Extinction

2: History

2 HistoryNo one could recollect exactly when, where, or who had instigated the unthinkable attempt at the extermination of the female half of the human race. Over thousands of years of human existence women had been persecuted and denied basic human rights by a male society seeking to maintain the grip on power. Women had fought every step of the way to be treated as equals, they had suffered many setbacks, particularly when dealing with the primitive and draconian philosophies of certain religions and antiquated cultures. Nevertheless, their very existence had never been in doubt despite the never ending battle between equality and supremacy.

Had it all started in 2035 with the love drug, so called because when injected it removed a person’s desire for love and companionship, allowing them to live their lives alone and independent of all the pain and joy that relationships bring? People had become accustomed to living alone and by the year 2050 an irreversible operation was being administered in place of the love drug. This was at first by choice, but with the population booming out of control, by the year 2150 the surgical procedure had become compulsory on the specific orders of the Eurostate Government. Human breeding farms were created to control the new population influx, releasing into society strictly controlled numbers of fully matured livestock. The farms used human eggs, secretly harvested from ovaries removed from exterminated women. The ovaries were kept alive and functioning in specially developed laboratory cylinders. Harvested eggs were fertilised using a perfected cloning process that had been first developed in the last few years of the twentieth century. DNA-altered cells were injected into the eggs, which fooled them into believing that they had been fertilised by more traditional methods. Ultimately, this meant that a new human race had been selectively bred with no need or longing for companionship. Cloning had now not just become a reality; it had become the norm - and real human reproduction was nothing more than a pleasure left in the past like a discarded condom.

By the year 2350, male-controlled farms produced only male livestock and female existence was no longer seen as an essential part of everyday life in any capacity. Grades of male livestock were being produced specifically for various workplace functions. Genes were genetically altered in livestock so that they could be reared for the profession for which they had been earmarked. Any abnormalities were strictly controlled and eradicated by the quality control units that worked within the breeding regime. Marginalised, groups of females began to band together and sought sanctuary in the more remote parts of Europe, defending their very existence and defiantly resisting the single gender breeding programme. The renegade women soon realised that without new females to replenish their numbers their gender’s days on Earth would end. So they started to recruit from the remaining female population in an effort to stop the male-dominated society from claiming the final victory in a battle that had never before come this perilously close to the extinction of women.

At the first signs of female resistance, male society seemed unconcerned and showed complete apathy to the token displays of defiance. After all, what could a bunch of women who were so dependent on centuries of male dominance achieve? Before long, male complacency had turned to anger and then to complete fear of an enemy that society had tolerated. All attempts to exterminate the renegade groups failed completely. Subsequently, the battle progressed to a higher level; if only the male security forces could prevent all forms of female breeding, then they could extinguish the flame forever. The renegade females’ initial attempts at reproduction were extremely unsophisticated. They did not have access to their male counterparts’ cloning techniques and technology, and so they resorted to a more basic reproduction method. They began by imprisoning men that they had caught and extracting their semen, keeping them like chickens jailed in a battery farm. In time, they perfected the process so that they could do away with the roosters, artificially keeping alive the amputated testicles using antiquated laboratory equipment, just as the males had done with the ovaries of countless discarded women. Using their own eggs to produce new livestock the women would live to fight on, but for how long? The need for testicles led to the wonderful female pastime of removing them from any male who had the misfortune to be captured - and the practice was, understandably, much maligned by a terrified male population.

The abhorrent abuse of the human form and procreation then took further steps along the road of amorality. The Feman was initially an accident of nature; of mixed genitalia it was shunned and all but eradicated by male society. A no more caring, but more desperate female community harboured the few Femen that survived the male intolerance for mutation. The renegade female communities trained them to spy on their behalf because they could operate undetected in strictly male conurbations. Finally, society sank to new depths: perfect male and female livestock had their chemical balances altered to reverse their gender mentally and, with a small amount of brainwashing, the switch was complete, providing the ultimate disguise. Gender was no longer born of nature – but cynically manipulated by a human race bereft of basic morality.