiont"? And is every "bimanoid symbiont" actually a conduit for interactions between Humanity and the Huaoshy? I assume that the Huaoshy have very little interest in what happens to most people: no more than we would be able to generate for each blade of grass in a pasture. However, there might be a few critically important times when the Huaoshy would pay more attention to what is going on in the pasture.

First Contact
The "big impending event" in Exode is the arrival of a Buld spaceship in the Solar System. The Huoashy are inherently interested in how the Earthlings might react to First Contact with creatures from another world. Just as much of our own cortical brain activity might not be worthy of close conscious attention, the Huaoshy might ignore most of the information that is available to them from the symbiotic "bimanoid" elements that are inside each person. However, when something special is going to happen (like a First Contact event) the Huaoshy might "tune in" and pay special attention to human affairs...particularly the few humans who will be directly involved in the First Contact.

Hollywood geology

The Huaoshy have ethical restrictions on the extent to which they can interfere with the normal development of sapient species. Since Parthney is preparing for a mission to Earth, the Huaoshy have a "hands off" policy with respect to his thought processes: they would not make use of their "bimanoid interface" with Parthney to take direct control of his behavior. However, Parthney is not just a "typical false Buld". His genome first arose thousands of years ago on another world of the Galactic Core. That genome has previous been "instantiated" in flesh several dozen times and the "bimanoid-generated record" of the brain structure and thought processes for each of those "versions" of "Parthney" is on hand. The zeptoscale symbiont that now resides inside Parthney was carefully designed and it shaped his mind and personality while he was growing up on Hemmal. Was Parthney thus "reincarnated"? Not in the conventional sense, but the person who is Parthney was selected and shaped by the Huaoshy for his special role during the approaching First Contact event between the Buld and Earth.

This reminds me of Isaac Asimov's character Golan Trevize. Asimov never really explained the basis of Golan's perfect "intuition". In the case of Parthney, he is a great choice to play the role of the last Interventionist agent to go from Lendhalen to Earth because the Huaoshy have spent the past 20,000 years searching for the best candidate to play that role, and Parthney is their choice. 

Parthney and Robin

What about Robin? During different parts of Chapter Three in Exode, Robin operates in two distinctive modes. In the "robotic mode", Robin is simply a useful assistant who can cook and perform mundane tasks for Parthney. At other times, Robin instantiates a complex "bimanoid symbiont" that can provide information about conditions on Earth and help shape Parthney's thinking and prepare him for his mission to Earth. That instantiated intelligence that interacts with Parthney from the locus of Robin's robotic body is not really a "reincarnation" of some individual. It is more of a conduit for Huaoshy interaction with the human species: a "user interface" that functions as a nexus of information about all of humanity: this is quite a resource for Parthney!

Specifically, "Robin" can access a "database" containing the available information from each human's "bimanoid symbiont" from all of past human history and the entire present population of Earth. During the time when Parthney is using the conventional records available at Lendhalen to study Earth history, Robin occasionally allows Parthney to access part of the data stream that is available to the Huaoshy from the entire "bimanoid symbiont network" of Humanity. Is this an unfair advantage to give to an Interventionist agent? Not really; the Observers have always been allowed to tap into parts of this available data stream. When the Huaoshy want the Interventionists to be on equal footing with the Overseers they can step in and grant someone like Parthney special access to the bimanoid data. In this way, the Huaoshy have long been able to precisely maintain a balance of power between Interventionists and Overseers.

This balancing act reminds me of the situation that Jack Vance described for the Institute in his Demon Princes novels. Humanity at large was pitted against the institute and the ruling junta of the Institute sometimes sided against the rank and file members of the Institute so as to prevent the institute from too completely stifling Humanity.

"we've learned not to fear words"

One of the reasons that Parthney was selected to be the last Interventionist agent from Lendhalen is that he has a highly efficient brain for making use of his own mirror neurons, resonance between pek nanites in his brain and the brains of other people and utilizing available resonances between his personal "bimanoid symbiont" and the entire "bimanoid symbiont network" of Humanity. When he is given access to special information about Earth and specific Earthlings by Robin, Parthney processes the information at a largely unconscious level that he never questions- and he never discusses this "special access" with his Buld handlers at Lendhalen.

The Savage Curtain
When I was in my "golden age of science fiction" (age 12) and watching Star Trek, there were some episodes that really annoyed me. The Savage Curtain was annoying on many levels including:
1) it was one of the episodes where "good" was pitted against "evil"
2) it had one of the lame paper machete aliens that seemed biologically implausible
3) after the "reincarnation" of historical figures like Lincoln, the Enterprise just hurries on to the next mission..."we only seek out alien civilizations, we don't actually ever learn anything from them"
4) they had to throw in a Klingon.

I don't care what the readings are...he's dead, Jim.

The alien species (Excalbians) resides on a boiling planet, endlessly simmering on medium-high, apparently waiting until spaceships come wandering past. When the Enterprise arrives, the aliens learn to speak the language (English, of course; even the Klingon and the Vulcan speak English) and they create copies of long dead humans, Klingons and Vulcans complete with memories, copies that cannot be distinguished from normal living creatures. Of course, the aliens can also effortlessly take control of the Enterprise. The Excalbians have all of these amazing abilities, but for some reason they can't understand "good" and "evil". Lucky for NBC, they decide to stage a little experiment that will reveal the difference between good and evil. The script suggests that maybe one of the aliens is able to morph into the form of President Lincoln, or else "Lincoln" is simply materialized from scratch. Don't sweat the details...

Spock sums up the advanced technology of the Excalbians: "creatures able to control matter and to rearrange molecules in whatever fashion was desired. So they were able to create images of Surak and Lincoln after scanning our minds and using their fellow creatures as source matter".

Kirk: "Continue to our next assignment".

An hermaphroditic Pla takes the place of Balok

So, President Lincoln wasn't actually reincarnated. The Excalbian's "simply" looked into Kirk's thoughts and used his conceptualization of Lincoln as the basis for making a "Lincoln puppet" that was able to give Kirk the experience of having met Lincoln.

I previously made a list of other Star Trek episodes that might fit into the Exodemic Fictional Universe:
The Squire of Gothos - 2,000,000
Return to Tomorrow - 1,000,000
What Are Little Girls Made Of? - 500,000
All Our Yesterdays - 250,000
The Menagerie - 125,000
The Corbonite Maneuver - 50,000

In this list, "50,000" means that Balok's people might have been a branch of Humanity created by the pek about 50,000 years ago. I'm imagining that various such branches of Humanity might struggle for survival and struggle to advance their civilizations under the watchful guidance of the Huaoshy, thus resulting in scattered populations of humanoid through out the galaxy. Where might the Excalbians fall on this scale? Maybe somewhat behind the disembodied entities depicted in The Squire of Gothos, about 1,500,000?

Why might so many of the civilizations found scattered around the galaxy be confined to just a single planet? If their technologies are controlled by the Huaoshy then we can view them as isolated experiments, a few of which, like the Buld, are granted access to space travel technology. Maybe the Excalbians are not actually humanoids; possibly something quite alien like the Fru'wu. For Exode, I imagine that there are about 20 other sapient species from our galaxy being "cultured" by the pek.

Balok

Maybe only a few of these "experimental cultures" are designed to test the survivability of species under difficult conditions where there can be competition between "good" and "evil". In the case of the Buld, Pla'mak fears that they have made a mistake by allowing the Earthlings to rapidly develop a technological civilization. The Buld naively worked towards the goal of providing Earthlings with the ability to develop a technological civilization because they  could not imagine the kinds of "evil" that can arise from putting advanced technologies in the hands of the primitive Earthlings.

If the Huaoshy have been trying to "immunize" the Earthlings against the possibility of self-inflicted technological disasters, might Pla'mak sometimes find it useful to design experiments to test the "survival instincts" of people like Gwyned? Gwyned defies the rules that are imposed at Lendhalen, but her intentions are good. Might she actually qualify for service on Earth as an Interventionist agent, particularly if the Overseers abandon their work on Earth? Pla'mak and Pla'kao would have a hard time agreeing on that, just as they have differing views on what role the Interventionists should continue to play on Earth.

Original art by Pat Brennan

Asimov's Angst
For me, this raises the same issues that were explored by Asimov with his Laws of Robotics. Even if you are guided by good intentions, might your actions have disastrous consequences?

In The End of Eternity, Noÿs was ready to risk nuclear destruction in order to make sure that time travel technology did not arise. The interventionists are willing to risk technological disaster in order to give the primitive Earthlings a chance to survive and not be replaced by the hermaphroditic Prelands.

In Foundation and Earth, Golan is troubled by a similar dilemma. Is safety worth the cost of converting Humanity into Galaxia?

In the end, Exode must focus these sorts of questions squarely on the reader. Do we Earthlings have the wisdom to shape our own future as a species? Do we trust ourselves to make choices about the course of our civilization or would we welcome a god-like force such as the Huaoshy who could make decisions for us?

Kach and friends

If, on the basis of irrefutable evidence, that god-like power decided that it is not wise to allow Humanity access to science and advanced technology, would we object and insist that we be given a chance to prove our worth before being dumped into the waste bin of evolution? If given such an opportunity, what would be the wisest course for we Earthlings to take in trying to survive our technological adolescence? Does any one individual (such as Pla'kao) or any group of humans have the right to make such a decision?

In Foundation and Earth Golan Trevize had an ego that was large enough to encompass the entire galaxy; he was ready to decide the fate of the human species. In Exode, the Buld (and the Pla subgroup) have lived through ghastly experiences that make them humble and cautious. Gwyned is ready and willing to act decisively, but she finds no practical means to implement her plans. She is ready, but the time is not right. Kach will be in the right place at the right time.

Top, Pla'mak; bottom, Pla'kao

Pla'mak and Pla'kao
Back in January I started trying to imagine back stories for the co-directors of Lendhalen, Pla'mak and Pla'kao. Every 30 years they each go through "partial change" and they must then begin a period of re-learning who they are. Pla'kao went through partial changes in 1930, 1960 and 1990. During World War I, Pla'kao was profoundly influenced by the way that Earthlings began applying their growing scientific knowledge and technological sophistication to the creation of weapons of mass destruction. Up until the 20th century, Pla'kao and Pla'mak were in fundamental agreement about the mission of Lendhalen as a base for training Interventionists agents. However, after about 1925 Pla'kao began to develop fundamentally new ideas for the role of Interventionists on Earth. Pla'kao now believes that the true mission of the Interventionists has been the introduction of gene combinations to Earth that might regulate human behavior and prevent the Earthlings from destroying their budding technological civilization in a self-inflicted disaster similar to what obliterated the Fru'wu home world.

In contrast, Pla'mak remains true to the original goal of the Interventionists: pushing for ever more advanced technology on Earth. Pla'mak agrees with Gwyned: the Earthlings should be given all of the advanced technologies that are available to the Buld. Both Pla'mak and Pla'kao agree that they need to know more about the Overseers and their plans, particularly what will happen to Observer Base on the Moon when the Buld spaceship reaches Earth in the near future. Pla'kao wants to make sure that The Overseers continue to operate out of Observer Base; thon believes that the Overseers can act to prevent the Earthlings from continuing to develop technology at a pace too fast for them to control. Pla'mak want's to evict the Overseers, making it possible for the Interventionists to freely help the Earthlings adopt the advanced technologies that are available to the Buld who live in the Galactic Core.

Parthney is sent off to Earth, very much the man in the middle between the conflicting views of Pla'kao and Pla'mak.

____________________

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

Bimanoid Interface. For more about the "bimanoid interface" see the next blog post.