Prologue:
It’s not like the atom was evil. In fact the atom really didn’t care one way or the other. It simply “was.” It’s when man decided to crack it open with the scientific equivalent of a sledgehammer that the real trouble began. Likewise when the Wright brothers invented the airplane they figured war was no longer possible. We had conquered the skies. It’d be ludacris to fight each other now. Wouldn’t it? Then mankind responded by saying “Hold my beer.” The next thing you know we had mid-air dogfights, and bombers raining down destruction on our enemies. Nor did the brothers ever envision the day that we’d even go so far as to relinquish the skies altogether after they fought so hard to tame them. We handed it all over to unmanned drones. The kind that could deliver pizzas to the lazy masses, as well as the ones that could explode a target’s head at the push of a button from thousands of miles away.
Every facet of technology has consequences no matter how seemingly benign at first discovery. So it was no surprise that such was the fate of what we now experience as modern day genetic engineering in the 23rd century. I mean sure back in what now seems like the stone age of the 21st century it started of with the best of intentions: we mapped genomes, developed gene therapies to cure the incurable, found new ways to strengthen man’s resilience through genetic manipulation, and made childbirth safer - even easier for the potential parent. It’s that last bit we need to talk about to frame this story.
As usual it all started with a sheep. Let’s face it cloning a sheep was passe at this point. We’d been there, and the first cloned Ovis Aries “Dolly” had done that. But a four legged miracle of nature aptly named “Baba” shook the scientific community as being the first animal successfully born via an artificial womb. They called it a “Birthing Bag.” Sure it was rough around the edges at first. Basically it looked like a giant ziplock bag you’d otherwise brine a turkey in. But over the years it grew to be much more sophisticated. Something out of the movie The Matrix, or any really bad B-Grade sci-fi flick involving growing your own evil army of Hitler clones. Regardless. Here was a self sustainable vat of life giving nutrients that could bring a complete human to full term.
It’s usually at this point that those with strong religious convictions would cry foul, and wish to stamp it down. Call it a bastardization of the miracle of life. But mankind never initially set out to fully replace the mother in the birthing equation. What if you made the promise that on paper you could save the lives of 85% more children that were born prematurely, and had the data to back it up through animal research? You could argue that the technology could be meant to save existing lives rather than soulessly cranking out new ones from scratch like the creepy futuristic human equivalent of a puppy mill.
Hope. She was the first preemie baby born at 23 weeks to be saved by such technology. Shortly after many more tiny framed individuals overwhelmingly beat the odds. In the face of years of such success it silenced the artificial womb’s even most adamant critics…
Then mankind had to fuck it all up by creating Homo Sapiens Silvestris. Because the first thing we do with a new technology be we ancient Egyptians drawing early heiroghilics, or 21st century meme generators on the internet is add cats.
Space:
Tempuss stared at the navigation screen of his spacecraft with slitted pupils. Eyes unblinking. He always had to remember to blink around the normies whenever in mixed company to make them feel more at ease. Unlike other primates he had a third eyelid. Technically it’s called a nictitating membrane or a “haw” that’s far more efficient at helping clean, and moisturize his vision in space than that of those born with your basic monkey eyes. It was a trate he shared with similar dominant predators like the great white shark. The fact that Homo Sapiens Silvestris had greater vision, and greater agility by birthright obviously caused tension with those on the other more humble side of Sapiens. So he had to be careful with this next interaction at the guard station.
The shuttle Fugit was slowly approaching the docking bay of Mars outpost InSight named for the historic robotic lander that first analyzed the core of the planet. It was InSight’s work that allowed us to harvest vital life sustaining materials from various parts of the planet’s crust potentially making the harsh landscape not only inhabitable, but sustainable. With a little more hard work a network of domed outposts were erected, and small martian cities were formed by the efforts of the first brave astronaut settlers. When the first Starbucks made it to Mars the people rejoiced. In case you’re wondering they put it right next to the next site reserved for a future McDonalds.
Maybe it’s important to take a step back here before we delve into exactly how a cat person hybrid made it into space?
The abuse of the technology started small at first. A Middle Eastern prince whose doctors determined his wife was unable to withstand the stresses of childbirth used an artificial womb to produce an heir. A Russian oligarch went a step further by cutting out the middle woman, and literally cloning himself. He later “adopted” the artificially produced offspring as his child through some rather shady legal paperwork.
Then things really went off the rails when other disruptive technologies eventually matured.
By the 22nd century 3D printing technology had started to reach its full potential. Whether it was a spare liver, or a handgun if you had the specifications, and the raw materials (be they metals or organic proteins) you could almost literally print anything out of thin air. We were tearing a page right out of Star Trek’s “replicator”. The first man to 3D print a cup of Earl Grey tea (albeit not hot) received millions of views on YouTube despite the fact that the process took somewhere around 18 hours.
Always a bit behind the lumbering limbs of government would try to regulate something potentially dangerous just as it became more affordable. After all Henry Ford launched the middle-class accessible Model T in 1908, but it wasn’t until the 1950’s that most of the states within the USA actually required you attain a licence to drive one. Soon the “right to print” became a lightning rod issue around the world. Printer friendly lobbies poured money into ad campaigns (as well as politician’s pockets) to see this not as a danger, but a massive upside for mankind.
“Organ donor lists now obsolete. Don’t let politicians remove your access to life saving technology.”
- TARP (The Association for Responsible Printing)
“1+2=3D! Your 1st amendment right to free speech + your 2nd amendment right to bear arms = the future of 3D printed firearms, and their patented designs.” - NFA (National Firearms Association)
“Give a man a fish, and you can feed him for a day. Teach a man to print a fish… and you can feed the world.” - GSPU (Global Science Printing Unlimited)
This was all well intentioned. But a disgraced scientist going by the name of Doctor Hideki Neko had other visions. In 1896 H.G. Wells composed a fantasy novel called The Island of Doctor Moreau wherein a menagerie of horrors were spliced with humans.
Doctor Neko had managed to bring this nightmare to life.
It’s not like the atom was evil. In fact the atom really didn’t care one way or the other. It simply “was.” It’s when man decided to crack it open with the scientific equivalent of a sledgehammer that the real trouble began. Likewise when the Wright brothers invented the airplane they figured war was no longer possible. We had conquered the skies. It’d be ludacris to fight each other now. Wouldn’t it? Then mankind responded by saying “Hold my beer.” The next thing you know we had mid-air dogfights, and bombers raining down destruction on our enemies. Nor did the brothers ever envision the day that we’d even go so far as to relinquish the skies altogether after they fought so hard to tame them. We handed it all over to unmanned drones. The kind that could deliver pizzas to the lazy masses, as well as the ones that could explode a target’s head at the push of a button from thousands of miles away.
Every facet of technology has consequences no matter how seemingly benign at first discovery. So it was no surprise that such was the fate of what we now experience as modern day genetic engineering in the 23rd century. I mean sure back in what now seems like the stone age of the 21st century it started of with the best of intentions: we mapped genomes, developed gene therapies to cure the incurable, found new ways to strengthen man’s resilience through genetic manipulation, and made childbirth safer - even easier for the potential parent. It’s that last bit we need to talk about to frame this story.
As usual it all started with a sheep. Let’s face it cloning a sheep was passe at this point. We’d been there, and the first cloned Ovis Aries “Dolly” had done that. But a four legged miracle of nature aptly named “Baba” shook the scientific community as being the first animal successfully born via an artificial womb. They called it a “Birthing Bag.” Sure it was rough around the edges at first. Basically it looked like a giant ziplock bag you’d otherwise brine a turkey in. But over the years it grew to be much more sophisticated. Something out of the movie The Matrix, or any really bad B-Grade sci-fi flick involving growing your own evil army of Hitler clones. Regardless. Here was a self sustainable vat of life giving nutrients that could bring a complete human to full term.
It’s usually at this point that those with strong religious convictions would cry foul, and wish to stamp it down. Call it a bastardization of the miracle of life. But mankind never initially set out to fully replace the mother in the birthing equation. What if you made the promise that on paper you could save the lives of 85% more children that were born prematurely, and had the data to back it up through animal research? You could argue that the technology could be meant to save existing lives rather than soulessly cranking out new ones from scratch like the creepy futuristic human equivalent of a puppy mill.
Hope. She was the first preemie baby born at 23 weeks to be saved by such technology. Shortly after many more tiny framed individuals overwhelmingly beat the odds. In the face of years of such success it silenced the artificial womb’s even most adamant critics…
Then mankind had to fuck it all up by creating Homo Sapiens Silvestris. Because the first thing we do with a new technology be we ancient Egyptians drawing early heiroghilics, or 21st century meme generators on the internet is add cats.
Space:
Tempuss stared at the navigation screen of his spacecraft with slitted pupils. Eyes unblinking. He always had to remember to blink around the normies whenever in mixed company to make them feel more at ease. Unlike other primates he had a third eyelid. Technically it’s called a nictitating membrane or a “haw” that’s far more efficient at helping clean, and moisturize his vision in space than that of those born with your basic monkey eyes. It was a trate he shared with similar dominant predators like the great white shark. The fact that Homo Sapiens Silvestris had greater vision, and greater agility by birthright obviously caused tension with those on the other more humble side of Sapiens. So he had to be careful with this next interaction at the guard station.
The shuttle Fugit was slowly approaching the docking bay of Mars outpost InSight named for the historic robotic lander that first analyzed the core of the planet. It was InSight’s work that allowed us to harvest vital life sustaining materials from various parts of the planet’s crust potentially making the harsh landscape not only inhabitable, but sustainable. With a little more hard work a network of domed outposts were erected, and small martian cities were formed by the efforts of the first brave astronaut settlers. When the first Starbucks made it to Mars the people rejoiced. In case you’re wondering they put it right next to the next site reserved for a future McDonalds.
Maybe it’s important to take a step back here before we delve into exactly how a cat person hybrid made it into space?
The abuse of the technology started small at first. A Middle Eastern prince whose doctors determined his wife was unable to withstand the stresses of childbirth used an artificial womb to produce an heir. A Russian oligarch went a step further by cutting out the middle woman, and literally cloning himself. He later “adopted” the artificially produced offspring as his child through some rather shady legal paperwork.
Then things really went off the rails when other disruptive technologies eventually matured.
By the 22nd century 3D printing technology had started to reach its full potential. Whether it was a spare liver, or a handgun if you had the specifications, and the raw materials (be they metals or organic proteins) you could almost literally print anything out of thin air. We were tearing a page right out of Star Trek’s “replicator”. The first man to 3D print a cup of Earl Grey tea (albeit not hot) received millions of views on YouTube despite the fact that the process took somewhere around 18 hours.
Always a bit behind the lumbering limbs of government would try to regulate something potentially dangerous just as it became more affordable. After all Henry Ford launched the middle-class accessible Model T in 1908, but it wasn’t until the 1950’s that most of the states within the USA actually required you attain a licence to drive one. Soon the “right to print” became a lightning rod issue around the world. Printer friendly lobbies poured money into ad campaigns (as well as politician’s pockets) to see this not as a danger, but a massive upside for mankind.
“Organ donor lists now obsolete. Don’t let politicians remove your access to life saving technology.”
- TARP (The Association for Responsible Printing)
“1+2=3D! Your 1st amendment right to free speech + your 2nd amendment right to bear arms = the future of 3D printed firearms, and their patented designs.” - NFA (National Firearms Association)
“Give a man a fish, and you can feed him for a day. Teach a man to print a fish… and you can feed the world.” - GSPU (Global Science Printing Unlimited)
This was all well intentioned. But a disgraced scientist going by the name of Doctor Hideki Neko had other visions. In 1896 H.G. Wells composed a fantasy novel called The Island of Doctor Moreau wherein a menagerie of horrors were spliced with humans.
Doctor Neko had managed to bring this nightmare to life.
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