Ryan Self

World Sketch of Phasma

It is within a few centuries of the world we live in now; the major differing factor being the discovery of the human ‘soul.’

Genetic discoveries were being made at a rapid rate in the early 21^st century. Unfortunately, they began to move faster than the governing forces. A genetic laboratory, Phasmos Corporation, based in the small town of Terra Haute, Indiana, began making advances in the possibility of human cloning. But with these discoveries came the media, and immediately following the media was the court summons. In the end, Phasmos vs. the Supreme Court resulted in a cease and desist order along with a 2 million dollar fine.

While CEO Marshal Bellows, now Saint Bellows, paid the fine, he did not halt his company’s research. Instead he began appealing to other countries, attempting to find a safe haven for his experimentations. All the world powers ruled against human experimentation and Saint Bellows was forced to move his corporation to an uninhabited island several hundred miles from the island state of Hawaii, named Phasma. With no governmental regulations to slow the scientists down, progress was massively accelerated.

The experiments with human cloning resulted in the creation of biologically functioning human bodies that were “dead.” The heart pumped, the lungs breathed, but there was no functional life to the body. The scientists narrowed this down to a specific unclonable gene that they titled the ‘soul’ gene.

By isolating the lack of it in the cloned humans, they were able to locate it in living humans. This eventually allowed them to transplant people into different bodies. This became a lucrative business for the scientists, eventually tuning the island into a unique nation of its own.

The political structure itself is what makes it so unique; one that I will term a National Corporation. There is a president of the nation with a board of trustees (the scientists) that have final say over him/her. There are then various chains of command, most with the suffix “manager of.” The vast majority of the populous are simply employees, resulting in a practical rule by oligarchy.

The only focus of the entire nation, though, is to produce prime bodies for purchase and habitation by the monetarily elite. The rest of the world is still governed similar to modern day, with the exception that this new nation has now become more powerful than even the United States.

With the discovery of the “soul” gene, the island of Phasma had become the richest nation in history. A single island off the coast of Hawaii consisting of no more than 30,000 people became the center of human civilization, controlling 70% of the entire world’s gross profit. Phasma proved that in the modern era, economy is equivalent to power. Whoever controlled the money didn’t need to have a grand army or advanced politics.

With the promise of eternal life, everyone wanted to befriend the small island. The Phasmasian Unit became the heaviest form of currency in the world, having a 1:24 ratio to the American Dollar and 1:27 to the Euro, the two closest forms of currency.

While the other nations maintained their own monetary systems, most of the larger powers allowed for the Unit to carry weight as well, making it the first ever worldwide form of currency in history.

In addition to this, they had become the center for a new form of religion: the religion of science. With the advent of soul replacements, older individuals could buy young, healthy, and attractive clones and be implanted into them.

What need is there for promises a spiritual eternal life for the cost of worship when you can have physical eternal life for the cost of a mere $4 billion dollars every 40-60 years?

Thus began the Religion of Phasma. The scientists were the secret to living forever. Intelligence will always prevail over raw strength, because physical stature can always be purchased, knowledge must be worked for. In this new religion, only the strong survive.

The world became a bubbling cauldron of accelerated Darwinism, with the little island of Phasma as the catalyst. While there were still pockets all over the world that maintain the core religions, most have learned to incorporate the religion of Phasmas with their own, if not dropping their previous religion entirely. Surprisingly, Catholicism and Buddhism in particular made the most radical changes in order to accept the new development of soul transplants.

Attractive looking individuals were picked from a young age and physically trained to become clone donors, instantly awarding them free replacement bodies for life. Children showing an aptitude for learning were drilled mercilessly into being more intelligent than their neighbors, in hopes that they could earn a salary good enough for eternal life.

Eventually, all of the major countries forbade bearing children, causing underground birth speakeasies to spring up and many of the third-world countries to come into more power.

Because in most of the ‘civilized’ countries of the world childbirth has been outlawed, the family unit had all but disappeared. While people would often pay homage to their parents, only the ones who owed attractive features to their mothers or fathers ever built any significant allegiance.

The ‘dating’ of the 20^th century had become the primary form of romantic relations. Marriage had become something that entailed a personal pledge to another individual. There were no legalities to it, whether by the state or by religious institutions. Most successful individuals have given up monogamous relations. Polygamy was simply preferred because of the vast extension of lifespan.

Food was highly available for the wealthy and was considered one of the most efficient methods of weeding out the weak. If a person cannot afford food, then they are not worth their own weight.

Greed had become the primary driving force in the world. Most people believe that if you want something, then you should take it, and if you’re strong enough to obtain it, then it was meant for you. The world was ruled by an oligarchy of celebrities and scientists, with everyone else as simply the peons that would do the dirty work until they died poor. Much like feudal Europe, it was a very cruel world if you weren’t on top.

Above all else, the great statute of Phasma ruled supreme, “Those with worth may live forever.”