Jeff leaned back in his computer chair and sighed. He had always imagined what it would be like to live in a world where humans weren't the only intelligent species on Earth. Not like if aliens were to invade and take over - although that would be kinda cool and movie-esque - but what if humans had to find a way to coexist and cooperate with another species that had already existed on Earth for thousands of years, otherwise face extinction? What kind of world would that be like?
He was personally tired of how boring life was. Humans were seemingly destroying their planet and wasting the resources of the Earth down to nothing for self-gain. If multiple intelligent species existed together, maybe - and this was farfetched but worth a thought - maybe several of our humanitarian issues would be solved. Perhaps the world would have be forced to learn and deal with these issues as a means to survive. Or, you know, it could lead to absolute destruction. Humans themselves were sometimes savage creatures. What a world like that would entail, Jeff concluded, was powered by the device in the palm of his hands.
He decided he wanted to see a world that would have a large percentage of humans (50%), so as to keep them as the dominant species, but to share the world with an anthropomorphic population of animal-humans of several thousand different species. If there were only two species, one would imagine that the other specie would be too dominant. With several species, nobody could claim an advantage. For one day, at least, he wanted to see what this world would be like. If this machine was going to work, he could end it or extend it if it got out of hand.
So Jeff began setting on the Chronivac what he thought was fairytale-like explorations into the fantasy life.
- 'Change the World'
"Area selected: World (100%)"
"Change selected: DNA%+/-50&_from_species=homo-sapiens&to_species=RAND&_pop=0.5
"Processing... 1,589,361 species found. Commit changes between all species? Y/N"
_ |
The vertical bar was flashing, waiting for his response. Jeff realized that simply anthropomorphizing every specie into half the population would be quite stupid - he didn't think algae-people would be a great investment, and so he only included species with vertebrae. So he typed N and edited his transformation. This narrowed the number down to about 60,000 species - much more reasonable. It was also set to be random in the sense of binary logic: either you remained human, or you were changed. From there, the random species would be chosen.
"Change selected: DNA%+/-50&_from_species=homo-sapiens&to_species=RANDandVERTEB&_pop=0.5
"Processing. 59,811 species found. Commit changes between all species? Y/N"
Y |
"Length of transformation duration? (time in mins)" The first thing he checked was the duration of the transformation to be one day. 1440 minutes.
1440 |
"Awareness: Yourself 'Y' vs Everyone 'E'?" That would mean that he, or everyone around the world would be aware of the changes or not. He wanted to be the only one aware of the changes - there would be pandemonium across the globe otherwise. There may be benefits in letting someone else in on the secret, but he knew of nobody else that would be trusted. So he entered:
Y |
Computationally complex, but seemingly accurately written, and after a few more necessary questions and alterations so as to not get this (too) wrong the first time, the changes were now in place, and Jeff clicked submit.
"Change now in process: 0%.... 1%.... 2%...."
Jeff looked out his window as the Chronivac wizzed away... what was going to happen?