Bourn - Preserving Perfection: Self-obsessing with body augmentation has left the entire planet of Ramos without children. But to acquire children means interstellar war!

PRESERVING PERFECTION

VEILED DESTINY Series

Book 2

Self-obsessing with body augmentation has left the entire planet of Ramos without children. But to acquire children means interstellar war!

by JASON BOURN

Copyright 2019 by Jason Bourn

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

The far-away world of Torval was thriving, whereas the equally far away world of Ramos was in chaos.

Two ships had been dispatched from Earth, each taking their long journeys, but in opposite directions. Opposite both literally and figuratively. The humans on the ship to Torval had set up a society having an almost religious loathing, bordering on disgust, for both Virtual Reality and embedded technology. The humans on the ship to Ramos had set up a society with the same disgust for Virtual Reality, however they had fully embraced embedded technology.

Earth had become an empty-looking world, with almost everyone going into Virtual Reality. The lure was great. The technology perfected, each person inside their virtual suit inside a virtual room, all five senses were perfectly fooled into believing the body was in a real-world setting. This enabled the wearer to be any place, doing anything, as if they were really there. Only ones imagination limited what could be done. While many just used this utopian situation to play unlimited, ever more complex games, some used this capability individually, or in collaboration with others, to produce unimaginable art and technological feats, able to complete them much faster and with far more complexity than would ever have been possible with real world limitations.

However, submitting to the virtual world came with a price. The longer one stayed in the virtual world the harder it was to exit back to the real world. With this perfected technology, while it was possible to have children in virtual reality after all it was just a fluid transfer like the ubiquitous automatic feeding and removal of bodily wastes there were fewer and fewer that actually chose to have children. And the few children that were born were automatically encased in their own virtual suits that grew with them, with no realistic possibility of ever escaping the suits. Every generation, there were fewer and fewer children. In short, the humans on the great world of Earth were literally dying out, and, as if in readiness for their destiny, they were already ensconced in their high-tech tombs.

One man had foreseen this mighty fall. Elijah Toriato, on par with Einstein in intelligence and creative thinking, had created artificial intelligence software to generate future predictions with amazing precision. He had foreseen the virtual reality trap and had seen to the creation of two giant space crafts to save mankind from the death spiral of virtual reality. Each ship had gone in opposite directions in the galaxy, since their cargo was so different.

The ship heading to Ramos contained those who had rejected virtual reality, but had embraced embedded technologies. Once accepted, embedded technology was, as predicted, just as addictive as virtual reality. At first, implants improved just vision and hearing, but as technology improved, there was almost no end to the improvements to the human body that were possible. Every joint could be enhanced, every neuron improved to be faster and integrated into an enhanced processing unit like never before. In short, once embraced, embedded technology was used to enhance every aspect of the body, which gave each person superhuman powers and extended their longevity far beyond their forefathers.

And yet, the civilization on Ramos was near the point of collapse. With the sole focus of trying to obtain the most and best embedded tech, there were almost no babies being born. The intensely personal focus of embedded tech almost precluded the desire for progeny. The number of natural-born children born in the last one hundred years could be counted on one hand. Artificial test tube babies had been grown, but since no one wanted to care for the babies, they had grown up extremely narcissistic not able to function in the real world. And so, their civilization was on the verge of extermination. Those adults that were left were almost superhuman, but once they were gone, there would be nothing left.

The ship heading to Torval, on the other hand, contained those who had rejected both virtual reality and embedded technologies. Everyone selected for the ship to Torval had firmly rejected both of these addictive traps. These normal humans, with all the strengths and weaknesses that had made Earth men and women great, had thrived on Torval.

Torvals inhabitants worked hard, forcing the new planet to bend to the will of mankind. Not being nearly as strong as their faraway superhuman cousins on Ramos, nor as productive and creative as their ancestors back on Earth imprisoned in VR, the humans on Torval managed to prosper with a drive that reminded some of the old American colonial spirit. With little patience for obtrusive government, these people were simple and stubborn and proliferant. They prided themselves on their prodigious fertility rate, which was a good thing when there was an entire world to fill.

Each of these three worlds, Earth, Torval and Ramos, and their inhabitants, was unique but now it was time for them to meet and determine the future of the human race.

CHAPTER 1 RAMOS

The five all met in a single room, which was rare for those from Ramos. The five would never have been recognized by their ancestors from Earth, even their parents wouldnt have recognized them. For they were far more machinery and electronics than flesh and bones, having fully embraced embedded technology, more commonly known as body augmentation.

Normally these five council leaders would be alone, utilizing and building up even more of their enhanced selves, the way every inhabitant from Ramos preferred it. However, this was an emergency at least they could all agree on that.

Dorial Anton, the elected Head of the Leadership Council, started the meeting off. Thank you all for coming together for this meeting today. I know what kind of a sacrifice it is to meet together in person, but you are all aware that we cannot continue in the manner of the past. He did not let on that he had engineered this meeting they may or may not find that out.

Markus Pullran, by far the most cynical of the group, volunteered: Dorial, it is just like you to use a disaster to further your latest campaign. But in this case, I do agree that this forces us to action.

He, of course, was referring to the destruction of the lone artificial reproduction facility on Ramos. This had really been their last hope to save their civilization, but its destruction hadnt really mattered since the babies produced by the facility had turned out to be far too neurotic and narcissistic to be useful in their society. This wasnt really the facilitys fault, which could have been corrected. Unfortunately, the blame lay on the inability of Ramos inhabitants to perform even the basics of parenting. No one could spare time from their favorite pursuit of acquiring and using body augmentation. All five knew that body augmentation was addictive. Even though they were the five council leaders, their pervasive use of embedded tech mirrored everyone on Ramos.

Rheana Hintz said thoughtfully, I suppose it really doesnt matter in the long run. We havent had a successful outcome in twenty years. She couldnt help taking a quick look over at Delile Rozen.