Given the hundreds of well-financed think tanks dedicated to nurturing political opportunities, it did not take long before one took note of Telomics’ discovery of the Martian variant and began to assess different scenarios, looking for one that yielded a political advantage. It began with a report—a strategic assessment—sent by an analyst under the title Blue Note to the Longview Foundation. Once there, it quickly circulated through the Foundation’s leadership and was elevated to the founder and CEO, Lucius Kellogg.

Kellogg sat in the study of his 19th century mansion, whose windows looked across the bay at San Francisco. In the night, the sparkling lights of the city spilled like jewels from an overturned treasure chest. He opened a message marked urgent and began reading the attached document.

Situation:

In the fourteen years since legislation was passed prohibiting campaign finance donations from corporations and lobbyists, and the financing of PACs, our base of contributors has been in search of avenues that would regain them access to and influence over government and public leadership. We have sought specific interest groups we could sway in our favor, using divisive issues that might attract 10%-15% of voters, nationally. In our estimate, engaging 10% of voters with our platform would provide a margin sufficient to flip a majority of elections in our favor. However, identifying a voting group of this size has eluded us, as our issues have only been able to chip away a percentage here and there from other well entrenched factions.

Opportunity:

Imagine we could magically create a new block of voters that had never before been identified and enlist their support for issues of importance to us. Such an opportunity has just presented itself. A medical device company, Telomics, has discovered a genetic link between a percentage of individuals on Earth and an advanced culture that lived on planet Mars. The connection is irrefutable and provides easy proof that certain people have ancestral links to a civilization with a much longer evolutionary chain than inhabitants of Earth. Telomics manufactures the test that detects a variant that is the marker for Martian heritage. They estimate that 20% or more of the Earth’s population carry the Martian variant.

We feel that it would be possible to build a sense of community among people with the Martian variant by attributing special abilities and potential to them, based on their connection to an older, superior Martian civilization. We can begin this restructuring by introducing appropriate identifiers—Marked and unmarked—to distinguish those with Martian heritage from those only of Earth. Once we build a sense of common identity we can induce a sense of common destiny. We can then align their destiny with issues of priority to us.

Goal:

Our goal is to draw on the support of this Marked group to install Marked individuals into positions of power in government, business, and scientific research and coordinate their efforts in order to enact our legislative and societal priorities.

Platform:

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Though it can’t be conclusively proven, at this point, it can be inferred that longer evolutionary development would result in a bloodline with superior abilities. Certainly, what we have seen of this civilization from the recordings and accounts of the Mars Habitat 3 mission indicates a sophisticated, technologically-advanced civilization.

The discovery of this heretofore unknown link requires us to rethink some basic precepts of what it means to be a human. To begin with, our global assumption has been that all humans are created equal (at least as an aspiration); now we know, with certainty, that humans ARE NOT created equal, some are the descendants of a spacefaring civilization. This challenges the belief in a level playing field for all. Genius and ability may not be the result of hard work but instead the product of superior genetics.

While our new knowledge requires us to reframe our understanding of society and human accomplishments, it also provides us with a guide for restructuring society to better solve the challenges we prioritize.

Enablers:

Community and Factionalism: technology gives us the ability to interlace Marked individuals into a cohesive social fabric and distinguish them from the general public. Two companies are central to this: Telomics’ ability to identify Marked people and collect their information in a data pool. Logisen’s ability to tie together data points that allow us to locate individuals and connect them—overtly or covertly—to form Marked networks.

Supersession Bias: public willingness to believe that Model 10 is better than its predecessor, Model 9, giving us the ability to frame those currently in power as the creators of our problems and to frame the Marked as the next generation of leaders, superior to the first.

Romanticism: desire among humans to see the older as wiser, the technologically-advanced as stronger, and to endow Marked people with a “Divine Visitor” status—wiser, kinder, more creative, and more capable.

Self-entitlement: the assumption by individuals that they, alone, see what is true; that their reasoning is superior to that of others; that one’s success and another’s failure is deserved for some innate reason.

The word factionalism leapt from the page into Kellogg’s calculations. It was the effect he continually sought through his political actions—not as an end but as the means of reaching his desired result: elimination of constraints, legal and regulatory, on his businesses. Factionalism created gaps in oversight through which business interests could move unfettered by government regulation and unnoticed by the public. His foundation had crafted messaging around many issues for the purpose of turning groups against each other and away from their common humanity, but his astute commanders of word-speak could never capture a large enough percentage of the public to effect a sea change in the social order.

Kellogg looked away from his screen to the view outside of his grand study. The Martian variant just might create the large faction he sought. If people could be groomed, as the Blue Note paper had theorized, to think themselves superior because of genetics, they could then be fed a mission to circumvent the existing system and define a new order, with themselves as leaders. He began to imagine a country where they would do his bidding.

Kellogg closed his tablet and spoke to the AI in his empty house. “I want the Foundation to follow-up on this Marked Strategy. Set-up an association…” Kellogg searched his brain for the right name. “AMA. That will work. The Association of Marked Ancestry. No. That conflicts with the American Medical Association—too powerful. We want to stay off their radar.” He paced around his desk, stopped and spoke again to the emptiness, “the Marked Martian Ancestry Association. M2A2. We can use that as a base for research, partnerships, and lobbying. Research the priorities of the leadership of Telomics and Logisen and report back to me first thing tomorrow morning.”