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The Shift refers to a magical-scientific error during a meeting between the Lubyakan Consortium of Unicorns for the Betterment of Man and the Marshite Healthcare Service at Saint Husky Medical Center in Saint Husky, Holy Marsh. As a result of this event, all males in the The Grand Theocracy of Holy Marsh took on the appearance of females, and testing shows that this change is permanent and has been hard-coded into Marshites' now modified Y chromosome meaning it will continue on into the future. While naturally something that unnerved many Marshites initially, the impact has been muted tremendously by the Church's stance on gender identity and equality that has erased lines between the genders. While small religious changes were worked on as a result and the military looked into modifications of equipment and training to take into account the smaller size of the people, the effects of The Shift are not extreme.
The Grand Theocracy has for generations been a leader in Gender Science. Being a nation whose religion portrays the sexes equally and has fully supported the rights of all types of people looking to explore gender and sex, the Church has always stepped in to help those on the path of self-discovery or simply curious. These efforts were given a boost in 1975 AD when they came into contact with an alien race called the Tam'ran, who gave Marshites advanced technology in several medical areas with the agreement that it would never be militarized. This technology has allowed the Marshites to work on people at the cellular level, changing everything from hormones to the inter-personal developmental timeline. The result is that Marshite Gender Science was capable of allowing someone to explore other genders at ease. The result was that hundreds of millions of men and equal numbers of women at any one time would experience life as the other gender for a period exceeding a year, with almost thirty percent of the nation doing so at some point of their life.
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Lubyak is a nation that has many types of magical critter, the Unicorn being the most prevalent. Among the many political action groups in Lubyak, one of the most active and loud was the Lubyakan Consortium of Unicorns for the Betterment of Man. They sought a way to tie the magical abilities of unicorns with the ways of humans as way of uplifting them and hopefully closing the relations gap between humans and equines in Lubyak after a failed coup. While they did not have great influence inside of Lubyak and in the political world, they were well known for doing good deeds and were thought well of. Eventualy, in order to bolster their reputation, they made a deal to visit the Holy Marsh and see what they could learn in order to help Lubyakans back home.
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The Consortium's visit took place over the course of two weeks. The first week was uneventful and ended with them failing to learn a spell to mimic the Marshite method of farming, but that was just the end of what had been a pleasant first week. The next week was to be spent at St. Husky Medical Center, one of the foremost centers for gender transformation. The goal was to learn the science that went into the transformations so that the Consortium could understand the basics and apply it magically. Leading voices from both the scientific and magical communities stated there was little cause for concern as science and magic had existed together for some time. The first day of the visit went off without a hitch and both sides agreed to allow the Consortium to inspect the scientific equipment given by the alien race.
The next day, the inspection began. What followed next is up for debate- those that were at the site have no recollection of the day at all. Camera feeds show that one or two unicorns snuck off and seemed to try multiple times to cast a spell. Marshites and other unicorns approached, but instead of stopping the unicorns, spoke with them. They then crowded around one of the machines. One of the Marshites started speaking as if giving a speech, and it was then that all seven horns in the area lit up. Surprised faces on all seven before a blinding flash shut the camera off.
What followed is barely understood. Within seventeen seconds, Marshites across the globe who had used the technologies relating to the Y chromosome- the specific machine the unicorns and Marshites had crowded around- underwent a dramatic physical alteration. There were no exceptions to this, but luckily there was no pain. Across the nation a series of small car accidents in heavy traffic as well as a few scared moments of flight were the result, but there was no major incident. Distance seemed to not impact the rate of change, as outside of Saint Husky, men were impacted at different times.
The leading theory as to what happened was the Lubyakan magic was not counted on by the machine. The initial tampering allowed the machine to tap into the Aetheral flow of magic that permeates the planet. It then went into overdrive as it was unable to process the magic, burning itself out and altering all those who had the designations of Marshite in the records. Owing to the extensive Saint Husky records that were connected to the blood system of the Church, the machine thus sent out its ultra powerful transformation genetic program out across the aether. It was aided by the other machines in charge of the Y chromosome, and the effect cascaded across the world. All Marshites were targeted and hit by not one, but over three thousand transformation programs in short order. the current belief is that had the machine been set on changing Y chromosomes to X chromosomes instead of the Modified Y, there would be no Marshite men to speak of.
For a period of about three hours, Holy Marsh shut down. It had less to do with the majority- who after a few minutes nervously went outside and tried to contact others and kept calm- and more with the minority who were too young to process the changes or were involved in crashes. Arch Bishop Lainik issued a statement, appealing for those afflicted to remain calm and remember to attend mass to seek guidance. The next few days saw a gradual reduction in stress as people grew accustomed to the new reality and the church investigated the situation. The Consortium was initially held as suspects in a crime, but a lack of evidence as well as clean records meant that the Arch-Bishop ordered them released and returned to Lubyak. At the next General Mass on Wednesday, the Arch-Bishop released the report detailing the leading theory and declared the matter settled:
"Our bodies change. Our souls do not. Our goals do not. Our sacrifices are still asked for." - Arch-Bishop Lainik's statement before prayer.
While some wanted more information, the Arch-Bishop did not offer any. In the following months, the questions died down as acceptance became standard. Three months after the event, all questions ceased.
The Male Shrine suffered a near total collapse, going from the seventh most popular shrine in the faith to the forty-fourth of forty-six shrines. Cardinal Thomas Schliey resigned his post and infighting fractured the small shrine in the face of The Shift. The Female Shrine, which had been eleventh most popular, grew to the third most popular and gained six adherents in the Cardinal Council, making it the most popular and powerful Shrine outside of the Monotheistic and Polytheistic. This in effect makes it the most powerful policy-based Shrine.
Further medical tests confirmed that the modified Y chromosome also impacted female Marshites, meaning that there is no way for Marshites to have children without passing on their own chromosome. Various attempts to use the alien technology to fix the problem has had the opposite effect- destroying the Y chromosome entirely and replacing it with an X, and turning the subject completely female. More strikingly, some Marshites are reporting their memories changing to reflect a Marshite history that had always been this way. Seeing as this is growing, leading scientists believe it may be mimetic. Further studies are ongoing.
If someone has an IC reaction, they are more than welcome to post!
