A Civil War

    A Civil War          By: Theodore Bolha ©2010





    Prologue:



“John Nulty here to bring you the latest in your local news. A hunter was out in some local woods today where he encountered what he describes as an, “animal meeting”, where he claims he was, ‘Chased and attacked by about a dozen woodland creatures.’ Sue Witt reports:”



“Thanks John! Hello Don, please tell us about what happened to you earlier today.”



“Well, I was walking through that patch of woods right there behind us, tracking some deer prints and I stumbled on a bunch of raccoons, squirrels, skunk, deer a bear and all the other animals in this neck of the woods all huddled in a big circle making little sounds at each other, they didn’t notice me or something and when they did they all ran towards me real quick so I shot at the bear and hit it in the neck or head and I just took off and kept firing some shots in the air to try and scare them. As soon as I got to the edge of the woods- I’m lucky it wasn’t too far, they stopped coming after me, but some of them jumped on me and tried to bite my legs, but they weren’t able to get a good hold of me. Honestly, I feel lucky to be alive.”



“Don is still a bit shaken up about this, police did a quick drug test and breathalyzer and he passed both. This story reminds us of another recent event in the news. About two days ago in Ebensburg Pennsylvania: a young boy named Tim Telts claimed to witness a large group of mixed species that seemed to be interacting with one another and chased him out as soon as they discovered his presence. Could these two stories be related? Back to you John!”



. . .



And that’s it. Those were the very first reports (to the public) of what I’m about to share with you. A paradigm shift no one saw coming. The year was 2024 and I was twelve years old when these reports aired, although that was about forty years ago, it feels to me like the distance a surreal nightmare has to waking life.



. . .



Back in November of 2013 the “Master” genetic engineer, Gregory Nemled, completed his unnerving work in engineering a Chimpanzee that had “anthropomorphic capabilities”. What this means is that this ape was endowed with the same ratiocination processes as a human. No one alive today knows how he did it (nor does anyone enjoying a lifestyle that’s in balance with the world care to find out). That’s because there are no more genetic engineers alive, as far as we know they were all either killed in the war, or gave up their profession for good in order to stay alive. Genetic Engineers, along with many others, have no place in a culture that’s equal with all of nature.



Despite a few exceptions this ape- who Nemled fitfully named Sacajawea, because he knew she would soon be responsible for guiding civilized humans to new places and perspectives they’ve never had access to before- was nothing like any other ape raised in captivity: Sacajawea had the ability to comprehend written language and write it as well, this includes grammar, syntax and creativity. These things thus far being unique to the human species alone. Sacajawea was only the first of eight Chimps in which Nemled engineered with these cognitive capabilities. Each ape possessing greater comprehension and writing skills then the last. It is unclear why exactly Nemled did these experiments or who funded him. Just a few years earlier such experiments where illegal, but with new political leaders came new and troubling opportunities- after all, it was progress, it was necessary for human benefit, perhaps we’d discover a new cure to one illness or another.



Most people saw this undertaking as a great achievement for science- they saw it as a potential bridge between the animal kingdom and themselves. Those who spoke against these achievements were often simply drowned out by the overwhelming approval, and perceived need (as it was with all things they had lived without for all of time- once they had something new they couldn‘t imagine life without it) by the masses. Even some animal rights activists, after much debate about the ethical and moral implications, decided that science had finally done something good and right. Finally we would be able to read the thoughts of other Earthlings, and they would be the words of sages, the words we longed for.



The articles that still remain indicate that Nemled was a self described “animal lover“. He said he sought, “to use these magnificent creatures to develop solutions for a wide variety of human issues such as mental illness” and he went on to list other daunting human and social perplexities. These articles also gave that current culture an idea of how things began to turn sour for their, and once my own, beloved civilization.



May of 2016, “The Chimps are being educated in human history, pre-history, art, science, math, and all the normal studies an advanced high school education entails. They are making remarkable progress”, said one article. This means the chimps already knew more then most of the highly educated humans of the world, because these apes had another advantage: Great memory. It was discovered in 2007 that Chimps possessed a far greater ability for numerical recollection than human adults. Chimps are able to count without actually counting, much like seeing the number thirty-four in their minds when presented with thirty-four items instead of taking the time to count them. Normal humans tend to have to count each item: one, two, three, four, five, six. However, the Nemled chimps were also able to recollect far more then just numbers.



Some speculated this skill to be an “evolutionary tradeoff”, but it was, “no longer a tradeoff with Nemled’s apes. Every aspect of their physical appearance and behavior resembles humans- you could see it in the way they walk, read, sit, eat and even in the way they play chess.”, another science magazine article said.



By 2018 the chimps were so advanced in their studies that they expressed boredom with the limited ways and things humans could teach. They wrote Nemled a proposal asking to be let free into their natural habitat were they could study nature in person for themselves and bring their unique perspective back to civilization for the humans. They told Nemled that he could attach cameras and tracking devices and that they would stay away from humans at all costs. They agreed to wear bright orange bands across their chests, “The theory being so that no humans would shoot them if they saw these animals wearing such a color in the wild.” Said the first of a series of articles that published the unique findings and experiences of the apes in National Geographic.



According to all the articles I have, “The apes discovered that they were able to communicate with apes in the wild as they have among the eight of themselves.”  I’ll try to sum up what they mean here by communicate. I’m simplifying what I think the apes meant when they wrote an article explaining this communication process. These apes had such an outstanding understanding of physical body language that their minds could actually read every slight musculature movement as a language as clear as written words. Nemled was at first highly skeptical of the extent to which they claimed to understand musculature movement as such a clear language. However, it was easy for the apes to prove this to him by “reading his mind”. They wrote him a note asking him to ask them what he was thinking. He did and they wrote back, “You’re thinking that this is impossible but if true would be an amazing breakthrough for your species, you’re also hungry and you need more protein in your diet today”. That’s what Nemled released to be published but the article also states that the chimps handed him two pages worth of analysis.



It is my personal believe that human languages can be extremely constraining and therefore limits what can be said or comprehended. There’s a reason why we so often are lost for the words while our bodies never cease to be silent. Its as though we humans understand each others body language but to write it down would be a hopeless endeavor. 



Nemled decided that the best place for his chimps would be in Gombe, Tanzania- a national park 52 sq km (20 sq miles), it is Tanzania's smallest park. The chimps encountered new chimps that where wild but used to human visitors, these were the same chimps from a lineage Jane Goodall devoted her life to protecting. Goodall was an anthropologist. She was known for her extensive study of chimpanzee social and family interactions in Gombe.



It wasn’t until 2021 that the chimps arrived, Jane Goodall was no longer alive at this time. At first Nemled’s crew didn’t let the Nemled chimps have full one-on-one contact with the other chimps. They waited until 2022, when both the Nemled chimps and the Gombe chimps were fully comfortable in communicating to each other and there were no signs of hostility. They even put the new chimps in oversized hamster wheel bubbles just to see how the Gombe chimps would react to their new visitors walking among them.



According to articles published the Gombe chimps didn’t seem to mind the new chimps at all. Had the Nemled chimps convinced them there was nothing to fear? Nemled couldn’t chance having his creations killed, he took all his meticulous precautionary efforts very seriously. Its unclear why everything went as smoothly as it did, but the Nemled chimps were permitted by the others to simply study them and everything else Gombe had to offer. By the looks of Goodall’s work with chimpanzees I think its safe to say that she would have disapproved of genetically engineering chimps and she probably would have had mixed feelings about letting them into Gombe, but I can only speculate.



The chimps wrote extensively about all the insects, vegetation the water the birds the interconnectedness of all the organisms that inhabit Gombe. They wrote articles about the beautiful night sky and how they wished they had never learned all they did about space so they could bask in even more wonder at all the possibilities. They also noted in one article that, “They would have preferred to learn everything from the source rather than the overly bias writings of civilized humans thoughts on nature.” They noted, “An unbiased view of nature was extremely rare among civilized humans.”



At first the articles where just what everyone was looking for. For the first time humans had access to the views of their closest relatives in the animal kingdom, but National Geographic did edit and limit the amount of the articles to about ten pages. If you wanted to read the rest you had to download it in an electronic format off the internet, but that too was edited, or I should say censored and limited in its length. National Geographic put most of the writings in digital format for good reason, because it was a better alternative to printing very thick books every month, books made from paper which is created from trees. The Nemled chimps suggested this because they hated the thought of killing trees. They also used laptops instead of writing on paper (thankfully, these days we no longer mass produce anything). After the collapse of the internet no one was able to recover any of these writings, now that I look back I personally believe this was also a part of the Nemled chimps plan. I’m sure there were hardcopies in a National Geographic building somewhere, but I’m also sure they were burned in all the fires during the collapse.



The Nemled chimps wrote many papers within their short stay, but only one article from May, 19th 2023 got the world’s attention. That’s when the Chimps told the world how the Gombe chimps really felt about their plight. Although Goodall did her best to preserve this luscious habitat for these chimpanzees, after her passing, illegal hunters went on a rampage for “unknown” reasons. This event devastated those chimps, they lost three family members during that intrusion. The Gombe chimps said that, “things had better change and real soon“, that, “the humans must stop destroying the world“. Apparently they knew of more destruction then just their own homes, this must be because the Nemled chimps past on some important information about civilization and the civilized lifestyle and all of its devastating effects on the world. That new knowledge enraged the Gombe park inhabitants so much so that no human was able to get near a Gombe chimp unless they sedated them first, but as soon as they woke up the chimps would violently attack any nearby human. One published incident involved a chimp killing a researcher by biting and then tearing off his face and arms. Soon human contact with these chimps became extremely rare. They eventually had to close the park off to all visitors. Nemled decided to pull the plug on his Chimp’s visit.



Even though National Geographic edited and cut out a lot of what the chimps wrote, the message in the last article was frighteningly clear. The animals sage advice to the human race was to stop the destruction and interference of the natural processes that all living organisms depend on or there would be dire consequences. I’m very sure that the chimps went into great detail in providing us with possible solutions, but as we all know- civilized humans have bigger concerns than listening to the natural world complain about their destructive ways. Besides, we already “went green” years ago, what else could they possibly want from us? People asked, “What do they want us to do, live like animals?” I’m sure even the National Geographic didn’t agree with any of the ape’s proposed solutions. Back then, even as a child, I might have taken the same stance.

. . .



The Gombe experiment was over in the year 2024. Not because the public lost their interest, although most people didn’t pay any attention even while it was going on because they had more important things to occupy their time and minds with- like paying bills, getting better jobs, running businesses, the economy, oil, starting families, surviving and all the other things civilized people have to do to keep it all going.



The whole occurrence became just another fleeting spectacle, but because of my recent run in with some other angry animals that chased me out of the woods near my home in Ebensburg Pennsylvania, I began my obsession with researching the internet for things that related to my experience. My first search was, “Violent animals in the news” soon after my televised interview with Sue Witt.



This is how I first discovered everything that happened between 2013 and 2023; Nemled’s engineered apes, Gombe’s closing and eventually I discovered that the eight “human-behaved” apes were reported missing. This was a bit much for a boy my age to handle. I started to grow paranoid of all animals I encountered, this included my massive pet dog, a black haired rambunctious Newfoundland I fittingly named Chances. “Chances” is fitting because his mother died during his birth and this almost cost his life as well. I’m not sure what happened to his puppy siblings his mother gave birth to before him, that was the extent of the information I got from the local kennel where I adopted Chances.



After being chased the way I was by those animals in the woods I decided I had to see which side Chances was on. I would intentionally stare him in the eyes and ask him if he would ever try to hurt me. All he would do it softly groan and lap up my cheek with a wet tongue that was the size of my head. I also knew that his breed had a very strong propensity for rescuing people. Eventually Chances helped me to overcome my silly fear of all animals, but my research unveiled many other recent similar stories that were sometimes more disturbing than my own, I decided that whatever was happening was only happening with wild animals.







    Prologue - Part Two:



. . . 



Now I need to take you back to a place you may not be able to relate to, depending on your age, except for the things our teachers taught you younger readers about, like how “civilized“ humans lived, so you may sometimes need more clarification. I will do my best to keep this in mind throughout this writing, but because I cannot know what you do or do not know I simply advise you to ask one of our many teachers about anything I bring up that you do not know of. I do not claim to be an expert. Although our teachers have taught you almost everything they know about what the world was once like and things they had and used on a daily basis, i.e. computers, the internet, cars, assembly lines, phones, calculators, blenders, microwaves and all those other gadgets we no longer need, (I’ll go into greater detail as to why they’re unnecessary later.) Our teachers have not told you the story of how and why that world has fallen, and why that world must remain so.



As you have learned from our teachers, in the old times most of the humans on Earth lived in cities. Cities, to the best of our knowledge are unsustainable. So what was the downfall of these places called cities? One downfall is that they were meant to be permanent settlements. The problem with a permanent settlement is that the land around it becomes depleted by the toilsome methods of something called agriculture. Agriculture eventually leads to the importation of foods from other locations, until those locations deplete that land as well- all the while the citizens of that city are still in a place that cannot support them. Instead of relocating they just keep on importing the foods, meanwhile this made it possible for that city to grow its population which in turn needed yet more food and sooner than later the city needed to expand to facilitate all the new citizens, as more people lived longer do to medical advancements, the birth rates went up but the death rates didn‘t, it was out of balance. Not only that but required nonstop work.



Another downfall of cities is that they depended on all sorts of technologies that were meant to make the lives of those living in them better or more favorable. These technologies, for the most part, were pointless outside of the context of their culture. These technologies were made of many materials such as metals from mountains, wood from trees and other things that you must dig and cut the Earth to have access to. It was one thing that they made such technologies, but they decided that all civilized people needed such inventions and technologies. This was the birth of mass production. Shortly after something was invented it was soon found in every home. One in each house wasn’t always enough for them, most people had to have one or more of each new thing. Soon the mountains, trees and all the other places they dug and cut the Earth began to be depleted. This meant they would have to make yet newer technologies to get at those “resources” they couldn’t reach before. All the while the other members of the community of life noticed massive changes happening all around them.



The other members of the community of life were not always able to put the pieces together and see that it was the civilized humans and all their advancements that was behind all this destruction. They only knew to run when they saw the machines coming. They couldn’t foresee what that machines were there to do to their habitat, so when they came back to a place that used to be their home the animals were devastated, but there was nothing they could do except for find a new home. However, there were a few animals that could put the pieces together, but they didn’t know what to do about it- what could they do about it? The humans were too many and too smart for any major confrontation, but still some tried. Some animals would occasionally revolt and kill a few humans only to be shot dead within minutes or days.



. . .



I didn‘t always understand things to be this way, I once would have called anyone speaking this way a dreamer or maybe even an extremist that was obviously out-of-touch with reality, but I have a unique friend to thank for opening my eyes to the real world- a world were we humans have time for one another, time for our lives instead of devoting nearly every waking moment to figuring out how to get more money- because everyone knew that if you weren’t making money then you were just wasting your life away. I once had faith in what industrial civilization was doing. Actually I didn’t think of it as doing anything, to me it was just the way things were. I was ignorant to what laid beyond the gates of civilization. Although we had all those interesting nature shows on television to remind and educate us of the world beyond our toilsome deprivation tanks, those shows could never compensate for the reality we just didn’t take part in anymore.

   

It was by no coincidence that I was not alone in this delusion. Although there are many different types of cultures within civilization they all had the same problem- they perceived an addiction to it. Can you blame them? That feeling of having so much say over everything is easy to get used to. With addiction (perceived or real) comes many other problems. First of all people suffering from addiction have a hard time thinking of life without whatever it is they’re addicted to- because civilized people believed they depended on civilization to live and to function, as dysfunctional as it all was.



Like everyone else, I too suffered from this addiction. Beyond the gates of civilization is one place I thought I’d never end up. The thought never crossed my mind. It was unthinkable. Surely I would die “Out There”. But as you already know, we have the “indigenous” and the “tribal” to thank for their teachings and willingness to welcome us back to the way humans have always lived.



Without them all of the once-civilized would have perished. Most of them that knew of civilization could see how it attempted to domesticate evolution, although they wouldn‘t have said it like that. They knew it was all in vain to try and place life itself in a cage of sorts. They knew evolution/ life needs its freedom, depends on it, it ceases to be when it is contained and therefore given limited access to the things that sustain it. The processes of evolution depend on a reciprocal non-stop interaction with life, and all our medical, technological, systematical and other addictions simply denied it these things.



We put ourselves over life. The ignorant desires born from discontent guided us all the way to many astounding and frightening achievements, again, we were distracted by our capability to do such great things. But the show couldn’t go on forever. All spectacles come to an end, otherwise they wouldn’t be unique.



It is now my duty to tell you the story that must be remembered as long as there are humans- or any other animals capable of the same things these humans were.



The animals that Don, the man from the news report, spoke of were indeed having a “meeting”, they were indeed plotting something, something no civilized human thought possible.



*(Note to reader: A Civil War will continue. I'm working on the 1st Chapter, taking reviews into consideration and so on. Thank you for reading and I look forward to reading your review on this Prologue. - Theodore Bolha)