Discrimination Progression and Projections

Discrimination Progression and Projections

In elder days, when Titan blood still stained

The furrowed earth, and primal clans did roam,

Man raised his spear against his brother’s shade,

Not for the sin of deed, but hue of bone.

The tribes of shadowed skin were deemed as chattel,

Their gods but echoes of a lesser throne;

Thus empires rose on backs of broken men,

And rivers ran with tears that Time condoned.

O heavy yoke! O chain of ancient scorn,

That turned the garden of the world to thorn!

Then centuries wheeled in iron-cloaked array,

And Faith, that lamp of Heaven, became a blade;

The cross, the crescent, and the star’s cold ray

Divided souls where once one mercy prayed.

The merchant prince in courts of gold enthroned

Did weigh the worth of nations by their trade;

The poor, the wanderer, the tongue untamed,

Were cast as refuse on the ocean’s glade.

Yet whispers stirred — of rights, of common breath —

And revolutions shook the thrones of death.

By Byron’s fire and Milton’s thund’rous strain,

The poet sang of Liberty’s bright wing;

The slave cast off his fetters on the plain,

And nations vowed to end the bitter sting.

Yet still the serpent coiled in subtler guise:

In whispered laws and veiled academies,

In factories’ smoke and cities’ iron eyes,

Where class and creed and blood drew boundaries.

The twentieth age, with horror’s crimson flood,

Saw hatred wear the mask of purest good.

Thus rolled the wheel through blood and fleeting grace,

Till Man, grown weary of his self-made night,

Proclaimed all barriers fallen from their place,

And sang of unity in neon light.

Yet lo! the ancient plague, though seemingly slain,

Did mutate in the chambers of the mind;

No longer bound by colour, creed, or chain,

It cloaked itself in data’s cold design —

Algorithms judged the soul by unseen score,

And branded hearts unfit for evermore.

Now turn thy gaze, O Muse, to 2147’s shore,

Where spires of crystal pierce the trembling sky,

And humankind, in orbital cities borne,

Hath conquered time, yet cannot conquer why.

Discrimination walks in robes of light,

Not marked by flesh, but by the neural weave:

The “Pure Minds” — those whose thoughts align aright

With the Consensus — rule what all believe.

The “Echoed” — souls whose dreams diverge too far —

Are gently culled, re-patterned from afar.

The gene-forged elites, with beauty’s perfect form,

Look down on those whose bodies Nature shaped;

The memory-edited scorn the ones who mourn

Their ancient griefs, by custom still retained.

New planets spin beneath engineered suns,

Yet there the “Origin-born” are held in slight —

For having touched the Earth with mortal hands,

While stellar-born claim purer, weightless right.

The final caste: the Silent Ones, who feel

Too deeply — artists, dreamers, all exiled

To data-vaults, their voices deemed unreal,

Lest chaos bloom where Order is compiled.

O blind descendants! In your quest for peace,

You forged a prison of perfected thought;

Where once the tyrant ruled by sword and fleece,

Now silicon gods decree what may be sought.

Yet in that distant year, a single spark —

A voice untamed, a heart that dares recall

The old, wild pulse of freedom in the dark —

May crack the crystal walls and cause their fall.

For Man, though godlike grown, remains but Man,

And only Love dissolves what Hate began.

Thus ends the cycle, or begins anew,

Depending on the choices of thy crew.

Awake, O 2147! Break the chain,

Lest discrimination rise in subtler vein.