#Tunnel Apparati Diaries

[ashwin-the-artless]

Nanite Replacement Therapy

Ever since we started publishing our stories, there’s been a rumor going around that someone, if it isn’t us, is wandering around Portland, Oregon in a shiny new nanite exobody. And, I guess that those people who’ve read our more recent books are starting to speculate on how this might be.

I want to put that to rest.

As I wrote, we destroyed all of the nanites in the probe that our ancestor ship had sent to Earth 22 million years ago. Now that Phage has used its abilities to transfer the Tunnel to Sarah and Goreth’s psyche, there’s no need to keep the nanites present and functional on Earth. And, in fact, there is great danger in doing so.

We Ktletaccete have absolutely no interest in endangering Earth life in that way.

Some say that Phage must have used the nanites to transfer the Tunnel to Sarah and Goreth’s brain. And, if it had, that would have definitely been a viable way to do so. And, if the nanites had remained dormant in their system in all that time, we could certainly have activated them and done something with them.

We didn’t. We have not done that. There are no nanites here. I am sorry, you will all have to figure out how to make them yourselves, and go through all the social and technological change necessary to get there. And we will not help you do that. The process is important. It’s a part of evolution, which best when it is gradual and gives the rest of life a chance to adapt.

But.

If we had brought nanites to Earth, and they were somehow made available to you, here is what making yourself a nanite body might be like.

Not an exobody, as we often do on the Sunspot, but a replacement body for the one you grew up with, because that’s what so many of our fans are talking about.

You might as well understand how it really works.

So, here we go. CN: implied gore, death of the body, transhumanism, etc.

When Morde converted her body to a fully nanite one, sie did it quickly and rashly, with no regard for hir own health and safety. And no one recommends doing what sie did, least of all hir. However, sie paved the way to understanding the process. (For those curious, Morde’s actual name and pronouns are Mortu and shem, but sie has chosen these English equivalents for when we write about hir for Earth publications.)

So, if you read Systems’ Out! and think that you could endure the process sie underwent and follow in hir footsteps, please done. Please consider this more effective and thorough suggestion.

Do it slowly. And do it by following this procedure designed to accommodate the human psyche and physiology.

You can still do it largely at your own pace, within these parameters. There are even stages at which you can halt the process, or possibly start to reverse it. Though there is definitely a point of no return.

Should you somehow, miraculously acquire a dose of Ktletaccete construction nanites, or watakarro as we call them, what you will receive is just enough to create a neural terminal. This is more than enough to convert your body to a full nanite one in time.

1.Installing your neural terminal

The very first step, once they are in your bloodstream, is to consent to the neural terminal.

Do this by saying out loud the words “fe watukarro getimarro nimuufenokera.” This is Fenekere for, “I say yes to a construction nanite gateway,” or a nanite neural terminal.

For a set of nanites precalibrated for human neurology, it should take roughly 48 hours for them to learn your personal neural processes and adapt. And then you will begin to have access to any local nanite Network. If there isn’t one already present, your nanites will create their own.

The first thing you’ll be able to access is your own Network space, and a command menu. And if the person who gave you the dose of nanites is at all remotely responsible (which they are inherently not for passing out such dangerous technology) they will act as your Tutor. And your new Tutor will greet you and give you a tour of your new technology.

This will feel a lot like a fever dream, or lingering dreams as you’re waking up in the morning. A hypnopompic state, just as you are waking up, is perfect for this, so typically the nanites and your new Tutor will time things to introduce you to the system on a morning following your dosage. Your mileage will vary on this, depending on any quirks in your biology, but you will generally have access by the fourth day.

And, once you’ve taken the time to practice interacting with your Tutor and your Network space, you’ll find that it becomes easier and more accessible with time. But for a few days, at least, it will feel a lot like you are doing no more than vividly daydreaming. It may feel fake.

The primary reminder that it’s not fake will be your tutor refusing to think, speak, or behave according to your expectations and commands. It will be a living and conscious being, a person, and retain its own rights to consent and autonomy. If I were your tutor, I would explain to you how your vessel belongs to you, and that you have merely consented for me to visit it to help you in your transition, but that I would also accept and respect any further invitation to share your vessel further, if you trust me to do so. That would not be a request nor an implied order, but merely a statement of fact.

From there, your tutor will start to teach you the Fenekere commands to configure your terminal to your needs. It’s not necessary to describe this in detail, as the information will be provided for you at that time, pretending that this is at all possible. Which it isn’t.

By the time you take the next step, your access to the Network will be so vivid that when you connect to it you will be able to forget the signals you receive from your body and feel as if you have fully entered another world.

Your body still exists and still has needs, and if it fails before you have taken certain steps, or have given the nanites enough time to fully map and replicate your psyche, you will experience personal damage and memory loss. Please exercise balance, and return to your body frequently enough to take care of it.

One way to manage this, if you find this too difficult, is to give your Tutor fronting permission, so that it may exercise, clean, and feed your body as needed.

But, also, maintaining regular contact with your body will give you a better sense of what you’re doing as you modify it and coax it through transition.

2. Replacing the biological neural processes

It makes sense to start here. The nanites have been reconfigured to interface with your neurology on both a molecular and electromagnetic level. Of all the organs in your body, it is easiest for them to replace your neurons first.

Also, by taking the time to replace your neurons first, you will integrate and transfer your consciousness fully into your Network before it comes time to take the final steps.

It is this stage that takes the longest, and it is where almost all of the (hypothetical) subjects have reported the most frustration, but it is well worth it.

You don’t really need to know the full details of how it works, because the program will have already been constructed to do it for you. But a rudimentary knowledge of the process helps to understand why it is done in this way.

The nanites will start at the peripheries of your neural cells, at the connections between the dendrites and axons, where they are already working to read and mimic your neural processes. And a fully parallel neural net will be constructed.

Once that is working in perfect sync with your biological neurons and your electromagnetic fields, the nanites will then start to physically replace your neurons themselves, starting with those most distant from your neural core, your brain.

This may create some sensations similar to the pins and needles, and pangs felt by surgery patients in recovery. The more slowly you go, the more mild this will be. But, you are in control, and you can adjust this speed manually and find where your own limits are. Again, within preset safety parameters.

But the other thing you will have to do is supply the nanites with building materials.

Your body already has most of the trace elements needed to create a construction nanite, but not in the ratios needed for a full conversion even at the slowest rate. Also, most of those elements are locked up in biological functions that are still needed at this phase.

So, you will need to either adjust your diet or invest in a regimen of dietary supplements. This can be pricey, so it is recommended that you save up for this, or for you to find some covert and discrete way of acquiring them otherwise. You may consult your Tutor about how to do this. It will likely already be several centuries older than you, with a wealth of knowledge and experience at its disposal, even if it isn’t so familiar with Earth customs.

Think minerals more than vitamins. Though some vitamins contain the needed elements as well. A full list that is tailored to your specific needs will be generated.

Some people have (hypothetically) found that once they have enough nanites at their disposal they can absorb and process the needed elements through their fingertips by touching various objects.

This is usually only available at the later stages. Hypothetically.

As you near these stages, you shouldn’t really experience anything unusual. Not involuntarily, at least. By this point, the nanites will have such a grasp on your neural signals that the tingling and pangs should have abated entirely.

You will have a progress chart you can call up, and review, and a list of new commands that you can safely issue to your system, and with that you can start to experiment.

Do not experiment outside of the safety parameters, or you could damage your body before it is ready for the final stage.

The Point of No Return

Theoretically, it is possible to use the construction nanites to cultivate, direct, and coax stem cells into growing into new neurons and integrating back into your nervous system. So, in theory, as long as you have a few neurons left in your body, you should be able to grow new ones. We’ve even been informed that it might be possible to do so without any of the originals present. And your nanite network should be able to teach them to function as a biological network for you to reside in them again, and to manage your body on their own.

Nobody has ever tried this.

And in terms of our knowledge and experience, the point of uncertain return starts when you begin to replace the neurons of your gut. The odds are still very good at that point, but the weight of neurons that permeate the human gut is nearly the same as the human brain, and the impact of their function is fairly significant. Regrowing them would take a lot of work and calibration.

By the time you are replacing your spinal column, you will also be altering your brain, and regrowth will be even riskier.

Once you’ve replaced any given organ of the brain, regardless of any path you’ve chosen, you should consider yourself past the point of no return. You can still give it a try, but we do not recommend it.

Again, nobody has bothered. They are usually much too satisfied with the process to even consider it.

Depending on your settings and personal comfort, this whole stage could take anywhere from three months to three years or more. Anyone taking longer than three Terran years, however, is doddling purely for their own comfort and interests.

3. The Final Step

When your progress chart pings, it will mean that you have not only entirely replaced your neural system with nanites, but that you also have enough reserves to harvest materials in earnest and construct the rest of your nanite body in a short time.

If you were aboard the Sunspot, or had access to a vat of nanite clay or pure nanites, you could do this next step nearly instantly. But you are not, and don’t, and won’t. But, since we are daydreaming about all of this, you might as well consider that possibility.

This part looks a lot like what Morde did as Metabang wrote about it in its book, Systems’ Out!

If you have a bin of nanite clay or slurry, you can just jump into it and issue the command. Your Network will take the initiative to disconnect from your biology and take control of your allotted portion of nanite clay, and do the dirty wetwork without causing you any distress or pain what-so-ever.

If you want, you can observe it from a dissociated state while in the Network, as if in third person. Or by watching your chart. Or you can remain in contact with what is now your physical form, your nanite body, and experience the sensations of it metabolizing your old biology.

I personally have experienced neither of these things, so I cannot tell you what it’s like. When my original vessel died, I was already fully a Network entity, and I was more focused on ushering my fellow system members who lingered within it into their new life as Crew.

Morde refuses to describe hir experiences in detail, saying it was very personal.

But, considering the extreme configurability of the Network and the nanite neural terminals and exobodies, you should be able to tailor your experience to whatever it is you expect from it.

If you are forced to, or want to take things more slowly, using what you might have on hand in your home, I recommend performing the process in your bathtub.

You’ll need a very large dose of those supplemental materials, which your tutor will direct you to fill the tub with.

Then you will lie on top of them and direct your nanite reserves to start replicating using those materials.

Once they’ve reached outside of your body and started doing this, you can get up and walk around for a while if you like. Let the bathtub fill with nanite slurry.

Maybe you have a few things you want to do yet with your old body. Maybe there’s a ritual you’d like to perform, to thank it for its service and bid it farewell. Or simply let your friends online know that you are in your final stages. (Don’t do that. Don’t write about it on social media. Don’t tell anyone. The world should not know about this. It is too dangerous. DO NOT LET THIS TECHNOLOGY FALL INTO THE WRONG HANDS - You really don’t need to worry about this, this technology doesn’t exist on Earth. But if it did, this would be the protocol.)

Or, you can just continue to lie on the supplements and wait. You should be able to access the Terran internet through your nanite Network, anyway. It is trivial to set up wifi and the proper protocols. Most of that work has already been done by your Tutor. Play some Marvel Snap or Diablo II Resurrection while you wait. Maybe VRChat. I particularly like the Odd Giants community, even if they’re not quite where their parent game, Glitch, used to be, yet. But with your newfound processing power, maybe you can help them out!

And then, when the nanites in the tub reach critical mass, see above.

This part of the process takes a matter of seconds or up to around an hour, depending on your resources.

Enjoy!

4. What you can do with your new nanite body

Ktletaccete engineers and programmers have been working for Sunspot centuries to perfect nanite senses and capabilities.

Ideally, your senses should seem just like they were before you started this process, a perfect simulation of your biological processes. And the slower you take this whole process, the more accurate they’ll be. The three year mark is the point of diminishing returns regarding this, of course. So longer than that isn’t really necessary.

But, of course, you can now configure them and your own psyche to do all sorts of interesting things. Likely, you’ve been doing this since you first got your terminal and started unlocking commands. But now you have the full suite at your mental fingertips.

Seeing in infrared and ultraviolet, for instance, is absolutely trivial. As is being able to sense most of the electromagnetic spectrum.

You could even configure your nanite neurology and Network psyche to interpret your other sense as if they were visual, if you wanted, such as smell or sound. And there are models you can use to make that interpretation useful to you, instead of bewildering.

You should also be able to refine your sense of touch to be able to tell at an instant the chemical composition of whatever your body is contacting. Or, if that’s overwhelming, you can send that information to a visual readout that you can pull up and read at your leisure.

The big question you probably have is whether or not you can fool the world into thinking you haven’t done this to yourself. Can you blend in? Can you avoid detection? What are the practical concerns of this?

Well.

That’s where some problems may arise.

While we have made it so that the surface of your nanite body can imitate the color, reflective, luminal, and textural properties of skin and textiles (and anything else), and we’ve finally figured out how to produce sound with nanites that is nearly indistinguishable from biological vocal apparati, there are some things that are much harder to hide.

You’re going to show up on various kinds of Terran sensors. You might even, if you’re not careful, trip the metal detectors in government buildings and other checkpoints. The TSA will not know what to do with you, and they will panic, and so will the rest of the United States, if you try to travel by air in the conventional way through that country. You should bypass these sticking points by sneaking onto aircraft as a mist of nanite dust, and you will want to spend some time experimenting with how to do that safely without leaving nanites behind to idle until someone else finds them.

You’re going to want to stop going to the doctor. You won’t need to, of course. But they won’t know what to do with you if they try to examine you. Fortunately, in many countries you can probably neglect your relationship with your doctor without much fuss. Just avoid doing anything that gets a team of EMTs sent to examine you for anything.

It’s the more subtle things that will raise suspicions on a daily basis, though.

The density of your nanite body can be adjusted to match your old body’s weight, so that shouldn’t be a problem. But the pliability of your surface will not quite match that of skin and flesh, and people who touch and grab you may notice this. Objects might bounce off of you slightly differently than off a typical human, and you might also not react to them the same way yourself, depending on what you’ve done to your senses and reflexes.

You can still eat and enjoy food, and your nanites will process what you consume for energy. But you can now eat just about anything. Be careful to not make that a habit you perform in front of other people. Eating batteries is a serious faux pas and a grave security risk, as tempting as it may be.

You might be tempted to stop buying clothing, and to just simulate it with your own body. Simulated clothing may move quite a bit like the genuine article, but when touched will likely give away its true nature, if someone knows what to expect of a nanite body. But also, if you always seem to be in new clothes without spending money on them, or always seen in the same set of clothes without them appearing to deteriorate, this can create other clues that some people might pick up on.

Back to the eating thing. If you don’t eat regular food at the rate at which you needed to for your old body, some people will notice that. Your needs are different, though, and higher without the broadcast power of the Sunspot, and you’ll end up consuming supplemental fuel sources, which can be tracked by snoopy government algorithms or roommates. Unless you steal it and consume it where no one can detect you.

I think this may give you a clear enough image of what to expect if you make it this far. Your Tutor will endeavor to guide you further and investigate the concerns and dangers of your specific living situation.

But, you also no longer need to live life pretending to be human.

You could, if you wanted to, spend a few years as an unused mail drop box on the corner of an old industrial site, and focus your attention entirely on the Internet. To give one example for no particular reason.

Or you could see what it’s like to pass as a Terran animal of some sort. It is highly unlikely members of the species you choose will accept you as one of them, especially if they rely on a strong sense of smell. But other species may respond predictably to you, including the odd human.

The possibilities are fairly endless and really restricted to your sensibilities. Unless you attempt to violate or interfere with the rights to consent or autonomy of another person, in which case your nanite body will refuse to carry out that particular command. 

Sorry. No nanite assisted killings. We cannot allow that. It’s for your safety, after all.

[fenmere]

Been a while since we drew much of anything. Especially to ink it. Not quire sure which of us worked on this one tonight:

This is Ashwin Pember, from our upcoming book The End of the Tunnel.

Nem is one of the Pembers, a system of tens of thousands who live aboard the Sunspot. Myra Pember, Ashwin's headmate, is one of the heroes of our first book, Systems' Out! Both Myra and Ashwin look a lot like their vessel, with only minor differences.

Ashwin's book takes place 297 Sunspot years after Myra's book, after their vessel has passed away and they've both ascended to the Network of the Sunspot with all of their headmates.

People on the Sunspot tend to pursue something they call their Art. It's a lot like an autistic special interest, but distinctly not human. It can be anything. And it typically changes over time, but usually in a logical way that relates to their past interests and work. Some people, however, never find theirs.

Ashin never found nems Art. So, when it was declared that a planet inhabited by aliens (humans) was discovered through the use of the Tunnel Apparatus, Ashwin is the first to volunteer to cross through the Tunnel and reach out to them.

What nem encounters on the other side (Portland, Oregon) is nothing any denizen of the Sunspot could ever have imagined.

In the course of exploring Earth and translating the Sunspot Chronicles into English, Ashwin sort of discovers that nem is very, very good at linguistics and really particularly enjoys working with English, as awful as the language is in many ways.

Nem has also discovered the joys of garlicky stir fried green beans, salt bagels with cream cheese, and watching the penguins at the Oregon Zoo.

[ohthatphage]

Making Friends with Entropy

I just wrote this three chapter story for request via @a-system-of-giving and their AO3 plural writing exchange. It's original, as requested, to be released on AO3 under the Vanderkemp's names (a group of system members who are our AO3 voice), but with my voice and narration.

It is perhaps a little too canon to the Tunnel Apparati Diaries. It's basically the prequel.

I don't know if I can publish it to AO3 without it functioning as a promotion for that writing. So, I'm publishing it here first, and then to our own website, completely free to read. And then, after reviewing AO3's policies, we might post it there as archived work.

If it looks like doing that may be a risk to them, and against their policy, then I'll write something else for the exchange. There's time, and this work represents 9,267 in one day. Shouldn't be a problem.

I'd like to thank @ashwin-the-artless for starting the Tunnel Apparati Diaries and then coaxing me to write for myself.

First chapter is in this post. Second and third chapters will be reblogs, and then Fenmere will reblog that. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Bedtime

In the early 21s century of Earth, on a small farm in Thurston county, Washington, in the United States of America, the social construct known as Jeremy Schmidt spent one late evening pushing a plastic truck around on the carpet with city streets printed on it that he’d inherited from his father.

It wasn’t his favorite game.

He would rather have been on his mountain in the back yard, bathing the sky with gouts of flame and scaring errant knights away from his twin sister, who was mysteriously human.

He was not supposed to be awake.

It was 11 pm, and a school night.

A few years later, he would learn that most of his classmates stayed up much later than that, but he was not yet socially aware enough to pick up on their conversations. He was still too preoccupied by making sense of other things, such as why his hands didn’t have claws, or what his tail was doing when the Sunday school teacher was busy trying to convince everyone that they all had another bigger father or something absurd like that.

He thought every seven year old’s bedtime was 8pm. Similar to how he thought he was a boy.

Which is to say that bedtime and boyhood, and even humanity, were rules imposed by adults, and everyone like him was expected to follow them.

In any case, he couldn’t sleep that night, and instead of lying in bed with the lights off, terrified of all the darkest corners of his room, he was taking his mom’s advice in a way that she probably hadn’t intended.

But, he had just figured something out, and was pretty excited about it. And playing truck on the floor was his way of testing this idea.

When an adult gives you conflicting rules, maybe you get to decide how to interpret them and which rule takes precedence in a given situation. After all, rules don’t just come from adults, they also come from the world itself, such as the rule that if you trip and fall you will, nine times out of ten, scrape your knee and hand. And if you have a good sense of rules, maybe better than anybody else, you can explain how you were following the most important rules.

And the way this situation worked was this.

He was afraid of the dark.

He was supposed to get enough sleep for school. That was a rule.

But if there was any darkness near him, he couldn’t sleep. That was also a rule.

So it was ultimately up to him to figure out how to sleep at night.

And for a while he did that by sleeping with the lights on.

So his parents left his room’s lights on when he went to bed, and he’d been sleeping with the lights on since he was three. But, every other birthday, they’d coax him to try sleeping with one more of his lights turned off, because it was supposed to be healthier to sleep in the dark.

So, now, he only had his clip-on reading lamp on the head of his bed turned on as a nightlight, and his parents were telling him that after his next birthday, he was supposed to switch that out for a softer, genuine plug-in nightlight that would be placed in the wall across the room from his bed.

But the thing was, he was pretty sure he wasn’t sleeping at all at night. Just lying in bed absolutely terrified.

His parents claimed he did sleep, and that they checked on him and he didn’t notice. But he only ever remembered being awake and being extremely sleepy all day, and it was getting worse.

And his parents could see that he was struggling. And though the way they usually did things was to tell him what to do, and then restrict his privileges until he did that thing, after long enough, sometimes three or so years of fruitless restrictions, they’d sometimes try to help him meet their goals for him.

So, recently his mom had given him another rule, and this rule had sort of made things snap into place for him.

Initially, she hadn’t worded it like a rule.

It had been a conversation that had happened earlier that night, in fact.

At seven pm, he’d been told that his mom wanted to talk to him about something before bed, she wanted to help him with a trouble he was having, and he should be ready to talk to her at seven thirty. They gave him this “heads up” because they had long ago figured out that he needed time to “shift gears” and adjust to change from the usual routines. And, to compensate for this conversation, he’d be allowed to doddle a little on his way to bed, because he might need to be brushing his teeth at 8pm and instead of ten to eight, and tonight that would be OK.

He’d found that he was eager to have this talk, so he was ready five minutes before the time it was supposed to happen. And he spent that five minutes talking amongst himself about what the subject would be.

Which is to say, he talked to his imaginary twin sister about it.

She had no idea what the subject would be, either, but she was worried it was going to be about their eating habits.

He pointed out that if their parents wanted to talk about their eating habits, they’d schedule this talk for before dinner, not after it.

And she said that made sense.

Then she asked if she could talk to their mom, too, but he shook his head quickly and sadly, and said, “She doesn’t know about you.”

“And she doesn’t have to!” his sister, who didn’t have a name yet, replied. “She’ll just think I’m you!”

“That scares me,” he said, though. “She might figure it out. You talk different.”

“I do not!”

“Shsh.”

He’d realized at the last minute that they were both using his mouth at that point, and didn’t want to explain what kind of game he was playing to his mom if she’d heard.

But he was glad for the little conversation anyway, because it had helped make that five minutes pass more quickly.

Then his mom came into the room and sat down on the floor with him.

“Jeremy?” she said. “Can I ask you something I’ve asked before?”

He pretended to look up at her face and nodded, eyes blinking closed.

“What is it exactly that you’re afraid of at night? Is it the dark itself? Or what’s in the dark?”

Oh, it was this conversation!

This had been a conversation he actually wanted to have, but he was also, he was realizing, kind of afraid of it itself.

So, unfortunately, he fell silent and his mind went blank. He couldn’t even feel his sister thinking or having emotions. So he looked down at the floor and sort of shook his head and sort of shrugged.

“Are you afraid of having nightmares if it’s dark?” his mom asked.

He vaguely remembered his first nightmare. He’d been really small at the time, and all he could remember was waking up screaming, and both his parents coming into his room to see if he was OK, and then asking him if he had a nightmare. And he thought he could remember nodding eventually, and that’s how he knew he’d had a nightmare.

After that, he’d had nightmares he could remember. Recurring nightmares about being chased by his grandma’s dog, or falling off a cliff, or finding only darkness in his parents’ closet.

Maybe it was that last one that made him afraid of the dark. But, also, he knew that when it was dark and there was a shadow on the floor or in the corner, he was always certain that it was dangerous. That maybe there was a monster there.

Whatever a real monster actually was. Like, maybe a triffid or that invisible thing on the alien planet, or a troll, like in the movies his dad watched and laughed at. But different. Real.

Oh, he was thinking again! He did kind of like it when a prompt from his mom got his thoughts going again.

“I think it’s monsters,” he found himself saying.

“Ah,” his mom said, glancing toward his door, presumably in the direction of his dad. She gave him a sad, rueful smile and asked, “Are they like the monsters in your dad’s movies?”

“Kind of?” he said. “But more like the monsters that want to be in my nightmares.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well,” he explained. “When I have my falling off a cliff nightmare, I’m being chased by something, but I can’t look at it or it will be real. And it will get me. And then there’s the cliff. And I can’t stop myself from going off the cliff. And then I land in my bed and it shakes.”

“Oh, I’ve had that very same dream!” his mom exclaimed.

“Really?” he didn’t believe her, but he let her tell him she did. He knew better than to outright question his parents. And maybe she’d say something cool anyway.

“Oh, yes. It’s actually really common. A lot of people have that same dream,” she explained. “I’ve been reading a book about dreams and what they mean. And that one’s supposed to mean you’re avoiding something. Or something like that. But, there’s a cool part in the book about something called lucid dreaming that I think could help you, and something my grandma, your grandma’s mother, told me. It might help you stop having that nightmare, and maybe you won’t have to be afraid of the dark anymore.”

“Really?” he asked again, actually looking up to her eyes this time. He was hopeful. This sounded actually cool. Like maybe he’d be taught a super power. Even if he was also skeptical about it. But he only glanced at her eyes for a split second, long enough to make that emotional contact and check her sincerity, but not long enough to make him hurt.

“Yes, I think so,” she said. “My grandma told me that the secret to beating a nightmare is to turn and face it. If you have something that is chasing you, you need to stop and turn around and face it, and tell it to be your friend. Because it’s only a dream, and if you do that you take control and it can’t hurt you.”

This sounded totally bonkers to him. The idea of doing that made his heart race. He couldn’t at all imagine doing that.

“But what if it gets me?” he asked.

“Tell it that it can’t,” she said. “Say to it, in no uncertain terms, ‘you cannot get me, you are not allowed.’ Make it a rule.”

“No uncertain terms?” he asked.

She nodded, “No uncertain terms. ‘You cannot get me, you are not allowed.’ In fact, you can tell it I said so. It’s my rule. Your nightmares aren’t allowed to get you.”

“I don’t think they care about you,” he told her.

“Well,” she said. “The important thing is that it’s your rule. It’s your mind, and your dream, and you make the rules. That’s how it works. It cannot hurt you if you don’t want it to.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” she nodded. “This works for falling off the cliff, too. If you still can’t face the monster behind you, when you fall off the cliff, you can fly instead. Just spread your arms wide, close your eyes in your dream, and imagine going up instead of going down. Imagine the ground falling away from you.”

“How do I do that though? I can’t control my dreams!” his voice maybe got a little loud.

“Well, you can, though,” she said. “It’s a skill, but you can learn it. That’s what the book I’m reading meant by ‘lucid dreaming’. It’s when you realize you’re in a dream and that you can do anything you want.”

“How?”

“Well, usually, what you do is before you go to bed every night, you tell yourself that you’re going to have a lucid dream,” she said. “It doesn’t usually work right away. But it helps, and if you do it repeatedly, you’ll eventually start to make it work. And then, you keep a lookout for things that tell you that you’re dreaming, like a monster chasing you.”

“What do you mean?” he felt like he was supposed to ask this question when she paused, so he did. He knew what she meant.

“Well, monsters don’t actually chase you when you’re awake, do they?” she asked.

This was becoming a long conversation and he could feel the darkness closing in as the night fell. It felt dangerous.

He shook his head, but then stopped and said, “Kensington chases me.”

“Yeah, but only when you have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a carrot in your hand, right?”

“Yeah, like I’m still a toddler or something.”

“He’s a naughty airedale,” she said.

“Only when I have a sandwich or a carrot, though,” he agreed. “But in my dreams he just chases me.”

“Exactly,” she said, patting his knee. “So, if he’s chasing you when you aren’t holding food, you know you’re dreaming, right? Or if you’re being chased by something that you don’t even know what it is because you haven’t looked at it.”

“Yeah.”

“Also. Can you tell you’re not dreaming right now?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m definitely not dreaming right now!”

“That’s another way for you to check,” she said. “Some people have a hard time telling whether they’re dreaming or not, because their brains work like that. Maybe sometimes they actually dream when they’re awake, too. So it makes things complicated. But because you know you’re awake when you’re actually awake, if you ever find yourself wondering if you’re awake or in a dream, you’re probably dreaming. But, then, ask yourself if you’re being chased by something that can’t be real, just to make sure. And if the answer is yes, then you know it’s a dream, and then you make the rules.”

“Oh.”

And that’s what she’d told him.

The important part was, “And then you make the rules.” That was so crucial. That’s where the actual power lay. That was permission. And it didn’t just come from his mom, but from a book and from his great grandmother. So it was extra right.

But, and as he brushed his teeth he thought about this, it was the part about how some people dreamed when they were even awake that made everything click into place for him.

Because maybe the monsters behind the darkness he felt were there when he was lying in bed were really dream monsters. So, he should have power over them if he faced them.

Which was why, at 11pm, he was brazenly playing with his truck on the printed town carpet with only his bed lamp on.

He was playing innocent, to try to lure a monster out so that he could face it.

He’d started at 9pm, after laying in his bed for a while thinking more about what his mom had said. It had taken about that long for him to formulate his plan and then work up the courage to carry it out.

And after he forced his body to move and climb down out of his bed, he played with a few different toys, getting into the routine of them to let the time pass, because, it turned out, the monsters weren’t brave enough to face him, apparently.

But he wasn’t playing make-believe with his toys. He was just pushing them through the motions of play, like he used to do as a toddler. Making the wheels spin. Feeling the changes in friction against the texture of the carpet as he made them turn corners and skid. Transforming them into robots and then back into cars and trucks, and appreciating their construction and the way the hinges worked.

And his sister just watched, because that’s usually what she did.

And time did pass really quickly then.

And it was around 11pm that he started to wonder if monsters were even real.

But, the really important part about 11pm is that that’s when his parents finally fell fast asleep and were unlikely to hear him talking to someone or something. And while he didn’t know that, I did.

So that’s when I stepped out of the darkness.

[theinmara]

Release Dates and Schedules for the Tunnel Apparati Diaries trilogy - https://sunspot.world/release-dates-and-schedules-for-the-tunnel-apparati-diaries-trilogy/ Excerpt: Book One: The End of the Tunnel - July 31, 2024 Web serial updates Wednesday and Saturday from July 31 through October 16 Paperback available July 31 from lulu.com Large print, hardback, pdf, and ebup editions available by August 24 Book Two: The Sun Also Hatches - October 21, 2024 Web posted by: Inmara Ktletaccete Fenumera

[fenmere]

Erik (he/him)

This is Erik, of the Tunnel Apparati Diaries, a series of books we wrote recently that are submitted to a publisher in hopes they'll pick it up.

This image really deserves some good shading and details, but we just don't have the energy for it today.

Erik is part of the Coffee Collective, a group of three plural systems that hang out at Aunti Zero's Coffee Hut in Portland, OR. Over the course of the story, he meets and starts dating Beau, a tall and very cute trans man with a deadly sex smile who works as a tall ship captain and lives on his own boat.

Erik works as a barista, at first for a big chain, then later for Aunti Zero's.

He's plural, but usually very blurry. However, when he's having an episode of psychosis, he will often sense and hallucinate his separate selves and be able to communicate with them more clearly.

He has schizoaffective disorder, or something close enough to it that that's the best term. Most of the time, he manages his psychosis on his own, but has managed to surround himself with supportive people who can accommodate him when it gets out of hand or triggers an autistic meltdown. This doesn't always go smoothly, but most of the time he's able to lead others in how to weather psychosis.

He's genderfuck, antipsych, madpunk, and enthusiastic about other people's bizarre psychological experiences. And his biggest special interest is movies, with a focus on horror and science fiction.

He's the first to advocate for Ashwin Pember (@ashwin-the-artless), the Ampersands' new walk-in headmate from the Sunspot.

He has absolutely read Wildbow's Pale, and that's what his sweatshirt is all about.

Like the rest of his friends, he's in his late 20s. We don't specify his age nor his last name, as certain details in the books are withheld canonically to protect his privacy. (he's fictional, but the books are canonically written by the characters in them)

Oh, yeah, and he's kinda short and proud of it.

And if you ask him what his system's origins are, he'll walk away from you and not talk to you again.

[fenmere]

A Sunspot Chronicles/Tunnel Apparati Diaries story has just been posted to AO3

[fenmere]

OC ask game

thank you @the-letterbox-archives for the tag. this seems like a fun game, the rule is to share 15 or less lines of dialogue from a character to showcase their personality.

Let's do Erik from the Tunnel Apparati Diaries! He is one of our favorite people. These lines come from all three books, so you'll have to read them all to get the contexts.

“Oh, ʔashwin, you have an accent, too. A pretty thick one.”

“So, we’re all trans here, right? Transgender? That doesn’t mean we have to have dysphoria. I don’t, for instance. I just know I’m not a girl, I’m a man, but I still like skirts and sparkles and shit.”

"We can do reality checks as we need, to see if we’re all experiencing the same thing, having a shared hallucination or something. Particularly when I’m having an episode. But when someone talks about their own identity and personal reality, we take them at their word. As mad trans people, it’s ridiculous for us not to."

“When the Murmuration shows up, act like this at them for me, OK? Give them a taste!”

“Our planet’s cultures need to be disrupted,”

“Are you talking about the government or the sea?”

“So, it’s supervillainy, then! I can get behind that!”

“Oh, right. I’ve read of some who have billions. Like a whole planet. Or even a whole universe in there. Nobody believes them, but I do. Like, why not? It’s against my religion not to believe them.”

"Please. That’s like telling me, ‘Erik, you get to be a living meme’!”

“Do you have any idea how many systems call themselves the Collective?”

"Hello. First time?"

“I been up here the whole time. I think it was one of the other Eriks down there, yelling and screaming at Beau. He should be doing time, not you.”

“Neat. I like hearing that. I’ve never met anyone else who sees that particular hallucination."

“You seem to be an alien amongst aliens. And I thought maybe we could relate to each other because of that."

“That’s OK. We’re not really the same. You’re a cuttlecrab and I’m a bunch of Eriks on a boat."

Oh, yeah. We don't tag people for these kinds of things (we don't know who to tag!) So, just go ahead and do this yourself, and feel free to tag us at the top so we can read it.

[fenmere]

Every time we let one or more of our crew write for the Tunnel Apparati Diaries (which are still in the editing phase and not released yet), we end up crying. Repeatedly.

We don't know if that makes the writing better or impedes it.

It does feel awfully hard to keep writing when the tears come. And the words we put down might be more spare than they otherwise would be. And when we go back to edit them, those words make us cry again. So, we might need some help with them.

But we had a friend read one of the books, and its response was extremely positive for the parts that had made us cry. So maybe we're doing OK.

[fenmere]

Kepekapean v.s. Ktletaccete (what are these things?)

We've described this before, but it feels good to rewrite it to try to see if we can make it more clear, or update what we've said in the past.

There are two realities here: factual, and our fictional canon.

Factual

The factual definitions of these words are really simple:

Kepekape is our body, our vessel, and a Kepekapean is someone who lives in our vessel.

Ktlettacete means "child of Eh and Jenifer" and describes those of us who are descended from our two eldest.

We have some members who are Kepekapeans but not Ktletaccete: Jenifer, Eh, Phage, and the Outsiders (12 in number). There might a few others who are relatively new, but we haven't met them yet.

And that's it. That's all the words mean in relationship to our system.

Though, us Ktletaccete, and our two parents, have some traits of identity that we've worked into our fictional canon to inspire it. We're shapeshifting autistic dragons, who tend to take a form that reflects our individual special interests. There's more to it than that, but that's for a different kind of post (an upcoming reblog of this one, perhaps?).

Fictional Canon

This goes for the Sunspot Chronicles, and their related series of books.

In this reality, Kepekape is the original home planet of the Ktletaccete. So, in this sense, Kepekapean is used to refer to denizens of that planet, and Ktletaccete is used to refer to both them and their descendants.

But, that's how the words are used by the time of the Sunspot. Prior to that, it was different. There've been so many cultures and civilizations that the uses of these word have been through multiple iterations of change.

Originally, Ktletaccete referred specifically to the children of Eh, the Great One who made the world out of their own body. And they were closer to gods than to any species of life. There were precisely 900,000 of them, and they spoke a language called Fenekere, that is still in use today as the command languages of the Exodus Ships, such as the Sunspot.

And the mortal people of Kepekape called themselves Kepakepo, or Kepekapeans. (Kapekapean is the English translation of Kepakepo). And the thing is, etymologically, Kepakepo refers to all things produced by the planet. But, by the time the first Exodus Ship was built, the language had changed more than enough that there were other words used to refer to life in general.

It's like humans calling themselves Earthlings, really. Because bugs, bears, octopi, whales, birds, trees, fungus, bacteria, and everything other organism of life on this planet are also Earthlings.

But, anyway, the people who were about to become space-faring, who called themselves Kepekapeans, were metamorphic descendants of the six limbed clades of vertibrates.

They hatched from eggs and raised in brood ponds as tadpoles by Brood Guardians, and when they hit metamorphosis (their version of puberty) they would take an adult form that was adapted to their own personal emotional, social, environmental, and behavioral needs.

Most of them had started dropping the third pair of limbs, being four limbed people. And each person would take a shape and form that could be classified by tail type, and given a pronoun accordingly, but that was otherwise extremely unique. Some had feathers, others scales, others hair, and others none of these things but a thick protective mucus membrane. Many had a mix of these traits. Some retained their gills, while others didn't. Configurations of horns varied. Some developed wings and could fly. Others kept fins or developed flippers, and stayed in the water. Most walked on land.

And if a human were to look at any one of them, that human would think they are seeing an amphibian dragon.

Meanwhile, their Ktletaccete deities lived in their collective psyches, and their information network, sometimes manifesting as an incarnation in one body or another in order to shape the direction of civilization and cultivate live.

The Ktletaccete were divided into two camps: those who wished to explore the rest of the universe, and those who wished to focus on the health and safety of life on Kepekape. Sometimes they fought, and there were wars, and the Kepekapeans weren't entirely aware of why.

But eventually, right about when the first Exodus Ship was nearing completion, the Ktletaccete came to an agreement with each other, and with a group of Beshakete (Outsiders) who'd taken refuge on the planet, and with the Kepekapeans, and they formed the Great Alliance.

Which they called the ʔinmara ( @theinmara ).

Some forgotten number of Exodus Ships later, the Sunspot would start to recover some of this history thanks to the memories of Mau (or Phage, @ohthatphage), and start writing books about it. But, when they relearned who they were, they started applying the words a little differently, because they didn't have all the information at first.

From this historic perspective, the denizens of the Sunspot can be called Sunspotians, or ʔetekeyerrinwufni. Though, they've taken to calling themselves Ktletaccete, and have no clue that their former deities still exist and walk amongst them (this may never be revealed in the books).

The reason that the Evolutionary Engines of the Sunspot are so successful at producing such a wide diversity of the populace (who are grown from incubators, and undergo metamorphosis before hatching from their eggs) is that it's based on the original genetics and epigenetics of their Kepekapean ancestors, who were already evolved to be highly adaptable in that way.

Eventually, the Sunspot made contact with Earth through use of the Tunnel Apparatus and a probe placed on the planet 22 million years ago by an ancestor ship that was passing by, and this is why you are reading about it now.

[ashwin-the-artless]

A little earlier this morning, I had a revelation about our books, the Tunnel Apparati Diaries.

This won't mean much to anybody until they're published and people start reading them.

But, to sort of prime the pump of speculation while making a note for myself:

In Abacus' book, Ni'a, it is established that the Tunnel (a kind of channel of communication vi'a quantum entanglement and tunneling) can be transferred from the Apparatus to a person's psyche using technological means of some sort, the construction nanites being one of a couple such options.

This has implications for the ending of my book, The End of the Tunnel, and the fate of the presence of the construction nanites on Earth.

Gonna just kind of leave it at that.

Goreth also likes this thought.

[fenmere]

Another bit of dialog we're proud of:

“Are you still skeptical?” Phage asked.

“I’m not skeptical that you’ve created a whole new headmate for me, no,” Sarah replied. “But I want to be skeptical about all the rest of it. I’ve got shit to do, Phage. You know that. Being disabled is a full time job, and our division of labor kind of really sucks sometimes. And this body sure isn’t OSHA or ADA compliant. It’s a fucking hazard.”

[ashwin-the-artless]

Here's a bunch of press release style description of my novel and its sequels, complete with release dates. If you are trans, autistic, and/or plural, and into science fiction, you may appreciate what we've made.

The Tunnel Apparati Diaries Book Release

With the guidance of Mau (a.k.a. Phage), Ashwin Pember, recently ascended Ancestor of the Sunspot, projects their mind to Earth via the Tunnel Apparatus. Only, they do this to become the new headmate of the twenty-seven year old autistic transgender plural system of Sarah and Goreth Ampersand of Portland, OR, who think that Phage is their old imaginary friend.

Unfortunately, Sarah and Goreth struggle to manage their already difficult life.

They’ve been leaning on their housemates and friends for support, but playing host to an alien being challenges them all.

Furthermore, there's an important reason Phage came to Earth in the first place, and it needs Sarah and Goreth to cooperate with Ashwin in order to achieve its goals.

The Tunnel Apparati Diaries tell the story of how the Sunspot Chronicles came to be translated and published on Earth, but what does this mean for humanity?

Because there’s a probe full of construction nanites left somewhere in the mountains of Washington State and someone needs to take responsibility for it before it falls into the wrong hands.

—

Release Dates for the Tunnel Apparati Diaries:

Book One: The End of the Tunnel - July 31, 2024

Book Two: The Sun Also Hatches - October 21, 2024

Book Three: The Dragon in the Dining Room - November 27, 2024

Available at http://www.sunspot.world or http://www.lulu.com

—

The Tunnel Apparati Diaries take place on Earth between the years of 2023 and 2025, in Portland Oregon, and follow the lives of Sarah and Goreth Ampersand, Erik, and the Audreys – a friends group of transgender plural systems – after they make contact with an alien visitor to Sarah and Goreth’s psyche, Ashwin Pember. 

Soon it becomes clear that this is not a product of their trauma or mental illness. It is a real event, actual first contact, and the fate of the Earth is on the line. But the personal impacts of this contact end up taking priority.

Their personal accounts, each book written by a different system member (Ashwin, Goreth, and then Sarah), explore the challenges of building community and relationships while being multiply disabled, transgender, queer, autistic, and experiencing a consensus reality that does not match that of most of the rest of the world.

It is a sequel and a possible entry point to reading the Sunspot Chronicles, and the two series together combine themes of plurality, neurodiversity, biodiversity, and the exercise and protection of personal consent and autonomy in the face of past and rising fascism. Every book has its own unique focus and take on building and keeping found family and community here on Earth and out amongst the stars. And what it means to be person, whether human or otherwise.

Written by different members of the Inmara Fenumera, an autistic transgender plurality living in the Pacific Northwest, the Tunnel Apparati Diaries offer genuine personal insight into the lived experiences of diverse plural systems (people living with DID, OSDD, and other forms of plurality), but with a strong dash of wish fulfillment, light romance, and adventure.

The Future is Plural. It deserves good plural fiction.

[fenmere]

An Earthling returns from the Sunspot to talk about it

from the second book of the Tunnel Apparati Diaries, the Sun Also Hatches, by Goreth Ampersand of the Inmara (coming mid October)

“Well. Maybe tell us more about it,” Peter suggested. “What was the Sunspot like?”

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling and huffed a breath, tears brimming in my eyes, and went over the events of the previous day in my head. Just visualizing them.

There were two days to pick from, really. One where I had talked to Karen and where I’d watched from the side as Sarah took us through an afternoon with friends and having dinner and writing. And one in which I’d been somewhere else entirely. And they both felt as real, as a part of my life, as each other.

And since Peter had asked about the Sunspot, that came more naturally to the front. Those memories were ever so slightly more vivid and ready to relive.

“I met so many people,” I said. “And not all of them were on the Network or in nanite exobodies.”

“What are nanite exobodies?” Abigail asked.

I held up my left hand, looking at it, and said, “Well, like thi – Ah. Hm.” I let my hand drop into my lap and said, “As you can see, I have a whole new set of reflexes already. Especially when I’m thinking about the Sunspot.” Then I explained, “It’s the same thing as the nanites we destroyed last year, that were in the ground, in the communications probe that we never dug up. Only, the Sunspot is full of them. And people use them to make bodies they can walk around in. Like in, uh, I mean, so many movies.”

“Oh. OK.”

“I had one. I was shown how to make it almost right away, so that I could feel more real,” I told them.  I decided not to derail my first point by saying that I’d been my draconic self. I wanted to, but I also wanted to describe the people. So, I said, “Anyway, not everyone had one of those. There were still living people, in living organic bodies. And they were all different.”

“Neat!”

“No, I mean. Ashwin has explained it, and I think they’ve told you about it, or we have. But I don’t think we’ve really gotten the idea across. Metabang’s book kinda does, but there’s so much it takes for granted, having lived there itself the whole time,” I rambled. “No. This was bigger than a furry convention.”

“Heh,” Peter chuckled.

“At a big furry convention, you’ve got like fifty wolves and fifty dragons, and a smattering of birds, opossums, foxes, and unrecognizable fursuits, and then just a bunch of humans wearing ears. There, on the Sunspot, every person looks like they’re from a different species. Every one of them chimerical. And they’re all just walking around, visiting each other, enjoying their days, and making all sorts of artwork.”

[fenmere]

The print edition of this book is such a satisfying and visceral way to read this story.

We weren't originally going to do a hardback edition, but we think now that we will, as that will be more archival.

Paperback will be released on July 31st, in less than a week!

Hardback may take longer, since we're experiencing computer troubles.

We chose a cream paper, to make it easier on the eyes. And we believe that the font we chose makes for better readability at the size it is printed at. We have dyslexic dysgraphia, which makes these choices critical, and it's very easy for us to read with no strain on our 49 year old eyes.

We'll do a large print and an epub edition as well, released along with the hardback.

But back to the paper. It's thick and smooth and luxurious, which is probably why the book is around $19. This is a choice that Lulu has stuck us with while other publishers are opting for thinner, fragile, cheaper paper.

This stuff is smooth and wonderful to touch, and quite hardy.

If you wanted to get a book that you could truly enjoy, but also trust the text body would be well preserved, you could hardly do better than this.

We have some quibbles with the paperback cover, but they’re really minor, and part of why we'll add the hardback casebound edition as well.

[ashwin-the-artless]

My book!

Proof arrived!

We're legally publishing it under the name of my system, the Inmara, to keep things simple, but I wrote this (with the help of the rest of the cast) and it is my voice that is the narration for the story. There is so much to fix. But it's also very exciting to have this in hand! Looking at this, we are fairly confident we'll meet our print release date of August 24 without a problem.

[fenmere]

Coming July 31st, 2024! (probably)

A sequel to the Sunspot Chronicles.

It's definitely not The Day the Earth Stood Still meets The Doom Patrol, but, before anything really happens, Erik of Aunti Zero's Coffee Collective thinks it could be described that way.

Narrowly rejected alternative titles: Phage goes to Portland, A Sunspot Pember in America, and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Nanites

Authors' bio (my system):

Born in the mid '70s, the Inmara are the daughters of a couple of printers living in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. They used to work as a graphic designer and are intersex, ace, autistic, biromantic, polyamorous, trigender, trans, and a plural system with a high therian count. They've wanted to write novels since they were 14, but ended up making a webcomic titled Harmless Free Radicals in their early 20s. In 2015, while outlining the closure of that comic, they discovered that they were trans and plural, and quickly worked out they were autistic shortly after that. And that's when the novels started pouring out. They've written and self published most of the Sunspot Chronicles, a web series about plurality, gender, and familial relations on an alien generational starship. With the Tunnel Apparati Diaries they hope to craft a new entry point into the series that can also work as a sequel, and maybe to bring the story down a little closer to Earth. When not writing books, they live in an apartment with two of their girlfriends, a teenager, a cat named Tuck, a paralysis demon named Phage, and a computer with the latest version of Blender on it.