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Welcome to the Protoverse.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT
A hyper-intelligent and adaptive computer virus from space that can adapt to escape from any quarantine, learn how to break system protocols, and even infect the human body itself. Found family, an experiment on human ethics and an investigation into agency vs. automation. Zollern's debut novel, The Protocol Experiment, is the first in a series called The Protocol Series. Technology is presented as cold and uncaring. It is not a villain, but a mirror of how humanity uses it. What if superior intelligence didn't invade by conventional means, but in a more subtle way, by using our own technology against us?
Featuring the Wow Signal, the Roswell Incident, ufology lore like Betty and Barney Hill, and more. When you're up against something that learns from every attempt to destroy it, how do you stop the spread from infecting people and killing the world?
Follow Sean Caldwell as he uncovers the threat, forms connections (alien and human), and tries to solve the crisis using not domination, but communication.
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PREMISE: The Protocol Experiment
PREMISE: The Protocol Experiment
For decades, a covert government alliance has operated in secrecy, quietly safeguarding both human and extraterrestrial life. Their mission remains hidden, until a hyper-intelligent computer virus of unknown, otherworldly origin breaches every major global system. Unlike anything humanity has faced before, the virus doesn’t stop at machines. It learns, adapts... and infects the human body itself.
On July 28, 2036, a sudden and mysterious illness sweeps across the planet. As millions fall gravely ill, Sean Caldwell, a software designer from Applewood, Tennessee, uncovers evidence that the outbreak is not natural, but cosmic in origin. What begins as a digital anomaly reveals a terrifying truth: Earth has become the opening move in a far larger interstellar conflict.
With the world spiraling toward collapse, Sean teams up with unlikely allies while confronting the ghosts of his own past. As governments deny the truth and chaos spreads, he must race to expose what’s really happening before humanity is dragged into a war it doesn’t even know it’s fighting.
The invaders are not here simply to conquer. Their true purpose is buried beneath layers of secrecy: an unspeakable truth that no one dares acknowledge. If it remains hidden, humanity won’t just lose the war.
It will cease to exist.
PREMISE: The Escapement Paradigm
PREMISE: The Escapement Paradigm
A father's future son comes back in time to prevent the extinction of humanity. To save the past, they must save the future.Timelines begin to collide between 2041 and 2065 in this second book in The Protocol Series. The story is character-driven and deeply personal in the middle of high stakes.
Five years have passed since the events of The Protocol Experiment. During that time, Sean and company have achieved relative peace, but there are darker secrets hiding under the shadows of the past. What may seem quiet could be building toward something deadly. While the team fights against colliding timelines and alien rule, the Channeler enters their lives directly. Full of arrogant pride and a deep resentment of humanity's behavior as a whole, he manipulates the world behind the scenes, influencing politics, inciting war, and sounding terrifyingly convincing in his worldview. Readers may even come to believe the Channeler is right.
Protocol has evolved into its next form in 2065, with the Traveler trying to survive. The future has taken a lot from him, leading him to use a time machine based around the escapement mechanisms in clocks. If he is unable to prevent the collision of timelines, reality will shift into a new paradigm that brings only chaos and destruction.
Sean Caldwell has spent years rebuilding a fragile sense of normal life with his family and friends after the Protocol Event, a global crisis that reshaped the world and revealed forces far beyond human understanding. Humanity survived, but the scars remain, and peace feels more like borrowed time than true safety.
That fragile peace is shattered when a mysterious Traveler appears with knowledge of a dystopian future ruled by the Kriff, where humanity is driven to the edge of extinction. Sean is forced to confront the terrifying possibility that civilization barely survives the coming decades, and the qualities that define what it means to be human slowly begin to erode.
The Traveler claims to be Sean's son from the year 2065. His memories reveal a world broken by domination, fear, and desperate choices made in the name of survival. Faced with this warning, Sean makes a dangerous decision: to save the past, he and the Traveler must confront the future itself.
As time begins to destabilize and history threatens to repeat itself, Sean and his allies must decide how far they are willing to go to prevent catastrophe. If they fail, both timelines may collapse. Survival alone is not enough. The essence of humanity must also endure.
If we survive, but lose who we are, can we still call ourselves human?
The Escapement Paradigm is a thought-provoking science fiction thriller about time, consequence, identity, and the fragile balance between survival and compassion. This story expands the Protoverse into darker questions of fate, sacrifice, choices, and what humanity is willing to become in the name of survival.
MORE INFORMATION
The Protocol Experiment is a thought-provoking sci-fi novel, serving as social commentary on humanity's over-dependence on technology, and how a lack of ethics has consequences in a digital world. Technology is used not as a villain, but as a mirror of those who use it. There are many themes throughout the book, listed on the Explored Themes page.
If you enjoyed media like Contact, Arrival, Blindsight, or The Three-Body Problem, then you'll love The Protocol Experiment. Similar themes are explored throughout, including humanity's choices, permanent consequences and how secrecy causes distributed harm. Communication is valued above all else, and the experiment itself tests our agency vs. systemic automation.
This book is for you if:
You enjoy science fiction that unfolds thoughtfully and gives you space to reflect, rather than rushing you from one moment to the next.
Stories about first contact interest you for how humanity responds over time, through fear and misunderstanding.
You're drawn to artificial intelligence stories focusing on ethics and consequences, instead of simple good vs. evil conflicts.
You appreciate near-future settings that feel familiar, where grief and accountability matter more than technology.
You believe science fiction can be unsettling and human, offering imperfect hope.
You're looking for a new take on first contact with aliens.
This book is NOT for you if:
You're looking for fast-paced action or alien contact framed as spectacle.
You prefer clear-cut heroes and villains or tidy resolutions.
You're hoping for light escapism or a story designed to comfort rather than challenge.
You'd rather be told what to think than invited to sit with complex ideas and emotional uncertainty.
You want all to be forgiven in the end.
You want something with a predictable formula.
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