Update on The Farpool and Nanotroopers

This post will update current progress on my science fiction novel The Farpool and on my serial story Nanotroopers.

I am now at page 220 in the first draft of the Farpool story.  One of the devices I’ve introduced is something called Angie’s Echopod Journal.  Allow me to explain.

Angie is Angie Gilliam, one of the principal human characters of the story.  Since she and her boyfriend Chase Meyer have engaged in an incredible adventure, traveling through a wormhole called the Farpool to an oceanic world called Seome, I thought it might be useful to have Angie do a sort of journal or diary.  The Seomish use devices called echopods, which both record, transmit and translate their rich sonic environment.  I use the echopods to give the humans a literary way to communicate with beings who are basically intelligent fish.  And this allows me to provide some encyclopedic information about Seome and the Seomish by way of Chase and Angie using their echopods…a form of information dump that, if used judiciously, can enhance the reader’s sense that this is another world with its own culture, politics, its own ways of doing things, etc…and these ways are radically different from ours.

The larger problem for any science fiction writer depicting an alien world or alien culture is how  you do this without making it so alien that nobody can understand it.  In reality, a true extraterrestrial intelligence is likely to be so different from us that communication might well be impossible.  This is just my opinion but in a universe as big as ours, I see no reason to think that aliens will be like people from Kansas, only with two heads and a tail.

One of my solutions is to use the device of these echopods to  have the humans, Chase and Angie, speak directly to the reader or to their human friends back on Earth (as in a diary) about what they are encountering and experiencing.  And what the reader experiences will necessarily be closely related to what Chase and Angie experience…they’re like tour guides on Seome.

Using these echopods, as a translator and a diary, has turned out to be neat literary device.  I can reveal feelings of both Chase and Angie, reveal some of their personal backgrounds, how they react to what they see and hear, reveal their hopes and fears and in many ways, help round them out as real people caught up in an unreal situation, albeit one of their own making.

This device is kind of like a Greek chorus commenting on the rest of the story action.  Of course, a little of this goes a long way.  I have found it expedient to insert one of Angie’s echopod journals about every 3 chapters and I’ve also found the device useful in facilitating translations between the humans and the Seomish.  I’ve even found this method a good way of introducing some rather humorous mistranslations. 

Here’s an excerpt from one of Angie’s echopod journal entries…

Angie’s Journal: Echopod 4

“Well, so here I go again, Gwen…I’m trying this echopod thing…I hope it’s working.  Sometimes, this pod thing goes haywire but I think I’ve got the hang of it.

“Oh, Gwen, you won’t believe what’s happened to me.  I came back.  No, really, I did.  I came back through that Farpool…man, that’s better than Space Mountain.  Definitely an E-ticket ride.  At least I made it.

“Only problem is I wound up in the wrong ocean…and I have no idea what time this is…

“Oh, yeah…one other minor detail…I still look like a frog on steroids.  I hope we don’t run into each other.  You’ll faint dead away…these scales are worse than any acne we ever had.  But it is me…Angela Haley Gilliam.

“Once I landed or splashed down or whatever you call it, I realized I didn’t know where the hell I was…I managed to hook up with some whales…that was cool, and then I ran into a whaling ship.  They shot me, Gwen…some kind of stun gun or something.  I was their prize catch, can you believe that?  Hauled me onboard and I wound up in some aquarium…that’s justice for you…just like Kloosee and Pakma…they’re our friends from Seome. 

“So here I am, in a big pool in an aquarium swimming around in circles….BORING.  I wish Chase was here.  He knows everything…he’d know what to do. I tried to tell ‘em I was a human being---just a real bad case of acne, but they shot me again…I guess that’s what humans do when they find something they don’t understand.

“Their stun guns make you sleep and make your head hurt for like two days.  I’m better now.  But not really.  I’m stuck here.  I have no idea how to get out or make them understand me.  Every time I try to talk, they shoot me.  It’s like they don’t want to know anymore…they’ve made up their minds I’m a monster and that’s that.

“Gwen, I don’t know if you’ll ever get these messages.  If there was a way I could drop this echopod off in the ocean, you know like in a bottle, maybe you’d get it.

“Hey, that gives me an idea…what if I ‘accidentally’ drop this pod thing on the side of the pool.  Maybe one of the staff here will see it and pick it up…maybe that’s how I can communicate with them.

“Hey, thanks Gwen…I’ll get started right away on putting together some kind of message…introduce myself and all.  Of course, who knows if they’ll believe me. I don’t believe me myself…when you think about where Chase and me have been, what all we’ve seen.

“By the way, I wonder how the boy genius is doing…probably setting up a T-shirt shop on Seome…that would  be just like him…once a beach bum, always a beach bum.

“I do miss him though.  Chase…I actually do love you.  I had to do this…wait, I’m talking to Gwen, not Chase.  Sorry about that. 

“Gwen, if you get this message, start googling all the aquariums.  One of them has a new star attraction.  It’s me.

“I’ll keep this journal going for as long as I can…until next time, girl, see if you can beat my last time in the 440…bet you can’t, you slug…my god, what thunder thighs you have…

“So, okay…this is Angie Gilliam, until next time…uh, over and out.”

So The Farpool is coming along.  I try to read over each 100 pages as I write them.  I have a feeling that when all is said and done, I’ll wind up paring down a good bit of the text to make a tighter story, but that’s for later.  That’s part of editing.  For now, get the first draft done.

Looks like it’ll be well into summer before that happens.

As far as Nanotroopers goes, I’ve just posted Episode 4 on Smashwords.com (and their ebook retail partners).  To date, some 750 downloads have been posted by Smashwords across all four episodes.  There’s even been one review…two stars out of five on Episode 1 (admittedly not that great but at least it’s feedback…someone’s reading).  I’ve been able to stay about three weeks ahead of my schedule, which is important as I am posting a new episode every three weeks.  And all the episodes are free and relatively short (about 40-50 pages) which hasn’t hurt downloads.

The serial form has its own challenges, which I’ve explored in previous posts to The Word Shed.  I’m writing a continuing story but each episode needs to stand alone as a story, with enough of a hook to keep you coming back.  It’s a wholly different way of writing and story-telling than writing a novel.  I think it’s good discipline for me, in that I’m sometimes a bit weak in plotting a tight story and this form enforces the need to do that. 

Maybe there’s a way of getting some editorial feedback in the future.  I’m working on that. 

The next post will come on April 4.  I’ll be covering some more background on the Farpool.

See you then.

Phil B.

ANAD, Humans and Angels

The following post offers some technical and cultural insights into the backstory of the para-human swarm (ANAD-type) entities that I call angels.  Angels appear in many stories that make up the Tales of the Quantum Corps and the Nanotroopers series.  But these angels don’t have a divine or heavenly origin….

1.     An angel  is a swarm configuration that resembles human beings to some degree

2.     Configuration drivers and maintenance are the keys to how good the simulation is

3.     People use or want angels for a variety of purposes: lovers, slaves, children, housekeepers, pets, sports or entertainment celebrities, spouses…

4.     Of course, in the late 21^st and early 22^nd centuries, people use all kinds of nanobotic interventions to enhance their bodies and their minds.  The latest is to swallow a capsule containing a small swarm of bots that will then assemble into a larger swarm inside your brain and make adjustments to certain axonal and dendritic connections to boost processing efficiency…sort of a tune-up of your synapses. 

5.     What would life be like as an angel, a deconstructed nanobotic swarm entity?  Nobody knows for sure, but here are some thoughts…

6.      You are not constrained to a single configuration.  You can assume multiple configurations, basically any form or shape for which you have a config template. 

7.      Your natural form is an amorphous cloud, a swarm of ANAD-style nanobots. 

8.      You can replicate and assume the form of any human being (or any other structure for which you have a template) with an evolving level of simulation accuracy.  By 2120, this accuracy has approached nearly 100%.  Depending on the structure, this could take anywhere from a few seconds to many minutes. 

9.      The real brains or control center of any swarm angel is the master bot, often referred to as the master.  Replicated bots comprising a swarm angel are usually referred to as daughters or replicants.  The entire formation can be collectively referred to as a swarm, an angel or more crudely, Bugs. 

10.   The master bot maintains the quantum processor which is the real heart, soul and brain of an angel.  The bot is comprised of a primary shell (body or hull), with assorted effectors, propulsors, etc which the master bot uses to manipulate its environment, navigate, replicate, and perform other essential functions.  The processor houses the configuration library and config manager.  An angel bot can only do what it is programmed to do and allowed to do by its config manager. 

11.   What does it feel like to be an angel?  Nobody knows for sure.  But many have speculated.  Various reports indicate that angels describe ‘feelings’ of a kind of warmth, as a closeness, affection, even a form of love, a family, or a sense of belonging, a cocooning, in a way or at a level which they never experienced as humans (single-config entities, sometimes known as Normals).  Feelings are experienced differently as an angel, because feelings must be programmed in and allotted processor capacity to exist for an angel. 

12.   Angels have been created or fabbed by human beings using ANAD technology and used as lovers and companions, sex slaves, surrogate children, butlers and valets, and just about anything else human ingenuity and depravity can think of.  They are a reflection of our wishes, dreams and nightmares.  All it takes is a matter compiler (molecular assembler) and the right config drivers. 

13.  Angels are programmed nanoscale robotic entities.  It is misleading to speak of what motivates them.  They are ‘motivated’ by what their programming requires them to do.  The central quantum processor of the master bot executes programmed actions through its config driver.  Many of these action modules can be quite complex, involving detailed behaviors and abilities. 

14.  As swarm entities, angels are necessarily a form of distributed intelligence.  The master maintains angel memory and runs the config drivers.  Because of its replication ability, an angel can ‘be’ in multiple locations at once.  Symborg (the robotic Messiah detailed in Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone) is like this.  Even though the master is physically located in a single space, through quantum couplers, angel swarms replicated from the same master can be in multiple locations and can assume multiple configs.  For example: a master could reside in London, and yet create and run angels in New York and Tokyo and Farside on the Moon, at the same time, as long as comms were good.  They are true multi-config, multi-state entities. 

15.  In some ways, an angel could be thought of as analogous to a computer node in a network, or a cloud.  Does a network or a computational cloud have an intelligence or sentience beyond that of its individual components?  And just like an individual PC, a master bot has channels for input, output (effectors), a processor and memory, as well as navigation, sensing and locomotion. However, a PC doesn’t have the ability to grab atoms and replicate itself or other physical objects.  An ANAD-style master nanobotic assembler does.  It’s a combination of computer and virus.  It has the processing speed and ability of a computer and the replicability and survivability and evolvability of a virus.  An intelligent, programmable virus expanded to swarm scale and macro dimensions…that’s what an angel is. 

16.  Although they can be designed to simulate lifelike functions, angels don’t need to eat, sleep, execrete or do anything biological like that.  They need power to operate (usually an onboard power cell that generates power from radioactive decay of an isotope) and feedstock to replicate or assemble matter.  They don’t need sex either, since replication is a matter of grabbing and arranging atoms.  But they can be designed to simulate sex.

 

These are just a few thoughts on angels.  Wikipedia defines angels this way:

 

An angel is a primarily spiritual being found in various religions and mythologies. In Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism, angels are often depicted as benevolent celestial beings who act as intermediaries between God or Heaven and Earth, or as guardian spirits or a guiding influence.^[1][2] Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings, and carrying out divine tasks.^[3] The term "angel" has also been applied to various notions of spirits or figures found in many other religious traditions.

 

As a storyteller, I use ANAD and angels (lifelike ANAD swarms) as a means to reflecting on what it means to be human, especially as seen through the “eyes” of an entity that is not human. 

 

In my next post, coming on March 28, I’ll return to my science fiction novel The Farpool and provide an update on how it’s coming, possibly even a short excerpt.  There will also be some new data on ebook downloads and how they’re going. 

 

See you March 28.

 

Phil B.

 

Bot Talk, Part 2

In my last post, I discussed some of the challenges of describing how a robotic device sixty nanometers tall could communicate with human beings and nanotroopers like Johnny Winger.

All ideas about communication between ANAD and its human masters start with the fact that ANAD is a created, programmable device…a very small robot with a quantum processor, that has the ability to replicate and swarm into larger formations.

All ANAD systems consist of the following parts: the core (processor, configuration manager, various buffers and translator modules), the main platform and actuator mast, propulsors, sensors and actuators, communications and navigation systems.  The very term ‘ANAD’ means Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler.  ANAD is designed to operate in the world of atoms and molecules, to maneuver in that environment and to manipulate such according to set instructions.

One of the points of conflict between humans like Johnny Winger and ANAD is the concept of being a multi-configuration entity versus a single-configuration entity.  In fact, in some of my stories in Tales of the Quantum Corps, a later version of ANAD called Doc II has ‘discussions’ with Johnny Winger on this very point.

You see, ANAD can form itself into almost any conceivable configuration (config).

Here are some notes I made about how to describe one form of communication between ANAD and Johnny Winger…in this, ANAD does a form of a diary….

NOTES ON ANAD’s JOURNAL

1.     This is a journal or an Interactions Log being kept by a synthetic nanobotic swarm entity, developed originally by Dr. Irwin Frost, Northgate University Autonomous Systems Lab. 

2.     The Journal should be inserted before every other chapter, starting with Chapter 2.

3.     The Journal entries are from a log created and maintained by ANAD continuously as it interacts with Humans (one-config entities, as ANAD calls them).  This log is a list of main processor events and changes, to which are added observations and commentary generated by ANAD in its daily interactions.  The Journal entries are from the Interactions Log.

4.     Most of the Journal entries are parallel to the main flow of the story.  They should consist of ANAD’s observations about Johnny Winger, his words, his actions and how an autonomous swarm entity reacts to living in proximity with humans and this particular human named Johnny Winger. 

5.     The Journal entries should cover what ANAD thinks about Johnny Winger, what ANAD wants to do and what he (it?) is able to do. 

6.     Format should show a numerical list (like this one) of observations, reactions and plans for future actions. 

7.     ANAD operates with numerous socialization modules which enable him to act and react and interact in a more normal fashion with human beings.

8.     Heading is like this:

Interactions Log

File No. 128874.6

C.F.A.A. (ANAD)

Interaction Targets:  1. Winger, Lieutenant J. A.

                                     2. D’Nunzio, Corporal “Deeno”

Interaction Mode:  Acoustic, voice synthetic V-22

Date: 6.2.99               

Start Time:  151500

End Time: 152230

Output File (text analysis):

Here, ANAD writes his analysis….

<<Subject: Configuration: Winger, J>>

<<Config Winger, J. was emotionally unstable most of the day.  I could detect no obvious causes for such instability.  However…it is a common characteristic of one-config structures such as Winger, J. >>

As you can see, here is one way to describe and illustrate communication between two very different entities.  All science fiction writers who deal in aliens or robots have the same challenge.  You want to have your aliens sound like aliens without being so alien the average reader can’t understand them.  But you don’t want your aliens to sound like they come from Dubuque, Iowa either.  So, it’s a balancing act.

As a swarming entity, ANAD can form itself up into any of multiple configurations.  In a sense, ANAD can’t die.  Humans are different.  We have one ‘configuration’ and when that configuration is lost, we call it death.  For ANAD, it’s just a config change.  So here is a significant, even profound difference between ANAD and humans.  The certainty of death affects many things in our culture…how we take on risks, how we make use of our days, how we deal with final or ultimate decisions about life.  ANAD has none of this.  There is a profound disconnect between the two and a great chance for conflict and misunderstanding.  I use this in many of my stories. 

In my next post, we’ll explore other aspects of what it might be like to be ANAD.  Specifically, we’ll look at what happens when ANADs start to form configurations that so closely resemble humans that reasonable people can’t tell them apart.   In my stories, we call them angels.

The next post will be March 14.

See you then .

Phil B.

Bot Talk

One of the challenges in writing Nanotroopers and the stories of Tales of the Quantum Corps is how to make the little bots of the ANAD series communicate believably with the troopers who are the essence of the story.

One way I have hit upon to set off ANAD dialogue is to italicize their talk and lead and end each stretch of dialogue with asterisks, like this  ***Hub to Base…ANAD ready in all respects***.

I have designed ANAD to have the processor and smarts to be able to communicate in dialogue with the troopers.  From the beginning, I’ve written these stories so that ANAD starts out with the basic processor ability of an eight-year old kid, but learns and adapts and ‘grows’ in his joint operation with the humans so that he evolves and changes over time.  Indeed, I’ve had my main character Johnny Winger sometimes refer to ANAD as like a little brother.  This gives me the opportunity to explore a strange sort of sibling relationship.

1.     Macro vs micro (nano).  ANAD lives in a different world from the humans.  Humans live in a macro world, where big things are easy to see and move around.  ANAD lives in a nano world, a world of atoms and molecules, where things stick together and you have to be cognizant of things like Brownian motion and van der Waals forces.  To some extent, moving around and maneuvering in such a world is like wading through molasses.  I’ve tried to give ANAD the ability to explain and describe what it’s like down there. 

2.     ANAD v Human conflict.  Some nanobots are Red Hammer bots and are adversaries.  ANAD style bots aren’t programmed with emotions per se but ANAD responses can be interpreted as emotions by emotional beings like humans. This can lead to confusion, as Johnny Winger and his fellow troopers unwittingly ascribe emotions and feelings to objects that really don’t have them.  ANAD is programmed with machine learning algorithms though, so he can adopt and display mannerisms and responses that humans would call emotions.  This makes the control interface easier to work with.  And it can also lead to problems and misunderstandings, since there’s no real way humans can ever really know what it’s like to live in a world of atoms and molecules.

3.     Embedded ANAD and the quantum coupler.  At some point in these stories, Johnny Winger and later other nanotroopers will receive embedded ANAD master bots, surgically implanted capsules in their shoulders.  This blends man and machine into a more formidable warrior system.  With the advent of a communications device called a quantum coupler, the humans can communicate directly to ANAD, brain to bot.  In other words, the coupler is a very advanced brain-machine interface for talking with the bot and giving orders, receiving feedback, etc.  Problems arise however, when Winger finds that ANAD can almost read his mind, i.e. correlate certain neural discharges with mental states and gross thought patterns.  The potential conflicts are almost limitless.  And we’re almost at that point today, so this isn’t too great a stretch.

4.     Could ANAD evolve into a separate lifeform with enough intelligence to challenge the primacy of humans on Earth?  This is a key underlying question that permeates both story series.  ANAD has within its processor some instructional sequences that resemble genetic code from an ancient virus.  We all know how well viruses reproduce and mutate.  Thus ANAD has the ability to evolve rapidly.  And computational power is both increasing in capability and decreasing in physical size in general.  Greater and greater smarts in smaller and smaller packages…that’s the future for ANAD, who is both eminently changeable and modifiable.   Don’t forget also, that ANAD is designed to  be a swarming entity, able to replicate at high rates and aggregate in larger formations, assigning tasks to its individual bot elements as needed.  Both Nanotroopers and Tales of the Quantum Corps will see ANAD, as an individual bot and as a swarm of bots, approach human intelligence and agency…and contend with Man for primacy on this planet. 

5.     The “D” in ANAD.  Could ANAD supplant humans or merge with them?  Because of its replication and swarming abilities, ANAD can approach physical similarity to human beings at an ever-increasing rate.  In my stories, a para-human swarm entity is called an angel.  This technology eventually becomes so widespread and so compelling, that people everywhere want one, as a butler, love slave, long-lost spouse, companion, pet, you name it.  This is part of the explosive growth of nanoscale fabrication technology that sweeps the world in the last half of the 21^st and first half of the 22^nd centuries.  The “D” in ANAD stands for disassembly.  ANAD eventually develops the ability to disassemble normal human beings and re-create near-perfect facsimiles of them, in fact multiple copies.  This ability brings ANAD to the forefront as the most formidable competitor Man has ever faced on this planet.  By marrying the processor capability of nanoscale bots with the evolutionary cunning of viruses, we’ve managed to create the perfect warrior…in effect, programmable viruses with the smarts of a supercomputer.  What could possibly go wrong here?

6.     ANAD came in part from ancient viruses.  In my stories, the original viruses were seeded by an extraterrestrial race we call The Old Ones.  Evolution ran amok according to the Old Ones’ plan.  Viruses were supposed to evolve to become sentient lifeforms but mammals and Man took over.  Maybe in creating ANAD, we have not only created our successor but given the Old Ones a way to fulfill their original evolutionary plan.

 

These are just a few of the ideas I’ll be exploring as Nanotroopers and Tales of the Quantum Corps play out. 

 

In the next post to The Word Shed, we’ll look at how I try to write and describe what it’s like to be sixty nanometers tall…all those writerly tricks that can be used to put the reader there and have him feel and believe he’s living among the atoms and molecules.

 

Look for the next post on March 14.

 

            See you then.

Phil B.