The Blind Pig
"You are the genetic sum of all life that has proceeded you. Not just human life, but life itself."
Dr. Bryan Derksen as told to the bar
In the late 20th century a meteor was discovered in Antartica which was determined to have originated on Mars. In 2001, Beagle II, an unmanned probe, was dispatched to Mars to collect samples and return to Earth. The samples proved definitively that life existed beyond our world.
Through a tragic series of circumstances, quarantine was compromised and an airborne extraterrestrial virus was released. The virus was highly virulent, and mutated. It was called Martian Flu. About 6 percent of the population of developed countries died -- in the Third World, the death toll was as high as 30 percent. The disease is present in approximately 87 percent of the population.
Approximately six months after contracting the flu began a to mutate -- acquiring characteristics and forms of animals. Some became the total animal, some just took on part of it. Some people could control their changes, some couldn't. Some people changed genders. Some could control their aging process.
Dr. Robert Stein, head researcher ast the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, found and isolated the organism that attached itself at the genetic level and caused approximately 8 percent of those affected with Martian Flu to change --- Stein's Chronic Accelerated Bio-morphic Syndrome -- SCABS -- as the process was named.
How Scabs Works
Somehow SCABS is able to tap into the racial memory within humans. Moving backwards along the path of evolution using information buried deep within our genetic code, it can pick and choose the genetic path from which to mutate. SCABS -- depending on it's host -- goes backwards in genetic time to the single organism stage and then branch out along any path it chooses, up to and including any modern animal.
SCABS acts as a key to the genetic footlocker. It fits one specific lock in a person's body. For the vast majority of humanity, the virus is a key that doesn't fit their individual lock, so they experience nothing beyond flu symptoms.
Scabs Variations
Animorphs -- having the characteristics of animal species. 70 percent of the people contracting this form of SCABS partially transform and lock and are unable to become fully animla or fully human again. The other 30 percent have some varying degrees of control over their abilities.Inanimorphs -- have the ability to take on the characteristics of inanimate objects. This is the rarest form of SCABS. Less than one tenth of one percent of the SCABS population are inanimorphs. Science has found not explanation as yet for this phenomenon.
Gendermorphs -- causes shifts in gender. Can be voluntary or involuntary. Seems to affect mostly men. 95 percent of all gendermorphs start as men.
Chronomorphs -- another rarity. They have the ability to affect changes in the aging process. Only a tiny percentage of total chronomorphs exist. They have the power to change their age and a limited power to affect change in others for very brief periods of time.
Polymorphs -- have the power to become any shape, age, animal or gender at will. This is the rarest form of SCABS. There are fewer than 1,600 known polymorphs in the entire world. They have the limited ability to affect changes in appearance in others. Changes last no more than one day.
The Bar
The Blind Pig Gin Mill is the name of the bar where I first set the universe. The city is unnamed and should remain so. The bar is owned and operated by Donnie Sinclair, a 640 lbs animorph with the head and internal organs of an extinct breed of wild cattle called an Auroch.
The rest of the characters appear in many of the stories.
- Tails from the Blind Pig
![[good]](../../images/good.gif)
- by Mark Van Sciver
- Lady's Night
- by Wanderer
- Standard Bar Fare
- by Jack deMule
- Splendor's Story
![[adult]](../../images/adult.gif)
- by Regal
- Splendor's Story - Afterword
- by Mark Van Sciver
- Prices
- by Kim Liu
- Donnie's ground rules
- by Mark Van Sciver
- Timing
- by Brian Eirik Coe
- The man who knew himself
- by Mark Van Sciver
- To Know Another ...
- by Wanderer
- Retribution
- by Bob Stein
- A song of hand music
- by Mark Van Sciver
- The Buck Stops Here
- by Jon Sleeper
- Wanderer's Ways
- by Wanderer
- Wanderer's Story
- by Wanderer
- Wanderer's Story - Afterword
- by Mark Van Sciver
- Remember When
- by Jon Sleeper and Brian Eirik Coe
- Single Parent
- by Bob Stein
- Days and Nights
- by Brian Eirik Coe
- The Best Medicine
- by Bob Stein
- O' Come All Ye ....
- by Mark Van Sciver
- Tis the Season
- by Jon Sleeper
- Family Ties
- by Jon Sleeper
- Good Mojo
- by Bryan Derksen
- A Mugwump Wakes
- by Bill Hart
- Sidestep
- by Wanderer
- At Days End
- by Brian Eirik Coe
- Refugee
- by Phil Geusz
- The Price That We Pay
- by Tal Greywolf
- Holocaust
- by Phil Geusz
- The Sweetheart Clip
- by Feech
- A View from the Fence
- by J. Wells
- Hard Times
- by Doug Linger
- Quoth the Raven
- by Raven Blackmane
- What Might Have Been
- by J.T. Skunk
- A Wolf in the fold
- by Mat Charles
- Empty Spaces
- by J. Wells
- Entrances & Exits
- by Phil Geusz and J. Wells
- One last Night
- by Fox Cutter
- When On Earth
- by Feech
- A Fair Start
- by Feech
- Off His Noggin`
- by Wanderer
- Justice
- by Captain Webster
- Green as Grass
- by Phil Geusz
- Butch And The Blade
- by Phil Geusz
- Everything's Wild
- by Brian Eirik Coe
- Angel of Mercy
- by Regal
- Friends
- by Mat Charles
- The Best Medicine
- by Doug Linger
- Death Is Real
- by Phil Geusz
- Essence of Art
- by Phil Geusz
- Four Phonecalls and an Ad
- by Thomas Hassan
- The Gift of the Woods
- by Jon Sleeper and Brian Eirik Coe
- Graduation Day
- by Phil Geusz
- Great Divide
- by Feech
- Hard Wiring
- by Phil Geusz
- TBP- Jaywalking
- by J. Wells
- A Quiet Night
- by Tal Greywolf
- Requiems for the shadow people
- by Mark Van Sciver
- Striking Back
- by Joanne Hunter
- Ways and Means
- by Mat Charles
- Wild and Crazy
- by Oren the Otter & Phil Geusz
- A Wuff at the Door
- by Mat Charles