1 The 3.5th world war

It was April 14 2075 a beautiful day most people of earth would call it. Not Sawyer though, while the world was rejoicing about the end of the 3.5th world war, the 3.5th because the 3rd never truly ended.

Sawyer just learned the truth about his existence. A truth so horrible in his current reality, most people would just refuse to accept it for fear of the capital punishment.

He, was not a human. Yet he had the body of a human of the species homo sapiens. Or rather the body had him. A symbiotic life form that would enhance the thought process of living things or what the common folk would have called it before the end of all religion, a soul. Or this at least was said horrible thing that his research suggested. A concept that basically all by itself caused the .5 in the 3rd world war.

Why was proving that one had a soul, or rather was themselves a soul such a loathsome experience for our 125 years young head researcher of the earth federations central scientific department, as those politicians had dubbed it just hours ago?

Simple actually, because the 3rd world war just recently was one not fought against other groups of people with weapons of mass destruction, no, had it been like that, Sawyer would not be alive right now and instead be floating through space along with a bunch of debris that had once been called earth, (after-all, antimatter bombs, even though quite difficult to produce with the cutting edge technology available to the former nations of earth would have made sure of that) , but instead a war against disunity between the entire human race.

Because even the most foolish of people had realized at some point, that disunity would bring the world to a quick death at the hands of its own inhabitants even if back then the shadow of an antimatter bomb would only loom above the heads of writers and movie directors.

As such,the leaders of humanity or rather their think tanks had to find a solution as quickly as possible. Luckily for them in 2031 a man by the name of Alfred Bernstein discovered the key to commercially viable immortality and thus revolutionized the fields of biology, chemistry and the human mindset towards the future. The biggest hurdle to humanity unity the nihilistic views that kept the humans from stepping out of their own shadow was partially nerfed. Because how could you not care about your live and by extend the lives of others when death was for once in humanity's history not around the corner waiting to get you, at least not through the means of time and disease that is. And so, quietly, the 3rd world war this time one against humanity's inevitable destruction began.

Yet humanity's nihilistic views struck back when humans learned that even though age or disease could no longer take them, a drunk with a knife, a falling tree, or simply a strike of lightning still very much could and certainly would if given the chance. Death as such came as a surprise to all those who experienced it and their loved ones even more so.

Just when all where convinced that their family and friends would forever stick with them, they died. Sawyer to had experienced something similar when his parents and sister died in a car crash.

Even with all the safety precautions that were common in the year 2056 the years of his family's death, all of them could still fail.

That day when he learned of his family's accident, while he was finishing up the project that would make him rise to the position of a head researcher, of earths most esteemed and accomplished scientific foundation.

It was called the DNA Universal Syntax Theorem or DUST for short which would allow the creation of a universal programming language that would make it possible to gauge the effects every single part of DNA had on the whole even without the need for excessive computer simulations which even with the most powerful quantum computers could take up to weeks to perform to even have a chance of cracking the actual effect any segment of the gene had on the end result, he had used all his contacts, favors, money and Time to get revenge on that foolish car company that dared take his family from him.

After all, he possessed a will that would surpass even the latest super alloy in sturdiness, and resolve that would come close to that of many famed conquerors throughout history. At least that was what his colleagues described it as. Whether as a compliment, or as an insult that questioned his very humanity, it was one of the few things beside Religion being a hoax, the human having no soul and the Moon being made out of not cheese that they could all agree on at least until now.

He had after-all not shed even a single tear upon his family's death. Instead opting to shed blood and sweat to instead avenge. That was because naturally a man of Sawyers intellect had never for a second believed in true immortality, contrary to the masses, that ignoring beside common sense ,as they oftentimes did, believed in such a paradox idiocy and where thus caught off guard against death.

The human consciousness, unsuited to change in a short time, turned itself to religion, a part of culture that should long since have died with cave paintings and mammoths, Sawyer believed. Thus despite all efforts provided, humanity turned to the thing that had divided them since ancient times, religion.

Thus humanity lost the 3rd World War with humans just barley less divided and many people searching solace in Prayer to whatever God or Pantheon they so chose, refuting any religion that would entail the punishment of their loved or the reward of their enemies and causing conflicts over things Sawyer considered as trivial. Yet on they went with their conflicts.

The various nation's however were not about to give up their plan to change humanity's destiny and almost in complete unison started the 3.5th world war with the implementation of a complete ban of all religious institutions, rituals and the like.

People and nations who did not adhere to this ban were 'taken care of' by any means necessary. This Mammoth task taken on by the world was in fact completed, working as proof of what unity could achieve. All notions like a life after death like the existence of souls, Gods, miracles, saviors and what not where thus replaced by science and research.

A welcome change in Sawyer's opinion who even before the brainwashing programs and the death of religion, was a firm believer of the scientific method. Yet his believes like what humanity had experienced with the destruction of the dream called true immortality had his world view shattered, for he had discovered what he had ridiculed his entire life. A soul.