Human-Origin

Max'inux was eighteen when she disappeared during a school field trip to Oceanworld; a marine park. Taken by a covert military-based organization called THALASSA, they used her to do the impossible: transfer a human consciousness to that of a captive orca. Now a "unique" blue-eyed female orca called Lunara, she swims under flourescent lights instead of stars; her world restricted by concrete, glass, and fake currents.

THALASSA calls it species conservation. Education. Awe.

Lunara still remembers having human hands, spoken language, high school classrooms, and choice while she is framed to park visitors as a unique orca that was "rescued from the wild under dangerous circumstances".

Fractures begin to form within Oceanworld itself as not all staff agree with how Lunara is being handled. Among them is a marine biologist who clearly hears what most miss and a trainer who sees a person instead of a flagship asset. Park administrators speak of liability and optics while a close-bonded pod of orcas tries to keep one another from breaking from the stress of captivity.

As her pod is eventually deliberately separated under the orders of an ex-marine who views Lunara as nothing more than a problem to be managed, she is forced into mechanical perfection and slowly begins to uncover THALASSA's true motives for her and the pod as she tries to reach the impossible goal of getting herself and the pod to the Pacific Ocean while hiding the full scope of her human awareness.

Human-Origin confronts uncomfortable questions: What does captivity mean for intelligent marine mammals whose minds can rival our own? What is consent when the subject can't refuse? What are the ethics of trapping a functioning human mind inside a body designed for an entirely different world- then placing that body in a too-small tank for profit?

Told through haunting first-person immersion; Human-Origin explores resilience, identity, and the moral cost of control over other sentient beings.