City: Fortgeschrittene Mensch Projekt

S3 Studios Presents
A Short
“Fortgeschrittene Mensch” (Advanced Human)

[Current Stage: Working on cross-referencing opening with what other City pages I have; figuring out a name for our lone MSB operator; beginning of actual story. (Too much 'Other' info!)]

Within the depths of the forgotten West Central City Research Center lies a machine even more removed from memory. A machine known by few upon its inception, and even fewer as the ages went by. A machine, once forgotten, now reactivated.

Within the division, buried deep within WCCRC, is linked three offices: EMA (Erweiterte Menschliche Abteilung; Advanced Human Department), MSB (Menschliche Subjekt Beschaffung; Human Subject Procurement), and FMF (Fortgeschrittene Mensch Forschungsabteilung; Advanced Human Research Department).

Within the MSB lies a twisted man; a man who alone has at his fingertips the power to take anyone from anywhere at anytime, for his own uses. But also a man of sensibility; a man, twisted by necessity, but a man nonetheless. By the same argument, a man just like other men, but a man with strange tastes. A man with a fancy for the recently discovered Katzenmenschenrennen- known by the casual title of ‚Neko’, but literally meaning „Race of Cat People“. A man whose only recourse to get close to those Katzemenschen he held so dear was to become the abductor of all. A man who believes his careful selections and contributions to the EMA will bring about a merger of pure strain human and the Katzenmenschenrennen to bridge the gap between the two, creating a perfect merger of the two; a merger that would take billions of years if left to nature.

He is the only man in the MSB. His is a strange situation; a man whose entire world consists of what he loves and what he feels indifferent to, a world which he alone inhabits. A world which, viewed from the outside, seems horrible. Preferential treatment & actual contact with the Katzemenschen versus almost complete disregard for everyone else. But for the man, it would be a disaster if he were to become close to the others. Others, those that he disregards as a rule, in order to prevent his complete breakdown. The man finds his joy in those Katzemenschen he collects, and maintains his sanity in their care. The man feels nothing towards the others, who he believes are not facing such a great transition as the Katzemenschen, and to connect with them might distract him from his Katzemenschen, or worse- create an emotional link with them, slowing the progress so that his precious Katzemenschen will have to be sent to an EMA with less preparation. It is enough that he must send them without confirmed perfection of the process, but it is a small price to pay, and he finds it better that the more plentiful human race provide the bulk of the development so that those Katzemenschen he sends may go through with a higher degree of certainty. His sanity is valued above all else, so that he may continue to care for the Katzemenschen- who number just under one hundred and thirty, a number that the human brain is well and able to associate names and faces to without undue difficulty, especially for a man of his caliber. The humans, however, are without number, and the requested subjects fall into a thousand categories. There are too many to recollect at any given time, if such a thing was even desirable. He finds solace in the thought that despite the numerous procurements, the human race as a whole witnesses more births in a single city on a daily basis, and his acquisitions will be forgotten in due time, drowned in the dense fog of missing persons for a slew of reasons, among other things.

The FMF houses the largest quantity of personnel within the Fortgeschrittene Mensch-Projekt, and its sole purpose is to research methods to refine the process for the EMA. It has no face; its operators are considered brains and hands with the misfortune to be stuck on mortal bodies. Most of them don’t even really know what they’re doing; all they see is data, and their job is to find a way to make that data perform better and better in this situation or that situation, with these parameters or those parameters. Those that have been within the EMA don’t fully understand it. Few of them have even seen the entire process, and most of those that have had other things on their mind. Only two members of the FMF have seen the entire process and understood it; one of which was thereafter transferred to oversee the MSB. The other is still in the FMF, diligently working away, having declined transfers to higher positions despite being fully qualified to perform their duties. Nevertheless this man does serve in some small fashion the position of FMF Overseer, but limits his duties to routine reports.

Finally, the EMA. The heart of the Fortgeschrittene Mensch-Projekt. Within lies no more than half a dozen personnel. The director of the FM Projekt; his right-hand man, three technicians and a mechanic. Beyond this, there are only two others connected to the EMA, both of them serving messenger roles for the entire FM Projekt.

However, there are far more than eight living beings present in the EMA at any given time. Usually, there is no more than four or five others, but as many as two hundred additional living beings can be contained within the EMA’s chambers. And beyond this, two hundred more…

A man, resigned to insanity in an effort to stay sane; a collection of research personnel, ignorant of the outcome of their work; six men with power over hundreds. All of this, hidden in the bowels of a district within an abandoned city, a city that once was teeming with energy, all for the purposes of solving the world’s problems. Not to say that this still isn’t the case- indeed, the FM Projekt’s aim is to solve many problems of the world…

…It’s just how it plans to go about achieving that end.

















Fortgeschrittene Mensch-Projekt Zeichen
Gejagte Ozean
• Part of the FMF
• One of two with full understanding of the entire FM Projekt process

Arzt Siegbert Indigo Neumann
• Sole actual member of the MSB
• Does not actually know what the FM Projekt process is, or what it does
• Fancies himself some Katzemenschen, especially blue ones.

Ärztin Silke Himmelblau
• Head researcher in the FNF, and a friend of Ozean’s
• While she does not know of the FN Projekt’s process, she has some idea as to what it is, how it is performed, and the results, due to extensive data collection and testing she has done.



___
This is a Work In Progress, but critique is always welcome. Right now the bulk of the work is on spitting the opening and characters out, as well as detailing the outline for my own purposes.

A word of warning: Although FM Projekt is not part of official Project One Man War Saga canon at the moment, it does use concepts, characters and settings from the Project, many of which are alien even to those few that have read anything part of the series. In particular, the setting: West Central City. This has never been disclosed in the nine years I've been writing, and is referenced as a 'district'; it is part of a greater 'City' simply named Central City. Central City, as detailed thus far, was in fact a base of operations to solve world problems. Four major districts existed, North, East, South and West, and for the most part dealt with the bigger, immediate or pervasive problems. West Central City was almost entirely dedicated to issues surrounding the nature of humans, specifically of a sexual nature, and dealt heavily in researching what really drove criminals under this section, why they were driven to such lengths, and how to stop it. East Central City was also focused on the same subject, but the two couldn't be further apart in their methods. East Central City was like a research center full of bright minds all focusing on a few topics, with daily discussions on each. ECC was considered a 'soft' research district.

West Central City, however, was a 'hard' research district, and for good reason. WCC was not so gentle in its methods, and their way of thinking was to gather the most accurate results, at any cost. This meant complete replication of the variables present in such crimes; this would have been inexcusable if it weren't for WCC's results that rarely required more than a token amount of refinement.

In the history of WCC was one man who moved to WCC in an effort to drown out his own issues in the twisted insanity of WCC's mindset. He was one of their most effective operators, but eventually his problems caught up with him, and he returned to sanity abruptly, and left WCC. WCC, believing in the way of efficiency and accurate, rapid results, was not too happy with this sudden defection. For centuries he and they would play a game of cat and mouse; WCC trying desperately to get him back, and him trying to evade them while at the same time performing his duties in his own job. Eventually, this man found the perfect hiding place: right back to Central City. He hid out within the East Central City district as an operator there, and WCC was none the wiser. Time passed, things happened, the world changed. His experience elsewhere and the passing of time took its toll in multiple ways: the man became a little less sensitive, and his guard waned slightly. WCC caught his trail and by chance an agent sent to gather information about a possible lead stumbled into him. By now he was tired of running, tired of hiding, although he knew that their fight was pointless- there was little hope of them forcing him to work in the past, and in the present, there was none. Still, he had visited other worlds, seen what problems plagued them, and found that in leaving he had caused some damage, even if he left over unrelated reasons. He made a deal with the agent: WCC would stop chasing him, and he would offer up what services he could, on his own time, of his own will. It was not what WCC was after, but the old administration was long gone, and the new one was greatly distanced from the past. They were also more level-headed, unaffected by a defection that they saw caused no personal harm, and more importantly, might not have happened if the man had not retreated into himself in the first place- WCC should have been thankful such a man fell into their laps.

So work he did, whenever he could spare the time. The horrors or war and visits to worse places were justification enough to do what had to be done to come up with results that would help future generations. It was difficult work, now that he had a heart again, but he did it with all the effort he would for any other job. The future was more important than the present, and in all civilizations sacrifices had to be made at one point or another...

...After all, that was the way of the GDA, was it not?


In the way of additional information, there is little. For visuals, imagine a sprawling city like any other, with countless stout research buildings and skyscrapers, arranged so the skyline is sort of bowl-shaped; the skyscrapers grace the fringes of the city, while the short, blocky research centers crowd closer in. I really don’t know much else, but whenever I imagine it I see a city on a man-made, semispherical platform, perhaps in the air, perhaps in the ocean- everything aside from the city and the platform is blank. Likely it is self-propelled and self-sufficient, though by ways I cannot imagine. The image is based off of a loosely related object: Citadel One. An even older concept, a city in the clouds born from the images of Cloud City from Star Wars as a little kid. It shares the same arcing platform for a base as Central City, but is shaped more like a huge cylindrical castle. Overall it looks like any old medicine capsule, albeit one where one ‘side’ is quite shorter than the other.

The Citadels were made to house select persons, the majority of them being of a type that would have difficulty functioning in normal society. (However, in the context of the Citadels, they function the same as any normal person. Often it’s impossible to tell that they’d have issues in society when seen in their own world.) Citadel One specifically houses a massive population of persons affected by the one-rampant Fervent Harte Residential cult. One unique feature of most Citadels is the lack of external entryways, or at least lack of numerous or large entryways. In Citadel One, there is a large mechanism shaped like a gyroscope that provides access. (It links to specific matching mechanisms, and inbuilt security is to be hay by way of physical design: the actual entry/exit points do not have the gyrating rings impeding progress, and only a mirror mechanism would orient the path in the right way. A non-mirrored system would likely orient them backwards, resulting in their swift pulverization. Additionally, such a feat is difficult, as the rings generating the energy ‘require’ their other half- one could start up the system without them, but to ensure uninterrupted energy flow to maintain the path almost always requires the link be maintained between the two mechanisms. Essentially, half of the rings on both mechanisms ‘merge’ through the path; in reality, they are whole, but not accessible from either side, as they exist within the path’s energy field. One can view them by looking into the opposing side of the path, but never reach their location, although transitioning the path does technically put the user in contact with them, as they exist as solid-state energy that maintains the form of the rings while within the path. If viewed side by side, the rings existing within this universe would be perfectly tuned, operating as a single ring system, just one that exists in two halves.)

Citadel One is also unique in that there is a line of thinking that the interior does not exist in this world any longer. Citadel One has no external entryways, and any and all outer windows appear to be fakes. While within Citadel One, these windows appear to display proper visuals corresponding to its position in the universe, but from the outside this does not hold true. Communications outside of Citadel One require enormous energy to be received when not sent directly to the attached receiving towers. Information access is also sketchy and erratic, although this was only brought to light in recent years due to the inhabitants’ general disinterest in outside information.

All of this information seems to prove the theory that Citadel One’s interior no longer exists within this world. However, the Citadel One Incident seems to prove otherwise, although there is dispute due to the emergence of the extraexistance theory as a serious theory occurring after the Incident. The Incident consisted of a critical breach of Citadel One’s shell, intrusion by a group calling themselves the Night Pirates, and subsequent theft from and violation of a large number of inhabitants. This incident is of significant importance due to the origins of the Night Pirates, as well as the inhabitants’ themselves. The Night Pirates drew from the near-limitless manpower pool of neutralized FHR enclaves the bulk of their membership, and the majority of Citadel One’s inhabitants were previous victims of FHR activities.

Although this was a very unfortunate and unwanted blast from the past, the inhabitants did not suffer as much as expected; their time within Citadel One and close bonds with one another appears to have significantly improved their mental states, as well as greatly increased psychological resistance and by extension, accelerated their natural recovery rates. The incident was generally regarded as a ‘bad memory’ in terms of severity within just three days, and by the end of the month it ceased to exist in the minds of the inhabitants unless directly referenced or otherwise triggered by stimuli. In recent years, part of the inhabitants’ improvements with relation to the incident and related subjects has been attributed to several notable inhabitants, including one of the last remaining members of the already rare group of races collectively known as Shifters. While this inhabitant was neither directly affected by the FHR cults, nor the Incident, they were affected by both through proximity. (For the cults, investigating a site for unrelated suspicions, and for the Incident, simply being present during the attack.) This inhabitant has extensive experience as a mediator, due to their abilities enabling them to quietly observe parties for hidden signs of bias or other mediation-impeding tendencies. This has allowed them to perform admirably in the role of rehabilitator, and the ability to shift into more comforting forms has not hurt either.