Asimov Energy

Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winter 1955

I've been investigating old science fiction stories about telepathy. Back in January, I read "Cosmic Engineers" by Clifford Simak and speculated about the possible influence of that story on Asimov. More recently, I blogged about Jack Vance's story "Parapsyche", which surprised me by the seriousness which Vance seemed to lavish on paranormal phenomena such as telepathy.

Telepathic Space Aliens
I finally read Isaac Asimov's story "The Portable Star" from Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winter 1955 (download). As described here, Asimov was not proud of "The Portable Star".

in the Ekcolir Reality

I have to wonder if years of guilt over having published "The Portable Star" contributed to Asimov's later creation of The Gods Themselves, the first science fiction story by Asimov that I ever read.

In "The Portable Star", 4 vacationing Earthlings land on a planet and tangle with telepathic space aliens. After a night on the planet, one of the Earthlings says, "We're being watched. I'm sure of it."

In the issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories where "The Portable Star" was published, Asimov also included a time line for his "Future History" of human expansion from Earth to other worlds of the galaxy:

interior illustration for "The Portable Star"

"The Portable Star" and "Blind Alley" were unusual in that these two stories featured aliens in Asimov's "all human galaxy". Asimov would later add Nemesis as a novel in which aliens were able to communicate telepathically with humans.

In "The Portable Star", 4 humans land their spaceship on an inhospitable world, Sigmaringen IV. The image to the left shows a scene from the start of the story. The telepathic "energy beings" who reside on Sigmaringen IV begin "experimenting" on the 4 humans... playing with their minds.

ignition

Sci Fi plot elements such as faster-than-light travel, time travel and telepathy are simply too much fun. Story tellers can't resist using fantastic technologies such as "warp drive" and time travel machines. Within science fiction, there are two different types of human telepathy: 1) technology-assisted telepathy and 2) "natural" telepathy that is made possible by the inherent structure of our biological brains.

In "The Portable Star", Asimov quickly moves to the fringe of hard science fiction by stating that the natives of Sigmaringen IV are "energy beings". In practical terms, making use of "energy beings" allows a Sci Fi author to quickly move a short story along... no explanation must be provided for how an alien mind and a human mind might be telepathically linked. In Western literature, there is a long tradition of imaginary non-material beings that can "read the minds" of humans. I suspect that Asimov spent very little time writing "The Portable Star".

in the Ekcolir Reality

After getting his 4 human guinea pigs into trouble on Sigmaringen IV, Asimov needed a quick and convenient way to get them safely back home. Asimov reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out an old plot element from his story "Nightfall". The poor "energy beings" of Sigmaringen IV have never seen stars. When they "see" some burning hydrogen gas, the "energy beings" freak out and loose their telepathic grip on the humans, allowing them to escape from Sigmaringen IV.

Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death? No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no. One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?" "Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be." -Isaac Asimov in The Roving Mind. see also

cover by Donald Brautigam

"Potential" by Isaac Asimov 
A 1983 story about telepathy by Asimov was called "Potential". For "Potential", Asimov crafted a story in which a boy (Roland) with telepathic powers is able to make telepathic connections to the "minds" of social insects such as bees.

In "Potential", I suspect that Asimov was suggesting that the positronic computer MULTIVAC could also telepathically communicate with Roland. For "Potential", Asimov "explained" Ronald's telepathic powers by saying that he had a special combination of genes that gave him his telepathic abilities. Somehow (by telepathy?), MULTIVAC knew that Ronald had telepathic abilities. With practice, Ronald's telepathic powers are getting stronger.

the Asimov Reality

Telepathic Robots
As far as I know, Asimov never really tried to explain why a few "spontaneously-arising" telepathic positronic brains could telepathically communicate with humans. He vaguely suggested that Daneel could detect the electric fields from human brains and thus "read their minds".

In the Exode Saga, there is both "natural telepathy" and technology-assisted telepathy. For A Search Beyond, the Asimov Reality Simulator must be searched for clues to the origins of human telepathy, but among those who are carrying out the search, there is confusion about the mechanism of telepathy. In Deep Time, much effort had gone into evolving humans with twitino-mediated telepathy, then a shift was needed, turning towards use of the Bimanoid Interface for technology-assisted technology.

in the Buld Reality
original cover art by Kinuko Craft

Oxypathin
The Asterothropes were a human variant that was artificially evolved by R. Gohrlay so as to have twitino-mediated telepathy. Asterothrope females were designed to give birth to large numbers of children, speeding the spread of Asterothropes through the galaxy. Asterothropes had a variant of the hormone oxytocin that was called oxypathin. Oxypathin activated the Asterothrope neurons that were involved in twitino-mediated telepathy. While breastfeeding, Asterothrope mothers trained their children in the use of telepathy. According to Zeta, some other human variants such as the tryp'At also have the oxypathin gene and a special transport system for making sure that large amounts of oxypathin can 1) cross the blood-brain barrier, 2) get into breast milk and 3) be absorbed by the GI tract of children.

The tryp'At Guide to Oxypathin

After Zeta told me about oxypathin, I discovered that Nora's infites contain additional information about the genes that allowed Aterothropes to have telepathic abilities. Additional special Asterothrope genes included a receptor with high affinity for oxypathin.

source

That receptor was only expressed in the brain. There were also several genes for components of a signal transduction system that linked those receptors to the intracellular organelles involved in twitino-mediated telepathy (telastids).

"Mind Clone Epidemic" by Izhiun

The remaining question is if that oxypathin system was later adapted to provide the tryp'At with access to the Bimanoid Interface. If so, then Earthlings such as Rylla may be able to make use of chemicals like oxypathin to enhance the functioning of the Mind Clone telepathic network.

Zeta suspects that there are cholinergic neurons that function as the receptor cells in the brain capable of responding to oxypathin and subsequently activating the femtobots of the Bimanoid Interface. Those cholinergic neurons are what allow nicotine to play a special role in boosting human telepathic abilities.
More telepathic aliens: The Deep
Related Reading: Solaris
Next: investigating the origins of Rylla

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Alternate Asimov

As mentioned in my previous blog post, stories from the Golden Age of science fiction were sometimes re-published in magazines such as Fantastic Stories. In the case of Asimov's The Stars, Like Dust, a story which he created just after the end of the Golden Age, the first publication was in Galaxy magazine (under the name Tyrann) and then it also appeared in book format that same year.

1951

In the 1950s, pulp magazine science fiction was in decline and authors such as Asimov were experimenting with a newly developing system of science fiction book publishing.

My introduction to The Stars, Like Dust came in the 1970s when I had discovered printed science fiction by way of Asimov's novels. One day I came across a paperback copy of the book with cover art by Paul Lehr.

cover art by Paul Lehr

The Stars, Like Dust may have been one of the first science fiction books that I bought. I was in my own personal Golden Age of discovering the science fiction genre and The Stars, Like Dust helped teach me that I despise political science fiction. At the end of World War II, it was probably difficult for someone like Asimov to watch Eastern European nations be sucked into the Soviet Union and I'm not surprised that he would write some science fiction stories about the importance of freedom.

I still have in my possession some other novels by Asimov that I bought in the 1970s (such as his original Foundation Trilogy), but I long ago disposed of my copy of The Stars, Like Dust. It was not until the arrival of the Internet Era that I had any inkling of the many different published versions of The Stars, Like Dust that came out since 1951 (see this list).

Alternate Asimov

Alternate Asimov

I've long been amused that Asimov collected some alternate versions of several stories, including The End of Eternity. As a fan of Asimov's science fiction, I can't resist imagining alternate Realities in which he (or his analogue) wrote somewhat different stories. In general, those stories that I imagine get little further than an imaginary book or magazine cover. However, I suppose the ultimate sacrilege will come on the day when I try to write a newly imagined story in the style that I imagine Asimov himself would have employed had he actually written the story himself.

The Alternate Asimovs translated
by Gaetano Staffilano as "Fantasimov"

I love the recursive book cover by Vicente Segrelles that is shown to the right on this page. Imagine some future robot who is a fan of Asimov's fiction!

Blind Alley
For me, a tempting place to "re-write" Asimov is presented by his story "Blind Alley". During the war, while serving in the military, Asimov may have at times felt like he was expected to be an automaton with his life guided by the Three Laws of Bureaucracy. Of course, both Asimov and Supervisor Antyok were smart enough to find ways to escape from the confines of bureaucratic momentum.

Ángel Roffo

In "Blind Alley", Antyok finds himself assigned to supervise the only aliens ever found in our galaxy. Upon arrival on planet Cepheus 18, he meets Zammo, a smoking physiologist. By 1938, statistical analysis had shown that tobacco smokers, on average, had shorter life spans than non-smokers. By the early 1940s, tobacco tar had been shown to be carcinogenic. By 1946, physiologists could measure the deleterious effects of smoking on the cardiovascular system. By 1950, multiple studies were showing statistical correlations between tobacco smoking and cancers of the respiratory tract.

The Nicotine Laser

I like to imagine that the nicotine or other substances in tobacco were able to modulate the interface between human brains and their zeptite endosymbionts, with profound effects on human behavior.

By including characters who were smokers in his stories, was Asimov mocking Astounding editor John Campbell?

Telepathy
I've been blogging recently about the history of how telepathy came to play a central role in both Asimov's robot stories and his Foundation saga. Asimov set "Blind Alley" in his imagined future of a Galactic Empire that came to have Trantor as its capitol planet. In "Blind Alley", the aliens who Antyok must supervise on Cepheus 18 have some mysterious type of telepathic communication.

mechanism of telepathy

Zammo wants to study these aliens and reveal the secret of telepathy. Zammo asks: "What is the mechanism of telepathy? What is the physiology and the physics of it?" What marvelous questions for a science fiction story! And of course, Campbell was a sucker for stories about telepathy.

Zammo is unhappy with the fact that in order to experiment on the aliens, he must follow existing policy and get their consent. Only a few of the mysterious aliens have ever given consent. Antyok suggests a possible path forward. Since it is a matter of concern to the Emperor is that the aliens have stopped reproducing, if Zammo can find out why the aliens won't breed, then it might become possible to get a change in policy and imperial support for Zammo's desired program of more extensive experimentation on the aliens.

the Emperor

No changes in policy are envisaged
Of course, the default route for the bureaucracy of the Galactic Empire is to never change existing policy. Antyok does not even try to deflect the bureaucracy from its ponderous course.

Asimov's preferred writing style was to present to his readers two philosophically opposed groups. In opposition to the scientists like Zammo, Asimov placed supporters of the Aurelion Philosophy who advocated allowing the aliens complete freedom and gently fostering a relationship of cooperation between humans and the aliens. In contrast, Zammo wanted to be free to treat the aliens like animals, even dissecting them in order to study their telepathic ability.

"A capable man can work within the limits of the rules and accomplish what he wishes" -Antyok

Foundation and Aliens

Working quietly within the confines of existing policy, Antyok arranges to set the aliens free, sending them off to another galaxy where they will be able to establish their own interstellar empire.

The Foundation Reality
I like to think that it was not by chance that the telepathic aliens we meet in "Blind Alley" were the only non-human intelligent species discovered in our galaxy by the people of the "all human" Galactic Empire.

Not only did Antyok give the gift of freedom to the aliens, but these aliens were put in contact with him for a very good reason. At this time, Daneel was trying to develop the planet Gaia and his goal was to integrate humans into the group mind of Gaia.

cover art by Stephen Youll

Even while Daneel was guiding Humanity towards Gaia and Galaxia, behind the scenes, R. Gohrlay was guiding Daneel. R. Gohrlay's positronic robots had driven out of the galaxy all aliens who had not already been strategically withdrawn by the pek. R. Gohrlay was able to reach a deal with the telepathic aliens of Cepheus 18: a trade of transport to the Magellanic Clouds for help in boosting the telepathic ability of some humans. In "Blind Alley", Asimov hinted that Antyok had some ability to make telepathic contact with the aliens. We can imagine that after the end of "Blind Alley", Daneel took Antyok off to Gaia where his alien-augmented telepathic abilities were put to good use.

in the Ekcolir Reality; original cover art
by Stephen Youll and Virgil Finlay

I love the cover art that Stephen Youll created for some of Asimov's novels.

Ekcolir Reality
In the Ekcolir Reality, Asimov was deeply involved with preparing humans for the arrival of the alien Fru'wu on Earth. In that Reality, he wrote a story called "The Aurelion Philosophy" that tried to explain the Rules of Intervention. That story provided an account of how replicoids in the Hierion Domain could communicate with humans via the Bimanoid Interface.

In the Ekcolir Reality, one of the major challenges facing Earth in the 20th century was global warming. In that Reality, science, technology and use of fossil fuels was accelerated in comparison to our world, here in the Final Reality.

in the Ekcolir Reality; original cover art
by Anna Montecroci, Boris Vallejo and Edmund Emshwiller

In the Ekcolir Reality, Asimov published To Cool The Sun, which told of using hierions to reduce the rate of fusion within the Sun. That novel was published simultaneously with Alien Empire by Roben Dee. Alien Empire described the role that Grendels had played in shaping the human species on Earth.

According to Gohrlay, "Roben Dee" was an alias for Roben Skapp.

Next: 1953 in science fiction

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Land of the Setting Sun

The Phasi Intervention

At the end of the last ice age, Trysta began the process of shaping Western civilization into the form that was required for the Final Reality. The location of her Phasi Intervention became ground zero for a westward migration of a tribe of humans who spread special gene combinations that had previously been deposited on Earth by Ekcolir.

In the Ekcolir Reality
The course of European history was significantly different in the Ekcolir Reality. Ultimately, in that Reality the analogue of what we know as the Etruscan people came to culturally dominate most of Western Europe in the same way that Greek/Roman culture influenced Europe here in the Final Reality.

In the Ekcolir Reality, Eastern Europe came to be dominated by a second cultural group known in that Reality as the Mosivites.

A whimsical version of an early world map of the Ekcolir Reality; mixing in place names from the Final Reality.

Gohrlay

I've previously described some features of the New World as it developed in the Ekcolir Reality. In that reality, the first flowering of science within the Etruscan culture led to a sophisticated understanding of geology and an appreciation for glaciation and evolution. Gohrlay has been expanding my appreciation for how European culture developed along unique lines in the Ekcolir Reality.

When Etruscan and Mosivite cultural influences arrived in Northern Europe, a strong division arose between the indigenous people who retained their rural life style and an almost exclusive urban setting for the encroaching Etruscan and Mosivite cultural influences. One of the segments of the boundary that developed between East and West was in what we know as the region of Belarus where the Dnieper–Bug canal was constructed.

Caterina Vonnegut

In the Ekcolir Reality

In the Ekcolir Reality, Etruscan influences dominated civilization to the west of Brisk while the lands to the East were strongly influenced by the Mosivite culture. According to Gohrlay, the analogue of Kurt Vonnegut in the Ekcolir Reality was a woman named Caterina Vonnegut. Caterina was trained as a biochemist who, like Isaac Asimov in the Final Reality, became well known for writing science fiction. Caterina's aunt, Emmily was a famous fiction writer in Europe where Vonnegut's family was influential in the nicotine industry.

According to Gohrlay, the Vonnegut family purchased tobacco that was raised in Eastern Europe. Using what was for two centuries a well-kept secret process, processing plants in several cities of Northwest Europe would extract the nicotine which was then used as a food additive until that practice was was finally terminated in the early 20th century. In the Ekcolir Reality, after restrictions were placed on the consumption of nicotine, Caterina's branch of the Vonnegut family moved to New England.

Baltic Sea - Black Sea route

Asimov's family arrived at about the same time in New York. I'll continue to use the name "Asimov" here, although Gohrlay insists that the analogue of Asimov's family in the Ekcolir Reality used a different last name. Their family name apparently reflected their employment as owners of an important shipping depot on the Dnieper-Bug canal. However, one of Asimov's uncles established an important publishing business in Kiev which happened to publish translated editions of Emmily Vonnegut's important novels.

in the Ekcolir Reality
original cover art by Edmund Emshwiller

Since some of my own ancestors came from that part of Europe, I asked Gohrlay about my family's analogue in the Ekcolir Reality. Apparently I had a partial analogue in that Reality, although I still don't entirely understand what a 'partial analogue' is. According to Gohrlay, a branch of my family included several members who worked in the shipping industry along the Baltic Sea-to-Black Sea transportation route.

Time Travel
According to Gohrlay, Caterina and Asimov's analogue in the Ekcolir Reality collaborated on a series of stories about the Time Travel War (known collectively as the Peace Reality saga). Ivory and her sisters previously made me aware of how time travel was used to alter the course of the Civil War. Apparently the major struggles in Europe were also primarily economic, with much less actual warfare taking place in the Ekcolir Reality than in other Realities of our Reality Chain.

source

Besides a large number of shorter stories set in the Peace Reality and written by either Caterina or Asimov, there were three major novels. The first of these books, called Playtime, was written by Caterina in 1952 (as the years are counted in our Reality). With Caterina's permission, Asimov followed up with his novel Hidden Centuries, published in 1955, and expanding on many events mentioned in passing in Playtime. Then they collaborated to write Tar'tron, the final book of the Peace Reality Trilogy.

Tar'tron in fiction

The theme of the Peace Reality Trilogy was concerned with free will and the question of if it was possible to create a Reality in which warfare was completely eliminated from a civilization. After much travail, the conclusion was reached that our world (the Ekcolir Reality) was the best of all possible universes because warfare mostly existed in the form of the Time Travel War, which functioned as an optimization process for perfecting human existence on Earth.

One last item that came up in a recent discussion: according to Gohrlay, Trysta died near Blaubeuren, having traveled from the Land of the Setting Sun, near Phasi to the head waters of the Danube.

Next: the link between tobacco and femtobot endosymbionts

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The Femtobot Hack

How to change the world: introduce no-till tobacco farming

One year ago, I took stock of progress on my investigation into the secret history of Earth. This blog post is the first in a series of updates on important discoveries arising from continued investigations during the past year.

Gohrlay confirmed that exposure of human populations to nicotine has long been used by Interventionists to modulate the rate of technological advance. In the Ekcolir Reality, Cornelisza Mey learned no-till tobacco farming and leaf curing from the residents of an Andaste village located on the east bank of what we know as the Potomac river.

In the Ekcolir Reality, five economic zones
were merged (1686) to form Beverwijck en Nicotiana.

Sustainable tobacco farming on hilly terrain allowed for significantly greater production of tobacco and lower prices, resulting in greater use of nicotine in the Ekcolir Reality. Cornelisza Mey (daughter of Cornelius Mey) became one of the legendary founders of Beverwijck en Nicotiana.

Cholinergic Connection
According to Gohrlay, the Bimanoid Interface is the physical interface between a person's brain cells and that person's zeptite endosymbiont.

The pek zeptites inside our brains normally function to prevent humans from using tools. However, Sedronite Interventionists long ago provided we humans with a femtobot endosymbiont that was designed to allow a technologically advanced civilization to arise on Earth.

The physical connection between our brain cells and our femtobot endosymbiont includes a very important population of cholinergic neurons. Nicotine can modulate the activity of those neurons and alter the "balance of power" between the zeptite and femtobot components in our brains.

original cover art by Lawrence Stevens

That "balance of power" was originally skewed when positronic robots took control over Earth. Without continual monitoring by the pek, the femtobots inside the humans on Earth (Gohrlay explicitly describes those femtobots as being a well-crafted hack: the best that the Interventionists had ever devised and deployed on Garden Worlds) eventually subverted the zeptite endosymbionts, allowing a technological society to develop on Earth.

tryp'At Overseers

Later, R. Gohrlay devised a means (inertial amplifier) to impose a powerful momentum of Time on Earth and particularly, on the human population. This forced the Huaoshy to accept the rise of tool-using humans on Earth, a deviation from their Ethical Rules that they deemed acceptable because of the Sedron Monopoly they attained by ending the Time War.

Next: political science fiction

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Science Fiction Revolution

Science Wonder Stories, October 1929
Cover art by Frank Rudolph Paul

I recently learned of the important role played by Raymond Cummings in the creation of the science fiction literary genre. Cummings was born in 1887 and was a contemporary of illustrator Frank Paul (born 1884). Here, I relate an interesting tale about Paul from out of Deep Time.

Isaac Asimov liked to tell the story of how he first began to read science fiction. He told his parents that magazines like Science Wonder Stories were about science and so he was allowed to read them because they must be educational. Didn't little Isaac's parents ever looked at those pulp science fiction magazine covers? Hmm, maybe the parents of science fiction writers are aliens, trying to to take over the Earth through science fiction. Actually, that's the plot of a story I wrote about how Aliens "invented and created Carl Sagan".

The Electrical Experimenter

In the Buld Reality, the universe as we know it, Frank Paul was first hired by Hugo Gernsback as an illustrator for a magazine that catered to radio enthusiasts. Starting in about 1926, Paul became an influential illustrator of science fiction magazines.

Ralph 124C 41+

Paul did the cover art for the 1925 publication of Gernsback's novel, Ralph 124C 41+, a story which was was first published in magazine format in 1911. This gadget story by Gernsback included futuristic gizmos like videophones.

Amazing Stories, August 1926

In the Buld Reality, Amazing Stories was the first pulp fiction magazine designed as an outlet for science fiction. The cover illustration to the left illustrates a story about keeping a human brain alive (The Talking Brain). Sadly, in those low bandwidth days, the poor Brain had to communicate by Morse code.

However, the pace of technological advance was quicker in the Ekcolir Reality and Gernsback launched his Science TV network in 1912. Three years later the first science fiction television program (Imagination Science) was begun by Gernsback.

Ekcolir Reality

In the Ekcolir Reality: nicotine.

As a literary genre, science fiction has always struggled to achieve the correct balance between scientific plausibility and entertaining story telling. In the Ekcolir Reality, the science fiction genre remained gravitationally locked to science and even in television and film the science fiction stories of that Reality were almost all "hard" science fiction. Asimov published many stories that passed as science fiction while containing vast amounts of factual information about the secret history of Humanity.

In the Ekcolir Reality: endosymbionts.

In the Ekcolir Reality, authors like Isaac Asimov, who had professional training in science and engineering, dominated the science fiction world. However, Editors like Gernsback still found a way to bring into the genre "outsiders". As part of what became known as the "science fiction revolution", Gernsback arranged for collaborations between authors like Asimov and Farmer. Frank Paul illustrated most of the two dozen novels that were published by the team of Asimov and Farmer in the Ekcolir Reality. Next: more television programs from Deep Time.

Related Reading in the Buld Reality:
The Biological Revolt by Philip Jose Farmer
the Amazing Stories Archive (download issues)

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