The Peloran treatments weren’t as amazing as most people give them credit for. Most people can’t regenerate damaged organs for instance. But in some ways they were more than anybody imagined at the time. You see they boosted our immune systems so we could fight off virtually any disease. The really amazing part is that once we take the last treatments, they stay. We don’t have to take booster shots or eat special berries to keep the effects. They are part of us.
One of the dark sides of the early computer networks was the total loss of individual privacy. Early personal computers had integrated microphones and cameras legally required to be capable of remote activation. There were supposed to be legal protections against the activation, but they were routinely ignored by the governments of the time. Big Brother tracked most people twenty-four hours a day, their every move and every word saved in governmental databases.
I was born to help Charles out with his plans. I knew what they were before I chose that path. I understood the basics of the world he wanted to build. I never would have chosen one of his family members, you know. But in Charles I found someone who wanted to change that. Change everything. Wolfenheim was not his first plan, though it was the first his enemies noticed. The first crack. The rest…well…no matter how long I live, I will never be bored.
World War I was not truly a case of good versus evil of course. It was competing alliances thinking they could force the other to give way, and then finding out in the end that neither was willing to back down. And the engines of rising industry threw new and terrible weapons into the fires of War. It was the most destructive War that mankind had ever waged on itself. It was The War. The Great War. The War to End All Wars. So said hopeless optimism.
By the time the Peloran showed up, organ banks were the way to live. Even the middle class could by them. And government banks granted access to those that couldn’t afford them in the politicians’ undying effort to buy more votes in the next election. And since they reserved the best of the organ banks for themselves, I really do mean undying. People don’t call them bloodsucking vampires for nothing after all. The politicians that is.