Discovery

by Douglas E Roff

  The three principal schools of thought on the future of the Gens Collective had begun to clash within the Collective as some voices became louder and more strident. Those in the camp of immediate war with humanity naturally gravitated toward the military option and career. There were tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Gens youth lining up for admission to the military training facilities at the Preserves.

  These Preserves were already understaffed, and the shortfall was likely to continue for some time. Plans were underway to create more training Preserves and shorten traditional training times. The military training regimen was already becoming more humanlike and less like the time-honored Gens warrior of the Histories. In days gone by, it would take years of committed training on a military Preserve to achieve even a lower rank; the warrior class was greatly admired, and one didn’t come quickly to either rank or authority. Like the British Navy of old, the Gens warrior class achieved rank solely through merit. That your father or mother was politically connected, or even a high-ranking Tracker or Captain meant nothing. It hadn’t always been that way; it was now.

  The Gens youth, thought the Elders, conceived of a potential war in human terms; this wasn’t the conception of the Great Council of the Elders. The blunt instrument that was the mass of disaffected Gens youth couldn’t be dissuaded from a course of action that was not capable of successful resolution in their opinion. Too many humans too few Gens. The views of the Elders, however, lacking as it did in the romance of interspecies conflict, wouldn’t be openly discussed or acknowledged beyond the meetings of Council. To do so would make the Councils look frightened and weak. Youth wanted engagement and war.

  The plan conceived by the Great Council and the Councils of Elders was elegant in its simplicity, though maddeningly complex in its actual implementation. Only a few Gens Elders knew the entire plan and that was by design. Rogue elements of the Gens Collective had begun to militate in favor of war and plans were known to exist that could force the issue with humanity in the near future. Those favoring war also favored using the element of surprise to route humanity before it knew how to spell “Gens”. While acknowledging the immense risk of a surprise attack, it was a risk they believed was worth taking.

  The Great Council disagreed. Not with the potential for war or the preparation for an all-out conflagration but with the wisdom of acting too soon and in a vain attempt at succeeding. If war was unannounced and the loss of human life in the millions, the response would be fast and likely devastating. In this scenario, there could only be total victory. Anything less spelled the Gens equivalent of genocide. The irony of the wordplay wasn’t lost on Paulo.

  The traditional view of concealment at all costs was slowly and steadily eroding. The newer view of a modern crusade was gaining momentum. In the middle, and quickly losing ground, was the third way: immediate negotiations with humanity over the revelation of their existence.

  For those few individuals who knew of the Gens Collective in Holy Mother Church, this was the preferred option. The Church would then seek the support of the broader global religious community in making it come to pass. Or so it was believed.

  The divide appeared to be the Western versus Eastern views of the role of mankind in nature. The Eastern view was fundamentally to live in harmony with nature. The Western view, held by Christian, Jewish and Islamic religious traditions, believed in the dominion of mankind over nature. It was sanctified in Scripture and believed by the ordinary human in each of the four corners of the globe. What had been a rather innocuous religious belief when first written had transformed itself into the secular view that nature was subservient to and could be dealt with in any manner that pleased mankind. The only limitation would be curbs placed on mankind by mankind. The rest of the physical planet and the living natural world had no say in the process. How could they? They weren’t human; they had no soul.

  The ludicrous human perception that nature, the planet as a whole, was simply too vast to be permanently harmed by human action still persisted. The fact of man-made climate change and the foolish and callous non-response by humans to the threat had done a great deal to erode the Gens view of mankind as a responsible steward of the planet. Humans of different religions, cultures and races treated each other with great disdain; how could any of the “lower orders” expect any better treatment?

  The development of science and technology led mankind to the discovery of medicines, a more complete understanding of human biology and a widespread medical practice that cured illness, prevented disease and saved human life. The seeming defeat of childhood diseases meant a much larger proportion of human children were born, grew to maturity and survived. This wasn’t the natural order of things, though it was the adaptation of a species at its finest.

  Over one hundred fifty years ago, the Great Council of the Gens, then in Italy, had foreseen that overpopulation was likely to be the catalyst for the unmitigated destruction of habitat and could eventually signal the demise of the planet as a whole. Then came the great plagues and diseases at the dawn of the twentieth century and the Gens Collective found hope.

  Later in the twentieth century everything began to change, and rapidly. More and more devastating diseases were virtually defeated, and people began living much longer lives. Rapid consumption of available resources became a threat to the planet; humans seemed incapable of curbing themselves and their excesses.

  To the Gens hierarchy, humanity now had to be stopped or slowed urgently in its gradual march toward total self-inflicted destruction. But, considered the leadership Gens Collective, they had no practical way to impede “human progress”. Humanity couldn’t apparently see the path they were on and the Western religious community only exacerbated the unprecedented and unchecked growth in the global human population. The natural brakes on overpopulation were turned off and humanity congratulated itself on displacing God and the natural order of things with new twin deities: Science and Technology.

  But to the Elders in the Gens Collective, science represented the greatest threat to a world whose religions refused to modernize relative to reproduction and whose adherents were often out of touch with the realities they now set in motion.

  The world was imploding around the Gens and at an ever-faster pace. If humanity didn’t irrevocably destroy the natural world, the future coming war might. If they prevailed in war, the Great Council would likely demand an end to modern science and a return to the natural order of things. Things before technology, modern medicine and the space race. Things before the industrial revolution and the misery wrought by that age. Things before the invention of guns and weapons of mass destruction.

  To the Great Council, this ultimately meant only one solution was possible: the human infestation must be reversed and humanity seriously culled. To them, if war came, there were only a few fronts on which the Gens could successfully wage their fight for survival. It lay in the genetics of transformation and the development of the biological weapon that could destroy mankind but not the Gens in natural state. And, in transformed state if possible. If necessary, the entire Gens Collective would all revert to natural state for safety while humanity was eradicated.

  This was a tricky proposition and wouldn’t garner all the support required from the Gens populace. The Great Council and the Councils of Elders decided, therefore, that their plan wouldn’t be debated. Instead, research into the wonders of the human and Gens genomes continued at a rapid pace with full funding and support to find a mechanism to reduce mankind.

  So too did the research into the top-secret project known as the Serum Project.

  Chapter 47

  Paulo entered the auditorium just ahead of Enzo and his team of Captains. He faced a sea of young and eager acolytes and knew the discussion today might have far reaching implications for his kind in shaping both the near and distant futures. He hoped these young men and women had a future. He was keenly aware that he, as yet, hadn’t developed a strategy that would c
ertainly assure any future. Each of the three options for dealing with humanity, and most certainly the “negotiate now” crowd, were in evidence as each group wore distinctive colors and patterns on their clothing representing the position each held on this most controversial of topics.

  This was the only way an acolyte could be heard; the Gens world view held to the belief that wisdom and insight was solely the province of the Elders. That mere immature acolytes, of any age, might deign to voice an opinion out loud was virtually unthinkable and considered a negative human quality. The colors and patterns each wore were subtle; direct and distinct expression was discouraged but the Gens youth understood clearly which side each was on.

  Watching human high school and college age youth express opinions and protest politically had influenced the Gens youth. Many were beginning to doubt the wisdom of leaving all decisions to the old Gens on leadership councils who weren’t in touch with either modern life or modern ways. They were influenced by the same literature that had once fomented revolution in America; John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson had begun to hold sway with young Gens who questioned the wisdom of not having any input into decisions that affected their futures.

  The intensity of the emotions related to each position was undeniable. The more extreme rogue elements challenging the old ways of the Gens Collective were also in evidence. Black shirted youth sporting no other colors wanted their Elders to think they were uncommitted to any solution; in fact, the Black Shirts, as they were widely known, were committed to tearing down the establishment and radically changing the conditions on planet Earth. These Gens youth swore allegiance to a creed radically different than that of their parents; they would henceforth only obey the commands of a new and revolutionary leader. And she wasn’t present today.

  The Black Shirts, according to widespread rumor and belief, wanted utter chaos and letting loose the dogs of war. They believed in nothing other than the goal of absolute Gens domination of the planet and the near complete elimination of all but a very few humans. Human stocks would be reduced and managed. Just like cattle, swine and fowl.

  If the Sixth Extinction was to become reality, it would be a human-only extinction event. While their numbers were not known to be large at present, the Black Shirt faction was, in fact, rapidly gaining more and more adherents. While most were drawn from among the classes of the educated transformed Gens who understood the gravity of the situation, a small but growing number of Gens Elders were also committed to this new path. Some minor inroads into the military, Tracker and Captains classes had also been made but the Black Shirt leadership distrusted them; they could easily be plants to spy on the growing Movement. There were sizeable numbers of Gens youth drawn to the movement but since free speech didn’t really exist in the Gens Collective, the actual numbers of youthful adherents and sympathizers were still relatively unknown. At least by the hierarchy of the traditional Gens leadership elites.

  Others in senior leadership were well aware and could give precise numbers. Some in fact could quantify numbers; others only thought they could. This latter group would soon discover new hard and distressing facts.

  The Black Shirt faction reputedly had no plan and no formal structure nor any proposed method of carrying out the total chaos they wished to foment. But, it was said, they were working on it. Meanwhile the Great Council and the Councils of Elders had no idea how far along the Black Shirt recruitment had gotten, how much they had achieved or who these rebels really were.

  Many of the youth in attendance this day sporting black shirts weren’t really part of the Movement; they were just a few teens on the margins who were bored and spoiled and who could be manipulated into doing almost anything. Most were from the class of permanently transformed and had never experienced natural state. The young men had been asked by a charismatic young woman to wear black shirts “just for fun” and they were eager to please. She was strong, rebellious and beautiful; young Gens found her attractive and desirable in the human fashion.

  This was misdirection on her part and it was totally effective.

  Paulo, too, was fooled, and so, apparently, was Enzo. Enzo, ear always to the ground on matters of discord and dissent, was exceedingly well aware of the movement; it was his business to know these things. But the details of who exactly these rebels were, and how many they were, even he didn’t know. Nobody was talking and, if they were, it wasn’t to him.

  The Great Council was likewise terribly misinformed and was largely unaware of the real Black Shirts as a coherent and cohesive organization: its aims, goals and recruiting were secretive and guarded. Its roots were in those ostracised from Collective society, presumed dead but who did not die from shunning. This mysterious adaptation to what had been considered the natural order of the Gens Collective was almost completely unknown to the mainstream of Gens leadership at any level.

  Historically shunning led to eventual death for a Gens, the consequence of a lack of sufficient interaction with their own kind. The Gens were highly social creatures and the lack of social interaction was devastating. Shunned and left to the perils of the wild alone, most simply died. Why, no one knew.

  There were no lone wolves or reclusive Gens; physical contact was thought to be as vital to survival as food or water.

  But in the twentieth century with enhanced human contact, ostracism led some to new patterns of behavior: fellowship as a means of survival among the shunned. This in turn led to the development of their own strict rules and code of survival among the prey and the Gens Collective. There had always been outsiders to the discipline and order required by the Collective; however, the paucity of their numbers had always meant they could almost be completely ignored.

  These were the Fundamentalists. They were a new phenomenon and they were powerful. And they had no respect for authority, rules, the Gens hierarchy or humanity.

  The Fundamentalists eventually evolved into the Black Shirt Movement. Those thus shunned had become, over time and through ad hoc planning for survival away from the Collective, a small but vicious group of effective Gens warriors without allegiance to, or respect for, the norms of the Collective. Once shunned, by longstanding tradition, they simply no longer existed to the Collective. But they did in fact exist and their time for political and revolutionary action was rapidly approaching. They would offer a simple solution to those growing in disaffection and to those committed to radical change.

  War and a new path, a dominant and rightful path.

  The time for continued concealment or amicable revelation, they believed, was long past. Theirs was a different world view in which both the Gens leadership and humans were equally culpable in creating the present dire situation. The growing clique of Fundamentalists had reached the point where they had acquired real power, reflected in the large numbers of loosely affiliated and disparate groups of Gens castoffs and dissidents. Just how many committed sympathisers existed was unknown even to the Black Shirt leadership. Many of these Gens were fluid in their allegiance and could swing either way. All they needed was a push, a push that would be supplied by the Black Shirts themselves at the right moment.

  A self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps. But it was indisputable that a mythology was indeed growing around the mysterious leader of this Black Shirt movement. Rumors of her Fundamentalist Gens philosophy and her strength of will coupled with immense physical prowess were not so secret secrets. Banned manifestoes were commonplace among many segments of Gens society.

  Some had even been written by her.

  Many others probably belonged to Enzo and Paulo, exquisite masters of disinformation.

  The Black Shirts secretly had structure, organization and access. Access to money, resources and power. Still they were not yet willing to show themselves to the leadership of the Collective. Not yet anyway.

  In the fullness of time, this too would change.

  ***

  The Progression began with introduction
s by Enzo of the panelists today. The main speaker, and the individual the assembled crowd most wanted to see, was Paulo Fortizi. If any of them caught his eye, they might get the career boost they most wanted in the plum positions that were most desirable.

  Paulo approached the podium to speak.

  “Good morning everyone, and welcome to Princeton for the annual Progression on the topic of the natural world. As many of you know, the underpinnings of the human conception of the role of humanity in the natural world has been grounded in religious thought dating back several millennia. What we are most familiar with here in North America is the Western view of nature.

  “This would be the position taken by most Christians, Jews and Muslims which derives from the Old Testament, Genesis 1: 28. In that verse, God creates the natural world to serve man and man is placed in dominion over the nature.

  “In this view of the world, what man decides is best for natural world is what controls.

  “Then, of course, there are the Eastern religions which take a very different view: the predominant view is that man is part of the natural world like all other living things and should strive to live in harmony with it. This too would be the predominant view of most indigenous peoples wherever located.

  “Of course, these seminal views should be analyzed in the context of an older world order that has been overshadowed by the rise of secularism and its many implications. As mankind has steadily increased its reliance on modern technology and science, it has drifted away from its moral and philosophical foundations in favor of a more elastic and less well-grounded scientific and technological world view. This is what the humans consider the pragmatic world view.