Patheos

[Marcus DuBois]

Alexandrova Vladislavovna

Office of the Consul on Public Engagement, Propaganda, and Interdominance Relations

Alexandrova smiled. The establishment orthodoxy, already positioning itself to leverage the revelation of channelers. It was the standard and one that needed to be fanned by their department.

But these speakers were naive if they thought that the majority in the empire would be this easily quiesced. She had only been a teenage, but she well remembered the backlash that the issue of gender brought up. Which was understandable. However one wanted to define the concept of society created gender, sex, as a purely biological thing, was 3 billion years old. All sapient creatures were, by definition, classifiers, pattern recognizers. It was an evolutionary requirement to immediately classify everything an individual encountered as threat/non-threat; food/poison; useful/non-useful; potential mate/irrelevant; etc.

It had taken years, even decades, for the concept of gender to properly be separated from biological sex, with the concept of "race" soon to follow.

Indeed, the secret success of her and Leonid's consulates had been culled from a study of the methodologies in the evolution of societal acceptance: of various racial groups in the 60's through the 80s; of homosexuality from the late 80's to the early 2000's; of gender identity from the mid-2010's on into the 2020's.

None of which was organized other than through the grass roots and those entities with vested interests. There were no secret cabals directing matters, no hidden diabolical group trying to architect society. Societal evolution made possible through media channels that had only come into existence in the previous few decades. In each case, the change had come more and more rapidly. Yet there was always a lower limit.

It took time. One simply could not snap their fingers or have celebrities and those in the public ear preach acceptance. One could not shame a vast segment of society into belief. That swayed a few, true. And was part of it. But for all their silence, rage and resentment built up in that segment, exacerbated by demagogues who played on that rising resistance to change. Resentment that eventually burst on a national and world wide level.

For a full shift, every avenue had to be bent to their will. They were using the technique in the DV, after all. Their 20 year project.

Indeed, even she considered, she heard rumblings and shouts back at the speakers. She felt a rising tide of emotion and frustration. They had come to Pantheos- a term meaning "Many Gods"- in an effort to unite together and discuss what the appearance of channelers might mean.

There were always two sides. If some saw them as simple evolutionary changes in humanity, others saw them as the next threat- homo sapiens to homo neanderthalensis. If some saw them as potential agents of good and workers of God's will, others could see them as agents of evil and destruction. Theo (the irony of the name not lost on her) Andlain had been only one man, though a leader of a small group of channelers, and they had caused serious chaos in Moscow.

Nik had hidden his power, but he was the Ascedancy and a channeler, self-proclaimed as a god. How soon until other channelers decided to claim their own fiefdom either in the CCD or somewhere else?

And what about miracles of the past? Jesus? Moses? Elijah? Channelers performed comparable ones. Nik stood healed, though few knew it was because another channeler had healed him. To those who worshiped Jesus as God incarnate, what did it do to their beliefs to wonder if he merely had been a channeler? Because if he as a channeler was God-incarnate, wouldn't that apply to others? Fights had been wagered in Christendowm over far less.

And that didn't even touch on the religions of Islam or Bhuddism, not always known for their peaceful relations.

Indeed, already, there was some pushing back, as some of those holding signs "CHANNELING IS FROM SATAN!" "GOD HATES CHANNELERS!" "THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD AND MOHAMMAD IS HIS PROPHET!" "GOD IS ONE!" "IT IS BLASPHEMY TO TOUCH THE POWER OF GOD!!" trid to fight their way to the stage. Others pushed back trying to fight them, to prevent them. Others chanted "LET THEM SPEAK! LET THEM SPEAK!!!"

This was going to turn into a riot.

Alexandrova wasn't worried at the moment. She was in the nosebleeds. Anything violent would be near the platform. It would be good to see the natural flow.