The Next Generation

When the children were all in the equivalent of middle school or high school in the education program we had adapted for life on New Mars, when kids on Earth might have had sex ed, we introduced them all at once to the breeding program. It was still mostly usual sex ed including directives for abstinence (for now), except that we explained that we were hoping this group would produce 80 children which all of us (their generation and ours combined) would raise. However, they could start earlier than we did, and they would not have to have them all back-to-back like we did. Also, they’ll get to choose partners, except nobody was allowed to mate with a half-sibling. Each member of this group shared a parent with at most 11 others, 8 by father and 3 by mother, and that only for the ones fathered by the men who fathered Chen’s kids. Most of these groups were well-mixed in gender, so they had a variety of choices, and they would be allowed to have unprotected sex with any of their potential partners so long as they haven’t already had a child with that partner and so long as neither partner has already had too many children.

At first they seemed happy to participate, three of the boys even voluntarily changing to girls so that we could spread the childbearing load across 25 mothers rather than 22, so most only had to bear three children. The first sign of trouble was once they reached the age of 17 Martian years, and the pre-existing age limit no longer kept them out of the sims, we found missing kids in there several times.

After a lot of discussion, during which some of our group wanted to ban them from the sims entirely and others thought it was good to let them practice a limited amount, we agreed to let the 17-year-olds in the sims for no more than half an hour a day, and only with avatars representing their real bodies, and only with the generic human avatars as partners. This was another challenge for Clara to program into the system. She defined all of our kids as a special class of users for whom the sims cost money, and defined a new currency to use for that cost, gave them accounts that topped up automatically to 30 minutes worth of that currency at midnight, and applied the restrictions on avatars and sim partners to that user class. This gave us the possibility to give specific kids more currency to give them extra sim time, or take it away as a punishment.

We had also found that the Martians had, long ago, invented their own version of condoms very similar to the ones we were used to, and that the robots could make them if we brought them a particular plant as material to use in production. We had been using them to a small degree, for those who wanted to remain sexually active, and had made sure we had the plants on hand. We hadn’t previously given them to the kids, because we wanted them to have sex with breeding partners starting at age 18. But we rethought that decision and gave them condoms until they were 18, expecting them to find breeding partners after that. They took to the condoms quite well, and most of them stopped using sims entirely once they had condoms.

But there was one other thing. We expected some of them to develop into the next generation’s leaders, and none of them showed the least interest in doing so. They had cooperated in terms of the breeding program, and when given duties like gathering food or clearing unusable clothes out of more homes so that they could start using them, but none of them ever volunteered for anything, or did more than the minimum we required of them.

By the time the oldest kids were starting to turn 22 and all of them were out of high school, and we expected them to be taking on new roles as the parents and leaders for the third generation, we weren’t able to motivate them at all. Promising them extra sim time hadn’t worked; they weren’t even using the sim time they had, in most cases, having taken the opposite stance to the Martians in saying they had real sexual partners and didn’t need sim time. They had more children, and cared for them, as we did, but they still didn’t do more than we strictly required of them, and there was simply no leader material among the group.

When their children started reaching school age, they proved useless as teachers as well. Our group of 16 had to continue filling those roles. And with more of them and us still acting as parents to their parents as well, it meant we had a lot less influence over each one of them.

We were facing a crisis. We were being successful at growing the human race, but not in developing a society here among us. This was, we realized, the same problem the Martians had faced. On a world where there is no scarcity, how do you motivate anybody to go out and lead? Even the ones among the Martians who had that drive from before things got so easy had given up and joined in themselves.

Brenda was the one who suggested, “Make them decide their children’s future.”

I asked, “How so? We already tried having them act as teachers, and they simply didn’t care when they failed at it.”

“In the same way we set rules for them, allow them to set rules for their children, BUT!”

Brenda made a dramatic pause and then finished her sentence, “They have to agree on the rules among themselves.”

“So someone has to lead the group so they can come to a decision,” Clara observed.

“But what if they decide they don’t want any rules?” I asked.

Brenda said, “If they don’t make a decision, our rules for them remain in effect for the kids.”

“I still think they are likely to choose that,” I replied.

Nelson added, “Or just use their kids to bypass the rules we set for them.”

At the end of the next day’s lunch, I brought up the idea. “We are starting a new system. Just as we made the rules for you when you were kids, and have continued making rules for you as you have not been able to govern yourselves, we want to give you a new opportunity to set the rules for your children. You can make them more lax or more strict than the rules you lived under growing up. But even in letting you set rules, there have to be some rules; we have just three.”

Clara said, “Rule number one, you have to agree on the rules. One of you has to propose a set of rules and a majority of you, at least twenty-two of the forty-two of you, must vote in favor of the proposal.”

Brenda said, “Rule number two, you can’t choose to have no rules. If you vote for no rules, or you cannot agree on rules, your children will be governed by the same rules you lived under when you were their ages.”

Nelson said, “Rule number three, you cannot use your kids and/or the rules you set for them just to circumvent restrictions we put upon you.”

I concluded the presentation with, “Talk amongst yourselves and consider what rules you might want. After lunch tomorrow, when we send your kids back to school, you are to remain here and discuss the rules.”

This actually got them talking, though there wasn’t much agreement. After the next day’s lunch, there still wasn’t much agreement. For every potentially good rule like “Starting at age 7 they have to take their own fibers and recycled clothes to the factory and order their own clothes,” there was a disastrous proposal such as, “They should have unlimited sim time as soon as they are old enough to understand what a sim is.”

But it worked in that we got three of them to make serious proposals, work to try to get others to support their proposals, and then agree to work together to try to pass all three rules. One of those rules was the make-their-own-clothes rule, one was that there would be breaks in the school schedule with fun things for the kids to do, and one was that kids should have access to the non-sex hobby and recreation sims. Someone wanted to clarify that all the restrictions that they had to follow at the kids’ ages should still apply, except where these other rules contradicted them, and with that they were able to get thirty votes making these the new rules.

Once they’d come up with these rules, I pointed out the issues with them.

“The rule about ordering their own clothes implies they will get to choose what they wear, and that’s fine, in general, but we’re going to enforce a dress code at school, since we run the school. You never had to worry about that because we provided you with clothes and all the clothes met rules we considered decent.”

There were lots of murmured responses, and a couple who didn’t realize that the rule implied that the kids would get to choose their own clothes, but enough of the group to have passed the vote without those agreed that it did imply that. Nobody argued with having a school dress code.

“On the second, someone will have to design the fun activities for the kids. Since this was your proposal, we are leaving you with this duty, though I’m sure if you ask for help there are some among us who will.”

Apart from the realization that they had voted themselves some work, there were no real complaints for this one.

“And for the third, I don’t think there’s ever been a prohibition on minors using the non-sex recreation sims. Can you confirm, Clara?”

She asked, “Computer, how many sims not related to sex, body or avatar modification, bathroom, sleep, or eating have been initiated by people under the age of seventeen in the last twenty-six years?”

“Four.”

She brought up a list on a screen in that room, and naturally, because of the way she had phrased the question and the fact that there still had not been any Martian births since we had been here, all four of those had been by our children.

“See, three of you have already done that, one of you twice.”

The one who put forth the proposal for that rule, who was the one listed twice, pointed out, “The problem is that you can only access them from within the sex rooms, so we had to sneak in to do it.”

“Hmm, that is a problem,” I admitted.

Carla suggested, “It should be possible for us to install a sim room somewhere else. I mean, we have sims in every bathroom. I’ll look into it.”

A few days later, Carla announced at one of our meals, “I considered the possibility of making these non-sex sims available in all the bathrooms, but the problem with that is that the bathrooms are meant for very short-term sim usage. In the houses you are using as singles, the bathrooms only have a capacity of one session at a time, and in the ones where three or four mothers raised a group of kids together, the capacity is two. It’s fine if each person only spends a few minutes in there, but not if you spend two hours painting a picture.”

There were quite a few laughs, including from the schoolchildren.

“But I’ve put in a request for the robots to install a sim room at the school, one that will be accessible from outside so you can go there outside of school hours, with a ten session capacity. If they prove popular enough that this isn’t enough I’ll add another one. And sex sims won’t be allowed there. It’s a bit more involved than most of the requests we put in for the robots but it is among their standard functions. It should be available in a few days.”

This drew cheers and applause.

When the room was ready, there was a line waiting for access on the first day, so we imposed a one-hour limit on sessions. After the first day, though, there was never a line, and we removed the limit.

The more important thing, though, was we got our children involved. Not all of them participated in parenting or leadership activities, but we didn’t need that. It just needed to be a significant fraction, and some of the ones who didn’t join initially started participating after they saw the fun things a few of them had designed for the kids to do during school breaks. Some of the parents had fun doing those things, too. We even managed to get a couple of them to start teaching.

Our first generation, Chen and the 15 born on Earth, still had our own meetings once in a while. In one of these we drew up the school dress code, which included some bits that would never have appeared on Earth. “Clothing with tail holes may only be worn if the hole is made so it doesn’t expose the buttocks while there is no tail in it, or if the wearer has a tail going through the tail hole.” We didn’t have any Martians in our school but we considered it a possibility in the distant future, and if we didn’t, the rule didn’t hurt. Otherwise, it was the usual about body parts having to be covered from the shoulders to just above the knees, for skirts and dresses, or to the feet, for pants, and we didn’t prohibit boys from wearing skirts or dresses. We had imposed that Earth custom on our kids, and several of the boys had chosen to wear skirts once we allowed them to choose their own clothes, though whether they did so because they actually liked them or merely as an act of rebellion we didn’t know. But we considered it to be part of the motivation for them choosing the rule, and we honored it.

After a year of the kids having fun-breaks at school, having access to hobby sims, and the oldest ones starting to be able to choose their own clothes, at one of these meetings, Carla announced, “This is going well. I guess we won’t need the sim command center after all.”

“The what?” Melissa asked.

“Fearing that we were going to need to be the leaders for our human population here forever, I started a plan allow us to keep running things from within a sim where we don’t age.”

“Oh, God. No. Some of us might want to live forever, but not that way!”

“That’s why I’m dropping the plan. It was far from finished, anyway.”

By the time the oldest of the third generation were entering high school, and the youngest of that generation were just entering school, fully two-thirds of the second generation was involved in some aspect of parenting, teaching, or leadership. They’d made five other rule changes that they had voted on as a group, the most controversial of which came that year: Naked Day.

Our elder group had a serious talk about whether we needed to block this, but we decided to let it go through, though it was something that never could have happened on Earth. But here, it was voted for by a majority of the parents of the current schoolchildren, parents who had been raised not in sex-obsessed Earth culture, but in the portion of Earth culture that 15 of us had carried here. The Martian culture was pretty sex-obsessed too, but it was hidden away in sim rooms; while we hadn’t hidden those away from them entirely, it was less prominent.

It was explicitly not Sex Day; nobody was to touch anyone else in ways they wouldn’t if they were clothed, and we stated the touching rules explicitly a few days in advance. It was a clothing-optional day, on a school day, for the children of all ages to learn about the human body, learn not to be ashamed of the naked body, learn what makes boys and girls different, and learn why we covered it in the first place. Instead of being split into the usual age groups, part of the day consisted of a single large class for all 80 of the children. In part of the combined session we lined up boys of different ages and girls of different ages and used them to demonstrate the changes that occurred in puberty. Divided into two groups, those who had reached or were about to reach puberty in one group and the younger ones in another, they got some sex ed; the older group was told about the breeding program, including that it was ages 18 and up and none of them should be having unprotected sex yet, and the younger group got a less detailed and less explicit version.

It was an unqualified success. Kids of all ages enjoyed it, and not because they got to ogle naked people, but because they got to learn about things they felt had been hidden from them. Most of the second generation said they wished they’d had this when they were in school, even some who voted against the proposal. We decided to have Naked Day every three years, because that would allow enough time for significant changes in mind and body development for it to mean something different for them the next time through.

As the second Naked day approached, we prepared to officially starting handing control over to our children, starting with the breeding program.

“You are all familiar with the breeding program, having been participants in it some years ago, and now your children will have their turn. We are letting you set the rules. We need to keep expanding; there are still fewer than 150 humans on this world. But you can slow the pace of growth; the only real rule we are imposing on you is that there must be more than 80 children in the fourth generation. You can set that number as much higher than that as you are comfortable with.”

Several numbers were called out, but there was no agreement among them at this time, and once they agreed to disagree, I went on.

“We have ported the genetic software to the Martian computers so that you do not have to use the few surviving antiquated Earth computers. We don’t anticipate that you will need to do anything more with it than tell your children certain other children each may not mate with due to being too genetically similar. Half-siblings still may not mate; certain others may be excluded due to having inherited too many similar genes from common ancestors of my generation.”

There was no argument there.

“Finally, I have something to pass along not related to the breeding program. We’ve made a new rule that those over 65 Martian years of actual body age may retire, meaning they may choose to no longer have any official duties, and they have unrestricted use of the sims. The body age excludes time we spent in suspended animation getting here and time spent unaging in sims, and the computer can now report these body ages for all of us. Many of those born on Earth have already reached this age, and the ones who have not will do so within the next few years. This means my role as mayor and effective commander of the human settlement, Clara’s role as sim director, and others will become available for members of your generation to take over. We expect that those who do so will neither neglect or abuse the power those roles give, but use it to best propagate the human race of New Mars. And never forget that there are twelve billion effectively sleeping Martians in sims. Don’t wake them up!”

There were a few chuckles, but it was good to see that they took this seriously.

“I will remain available for one Martian year from the time my successor is chosen to train that successor, assuming I live. I cannot promise not to disappear into sims after that point.”

Then Clara stated, “I make the same promise, if and when a suitable successor is appointed. There’s quite a lot to do as sim director that’s not obvious, and it may be that you want to have a sim director and one or two deputy sim directors to handle it all. I will share details with anyone interested.”

I did exactly as I said, training a successor for one year, and then retiring into sims, but not the sex sims, at least, not most of the time. Clara scared off the few candidates who showed interest with the details of everything she’s been doing in recent years and everything she learned she did wrong in her early years in the role, and she did end up reviving the sim command center as a sim director’s sim, with the ability to monitor all the sims from within a sim, to enter other people’s sims, and more.

Clara came to visit me periodically, as I was one of the few people she could often visit who were not engaged in sex, and kept me updated on the state of things. Thirty years after retirement, Sarah was the only one besides us still alive; she’d gone the way of the Martians and permanently lived in sex sims, while the others had all let themselves die naturally.

“And you’re still sim director?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How do you keep doing it?”

“By ever-increasing employment of technology. Basically, I’ve written programs to monitor all the things that needed doing, and used Martian AI to monitor those reports for anything out of the ordinary. I only have to be the enforcer to go deal with the situations that actually need dealing with.”

“Like people getting stuck in sim loops?”

“No, the AI can pick those out. There has only been one other one, a Martian, since we’ve gotten here, and the AI correctly threw him out of his sim into his sim room and let him try something different.”

“So what, then?”

“A sim room on another continent got damaged and the computer had to do an emergency expulsion of 700 Martians.”

“How did you deal with that?”

“I had a robot on the scene project a hologram of my avatar, speaking to them via the translator in their language, and apologizing for the mess and giving them some suggestions or reminders of what it is like to live in the real world. I called in 500 construction robots from up to 20 kilometers away to rebuild, and I had our emperor appoint one of them as mayor of that city so she could get them into houses temporarily. They’re all back in the sims now.”

“Sounds like you did a good job.”

“Many of them thanked me for it. They were understanding that real-world problems could cause the sims to fail, especially after decades of use.”

She shared stories like that periodically. But one day, Clara came to me and said, “We’re it.”

“What, our descendants got themselves all killed?”

“No, the other way around. We finally got a response from Earth. About a hundred years after we got here, Earth was hit by a massive meteor. The only survivors were in space, and there was only a single self-sufficient station with food crops. Those who could do so docked with it. They got our message and returned it, but they didn’t have the practical capability to continue the human race, and they were just living out their natural lives. Since that message was sent 135 years ago, they are certainly all gone now.”

“How about our people here?”

“There are over ten thousand of them now. They also have over three hundred Martians living with them, all committed to living lives outside the sims and continuing their race.”

“I guess that’s a success, then, for us.”

“For us, yes.”

“Rest in peace, Earth.”