Decoding Brain Waves

Can a computer program read thoughts? An experimental project uses AI as a "brain decoder," in combination with brain scans, to "transcribe 'the gist' of what people are thinking, in what was described as a step toward mind reading":

Scientists Use Brain Scans to "Decode" Thoughts

The example in the article discusses how the program interprets what a person thinks while listening to spoken sentences. Although the system doesn't translate the subject's thoughts into the exact same words, it's capable of accurately rendering the "gist" into coherent language. Moreover, it can even accomplish the same thing when the subject simply thinks about a story or watches a silent movie. Therefore, the program is "decoding something that is deeper than language, then converting it into language." Unlike earlier types of brain-computer interfaces, this noninvasive system doesn't require implanting anything in the person's brain.

However, the decoder isn't perfect yet; it has trouble with personal pronouns, for instance. Moreover, it's possible for the subject to "sabotage" the process with mental tricks. Participating scientists reassure people concerned about "mental privacy" that the system works only after it has been trained on the particular person's brain activity through many hours in an MRI scanner. Nevertheless, David Rodriguez-Arias Vailhen, a bioethics professor at Spain's Granada University, expresses apprehension that the more highly developed versions of such programs might lead to "a future in which machines are 'able to read minds and transcribe thought'. . . warning this could possibly take place against people's will, such as when they are sleeping."

Here's another article about this project, explaining that the program functions on a predictive model similar to ChatGPT. As far as I can tell, the system works only with thoughts mentally expressed in words, not pure images:

Brain Activity Decoder Can Read Stories in People's Minds

Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin suggest as one positive application that the system "might help people who are mentally conscious yet unable to physically speak, such as those debilitated by strokes, to communicate intelligibly again."

An article on the Wired site explores in depth the nature of thought and its connection with language from the perspective of cognitive science.

Decoders Won't Just Read Your Mind -- They'll Change It

Suppose the mind isn't, as traditionally assumed, "a self-contained, self-sufficient, private entity"? If not, is there a realistic risk that "these machines will have the power to characterize and fix a thought’s limits and bounds through the very act of decoding and expressing that thought"?

How credible is the danger foreshadowed in this essay? If AI eventually gains the power to decode anyone's thoughts, not just those of individuals whose brain scans the system has been trained on, will literal mind-reading come into existence? Could a future Big Brother society watch citizens not just through two-way TV monitors but by inspecting the contents of their brains?

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Brain-Computer Interface

Elon Musk's Neuralink Corporation is developing an implant intended to treat severe brain disorders and enable paralyzed patients to control devices remotely. As a long-term goal, the company envisions "human enhancement, sometimes called transhumanism."

Neuralink

Here's a brief article on the capacities and limitations of brain implants:

Brain Implants

A Wikipedia article on brain-computer interface technology, which goes back further than I'd realized:

Brain-Computer Interface

In fields such as treatments for paraplegics and quadriplegics, this technology shows promise. It "was first developed to help people paralyzed with spinal injuries or conditions like Locked-in syndrome — when a patient is fully conscious but can't move any part of the body except the eyes — to communicate." Connection between the brain's motor cortex and a computer has enabled a paralyzed patient to type 90 characters per minute. Another kind of implant allowed a man with a robotic hand to feel sensations as if he still had natural skin. A "brain-spine interface" has enabled a man with a spinal cord injury to walk naturally. Deep brain stimulation has been helping people with Parkinson's disease since the 1990s. Most of these applications, however, are still in the experimental stage with human patients or have been tested only on animals. For instance, a monkey fitted with a Neuralink learned to control a pong paddle with its mind.

Will such an implant eventually achieve telepathy, though, as Musk claims? Experts say no, at least not in the current stage of neuroscience, because "we don't really know where or how thoughts are stored in the brain. We can't read thoughts if we don't understand the neuroscience behind them."

What about a paralyzed person controlling a whole robotic body, like the protagonist of AVATAR remotely living in an alien body? Probably not anytime soon, but I was amazed to learn how much closer we are to achieving that phase of "transhumanism" than I'd imagined. If it's ever reached, might the very rich choose to live their later years remotely in beautiful, strong robotic bodies and thereby enjoy a form of eternal youth -- as long as their flesh brains can be kept alive, anyway?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Telepaths and Language

One panel I attended at this year's RavenCon was about communicating with aliens. I brought up the question of whether a telepathic species would have a spoken language or the concept of words at all, which was then discussed at some length.

Touch telepaths such as Vulcans don't count. A society could hardly exist if people had be touching each other to share feelings or thoughts, so Vulcans naturally have a language. I'm thinking of a species whose members would communicate by short-range thought transmission, needing to be in each other's physical presence or at most within line-of-sight. In my opinion, they would have no evolutionary reason to develop language. They wouldn't need words, let alone speech, because they would form mental images of whatever they're "talking" about. Somebody on the panel raised the issue of what kind of environment would cause them to evolve telepathy as their chief mode of communication. It would have to be a world where both hearing and vision would be unreliable for that purpose.

Stipulating such an unusual environment, why would they develop words? People wouldn't even have names; they would identify each other by mental images of the person they're "speaking" to or about. If they eventually encountered interstellar travelers from Earth, the telepaths would probably consider our mind-blindness a pitiable handicap.

In order to develop science and technology, however, this species would have to invent language sooner or later, if only a written one. A society beyond the hunter-gatherer level requires keeping records, communicating at a distance, and transmitting information to future generations. One panelist suggested a universal mental "cloud" all members of the species could tap into, like a worldwide telepathic mainframe. Such a phenomenon, though, would go far beyond the short-range, person-to-person telepathy I'm considering. A species such as the latter couldn't create what we'd think of as civilization without writing or the equivalent. That step would be harder than simply inventing the alphabet would have been in our world. In a society without spoken language or even the concept of speech and words, the invention of written or electronic communication might require a genius on the level of the creator of algebra or calculus in Earth history.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Types of Telepathy

In reading THE SCIENCE OF STAR TREK, by Mark Brake, I'm naturally reminded of Vulcan telepathy (not discussed much if at all in this book, though). I don't recall the scope and nature of Spock's telepathic power being strictly defined in the original series. For complete access to the consciousness of another, Vulcans must perform a mind meld. From the episode with the alien Horta, we know language poses no barrier. Spock comprehends the thoughts of aliens through mind melds even if the other species aren't humanoid. However, he seems to exercise some limited form of telepathy without melding; in one later episode, we witness him silently "making a suggestion" to a humanoid antagonist who's not mentally on guard. The "Empath" episode introduces a young woman whose species, if she's typical, is mute. Rather than truly telepathic, they're empathic, sensing emotions but not thoughts. It seems unlikely that this species could have a technologically advanced culture, with no ability to communicate precise concepts, especially abstract ones.

Some theories of telepathy assume the participants must share a language for mutual understanding. Others postulate a universal mental "language" so that access to someone's thoughts automatically allows total comprehension. The title character of "The Mindworm," C. M. Kornbluth's classic psychic vampire tale, can hear the surface thoughts of everybody near him but can understand them only if the subject is mentally verbalizing in a language he knows (a limitation that proves his undoing when he clashes with Eastern European immigrants who recognize him from their native folklore).

Does a telepath "hear" only what the subject is thinking of at the moment or delve at will into all the contents of the person's mind? If the former, can you mask your secrets by deliberately thinking of something else? The telepath in Spider Robinson's VERY BAD DEATHS, so sensitive to the clamor of other people's minds that he lives as a hermit, picks up only surface thoughts. In Robert Heinlein's TIME FOR THE STARS, the telepathic twins "just talk," communicating silently in much the same way they do aloud. Trying to open themselves totally to each other's minds produces chaotic confusion, like being inside someone else's dream, so they don't bother.

On the other hand, some fictional telepaths can rummage through people's minds and quickly learn everything about the subject's past and present. Trying to conceal anything from a psychic with this power by simply thinking of pink elephants would be futile.

Here's a big question that I've never seen addressed, except implicitly in the STAR TREK "Empath" episode: Would a completely telepathic species have a language at all? It seems to me that they wouldn't have a reason to evolve it naturally. On the other hand, for any kind of advanced civilization to develop, surely they would have to invent language sooner or later. They would need a system of writing in order to keep records. They would need a way to communicate at long distance. Even if they got along without speech, surely written language would be a prerequisite for complex societies and any but the most rudimentary technology. It wouldn't evolve naturally, however. Geniuses among them would have to create it, as cultures on Earth invented mathematical notation. A first-contact premise of interstellar explorers from Earth meeting extraterrestrials whose only form of language is written, to whom audible speech is an alien concept, would make an exciting, challenging story.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Mind-Reading Technology

Scientists from the University of California, San Francisco have developed a computer program to translate the brain waves of a 36-year-old paralyzed man into text:

Scientists Translate Brain Waves

They implanted an array of electrodes into the sensorimotor cortex of the subject's brain and "used 'deep-learning algorithms' to train computer models to recognize and classify words from patterns in the participant’s brain activity." The training process consisted of showing words on a screen and having the man think about saying them, going through the mental activity of trying to say the words, which he'd lost the physical ability to do. Once the algorithm had learned to match brain patterns to particular words, the subject could produce text by thinking of sentences that included words from the program's vocabulary. Using this technology, he could generate language at a rate of about fifteen words per minute (although not error-free) as opposed to only five words per minute while operating a computer typing program with movements of his head.

Training the program to this point wasn't easy, apparently. The course took 48 sessions over a period of 81 weeks. Still, it's the closest thing to "mind-reading" we have so far, a significant advance over techniques that let a patient control a prosthetic limb by thought alone. According to Dr. Lee H. Schwamm, an officer of the American Stroke Association, “This study represents a transformational breakthrough in the field of brain-computer interfaces."

Here's an article about an earlier experiment in which a paralyzed man learned to produce sentences with "a computer system that turns imagined handwriting into words" at a rate of 18 words per minute.

Mindwriting Brain Computer

The hardware consists of "small, implantable computer chips that read electrical activity straight from the brain." The subject imagined writing letters in longhand, mentally going through the motions. At the same time, the scientists "recorded activity from the brain region that would have controlled his movements." The collected recordings were used to train the AI to translate the man's "mindwriting" into words on a screen. Eventually the algorithm achieved a level of 94.1% accuracy—with the aid of autocorrect, 99%.

While those programs are far from literal telepathy, the ability to read any thoughts that rise to the surface of a subject's mind, they still constitute an amazing advance. As long as such technology requires hardware implanted in an individual's brain, however, we won't have to worry about our computer overlords randomly reading our minds.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Talking with Aliens

When extraterrestrials visit our planet, or vice versa, will we be able to communicate with them? This article discusses the issue of learning alien languages:

If We Ever Came Across Aliens...?

Many linguists and psychologists maintain that the human brain is hardwired with a universal grammar. All human languages we know are built from variations on a few basic structures. Would intelligent beings who evolved on other worlds share the same innate grammatical structures we've developed? If not, an unbridgeable chasm might exist between the two species. The other theoretical framework, the cognitive view of language, places more emphasis on meaning—concepts and semantics—than on sentence structure. In that case, we might expect any sapient creatures to share certain "building blocks" of meaning. The difference between these two theories brings to mind the two main SF approaches to telepathy. In one view, mental conversation works like silent talking. The people communicating telepathically have to understand a common language. So there's no possibility of immersing oneself in another's mind and learning things he or she doesn't want to reveal. In the other approach, whole concepts are transferred from one brain to the other, and the receiver "translates" the transmitted thought into terms he, she, it, or they comprehend.

The article mentions the possibility that inhabitants of other planets might communicate in sound ranges inaudible to us. However, we might find more radical differences. Suppose the aliens' language consisted of flashing lights, bands of color, carefully modulated odors, or hand (or tentacle or pseudopod) signals? They might not recognize our mouth noises as attempts at communication. In CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR, an incident in the early life of orphaned Cro-Magnon child Ayla illustrates problems that might occur even between two human subspecies. The Neanderthal shaman, trying to teach Ayla the Clan's language, worries because she's so slow to catch on. Maybe she's mentally impaired? Meanwhile, Ayla wonders why he keeps waving his hands around, distracting her from hearing his words. The breakthrough occurs when she realizes hand signals constitute the core of the Clan's language, with oral speech in a secondary role.

The classic story "A Martian Odyssey," by Stanley G. Weinbaum, features a friendly alien whose language doesn't contain words with any fixed meaning. Every sentence is unique. While I can't quite visualize how that would work in practice, it's a fascinating idea. In one of the most thought-provoking episodes of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, Captain Picard deals with a species who converse in metaphorical allusions to cultural myths and legends. (As I've heard someone mention—probably Jean Lorrah—this mode of discourse can't be their only language; at the least, there must be a children's dialect for communicating with offspring too young to know the metaphors. Also, in my opinion they have to possess a straightforward denotative dialect for scientific and technical use.) In Robert Heinlein's BETWEEN PLANETS, the highly intelligent dragons of Venus wear electronic devices that translate their mode of communication into grammatical sentences in a Terran language. (In the case of the dragon who becomes a friend of the hero, it's English, of course.) I have faith that no matter how aliens converse, we'll figure out ways to bridge the linguistic gaps.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Telepaths and Language

I've been reading the early books in the Honor Harrington series. The one I'm into now, ASHES OF VICTORY, includes a conversation about the possibility of teaching the intelligent, telepathic treecats American Sign Language so they can communicate with humans. (A few have empathically bonded with human partners, as in the link between Honor and her treecat, Nimitz, but even so the content consists of emotions and impressions, not language.) One of the greatest difficulties mentioned is that treecats, as a fully telepathic species, don't have a verbal language of their own.

This isn't the first place I've encountered the assumption that telepaths wouldn't develop language. (Those who "speak" freely with members of their own species mind-to-mind, that is, not touch-telepaths like Vulcans or others for whom mental communication depends on a personal bond.) But is that necessarily true? Granted, they wouldn't need to evolve language if they possess fully developed mental communication. Wouldn't they eventually have reason to invent it, though? Once a civilization becomes complex enough to require long-distance communication, it seems that a language composed of words or analogous symbols would be vitally needed. Furthermore, it's hard to imagine how a civilization could advance beyond a certain level without a means of recording information in a permanent form. Also, technology arises from science, and science needs mathematics. Math is a language of a sort. So by the time we made first contact with a society of telepathic aliens, it seems they would probably have a concept of language in some form; they would therefore be open to the concept that we "handicapped" mind-deaf Earthlings need that kind of medium to share information.

The dragon character in Heinlein's BETWEEN PLANETS belongs to a species whose vocal apparatus can't produce the sounds of human languages. He wears an electronic device that translates his speech into English. Something like that might work for telepaths. If their culture is advanced enough to have invented math, they should be able to understand the purpose of a device that shapes thoughts into audible or visual code.

In one STAR TREK episode, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy get captured by highly advanced aliens (again!) and meet a young woman who's empathic and mute. Her innate lack of speech suggests that her species communicates solely through mental channels. We can't tell whether she understands the human characters' thoughts or simply feels their pain.

What do you think? How hard would it be for a telepathic species to grasp the concept of words and syntax, then learn to use them for communication?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Mundane Psionics

Many characters in fantasy and science fiction possess psychic superpowers. They can read thoughts, view events at a distance or (maybe by touching an object) in the past, or see the spirits of the dead. In a sense, we don't have to fantasize about having such abilities, because we already do, sort of. Through writing, we can transmit our thoughts directly into the minds of other people we'll never meet face-to-face. While reading, we receive the thoughts of the writers, even if they died centuries ago. Film allows us to travel in time, in that it shows us scenes from the past. We can even see dead people in the prime of life. Through recording technology, we hear their voices.

Psychologist Steven Pinker, in "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" (a chapter in his book THE STUFF OF THOUGHT), speculates on why taboo words—profanity and obscenity—have been forbidden or restricted in most human cultures. Often against our will, "dirty" words force images into our minds that we may not want to entertain. Unlike eyes, ears don't have "earlids" to shut out objectionable sounds spoken by other people. Also, as he points out, "understanding the meaning of a word is automatic"; "once a word is seen or heard we are incapable of treating it as a squiggle or noise but reflexively look it up in memory and respond to its meaning." Language equals thought control. The official Newspeak dialect in Orwell's 1984 strives to make heretical thoughts literally "unthinkable"—at least as far as "thought is dependent on language."

Many fantasy novels postulate that magic depends on a special, often secret language. In one of my favorite series, Diane Duane's Young Wizards stories, learning wizardry consists mainly of mastering the Speech, the universal language of reality understood by all creatures, including those we ordinarily think of as inanimate. A wizard affects the world by using the Speech to persuade an object, creature, or system to change. However, some speech acts in the mundane world also alter reality. Enactive speech not only describes an event but makes it happen, e.g. taking an oath of office or uttering the words, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."

A prayer in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer titled "For Those Who Influence Public Opinion" makes this petition: "Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read, that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous." A heavy responsibility for authors, especially in this divisive, volatile era!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Brain-to-Computer Communication

A research project at Stanford University enables paralyzed people to type on computers by moving a cursor with their thoughts:

Brain-Computer Interface

This technology, according to the article, produces the desired output up to four times as fast as previously existing methods. It's supposed to be superior to the eye-tracking method of operating a computer, which sounds to me as if it would be tiring as well as difficult to master.

Imagine combining a perfected brain-computer interface with the Second Life environment discussed a few weeks ago. Individuals locked into their bodies without even the ability to speak might be able to live a fulfilling life in a virtual environment that feels as multidimensional as the "real world."

Or consider the shell people in Anne McCaffrey's THE SHIP WHO SANG series. Such artificial bodies for people with no control over their physical bodies might become more feasible in actuality once the robotic form could be completely operated by thought alone.

Does the interface described in the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN article allow speechless people to communicate (through a computer) with something like telepathy? Well, not exactly. The user doesn't beam thoughts through the ether. Wired connections between brain and machine have to be installed. Still, it's an exciting beginning.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Guest Post by Jean Johnson on her Science Fiction Romance The Terrans

Guest Post
by
Jean Johnson
First Salik War:
The Terrans

I discussed some of Jean Johnson's science fiction and SFR in previous posts and will rave more about her work in the future.  But now you should listen to what she says was behind the science concepts she has used.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/11/reviews-20-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/09/reviews-18-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html
-------------GUEST POST BY JEAN JOHNSON-----------

Science and Romance in Fiction

http://www.JeanJohnson.net

Greetings, Dear Readers!

Does everyone have their safety goggles and lab coats?  Excellent.  Today’s session is on blending science and romance into fiction, and why entangling the two is actually a pretty good idea.

Now, there have been plenty of debates on where the dividing line is between things like paranormal/fantasy romance versus urban fantasy.  The conclusion which myself, Kat Richardson, Shannon Butcher and Jim Butcher all came to during Norwescon 34 (April 21-24, 2011) was that the focus of the story is what determines whether it’s paranormal romance set in a fantastical contemporary setting, or urban fantasy with romantic elements.  But we’re going to talk about how you can blend science and romance, not just fantasy and romance.

Fantasy romance has been around since the first fairy tales with hints of romance in them started circulating.  Whether it’s the brave lad wooing the princess or the plucky lass winning the prince, we understand those tropes and are familiar with them.  Science fiction, however, has been (rather wrongfully) considered more of a “boy’s thing” and so a lot of romance writers don’t try to blend it because they don’t feel their readers would be interested in it.

Or if they do, they may not be heavily into reading science fiction, and thus don’t understand it for its own merit; they’re looking for a fancy but quick backdrop in which to place the setting, somewhere new and exotic.  Or there are those science fiction writers who don’t read romance, but try to wedge some romance into their stories without really paying attention to how romances actually work, both as a genre and as an actual “how do romances actually work in real life?” kind of thing.

Thankfully, there are those of us who read both romance and science fiction.  A lot.  I grew up cutting my literary teeth on Johanna Lindsay and Alan Dean Foster.  I’ve read Dara Joy and Andre Norton.  I’ve cuddled up with Catherine Coulter and Anne McCaffrey.  In fact, I figured I could write in my three favorite categories as a reader, science fiction, fantasy, and romance, because Alan Dean Foster has had a successful career writing science fiction, fantasy, and books based on movies. My life goal is to write as many stories or more as the 150 which Andre Norton got published over the span of her own career.

So when I set out to write, I knew that I’d be hopping from genre to genre.  I knew that I wanted to write science into my science fiction, too.  I also learned fairly quickly that I suck at contemporary romance; I just have to put in some sort of fantastical element, or it’s just not a story I want to write.  Other people have other experiences, but hey, plenty of room for plenty of different sorts of stories, right?  Right.

My latest release, THE TERRANS, which is the first novel in the First Salik War trilogy, is predominantly a science fiction First Contact novel.  The startlement, surprise, irritation, humor, aggravation, bewilderment, and wonder of trying to figure out how to deal with an alien culture, an alien lifeform, is a fun plot to map out and follow.  There is lots of room for political intrigue, social gaffes, cultural misunderstandings, and potential conflicts all over the place.

(For those of you interested, THE TERRANS can be found at at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-terrans-jean-johnson/1120853148?ean=9780425276914
and
  http://www.amazon.com/Terrans-First-Salik-War/dp/0425276910/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438550621&sr=1-1&keywords=the+terrans

as well as through Black Bond Books up in Vancouver, BC, Canada, et cetera.

At the same time that I figured out I wanted to write a First Contact story, I knew I had to find a way to draw the readers in and get them not only interested in reading the plot, but involved in the struggles of the characters.  Politics is kinda boring for a lot of people, so why should anyone care?  Well, in this particular universe, I developed a logical way for psychic powers to exist (“Aliens!”), and developed the science-y stuff on how it all works, because I like my science fiction to have an attempt at science in it.  (Remember, it doesn’t have to be right if it’s just a theory; once the theory is out there, then experiments can be devised to test the theory to see if it holds water or not.)

Once I had that established, it occurred to me that if psychic abilities are the manipulation of energy and matter by the mind—itself a source of energy and matter—then it could be quite possible that two minds could become quantum entangled.  If you don’t know anything about quantum entanglement, it basically means that if you “entangle” two molecules into having a matching “spin” to them, you can separate them over great distances and they will still have the same interrelated spin.  You can try to change and measure one waaaay over here and know that the one waaaay over there has the corresponding measurement because they’re entangled.

So why not minds?  On the surface, telepathy would seem to be a great way to overcome obstacles in communication, right?  Alas, I believe Douglas Adams was far more accurate about the end results when he said, “Meanwhile, the poor Babel Fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”  Or to put it into more mundane terms, gentlemen know that the best verbal answer to “Do these jeans make my butt look fat?” is always, always, “No, dear,” or  “You look perfect to me in whatever you wear,” regardless of what they may actually think.

Mercedes Lackey, in a line from her Vanyel books in her wonderful Valdemar series, once remarked that “lifebonding” (her version of entangling two souls or two minds) is actually more awkward than awesome, because you constantly have to juggle the needs of both people; you have to work harder at getting along than any other pairing because you’re stuck with each other.

So thinking about all these things, I bwahaha’d a bit and wondered if I could get my heroine, Jacaranda Mackenzie, and her counterpart from the other faction, Li’eth, stuck in a quantum entanglement of their minds.  In my series, this is called a Gestalt (geh-sh-TALL-t), which is a lovely German word which boils down to “the end result is bigger than the sum of its parts”, or basically, 2+2=5 and not just =4, for sufficiently strongly enough reactive values of 2.

Now, there are several alien species in the universe of the First Salik War.  In fact, readers familiar with my military science fiction series Theirs Not To Reason Why (the first in the series, A SOLDIER’S DUTY, is found at  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/soldiers-duty-jean-johnson/1102164487?ean=9780441020638
and at
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/soldiers-duty-jean-johnson/1102164487?ean=9780441020638 )will have already met the Salik species because that story struggles with the problems of the Second Salik War.  But there were also two branches of humanity, the Terrans and the V’Dan, and I thought it would be more fun, and more plausible, to entangle the brains of two Humans.

That meant having to come up with the distinct and unique culture of the V’Dan, who—according to the history I drew up for that universe—have been cut off from Terrans for almost ten thousand years.  We don’t really get into the V’Dan culture in the series Theirs Not to Reason Why because it’s entirely from a Terran perspective.  It’s also had roughly two hundred years of contact with Terrans by that point, and like any situation where two cultures start interacting, they’ll have had an impact on each other, for better or for worse.

In the First Salik War series, however, I knew I could show these two Human empires being as alien and separate as they could get and still be a story about two branches of the same species interacting and clashing.  Throw in the other aliens and their reactions and interactions to the new players who “are not like the V’Dan we’re used to dealing with,” and you have a delightful recipe for lots and oodles and scads of expectations falling short, cultural misunderstandings, assumptions being made, and the whole making an “ass” out of “u” and “me,” so on and so forth.  Lots of fun, lots of room for a writer to work.

So I took this idea of a telepathic Gestalt, and poked and prodded at it from all angles.  Since I’ve been working on this series on and off for a couple of decades, I was able to iron out a lot of wrinkles, trim and tailor it this way and that, and I think have come up with a pretty good story.  We have Jacaranda MacKenzie, whose telepathy has been so strong, she’s never considered settling down with anyone.  This has made her an excellent civil servant as well as a former soldier, so on and so forth.

She is of mixed ethnicity, though she identifies strongest with her Hawai’ian heritage, and she is earnestly interested in finding solutions that will benefit the most number of people, not just a select few.  (Yes, authors will find a way to sneak our opinions into a story in the hopes it will inspire future generations.  Sometimes those opinions might even be good ones, but only time will tell.)  She is lucky to live in an era where skin-based prejudice no longer exists, where corruption in politics is rooted out ruthlessly, and your representative is actually trustworthy.  Do they still have problems in the Terran United Planets?  Oh my, yes…but they’re willing to acknowledge and work on them.

Then there’s Li’eth, a prince of his people, destined to serve in the military for a while because that’s one of the things extra children do when they’re not the primary heir.  He comes from a culture where physical maturity is displayed by jungen, which is a set of colorful markings which appear on the skin, the irises of the eye, and even the color of one’s hair can be changed.  This has led his entire culture into the “obvious correlation” of thinking that if you don’t have these marks, you must still be pre-pubescent, and thus still immature.  Add in the fact that his people treat psychic abilities as a mystical religious experience, whereas the Terrans treat it as a palpable science, and you have yet more awkwardness awaiting the pair.

I also decided that neither of them could be in their early twenties, let alone teenagers.  We don’t give political power to anyone under 25, and we certainly don’t hand over control of a First Contact situation to a teenager.  I didn’t even want to put them in their late twenties.  People need time to gain experience in life and in work, to figure out how to get things done, to be entrusted with a great deal of clout, if not actual power.  So mid-30s seemed about right.

So, we’ve got quantum entangled brains, check.  We have culture clashes over perceptions of maturity, check.  We have people who do understand politics and governance interacting in First Contact situations, check.  Wait…entangled brains.  They’re sharing thoughts.  Not like constantly, but very easily all the same.  So…how would these two react to that?  Should I put in some romance, or not?

Going back to that Mercedes Lackey quote, it occurred to me that if they could communicate in packets of thought with mental images and underlying subtext flavorings, it could be useful for communication, but it would also require constant mental adjustments to get along with each other.  Since neither one wants their respective governments to go to war with the other—most civilized cultures don’t—that means they would have to get to know each other, get familiar and friendly with each other, and…

Hm…are they both heterosexual?  (I rolled some dice, the dice said, “Yep!”)  Do they find each other attractive?  (Rolled more dice, again “Yep!” came up.  I can’t help it; I grew up playing D&D and other RPGs, and thus use a random number generator to help make up my mind when I’m ambivalent.  I like to think of it as injecting random potential for fun.)  Well, since they were both single, both forced to work together, both find each other attractive…oh, wait.  Li’eth is from a culture where if you don’t have the right sort of marks coloring your body, you’re, um…well, you have curves and stuff, and you’re thirty-five years old, but…society says you’re a child.  Ahah!  Another source for culture clash!

Plus there’s that whole thing about “exerting undue influence” that crops up whenever two people on opposing sides of a debate or a treaty or whatever start dating each other on top of everything else.  So how would a career representative and an imperial prince balance everything?  The needs of their people?  Their own brains becoming psychically entangled to the point where they suffer when they’re separated?  Their interest in each other?  The ethical and moral quandries of “sleeping with the as-yet-not-firmly-stablished-ally” if not “sleeping with the enemy”…?

Well, the focus of the story, as I said, is more science fiction than romance.  But you can put romance into science fiction.  You can put science fiction into romance.  The plot can be X and Y and even Z…but how the characters deal with all of that, how they change and grow and struggle, that is what makes the plot into a story that grips you and pulls you in.  Because you want to know how they deal with all of that.  Because it allows you to journey with them as they try to manage love life and career and complications.

As a reader, you become all the more invested in their struggles.  You become a sympathizer for their failures.  You become a cheerleader for their triumphs.  You become, Dear Readers—if just for a little while—entangled in the spinning of their lives.

Enjoy!
~Jean

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