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| The "Thinking Horndog" talked to me about the Sa'arm Cycle which captured my imagination. We discussed the subject and he was not displeased with allowing me to write within his framework. |
It's been over three centuries since the Sa'arm were finally contained.
Note that I said "contained", not "defeated". Defeating the Sa'arm would sterilize too many worlds. Eventually their wear-and-tear on the planets they are on will kill them, but, at least, the Confederacy AIs won't have to deal with encouraging genocide.
There is always the possibility that the Sa'arm may evolve enough to recognize that they are not alone in the Universe. Of course we wonder whether they'd be Sa'arm any more...
Keeping them in check isn't easy, though. We humans have that dirty job... and a couple of others, too. The rest of the Confederacy has had some other run-ins with other rather advanced races who had an ingrained sense of xenophobia. These folks weren't like the Sa'arm and being in battle with them didn't take long for them to come to the conclusion they'd bitten off more than they can chew.
Of the two races we've faced like this, one actually managed to come to terms with a galaxy with a lot of different life forms and figured out that killing everything in their path was a bad idea.
The other one? Well, we pushed them back to their home planet. They used it up trying to get at us... and didn't catch on that they'd tried to corner us.
Humans aren't like sharks, you know, we're not mindless machines that kill and eat. Under normal circumstances, and, yes, there is such a thing, we humans have little issue with "live and let live" but we also crave excitement, too.
But, truly, enough is enough.
And the minimum level of "novelty" that the majority of humans prefer does exceed that of the rest of the races within the Confederacy by an exceptionally wide margin.
Even so, the Confederacy can't put the lid back on their "Darjee's Box" and have no capability to either step on us, reject us... or accept us, for that matter. We stir things up too much.
Well, I guess that explains why there aren't any primates to speak of within the Confederacy.
So we humans have limited use to the Confederacy but they have learned, or, at least, their AIs have learned, that we are still a major asset, even if they're not sure how to get the most out of us. We sure can't mix with even the most tolerant races of the Confederacy without scaring them out of their skins, fur, feathers and exoskeletons. We've learned a lot about the species that make up the Confederacy and how they lost much of their "spark".
So we-- humans and Confederacy-- had to find a balance point. It's not one we humans really like, but...
In the beginning of the fight the AIs that form the core of the Confederacy had encouraged us humans to be as polygynous as possible, mostly to maintain high birth rates in anticipation of high casualty rates.
Check. That worked.
We humans are less adept at dying than the Sa'arm, you know.
Check. Our numbers exploded.
So, sure, we settled with a lot more females than males, and, in the normal cause of events, the sex ratio of human offspring would be expected to go back to near 50:50. It didn't. Somehow, our children's sex ratio was 7.3:1, which ensured that polygynous relationships would be the norm.
Check. The AIs are maintaining these ratios.
On top of that, all humans were carrying the nano crops-- as synthionts-- which helped our health and function.
Check. We're able to be influenced at a very low level.
But the Confederacy's AIs are the ones tasked with maintaining the human race without allowing us to overrun the others... and to keep us able to be vital when needed.
We humans are dangerous, especially when threatened. The AIs knew, given that killing off all of the Sa'arm wasn't likely to work well, and what we'd learned of the folks on the far side of the Sa'arm sphere that had pushed them in our direction, that we humans were going to be needed for a long time to come, though the Confederacy would have liked a way to put us into storage.
But what could they do with us in the mean time?
Well...
One trick the AIs discovered to lower our impetus for novelty, mostly from having a race to compare with their more complacent citizens... uh, more like subjects... was to give us, on a temporary basis, the same level of complacency the other races have. When we humans have our neural error rates reduced to near zero, we get, well... less edgy. Its kind of like the opposite of attention deficit disorder, so, in some ways, ADHD must have been an evolutionary advantage at some stage of our development.
So the AIs that really run everything took a good look at us humans and chose two tricks to keep us happy until we were needed again.
First, they dropped our error rate, which cuts down on creativity and initiative.
Second, they bumped up our libidos without the side defects of heightened testosterone levels, which would undo the first step.
So... we're quiet and fairly complacent.
And we're almost always horny. This keeps us busy, too, and the first step cuts down on our need for variety.
Yes, we humans are amongst the most sexually energetic race we know of. When I'm sated and have time to think about it, I take some comfort in knowing that we humans can out-fuck and out-fight all of the competitors we know of.
And, to top it all off, our numbers stay stable because the nanos provide managed contraception as well.
Now, let me see... I'm horny again. It's a good thing that Roger is so good at keeping me-- and the other women in my "family"-- so fulfilled.
But, just once, I wish he'd have more energy just for me.