The Transmutation of Ike Garuda explores many themes and concepts well-known to science fiction, though we hope we’ve supplied a fresh take on some of them. We were certainly fresh by the standards of 1991, when the first book was released. Some of the concepts explored in our story involve travel and communication between planets, business as conducted in the wider universe, the unreliability of human memory, and the effects of mechanical and organic enhancements on future humans. As this is sci-fi noir, we see the usual cast of noir characters, including the worlds-weary detective, the scrappy side-kick, and the seductive female client.

WARNING: There may be spoilers in the following text. You might want to wait until you’re further into the story before you read.

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Transporter Tech

The idea is this. Each time a person uses a GAS Tranzit personal transporting unit, a technology similar to that shown in the Star Trek series and movies, the traveler actually dies, a living copy then reassembled from available particles in another location. The copy has the memories and physicality of the original, and feels like the same person, but is that actually the case? Maybe? Maybe not. The science and philosophy of transport is a hot topic in academic circles, and remains controversial. All the chat has resulted in the popular designations for the units; Tombs (the sending units) and Wombs (the receivers). Most members of the spacefaring public prefer not to think about it.

Self-Destructive Detective

In many novels and movies, detectives are hard drinking, chain-smoking, self-destructive types. Ike’s form of substance abuse is a little more useful. His talents have been enhanced with implanted organoids, artificial organs that secrete various hormones, neuromodulators, or drugs when needed. The release is consciously triggered by an act such as pressing the thumbnail under the nail of a finger on the same hand. Again, this can be useful, but can also take a toll on the body when used without discretion.

Couriers

Telecommunication between worlds does not exist. As with living beings, parcels sent to other worlds must go through customs where they have a tendency to vanish. This may be due to incompetency, to theft, or it may simply be a product of a degraded transport system. To pass important information to someone on another planet, one needs a courier. The best are Grade A couriers from Hermeeze. Grade A couriers are pricy. There are other, less desirable options. And there are reasons, other than price, why a client might choose to hire a lower grade courier.

Monopolies

Due to a lack of competition, the huge transport monopoly, GAS Tranzit, hasn’t had to reinvest any of its profits in its infrastructure in quite some time, and travel through its system has therefore become unreliable and dangerous. Some Tranzit Authority depots have ceased functioning, causing entire planets to go offline. When traveling from one planet to any other, all travelers must make an intermediate stop on customs, a security zone located on an undisclosed station or world.

Droid Copies

Another take on copies of humans, the droids are artificial, but organic beings, their brains printed with the memories and thought patterns of the person they were created to look like. But droids have capabilities beyond the human and are not biologically human. Their emotions and motivations, if they indeed have them, are not the same as human emotions and motivations. And as soon as they’re activated and begin to have their own experiences, they begin to diverge from their human original.

Crystals

Crystals appear as information storage devices, used in the Diamond Minds transporter and in the process of printing artificially grown brains with a copy of a human mind.

Lover as Dupe

Lovelorn Barry Reasoner is the player who bluffs, but has an obvious tell. He stutters when he lies. When Ike says, “We left buh-buh-Barry laboring over his long goodbye,” that’s a reference to Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel, The Long Goodbye. Barry Reasoner’s last name was lifted from journalist, Harry Reasoner.

See the latest Ike Garuda pages here!