Overview
Ever since scientists fully mapped the human genome, research advanced quickly into eradicating disease and defects through the bio-engineering of “designer babies”.
But this only opened a Pandora’s Box.
By the year 2050, both the feminist movements and woke movements led to the establishment of women as the dominant sex in society, commanding higher salaries, controlling the majority of political offices, and thereby making the larger percentage of hiring and firing decisions.
Both men and boys seemingly welcomed the transition, indulging more heavily into the rote work where they could choose their own hours as delivery drivers, operating vacation rentals, mowing lawns, enjoying more time to play and embrace their boyish antics.
Women no longer needed male partners to raise children, opting instead to rely on semen purchases through clinics, or through social media platforms. Slowly but surely, the role of males in society had become increasingly diminished.
Women nearly always chose the sex of their babies, and they always chose girls because women held societal power and women always enjoyed greater success.
Rise of the Minervan Empire
The final wave of feminism was to begin.
A “shadowy” group of powerful women in high ranking positions of politics, global corporations, the media, and influential celebrities, had assembled to establish the “The Minervan Order”, based on Minerva, the Roman Goddess of intellect. The mission of the Order was three-fold…
- Solidify women’s position of dominance,
- Eradicate religious beliefs that conflict with Minervan principles, and
- Control human population to a level sustainable with Earth’s resources.
By the year 2100, the Minervan Order operated in secret, spreading its ranks into every institution, from education, to healthcare, to military, to agriculture, to tourism, and on and on.
Rumors spread about its existence, but the Minervan control of the media always managed to publish denials, going so far to use its advanced technology to apprehend those spreading the rumors and place them in “re-education” camps.
However, leaders in the Minervan Order recognized there was no longer a need to maintain a veil of secrecy. Their control of the world’s economy had already surpassed the seventy-five-percent mark, was nearing eighty-percent.
Rise of the Fellowship
Joseph Hand, MD had become a relic in his time. A board certified obstetrician in Denison, TX, he was one of the few remaining who stood against bio-engineering, and managed to carve out a successful practice serving couples who wanted a natural baby, conceived and born through natural methods.
But by the year 2076, the Minervan-controlled government declared natural births to be a health hazard, claiming it created babies that were susceptible to disease and thereby threatened the lives of others and created a financial burden on the government. The government no longer funded these births, making it nearly impossible for couples to afford a birth. Dr. Hand lost business and could no longer afford to keep his practice going.
A devout Christian, he had also witnessed a series of laws enacted over the decades that made it difficult for churches to operate. Rescinding a church’s tax-free status, restricting attendance to no more than 60 persons at a time, and levying expensive license fees for priests and religious leaders, caused many congregations to disband.
Dr. Hand closed his practice and opened up a private club, consisting of couples and families who paid a smaller monthly fee to become members, where he could still offer his medical services in the form of a vacation resort. Advertising was only through word of mouth.
His resort grew. Dr. Hand recruited a minister to offer Bible study courses as part of his resort activities and not as a congregation. More people became members, he added buildings, acquired more land, and quickly grew his power and influence over the north Texas region.
It wasn’t long before the government took notice. Dr. Hand’s legal loophole of operating as a vacation resort created a problem for federal officials. Christian women holding positions in Texas government were able to buy Dr. Hand some additional time over the course of several years.
He established his own shadowy group, The Fellowship, consisting of men who pledged to advance Biblical teachings and create a territory of land across the Plains that could resist the legal and military might of Minervan power.
Rise of the Cybelians
As far back as the 2010s, there were groups of men and women who identified as Pagans and Wiccans that eventually grew frustrated with being marginalized as a religion.
By 2040, many of these groups had coalesced into a rising new form of paganism centered around Cybele, an old Phrygian Goddess of Nature. Led by women, its membership formed a confederation of tribes that lived in the wilderness lands throughout the world. They rejected technology, preferring to use hand tools, natural remedies, the spoken word, and memorization.
Cybelian tribes committed themselves to nomadism. Tribes migrated with the seasons and with the herds. When tribes met each other, they traded their members to keep their gene pool sufficiently mixed. Yet, Cybelians also committed to breeding only with other Cybelians.
In 2066, a Cybelian tribe located in the foothills of Colorado, along the banks of the Arkansas River, gave birth to a girl they named Teasel. She was found to have extraordinary mental powers, being able to predict outcomes with amazing accuracy by computing conditions and factoring in her knowledge of science, nature, and humanity. She could predict where herds were moving, where fish were spawning, and where predators were prowling. She could predict the weather, including where tornadoes would form. She could even predict where other Cybelian tribes were moving to.
Word of her abilities spread from tribe to tribe. They sought out her tribe to get her predictions. By the year 2084, when she turned 18, Teasel began breeding. Each year, she was impregnated by Cybelian men from other tribes, and over the course of 26 years, she gave birth to 29 healthy children, not counting several stillbirths and miscarriages.
Many of her children possessed the same or similar mental powers, though not all. During the 2100s, her children had children of their own. Her descendants became known as “tessels”. Cybelian tribes continued to organize breedings of tessels their genetic footprint could be traced across the globe.
Characters
Verina Bubone had dreams of becoming a Sicarii Warrior. Instead, she found herself in college studying genetics at the behest of her mother. But with the Minervan Empire seeing its power crumbling away at the hands of self-serving elders, Verina was inspired to lead a grass-roots effort to restore the glory of the Empire. What she found shook her to her core, shaking her entire faith, and even questioning her own humanity.
Aurora Bubone was known as a Jovian, a person born naturally, with no bio-engineering, to bio-engineered parents. While natural births were no longer supported through federal funding, they were not illegal. However, because her parents were bio-engineered as perfect human beings, and because she was female, she enjoyed special status as the future human species under the scientific name, “Homo Jovian”, a natural born human being of perfect parents. Aurora served as Verina’s consort, accompanying Verina whenever needed, performing any duties as required, and offering herself when Verina demanded.
Tanneric Vandal was an operative with Solomon Command, a military intelligence group operated by the Fellowship. Orphaned as a child, he had no information on his birth family, only nightmares and bouts of anxiety gave him vague clues. Now plagued with concerns that the Fellowship leaders had become disorganized, he sought a way out of Solomon Command to search for his real parents.
Lucan was a grand child of Teasel, living with a Cybelian tribe nestled along the banks of the Missouri River in South Dakota. Somehow, he was never able to harness the mental powers of his grandmother. This fact disappointed the elders of his tribe who had pinned great hopes on him. Instead, Lucan became frustrated, which lead him to become angry, questioning why he couldn’t be accepted as just another young man in his tribe. His outbursts and fits of anger caused his tribal elders to question if it was wise to let him breed, or better to remove him.