Conflict Diamonds: Tuatara War Stories

TUATARA WAR STORIES ©B.J. Tanguay

PROLOGUE

What at first began as an exercise in organized chaos, would just continue to only spiral downward sowing the seeds needed for its own demise. Civilization no matter how high functioning or skillfully capable one could be; always seemed to share one common factor, flaw, or trait with its predecessor; destruction. How were the wills of the beings behind such superior achievements so feebly inferior to their true potential? Their hearts and minds were so strong but so weak. It was this dualistic attitude that began to terminate social control. It seemed so unthinkable and contradictory to the advancement of the species. Such selfish paltry and needless traits were held on to so tightly it began to define the genus. Instead of devising a specific plan for preservation, a senseless conflict among men tore the world apart. Neighboring communities could no longer coexist with each other. The differences and variety within the classes which allowed greatness to flourish for so long, simply unraveled at the seams, foolishly splitting the unity between fellow man. Humanity was solely focused and honed on wants instead of needs. Man's destructive instinct was far greater than his aspiration for improvement. This insatiable appetite created for a dark and perverted environment far more wasteful and violent than even Mother Nature herself could conjure. Once the CRISPR method of gene hacking didn't require sterile laboratories and extreme budgets, things took to a life of their own. Dirty "ovens" as they were called, popped up everywhere run by unscrupulous gene editors. These ungrateful, distant and delusional specimens only cared for insignificant and meaningless short-lived exploitative pleasures. Their entire existence grew meaningless and mundane. Sins of the flesh would lead to a sort of recreational science, a point where man truly began to lose himself for good, submitting to his desires, unconsciously forgetting who he was, but it wasn't until he could finally break the chains that enslaved the species to its shortcomings, that's when things really began to get interesting.

Even during these dark times, technology found a way to evolve on the fringe. Humans were a manipulative and violent lot from their onset and it comes as no surprise that they would pass such unfavorable qualities to their "spiritual offspring". In desperate times the worst behaviors of mankind were evidently more prevalent than his better side. What had taken so long to accomplish was forlornly destroyed in an almost effortless manner. It was almost as if he truly desired to be brought back down to the level of beasts, breaking down the umwelt and abandoning all of the attributes which had divided the two. The fine lines between them had become so blurred; there become an intense difficulty in distinguishing between the two. An uprising in genetic alteration paired with a revolution in thought had resurrected a spell of savagery and unimaginable self-hatred which had remained malignantly dormant for ages. There was nothing that could change the thinking that drove this malevolent process; it was inherent, engrained and programmed. Well, that statement is not entirely true... Extinction could surely cure such evil.

It never quite made it to that point no matter how much animosity festered and bubbled over, however it came very close, almost too close at times. Modification and customization of archaic blueprints allowed for new points in evolution where they had once stopped dead in their tracks. Endless eerie possibilities freaked the genes of flora and fauna into mythological proportions. Defects, mutations, and genetic impurities were engineered out of existence. Once genome threading had begun, there was no way to disarrange the alteration had been done. Progression had taken its own course now, and these once undesirable mutations would now become the new standard for perfection. The survivors of men remained few in numbers, but nevertheless strong staying huddled in the mountains. Those who disagreed with their hermetic lifestyle ultimately would feed the ravenous appetites of the beasts. With what little creature comforts these people had, they were able to adapt and advance in a way that gave them a fighting chance. Things that were never seen possible by mankind became a fabricated reality. Like the dinosaur before them, who ironically began to surge in quantity in their absence, it seemed as if this doomed fate was inevitable.