procedures | worldbuild. ( om&m v2 )

THIS IS NOT THE UTOPIA YOU'RE LOOKING FOR.
A VERSE PRIMER FOR Of Mice & Men

» Year 3401: Humanity has declined.

Illness was rampant, and the entire human genome crippled, frail and sickly. Organ failure was setting in during early adulthood, life expectancy had shortened, and modern medicine was struggling to keep up. Humanity simply was not adapting any longer to the future they'd thrust themselves into. Despite huge strides in the advancement of medicine and related biotechnologies, the human body was being left behind by the march of scientific progress.

» The Kerns-Norman Gene.

— was a gift from Mother Nature, discovered by Pete Kerns and Andrew M. Norman in a stem cell research facility in Waverly, Virginia. It was an evolutionary miracle in its very, very early stages - it was biology's most promising attempt at adapting to preserve itself. The KN gene, once activated (or matured, as called in some circles), stimulated rapid cellular mutation that produced natural biological enhancements, like strengthened musculature, boosted immune systems, and incredible resistance and resilience, making the human body more hardy and healthy. A byproduct of the gene were odd off-shoot mutations, due to its infancy from an evolutionary standpoint. These byproducts, or side effects as some would call them, include a spreading iris discoloration, follicle discoloration (differently colored roots and tips for hair), and advanced gene-selective sterility within a ten year window after gene activation. However, it's a gene propagated through heritage, and would have naturally spread to the whole of humanity in perhaps a century of time (roughly five to six generations), by which point it likely would've stabilized.

The KN gene was a biological savior. However, people are assholes.

» How Humanity Fucked Up, Part 1.

The Kerns-Norman gene appears in humans, and society is wigged out as a whole by this thing that mutates people into super-people - some jealous of their ability to survive effortlessly among a plagued species, others simply disturbed by all that they represent (the next step on the evolutionary ladder), and some afraid of being pushed into extinction by them. Regardless of the popular reasons for disliking the KN carriers, the medical community seized what they saw as a great opportunity to experiment with the human genome extensively in attempts to solve problems and create cures to a lot of diseases — and if nothing else, to improve quality of life for mankind.

It all started out very humanitarian. KN1s (humans born with the KN gene activated) were offered handsome incentives to participate in studies and experiments. The gene was (and remains to be) fairly uncommon, with first generation "Mice" (the mostly derogatory slur (that becomes more official later) assigned to KNs once all the science shit starts up) carrying more resilient strands of the gene, and for a while things were going pretty good. As time went on, however, not enough KN1 first-gens were volunteering, while demands for various research and experiments to test the gene's limitations were skyrocketing — some research companies begin operating outside ethical standards and began abducting KN1s off the streets.

» The Advent of "Houses".

At the beginning of the rise of medical R&D, pharmaceutical and bioengineering corporations had filed patents left and right for possible (and in some, purely theoretical) applications of any research or discovery made with the KN gene. The corporations that survived the initial clamor for the "magic cure" had, eventually, developed their individual trademarks — that is, a specialty for genetically engineered Mice. Human cloning was perfected through research done with the KN gene, with a side effect of clones retaining or developing the gene during stimulated growth.

Pharmaceutical and bioengineering powerhouses (later on being called "houses", simply because power was a given) began creating their own petri-dish Mice out of DNA from KN1s, splicing genetic samples together to replicate the genetic traits they want and eliminate the ones they didn't. They produced artificial humans that were engineered to have a survivability window of five to eight years. The clones were referred to as KN2s - second to nth generation clones of KN1s. As activated mutations in clones were always a fraction of what presents in the originating KN carrier, repetitive cloning become a standard — in the end creating an entirely new industry and way of living.

» The Age of Corporate Rule.

The KN gene was commercialized.

Patents for applications of the gene was seized up by corporations, generating a market for the best of what human health can achieve. As an effect, corporations began seizing power that rivaled (in some cases directly) most governing bodies in various countries. As these corporations provided the information on the KN carriers that was provided to all forms of media with extensive coverage, these corporations controlled the narrative and worldview on the value of KN gene and those possessing it. Monopolies rose. The world was in a fever over the KN gene.

Everybody wanted it, but they didn't want to have it.

» The Decline of Human Rights (or, How Humanity Fucked Up: Part 2).

KNs, both first and second generation*, become looked down on as property more than people. With their genetic material being valued more than their personhood, KNs were treated associal pariahs first, then second class citizens, and then as livestock — stripped of rights and are bound to whatever House has either contracted them, engineered them, or have held them hostage in the name of medical progress.

With legal precedence being set and governments permitting leeway for "material appropriation", it became acceptable for agents from different Houses to abduct KN1s, regardless of whether or not they were law-abiding citizens with families, jobs, and houses, so long as they tested positive for the KN gene. These actions were rationalized as a duty to improve society & medicine for all, and popular vote began leaning heavily in support to laws that strip KN1s of their quickly diminishing rights. People who protest in support of KN rights exist, but are looked down on as backwards or uneducated, or overreacting (think PETA or antivaxxers).

All too quickly, KN1s were placed in custody of the pharma/bioengineering "House" they had been "contracted" to, where they are kept to be either sold off to other Houses or individual buyers, or kept in-house for product development and display, and other similar purposes.

» Templates (or, How Humanity Fucked Up: Part 3).

The KN1s that had been discovered to have more valuable natural augmentations, and possessed a particularly strong strain of the gene, were discovered to have provided the best genetic samples for successful clones. Their clones survive longer, were more durable, took better to genetic splicing, and adapted more quickly to all the engineering administered to them. And so the iteration system* was born. Quite literally.

The KN1s that were sampled from were kept in-house as 'quality control', because material needed to be constantly harvested from them for new clones. The goal in every House, with every iteration, is to unlock as much of the KN gene's maximum potential present in the original Template, making it vital that the Houses don't lose their KN1 carriers. Hence, the original carriers, referred to by the cloning community as Templates, were kept under lock and key, as aggressively protected as the blueprints and patents of their products. It become common practice for Houses to negotiate among each other, to trade material on Templates or loan from "in-house" for joint ventures; such deals were intensively reviewed and monitored to insure other Houses didn't attempt (or more to the point, succeed in) corporate espionage.

On top of the non-consensual misuse of their genetic material, Templates were still regularly experimented on. Most Templates, if not all, were forced to have metal ports installed along their spines to allow quick access to the best place to take KN rich genetic material - spinal fluid. As it's important that any administered drugs weren't mixed into the gene slicing and genome manipulation processes, Templates were often conscious and unanesthetized during the installation of the ports. It's not a fun existence. These ports also served the purpose of providing a direct avenue of administering chemicals/drugs as needed; KN1s tend to develop accelerated metabolism within a short period after gene activation. Ports are also used to hook into and monitor neural responses during experiments, and to stimulate neural reactions. The ports were used for different purposes, depending on the House that a Template belonged to; it was unusual for a Template not to have the ports installed.

The port installation procedure was and still is the first thing done to a new Template, a process that takes anywhere from several days to weeks depending on healing factors. This is utterly agonizing for the Mouse. This is categorically termed in public media by protesters as animal abuse.

» The Uses of Mice.

Initially, the term "Mouse" was used as a slur for volunteers participating in pharmaceutical experimentation. It eventually evolved to become the general term for homo [ ]*, particularly those that were already within House custody.

As for what Mice are: The KN gene allowed the human body to endure extreme biological testing, in turn elevating the limits of what big pharma and biotech could do in as far as human testing was concerned. With the KN1s eliminating the need for baseline humans to participate in drug-related and other human-testing trials, and with the advent of cloning, the decline of the societal regard for Mice as anything near human, with human rights, became prevalent. Corporations gained more and more leniency with this practice.

As time went on, the list of legally permitted procedures expanded: pharmaceutical and medical experimentation, organ and tissue farming for transplants, blood/plasma/marrow donation, medical and cosmetic skin grafts, and genetically engineered clones were among the popular choices for Houses. Nations with the best House engineers meant that their national forces had the best militaries, while the more entrepreneurial Houses developed clones as personal bodyguards for the likes of gangs, mafias and sketchy underground subgroups. The social elite used Mice as status symbols - given the exorbitant cost of a single unaltered clone, just possessing a Mouse of a certain level of genetic perfection was seen as a display of fortune and/or power. Mice were occasionally used for sex trade (an uncommon practice, and generally kept within the realm of KN2s). Some circles of pseudo-science enthusiasts considered the consumption of matured human organs (like those from the organ farming Houses) as the ultimate organic remedy for ailments (is it cannibalism if it's not considered human?).

On the more (relatively) humane scale, Mice were used as family/house servants (they aren't paid, so it's really more like slaves), and genetically engineering children became an acceptable part of family planning; Houses would splice the genetics with the desired additions of KN material, then severing the ability to the KN gene to replicate or develop from the zygote level. Genetically engineered "wives" and "boys" were also popular commodities in some areas of the world.

» The Louisiana Houses.

» Bathory — House Báthory supplies organs for a variety of uses both medical and commercial. Mice of House Báthory are often fitted with flexiglass windows to view their main use: organ farms. Some mice have great lengths of intestines, others house an odd number of kidneys, others bear two sets of lungs crammed between stretched ribcages to accommodate proper growth. Once a mouse has outlived its use/profitability/no longer is able to host a proper environment for the growth of organs, it is usually auctioned off. House Báthory remains one of the main suppliers of meat to the upper class. Mice are branded via scarification on the bottom of their heel in the shape of a stylized dragon eating its own tail. (More details here.)

» Gloriana — Gloriana is a very controversial house, as one of its most lucrative business practices are "custom" clones - artificially bred beings whose every physical feature has been handpicked by the consumer, and are designed to have a very short lifespan (to encourage consumer loyalty and repeat business). Gloriana Mice are bred predominantly to be beautiful, often nothing more, and are disciplined to be docile even when under duress or extreme pressure. Playing on the desires of those looking for a "pure" image to wreck or exalt is the niche that Gloriana occupies and monopolizes in North America. House Gloriana was once the stronghold of the Church, despite public sentiment, but the house has since broken away from the association due to the Church's patriarchal structure. (More details here.)

» Hapsburg — House Hapsburg is one of the leading Houses on the globe, specializing in high durability Mice with increased strength and various offensive augmentations. They're largely military/security suppliers, as well as chief providers of the popular source of entertainment that is Mouse cage-fights, essentially. Hapsburg Mice can typically be picked out by their trademark external spine, a second structure engineered on the backs of each created Mouse that provides for heightened pain tolerance and an increase in full body support, boosting potential for strength. (More details here.)

» Florens — As a House, Florens is considered the most kind out of the Big Four located in Louisiana. The House hasn't strayed too far from the original purpose of the KN system; they are in fact the main arbiters of legal and proprietary issues between the human and KN factions, along with their work in medical advancements using KN genetics. Unfortunately, House Florens chooses not to involve itself with the growing demands to either denounce KNs as humans (as the other houses have done) or acknowledge them as human beings. Despite the seemingly neutral stand, House Florens allows for KN minors to shelter within their compounds, where they may arguably receive better treatment overall compared to living with their families outside, without any corporate protection. It needs to be said, however, that House Florens also assists in placing these minors into other houses, either in Louisiana or elsewhere in North America, as soon as these children mature.

» Other Details.

» First-gen vs second-gen — First-gens are KN carriers that are born naturally, while second-gens are any and all clones created by a House.

» Template — A Mouse that has been cloned, or the basis of a clone (if they themselves are a clone, though these instances are rare). They are usually identified by spinal ports, though there are surviving Mice without them.

» Iteration — Any clone from a specific series of clones, usually numbered or ranked by generation, that carries a trait specific to their series and was developed from a single Template. (For example, if a series is developed to have bright yellow eyes, all clones within the series will have the same bright yellow eyes, even if there are variances in other traits.) An iteration could belong to any series, if the Template has been cloned repeatedly.

Iterations are different from generations, as iterations can be created linearly while ranked differently. (Think of it as phone model lines: you have your iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5s, 5c, and so on.)

» Pattern vs variance — A pattern is any group of inherited Template traits that repeat in clones. For example, Andyr's face and body build are an example of a pattern. A variance is self-explanatory.

» With nations becoming more aggressive with national borders, many countries have ditched diplomacy and enforced aggressive military borders in highly contested areas. In a terrible twist of fate, Gaza is legitimized as a nation in its own right, but is under mutual control of Israel, Palestine, and Egypt as a dangerous separatist country. Despite the description, Gaza is considered the safest place in the world for Mice, with the protective nations serving as a balancing force to each other.

» The USA is split into four regions and one militant state - East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, and South, with Alaska being the militant state. Alaska's temperatures having lowered to severe degrees, it's considered unwanted territory and has been turned over to Mice, along with the very highly militarized border surrounding it. It's frozen and unlivable for most baseline humans, and is generally neglected by local governance, but most Mice make a very rural living there and undisturbed and content with the state of affairs.
» Houses Hapsburg, Gloriana and Báthory are all based in or near New Orleans, Louisiana - capital of the South.

» Cities are on the over-populated side, with the aesthetic in New Orleans being a mix of post-colonial with hyperfuturistic melded in together. There's a fairly clear class divide, and as you go further towards the low income area, you get more and more of the slums, with people and buildings stacked on top of each other. The low town area is likely more towards the port/docks, where people employed for manual labor there are in residence close to work.

INFO WRITE-UP BY JEN & DINZY