(from Divaian’s Analytical History of Later Tarnus, UPub 1487 4D)

Introduction

Hyonarsa was a neuroscientist of Tarnus, working in his laboratories and plants in the great underground city of Gran Dar. His personal passion was the development and enrichment of the human nervous system, particularly the structures and functions of the brain. No one realized through most of his career among his peers how talented, driven, creative, and insightful he was, until his finest andros emerged from the developing vats. These beings, human in every respect except for their enhanced abilities, set a standard for genetic design and engineering that has never since been successfully challenged.

Andro Sound Sense and Phonetics

Andros hear and speak over a far wider range of frequencies than humans do. While human voices generally range from two octaves below middle C to four octaves above it, andro voices begin three octaves below middle C and range up into the ultrasonic as far as 60 Khz. Furthermore, the andro voice is polytonal, capable of holding up to four notes concurrently in speech or song. Andro speech, called anjive, takes full advantage of these capabilities. One human said that listening to anjive is like hearing a symphony of exploding stars. Another likened anjive to voices played fast forward at the speed of light.

When Hyonarsa crafted the first andros, he delighted in his work beyond anything else in life, and the gifts with which he endowed his creations bear that out.

Andro Color Sense

Andros see several ‘octaves’ of color, whereas humans see less than one ‘octave’. The human range is between about 400 and 700 nanometers in wavelength, from violet down to red. The andro range is from about 90 nanometers, up in the ultraviolet, down to about 2800 nanometers, well into the infrared range. A few andros have low-resolution retinal receptors for X-rays or gammalight.

Humans have always had many names for different colors, distinguishing between thousands of tints and shades in subtle gradations. The number of color-names in human societies has been the subject of numerous studies on Tarnus and even on Ancient Earth – for a few of the Tarnus studies, the inquiring (and licensed) reader may request Archive service from Social Ainon Deinora. Most of the studies have led to the conclusion that the degree of mental and emotional development in an individual correlates positively, and strongly, with that individual’s ability to separate slightly-differing colors and luminance levels, once biochemical limitations on that individual’s opsin types have been accounted for. Furthermore, measures of color distinction in a language seem to correlate quite positively with the degree of development of the culture relying on that language.

Based on such measures, andros are exceedingly well-developed mentally and emotionally, far beyond the most advanced ordinary humans. This conclusion continues to be disputed, and is considered by some to furnish evidence of invalidity of the measures, especially since andros seem to have no ‘culture’ of their own which can be evaluated; the limited longevity of andros has apparently seen to that.

But the andros have millions of names for their abundance of colors, and a few meager descriptions that offer the non-andro some small idea of the experience of their seeing. It appears that the andros see colors in frequency ‘harmonies’ just as humans (and andros even more so) hear music. Here is a table showing the ranges and a few of the color names, as related to the human optical spectrum; it should be noted that the andros have far more names for the colors lying in intervals between those listed here, not to mention those colors comprising combinations of one or more of the individual color frequencies.

ANDRO COLOR NAMES

	Color Range	Far Infrared	Near Infrared	Human-Visible	Near Ultraviolet	Far Ultraviolet
Color Tone	Wavelength	3000-1500 nm	1500-750 nm	375-750 nm	187-375 nm	95-187 nm
	Octave	1	2	3	4	5
A	Red	gouziSR	fleyatZK	baeya	vanuass	duryaSR
A#	Red-Orange	zaiang	yeraZK	shierr	wurchai	troj
B	Orange	yainan	fyaZKol	unil	murSRan	tuj
C	Yellow-Orange	haZKtol	SRyol	saruZK	tumuZK	SRujis
C#	Yellow	enjiga	SRyion	emaSRuija	tsrZK	SRrSRlja
D	Yellow-Green	irbarr	schiezz	okijaZK	ZKuZKbij	giZKuSRa
D#	Green	lutija	jaSRann	tabja	brejin	SRejiga
E	Blue-Green	lirliga	ujoiSRam	chioim	dzoijin	zijigam
F	Blue	urliSRsa	urouZKam	turouji	oujin	ouz
F#	Blue-Violet	priZKSRar	uzmarSR	zuirr	vuzmin	vizaZK
G	Violet	puroiz	muxiz	meirr	mevizaSR	tejar
G#	Red-Violet	urr	mazz	emed	treiss	nouZKner

NOTE: The ZK and SR letter combinations represent special sounds used only in anjive, the andro speech. The ZK pair represents a stop-sound made by chording several ultrasound tones together for a brief burst that begins and ends with a sharp delineation. The SR pair represents a chording of ultrasound tones that blends more smoothly with the sounds before and after it, and often undulates as it is spoken. All other sounds are generally the same as the familiar sounds in human languages, but with various intonations and variations too varied and complex to reproduce here. It is acceptable for a human to use these pronunciations with the addition of a stop-sound such as ‘uh’ as in ‘uh-oh’ for ZK, and a whistle-sound for SR. In enhanced text, the ZK is often written as a '+’, and the SR as '*'.

Andro Innerspace

The human brain carries ‘maps’ for its sensory spaces as perceived. For example, the brain’s map for the visual field spreads across significant stretches of the visual cortex. It is essentially a fairly-smooth two-dimensional map of the retinas, with special processing capabilities built in to handle three-dimensional aspects of the visual world. All of this ‘wiring’ was built into the human brain over millions of years of evolution.

When Hyonarsa created the andros, one of his great joys was the exploration of multidimensional perception in the andro brain. Evolution would not have led to such an extension of perceptual maps, because there appeared to be nothing to perceive in more than two or three dimensions. But Hyonarsa was creating as an artist, and the utility of his constructs meant less to him than the possibilities of exploring them. He wanted to see whether adding extra dimensionality to the cortex would assist the andros in processing sensory and cognitive data.

He induced a form of dendritic wiring in the brain that interconnected cortical neurons as if they existed in a ten-dimensional space of hypercubes. In three-dimensional space, each vertex of each cube has six connections, one for each direction (left vs. right, up vs. down, forward vs. backward). In ten-dimensional space, each vertex of a ten-dimensional hypercube has twenty connections, one for each distinct ‘direction’ in that space. The resulting richness of dendritic connections created a serious problem for Hyonarsa: there wasn’t room to place all of the required dendrites in the brain.

He solved this problem by devising a new form of dendritic spine much thinner than the normal form, and increased its conductivity to compensate for the increased resistance of the thinner link. He also found a more-efficient form of insulation (myelination) to retain the dendrite’s electrochemical signals, and as a by-product got a far-faster transmission time for neural impulses along the dendrite. Finally, he took a highly-significant step in deepening the cortical layer containing the working neurons of the dimensional map. With the deepening, each neuron could accommodate far more dendritic processes.

This expansion of brain capability came only with some severe problems. Hyonarsa and his colleagues produced numerous andros with the desired structures in the brain, but each one displayed major instabilities and deficits resulting in tragic deaths of the andros. Most of these troubles appeared in the form of schizophrenic symptoms: delusions coupled with paranoid behavior and depression. A few took a far more horrific form, in which the andro victim appeared healthy and behaved utterly normally in every respect, but turned abruptly on others in a murderous and sadistic fit. These andros had to be killed immediately. Although much learning came of these failures, each one affected Hyonarsa terribly, and he agonized over each change he attempted in order to solve the problems his ‘art’ had apparently created.

When his first successful andro arose from the vat with the novel connections intact and working, Hyonarsa noted in his journal: “He stood up dripping before me, and said in perfect Share-speech, ‘Here in this place, you are awake! Why were you sleeping in my world?’ ‘Sleeping?’ I asked. ‘I wasn’t sleeping. What world are you talking about?’ He described his inner space to me, filled with the creations of his own imagination, and I was stunned. It was as if he had a world of his own making in his head, so real and vivid that it rivalled this everyday world of ours.”

Hyonarsa went on interviewing his new andro, whom he named Jeddiar after the protagonist of a coll mythtale. There seemed no limit to Jeddiar‘s inner experience; it was as if he had come from the vat with knowledge not given to him by Hyonarsa or anyone else. Back then, the vat was a silent beginning for andros; there was no training mask, and no neuroscripts to feed through the mask to educate the developing andro in the vat.

The next andro carrying the same cortical circuitry came from the vat to Hyonarsa. She saw Jeddiar standing nearby. Her eyes widened, and so did his — the two andros embraced like lovers. Hyonarsa noted:

“For a long moment they would not release each other. I felt as if I was watching the first man and woman sensing each other’s souls. I said softly, ‘What do you see?’ Jeddiar turned to me and said, ‘We walked together in the inner world, and I told her to meet me here. She came to me.’ ‘You met in your inner space?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ the woman said, ‘and we became one, and flew, and named each other. He is Jeddiar, and he named me Meduin.’

I was so excited that I almost dropped my tablet. ‘You share inner space?’ I asked again, stupefied. They laughed. ‘Oh, yes. Is this your gift to us, sleeping man?’ I asked them what they meant. Jeddiar said, ‘We see you in there too, but you are asleep. We tried to wake you, but you don’t wake up there.’ I believe that the cortical circuits I gave them have opened a whole new vista of communication, and anyone who gets these circuits in the brain will be able to converse with others at a level such as no humans have achieved before.”

Little by little, with the help of Jeddiar and Meduin, Hyonarsa explored the new world he had created for his andros. It had limits of distance and obstruction: a few hundred meters of separation weakened the interactions of andros to the point that they could not communicate or meet in the inner space. Also, solid matter seemed to block the connections almost completely, although openings allowing indirect access would circumvent such blockage. Hyonarsa asked them if there were other life-forms present in their world, and they told him that they had found none.

Hyonarsa noted: “I believe that the thinness of the dendritic connections I developed has contributed to some quantum effects in the transmission of nerve signals. This relates back to the cortical neurons’ microtubules and their own quantum properties. But I haven’t figured out how this inner space is rooted in any physical reality I understand.”

Only when the Zashinhalh aliens first visited Tarnus did the andros find any other living thing in the inner space they shared. But the andros also found some odd artifacts which seemed to have a permanent existence in inner space. These objects were capable of being brought back to normal reality, but then ‘evaporated’ or ‘vanished’ or ‘were absorbed’, disappearing forever after a short time. Hyonarsa observed two of these. To the andros in inner space, they appeared to be blue gems of a quasicrystalline form, and Jeddiar took one in his hand and returned to waking in the ordinary world. He opened his hand and gave the stone to Hyonarsa, who stared at its deep aquamarine shimmer, shading into a shifting near-blackness. Abruptly, the stone sank painlessly into the palm of Hyonarsa‘s hand and vanished without a trace. Even when he asked Jeddiar and Meduin to look for it in the inner space, they could find no evidence of it. Hyonarsa noticed no particular ill effects from the gem, not at that time, and nothing he felt later could be traced directly to it.

The Spread of Andro Powers

When Hyonarsa finally revealed his discoveries fully to the world, the revelation created a powerful wave of interest and excitement. Genetic engineering was widespread on Tarnus, but no one had Hyonarsa‘s genius or daring. Eager to exploit this new realm, others rapidly adopted his methods. It is part of the shame of Tarnus that no one besides Hyonarsa and his immediate colleagues ever gave any consideration to the feelings of their hapless creations; to most humans, these new andros were no more than servant-automata like the enhanced apes they had been using all along. Worse, a number of leaders decided that enhanced andros could make excellent warriors and military leaders, and in this decision the Gene Wars were born.

During these wars, some researchers found that they could give humans some of the andro enhancements by using viruses and prions to communicate transformative processes into the brain, whereupon the processes would ‘upgrade’ the human brain with particular sensory and cognitive characteristics previously only appearing in andros. Unfortunately, this new trick also enabled warfare at the genetic level, turning the ‘upgrade’ into a weapon that could destroy whole segments of the brain, or turn its owner against his or her allies.

After several hundred years of horrific strife, in which viral neurotransformations rode rampant, the remnants of the humans on Tarnus met and passed the Gene Laws, which immediately cut off any further genetic links between humans and andros, assigned basic rights to andros, forbade further research on andro extensions of the nervous system, and gave andros both their own inner space and a specific, limited place of service in humansociety. The Gene Laws also restricted the andro lifespan to ten years (controlled by programmed apoptosis, or cell death), enforced sterility on the andros, and required the marking of all andros by the total elimination of melanin and other skin-darkening substances from their bodies.

Hyonarsa‘s fate is still unknown. He disappeared not long after his discoveries had been applied to the military use of andros, and his body was never found. Many believe that in depression and rage over the perversion of his work by others, he committed suicide.