The Magister (Earthkeep) PROLOGUE In The Kanshou, Book One of EARTHKEEP, the citizens of Little Blue find themselves faced with 1) the disappearance from the planet of all non-human animals, 2) the effects of widespread natural disasters and weather cataclysms, 3) the reduction of their population to one sixth of its 1999 size, 4) a ratio in the human population of twelve women to every man, and 5) the global effects of decades of social and political unrest.As Little Blue's social, economic, military, and governmental power has shifted from men to women, new values, structures, and processes have emerged. By 2087, when action of The Kanshou takes place, nuclear families are rare, and the most common living pattern is still that of the extended family, honoring traditional kinship bonds. Women in such families usually embrace men as full partners in the human experience.Almost as common are the tribes, nations, or communities of women-only citizens who use ovular merging to produce girl-children among themselves or, alternatively, use men or semen banks for reproduction. Sexually, such women partner with other women, seek solitary sexual gratification, or live asexually. Some of them hold to the belief that womanhood or manhood is self-identified, while others of them claim biology as an immutable physical condition.By 2087 the ascendancy of women is the norm in all three of Little Blue's tri-satrapies or geo-political territories. Land, sea, and air divisions of the global peacekeeping force, called the Kanshoubu, are almost entirely female. Each Kanshou peacekeeper -- whether she is an Amah, a Femmedarme, or a Vigilante --- follows a code of conduct delineated in the Kanshoubu's Labrys Manual, and a large part of a Kanshou's responsibility is the confining of violent offenders (habitantes) to the planet's 780 prisons (bailiwicks).By the end of The Kanshou, a global movement has gained strength in support of a proposal that would require the testing of habitantes in a neurological search for the organic cause of human violence. If such a cause is found, protocols can then be initiated for the surgical removal of that cause. Zude, one of the Kanshoubu's three Magisters, fervently opposes both the Testing and the Protocols. Her old lover, charismatic witch Jezebel Stronglaces, leads the grassroots global forces in fighting for the approval of the Testing and the Protocols.
