Musings on the Distant Future

100,000 years from now the various catastrophes that humanity had feared never manifested. Some slight changes in weather occurred, but humanity managed to come to its collective senses in time to muster the full might of their science in or to avoid its own destruction. Science saved the world and the scientists were seen as the saviors to liberate humanity from the greed, corruption and violence which had so far plagued its existence and so the scientists were seen as infallible and given a free reign to do as they saw fit. Unfortunately mans science always outpaces his conscious.

Humanity soon saw two major rifts formed in the fabric of society; that between the industrialized nations and the underdeveloped world and then between the two main schools of thought within the industrial peoples. The first rift was caused because most of the scientific and technical knowledge rests in the industrial world and they see science and technology as the solution to all of the worlds problems. Among these people two prevailing schools of thought manifested. On the one hand you have those who believe that technology is the one true path to a utopian existence and began to call themselves the Technocrats. On the other hand you have those who believe that the path to perfection lies with genetic modification and began to call themselves the Perfectionaries.

Technocrats began to delegate more and more of their daily lives to the machinery around them as they focused on developing their craft. They designed and built, redesigned and rebuilt until every aspect of their lives was a well regulated machine. It wasn’t long before they realized that the one thing they still didn’t have control over was life itself. So little by little they began to replace life with A-Life. Children were no longer born but were instead made in the image of their forefathers. They had achieved immortality for the price of a soul.

The Perfectionaries used their genetic science to create a race of being with long life and disease resistance. One thing they couldn’t do with their science was splice out the social conflicts that are a part of human diversity. Their solution to this problem was the limiting of that diversity. Reproduction through normal means were outlawed and the entire population sterilized at birth. To ensure perfection, genetic samples were taken from the entire population. If they proves themselves worthy through displays of excellence and adherence to the collective will, a modified clone is produced with memories of the originals knowledge and experience. Those that prove themselves unworthy are terminated and their genetic data is removed from the collective pool. In this way they create a homogenous society, immortality in exchange for obedience at the cost of individuality.

In the underdeveloped countries manpower is the primary means of getting things done. Most of the underdeveloped countries have strong culture beliefs towards the purity of the body and mind. That cultural doctrine coupled with the lack of technical and industrial resources lead to a society were people strive for physical prowess in order to compete with their modified neighbors. The purists are not made like the technocrats and selectively bred like the Perfectionaries and so they find their lives a competition for justification of their existence. Through hard work and dedication they have to make themselves as strong, if not stronger than their modified kin lest they be sucked into their genetic pools or augmenting facilities.