Footnotes From the Unauthorized Version - Part 1

[tekuno]

This is part 1 of a (very) long story which is currently roughly two fifths completed, perhaps a little more. I will be posting one part of it every other day, in alternation with another story which I have already completed (and which will start tomorrow).

This story contains incest between brothers. Sorry, believe it or not, it's actually necessary to the plot. If this disturbs you, then don't read the story. Go read one of the many other excellent stories on this site instead.

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Footnotes From the Unauthorized Version
Part 1

{ Ah, Earth. Cradle of humanity. Famously beautiful and fragile and blue. Even now, when humanity has spread to other planets, even other star systems, and despite all the damage done to the ecology along the way, there is something about Earth which holds a special place in the heart of every human. Just looking at a picture of it makes us long for home. And this is no picture, this is it, the real thing. After travelling so far, the sight is truly refreshing. }

{ Let's zoom in a bit. Gliding through the upper atmosphere and sinking down through the cloud coverage, the blueness of the planet splits into the deep azure, with occasional traces of green and white, of the oceans, and the brilliant cerulean of the skies. Seabirds fly in chaotic formation, calling to each other. As our viewpoint races along the surface of the water, shoals of colorful fish -- barely visible through the waves -- dart past. }

{ There is a landmass on the horizon. At this speed, it rapidly expands until it is very clear that this is no mere island but a continent. Early humans would not recognize this view -- a giant and sparkling city dominates the nearby landscape, with massive, streamlined towers reaching high into the sky. Even the humans of two centuries ago would be amazed at the height and brilliance of the architecture. But the thing which would truly disconcert them, from this viewpoint, would be not the visual aspect, but the silence. Not that the city is still; far from it. But there is no roar of engines or honking of horns. Even though vehicles race along the streets and hover in the air between the buildings, they are all so nearly silent that the general outside noises of wind and music and conversation and nature can drown them out. }

{ A closer inspection would shock them even more. The air of the city is clean and pure, there is no trash littering the sidewalks. But the inhabitants would be the greatest puzzle. The inhabitants of the city are split clearly into three groups, men, women, and children. A 20th-century visitor would wonder at the utter absence of teenagers. The children, happy and carefree, range in size and age, but although there are babies in evidence, no children would seem to be more than about the age of a 3rd grader. The women, laughing and chatting, are uniformly beautiful and healthy and young. It used to be said, centuries ago, that the women of certain cities were all beautiful and stylish, but here it really seems to be the case. Although there is a range of appearance, none of the women seem to be truly unhealthy, or ugly, or seriously unhappy, or old. }

{ The most shocking thing to our notional 20th-century visitor, though, would be the men. The women, to them, would be universally healthy, strong, and beautiful, but the men would be outlandish. Once again, although there is a range of types presented, all the men are, from the 20th-century standard, giants. Even the smallest of them is easily two meters tall, and probably at least 300 Kilograms in mass. Every one of them sports gargantuan muscles, beyond those held by even the largest and strongest men of centuries past. Their pectorals are so thick and heavy that the smaller children could easily shelter from rain under the protrusion of the larger men simply standing upright. Moreover, the bulges visible on every man make it clear that the least-hung male of this world would be nearly off the 20th-century scale. }

{ The men, just like the women, are all happy and healthy and handsome and uniformly young. In fact, everywhere in the city there is an aura of content and fulfilled purpose. As our vantage point shifts from one city to another, separated by hugely fruitful farmland and lush natural wilderness, we find the same situation everywhere. Clearly humanity has at long last reached the utopia for which it searched so long. }

{ In one corner of a minor city, next to a large and torn-up field of grass, remains an old stone and mortar structure. Its architecture is of a style long outdated, and although it has clearly been lovingly preserved, it also clearly was never really intended to be a building of the importance which it clearly now holds. It is surrounded by a wall, and over the gate is a sign which reads "Moreno Memorial Peramorphosis Facility", although covered up beneath this is another, older sign, saying "Nemor Sands County Orphanage", and behind this, engraved in the stone contemporary with the building, a curious observer armed with a crowbar could read "Sons of St. Catherine of Siena Home for Boy Orphans". }

{ As we enter the building through a second-story window, it is clear that this room has been a classroom since the construction of the building. Presumably the Sons of St. Catherine of Siena, in between prayers petitioning the divine for better fire engines, brought their orphan charges to this room for some light pedagogy. Or possibly, given what later decades had revealed, pederasty. Fortunately for all concerned, declining recruitment had driven the Sons of St. Catherine of Siena out of the orphanage business more than four decades before their building became of serious interest to history through its association with the Moreno brothers, and the order had eventually ceased to be. Whether the final membership had received better care when they entered their nursing homes than the public in general might be of interest to researchers on religion. Or perhaps not. }

{ A group of active boys, led by what appears to be a cheerful mobile salt shaker, is filing into the room, the boys taking seats in an orderly fashion. After them lumbers into the room a massive man, even by the standards of the modern earth, in a black suit and tie, who stands patiently at the side of the blackboard at the front of the room. The man is carrying a tablet-shaped device and a large bag filled with oddly-shaped items. }

"Are you (comfortable) (boys)? Please settle (down)." says the robot. "(Today) is the (day) you (graduate) from (high school). In (recognition) of this (fact), you will be (beginning) the (peramorphic process) later (today). That is the (reason) we have (come) to this (facility) today instead of remaining in the (classroom). I (congratulate) you all for your (fine) (work) this year. I (must) say that (this) is the (best) (behaved) class I have taught in my (36.8) (years) of (service), and (all) of (you) are a (credit) to your (parents) and to the (society) in which you (live). In (ten) (days), you will be (attending) the (high) (level) (curriculum) at the (state) (college), and so our (time) (together) as (students) and (teacher) is at an (end). I will (cherish) my (memories) of (you), and when my (memory banks) are (reintegrated) into the (teacher robot) (factory) (network), my (pseudo) (clones) will look (forward) to (meeting) your (children), in the (case) of those of you who (choose) to (mate) with (women). But (before) you (begin) the (peramorphic process), (Agent) (Parc) has been (sent) from the (government) to (teach) you about the (practice) and (history) of the (neoteny system). This (concludes) my (official) (service) for the (day), (Agent) (Parc), but I will (remain) here in (low-power mode) in case you (need) (assistance)."

"Ah, thank you, Teacher Robot. Your services are, as always, valued." says Agent Parc with a suave, practiced smile. The robot beeps, rolls to the corner of the room, and goes dormant.

"Ahem. Boys, as Teacher Robot has explained, I will be walking you through the peramorphic process today. I am required by law to begin this session with the following question: is there any boy in this group whose parents do not wish them to undergo the peramorphic process, or who does not, themselves, wish to undergo the peramorphic process, or wishes to end their neoteny without the peramorphic process?" Silence reigns. The boys are flushed and exciting, and obviously impatient with this delay. Agent Parc clears his throat, dividing his attention between the clock and the boys in the room. After a full minute has elapsed with no response, he continues.

"Sorry about that. It has been more than sixty years since the last time anyone declined the process, but the law still says you must have a choice. Given what became of the last person who declined, it might be wiser simply to make the process mandatory, but as you were undoubtedly told in history class, our society makes a point of listening to dissent.

"The process is fairly simple. At the end of this lecture session, I will give you each a teleportation nutrition delivery module, which you must swallow. You will proceed to the gymnasium, where you will strip. You will then be fitted with male peramorphosis devices, such as this demonstration unit, which will be mildly painful but temporary, and given a shot. The shot will deactivate the hormone-repression neoteny implant you were issued twelve years ago, and activate the peramorphic portion of the implant. When the peramorphosis device senses that your body is ready, it will stimulate you and use this stimulation to trigger your transformation. When the transformation is complete, which will take a little less than one week, you will have made the transition from boys to men, and will be ready for the second stage of your life in modern society. Do not worry about failures; the entire system was created with interlocking failsafes which have been rigorously tested. Should any of the devices fail, the nutrition system, the injector, or the peramorphosis device, all of the others will refrain from operating as well, and you will simply start over again. When the peramorphosis device has completed its function, it will automatically fall off, and you will be issued a set of elasticized peramorphic garments for the next week, since your bodies will be changing size far too quickly to be fitted with ordinary clothing. Once you have completed the process, you will be able, as usual, to obtain clothing in your size and preferred style from any autotailor."

{ This dry -- if practical -- description is unintentionally being somewhat coy. Obviously, this lecture was written for a somewhat less open age, and is being delivered essentially without alteration, possibly through the same laws which required a full minute for refusals. For the less squeamish, a fuller explanation: between the ages of seven and eight, these boys -- like all others in this strange but increasingly old world -- were given implants which prevented them from beginning puberty for over a decade, long enough that even the latest of late bloomers would ordinarily be, physically, an adult. On contact with the injected chemical, the implant will release a drug to negate those effects, and to stimulate their glands to produce a vast quantity of hormones. When the peramorphosis device senses that the boys are having their first viable erections, which usually takes about half an hour from the time of the injection, it will bring them to orgasm, condense a material out of their initial semen, combine it with another specific set of chemicals, and deliver it back to their bodies in the right locations, which will trigger the male body's well-hidden but entirely natural peramorphic response. The device will then disengage itself and fall off. The boys' bodies will spend the next week absorbing vast amounts of raw material via the teleportation devices, transforming it into muscle and bones, blood and neurons at a rate which would, centuries before, be considered impossible, and at the end of that time they will have become as gigantic and perfect and physically powerful as all the other men in this society. }

{ Quite aside from the advantages this will impart to them, considered strictly in terms of the end product, this complex set-up has the unspoken benefit of eliminating adolescence almost entirely. Unlike the boys of nearly all of human history, these boys will undergo no social anxiety, no painful or unsightly skin blemishes, no embarrassing squeaks in their voices. They will go, in one week, from well-adjusted and confident boys to well-adjusted and confident men -- who will also happen to be amazingly physically powerful and an order of magnitude greater in intelligence than any man matured by normal means. }

"The biology behind the neoteny process is probably too complex for most of you to comprehend in detail at this point, but the peramorphosis process only works once, and only at the onset of adulthood. After the process, as your intelligence increases, you will learn the biological mechanisms which produce this strange set of requirements, and the manner in which peramorphosis occurs, as part of the standard college curriculum.

"Now, to explain the history of the neoteny process, we have an official recording from Adam Nachenberger, one of the scientists who produced the final form of the system. I must warn you, this recording is now over a century old, and if you have never seen a non-peramorphosized man before, you may find it somewhat shocking. Had any of you decided to end neoteny without the peramorphosis process, then you would have aged in the ordinary way, and would in time have come to look somewhat like the man in this recording. Are there any questions before we begin? No? Then allow me to begin playback." Agent Parc puts the tablet on the podium and waves his hand above it. A hologram of an old man, of the sort apparently now extinct, with white mustache and hair not entirely unlike Einstein in his most famous photo, springs into form above the tablet, hanging dully in the air like a colorful ghost. The holograph-man begins to speak, obviously reading from a prompter of some sort.

"Ah, hello, men of the future! I am so glad to be given this chance to address you from my vantage point in the ever-more-distant past. By the time you view this recording, the overwhelming probability is that society will have changed, hopefully forever, for the better. The male and female Moreno neoteny processes have been shown to improve the intelligence, physique, and health of every subject beyond those of any ordinary human, and, possibly for the first time since the beginning of human civilization, the changes appear to be entirely benign. I envy you for the idyll in which you are likely to be living, although already in my time, the benefits of a healthier, smarter population have solved many of the problems which have remained after the onslaught of the Moreno brothers' inventive skill. Already we have conquered war and hunger, and thanks to the Moreno engine, colonies have been established on Venus, Mars, and Callisto.

"Had you been born when I was born, the problems facing you would seem so vast and overwhelming that you might be forgiven for giving up in despair. But almost entirely thanks to the efforts of Miguel and Adrian Moreno, you will never be faced with the myriad threats of pollution, a shortage of energy, or most of the diseases which troubled the world in my time. The Morenos were remarkable men, true disinterested benefactors of all humanity, and you should all be grateful to them for the many benefits their work has produced."

{ It would take a far more experienced judge of human expressions than any of the boys in the class to notice the faint pain in the eyes of the scientist as he reads that sentence. Not even Agent Parc has noticed it, and he has been a peramorphic adult male of vast intellect for 141 years, and playing this recording regularly on behalf of the government for 102. Dr. Nachenberger -- whose degree was granted not long after the end of his association with the Moreno brothers -- has a remarkable poker face. Nevertheless, the pain is still there. }

"Sad to say, although the peramorphic process seems to prolong human life almost indefinitely and one would have expected the Morenos to be with us for centuries, both Miguel and Adrian were tragically disintegrated in a failed experimental refinement of their space exploration systems, and are no longer available to continue their good works. We, who knew and worked with the Morenos, have produced this recording to honor their memory, and ensure that humanity's benefactors are never forgotten, as long as humanity lives, and we have prevailed upon the planetary authorities to ensure that everyone who is peramorphosized by the Moreno process learns of the men who made such a utopia possible."

{ This, in fact, is an outright lie. Dr. Nachenberger, no matter what his intellectual achievements may have been, clearly missed his true vocation when he passed up a career on the stage. Not a single one of the Moreno inventions ever caused a fatality by failure. The Morenos did not cause their own tragic deaths. In fact, a mere 203 Kilometers from this facility, the planetary government has purposely bulldozed the remains of the Moreno residence and built a very large document repository in its place solely to ensure that no investigator could ever uncover the truth behind the Morenos' "accident". Possibly for purposes of deliberate irony, that particular repository is run entirely by experimental robots who are usually incapable of navigating the filing system. The repository, therefore, would have been an ideal way to cover up a secret, if it were not, itself, merely by existing, covering up a bigger secret than any functionary of the planetary government had ever written down. }

[muscl4life]

This really got me curious to know how we got from our reality to such hot hedonistic new standards. And of course to know more the Moreno Brothers and their untold last secret

Cheers!

[mlbjock]

In the words of Amb. Spock of Vulcan, "Fascinating!"