Week 1; A history entry on the Church of Humanity - an introduction

 Sometime prior the inevitable destruction of our own environment, genetics took a great leap into the stars - two scientists uncovered entirely new branches for the human race, creating men as Gods. Children born bereft of fertility, they numbered only so many. A new society emerged, one under the watchful eye of child-gods, who were ageless, sleepless, with no need for food or nourishment - a drink of water could sustain them for months, and they could emerge from the vacuum of space, naked, yet unharmed. Children became adults, and they were barren to the last; their line would go on, guiding society as a stable, neutral independent government, whose members had seen the centuries pass as another season of their life. Eventually, hand in hand with our watchers, humanity recovered our world, and we saved ourselves from extinction through collaboration.

But, the mindless mundane ages passed for this new species, and they were bitter until their children were finally found. Genetics could not breed more, but inside of their genes was a whole spectrum of possibility - a flexible, adaptable genetic sample, ageless and exact. They bore children in the species of homosapien that followed their genetic experiments, creating ReinCorporation, a scheme to assimilate all of humankind into their genetic hybrids, and thus re-create the human race as we know it. The Genetic Hierarchy promised whatever wealth, job, or even genetics that a given human might want and happily offer to transport them, mind, body, and soul, into a new life. Almost overnight, humanity was hardly different at all, but they were all suddenly bound by the same chains forged by the watchers, and then, the Church of Humanity.

The Church is the unifying principal of the Genetic Hierarchy. It presents the promise that humankind is the peak of genetic principals, scientifically designed to represent the greatest strengths of its creators, each of which is in their own right a head of state within the Church government. They rule over their children, the ultimate authority on all matters. Once mankind was prepared, the Church built legions, and turned their eyes to space. 

...but our story does not concern space. The Church is, itself, only a reflection of what it once was on Earth. Much like its original intention of mimicking former religious practices, suiting to satisfy the natural desire for supernatural aid in troubling times, it survives as a husk of its former self, wearing the same clothes, but lacking the central point and primary figures of its original intended purpose and meaning. The watchers would not recognize what has become of Earth in the centuries since the collapse. They might very well flee it, if they had a choice in the matter.

Indeed; the slums of New Dallas rarely afford priests more than a few poor souls asking for prayers, passing the bishop notes, but never credits. The bishop knows, as a denizen of Sector Zero, that him taking the money would put him in danger. Nobody robs a priest, for a priest has nothing to take, he says. But a slummie knows what else the bishop has; organs, treated by the anointment of their order, with nanotech dedicated to cleaning him up before he walked back into the Church's narrow doors. Credits for pound, the bishop was actually worth quite a lot, but most slummies figured that casing a bishop would damn you for sure, and nobody else was selling you your soul, 'cept the Church.

The flood through the markets was half autonomous. Half-constructed machines shuffled through the endless rain, the constant downpour of Zero. Plenty of slummies still had flesh on their bones, if you counted half as plenty. Times had been hard, and fresh robotics were sold by the bin. Flimsy break-away stuff, something that was easy to make, cheap to produce, and deteriorated into useless trash quickly enough that it'd end up back at the trash heap they found its former plastic forebear to begin with. Bodies for scanned brains, fried heads and sold as-is; organs intact? Probably twelve-hundred credits, and that for an infirm subject or at least neglected, health-wise. A man could live in Zero for two months on that, with a decent stipend left for the health clinics at that. Why, you turn a poor tourist into a machine, take away his rights and identity, leave him for dead in the slums of Sector Zero, you could earn yourself a living. And the shares of Tanaka Medical and its endless vats of organs, generously shipped nation-wide across the United Federation of States, have never been higher. Tanaka Medical clinics aren't on every streetcorner elsewhere, y'know - Zero is a buyers market for flesh, every day. The locals say you lose something every day in New Dallas - Sector three, you lose credits; sector One, you lose a day for work; sector Seven, you sell your soul in a high-rise at the skyline; but in Zero, you lose more than what you thought anybody could take.

Mankind has become lost in machines - corrupted memories and a sleepless mind, a mere digital emulation of a human brain, imperfectly copied from a hair-dryer turned up way too damn hot, and now since, a synthetic mockery of the flesh. Half repaired, always starving for energy; homeless androids wander Sector Zero by the tens of thousands. The city could care less if a crazed pillhead decides to begin cutting them down in the street, sawing parts off of them, and selling those pieces to local shops, probably so they can go buy more pills.

Tanaka Medical has other concerns.

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This is the first entry in a new series introducing the world of Hardcopy. It focuses on the founding of the Church of Humanity and introduces several concepts - namely casing, nanotechnology, Tanaka Medical corporation, the UFS, New Dallas, etc.

Enjoy? Let me know!