In February 2015, the world crazy over the colour of a dress! Sounds trivial doesn't it, but why was it so significant? Perhaps because it shows the differences between humans and that reality is not what we perceive it to be. Some people saw a black and blue dress while others saw a white and gold dress. How can people see two completely different sets of colours? I remember the frustration of trying to convince my colleagues at work that the dress was white and gold and they equally tried to make me believe it was black and blue. Which colours did you see?
Could it be that there are bigger differences between us than we originally thought? After hundreds of thousands of years in our present state, could humans finally be on the verge of evolving into a different species? Could a genetic shift or something latent within us awaken superhuman powers making the rest of the human race slow, dumb and obsolete? The questions are endless, and in my view make a fantastic research and science fiction project. I have written a novel from this scenario called 'The White and Gold People'.
There was a time when our early human ancestors (homo-sapiens) competed with Neanderthals. We were wiser, and stronger and they eventually became extinct around 30,000 years go. Natural selection is a key mechanism of evolution, and some scientists predict that different species will have evolved by 2050.
It is said that humans are still only in their infancy when it comes to evolution there's a lot more weird and wacky mutations to come in the future. The biggest evolutionary changes have come from the brain such as abstract thinking and language.
The eyes are one of our key sensory organs giving us sight. Generally most humans see things the same apart from conditions in eye such as short/long sightedness and colour blindness. The highly spiritual can see auras and spirits. Clairvoyants see things that are distant in time or space. The 'dress saga' lies in conjunction with the idea in quantum physics that what we see is actually far different from reality, and our perception can be different to someone else's.
In the White and Gold People I explore these scenarios from the perspective of protagonist Laura Golding, a 21-year-old, attractive law student from UCLA. Laura is one of the people (15%) who see the dress in white and gold, while others see it in black and blue. Overnight the 'goldies' awaken their third eye giving them powers such as clairvoyance, teleportation, telepathy, remote viewing and superhuman strength, whereas the 'blueys' stay the same.
When a video is uploaded of a goldy in America teleporting to Australia in a matter of seconds, tensions rise between the two groups and the blueys view them with contempt and fear. After the president is assassinated an International manhunt is started to capture all white and gold people. They are deemed a threat to the future of humanity and are taken into quarantine units to be tested like lab rats and have their powers weaponised by security agencies.
Laura is identified as one of these people and learns to use her powers to evade capture. She finds other white and gold people who form an alliance to protect themselves from the blueys and government agencies but eventually war erupts between the two groups. The future of humanity will take a big leap into uncertainty as both groups fight for survival but one thing is for certain; the losers will cease to exist and the winners will be inhabitants of the New World.
