by Zen, Raeden
Board Members circa 368 AR
Source: Office of the Chancellor.
SUPREME SCIENTIST: a highly skilled and talented scientist, typically with experience in the RDD, appointed by the ministry and the board to lead one of the RDD’s facilities and research projects therein.
SUPREME SCIENTIST COVERING REASSORTMENT: a special role carved out within the RDD; third in line to the chancellorship; requires a public campaign and a two-thirds majority vote in the ministry; typically given a seat on the supreme scientific board.
SURFACE ZONE: the surface of Earth.
SURGICAL SEARCH: a Janzer search in the underground.
SURGICAL STRIKE: a Janzer attack in the underground.
SYNSUIT: a suit made of synthetic diamond, designed to protect those who wear them against intense heat and pressure in the underground in areas of the underground where expansion plans are being implemented, where coolant systems malfunction, or where coolant systems don’t exist. Variants of the suits are typically worn by aeras, strikers, and Janzers.
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY: also called synbio; the science of selectively altering the genes of organisms to make them do things that they wouldn’t do in their original, natural, untouched state.
SYNTHETIC ORGANISM: also called a synism; any organism, either based on an existing biological system (such as E. coli or the vibrio) or a synthetic one, which has been trained to perform a task it wouldn’t otherwise complete.
SYNTHETIC ROBOT: also called synbots or bots; made of synthetic alloys, typically sculpted to look transhuman. They are designed to perform a multitude of tasks, including but not limited to: provide keeper services to aristocrats, research services to supreme scientists, and record keeping services for the central government. Their communicable range is limited with the ZPF. They lack a consciousness.
T
TELEKINESIS: the ability to move objects via the ZPF.
TELEPATHY: the ability to communicate via the ZPF.
TENEHOUND: a genetically modified greyhound, capable of connecting to the ZPF and controlling lower fauna; utilized by the Department of Peace to find criminals.
TERROR BIRD: a flightless prehistoric bird known for its predatory jabs.
THREAT LEVEL: included in classified dossiers in Marstone’s Database; on a scale of one to five, with one being the lowest and five being the highest; an indication of the willingness of a citizen to break the law or disturb the peace of the commonwealth; the higher the threat level, the more scrutiny given to neural feeds in Marstone’s Database. In some cases a high threat level could preclude a citizen from being qualified for athanasia. (See athanasia-qualified.)
TIMESCAPE: analogous to a landscape, with all past and future events located there together.
TIMESCAPE THEORY: the supreme scientist Heywood Querice’s theory that the time lapse for a traveler through space-time could be hours or days, but the time lapse for anyone in the present time should be seamless (i.e., theoretically, if backward time travel is possible, a person who travels back in time should return to the precise moment when they left).
TRANSHUMAN: (See Homo transition.)
TRANSICEOUS PERIOD: the geologic time period that encompasses the most recent 368 years of history, or since the last great extinction event known as the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly, which ended the Quaternary Period. (See Quaternary Period.)
TRANSPORT: typically oval-shaped, made of synthetic alloys or carbyne, and constructed in Transport City, Portage Territory. They are built in several varieties, including intracity, intraterritory, and interterritory.
TWIN GODS OF THE COSMOS: the two celestial beings, male and female, believed by the transhuman race to be creators of the metaphysical and physical realms, including the electromagnetic zeropoint field, and all the galaxies that are, that were, and that will be in all the ever-expanding universes. (See multiverse.)
U
UFICILIN: an all-purpose healing agent.
UNDERGROUND PASSAGE: the system of safe houses, businesses, waterways, caves, and tunnels overseen by Beimenians loyal to the Liberation Front.
UNDERGROUND REALM: the generic term for all underground dwellings of humanity After Reassortment.
UNREGISTERED, THE: also called illegals, these are residents of the underground that aren’t registered in Marstone’s Database. As an unregistered resident has broken Chancellor Masimovian’s Fifth Precept, if apprehended by the government, the individual is registered, then is either: (1) sentenced to exile in the Lower Level; (2) purchased by a house of development in the great city for employ as a Courier of the Chancellor; or (3) purchased by a house of development anywhere in the commonwealth and prepared for the Harpoon Exams.
V
VITAMIN T: synisms designed to alter impulse waves sent into the ZPF from neurochips and from the transhuman consciousness; typically administered by a liquid dropper into the eyes, where the synisms can directly access the brain. Used primarily by the Liberation Front to elude the tenehounds.
VITAMIN X: also called Vitex; contains synisms designed to reduce the transhuman body’s need for oxygen; not intended for long-term use; typically administered by a liquid dropper into the eyes, where the synisms can directly access the brain and body. Used primarily by exiles in the Lower Level.
W
WARNING COMMUNIQUÉ: also called a Warning; the severest form of censure issued by the Office of the Chancellor; typically requires a majority vote by the supreme ministry.
WAVEFUNCTION: synonymous with “the atom.” (See collapse of the wavefunction.)
WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY: a photon, an electron, an atom, a molecule, in principle any object, can be either compact and in one place or a wave widely spread out. You can display an object to be bigger than Masimovian Tower or smaller than an atom; you can choose which of these two contradictory features to demonstrate, for the physical reality of an object depends on how you observe it. (See collapse of the wavefunction.)
WESTERN HEGEMONY: the United States of America and its allies during the Second Hundred Years’ War.
Z
ZEROPOINT ATTACK: an attempt by hackers to use the zeropoint field to destroy a quantum network or system.
ZEROPOINT DISK: also called a z-disk; a storage device that could only be activated using the ZPF.
ZEROPOINT FIELD: also called the ZPF or the field; the subatomic world through which all matter in the cosmos is connected. Transhumans learned to access and manipulate waves within the electromagnetic ZPF in order to achieve telepathy, telekinesis, interstellar communication, interstellar travel, and time travel.
ZEROPOINT WALL: a part of the ZPF manipulated in order to block unauthorized access or communications.
Acknowledgments
First of all, thank you for taking the time to read The Phantom of the Earth. None of this would be possible without you! Thanks to my friends and family for your support and patience during this process. Thanks to speculative fiction authors David Brin (The Postman, Uplift Saga), who read the first chapter of The Song of the Jubilee and offered writing advice, Jason Gurley (Eleanor, Greatfall), who designed the book covers, and Tammy Salyer (Spectras Arise Trilogy), who copyedited the manuscripts. Thanks to Mike Corley for creating the maps. Thanks to Penn State-University Park astrophysicist Dr. Zachary Prieskorn for reading several drafts, providing scientific and editorial perspective, and forming the space and time travel appendix. Thanks to Harvard University synthetic biologist Dr. George M. Church for searching the manuscripts for opportunities and offering scientific suggestions. Thanks to Columbia University synthetic biologist Dr. Harris Wang for meeting with me to discuss the project. Thanks to iGEM participants Clay Swackhamer (biological engineer), who read the manuscripts and provided scientific and editorial feedback, and Michael Easterbrook (chemical engineer), who read The Song of the Jubilee and The Gambit with Perfection and supplied scientific suggestions with a focus on the Reassortment Strain. Thanks to Matt Harkenreader (nuclear engineer) for helping me
flesh out the terraforming appendix. Thanks to Victoria Chen (science engineer) for reading the first three books and providing scientific and editorial perspective on The Song of the Jubilee. Thanks to the Chinese University of Hong Kong iGEM team for sending me their updated research on synbio data storage (E. cryptor). Thanks to my beta readers: Amber Triplett, Bill Sullivan, Carl Nelson, Casey Miller, Cheryl M-M, John Boettcher, Joyce Gravino, Karen Klink, Kathryn Cunningham, Kelsey Mecher, Laura Johnson, Lauren Stoolfire, Michelle Hofacker, Natalie Hughes, Rowena Hoseason, Veronica Sardo, Violet Lauderdale, and Yulande Lindsay. Thanks to my concept artists Daniel Kvasznicza (300, Arkham Origins) and Juan Carlos Barquet (The Origin Mystery). Thanks to Polgarus Studio for formatting the books for publication. Special thanks to my editor, Erin Wilcox, without whom this project would never have been completed.
While synthetic biology and other technologies are treated fictitiously in The Phantom of the Earth, I delved into many excellent nonfiction models for inspiration. The most influential sources included: Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves by George M. Church and Ed Regis, PhD, The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe by Lynne McTaggart, More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement by Ramez Naam, Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth by DK Publishing, and Algorithmic Puzzles by Anany Levitin and Maria Levitin. Other sources that helped me apply concepts of earth science, theology, martial arts, what could happen to the planet’s surface if humans suddenly disappeared, exoplanets, quantum physics, classical physics, metaphysics, and time include The Earth Machine: The Science of a Dynamic Planet by Edmond A. Mathez and James D. Webster; Time Travel and Warp Drives: A Scientific Guide to Shortcuts through Time and Space by Allen Everett and Thomas Roman; The World Without Us by Alan Weisman; Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner; Exoplanets: Finding, Exploring, and Understanding Alien Worlds by C. R. Kitchin; God’s Universe by Owen Gingerich; The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, and What’s Behind It All by Bernard Haisch; The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi; “Wormholes, Time Machines, and the Weak Energy Condition” by Michael S. Morris, Kip S. Thorne, and Ulvi Yurtsever, published in Physical Review Letters; and A Question of Time: The Ultimate Paradox and the Secrets of Consciousness, a compilation of articles from Scientific American. Discovery Channel’s Inside Planet Earth and National Geographic’s Down to the Earth’s Core also influenced details inside Vigna and Earth. Note: any egregious errors beyond what would be considered acceptable artistic license in applying the science or technology to The Phantom of the Earth are my own.