tryp'At Brain

technology-assisted telepathy

I've been investigating the tryp'At and the idea that I am tryp'At. I believe that a few tryp'At had been strategically positioned on Earth (and nearby in the Solar System) so that they could act as "receptacles" for the alien minds that need to guide Humanity into the future. Until a recent conversation with Zeta, I had been obsessed with my own struggle against Irhit and how the course of my entire life had been shaped by the fact that the Bimanoid Interface allows for particularly efficient control of tryp'At brains by replicoids.

Quantum Brain

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The infites that I recently received from Yōd (just before she went into the AR Simulator) suggest a link between the special features of the tryp'At brain (allowing efficient use of the Bimanoid Interface) and the fact that the tryp'At have a powerful ability to perform genetic modifications of chromosomes. The tryp'At are not unique in sharing these two phenotypic features; the Kac'hin and the Ek'col are two other human variants that were apparently also recently created and used to make possible the Final Reality.

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In my previous blog post, I began to explore the startling concept that the femtobot and zeptite endosymbionts residing within us are not merely adapters for linking our biological brains to the Bimanoid Interface. It may be more useful to think of femtobots and zeptites as constituting special forms of matter that make possible quantum computations. I have long been comfortable with imagining how hierions and sedrons might allow for the quantum computations that are required for teleportation and faster-than-light travel (and that were previously needed for time travel), but Yōd seemed to believe that telepathy and nanite-mediated genetic engineering also involve sophisticated quantum computations.

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Imagine that when two human brains become linked by the Bimanoid Interface, a flood of information begins to flow between the two brains, but there is a daunting computational problem. The available information needs to be "decoded" in order for telepathy to be possible. Yōd believed that the quantum computations for that decoding process take place in either the Hierion Domain or the Sedronic Domain, outside of the human body.

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Our femtobot and zeptite endosymbionts might be more than simply adapters that link us to the Hierion Domain or the Sedron Domain; they might include nanoscopic sensors and manipulators that support the quantum computations needed to impose Temporal Momentum on humans. Most humans might have endosymbionts that only allow the creation of human offspring. The Ek'col, Kac'hin and tryp'At might all have been endowed with more sophisticated endosymbionts that can allow for the production of cross-species offspring. For example, two Kac'hin parents might even be able to produce a perfectly normal human child.

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Alien-Assisted Evolution
I now see that both Zeta and Yōd grew up understanding that long before R. Gohrlay made a special effort to engineer humans who could use the Bimanoid Interface for technology-assisted telepathy, the Interface was used to provide Temporal Momentum. Evolving sequences of nucleic acids exist within a vast state space that cannot be efficiently explored within a reasonable amount of time by random mutations and natural selection. When the Phari first arrived on Earth, they immediately inserted femtobot endosymbionts into Earthly life forms and began using the quantum computational power of the Bimanoid Interface to guide the evolution of life on Earth. Later, after the arrival of the pek, their zeptite endosymbionts were added into Earth's biosphere.

Reality Chain

With the discovery of time travel technology, R. Gohrlay began using human endosymbionts and the Bimanoid Interface in a new way, to ensure that genetically similar individuals could be born into successive Realities of Earth's Reality Chain. This required both 1) detailed records of all human genomes and 2) "on the fly" genetic engineering of new zygotes. It now seems obvious that there must be a third component of Temporal Momentum: behavioral control exercised by way of the Bimanoid Interface. Each person's behavioral patterns from the previous Reality must be able to constrain the behavior of analogues in the new Reality. Constrain, not dictate. R. Gohrlay needed a system that would allow desired changes to occur in new Realities while allowing a huge amount of temporal momentum.

I've long suspected that the presence of a tryp'At brain on Earth must be viewed as constituting a violation of the Trysta-Grean Pact. However, it may be that one such brain, my own, by itself, can be allowed on Earth. Yes, I now have some ability to monitor Zeta's thoughts, but her capacity to use the Bimanoid Interface is highly constrained, so she and I do not suffer from the positive feedback effect that characterizes the current version of the Bimanoid Interface for Earth.

Pact

That positive feedback effect of Bimanoid Interface 2.0 has apparently driven away from Earth all the other tryp'At and even Yōd. I have wondered about my own children and my granddaughter Rylla, but it seems that I only have a small capacity for telepathic contact with Rylla. I conclude that Rylla is not tryp'At although she does seem to have some capacity to use the Bimanoid Interface in ways that go beyond what is normal for most Earthlings. As described in my previous blog post, I believe that Rylla is equipped to play a special role in the future as a communications conduit that will allow her to receive information sent to her by Yōd from within the AR Simulator of Eternity. In that future time, I will be gone from Earth and Earthlings will be free to begin learning about the Secret History of Humanity under conditions where there will be no physical evidence on hand for alien visitors to Earth.

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At this moment, Zeta and I may ourselves constitute physical evidence of alien contact with Earthlings. Could a genetic analysis of our chromosomes or detailed examination of our brains reveal obvious non-human features? Neither Zeta or I wish to find out.

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A remaining question is the extent to which the Bimanoid Interface is still guiding the course of human history and human evolution. Zeta believes that under the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact, Earthlings are now free to create their own future, without any guidance being exerted upon us from either the Hierion Domain of the Sedron Domain. Zeta suggests that since the gene-editing capabilities of my tryp'At body were not used to create any tryp'At offspring, the era of guided human evolution on Earth has come to an end. I'm skeptical that the entire replicoid system has been removed from Earth, but how can we really know?

Next: Foundation and Earth

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T Time

the positronic robot, Nyrtia

I've been searching through the infites that I recently obtained from Yōd. I was intrigued when I came across the name of a positronic robot who I had not previously known about: Nyrtia. Apparently the positronic brain of Nyrtia was created from the Gohrlay mind pattern shortly after the destruction of R. Gohrlay in the First Reality. In a very real sense, Nyrtia was a replacement robot for R. Gohrlay. Before being destroyed, R. Gohrlay recognized that positronic brains held the key to time travel, but eventually, after a long and arduous research effort, it was Nyrtia who became the first time traveler.

"Science fiction always bases its future visions on changes in the levels of science and technology. And the reason for that consistency is simply that—in reality—all other changes throughout history have been irrelevant and trivial. " -Isaac Asimov

Gohrlay's Brain

T? Teleportation, Telepathy and Time Travel. How (and why) have these fictional technologies become part of the fabric of science fiction story telling? For the Exode Saga, I imagine that the science fiction literary genre was created by space aliens in order to reveal to ignorant humans the truth about how the human species was created. So, the sequence of events is 1) ancient aliens developed advanced technologies that made possible teleportation, technology-assisted telepathy and time travel. 2) the ancient aliens with those advanced technologies guided the evolution of the human species (for example, shaping the human brain so that it could make use of technology-assisted telepathy). 3) Science fiction stories about teleportation, technology-assisted telepathy and time travel have been deliberately used to introduced humans to the truth about our origins as a species.

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The Asimov Reality

Time Travel
In his time travel novel, The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov introduced the idea of there being a period of time during which humans could engage in time travel, then, at the end of the story, the time travel technology is taken away. That was an interesting twist on time travel that allows a story teller to put an end to otherwise endlessly dismal time travel wars. In the Exode Saga, R. Gohrlay was the first to fully utilize time travel technology and develop special technology for Viewing the future. Later, the Huaoshy developed a more advanced type of Reality Viewing technology that allowed Reality Chains to be Viewed.

"Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself." -Ray Bradbury

Dr. Asimov

Eternity Is A Place
In the The End of Eternity, Asimov left many of the technical details of time travel unexplained. Through millions of years, humans used time travel to shape human culture on Earth, but none of the time travelers shown in The End of Eternity really understood how time travel worked. In the middle of the story, August Sennor asks, "Why does Reality possess inertia?" He also asks how it is possible that Harlan can know exactly how to alter the flow of time so as to create a new Reality. The Eternals were not allowed to know anything about telepathy or the Bimanoid Interface. Those were secrets held by R. Gohrlay.

dangerous technology

Matter duplication is one of the advanced technologies that the Eternals were careful to edit out of the flow of Time. Matter duplication is a natural consequence of teleportation, so for as long as Eternity existed, the people of Earth were not allowed to have teleportation technology.

And of course, the Eternals make sure that humans (through all Time) are not allowed to have atomic power. Simply too dangerous.

in the Ekcolir Reality

It is instructive to compare Isaac Asimov's time travel novel to the work of his contemporaries such as Poul Anderson. Anderson was also concerned with nuclear technology. Anderson's 1952 novel Vault of the Ages is a story about events 500 years after a nuclear war has destroyed civilization. Anderson earned a physics degree, so maybe his time travel story can be more sophisticated than The End of Eternity, written by Asimov, a mere biochemist?

One way time travel 
I previously blogged about a story called "Call Me Joe" by Poul Anderson. If you have seen the movie Avatar then you will be comfortable with the plot of "Call Me Joe" where the mind of a human must be linked (by magical "psibeam" technology) into the body of an alien creature on another world. Anderson published a time travel story called "Flight to Forever" in Super Science Stories Nov. 1950 (PDF download here).

Hierion Tubes

In "Flight to Forever", our hero, Martin, must confront the "perversity of vacuum tubes" while trying to develop time travel technology. While heading off on his way to work one day, Martin assures his sweetie, Eve, that he'll be right back: after all, he's only making a short trip of 100 years into the future in order to check on an automated time probe that never returned from the future. Of course, the problem is bigger than a faulty vacuum tube. Martin discovers that due to unavoidable facts of physics, you can only travel a few years into your past. Having gone 100 years into his future, he finds that he can never go back through time to return to his beloved Eve. Ultimately, Martin discovers that if you travel into the (very) far future then you go past the end of the universe. However, all is not lost! Everything resets and you magically find yourself at the start of the universe. So, after traversing all of the future and all of the past, Martin successfully returns home to Eve. Whew!

in the Ekcolir Reality

In general, I enjoy imaginary technologies that have constraints. In "Flight to Forever", Martin's time machine is like a battery-powered aircraft. Anderson "explains" that that it takes an infinite amount of energy to travel more than just a few years into the past. In contrast, Martin never runs out of energy during his infinite "flight" into the future.

Through most of the story, Martin stops off at various future times and everyone he meets knows about time travel technology, and everyone believes that there is no way to travel into the far past. Eventually, Martin becomes the first time traveler to discover that you can reach any point in your past "simply" by first going ahead to the far future, past the end of time. Having made this amazing discovery, will the universe suddenly change: won't everyone through all time now have time travelers showing up from their future? Anderson never tells us the answer to that question. Having reached the page limit for Super Science Stories, the story abruptly ends.

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Teleportation
For the Exode Saga, I imagine two very ancient types of space alien. The Huaoshy (masters of sedronic physics) long ago developed a type of teleportation that has limitations: long-range teleportation of hadronic beings near large amounts of hadronic matter (such as stars) cannot be precisely controlled. Huaoshy teleportation was developed to allow for very long-range transfer of sedronic matter through intergalactic space. In contrast, the Phari (masters of hierion physics) found another method of teleportation that allows for teleportation of people between a planet like Earth and a world such as Tar'tron in the Galactic Core. The Phari method of teleportation even allowed them to move whole planets around the galaxy!

Telepathy

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For the Exode Saga, there is both "natural telepathy" and technology-assisted telepathy. I've previously blogged about the origins of my interest in telepathy. R. Gohrlay discovered that a positronic brain makes twitino-mediated "natural telepathy" practical. However, when the Huoashy changed the Dimesnional Structure of the universe so as to put an end to time travel, that change to the physical laws of the universe also put an end to "natural telepathy". However, technology-assisted telepathy using femtobot and zeptite endosymbionts remain as options for we humans.

Bimanoid Interface

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For the Exode Saga, I imagine that when R. Gohrlay needed a way to turn the human population of the galaxy into a telepathically-linked defense network (Galaxia), she made use of a Phari technology called the Bimanoid Interface. At first, her goal was not to provide humans with a form of technology that would allow for shared language-like communication. Even before R. Gohrlay became aware of the Phari, the Bimanoid Interface had long been used to make possible a Momentum of Time, a way to make Reality Engineering practical.

Later, at the end of the Foundation Reality, R. Gohrlay realized that in order to bring an acceptable Final Reality into existence (acceptable in terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact) she would need to endow a select group of humans with a more sophisticated form of technology-assisted telepathy. During the Trysta Truce of the Asimov Reality, human variants were selected that could use a Phari-derived femtobot endosymbiont to transmit language-like signals via the Bimanoid Interface.

An Ek'col male and an
Asterothrope female

The Asterothropes had a form of "natural" twitino-mediated telepathy, but after the Huaoshy altered the laws of physics to make further time travel impossible, twitino-mediated telepathy no longer worked.

In order to make possible the success of the Trysta-Grean Pact, R. Gohrlay was given access to a Gohrlay clone that could carry out femtobot-mediated telepathy. At the same time, the pek created the tyrp'At in order to monitor and constrain the telepathic Gohrlay clones.

Through all of Time, R. Nyrtia, the positronic robot who became the first time traveler, was kept secret by R. Gohrlay. One of the important tasks accomplished by Nyrtia was that she went far back in time to make certain that one of the Phari Bimanoid Interface modules that existed in a Phari cavern inside Earth got copied, thus ensuring that a momentum of time could apply to all Realities.

memory editing by nanites

The game that I'm playing with the Exode Saga is that I must always explain the sources of information that are used to piece together the hidden history of Earth. There is no omnipotent narrator for the story. So far, all of the sources of information have funneled down to the Editor. However, what if the "true" Editor has not yet been found? I'm currently exploring this possibility while writing about a newly discovered character named Rylla and her friend, Georgy White. Rylla and Georgy stumble upon physical evidence for the presence of alien visitors to Earth some 2 billion years ago. Rylla has a "third type" of technology-assisted telepathy that was created specifically for use by humans living under the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact. After their discovery of physical evidence for aliens, Georgy is given a choice: have her memories of the evidence for ancient aliens erased or be teleported to Observer Base. Rylla is able to remain on Earth and take over the duties of the Editor.
Related Reading: Poul Anderson shows his nerdy physics side in the 1953 story "Security".
Next: Georgy White vs Maria Green

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Picohieronics

In the Ekcolir Reality
Original cover art by John Richards

I'm endlessly curious about the forms of technology that were provided to Earthlings in past Realities. When sedron-based space travel technology was provided to humans during the Asimov Reality, that allowed Earthlings to spread among the stars, but there was very little progress made towards developing other types of technology.

Zeta suspects that human cognitive processes were carefully restricted during the Asimov Reality to such an extent that technological innovations of all types became quite rare. Many observers have blamed the Institute for suppressing new technologies. We should be open to the possibility that technological stagnation was imposed upon humans by the Huaoshy.

Special thanks to Miranda Hedman (www.mirish.deviantart.com) for the DeviantArt stock photograph "Black Cat 9 - stock" that I used to create the blue "sedronite" who is in the image to the right.

Temporal Momentum

In chapter 6 of A Search Beyond, the Asimov replicoid receives a demonstration of how it is possible to use infites to insert new information into the mind of a replicoid. Asimov is not happy to learn how easy it is for others to manipulate his thought processes, but he agrees to make an attempt to help Yrovi gain access to stored information about the Asimov Reality that lies locked away inside Eternity.

I'm still concerned that chapter 6 is too talky, with too much jargon introduced too quickly. For example, Asimov is told about the basis of Temporal Momentum. I guess I will have to put Yōd to work making a glossary for A Search Beyond.

In chapter 7, readers are told about new information from the Asimov Reality that is leaked to the Editor. Behind the scenes, the Asimov replicoid has successfully bypassed the data interlocks that were preventing access to information about the Asimov Reality. Asimov is able to pass his newly obtained information to the Editor by way of the replicoids of Yōd and Zeta who reside in the Hierion Domain. For their part, not wanting to alert the Overseers to the fact that a new data channel has been constructed, Yōd and Zeta pretend that they have recovered a story that had previously been prepared for publication by the Dead Widowers.

The demise of the Earth Observation Program.

A Chapter Beyond
I'm thinking about inserting an additional chapter that was not included in Yōd's original outline of A Search Beyond. Chapter 7.5 could return readers to Observer Base and show Asimov and Mahasvin meeting a member of the Dead Widower Society who is being held prisoner by the Overseers.

In that proposed chapter 7.5, I'd like to have some more (telepathic) discussion between Nivsaham, Asimov and Mahasvin of the fact that the tryp'At Overseers seem to only have a very tentative control over the facilities at Observer Base. Also, there could be follow-up discussion of a little task that was completed by Nivsaham: experimental analysis of the "tracking nanites" that Asimov obtained from the Overseers.

Sachiz and Dockmon

Sachiz

Within chapter 7.5,  there should also be some rather hysterical reaction from Overseer Sachiz when the Editor is found to suddenly be in possession of new information about the Asimov Reality. It might be possible to frame this in terms of the bumbling attempts by Overseers to control the information about the Dead Widowers that exists on the internet.

Chapter 7.5 could also be some incidental discussion about Ivory, Yrovi and Irhit. The basic idea is that the tryp'At Overseers have been using Irhit to prevent the Editor from using the Bimanoid Interface. However, it might be possible for the Interventionists (particularly the technologically privileged Nivsaham) to further apply the Overseer's  "tracking nanites" in such a way that would allow the Interventionists to take action against Irhit in the Hierion Domain, returning to the Editor some control over the Bimanoid Interface.

Next: fictional forms of matter.

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Morphology of Temporal Attractors

Anney's Hypothesis

One of the great successes achieved by Anney was tracing the evolution of Realities all the way back to the Mallansohn Reality. Sadly, the investigations of past Realities that were carried out by the Atlantis Clones only skimmed the surface of Deep Time.

1, 2, 3
During that recent evolution of Realities, there was first a dramatic shift in the morphology of Realities from one dominant temporal basin of attraction to three. The Mallansohn Reality was dominated by one large temporal basin of attraction, but it had a distinctive spike, rather like a unicorn horn. The Mallansohn Reality had been specifically crafted as a transitional Reality that would allow for the quick and efficient creation of the Foundation Reality. According to Gohrlay, that spike is a morphological representation of the Asterothropes, the artificially constructed primate species that was designed and crafted by R. Gohrlay.

The resent evolution of Reality

In the Foundation Reality there were two great temporal basins of attraction, one representing futures in which the telepathic Second Foundationers came to secretly control the galaxy. The second temporal basin of attraction led to a set of other possible futures where Galaxia formed and absorbed Humanity into a single telepathically-linked group mind.

Five Realities
As told by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation's Edge, and confirmed by Anney, it was Galaxia that came to dominate our galaxy just before the start of the Time Travel War.

Reality Viewing

Near the start of the Time War, the Asimov analogue from the Foundation Reality became a time traveler and helped the Kac'hin bring into existence the Asimov Reality. The Asimov Reality contained "two copies" of Asimov, one from the Foundation Reality and the other an Asimov analogue who had been born in the Asimov Reality. The "older Asimov" mentored the "younger Asimov" and helped him become a famous science fiction author.

The First Reality

original dimensional structure

I recently asked Gohrlay about the morphological features of the First Reality. She reminded me that when our universe first came into existence, it had a symmetrical dimensional structure. There were three groups of spatial dimensions with three spatial dimensions in each group, for a total of 9 spatial dimensions.

a small part of the first temporal attractor

The first temporal attractor  had a complex structure that reflected those three sets of three dimensions. Each of the three sets of dimensions was associated with a different form of matter, the hadrons, the hierions and the sedrons. Due to differences in the behavior of these three classes of fundamental particles, the morphology of the first temporal attractor was complex and not perfectly symmetrical.

core region of the second attractor

After the Huaoshy carried out their first dimensional engineering project, a new temporal attractor came into existence that was built around a distinctive core that had a dyadic symmetry.

altered dimensional structure

The diadic symmetry of that new temporal attractor reflected the new dimensional structure of the universe (image to the right).

temporal attractor of the Basic State
with two "spikes"

However, time travel was not possible in either the ground state or the newly made transitional state. The Huaoshy performed an additional round of dimensional engineering, after which it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light.

That second dimensional engineering event also made time travel possible. The resulting "First Reality" was governed by a temporal attractor that had one dominant basin of attraction and two smaller "spikes". This was what Asimov referred to as "the Basic State" in his novel The End of Eternity.

dimensional structure
of the Basic State

Those two symmetrical spikes were eventually engineered by R. Gohrlay into the single "merged spike" of the Mallansohn Reality. According to Gohrlay, it was only such a merged spike that could focus enough temporal energy to bring into existence the Foundation Reality.

Foundation Reality

Gohrlay suggests that the nearly symmetrical two-basin strange temporal attractor of the Foundation Reality was inherently unstable. In some sense, it was an "invitation" to the Kac'hin to begin the Time War. As soon as the Kac'hin started using time travel technology to alter the historical timeline of Earth, they cause a three-basin temporal attractor to come into existence. Ever since then, the temporal attractor of the universe has retained that fundamental three-basin structure.

In the Ekcolir Reality

Those three temporal basins of attraction are in some mysterious way related to the three major forms of matter. Hadrons exist only in one of the three sets of 3 spatial directions. Hierions have more dimensional flexibility and can reside along with hadrons not only in the conventional universe, but also in another "part" of the universe defined by the set of 3 hierion dimensions.

Special thanks to Miranda Hedman (www.mirish.deviantart.com) for the DeviantArt stock photograph "Black Cat 9 - stock" that I used to create the blue "sedronite" who is in the image shown to the right.

Sendrons have the most flexibility and are present in all of the dimensional levels of the universe. Their command of sedron-based technologies such as zeptites is what allowed the Huaoshy to force R. Gohrlay into a negotiated end to the time war.

The recent part of our Reality Chain

According to Gohrlay, those three basins of temporal attraction act to force upon Earth three different possible types of future. As was the case in the Asimov Reality, some of the possible futures for Earth involved a nuclear catastrophe.

In the case of the Ekcolir Reality, the future of Earth was dominated by global warming and catastrophic sea level rise.

the Final Reality

The third basin of temporal attraction involves futures where Earth does not become radioactive and the Antarctic ice cap also stays intact. However, there are other potential catastrophes lurking in the future (see the extinction curve).

The Buld Realities
When I first learned about the existence of our Reality Chain, I made a simplifying assumption. I imagined that there were only four Reality Changes between the Mallansohn Reality and the Buld Reality. I now understand that there were many relatively minor variants of the Asimov, Ekcolir and Buld Realities. Due to temporal inertia, most Reality Changes do not alter he basic morphology of the temporal attractor that controls the shape of Time.

Next: celebrate 50 years of Star Trek

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The Edge of Eternity

The City on the Edge of Forever

With the recent death of Leonard Nimoy, who played the alien-human hybrid Spock in the original 1960s Star Trek television program (TOS), the impact of Gene Roddenberry on science fiction has been on my mind. The folks at io9 posted a list of 100 top Star Trek episodes and that got me making comparisons to a list of 10 episodes that I blogged about three years ago.

Here, I'm going to restrict my comments to the two TOS episodes that appear in positions high on the io9 list, at slots #1 and #3.....

1. Balance of Terror

Mark Lenard commits suicide and later
returns as....what?   ....Spock's father.

This episode was written by Paul Schneider. Another one of his Star Trek stories, The Squire of Gothos, made my list of 10 interesting TOS episodes. While both "The Squire of Gothos" and "Balance of Terror" have a military theme, only "The Squire of Gothos" strikes me as being an actual science fiction story with the kind of interesting aliens that we might expect to run into "out there" in the galaxy.

I've always disliked Balance of Terror. Schneider derailed the exploration mission of the Enterprise and forced us to suffer through a tedious submarine movie. The mission of the Enterprise was to explore strange new worlds, not fight World War II. I have to place blame on Schneider for leading Star Trek into a long dreary reliance on military themes to fill in its hectic roster of episodes.

Nice hat!

I can't imagine why "Balance of Terror" should be number 1 on a list of Star Trek episodes. Spellbinding? Apparently the "noble" Romulan commander had been blasting defenseless outposts into space dust. Now, maybe because he is showing respect for Kirk as a military strategist, we are supposed to be intrigued by this mass murderer who is, deep inside, a "good person"? The whole anti-Vulcan bigotry part of the story was over-acted and unconvincing and totally out of place for the Federation. However, after Schneider got away with introducing bigotry into the Star Trek universe, other writers took the liberty to keep rolling that theme out again and again and again.....

3. The City on the Edge of Forever

"He caught his head in a mechanical rice picker."

The best thing about "The City on the Edge of Forever" (#3 on the io9 list of Star Trek episodes) is that it was possible, with a huge amount of effort and innumerable re-writes, to craft Harlan Ellison's totally unacceptable story into a fairly reasonable Star Trek episode. I'm a huge fan of both time travel stories and plots that involve ancient aliens, but I was always bothered by the ending of this episode. After the Enterprise has discovered an amazing piece of ancient alien technology that can send people anywhen into the depths of time and to planets scattered far across space, Kirk just says, "Let's get the hell out of here". They simply walk away, abandoning the most amazing archeological site ever discovered. Right. (more on this episode in 2018)

The End of Eternity

Time Travel
My favorite time travel story is Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity. My current writing obsession, the Exode Trilogy, grew out of my desire to write a fan fiction sequel to The End of Eternity. I'm currently thinking that my science fantasy story Star Dance can become part of the first book in the trilogy, Trysta and Ekcolir. I like the idea of using Ghyl to introduce readers to the type of time travel that Asimov invented and the dynamics of Reality Changes.

In The City on the Edge of Forever, Dr. McCoy jumps into a time portal and is sent into a time in Earth's history when there are studio back-lots that look like pre-World War II New York City. In turn, Kirk and Spock must go in search of McCoy and prevent him from terminating Star Trek in its first season altering Earth's history. We know that history has been changed by McCoy because the Enterprise suddenly disappears, but somehow, Kirk and Spock remain on the planet's surface. They purposefully jump into the past, to a time just before McCoy has arrived on Earth in the primitive 20th century.

Spock makes a mnemonic
memory circuit using
stone knives and bearskins

SPOCK: First, I believe we have about a week before McCoy arrives, but we can't be certain.

KIRK: Arrives where? Honolulu, Boise, San Diego? Why not Outer Mongolia, for that matter?

SPOCK: There is a theory. When one crew member of the Enterprise travels through time and is lost, the rescue team will always magically arrive at the same point in space and time.

In Hollywood, we never want to think too critically or carefully about time travel.....thinking might get in the way of the story.

Time Portal

When Asimov wrote his time travel novel, he introduced the idea that Time has a certain amount of inertia. Yes, you can cause a Reality Change, but in most cases, the shape of Time will return to its original course several millennia after the time point where the change is made.

Another innovation that was used by Eternals was the portable temporal field generator. A time traveler who wore such a generator would not be altered by a Reality Change. Of course, in order to have time to "develop" the romance between William Shatner and Joan Collins, there was no available time to explain how Kirk and Spock avoided being erased along with the Enterprise. At the end of the episode, Kirk, Spock and McCoy magically return to the future.....well, in Hollywood, when your hour-long time slot is over, you just have to call, "Wrap!"

New York City

Carl Sagan

Apparently the original destination in Time for McCoy was 20th Century Chicago (Ellison lived in Chicago for a time). Following the script re-writes, in the televised Star Trek episode it seems like the Kirk-Edith love story takes place in New York (stock images of the Brooklyn Bridge and other such clues were included).

For my science fantasy adventure store, Star Dance, I needed to send Bet and Ghyl to New York City, where they must alter the timeline so as to bring into existence Carl Sagan.

While writing Star Dance, I have not bothered to change the name of the place that we know as New York City to "New Amsterdam". However, If I do merge Star Dance into the Exode Trilogy then I will have to make that change. In the Ekcolir Reality, the city of New York is in Virginia.

The Lenape

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In the Ekcolir Reality, the Lenape "ancient ones" formed an alliance with the Dutch settlers of Manhattan and kept the British from taking control of Manhattan until after the French War of the mid-1700s.

Among the "ancient ones", the Water Elf Siomha was the special guardian spirit for those Lenape who made annual pilgrimages to the sacred caves at the northern tip of Manhattan island. However, the elf Siomha was beholden to the Creator, Kacheh Munitto, the guardian of the future. Siomha, known to Ghyl and Bet as Obsidia, had one remaining task in Manhattan after the departure of Ghyl from Earth at the end of his Interventionist mission: taking a copy of Alexander Godunov to the Galactic Core from 1982 New York.

The City on the Edge of Eternity

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The Inwood house that Obsidia constructs for Bet and Ghyl is on the site of an ancient cave that Obsidia used as her base of operations during the time when European explorers first visited New York.

For Star Dance, I imagine that Obsidia rescued a large number of Lenape who were sickened by small pox. Obsidia sent them off to the Galactic Core where they could propagate their culture and share stories and legends with the man who would raise Bet (Alexander).

Beverwijck en Nicotiana

In the Ekcolir Reality, the British were much less successful in colonizing the New World than in the Buld Reality, the world as we know it. The nation of Beverwijck en Nicotiana (commonly called New England) did not become a British protectorate until 1754 and only gained independence in 1889, after the Civil War.

Fort Orange

Next: a fan fiction tribute to Gene Roddenberry's Assignment: Earth, my Exode story element called Assignment: Tar'Tron.....

2016: more Star Trek

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