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 2060, both fouth-wave feminism had hit its stride. leading to the establishment of women as the dominant gender in society, commanding the higher salaries, controlling political offices, and thereby making the larger percentage of hiring and firing decisions.
Males welcomed the transition, indulging more heavily into rote work where they could choose their own hours as gig laborers, enjoying more time to play and embrace their boyish antics.
Women no longer needed male partners to raise children. They could purchase bio-engineered semen tweaked with desired traits. Slowly but surely, the role of males in society had become increasingly diminished.
And women chose to birth daughters because women controlled the world…
Rise of the Minervan Empire
The final wave of feminism would eradicate paternity once for all.
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 was no longer a secret. Women everywhere adopted its principles. Temples were erected in every city. And now, war was to be waged on the last paternal strongholds…
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 2100, Minervan-principles had taken over governments, removing old legislation and replacing them those that secured women’s dominance over society.
Science had 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 all.
Dr. Hand was forced to move his practice underground.
It wasn’t long before law enforcement officials took notice of Dr. Hand and others like him. Physicians and their patients seeking traditional medicine and natural therapies were now forced on the move, relying on word of mouth.
These last vestiges of the male-dominated societies coalesced into a movement known as “The Fellowship”, consisting of men who pledged to advance Biblical teachings and create a territory of land 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 2050, 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.
Both men and women who felt unrepresented by the advancements of technology, the growing interest of fourth-wave feminism, and the institutionalization of religion, flocked into these tribes.
Cybelians committed themselves to nomadism. Tribes migrated with the seasons and with the herds. When tribes met each other, they traded their members to maintain genetic diversity. 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 foresee 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. She was sought out for advice. 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 rise to 29 healthy adults, not counting several stillbirths, miscarriages, and infants who died young.
Many of her offspring 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.
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, from bio-engineered parents, and with no bio-engineered semen or ova. The Minervan Order began a program to give rise to a new species of humanity called “Homo Jovian”, a natural born human being of genetically perfect parents. It was hoped that Jovians would one day take over all of humanity, advancing mankind to a new higher level.
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.