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My name is Mahá, and I’m presenting this to help remind you of where we left off after part one of the story and I’ll catch you up on what we learned. I will bring you up to speed for the second part of our story. I pronounce my name Mahay.
In part one, I was celebrating my fourteenth birthday and, as is customary for our caste civilization, my wife from my arranged marriage was moving into my family’s home. We wouldn’t be married until my eighteenth birthday, but it is customary that we learn to live together before we marry. My parents will help her (Visákhá) and me mature and prepare us for living together as husband and wife. I pronounce her name Veesaykay. The h is silent.
Our civilization adopted the customs of living as a community from a manuscript that was prepared by and given to us by a race of humans known as Humanoids. Humanoids were the first humans to implant bio-computer chips, known as Neuralink, into their brains. They further developed biotechnology far in advance of, and long before, any other group. They also adopted the Earth satellites, known as Starlink, to enhance their mental and physical abilities far exceeding normal organic beings. Humanoids had one aim which was to end human suffering, known as The First Priority. Yet, they became feared by societies on Earth and were then hunted to extinction.
However, they abandoned Earth in the year 2339. Long before the media pronounced them extinct. They settled on a super-M-class planet they call Planet 44, near the center of the Galaxy. There they continued to develop biotechnology, Starlink satellites, and designing methods to end human suffering. In 3912, they developed a serum that could alter human DNA. It removed anger from the human gene code.
Since they were scientists with thousands of years of experience altering organic human life, they knew a trial experiment with the serum. They need to prove that the modified gene code could accomplish The First Priority which was defined as Nirvana. The end of human suffering was to culminate in what the Buddhists and Taoists call Nirvana.
The experiment went like this. First, they terraformed a limited-class-M-planet at the far edge of the outer arm of the galaxy. No other human exploration could reach this area. The Planet was called Planet 444. Next, they approached the leading scientists from other human-occupied planets to recruit them for the experiment. To be the lab rats who take the serum and fulfill the priority.
It took one thousand years to prepare for Planet 444. It only took two years for the Humanoids to recruit forty-four scientists for the experiment. All time is measured in Earth time. Every planet adopted the standards for life spans, time, distance, etcetera from what we all call Blue Origin (Earth). Perhaps the oddest difference between Humanoids and their non-biomechanical enhanced humans is lifespan. While most people age up to ninety years before death, Humanoids live four hundred and fifty years.
The serum takes three injections to modify the human gene code. Each injection required a twenty-one-day wait before the next. It took three generations to complete the new strain of DNA. The forty-four scientists completed their inoculations, implants of the Neuralink, and biomechanical devices and boarded a starship destined for Planet 444. The trip would take four hundred years to complete. Four hundred and twelve years, to be exact. The first humans to occupy and live on Planet 444 would be the third generation (adults) and their children (fourth generation).
These ancestors we call fourth parents, and the original forty-four we call first parents. As each of the ancestors died, we would transfer their implants to an heir. The Humanoids didn’t supply any extras for the expansion of the population. And they didn’t put any technology on Planet 444 to develop any sort of computer device. On the long journey, our ancestors would discover and develop a prophecy. The prophecy came from several scientists who had expertise in the paranormal, or what we call Oracles. The prophecy tells us it will be the eighth generation that will accomplish The First Priority. My generation. I was born in the year 5935.
All my life, I’ve wondered which of the friends I was growing up with would lead our civilization to Nirvana. Anyway, when Visákhá moved in with my family, I didn’t like her. Looking back at it now, it had a lot to do with me having been the center of my parent’s attention. Then, with her, their attention was divided between the two of us. It was also because she seemed to me to be so much more mature and intelligent than I was. She is two years older, but even with that, she is far ahead of me. I wondered if it was her.
Over the next four years, we grew up and we grew into good friends. We made many more good friends when we switched from going to public school to attending the monastery school. There we learned Buddhism and how to use our minds far in advance of what we could have achieved in public school.
Problems with the current monarchy ensue, as the King has to feel threatened by the Oracle’s prophecy. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Welcome to the second part of the story about our noble experiment. The story begins almost one year after the wedding from the end of the previous book. The King, according to custom, assigns the newlyweds to their position within a few weeks following the wedding. I’ve waited a year and we still have no work assignments.
Chapter One will be told by the King himself.
Chapter Two will be told by my wife, Visákhá.
Chapter Three will be told by my very best friend and our heir to be the next abbot and our spiritual leader. His name is Kelv.
Chapter Four will be told by Merliana. She is the Chief Judge of the Royal Court.
Chapter Five will be told by me (Mahá).
Chapter Six will be told by the Oracle.
