“The Farpool Stories: Where Do We Go From Here?”

In this post, I’d like to give you a further sneak peak at where I’m going in the Farpool series.  The original title The Farpool is already available at Smashwords.com and fine ebook retailers everywhere.  The sequel The Farpool: Marauders of Seome is in progress now and I expect to make this available for the holidays in late 2017.  The next story in this sequence is entitled The Farpool: Exodus.  This should be available in late spring 2018.

The whole arc of the Farpool Stories begins on Seome, involves some trips to Earth and winds up on Earth, then expands out to other planets in our solar system and to different time periods on Earth.  It’s a story of how Man encounters an intelligent marine race, first on a faraway planet called Seome, then in his own oceans, as a result of the destruction of Seome and the presence of a wormhole bridge between the worlds, a bridge called The Farpool.  The presence of two intelligent sentient races on Earth, something that has hasn’t happened since Neanderthal days, presents all sorts of possibilities for conflict and competition.  And the really neat thing I have devised is that the two races will eventually interbreed, with some help from biotechnology, and a new hybrid kind of man, part human, part Seomish, emerges. 

At the end of Farpool: Marauders and the beginning of Farpool: Exodus, the Seomish star-sun Sigma-Albeth B has gone supernova.  Millions of Seomish die in the resulting catastrophe, but several hundred thousand survive and make it through the Farpool to Earth.  I covered the basics of the story of Farpool: Exodus in my last post.

Let’s look further ahead.

When the surviving Seomish emigrate to Earth, they unwittingly bring with them elements of a separate alien race called the Coethi, kind of as stowaways, long-time enemies of the distant star-faring descendants of Humans, who have ventured far out into the Galaxy and encountered this malevolent race. 

The next story in the cycle is called The Farpool: Convergence.  In Marauders, the Coethi combine forces with the Chinese to develop a new version of the very same device that made the original Farpool possible, a weapon called the Time Twister.  The Ponkti, mortal enemies of our hero Chase and his Omtorish friends, want to use the new Farpool to visit other places and times, so they can run their own lives.  In Convergence, some of the Seomish undergo the reverse of the same surgical procedure that allowed Chase Meyer to survive on Seome.  In other words, some of Chase’s Seomish friends are surgically altered to be able to live on land and breathe air like semi-but not quite humans.  All kinds of possibilities for conflict and relationships with that.

Also in Convergence, Chase learns that their original enemy, the Coethi, have already come by our planetary system eons before and they have a base on Europa.  They learn that this base is a forward outpost for the coming of the main Coethi swarm, which will one day appear on Earth’s doorstep and assimilate everything in the solar system.  So, the main plot is what Chase and his hybrid human-Seomish friends can do about that. 

The next story in the Farpool series is called The Farpool: Union.  Here’s a rundown of the main plot elements:

1. Human /Seomish hybrids deal with conflict and learn how to live together on one planet (Earth). Chase Meyer and girlfriend Angie Gilliam become life-bonded in the Seomish way, starting a new blended custom between Human and Seomish cultures.
2. To fight the oncoming Coethi mother swarm, a mission to early time period Earth is formed.  Chase, Seomish friend Kloosee and hybridized Angie are part of crew. They travel to Earth three billion years ago via the new Farpool.  Kloosee’s English wife Diana stays behind.
3. The team finds a joint Ponkti/Chinese/Russian team is already there, helping the Coethi complete the seeding of early Earth.
4. Chase and his team fight with the Ponkti/Chinese/Russian team.  Back on present-day Earth, radical environmentalists have shutdown the Farpool.  The teams are thus trapped on Earth three billion years ago.  They’ll have to contact the Coethi and try to cooperate with them (and among themselves) to gain passage back to their own time. 
5. The Coethi agree to help only if Chase and his team and the Ponkti/Chinese team allow their bodies to be scanned, replicant swarms created and assimilated by the Coethi.  They’re forced to agree.
6. The Coethi leave in their jumpship, cross multiple time streams and end up ‘landing’ on a manufactured world inside their mother swarm, a world that simulates their homeworld.  Chase and the others are still trapped.
7. Seeking to escape and get back to 22^nd century Earth (present-day), Chase manages to commandeer a Coethi jumpship and, through a navigation error, winds up on a sister planet to Seome, in the star system of Sigma Albeth B, only days before the star is set to go supernova.  The Coethi jumpship is damaged on this trip.  They witness a small Coethi force launch fatal starballs into Sigma Albeth and know that the end is near.  They discuss landing the crippled jumpship on Kinlok Island (trying to go home again), and attempt this but the Uman force commanded by Ultrarch-Major Monthan Dringoth is departing.  Begging for help, the Umans let the small team’s surviving members join them.  They are headed for another Uman base deeper in the Galactic Halo. 
8. En route, the Ponkti members of the team want to go back to Earth 22^nd century and take control of the Uman jumpship.  They force Dringoth to take all of them to that time stream, transitting voidtime into restricted time stream T-001, Earth, against all regulations and common sense.
9. Finally they get home.  Chase, Kloosee and Angie survive.

To put all this in perspective, perhaps a timeline would be helpful.  The following table lists story title against time on Earth (human time) and time on Seome (in their timekeeping system):

Title	Earth Time	Seome Time
The Farpool	2115 AD	764.2 to 769.3 Tekpotu (Tk)
The Farpool: Marauders of Seome	1942 AD and 2115 AD	779.3 Tk to 785.2 Tk (sun destroyed 785.2 Tk)
The Farpool: Exodus	2122 AD	1.1 to 1.5 Kv (Epoch of Kelvishtu…a new calendar)
The Farpool: Convergence	2130 AD	2.5 Kv to 3.2 Kv
The Farpool: Union	2141 AD and 3.2 billion years ago	10.5 Kv to 11.5 Kv
The Farpool: Diaspora	2195 AD	47.5 Kv

 

So this is the plan for the Farpool Stories.  Notice I didn’t provide any details on the last title The Farpool: Diaspora.  As an author, I like to keep my readers guessing a little on what’s coming next. 

How long will all this take to play out?  Likely several years. 

The next post to The Word Shed will come on July 10.

See you then.

Phil B.