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Friday, September 19, 2025

Welcome To The Pleroma: This Tangled Web - Episode 1 (Finished September 19, 2025 5:00 PM EST)

Despite the remarkable similarity to Trypanohyncha Ocellus, this image was 
initially created on February 2, 2025, and has no connection to the 
excellent series Alien: Earth.


Introduction

The original story that inspired this modern examination of the possible future of humanity was originally conceived and written in early 2013, and published as the novella The Archive: Welcome To The Pleroma on one of my early blogs at that time that eventually merged to become Shhhh! Digital Media as it stands now.


The Archive in that story refers to a simulation run on hybrid technology computers that combine Quantum computing, String Theory (I believe that I used M-Theory as the conceptual framework and Branes as the foundational particulate unit), and the more recently discussed experimental technology of Thermodynamic computing, which exploits the nature of entropy in the form of systems that naturally evolve towards a least energy state. In terms of my becoming aware of  thermodynamic computing, that only occurred relatively recently and I'll give my sources or at the very least, a few references to further information at the start of the credits and attribution section of this post.


Although I did not refer to thermodynamic computing in the original text, I alluded to computation performed by highly advanced analog computing systems that were built to exploit the qualities of information versus entropy, again, via the second law of thermodynamics, meaning that the number of states their units of information were capable of was variable. 


Their channels (most closely represented in classical computing by the data bus) were essentially waveform harmonics. Information was modulated into ultra high frequencies of light, with compression being achieved via modulation and the compressed information represented in the resulting harmonics, allowing for faster than light bus speeds. I believe that I called these computers harmonic spheres in the original text. They were capable of simulating reality in terms of their presentation layer as input sources for our five (six in the story) sensory organs. Our connections to these sensory organs was achieved through biologically compatible radio waves (simulated biomagnetism).


The Archivist was a research position held by specially trained historians, who utilized these simulations to discover missing strands in our historical records. The missing strands weren't synthesized, like having statistical data of the bracketing points of time on a graph, and then averaging the wave function of the two in order to synthesize the data between them. These missing strands were the probablistic representation of what was missing from the record, down to the lowest levels of information representation possible in the universe.


Because harmonic spheres operated using analog computing, the smallest unit of information in these computers was represented by where its scale had intersected a one hundred percent probability over the number of ways it could be arranged (99.9999998% of the time, ways in the form of s=k log w was 1). 


This point at that scale was considered to be objective, yielding the same result no matter the observer. Hence, these simulations could be used to reconstruct any missing points in our history, and even used to retrieve lost objects from within, which when retrieved would basically be represented as a chemical record of the object's composition in the form of data. 


In Welcome to the Pleroma, our protagonist is the archivist who retrieves the missing pieces of our biological records, across the entire history and span of the Earth's multitude of eco-system biomes.


I never finished this story, though I think that I was more attracted to the idea of writing about the society and technology itself, than I was about the story of the protagonist, which wandered away from the theme, which was connected to its title: the pleroma.


Having attempted several times to salvage the story, I eventually became bored with where it was going and abandoned it, always intending to come back to it at some point in the future. 


In autumn of 2024, I began exploring the idea of doing an episodic series based upon that world, and began researching and developing the ideas that would eventually become the basis for this completely new story that takes place within the same world. 


This story however, focuses on many aspects of society and existence, while exploring the (future) concept of the pleroma. The concepts and ideas are purposely vague, because I don't want them to propagate via osmosis of the pleroma into other places before fully expressing and exploring them. It would be nice to have people read (or listen to the audiobook episodes) rather than to have them scried psychically from me before they're published, and then to have them show up in other places, although I'd be the first to admit that our mentors and teachers often planted the seeds of our greatest ideas within us long ago. Sometimes, when invited, they take the passenger seat beside us on this voyage and share with us the fertilizer needed to see these seeds grow.


Brian Joseph Johns


Chapters

  1. Conception
  2. Amidst The Rain
  3. Meeting
  4. Temp-nym


This content is produced by the artists indicated on the site, including myself, Brian Joseph Johns. 


I, under no circumstance will trade, barter or otherwise swap my own identity for that of another person and I protect the same right for those who've contributed their artwork to the various projects under my management at Shhhh! Digital Media, my own company, no matter the colour symbolism involved. These rights are protected by law under the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms under section 7.

Also, FYI, I don't reverse or alter the polarity or context of my expression (sometimes referred to as "blove" by some people). I say what I mean and mean what I say, and generally only joke or am sarcastic with people I really know very well.


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Please support education and information access where you can in addition to these charities:


Sick Kids Foundation - Check out the Sick Kids Raffle!
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Creating a world of possibility for kids and youth with disabilities.


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The World Veterans Federation is a humanitarian organisation, a charity and a peace activist movement. The WVF maintains its consultative status with the United Nations since 1951 and was conferred the title of “Peace Messenger” in 1987.


I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.

"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."

Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize 1950


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The Edgar Allan Poe Museum
Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado! 

In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?! Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.


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Humble Bundle
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Shhhh! Digital Media

Brian Joseph Johns


Warning: this material is intended for a mature audience. Reader discretion is advised.


Welcome To The Pleroma: This Tangled Web 

Episode 1



Conception


Nine billion light years distant and into the past, amidst a corner of the universe still absent of all but the earliest photons. 

An enormous disk of hydrogen (nine parts) and helium (three parts).

It swirls as its structure evolves over the course of millions of years. 

A system in nature, naturally sorting elements.

The remaining heavier trace elements (0.001 parts).

All became two distinct lanes. A tiny third lane closest to the proto-star.

A gaseous ball in its center of one-half solar diameter.

Gravity. Pressure. Density.

Two hydrogen pushed together to become one helium.

A critical mass achieved.

The first spark.


A woman straddles a man.

Their hands grasp. Their fingers interlocked.

Pearl drops of sweat between their thighs.

He upon his back, his eyes locked upon her face.

Her eyes closed, they open slowly.

Taking him in. Their eyes to each other.

Majestic, like a goddess. She moves as their pleasure grows.

Coincides.

The release of ovum. An egg. Sperm.

Climax.


Tiny hair-like follicles.

Dendrites. Fractal in form.

Self similarity across scale.

Tickled by incoming chemistry.

Glutamate. Dopamine.

Chemical pressure becomes.

Action potential.

An electrical impulse cascades.

From the soma.

Along the stem of the cell.

A tunnel. A pathway.

To the axon.


A star ignited.

A child conceived.

A thought arrived.


Amidst The Rain


She lay on the flat of her stomach. Across his chest, her arms folded beneath her chin. A sleekly toned and perfectly shaped cradle of lightly tanned pink flesh. Her lips seven inches away, his eyes fixed upon them and her smile.

Full. Red. Swollen.

He followed the curves of her nose, up along her flushed cheeks to her eyes. Blinked they did back at him.

"What...?" she laughed, blushing as he stared at her.

"Hue've done before?" he asked her.

"Way," she replied.

"Way way?" he pressed her further.

"Nay," she smiled again, a slight hint of resent upon her face as she shook her head side to side in negation.

"Check way?" he asked her, wanting to draw her attention back to him.

"Kay," she nodded affirmatively.

"D'ya hear?" he asked aloud, looking away from her off into the distance, his voice directed towards someone else.

"How can I help?" a voice emerged from the fog of fantasy light space that surrounded them.

"We'd know. Little wyn?" he asked aloud.

"Ninety-six percent a boy," the voice responded within a second.

"Thy're. Smiles?" he looked to her, a proud grin above his cleft chin.

"Way," she looked to the hair on his chest, running her perfect nails along the center of his breast-plate, as she followed a winding path to his nipple.

She kissed it with her perfect lips, looking back up to him with a pleasurous sigh.

The scent of her perfume found his nostrils, and he felt himself excited once again.

"Min! Min!" she suddenly leaned up from his chest, turning to face another direction.

She was now fully clothed, upon her feet. Form fitting clothing clung to her body tightly, a semi-permeable self-cleaning variable outfit. As she strode along a brushed metalic textured hallway, the walls reflected her body and she arrived at the front door.

A perfectly handsome man, not unlike the one with whom she'd been laying moments earlier stood at the door.

"Nutrious. Werbee like?" he asked her.

The top of her outfit slowly transitioned in colour from a pale orange to a flowery magenta.

"Doorage. Left. T'care'me drive," she replied to him, gesturing towards a garage door just outside as it slowly opened, revealing a car within.

The walls of the garage slowly became translucent, revealing in the space next to her car a series of compressed storage bins.

"G'drive! T'care'yu," he smiled back at her, returning to his delivery truck along the perfect walkway path that ran from her front door to the road.

She watched him as he returned to his truck, and then closed the door.

She was once again on her previous partner's chest, naked as she was before.

"More time?" he smiled at her, leaning forward to kiss her on the lips.

"Nay. Bizee," she replied.

He looked to her as a defeated man, his perfect face suddenly weary. The cleft chin like an exclamation mark accenting his attempt to guilt trip her.

"Bizee, bizee!" she lifted his chin with her perfect fingers, pushing her lips to his for a short kiss.

"Me'call," he said to her with a smile as she pulled away.

"Kay," she smiled and nodded before she disappeared, leaving only his naked body floating amidst a bay of fantasy light.

She was in another outfit. This time a skirt graced the top of her knees at an angle, revealing a portion of her right thigh which was shaded with pinkish-lavender pantyhose. Her top decorated with frills above the breast, while clinging to her torso, barely concealing what lay beneath.

"Met," she greeted the others, all of them in their perfect attire as they sat in a row along the length of the boardroom table.

She sighed again just before she was ready to take her seat, leaning over towards the table. She momentarily disappeared and reappeared naked with her partner, giving him one more tender kiss before she blinked out again, returning to her meeting fully clothed.

...

The fantasy light faded, revealing a lavish studio condominium where he sat with his shirtless, perfectly sculpted chest in a pair of form fitting pants upon a sofa poised before a wide-wall reality display.

"Wether?" he said aloud.

The display screen disappeared, revealing the exterior of the condo, a sizeable tower some five hundred floors above the surface of the planet. Clouds blocked his vision though less than a second later, his view became shaded in such a way that gave him perfect vision of the surrounding cityscape. 

Clouds or not, the reality display shaded everything in such a way that everything could be seen.

The rain fell hard from an even higher ceiling than his current altitude, some of it hitting the building as droplets of ice, shattering as they hit the duraglass surface and scattering to the howling wind near ground level two kilometers beneath him.

His mind returned to her, recalling their moments before they'd reached climax, and then he thought about their child.

He'd only been conceived five minutes earlier, and yet he'd grown with the assistance of augmented temporal saturation to the equivalent of a six month old baby.

"New boy?" he requested.

The reality display faded and the image of the rain filled sky was replaced with that of a tiny infant boy, floating within a medium of nutrients, his umbilical still visible as the child grew in its artificially accelerated environment.

This boy was their first, though they would never know his temp-nym. By the time he'd reached the equivalent of one year's age, they'd no longer have access to him, nor would they ever know the man he'd grow to become.

He pondered this as he sat on the sofa, wondering for only a moment where his own parents might be at this time, knowing that in six years that his boy might be pondering the same thing from a similar condo of his own.

He looked to the left and was instantly on his feet, drawing forth a plate of perfectly prepared food from the quik-cook. A plate of twist-dogs (chicken meat hotdogs artificially engineered from the protein record), carbochips (grown from the same technology that gave us inoodles) and naneerix (a dessert of flavoured nanobots that scoured the body of any free radicals and byproducts of our rapid digestion tracts, leaving perfect arteries and healthy tissue in their wake).

A few seconds later and he was finished eating and once again seated on the sofa. He closed his eyes and a clock appeared in the sky above him as he lay down.

"Wayk in three. Rem'call wife," the clock faded as his artificial hormone glands emitted dopamine and melotonin into his nervous system.

A moment later and he was fast asleep to the sound of rain, as if laying on the roof of the building and comfortably beneath the elements that fell from the night sky.


Meeting

She sat nearest the north end of the boardroom table, on the west side of the corner, her perfectly rounded bright red lips punctuating her flatlined smile. To her left sat a tall thin man, of perfect complexion, right down to the symmetry and geometry of the minute pores that lined his skin. In fact, it was the same consistency of features while a diversity of appearance for each of the four men and five women who sat at the table.

"Tok safe?" she looked to her left as she asked him.

"Safe," he nodded agreeably to her.

"Trill layers in," the woman to his left added, looking across the table to the woman who'd asked him.

"Much too for Archaeus. Even much," the man to her left added.

"Safe," she whose lips bore the red agreed.

"Hram?" asked the man at the end of the table of her.

"Slepfast. Nonot. Workthink," she replied.

"Nuborn?" asked the lady across from her.

"Boy. Nineten chromzones of fiveten. Hi skilearn. Hi-est Hi," she nodded.

"Nuf hi?" the man at the end of the table leaned back in his chair, beginning to feel comfortable speaking of these issues since having arrived.

"Nuf sure. Ten-bil-to-one, mito-c [pronounced mitok]. Man-c [pronounced mank] scale off hi. Good much man. Thyroid safe. Very," she smiled, perhaps with a sense of love for their first creation.

Her first creation.

"Steril nay? Howboy hav?" the lady across the table from her asked.

"Craftgen. Custgen. Artgen. Chromzone master. Proteen beynd. Make-he. Make-he like real. Make-he like luv,"  she explained to them at the table, looking to the rest of those seated there.

There were a few nods, two smiles and three frowns.

"Luv-not. Blud-not. Pro-yes. Pro-much. No-luv-blud. Boy-not. Job-yes. Do-yes. Hi-safe. No safe. No much much. We no no," the man at the end of the table asserted to her.

"Luv-to-boy far. Yu. Hram. Pro-to-boy one. Much one. Much good," the lady across from her advised.

She looked back across the table, pursing her lips as she did her best to quell her growing pride in their child.

The boy was their first. Her first, and despite the fact that half of his chromozones were custom engineered by her husband, who'd been rendered sterile as the result of an accident at one of the harmonic spheres, she regarded their boy as their creation, whether the proteins that made up the instruction set within his chromozones came from his body, or his mind and heart.  Together, they'd made that child, as much so as the love they'd experienced during the process of the boy's conception.

However, this child was imperative as much so as their plan, and their plan was far too important to be left vulnerable on the basis of archaic emotions and pride in their genome. Such ideas only served to open doors that might expose them all, and so the advice given at the boardroom table was as imperative as it was sound.

It had taken sixty years for them to find a woman with her specific chromozones, though they'd not known initially what they were looking for until they'd found it within her. Her genes, the ones that were very important to their mission had only arrived after being expressed in her cells six generations in, meaning that in order to examine the resulting proteins, their team had to wait roughly six years after her birth for when she was the equivalent of sixteen years of age before they could discern this fact.

The odds that her body when combined with the specific genome crafted by her husband would yield the specific set of qualities in their child that were needed for this mission, were still about one in sixty. The problems posed by simulating the generational output arising from cellular mitosis still only produced probabilities for a given design in terms of a custom genome and simulation, although very advanced at this stage in our technological development, it still took several billion such simulations per cellular generation to see if a particular protein would eventually be expressed by one's genes, cellular generations onward. In order to know for sure if their boy possessed the qualities for this mission, they would have to wait another year, at which point their boy would be the equivalent of between four and six years old.

Children who'd reached the equivalent of one year, were isolated from their parents and their neuro-adaptive training would begin. They would essentially continue to live in a medium of nutrients and nanite-enhanced chemodrones, while their brains were optimized and trained on exabytes of data, not unlike how large language models were trained in the early twenty-first century some hundred and sixty-five years earlier. Such children were barred from seeing their parents again, as children were the property of the world state and the pleroma.

Suphoye (with the curvaceous red lips) and Hram (currently slepfast on the sofa) would have to wait before they'd know if their child was capable and if he was ready.

"Forty-three kilhours. Remet. Us-heer. Same wall. Same layrs," the man at the end of the table addressed them all.

Suphoye once again pursed her lips, looking to the man at the head of the table.

"Look we for. Good hour. Good good,"  Suphoye said to them as she stood.

"Safe be. Quiet lips. Soon health. Soon smiles," the man at the end of the table stood, joined by theose remaining.

"Safe be. Met met," Suphoye said before she disappeared from their perspective and reappeared several thousand kilometers away.

She was now adorned in a hyper-silk robe and flanchem slippers, her hair in a gel form, soaking in a  contained nutrient solution. The smell of fragrant flowers from the gel filled her senses. She skip-jumped the length of her home directly to the living room, where she fell backwards onto her sofa. 

"Backform," she thought and the sofa transformed itself to follow her body, in a seated position in front of a reality display.

"Hram ding," she thought, aloud this time, and the reality display disappeared, revealing Hram's living room where he still lay horizontal on the sofa.

The display zoomed in towards his face, and a large and holographic representation of his face floated before her, indistiguishable from reality.

"Sleplong?" she asked him in compressese.

"One real. Six feel. Feel good. Slepwell. Metwell?" he replied to her question.

"Metyes. Good good. Knownew. Goodrep, yay. Chromzone good. Craftgen good. Good good," she smiled at him as he leaned up on the sofa.

"Skilearn? Good look?" he asked her.

"Yay. Good well. Skilearn too. Proteen-wate. Wate-wate-wate," Suphoye momentarily flickered and a glowing bubtea sphere appeared hovering beside her, the pumpstraw quietly aiming for her lips.

"How wate?" he asked her.

"Four-three kay. Be mite. Be mite test good. No know. Soon look hope boy," Suphoye took a sip from her bubtea through the pumpstraw, which prevented the liquid from flowing as she breathed.

"Chromzone know. Good know. Do good work. Time need be. Be soon know we. Sexwe?" Hram explained to her, his face suddenly perking up as he suggeted to her about the possibility of intimacy.

"Slepme need. Be need good. Rubme?" Suphoye feigned a yawn after taking another sip of her bubtea, stretching out her arms and cusping her hand over her luscious lips before smiling once again as she made a request of him.

"Ooh. Rubyu fun. Good fun. Good good. Then slepgood..." Hram got up from the sofa and instantly appeared in her home, standing before her as he found a place beside her.

She smiled as she removed her robe and lay herself on her front, folding her arms above her shoulders  and her left cheek upon the soft surface as the sofa transformed itself into a large and comfortable massage table accommodating them both.

In the distance several thousand kilometers away, the man from the meeting who'd sat at the front of the table watched as the sim-layers collapsed one by one and their meeting room disappeared, replaced by an ancient gutter hidden deep in the recesses of the old city.

His form was no longer one of perfection, but that of an indescribably old man who hobbled towards a nearby flote car. There would be no tele-slipping or jump-skipping from this place, and it would remain hidden until the six months had passed before their next meeting.


Temp-nym


Luseth stepped forth from the bath water of a vast polished marble basin, his silhouette a collection of curvaceous muscles, with every clue to his appearance matching that of a statuesque fine work of art.


He thought nothing of it nor gave it much ponderance, for it was a common aspect of life and appearances as the world approached the year twenty-two hundred. Everything was perfect and had been as such for as long as Luseth could recall.


He needed not dry himself or even spend the time tending to his body to cloth himself, for all of being was afforded the ability to traverse local time and space in ways not afforded those of the previous centuries. He could have simply blinked and been clothed and dressed and at or near the location of his employ, but he chose neither, for since he'd been birthed from the growth medium, he'd been fascinated with the physical, sensual and visceral aspects of being. His time drying and dressing himself was as important to him as his time wading in the nanhydrite fluid (nanite infused water used for personal hygiene and as a medium of medical treatment), though even time itself had been commandeered by humanity by this point and hence many saw such frivolous pursuits as unnecessary to the whole.


Time had become of the essence, and this evolution of humanity had first become apparent in language and linguistics. Over time, human language itself had evolved from the global common tongue of English (which had often been touted as the sister language of commerce alongside the Euro-Asian languages), to over the course of sixty years become Compressese. A language that sought to shrink communication both in the time to express, and the data required to store it. A language that had naturally evolved as a result of instant messaging with the combination of AI's inference into phonetics, the previous century and a half earlier. As a result, AI had slowly reduced the sum footprint of language to only the necessary nouns, verbs and articles, doing away with the frivolous ambiguities and grammar which for itself was simply a form of  linguistic error checking, assisting both the speaker and the spoken-to with the clarity of communication.


As much so as language had changed, so had the nature of our perception of time along with our ability to utilize it to our fullest. Our brain and nervous system had typically operated between 4 and sixty Hertz (cycles per second), processing approximately ten bits per second in terms of our central cognition, essentially processing and filtering the nearly billion bits per second that arrived from our sensory organs. 


Therefore, our brains were essentially acrobats in terms of information processing, able to extrapolate the most pertinent information for decision making, communication and expression from one billion bits per second to operate on a handful of bits at the cognitive level. High efficiency of the highest order. However, our understanding of information science and genetics eventually allowed us to alter the frequency of which we perceived and processed data over time, allowing us to change many aspects of the requirements for our sustenance and the time that it took for us to process data.


For one, we could compress the requirements for our need to sleep from eight hours down to ten minutes, though while sleeping, we'd essentially perceive having slept eight hours, but in fact have only slept ten minutes.


Consuming information such as through learning mediums as first reading, then auditory, then video, and then virtual reality, and eventually holography and finally holoreality had increased a thousand fold. The average human being could consume over a thousand books per twenty-four hour period, with nearly perfect recall of the facts and a demonstrated comprehension of the knowledge.


Muscle development and memory too was affected by these advances, and hence these advanced rates of consumption and learning were also applied to the human body, and often without the need for explicit exercise. One could simply experience a physical regimen and the body would be affected almost immediately, taking only hours to repair and rebuild muscle tissue and fibre, hence acquiring new skills became trivial at best. Humanity, which had at one point been far surpassed by the capabilities of AI, had quickly caught up with the assistance thereof. In the time that it would take a twenty-first century human being to respond to catch a ball thrown at them from across the room, a modern human could have intercepted the same ball and thrown it back to themselves on both ends of the room more than thirty times, without the assistance of tele-slipping or jump-skipping (common technologies for shortening the time and hence distance of travel).


Insofar as travel was concerned, humanity had at some point pieced together the fact that it was their mind and senses that were needed at different locations and that didn't always mean the body needed to accompany. Most travel in the world, was a matter of telepresence and sometimes a combination of methods delivering the mind, senses and body. Telepresence was instantaneous, and included every aspect of the sum sensory experience, hence a person could be telepresent somewhere while their body remained elsewhere, though they'd experience everything at their telepresent location as if it were all three present: their mind, senses and body. Throughout the world and orbiting it, there were a number of telepresence amplifiers. Devices which operated much the same way that cellular phones had in the twenthy-first century, though telepresence amps operated on the mind, cognition and sensory experience via amplification and encapsulation of the signal aspect of human nervous system communications. 


These telepresence amps would handle two way communication between the original body and the telepresent body at the destination end. Even the sensory experience of the people they were meeting would be fooled into believing that their guest was truly with them physically, though in all truth that illusion was a cleverly masked set of signals compatible with the human nervous system. Received via biologically tuned electromagnetism which would stimulate all of the sensory and cognitive experience of those present and telepresent so that everything remained consistent with regard to who was actually there, and who wasn't. They'd all perceive each other as if in the same place, without actually being in the same place at all.


Such technology was possible only by the unique identification of every human being on the planet, and that was achieved from the time of their conception. All human conception occurred in biomedium tanks, with the female egg and the male sperm being genetically manufactured on the fly based upon the genome of the parents. Two parents could be thousands of kilometers apart, and yet still conceive a child together via the same old fashioned biomechanical and very fun means that humanity had used to propagate their kind to encompass the entire globe.


The same telepresence amps would propagate the signal of the couple's interaction and would in the event of ejaculation of both partners, fertilize an egg with sperm that were exact copies of their respective genomes. Alternately, the couples could substitute their own custom coded genes (which were carefully error checked first), and conceive their own designer babies.


These babies would from the time of their conception have a hash code checksum calculated from their chromosome pairs, and these checksums were universally unique identifiers, very much like finger prints, however they were stored as 1024 wide-bytes much like the UUID identifiers utilized in twenty-first century software. The possibility of these unique identifiers being duplicated from the genome of other fetuses was less than one to the number of elementary particles in the universe times Googol. A number so infinitesmally small that it could essentially have been regarded as being impossible.


Such identifiers would be with a person for life, however the fact that they existed and were used to uniquely identify people would remain invisible to them, their use entirely remaining within the realm of information processing. A world completely invisible to this brave new world.


These unique identifiers were not very friendly and certainly despite the advanced capabilities we'd managed to squeeze from our genome, were cumbersome and usable only in data processing and identification, leaving room for a more human friendly label with which to refer to newly arrived citizens of the world city. Enter: Temp-nym.


Temp-nyms were a series of names given a person, which allowed for a different levels of trust according to familiarity and choice. Our class one Temp-nym was our given name. The one we'd in most cases, always be known by to the most trusted and familiar to whom we'd given it, although in some extenuating circumstances, it could be changed.


Our class two and three Temp-nyms were the names we'd share with those of a lesser degree of trust, and could be changed more frequently to protect a person's individuality and privacy, although in a verbal or mindspeak conversation, the telepresence amps would replace Temp-nyms with a unique identifier unbeknownst to the speaker and listener. Insofar as they were concerned, they'd be under the impression that they'd both used the same name, however in terms of what actually was communicated, it would be different and yet impossible to trace. Only the data centers would know for sure, leaving no audit trail between people on the grounds of identity and protecting identity nearly perfectly from any variety of means of fraud or theft. There was literally no correlation between the friendly Temp-nym and the unique identifier, hence there were no means to backtrace except for by the pleroma itself.


Luseth was their child's class one Temp-nym, and when Luseth turned eighteen years of age, at the very moment he'd stepped out of the water basin to dry himself and prepare himself for his day, a hidden protein in his genome was expressed and activated.


The protein stimulated cells in his body which in turn delivered a chemical pack triggered by the protein to a set of nerves in his lower abdomen, just right of his testicles. This chemical pack triggered an action potential in the first of a series of neurons, which then propagated multi-fold through his nervous system to the base of his spine, and then up his spinal chord to his brain.


His eyes began to water and his vision suddenly blurred as his eyes began to sting. He rubbed them, further agitating them and causing a chemical substance that had been emitted by his tear glands to mix. A bright flash of light then illuminated his cornea, and revealed a message that was then burned onto his retina and one that had thanks to the nature of the protein expressed at that moment, been masked from a portion of his cognition that had been wired back to his nervous system.


At that moment, he perceived a message, in written language burned across his eyelid's vessels:


Met Hop 24H
22B1B Ursa Unit B.
Prompt With F1771NG1N.


The message, thanks to the protein and subsequent chemical reactions that had taken place in his body, had not been stored in his brain's memory center, nor had it been echoed to his nervous system, and therefore could not be detected by the pleroma. In fact, the message would remain in place on his retina for 24 hours. The exact amount of time he'd need to wait to meet the messenger.

22B1B Ursa Unit B.


Luseth looked around, the message still floating in his vision, yet invisible to the immense data network that encompassed the entirety of the world city.


He had to stop himself from reading the message aloud, though if he'd tried, even by accident, he'd have found that both his lips and vocal chords would have ceased functioning, again thanks to the chemical pack triggered by the protein expressed in his genome a few moments earlier. Every aspect of the timing the genetic architect had employed to create this protein package was crucial and well protected. A plan that had been in the making for nearly a hundred and ten years.


He folded his towel and stowed it in the locker, and instead of dressing himself as he usually did, he instead triggered the matter etching system which did everything for him. He tele-slipped to the transport station and jump-skipped from there two thousand kilometers away to a waiting communal condominium unit.


"Work-skip?" asked the pleroma.

"Yay. Very. Backway soon," Luseth responded.


To be continued in Welcome to the Pleroma: This Tangled Web - Episode 2

I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.

Credits and attribution:

Reference:

Probablistic Computing - Anastasi in Tech (YouTube) Explains thermodynamic computing.

Harmonic Oscillator Wavefunction (Ground State) - Physical Chemistry (YouTube) (closest approximation to the concept I wrote about in 2013 with regard to how the harmonic spheres operated in the novella: The Archive).

M-Theory - Physics World (YouTube) A quick explanation of the M-Theory framework.

String Theory - Sabine Hossenfelder (YouTube) Recent updates to String Theory.

Special Thanks To Rocket Fuel Lakeshore Blvd West, perhaps the best place in history to get a coffee, circa 2001-2004. Miss you all very much.

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Borderline Obsession...

DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar.

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.

Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)

Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)

Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts

Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history

Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)

Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai 
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art

Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion 
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility

Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools

Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!

Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof

Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.

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