The search for Kalid/meta

Welcome to the meta page for The search for Kalid. The plot of the story is discussed here, so spoilers are all around! Useful background to the story is at the historical timeline. The narrative in the Introduction, below, starts after the events that are described in the timeline.

Introduction
The search for Kalid is a story about a growing interstellar empire, set in the 25th century, although at that time the dates are no longer counted that way. At the start of the story, the reader might imagine that the story is in a galaxy "far, far away", but an occasional reference is made to Earth. Gradually the reader realize that the story, odd as it seems, is the story of the future of Earth and the spread of humans into the nearby regions of our galaxy. Eventually the main characters reach Earth, although almost no life remains there. There are several mysteries that are only slowly revealed to the reader. This "meta file" provides background information, much of which is not known to the reader. Much of the mystery that surrounds "The Search for Kalid" involves secrets that are held by the Empire, the Haldus Order, Ketar and the Spaceship Guild. Most of these secrets are gradually revealed to Leone and the reader.

Leone is a scientist and engineer from the world of Sakkara, an important scientific research and development planet in the Empire. At the start of the story, Leone is searching for Kalid, a sage from the Haldus Order. Leone hopes to use Kalid to fight the evil Set, whose murderous attacks now center on Leone's allies on Sakkara but threaten to incite civil war throughout the Empire. Leone is following the advice of Sybil, a priestess, who claims to know where Kalid is. Leone and another Planetary Counselor, Aristark, go to the planet Flammis in search of Kalid. Leone, like most people, does not believe in mental powers even though he has been told that Kalid is supposed to have them and that a group of "Masters" on Flammis possess such powers. At the start of the story, Leone is almost completely in the dark and does not even know the name "Flammis"....he invents and uses the name "Plato" to refer to Flammis.

At the time of the story, telepathy is a newly developing branch of science within the Empire. Most people still do not think telepathy is possible. However, some people are genetically predisposed to be better at telepathy. Individuals can train and practice to improve their telepathic abilities. A few new mechanical devices also exist that can amplify telepathic ability. "Set" knows about telepathy and knows it could allow him to take over the Galaxy if he can master it. Most people in the Empire are not aware that telepathy is possible, thinking it is just a topic for fantasy writers.

Set is a rare individual with natural ability for telepathic signal reception. Set's girl friend was a powerful telepathic transmitter, as is Kalid. About 1 in 100 people have significant innate telepathic ability. Very few of those ever develop their powers through training and practice. Only the Haldus Order has technology for amplifying the abilities of telepaths. During "The search for Kalid", powerful political forces outside of the Haldus Order begin to learn the hidden secrets about telepathy and seek to take control of the technology for amplifying human telepathic abilities.

Set and Leone are political rivals who competed in the most recent election of a Planetary Chief of Transportation. Set is the leader of the Futurist Party, a new political organization advocating the use of government funds for construction of space elevators as an alternative to continued use of spaceships to land passengers and cargo on Sakkara. Leone was the Antiquist Party candidate and won the election, although the results were disputed. The Antiquist Party is funded by the fabulously rich Spaceship Guild (see Glossary).

After defeat in the election, the Futurist Party raises enough money to build the Elevators, a pair of space elevators, one for moving down and one for moving up from Sakkara to orbit. Set continues political work on Sakkara and his girlfriend works on construction of the Elevators.

As the top Planetary Counselor for Transportation, Leone is involved in a scandal following destruction of the Elevators by terrorists. Set believes that Leone's decisions left the Elevators poorly defended and caused the death of Set's girl friend. The ability of the Haldus Order to keep secret their mastery of telepathy is lost when Set's telepathic ability is suddenly awakened during the destruction of the space elevators: at that moment he telepathically senses the death cries of his girl friend.

Set seeks revenge against Leone and the Spaceship Guild and develops a plan for taking control of Sakkara and then the entire Empire. With his newly discovered ability to detect telepathic communications, Set discovers that the Haldus Order sometimes uses its telepathic agents to promote the interests of the Spaceship Guild. Set uses his powers to find, spy on and kill some Haldus Order telepaths...all the other surviving telepaths go into hiding on secret worlds like Flammis. Although Set is the first person outside of the Haldus Order to become aware of the existence of telepaths who are members of the Haldus Order, only gradually does he become aware of the Haldus Order itself...at first he only knows about the telepaths and remains unaware of their membership in the Haldus Order. on Sakkara, Haldus Order members work in hiding withing a cover organization called the "Silver Tulipan Order".

Ketar has a spy inside the Haldus Order (but at first, the spy is only aware of the "cover name" for the organization he has joined) and Ketar learns from the spy that Set is killing (Haldus Order) telepaths. Ketar realizes that Set's rapid rise in power might be due to his use of telepathy. Aristark is told by Leone that Sybil claimed that telepathy is possible and that telepathy was the source of the evidence linking the destruction of the space elevators to the Spaceship Guild. Aristark reports this to Ketar. Ketar and his spy finally realize that the spy is inside the Haldus Order.

Ketar starts to take seriously the idea that telepathy is possible. He begins to look for ways to trick Set into using his telepathic powers to cripple the Haldus Order and hopefully prevent the Haldus Order from releasing any evidence linking the destruction of the space elevators to the Spaceship Guild. In an attempt to trick the Haldus Order into revealing its secrets, Ketar creates false intelligence reports about Set which indicate (falsely) that Set has penetrated the secrets of the Haldus Order on Sakkara and is preparing to attack. Looking for ways to draw the Haldus Order telepaths into the open, Ketar orders Aristark and Leone to ask Sybil for help against Set. Ketar's plan works, Sybil reveals to Leone that she is a member of the Haldus Order. Thus, Ketar becomes the first person outside of the Haldus Order to become aware of the link between telepathy and the Haldus Order. Ketar looks into the Spaceship Guild archives and learns that the Spaceship Guild once destroyed a Haldus Order base on Flammis. There is very little else on record about the secretive Haldus Order.

Sybil and the other members of the Haldus Order on Sakkara have decided that they will risk sacrificing themselves in order to protect most of the members of the Haldus Order. Based on Ketar's false intelligence reports, they think that Set is already aware of the Haldus Order. They will try to pretend that the entire Haldus Order is on Sakkara. Their plan quickly goes bad because Set learns the coordinates of Flammis....

Shortly after the start of "The Search for Kalid", Set is spying on both Leone and Sybil and he notices the new equipment being installed in Leone's spaceship. Set captures one of the technicians involved in the modifications to Leone's spaceship. By trickery and telepathic probing Set learns that Leone is being sent to a secret Haldus Order base on Flammis.

Set immediately goes to Flammis with the hope that he can capture or kill the two telepaths who he believes have hidden evidence about the force behind the destruction of the space elevators on Sakkara. Set detects telepaths on Flammis. Guided by his telepathic powers, Set locates the surface entrance to the under ground base of Flammis and lands his spaceship there. After a brief battle with two guards stationed at the entrance, Set attacks the main base. He destroys the main underground base and everyone living there after confirming that the "Haldus Order" is the true name of the organization and that it has a program for developing technology that can amplify telepathy. After the battle, he has a telepathic sensation that there are some survivors still hidden on Flammis. He leaves part of his crew on Flammis so that they can search the network of tunnels that radiates from the destroyed base. Set returns to Sakkara in order to deal with Sybil who he now suspects is a leading member of the Haldus Order on Sakkara. The crew members left on Flammis discover that there is still an antiquated but functioning particle beam weapon inside a hill near the main entrance to the Haldus Order base.

Haldus Order
The Haldus Order is an ancient secret society that has been exploring how to control and use an innate human capacity for telepathic communication.

Current status
During the time period during which The Search for Kalid takes place, the Haldus Order is commanded by Kalid. Its purpose is to maintain the statu quo (growth of the Empire and spread of humans through the galaxy) and to avoid major disasters such as interstellar wars. The Order recognizes that telepathy could be used for evil, so its members keep their powers of telepathy secret and dedicate themselves to using telepathy for the benefit of all. The Spaceship Guild and its political wing, the Antiquist Party, are major economic and political powers. During most of the Space Age, the Spaceship Guild has been the most powerful economic force in the galaxy and the Haldus Order has been deeply troubled by some actions the Spaceship Guild has taken to retain its monopoly on space travel and related technologies. The Haldus Order supports both the Spaceship Guild and the Empire, as needed, so as to keep them approximately balanced in power and so that no single economic or political force can take total control of humanity's growing collection of inhabited worlds. Kalid knows Ketar's plans for overthrowing the Empire, and Kalid will try to avoid a major interstellar war, but the Empire cannot be allowed to continue its heavy-handed domination of humanity. Kalid and the Haldus Order are learning how to make use of a new technology that is only ten years old. This new technology makes possible controlled coupling of telepathic signals to electromagnetic signals, thus allowing the telepathic agents of the Haldus Order much more sophisticated means for manipulating the Empire and the Spaceship Guild. Kalid's main fear has been that someone outside of the Order will realize that telepathic power is being used to manipulate the Empire and other major economic and political powers....and now Set appears to be proving that those fears were well-founded.

There is only one Haldus Order facility that openly says it is a Haldus Order Temple and that is on an asteroid in the h32 star system. All other Haldus Order bases and members have "cover stories".

Historical Origins
The basis for telepathic communication is "T particles", a form of nonhadronic dark matter that has very limited interaction with atomic matter by way of gravitation and dark energy but which can also exist as "virtual T particles" in association with the high energy interaction of down quarks in conventional matter, particularly neutrons.

Animals on Earth originally had a simple capacity to detect T-particles coming from the sun. The basic sensory receptor (a modified neuron) for T-particles originally allowed animals to sense the location of the sun and make use of that sensation for orientation in their environment. In more complex brains, T-particle receptor cells were linked into complex neural networks that allowed processing of telepathic signals from other brains, signals that were useful for social cohesion, but almost exclusively among highly social apex predators.

An interesting feature of telepathic communication is that it is usually not very restricted by distance. T-particles can move between two locations (for example, the sun and a brain) by conventional propagation through normal space, and have been shown to be a normal component of the ultafast solar wind, moving much slower than the speed of light. However, T-particles (and virtual T-particles) can also interact by exchanging ultrarelativistic twitinos that can propagate through compact dimensions, allowing very rapid transfers of information over long distances. Such telepathic information transfer depends on twitino resonance between arrays of T-particles in two telepathically coupled brains.

About 5,000 years ago a new mutation arose in humans allowing some capacity for conscious awareness of telepathy. Careful construction of a dual-star comparator observatory led to identification of Haldus as a variable star that corresponds to the "second eye" of the sky, the second most powerful astronomical source of natural twitino resonance. This astronomical breakthrough led to a selective breeding program for telepaths in Egypt, organized by a group of humans who could consciously sense the position of the sun and the "second eye" of the sky. By twitino triangulation (initially carried out only in the observatory/temples), these early telepaths could identify specific humans who were better telepaths and place them into telepathy training and breeding programs. This was the origin of the Haldus Order.

By the time of "The Search for Kalid" the Haldus Order has spent a long time performing artificial genetic selection for telepathic ability and developing training methods that allow amplification of the innate telepathic abilities of humans. In the Space Age, it was discovered by members of the Haldus Order that there is an alien artifact at Haldus A that transmits a twitino signal of great complexity, accounting for the fact that Haldus is the second strongest source of twitino resonance on Earth. Intensive study of the alien artifact by scientists of the Haldus Order eventually led to development of technology for amplification of telepathic communication. The combination of these technologies and the Haldus Order telepathy training methods allows agents of the Order to perform impressive feats such as identifying the perpetrators of the Sakkaran space elevators disaster.

Set is an unusual case in that he is able to develop his telepathic abilities without participation in the Haldus Order training program. Using his innate telepathic ability, he discovers that the Haldus Order telepaths exist and that they sometimes promote the interests of the Spaceship Guild. This leads Set to view the Haldus Order telepaths as his enemies. Eventually Set realizes that the Haldus Order has telepathy-amplifying technology which he could use to get revenge on the Spaceship Guild. Similarly, Ketar comes to recognize the existence of telepaths and the idea that Haldus Order technology could aid his plans for a revolt against the Empire.

Possible Chapters
Sentences in bold are not written yet.

1) Mental powers? Leone and Aristark approach Flammis. This chapter includes the flashback scene with Sybil and Leone in which Sybil explains that it might be possible to find Kalid on the planet Flammis.

Sybil has been increasingly worried that the situation on Sakkara is going out of control and that Set will soon do something terrible, possibly take control of Sakkara by force. On the day when Leone arrives at her house to ask for help, Sybil is meeting with all the top ranking Haldus Order members on Sakkara to discuss what can be done to protect the Haldus Order and they have already concluded that their concerns about Set must be communicated to Kalid. It is thought that Kalid is probably on Flammis, but Sybil is unwilling to send a hyperspace communication to the secret Haldus Order base on Flammis because the Empire has monitor stations in all the star systems where its ships have ever visited and the monitor station's detectors would be able to detect any communication between Sakkara and Flammis. Kalid is a month over due for an expected visit to Sakkara, and the Haldus Order members on Sakkara assume that Kalid and all telepaths are hiding from Set. Sybil decides that in order to deal with the threat from Set, she must risk telling Leone about the Haldus Order base on Flammis and hope that the combined forces of the Haldus Order and the Antiquist Party can protect Sakkara from Set.

Leone is acting on orders from Ketar when he goes to Sybil for help. After speaking with Sybil and hearing about Kalid, Leone hopes that he will be able to find Kalid and take him to a meeting with Ketar on Azur. Hopefully Kalid and Ketar will find a way to protect Sakkara from Set's violence. After talking to Sybil, Leone sends a hyperspatial communication to Ketar explaining that he and Aristark will go in search of Kalid.

Leone has been ordered by Ketar to work with Aristark and, in fact, they are old friends, having risen through the ranks of the Antiquist Party membership on Sakkara. However, Leone does not know that Aristark is a secret agent working with Ketar in preparation for Ketar's plan to free Azur and other worlds from the Empire. Aristark has been promised by Ketar that Aristark will become governor of Sakkara after the Empire is defeated. After a hundred years of peaceful domination over humanity, the Empire is weakening and Ketar is secretly building a war fleet, but Ketar is not quite ready to start his rebellion against the Empire...first Set and his allies in the Futurist Party must be dealt with.

Aristark has secret orders from Ketar, orders that Leone is not aware of. Aristark has been ordered to make use of Leone's special relationship with Sybil in order to find out from Sybil where the Haldus Order telepaths are hiding, particularly the ones who can link the destruction of the space elevators to the Spaceship guild. Ketar does not trust Leone because Leone is "too honest", so Ketar orders Aristark to "get rid of" Leone as soon as Leone is no longer useful for helping to get information from Sybil about the Haldus Order. Ketar's main interest is to try to find and eliminate the Haldus order members who previously got evidence linking the Spaceship Guild to the destruction of space elevators on Sakkara.

Set has been trying to learn about and find the two telepaths who seem to have hidden evidence about the cause of the destruction of the space elevators of Sakkara. Set's Futurist Party agents notice that Sybil arranges for alterations to Leone's spaceship. Set captures and questions one of the technicians who works for the Haldus Order and, through tricks and telepathy, learns about the secret Haldus Order base on Flammis. Set immediately goes to Flammis, but Leone is slightly delayed while special equipment is installed on his ship.

In this chapter, Leone reach their destnation and find that it is a Green planet. It is mentioned in passing that Earth is also a Green planet. What is not mentioned, is that when the Empire was established, it altered all astrogation records to make it appear that some other star system near the Sol System was Earth's star system and the origin of humanity. They selected an uninhabited world in that star system and infected one of its planets with green goo nanites, then pretended that planet was Earth. Doing this would have prevented close examination of Earth and recognition of the fact that a spaceship explosion had happened on Earth. The Empire also created a false history of Earth in an attempt to make people think that Earth had been successfully governed by monolithic Empires in the past....all part of a strategy to make humanity accept the iron grip of the Empire. Similarly, the Spaceship Guild has hidden the truth about how Earth was destroyed.

When Leone's ship reaches Flammis, the special shielding equipment of the Haldus Order (which was installed in his spaceship by Haldus Order members acting on Sybil's order) is active along with the special Haldus Order navigation beacon. All Haldus Order ships use the special shield when traveling to and from Flammis in order to prevent the Empire's monitor station from realizing that there is a secret base on Flammis. However, Set's forces have already arrived at Flammis. After destroying the Haldus Order base on Flammis, Set stationed some of his crew there in order to search for surviving members of the Order and watch for Haldus Order ships that might arrive....Set returns to Sakkara in order to deal personally with Sybil.

When Leone's spaceship arrives at Flammis, it is assumed by Set's crew members to be a ship of the Haldus Order. Even though the special Haldus Order shields are active (Leone does not know this), Leone's ship is detected by Set's forces when it uses its navigation scanners to probe the site of the destroyed Haldus Order base on Flammis. Set's forces make use of a remaining Haldus Order planetary artillery battery to blast Leone's spaceship.

2) Flammis This chapter describes Leone's battle at Flammis. Leone does not yet know the real name of the planet so he invents one: "Plato". Leaone and Aristark decide to continue on to Azur, Ketar's home planet.

3) Azur The focus of this chapter is Ketar and his activities, his plans to liberate Azur from the Empire and his need for Kalid. This chapter also describes the start of a battle between Ketar's forces and a spaceship that jumps into the Akara star system.

4) Surprise Leone's ship is attacked again. He wonders how it came to pass that Sybil sent him off through space and into so much danger. The flashback for Sybil (that was just starting in Chapter 1 is shown: events from her past when she was a new initiate in the Order, and did not yet even know its true and secret name.

5) H32 Aristark and Leone visit the Esclangon asteroid in the h32 star system. Leone discovers that Sybil is there and they "compare notes" on recent events and the actions of Kalid, Ketar and Set.

6) Old friends: Leone talks to Sybil at Esclangon. This chapter has also a flashback that describes the attack on the Elevators and Set's reaction to that attack... basically, the flashback in this chapter provides an account of why Set is in conflict with the Antiquist Party. The attack against the Elevators should be expanded.

7) Survivors? It also contains the story of the only two survivors of the attack at Flammis, Kaleb and Megan, Kalid's son and daughter, respectively. It will describe Kaleb's plans to counter attack the enemies of Flammis. This chapter needs expanding.

8) Kalid When Aristark and Kalid meet, Aristark is found to be working for Ketar and to have been involved in the attack on the Elevators. This chapter could include a flashback that describes Ketar and Aristark making plans to attack the Elevators.

9) Moon Not written yet. Set visits the base on Earth's Moon and learns from the local residents that Earth was destroyed by a spaceship explosion and that the Spaceship Guild covers up such disasters by releasing the "green nanite goo". This chapter could include a flashback that describes how the green goo was first used. It also contains Kalid while at the hospital.

How does Set find out the location of Earth? He meets with Ketar in the Akara star system and they agree to a pact that will allow them to capture Haldus Order technology. Ketar tells Set how to trap Kalid on Mars and tells him to find the secret Haldus Order base on Earth (and that Earth is really h32.3). Ketar actually finds the secret Haldus Order base on Earth by using an Empire spy who has penetrated the Order and is willing to sell his information to the highest bidder.

10) Earth Not written yet. Kalid, Leone, Set and Ketar all meet at the Haldus Order Temple on Earth. Kalid realizes that Ketar has corrupted part of the Haldus Order in an attempt to liberate Azur from the Empire. This chapter could include a flashback that describes how the Haldus Order was first formed and its goal of preventing the mis-use of telepathy. Ketar kills Kalid and tries to take complete control of the Haldus Order.


 * I am not so sure if Kalid should die. It is not good that they search Kalid only in order to see him die. Plus, I do not believe in mind transfer to a robot, maybe it is impossible. --David 17:28 22 oct 2008 (UTC)


 * Kalid does not have to die. I'm also skeptical about mind transfer, but I think it is worth thinking about the idea that nanites could integrate into a living biological brain and essentially record the structure and function of all the neurons. Could those nanites re-create significant amounts of the corresponding mind in another medium...such as a nanorobotic brain? --JWSchmidt 00:58 23 oct 2008 (UTC)

A flashback shows that all "Thot" spacehips are made by imprinting their computers with Kalid's mental ability to take full control of the ship, in case of any problem. In essence, Kalid secretly lives on and all of the "Thot" spacehips continue Kalid's work. Some Scenes could be shown indicating that Ketar is not able to carry out his plan for taking control of the Empire because the "Thot" spacehips all counter Ketar's efforts. At his death, Kalid telepathically transferred much of his consciousness into Leone's "Thot" spaceship, so in a way Kalid lives on in machine form. Kalid is reborn, resembling the myth of Osiris. Kalid could, in principle, take command of a humanoid robot too, sometimes. Kaleb can have an important role in reviving his father.

Characters

 * see: List of Characters

Name of the Order
Originally, the name "Osiris Order" was used, but it already exists in the real world, so another name was invented. Haldus, another name for the star "Epsilon Aurigae", is about the 180th brightest star in Earth's sky, but it is about 1900 light years away. The Egyptian's probably did not have a name for this star, but we pretend that it was called "Haldus" by the founders of the "Haldus Order". Epsilon Aurigae is a supergiant binary system that is studied by astronomers right now because of the nature of its eclipses by a large companion object.

We can imagine that when members of the Haldus Order left the Solar System, they established their first base on an asteroid in the Epsilon Aurigae star system. That asteroid is located at a trojan point for the "companion", about 25 AU from the supergiant star. The asteroid of the base always points one side to the giant star. The base is located on the "cold side". The "hot side" is very hot and provides a convenient source of energy for the base. The residents of this space colony diverged in their practices from the original Haldus Order of Earth...in particular, they began to create a science of telepathy. Later, the original Haldus Order was destroyed on Earth (antimatter spaceship explosion). Eventually the Haldus Order returned to Earth and created a new Temple there in order to honor their origin and to take advantage of the "green nanite cloud" of Earth to hide the temple and its secret purpose as a research and development center for telepathy technology.


 * Where to put this expository? I suggest in chapter 6, after the flashback of the attack.

Celibacy inconsistencies
Haldus Order imposes celibacy on its members. But Kalid has a son. Jeremy has a daughter, Sybil. Dorothy quits the Order to marry (I am not sure if secret societies allow quitting. It would be against the vows of silence because the person could stopped being spied). So, I think that Haldus Order must have a strong policy: either complete celibacy or not.

1. Full celibacy: The problem with that is that Dorothy could not be a Priestess and Jeremy could not be a Priest either. Maybe Jeremy is a wizard and it does not count; anyway, I think celibacy is needed for magic and special handling of qi, in this context. But, more important, Kalid could not have children or marry. We would have to modify the story and remove his family. Then, the family he would lose at Flammis would be sisters, aunts, cousins. The problem is that maybe the feeling would not be as strong. I guess people love more their children than brothers or sisters, but I am not sure. Kalid's wife is already dead at that time, so love would not matter. Only the love for his children would matter.

For Sybil, it would be better. She is very special and though, she does not feel the need to love anybody. She has never had a boyfriend either.

2. Celibacy with cheating: The other option would be trickier: as Kalid is the master he can avoid laws. Being Jeremy a personal friend of Kalid, he can avoid law too. Too human...

3. No mandatory celibacy inside the Order. Each member may ask for a permission to do so and some council would decide on that. It would be obvious that Kalid and Jeremy are granted permission because Jeremy was second in rank in the Osiris Order when he was alive. His job was taken by Kaleb, the son of Kalid.

One of the most important things that the Haldus Order does is perform positive selection for human genes that make telepathy possible. The order identifies people who have better than average telepathic abilities and encourages them to have offspring. I suggest that the rule for celibacy be mainly used to keep members who have good telepathic powers from having children with other people who do not have good telepathic powers. Members usually spend many years in the Fourth Circle before they are informed about the true nature of the Haldus Order. The rule for celibacy could apply to the Fourth Circle. The best telepaths are promoted into the Third Circle and then allowed to have children, but they are told that they need to have their offspring planned according to their genetics.