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The Valentine Divergence Setting notes by Trismegistus Shandy ----- Before I start talking about the world in which my stories "Butterflies are the Gentlest" and "A House Divided" are set (warning: this will contain spoilers for those stories), let me clear up a couple of possible misunderstandings. This isn't exactly a "story bible" like the writers of Star Trek episodes or tie-in books have to religiously adhere to, or a set of "rules" like those that ElrodW wrote for his MAU setting. This is a cleaned up version of my notes to myself while writing the above-mentioned stories. These notes, and the stories themselves, are under a Creative Commons license that allows you to create all kinds of derivative works based on them. That includes new stories in the setting, fan art, etc. But nothing about it says your new stories have to be perfectly consistent with my stories. In mine, for instance, nobody knows what caused the changes as of ten years afterward. But if you want to write a story about people figuring out why the changes happened that's set less than a year later, your story is still a permitted derivative work under the Creative Commons license, as long as you give me credit for the setting your story is (loosely) based on, don't make money off it, and allow other people to base stories off yours as well. See the "Legal" section at the end of the document for details. Now, to the world itself. ----- At 12:41 EST on Saturday, 14 February of an unspecified year in the early 21st century, every human on Earth was changed in some way. People within the same contiguous region changed in roughly the same ways, and each change-region is the home of a different neospecies; the people who were within the same change-region are interfertile with each other, and can no longer interbreed with people who were in other change regions at the moment of the changes. The stories written so far don't extend but a few months after the changes, but the changes breed true. As of the date Jeffrey Sergeyev is looking back from when he tells the story in "A House Divided" -- at least ten years after the changes -- no one knows what caused them. The changes tended to cause temporary numbness and in some cases lingering headaches and nausea in their subjects, for amounts of time varying with the particular neospecies and the extent of the physical changes involved. Where the numbness extended over the whole body and lasted more than a few milliseconds (as in Marietta), or where there were extensive changes to people's sensory systems (as in Nashville), there were widespread automobile wrecks and plane crashes. Such accidents were less common where the physical changes were less extensive, or on the night side of Earth where most people were asleep at the time, but nearly all regions suffered some accidents at the moment of the changes. The changes healed all infections, cancers, injuries and genetic diseases in their subjects. Medical/cosmetic implants such as pacemakers and breast implants remain in place, but sometimes become inaccessible or ineffective due to a person's rearranged anatomy. (E.g., a Marietta centaur's breast implants would remain on her nippleless chest, while her natural breasts (if any) would be on her underbelly. In a neospecies with two hearts, old pacemakers might be attached to one of those hearts or might be floating somewhere in the chest cavity.) Cosmetic surgery was sometimes undone by the changes. The boundaries of the change-regions don't correspond at all to political boundaries, and only loosely to geographical features such as bodies of water and mountain ranges. They have slightly more correlation with population density contours, but not very strong. The population of change-regions varies greatly, but not as much as their area. The vast majority of change-regions have between 250,000 and a million people in them as of the time of the changes, but there are a few smaller or larger than this. The smallest-population change region covered all of Antarctica and a large tract of ocean surrounding it, around 5,000 people; the average population is around 500,000. There are over 12,000 change-regions and neospecies worldwide. There's no magic in this setting, unless perhaps the initial changes qualify as such; all the neospecies featuring in my stories have biologies that are theoretically physically possible, as far as I know. Some neospecies more or less resemble mythological creatures in appearance, but just because, e.g., the Salonika gorgons (to make up a random example that doesn't feature in a story yet) have tentacles on their heads with eyes and poisonous stingers doesn't mean that their glance will turn people to stone. Perhaps some neospecies would have simplified digestive systems that can only digest one thing, e.g. blood, and there are undoubtedly many nocturnal neospecies out there; but most other traits of vampires from legend wouldn't fit the setting particularly well. But of course authors who want to write in a fantasy variant of my science-fictional setting are welcome to do so; the Creative Commons license allows for all sorts of derivative works, not just fanfiction that's highly consistent with canon. The changes sometimes seem to be adaptive to the local climate or environmental conditions, but not always or even often. In coastal areas, the change-regions are often long and narrow, with an aquatic or amphibious neospecies on the shore and in the water and a different one (or several different ones) just a short way inland. Some aquatic neospecies change-regions extend along rivers and lakes (e.g., the Allatoona otters who figure briefly in "A House Divided"), but most rivers and lakes are included within non-aquatic change-regions. The initial rapid changes respect conservation of mass, but a lot of neospecies have programmed into them a gradual increase or decrease in size/mass over the weeks or months after Valentine's Day. E.g. the winged people mentioned in "Butterflies are the Gentlest" are going to lose height and mass until they're light enough to fly, and similarly with other winged species worldwide. The Marietta centaurs gradually put on weight, though they don't grow as big as mythological centaurs - - they're more like cervids in size and scale. I'm not sure yet what is the smallest extreme of size that some neospecies might reduce to. I don't think any of them will have a reduction in intelligence, so probably the mass and size of a human brain (about 2-3 pounds, a little over a liter in volume) presents a lower bound to the size any neospecies will shrink to. That doesn't mean that the various winged peoples' heads are going to remain as large as before; possibly their brain will change shape, being spread out from their head along along their spine or into their chest cavity. On the other hand, maybe they will be changed so radically that their nervous system is no longer made of the same kind of stuff as other vertebrates, but something much more compact and efficient. If you want to write about people six inches tall (and have it be at least notionally science fiction rather than fantasy), you should probably do some handwaving to that effect. A couple of further ideas have occurred to me for reducing the size of winged people so they're light enough to fly, without reducing their brains to subhuman size or invoking handwavium-based nervous systems. Their digestive systems could be simplified so that they can only digest certain things -- blood, for instance, or a kind of milk produced by others of their own species who have a more omnivorous diet. (The flightless milk-producing omnivores might be at a different stage of their lifecycle from the flyers, perhaps, or they might be differentiated from the flyers from birth (or from the Divergence). Maybe it's sexual dimorphism, with one sex flightless and the other flying.) Their reproductive system might be simplified so that they have no reproductive organs except during mating season or while pregnant; perhaps while pregnant they are too heavy to get off the ground. Or maybe they're egg-layers. There is no obvious upper bound on the size some larger neospecies might reach. Some aquatic or semiaquatic species might grow to be whale-sized or apatasaurus-sized. Even land-based ones could easily be a little larger than elephants. But the vast majority are within 50% to 200% of the average size of old-style humans. Not everyone changed in obvious physical ways; the Huntsville telepaths, for instance, had purely neurological changes. The Bowling Green nesters had primarily neurological changes, with subtle changes to their glandular system as well which aren't fully understood as yet. No one's intelligence was reduced by the changes. A fairly sizable minority of neospecies had significant changes to their reproductive systems. There are a fair number of marsupial- and monotreme-like species, some hermaphroditic species, and some with a highly unbalanced sex ratio, as among eusocial insects. Perhaps some neospecies change sex one or more times in the course of their life cycle, e.g., being born female and becoming male after bearing their litter of children? With a few exceptions, people of a given neospecies are only sexually attracted to others of the same neospecies; being attracted to people of different species is a kink somewhat rarer than, say, a transformation fetish used to be before the Divergence. Affection and friendship between people of different neospecies is still possible, but may have new obstacles to overcome. Eventually, all of the ~12,000 neospecies will get official names, both in Neolatin and in the local official languages, to be used on the next census and on lots of other government and corporate forms. (Some people will make a principle of refusing to answer the "neospecies?" question on such forms, as today many refuse to answer the race or gender questions.) Maybe all the Neolatin names involve a subspecies tag to Homo sapiens, e.g. Homo sapiens athenanthus; but some scientists prefer a straight "Homo athenanthus", to more clearly indicate that the neospecies are not interfertile. The common names tend to involve place name + comparator animal/plant name, e.g. "Marietta centaurs" or "Athens magnolias" (for their large white flowers), but with some exceptions. There were 19 neospecies in Georgia at the moment of the change (but several regions overlap into neighboring states); adding in all the Georgians who were out of state at the time and returned soon afterward, plus additional immigration over time, there are probably hundreds of neospecies with at least one representative living in Georgia by the time of the next census. There are around 630 neospecies in the U.S. Again, some regions overlap into Mexico or Canada, immigration from foreign change-regions continues over time, many U.S. residents were out of the country at the time and return home afterward, so several thousand species have at least one member in the U.S. within months after the Divergence. ----- === Speculations === To what extent will the change-regions tend over time to become new political divisions? They won't be perfectly homogeneous in population; many people were away from home at the time of the changes. On the other hand, some people will tend to leave home and settle in the change-region they happened to be in on Valentine's Day among members of their own species -- that happened a lot with the nesters in "Butterflies" and will undoubtedly happen a lot with extreme environmental adaptations, e.g. aquatics. Less so with other types, perhaps -- unless they suffer persecution or ostracism on their return home, especially if they were a long way from home and there are few or no others like them living anywhere near. There is blurring at change- region boundaries, where e.g. someone living in the Marietta centaurs region was a couple of miles away shopping for groceries in the Smyrna wolves region, or vice versa -- there would be many such cases, and demographically most regions would tend to blur at their edges like that. But even there, over time there might be social pressure to segregate more severely into different neighborhoods. In high schools e.g., to what extent will the neospecies remain orthogonal to the old subcultures and cliques? Or will they replace the old divisions? Probably both to some extent; less so in relatively homogeneous areas. If there are say 5-10 or so students of a given neospecies in a given school, they're likely to form a new clique, possibly overlapping with their old circles of friends according to interests and subcultures, especially if they're persecuted by the majority or plurality neospecies belonging to the change-region(s) the school district falls into. But students of the majority or plurality species will probably remain with their old subculture or clique, not necessarily bonding with others just because they're the same species. Students of isolate species with only one or two members in the school district will probably band together in another "outcast" clique. ----- === Specific change-regions and their neospecies === The Athens magnolias who figure in "Butterflies are the Gentlest" and "A House Divided" are native to a region of around 250,000 population consisting of all or part of eight counties in northeastern Georgia: nearly all of Clarke County, most of Oglethorpe, all of Madison, much of Jackson, most of Franklin and Hart, part of Stephens, and a little corner of Banks. The change region doesn't quite reach the Oconee County line in southwest Athens. Among the cities in the region are Athens, Lexington, Commerce, Danielsville, and Hartwell. Most of what I know about the Athens magnolias is implicit in the text of the two stories written so far. Their average fertility is probably not as high as straight extrapolation from Robert and Laura Vance's experience would suggest. As of the time of these stories, the only effective contraception is to stay indoors during bloom and avoid getting pollinated, but probably within a year or two contraceptive drugs tailored to their biochemistry will be developed. The anatomy of Marietta centaurs is described pretty thoroughly in several passages of "A House Divided". That of Smyrna wolves and Allatoona otters is vaguer; if you want to use those neospecies and need to be specific, feel free to make something up. The Allatoona otters change-region extends for a long way along the Etowah River and along the shores of Lake Allatoona. River/lakeside homes tend to be expensive; maybe the majority of otter-people are upper-middle-class to rich, with a handful of others who happened to be on or near the water that day (it's winter, so not much swimming etc. going on, but maybe some fishing). Kennesaw chameleons are hairless, with thick, photophoric skin. I suspect that after a while, they can start learning to consciously control their skin color changes. Valdosta frogs are insectivorous, with large eyes and an extensible froglike tongue. Their region includes Bainbridge as well as Valdosta, and extends west into Alabama. Waycross possums (an allusion to Walt Kelly's Pogo, mascot of Waycross, Georgia) are marsupials. Males have a bifurcated penis. The region extends south into Florida and northeast into the Savannah metro area. There are also an unnamed, unlocated species with tails and webbed fingers, and an unnamed, unlocated species with tentacle-like arms. There's a four-armed species in Washington DC, and a species with four thumbs and four big toes, in the same city. The border between the change-regions runs north-south just east of the Mall, the Capitol, White House and so forth, with the latter being in the four-arm region. I mentioned Hollywood capybaras but haven't established anything definite about their biology or appearance. Possibly they were named purely for the shapes of their new skulls and faces, and they don't necessarily have the herd behavior and diet of their namesake. The tripods of a certain part of Chicago were briefly mentioned. Chicago is a big city and undoubtedly has several other change-regions. There is another centauroid species somewhere in Eastern Europe, with hooves and fur. There are winged people in Perth, but whether this is the Perth in Australia, that in Scotland, or one of those elsewhere in the English- speaking world I leave unspecified in case someone wants to use them. The Nashville bats have no eyes, but have an instinctive echolocation ability. This is a large change-region covering most of the Nashville metro area. The Huntsville telepaths are telepathic with each other, within a certain range -- probably well under a mile. Their telepathy doesn't work on other species. There are at least two other telepathic species in the U.S., one in Brooklyn and on in western Nebraska, and a number of others worldwide, but for the most part they can't mentally talk to or listen to the minds of others outside their species; they use different radio frequencies and perhaps different thought-encoding formats. Drugs or other altered states may change this and make them temporarily telepathic with other species. The two neospecies in Bowling Green, Kentucky in "Butterflies Are the Gentlest" weren't given official names in the story. I'm calling the people of south Bowling Green the "Bowling Green nesters", but I haven't a good name yet for the five-eyed marsupials of north Bowling Green. There are at least three neospecies in Nebraska, which feature in a story I've finished in first draft but haven't revised and posted yet: the Omaha sheepdogs, the Lincoln bison, and the North Platte dreamers. The latter are telepathic. ----- === Chronology === Valentine's Day was on Saturday in 2009, and will next be in 2015. Easter was 12 April in 2009, and will be 5 April in 2015. 4 July falls on Saturday in those years as well. The news of Robert and Laura Vance's discovery became public on March 20. The first general blossoming in the Athens-Danielsville-Hartwell change-region was in mid-July; it would fall earlier or later in different years depending on the weather, and probably gets gradually earlier in the year with climate change. ----- === Story ideas === I don't promise I won't use these myself, but I have no definite plans to do so. Besides, two different writers working from the same story idea will produce completely different stories. Feel free to use them. In an isolated area where the sex ratio is not in balance, the divergence might make it so by changing the sex as well as the species of some people -- some of the male researchers in Antarctica become female, while perhaps in places at war where there's been a high mortality rate among the young men, some of the women become male. Maybe in some places, two neighboring neospecies will be in a parasitic or symbiotic relationship. Maybe the astronauts and cosmonauts in Earth orbit at the time got adaptation for freefall (similar perhaps to the quaddies in Lois McMaster Bujold's stories)? Probably not; they would be too small a gene pool for a viable neospecies. Probably astronauts were included in whatever change-region they were orbiting over at the moment of the changes. A family at the beach (probably in the tropics or the southern hemisphere): one member goes to the restroom up at the beach house while the others are swimming or surfing, and ends up in a different change-region than their spouse and children, or siblings and parents, who become aquatic or amphibious. A story focusing on actors, director, producer etc. of a local theater, or of a low-budget Internet TV show, who have an increased local audience because there's a backlash of disinterest against Hollywood TV -- people want stories about people like themselves, especially if their biology/psychology is very different from the Hollywood capybaras and other Los Angeles-area neospecies that dominate TV shows nowadays. Or: Hollywood producers traveling around the country to places where the neospecies looks human or nearly so, at least when fully dressed, to recruit new actors -- those scattered areas all put together are a bigger media market than any of the more unique-looking neospecies. Maybe these actors recruited from old-fashioned-looking populations are wanted for historical movies set before the divergence. Investigators traveling around interviewing and examining people of various neospecies, trying to figure out patterns that will lead to the cause of the divergence. Someone whose transformation makes them unable to perform their former work duties, and has to change careers or at least jobs...? Could be a Hollywood actor who was a long way from California on Valentine's Day and doesn't fit with the all-capybara cast of his show anymore, maybe? Or they worked in radio, and they're now mute, with new physical means of communication, like photophores in their skin or something... Or their voice is too high for human (?) ears, or just annoyingly high to most people of other species though still understandable. Or a visual artist who becomes a Nashville bat or a member of some other blind neospecies. The Huntsville telepaths beg for a story. And they're one of the places where producers of historical movies will come looking for locations and extras, or trying to hire local actors to come to Hollywood. Maybe do something with a character who is healed of some serious illness by the changes. Probably, some time after the summer flowering, Athens-Clarke County will repeal its public nudity laws, seeing as how the magnolias are compelled to be naked and outdoors when they're in bloom, and feel no sexual attraction for one another when they aren't. Maybe the smaller towns in the same change-region will eventually follow suit? Are the public nudity laws at state or county level? Maybe Athens gets in trouble for not enforcing the state law, if it is a state law...? Other regions where the neospecies has fur will probably do the same sooner or later, including Cobb County/city of Smyrna. ----- === Legal === This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Feel free to repost or mirror it on any noncommercial site or list. You can also create derivative works, including adaptations to other media, or stories or art using this setting, as long as you mention and point to this document and release your own stories or adaptations under the same license. ----- === Correspondence with epain === epain and I have corresponded extensively by email about the Valentine Divergence stories and the setting. Here are some excerpts from that correspondence, edited by epain and posted with his permission. ----- The e-mails from epain are marked 'by epain:', the e-mails from Trismegistus Shandy are marked 'by TS:'. Irrelevant parts and personal informations have been removed. by epain: I have two questions about the Athens magnolias: 1. What happened to those that were pregnant during the change? 2. Do they have something like puberty? I am thinking about a neospecies that looks human but they have no genitals until they are fully grown. The men and women of this species have the same size because they stop growing before there are any differences. Their genitals start growing when they are about 18 and they go through puberty when they are in their twenties. epain by TS: > I have two questions about the Athens magnolias: > 1. What happened to those that were pregnant during the change? Their wombs would remain in place until after they give birth, at which point they would disappear until they bloom and are pollinated. > 2. Do they have something like puberty? Yes, babies and small children won't grow flowers in mating season. I figure they start blooming at about the same age human girls start menstruating. > I am thinking about a neospecies that looks human but they have no genitals > until they are fully grown. The men and women of this species have the same > size because they stop growing before there are any differences. Their > genitals start growing when they are about 18 and they go through puberty when > they are in their twenties. That's interesting, and fits well with the setting. I'd like to see what you do with the idea. Perhaps people who were under eighteen at the time of the Divergence can't predict which sex they're going to be when they go through puberty? by epain: Thank you for your answer. I have some more questions: Can Marietta centaurs drink milk or eat milk products? Can Smyrna wolves drink milk or eat milk products? Can Marietta centaurs eat soy meat or does it look too repulsive to them? Does only the mass remain the same during the change or do the elements remain the same (probably causing a calcium deficit in Marietta centaurs)? ad 1: Wouldn't those pregnant women be a sign that Athens magnolias can get pregnant under certain conditions? Pregnant Marietta centaurs would probably have a high risk of abortion after the change. ad 2: Would that be their only sign of puberty or would they have other changes like growth spurts, voice changes or body hair? For example my species has no growth spurts but they continue growing until they reach the size of an adult man. They have only minor voice changes in their teens (similar to the castrati) but the men have major changes during puberty (that hits them after 20). They have no body hair until puberty. They can't predict their gender but they can influence it. Female hormones (like hormonal anticonception) cause them to become female, male hormones cause them to become male. epain by TS: > Thank you for your answer. I have some more questions: > Can Marietta centaurs drink milk or eat milk products? > Can Smyrna wolves drink milk or eat milk products? Children of either species certainly can. I suspect adults can't (especially the Smyrna wolves), but I'm not sure. If you want to use them in a story, you can go either way. > Can Marietta centaurs eat soy meat or does it look too repulsive to them? They can certainly digest it. Whether it is to their taste or not might vary from one individual to another. > Does only the mass remain the same during the change or do the elements remain > the same (probably causing a calcium deficit in Marietta centaurs)? Hmm, good question. I think it's probably just the mass, but you could go either way if you're writing a story in the setting, whichever makes your story more interesting. > Wouldn't those pregnant women be a sign that Athens magnolias can get pregnant > under certain conditions? Yes, I expect so. I really dropped the ball on that one. If I ever do a revised edition of those stories, I'll try to address that. > Pregnant Marietta centaurs would probably have a high risk of abortion after > the change. Maybe not only them, but also other species with extensive physical changes. I'm not sure. > Would that be their only sign of puberty or would they have other changes like > growth spurts, voice changes or body hair? By "their" do you mean Athens magnolias? By "that" do you mean blooming? If so, then yes, that's the only obvious sign of puberty (though blood tests etc. would probably show other signs). > For example my species has no growth spurts but they continue growing until... > (like hormonal anticonception) cause them to become female, male hormones > cause them to become male. That all makes sense. Thanks for the thought-provoking questions. If you want me to beta- read your stories at some point, I'd be happy to (but don't feel like you have to send them to me for approval before posting them; you can post them wherever you like as long as you release them under the same Creative Commons/Share Alike license and point to my original stories). by epain: Thank you for the quick answer. I think that Marietta centaurs would want soy meat that wouldn't look like real meat and any resemblance to real meat would make it disgusting for them. If the voice of Athens magnolias isn't changed by puberty, it should be more similar to female voice than to male voice. A House Divided made it sound like something midway between male and female voice. I have created some more neospecies that could live in your world but they have even less chance of getting their own story from me than the first one: Girls: Females look like normal human females, males look like human females with a small penis. I don't plan to use them in any story. Dickgirls (they have probably a different official name): Females have a small penis (similar in size to Girl males), male anatomy is mostly normal. There may be other differences. French- kissers: Females are similar to human females but they can be impregnated both orally and genitally. Males have no penis, their testes are on their neck and they impregnate females with their tongue. Babies: They age 10x slower than human beings. Their chronological age was preserved dividing their biological age by 10. They don't lose any knowledge or mental abilities (and they can regain abilities lost to dementia) but physically they become children. Any pregnancies are instantly advanced to childbirth during the change. epain by TS: > Thank you for the quick answer. I think that Marietta centaurs would want soy > meat that wouldn't look like real meat and any resemblance to real meat would > make it disgusting for them. Yes, that's plausible as a typical response, though there might be individual outliers. > If the voice of Athens magnolias isn't changed by puberty, it should be more > similar to female voice than to male voice. A House Divided made it sound like > something midway between male and female voice. Yes, probably. Another thing to keep in mind if I ever do a revised edition. I expect their voice deepens very slightly at puberty, more gradually than in pubescent Homo sapiens boys. > I have created some more neospecies that could live in your world.... > Babies: They age 10x slower than human beings. Their chronological age was > preserved dividing their biological age by 10. By "chronological age" do you mean "mental age"? > but > physically they become children. Any pregnancies are instantly advanced to > childbirth during the change. I suppose a, for instance, 30-year-old man would on the day of the change reshape into the scaled-up body of a three-year-old boy -- he would be prepubescent and have the proportions of a three-year-old, but the same weight and perhaps height as before. Then gradually over the months after the change he would reduce in size until he's the typical height and weight of a three-year-old. Perhaps a woman who is pregnant at the moment of the changes goes into labor immediately, and doesn't undergo the transformation into an adult-sized prepubescent girl until she has given birth. That raises the question of whether and how the new babies are going to nurse. Perhaps their mothers retain their adult breasts until they wean their child, although the rest of their bodies reverts to a prepubescent state immediately after giving birth? by epain: I have some comments to your answer about the Babies: By chronological age I mean the number of years since birth. It can't be really changed but the new biological age corresponds to the same chronological age in Babies as the original biological age corresponded to in Homo Sapiens. Mental age stays mostly the same but there are some changes (probably similar to being changed into a small child by Znembalan). I don't think that a 30-year-old would get the proportions of a 3-year- old before being reduced in size. That would mean that his head would have to grow first and shrink later. I think that his head would stay the same size first and shrink slower than the rest of the body later. I think that if there were no instant change of size, there would be no visible instant changes in the Babies but they would change gradually into small children. I think that the Babies would instantly stop menstruating and producing hormones but the pregnancies could last until they start shrinking. I think that the breasts would shrink at least proportionally but they wouldn't disappear until they stop nursing (and they could theoretically nurse for several decades). epain by epain: I have thought about writing a story in the world of the Valentine Divergence and I could write a short story where students of a high school in Prague (Czech Republic) are celebrating having finished school 3 years after the Divergence and some students with different changes are speaking about the Divergence. There are 1 Athens magnolia, 1 Aachen baby and 1 Karlsbad french-kisser (see my e-mail from 2012-08- 26, Aachen is a city in Germany, Karlsbad is the German name of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic). Most of the students belong to the species whose sex is undecided until they are about 18. I'm calling them "Prague undecided" but I'm searching for a better name. Don't expect me finishing it soon. by TS: > I have thought about writing a story in the world of the Valentine Divergence > and I could write a short story where students of a high school in Prague > (Czech Republic) are celebrating having finished school 3 years after the > Divergence and some students with different changes are speaking about the > Divergence. There are 1 Athens magnolia, 1 Aachen baby and 1 Karlsbad french- That sounds interesting. A sort of Canterbury Tales or Decameron-style frame story, with each student telling an interesting story from their experience or things they've heard about happening to friends? by epain: I have chosen that form for my story as an excuse to make it short. I write slowly, especially if I'm trying to write in English and I didn't want to commit too much time to it because I don't know if it will be worth the effort. epain by epain: I have found some unsolved questions about the Valentine Divergence: I have been thinking about what would these changes do to transexuals. Or to other people after plastic surgery. Would their tissues change as if they were in their original shape, causing deformations? Or would they change in such way that they would reach the normal shape for the neospecies? Another possibility would be making it to look as if the surgery had been done to the changed body but I don't like that kind of retroactivity. There is also the question what happens to scars. Do they disappear, are they deformed or what happens to them? And what will happen to transexuals taking hormones? epain by TS: > I have found some unsolved questions about the Valentine Divergence: > I have been thinking about what would these changes do to transexuals. Or to > other people after plastic surgery. Would their tissues change as if they > were > in their original shape, causing deformations? Or would they change in such > way that they would reach the normal shape for the neospecies? I'm not sure. It's stated in the first couple of stories that people who were sick or injured at the time of the divergence were healed, but I'm not sure that applies to long-ago healed injuries. If not, then it probably wouldn't affect post-op transsexuals or people who've had other cosmetic surgery unless the surgery was recent enough that they were still healing from it. It could be that it varies depending on how radical the physical transformation is -- major changes such as to the centaurs could result in undoing amputations or plastic surgery (including sex reassignment), while neurological changes such as to the Bowling Green nesters or Huntsville telepaths might leave those aspects of a person unchanged (but would probably reverse a hemispherectomy or lobotomy, for instance). I think I said something somewhere, either in one of the stories or in the setting notes posted at BigCloset, that pacemakers and other implants remain inside the body but may become detached from the body parts they were supposed to be connected with. The same is probably true of artificial breast implants -- they'll still be there, but in neospecies with a radical transformation, they might not be where you expect them to be. (So maybe on Marietta centaurs with implants, whether transsexuals or genetic women, the implants remain on the (now nippleless) chest while the natural breasts (if any) are on the lower torso?) > There is also the question what happens to scars. Do they disappear, are > they > deformed or what happens to them? I suspect long-healed scars remain in place, except perhaps in neospecies with a fairly radical transformation, in which case all bets are off. Recent scars would probably disappear. > And what will happen to transexuals taking hormones? Again, I'm not sure. I think you can do whatever you want with this in your story; you can go either way and not contradict the earlier stories. by epain: Thank you for your answer. I'm sorry that it took me so long to write this. I have some ideas about the application of these rules on Prague Undecided and Aachen Babies: I think that in Prague Undecided over the age of 25 all effects of hormones and SRS stay the same. In Prague Undecided under the age of 20 all sexual hormones and all their effects are removed (but hormones taken after the change work mostly normally and trigger the start of puberty of the corresponding sex) and all modifications of the genital organs are probably changed or removed but breast implants aren't affected (and they look like breast implants on men or prepubescent children). Aachen Babies are an exception because all changes (like injuries, surgery or drug-induced changes) that happened in the last 90 % of their lives are removed (I'm not sure what happens to implants or piercing) while changes that happened in the first 10 % of their lives stay. epain by TS: > I think that in Prague Undecided over the age of 25 all effects of hormones > and SRS stay the same. In Prague Undecided under the age of 20 all sexual > hormones and all their effects are removed (but hormones taken after the That makes sense. by epain: I have read this page about Xenofiction on TV Tropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Xenofiction It seems that any continuation of the Valentine Divergence more that 20 years in the future would be an example of Xenofiction. Do you know the War with the Newts by Karel Capek? The newts in that book are intelligent amphibians that have normal amphibian reproduction and lay about 50 eggs at once. If some neospecies in the world of the Valentine Divergence have similar reproduction, their population size would change very quickly. epain by TS: > It seems that any continuation of the Valentine Divergence more that 20 > years > in the future would be an example of Xenofiction. Yes, especially if the viewpoint characters were born after the divergence. > Do you know the War with the Newts by Karel Capek? The newts in that book I've heard of it, but haven't read it. Thanks for the recommendation. > 50 eggs at once. If some neospecies in the world of the Valentine Divergence > have similar reproduction, their population size would change very quickly. Indeed. I suspect that if there are such races, there would be counterbalancing factors -- they would probably start out among the lowest-population races in the smallest or lowest population-density change-regions, and they'd probably have high mortality from one or more causes (possibly including their neighbors going to war against them because they feel threatened by their high population growth). by epain: If I understand your last answer correctly, anamniotes are rare and amphibian-like species like Valdosta frogs are probably amniotes and not real amphibians. The centaurs in "A House Divided" seem to eat mostly salad. Do they eat potatoes or cereals too or do they have a clear preference for salad? And are they able to eat grass? It would make sense because they are strict herbivores. Thank you for your writing. epain by TS: > If I understand your last answer correctly, anamniotes are rare and > amphibian-> like species like Valdosta frogs are probably amniotes and not real > amphibians. Yes, probably so. > The centaurs in "A House Divided" seem to eat mostly salad. Do they eat > potatoes or cereals too or do they have a clear preference for salad? And > are > they able to eat grass? It would make sense because they are strict > herbivores. They can eat a wide variety of plant-based foods. The early scenes of them eating lots of salad don't necessarily show the full range of what they can eat, just what Jeffrey's and Will's moms have figured out so far that she can safely eat. I'm pretty sure I said that they can eat some kinds of bread but have a bad reaction of some kind to certain kinds of factory-processed bread, crackers and the like, possibly an allergy to the preservatives. There's also a reference to Jeffrey cooking stir-fried vegetables for his mom. by epain: Thank you for your fast answer. I have read "Butterflies are the Gentlest" again and I have found that Anne mentions this: "Maybe you're immature members of the same long- lived species and when you're a hundred or two hundred years old you'll go through puberty again and develop new sex organs, hopefully of opposite sexes..." The part with "a hundred or two hundred years old" reminds me of Aachen babies and "develop new sex organs, hopefully of opposite sexes" reminds me of Prague undecided. Is Anne from "Butterflies are the Gentlest" a Bowling Green nester? I think that the children of Bowling Green nesters wouldn't show typical BG nester behavior. I think that their bonding shouldn't happen until they become adults, enabling them to join a new nest. But this may work differently. Maybe they are normally bonded but they change their bonding later in their life. I thought about two species that could exist in that world: Teddy bears - bipedal bears, their genitals are small enough to be completely hidden in their fur. Dolls - human-like with hairs only on their head, very small nipples and small genitals hidden under a fold of skin. epain by TS: > Is Anne from "Butterflies are the Gentlest" a Bowling Green nester? Yes. > I think > that the children of Bowling Green nesters wouldn't show typical BG nester > behavior. I think that their bonding shouldn't happen until they become > adults, enabling them to join a new nest. But this may work differently. > Maybe > they are normally bonded but they change their bonding later in their life. I'm not sure. If someone wants to write another story about them, they could go either way. If i were to write another one about them, I'd probably have it so that children are bonded to their parents' nest, but that when they enter puberty, that bond gradually weakens and breaks, and then they have a window of several years when they have potential to bond with another nest or form a new nest with other adolescents. > I thought about two species that could exist in that world: > Teddy bears - bipedal bears, their genitals are small enough to be > completely > hidden in their fur. > Dolls - human-like with hairs only on their head, very small nipples and > small > genitals hidden under a fold of skin. I figure there are a fair number of neospecies whose males' genitals are hidden in a sheath or cloaca when not in use. If both sexes or neither have prominent breasts, then members of other species might have a hard time telling their males from their females, but they themselves would be more sensitive to subtle cues from body shape, and probably to pheremones. by epain: The dolls and teddy bears are the product of my thinking about species that would resemble toys or characters from cartoons for children. Female dolls have normal human breasts, only their nipples are very small. The teddy bears probably distinguish their genders by smell. I have thought about another species. It would be a eusocial species with immobile intelligent queens and small workers and males that are telepathically controlled by the queen. I think that some humanoid species like Prague undecided and Karlsbad french-kissers (described in my e-mail on 2012-08-26) can have children with each other but the children would be infertile. Maybe a similar result would be possible for some other humanoid species like Aachen babies or Huntsville telepaths but I don't think that it would be possible for Athens magnolias. Even if some sort of artificial insemination could avoid the problem of them using pollen instead of sperm cells, they would probably have a different number of chromosomes and many different genes. I have also thought about what would have happened if the Valentine Divergence happened 100 years ago. There would be few cars and no internet but there would be trains, the postal service and magazines. I think that "Butterflies are the Gentlest" would be possible with such changes of detail but the meeting of Jeffrey and Latisha might not have happened if the schools had been segregated. epain by TS: > I have thought about another species. It would be a eusocial species with > immobile intelligent queens and small workers and males that are > telepathically controlled by the queen. When you say "intelligent queens" are you implying that the workers and males aren't intelligent? I doubt that the initial transformations would radically reduce anyone's intelligence. They might change social dynamics in a number of ways, however, as among the Bowling Green nesters. So it's plausible that in this eusocial species those who become workers or males feel an instinctive need to defer to the queens. > possible for some other humanoid species like Aachen babies or Huntsville > telepaths but I don't think that it would be possible for Athens magnolias. That makes sense. > I have also thought about what would have happened if the Valentine > Divergence > happened 100 years ago. There would be few cars and no internet but there > would be trains, the postal service and magazines. I think that "Butterflies > are the Gentlest" would be possible with such changes of detail but the > meeting of Jeffrey and Latisha might not have happened if the schools had > been > segregated. Indeed. by epain: Thank you for your answer. The original men remain humanoid, human sized, intelligent, independent and mobile but the males in later generations are less than 20 cm tall and telepathically controlled by their queen. Intelligent human sized males would be possible with the right mix of hormones but that mix doesn't occur naturally. All workers are less than 20 cm tall and telepathically controlled by their queen. There were no workers in the original generation. The original women start humanoid, human sized, intelligent, independent and mobile but if they have sex with males (original or later generation), they turn into immobile queens and start giving birth to workers. What happens to frozen embryos during the Valentine Divergence? What happens to frozen sperm cells? And what happens to the bodies of dead people? Do they remain unchanged? Do they change only on molecular level (DNA, proteins)? Do they change the shape of their body? epain by TS: > What happens to frozen embryos during the Valentine Divergence? What happens > to frozen sperm cells? And what happens to the bodies of dead people? Do > they > remain unchanged? Do they change only on molecular level (DNA, proteins)? Do > they change the shape of their body? Hmm. I haven't thought about that until now. I figure frozen embryos -- and sufficiently intact corpsicles -- would change according to the local change-region. I'm not sure about frozen sperm and eggs. Dead bodies wouldn't change, unless maybe they're very freshly dead and a lot of their cells are still alive though the heart is stopped and the brain has no high-level activity. Those freshest corpses might partly or wholly change along with the living people in the same change- region. Actually, a person who's been dead for less than (guesstimating) 3-5 minutes might be brought back to life by the Divergence, though with some short-term memory loss, like the many people who were healed of serious injuries and illnesses by the changes. That's a story possibility there! We might conceivably have a story in this setting where scientists are recreating old-style Homo sapiens using frozen eggs and sperm, implanting the embryos into the wombs of women of neospecies whose reproductive systems are still pretty similar to old-style humans. If you want to write about that, go ahead. Or maybe frozen embryos and corpsicles remain unchanged, because whatever is causing the changes doesn't recognize them as living humans. If you write a story involving them, feel free to go either way. A story about reviving cryonically frozen corpses would need to be set some decades after the divergence, at least, since we don't have way to do that yet. by epain: Thank you for your answer. I would think that sperm and eggs change on molecular level even if they don't change visibly. In regions with normal mammalian reproduction, they change into sperm and eggs of the local neospecies. In regions with oviparous neospecies or other neospecies with different reproduction like Athens magnolias, they start changing too but they may not survive the change. But maybe if the reproduction is too different like in Athens magnolias, the sperm and eggs could be ignored by the change. But I think that this wouldn't apply to frozen sperm and embryos because frozen cells wouldn't be recognized as living tissue. After the birth of the first hybrids, species that can produce hybrids would be declared safe enough for the unchanged embryos. Prague undecided could use puberty blockers for their Homo sapiens children (or for adopted french-kisser children). epain I give permission to Trismegistus Shandy to publish this text in modified or unmodified form with the same Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike license as other work about the Valentine Divergence. epain ----- === Further reading === "Butterflies are the Gentlest" and "A House Divided" plus twelve other stories are available in my ebook collection _The Weight of Silence and Other Stories_, from Smashwords in ePub format and from Amazon in Kindle format. I earn higher royalties on sales through Smashwords than at other retailers. https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/435313 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K5CL1B0 I also have three novels available from Smashwords and Amazon (and in one case Barnes & Noble): Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/319765 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CUPYSFG When Wasps Make Honey https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/319769 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CU584JM A Notional Treason http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/401272 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I15RG6C http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-notional-treason-trismegistus- shandy/1118399590?ean=2940045604819