The first miniature humans, or homunculi – their bones too weak to support them – were nonetheless a vital step in solving the problems of over-population then suffered on Earth. On average, humans are now one third the size they were at the beginning of the 21st century.
Delusions of grandeur frequently affected the big-brained little people, though often with more than a hint of self-mockery. ‘Behold, I am the greatest among you,’ one peculiar chap would introduce himself to any group, gloriously pulling open his blanket (Plate 15). This one lived most of his life in quite a small asylum.
The combination of smaller bodies, advanced intelligence and flight was thought to be the next step in controlled evolution. The result, though, was a rather anti-social sub-species with little interest in contributing to human affairs. Some suggest they feel ashamed to have been created by humans. So the question for homunculi must be: what is it to not be human? And yet not alien or robot? To be of human, though far superior in all ways…?
We’ll never really know since they quickly created a new, presumably improved, language – unintelligible to us, for their new, improved thoughts. Assuming of course that ‘thinking’ has not been superseded by whatever it is that they do with themselves.
The few homunculi that gathered together in the museum stayed merely for protection from their creators. I once asked them what they had to fear from their creators and one deigned to respond in my own language, ‘Our creators were dedicated scientists; it is those that seek to use or harm us we stay away from.’ A finely made distinction.
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