Editing Apogee: Harbinger (section)

== The Future Threat ==

Python is the organization—now a conquering empire—that threatens Kelly’s utopian society and the Earth’s ecosystems. Once it was an elitist but mostly harmless organization. Kelly’s mission is to keep this transformation from happening. The problem is that among the memories wiped from her mind by time travel are those related to exactly when and how this transformation took place.

Python was named after the dragon who originally guarded the Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece, which was later claimed by the god Apollo. It started off as a secret society made up mostly of mover and shakers from elite government, military, business and non-profit circles from around the world. They were involved with the occult, seeking intellectual enlightenment and foresight in order to make themselves more effective leaders. They were elitist, believing decision-making was best left in the hands of a small group of highly qualified leaders, but they also believed that their gifts should be used for the common good.

Somewhere along the way, they transformed, coming to identify with the dragon more than Apollo. They sought occult power not just for insight but to command armies and dominate others. They also moved from being a secret society to commanding first militias and then real armies. Instead of elite rule, they began preaching freedom, but a freedom based in exercising violent power, gradually moving from a doctrine of armed self-defense to armed domination. They came to glorify warfare, vengeance, and preach that those who were conquered were less worthy and undeserving of freedom, until they had been uplifted by their new masters, whose occult powers made them wiser and more worthy. In Kelly’s age, they have conquered much of the world and are threatening Kelly’s utopian society.

Python also claims to be saving the environment, identifying with the chthonic dragon Python and his mother Gaia, the primeval earth goddess. In practice, their constant warfare badly hurts the Earth and threatens to push the planet’s damaged ecosystems over the edge into large-scale collapse.