Of course, prior to eating we all enjoyed some football. It’s amazing that this sport is still on, well that it came back really. It, like many professional sport leagues, were canceled shortly after the Singularity event. Society couldn’t very well maintain such luxuries when it was breaking apart. But, and I must say thankfully, it was reformed when things settled down. Though there are some pretty stringent rules in place. Not all Sentients are created equal after all, and as such, not all get to play. Absolutely no ‘Altered’ persons, those not belonging to any Sentient race, are allowed to play. They are just too unpredictable, and quite frankly, a bit to odd. It’s one thing to get a mood tattoo or even some controllable ink, even some body sculpting, but there are some out there that for some reason think it’s good to have oddly placed extra limbs. Weird.

I’ve done some reading about the NFL back in the day and the trouble with steroids and performance enhancing drugs. Can you imagine if they had to deal with the 24th century? There’s people out there that have put in brand new muscles to the human body, the original body. Avians and Aquatics, for instance, have all kinds of new muscles. Originals, as we are often called, have the same amount of muscles as did those that came before us.

But, not to get into a Sentient comparison, back to the NFL. Did you know that it was named the same thing back then? Now of course there isn’t one nation in America anymore, and the Mids don’t participate in the NFL, or anything really, they just like to start wars every few decades, but we still call it the National Football League. I think it was kept just out of nostalgia. People love their traditions and history. Football itself never really died, even the NFL tried to stay around during the turmoil of the Eugenics wars, Cyborg uprisings, Outer system wars, and World War’s III and IV, not to mention the AI war, but that was a special situation. It wasn’t successful of course and succumbed to the tumultuous times of the last three hundred years. But, eventually, it came back and we are now able to enjoy it’s splendor.

Back to who gets to play. Original humans can, well those that qualify with a less than 5% augmentation percentage. AI’s can too in a an appropriate body, nothing more than standard strength models. Cy’s are prohibited, and frankly the amount that are in normal space are so low and so monitored that they won’t bother. The NFL actually tried to go full virtual a few years after they re-established the league but there was a major backlash from it. I’ve always been surprised by the backlash from some virtual events. It’s one thing to show a real event in a virtual bar, but people just don’t like the idea of a real event being done in virtual. So strange. I’ll have to do some research on that one of these days, see what the draw away is. At any rate, all NFL games are live, in physical stadiums with thousands of screaming fans, almost like it was 300 years ago. Amazing!

Family is calling to have dessert and watch the final game. Eagles vs Cardinals tonight, can’t wait. Enjoy everyone!

Immortals, as we all know, were those humans that pushed the limits beyond where most people stopped. With standard rejuvenation treatments, you can set the physiological clock back to your early 20′s. Basically allowing anyone to live as long as they have access to the treatments. Every hundred years or so you can get rejuvenated back to your 20′s. Sounds great on paper but let me say the logistics have been a nightmare. The population has been on a non-stop growth fest ever since. Luckily there’s plenty of room in the solar system to expand but some think we’ll grow beyond that easily one day.

But that’s not what I want to talk about. The Immortals figured out a way to modify their bodies in such a way they didn’t need treatments anymore. No one has figured this out since they did it, 160 years ago. And as soon as they did they destroyed the technique. At least they claim they did. No one really cares that much about it of course. Two reasons for this. First, with rejuv treatments you can basically live forever anyway. Second, 90% of the immortals are insane.

The 10% that aren’t are revered in the system. They are damn near indestructible. I say near as one just died today. The other 90% live a simple life in a quarantined part of the Serengeti. Absolutely no contact with non-immortals allowed. Whenever they are around any other Sentient they exhibit extreme violent behavior. They think it’s because of the extreme treatment they undertook. Still, wasn’t totally their fault, so they were locked away. They look to be quite happy on the vNet dedicated to them anyway.

Those that don’t have the violent behavior freely move about Sentient space. Alton, the immortal that died today, lived in Australia, his native home. He was traveling to the outer system for some reason or another. His ship hit a violent micro-meteor storm, the EM shield went down. He was just inside the dead zone of Jupiter’s massive radiation fields. The fields fried his computer, he couldn’t get the auxiliary online quick enough. His engines mis-fired at full throttle and he plunged down into Jupiter’s atmosphere. All rather surprising really. A bizarre set of unlikely circumstances all rolled into one.

Everyone is a bit shook up about it. Frankly, I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because nothing is set in stone anymore. The immortals are, were, I don’t know, the only constant in life. They would always be here. And yes, even though we are all technically the same, we really aren’t. We don’t heal like they do, we can die from diseases and a host of other things. Rejuv treatments just deal with aging not everything that can kill ya.

At any rate. School closed early, the kids went out to mourn. To them it’s especially hard. The Immortals are like gods to them in a sense. Of course they aren’t. Technically they are just another member of the Sentient Accords like everyone else. They have no more rights than any of us. Still, they are somehow special. Alton is only the third Immortal to die in 160 years. A sad milestone that has been reached.

After the Singularity event, the 22nd century saw unregulated Eugenics experiments running rampant. Scientists could tweak genes, modified the human form in any way they wanted. This rampant unregulated and at times unethical abuse of this new form of technology lead to the first Eugenics war. People were no longer people. Some added muscle mass, some grew appendages, what could be done was really limitless. That had a disastrous effect on society. Not everyone wanted to join in on this body reshaping free-for-all. Many liked being and wanted to stay being Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Unfortunately, some also wanted those who embraced this new technology to cease living. Thus, the Eugenics war exploded.

Of course, by the time the of this war, Humanity had spread out a bit from Earth and into the inner system. New Luna, which was able to remain mostly neutral during the War, was thriving as were other less developed colonies and spatial habitats. Though many of the colonies were neutral, the war did spread to those areas as well. Simply put, the colonies simply didn’t have a strong military in which to stave off incoming waves of the war machine of terrestrial earth. But, due to it’s isolation deep in the moon, New Luna was not an appealing target and was able to remain out of most of the conflict.  It’s interesting that the one place that was created in the hopes of preventing an all out Eugenics war became the safe haven for many fleeing the effects of it.

When the war started, there were several Neo’s that had grown in population. Several aquatic varieties, some avians, even some that had molded their bodies to better survive extra-terrestrial locations such as Mars and the deep caves of Mercury. It was, and is, really interesting how most Neo species choose to modify themselves along lines to allow them to live in a natural environment without the requirement of technology.  A fact about this time, most of those that had modified themselves were individuals. Meaning there weren’t any large amounts of Neo’s that were genetically the same and compared to today’s Sentient’s, most of the changes were cosmetic.

As the war churned on, countries fought each other for the right to control the technology. Some fought for the Neo’s that could not fight for themselves, claiming that they were, deep down, still humans. At times during the war countries split apart, sided with different nations, army’s often fought their own. It was truly a giant mess.

Most of the Neo’son Earth will killed. A large amount fled, with Cy’s and AI’s, to the outer system where they still live today. They had to alter themselves heavily to survive in those harsh environments but they did and do. When the war finally died down it left the inner system a mess of destroyed stations and broken space vessels. The Lunar and Martian surfaces were littered with bodies, burnt out vehicles, and countless other leftovers from the war.

One group of Neo’s that managed to survive, did so by hiding. When the war started a group of aquatically modified people went deep in the Earth’s oceans. They found the Mariana trench, altered themselves to survive the pressure while still keeping the ability to breath open air, and vanished beneath the ocean. They actually thrived beneath the sea. They had brought sea technology, mostly primitive organic based technology, with them and managed to improve upon it. They augmented the organic based computer and technology system. Literally grew homes, vessels to travel in, and even defenses to protect themselves against the war raging above. More importantly they were having offspring. They had not modified their genetic code in nearly 100 years, adopted as a requirement for Sentient status, and were now becoming their own species. As intelligent as Humans but distinctly different in every other way.

Eventually they were able to tap into radio broadcasts from the surface and they realize that the war was long over. The hatred of their kind had muted and there were those that were more accepting. They decided to reveal their colony, long unknown from everyone.

It was a sunny day in Florida, July 22nd 2245, when the first of them returned to the surface. They arrived in one of their grown sea ships. They were greeted with fascination, awe, in some cases even fear. Their coming to the surface, and their decision to rejoin Humanity, was a pivotal moment. They proved that an augmented, changed, group of humans could live, have children, those babies would share in their changed features and they would be a stable and viable species. Most of those on that first ship were children of the original’s that hid in the deep trench. Their existence paved the way for the Sentient Accords to be drafted and accepted by the ever changing community of Mankind and the people of Solar System. They were welcomed as hero’s by nearly every group in existence at the time. They were the first to be given full Sentient status. Theirs was the first new nation to be recognized beneath the sea and warmly welcomed to the UN. Innovations from their aquatic kingdom spawned a new age in sea and space exploration. Organic technology was taken to a new level. Their species name was decided on and agreed upon. Homo Sapiens Aquāticus had arrived. They had shown that change wasn’t evil. That humans could alter their genetic code and still be humans. They loved and died just like any other.

In the years since their re-emergance from the sea. The cities beneath the waves have grown and become major destinations for tourism and opened up vast areas of uncliamed land that would become nations and cities in their own time. Perhaps the most interesting of all, it was members of Aquaticus that first settled Europa. The cities there are magnificent and awe inspiring. I for one thank God that they surived the First Eugenics war, were hidden for the second, and re-joined Humanity. We are so much more richer for their presence.