About Exode

Exode is the 4th volume in the Exode pentalogy and is edited by John Schmidt (still under construction; collaborators are welcome).

1. A Search Beyond
2. Foundations of Eternity 
3. Trysta and Ekcolir
4. Exode
5. The First Reality

Exode is the story of humanity's origin and creation as told by Izhiun, his mother Hana and his grandfather Parthney. Parthney was born on the planet Hemmal, a world of the galactic core, and trained for a mission to Earth. Hana was born on Earth, but when given the chance by Parthney, she decided to leave. Izhiun was born on a lonely planet in the Andromeda galaxy, but he was able to visit Earth and he left behind this account of how the human species was designed and spread to many worlds of the galaxy.

Translation notes. Hana was born on Earth and grew up as a native speaker of English, but like Izhiun and Parthney she used the "old language"of the Buld scholars when writing the portions of Exode that reached me in written format. Izhiun provided me with translations of almost all the old language passages and terms found in Exode.

Parthney's story, the core of Exode, was passed from Parthney to Izhiun by means of a form of communication that is commonly used in the galaxy where Izhiun was born, but which is hard to explain to Earthlings. Similarly, Parthney's story was transmitted to me by nanites that were able to pass or "transmit" the semantic content of Exode (which had previously been obtained from Parthney's brain) to my brain. Part of that "transmission" was received into my conscious awareness much in the way that I normally recall past events that I have experienced, such as long-past conversations.

Since English was Parthney's first language it is possible for me to translate the "transmitted" potions of Exode into written English. Possible, but not easy. Much of the nanite-mediated "transmission" from Parthney has been deposited in my brain in such a way that it reaches my conscious awareness in the way that I might recall an old dream: I often feel that what I write is, at best, an imperfect reconstruction of what Parthney was trying to communicate.

A warning for the reader of Exode: some of Parthney's story was carefully crafted by him many years after the time of the events described; this constitutes what I think of as the first person narrative portion of Exode. Other parts of Parthney's story seem to be his raw memories of the events and they lack the strong overlay of of Parthney's conscious effort to create a coherent narrative. In order to allow readers to be aware of the distinction between these two parts of the story, I've written the "raw memories" as a third person (me) account of the events. Over time I have slowly assimilated these two types of information and I have attempted to provide them to readers in a linear temporal format in this written version of Parthney's story. Please don't be distracted by the alternation of first person and third person narrative....remember, the telling of this story was a collaborative effort.

Illustrations. Perhaps the most frustrating part of piecing together Parthney's story is the fact that my memories are now hopelessly cluttered with fragmentary images from his remembered experiences. It is by meditating on those visual clues that I am best able to feel wisps of Parthney's emotional perspective on the events of Exode. What I think of as the narrative portion of Exode is dominated by Parthney's single-minded effort to make himself understood to his descendants. Parthney wanted to pass along the facts. In the echos of Parthney's mind that have reached me, something as simple as a flashed memory of a forested ridge line on Hemmal brings along with the image the ache of longing that Parthney felt for the land of his youth. I've tried to reconstruct some of these images, but remember, none of them are actually true depictions of the events in Exode. I do hope they are useful for readers and not too misleading. The image at the top of this page is my recreation of a poster that Parthney used when he lived on Earth. That particular image from Parthney's mind also had a profound effect on Izhiun and is emotionally saturated with layers of strong feelings: at the base are Parthney's long years of regret and loneliness during which he thought he would die on Earth, but then struck into the surface of his memory is the thrill he felt at being able to liberate Hana from Earth and the miraculous way that led to his own escape, his personal exode.


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Exode: Table of Contents
 

Exode is copyright John Schmidt, but the text of the story is  licensed for sharing under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license.