Pedomorphs

Since Kyia brought the Curse under control very few people have willingly chosen to become age-regressed — the hassles and inconvenience associated with being a child forever are even greater than those associated with a change in gender or the acquisition of partial animal traits. Pedomorphs must constantly prove that they are old enough and mature enough to function in adult society — whether they're doing something as important as trying to get married, or as trivial as stopping at the bar for a drink. Many people have a hard time taking them seriously, and some purveyors of goods and services will simply refuse to serve them, no matter what their ID cards say.

There seem to be two main reasons why someone would become a pedomorph: the desire to honor a heroic ancestor, or an inordinately strong fear of aging. Kyia does not believe it is her right to refuse someone who wishes to adopt the pedomorph Curse, but many medical professionals tend to assume that pedomorphs are psychologically unbalanced and irrational. The fact that a pedomorph's instincts often cause him or her to revert to childlike behavior, especially under stress, only reinforces this viewpoint.

There are few jobs for which pedomorphs are particularly well-suited; any occupation that requires strength or stamina is usually beyond them, and customers rarely take them seriously enough for them to be successful in sales positions. Some survive as curiosities in the music world, or as "career child actors" in the TV and movie business. Those with a more empathetic bent can sometimes find work as counselors and child psychologists, where they are often particularly successful in working with the mentally disabled. A few even find work as spies or runners — their unassuming appearance allows them to infiltrate some places that adult agents might never be able to reach. The Imperial Ministry of Intelligence (IMI) is particularly fond of employing "familial operational units" — two adult agents accompanied by a pedomorph agent, who together pose as an ordinary family for the purpose of infiltrating enemy organizations.

Sensualist Guild Exclusion

One place you won't find pedomorphs is in a Sensualist parlor. The sex workers' guild decided in 1957 to bar age-regressed individuals from becoming Sensualists, after a number of high-profile cases of abuse and mistreatment by clients. The guild decided that any customer seeking sexual relations with an individual who was apparently underage was likely to be psychologically disturbed, and that a Sensualist in a child's or young teenager's body would lack the physical strength to protect him- or herself from mistreatment. Pedomorphs are sometimes found working as unlicensed prostitutes on the Street, or in the darker corners of the Fringe Sector, but such individuals are rarely happy and often come to an unpleasant end.

High-Generation Issue: Neoteny

High-generation pedomorphs can suffer from a disorder similar to the feralism seen in theriomorph lines. Instead of becoming bestial and animalistic, however, high-generation ARs show stunted growth and the retention of childlike traits (both behavioral and physical) into adulthood, a phenomenon called neoteny. This begins to appear in the fourth and fifth generations, in which the body stops developing somewhere in the teenage years. In the sixth generation, development is halted even earlier, often at a prepubescent stage; obviously, this makes it impossible for any higher-generation children to be born.

Like feralism, there is no cure for neoteny. ARs who are dedicated to preserving the trait in their family lines engage in careful geneology and family planning, much like the theriomorph families. ARs often have difficulty finding non-ARs who are willing to marry them, however, and often they simply choose to let their children grow up un-Cursed, hoping that some later generation will again take up the memory of their heroic ancestors.

Population

Only about 600,000 people in Metamor City today, or 4% of the overall population, have accepted this form of the Curse.

Known Pedomorphs

n/a


Source: Original MK2K Bible entry - The Curse]]

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