The Stud and the Supermind: A Science Fiction Story

In the 22^nd century, the world was ruled by a group of superhumans that was known to all as the Wiser Ones.

The Wiser Ones had first come into existence during the 21^st century, as a result of advances in genetic engineering. Scientists had figured out how to create smarter people by manipulating human DNA. But it was very expensive and time-consuming to create smarter people. It could only be done for a small number of people.

Several hundred genetically enhanced people were born, and as children they quickly proved themselves to be amazing prodigies. When they reached puberty, the children had their IQ's tested, and all of them had IQ's around 300, three times as high as the average human IQ.

When the children grew to be adults, they began to marry and reproduce. But these genetically enhanced humans followed a rigid rule: each of them only married other people that had been genetically enhanced in the same way as themselves.

In this way there arose a kind of race within the human race. The race was known as the Wiser Ones. Given their greatly superior intelligence, it was easy for the Wiser Ones to gain high offices and positions of power.

After a few generations of the Wiser Ones, it became more or less standard thinking that the top executive jobs in private industry and government rightfully belonged to the Wiser Ones, just as it had once been more or less standard thinking that the top jobs in industry and government belonged to Yale and Harvard graduates.

Lisa Tyler, age 23, was one of the Wiser Ones. She had graduated from Harvard at age 14, and had already founded a huge multinational conglomerate. Her career plans included becoming a United States Senator, and then the President of the United States. She thought this was a fairly easy path, given the fact that so many of her fellow Wiser Ones could be expected to help one of their kind, being in positions of great power themselves.

Lisa had been told from childhood that if she married she must marry another of the Wiser Ones. Lisa's father had often told her: if a Wiser One were to marry an ordinary human, it would be like a man marrying a chimpanzee.

One day Lisa was at the beach with her longtime boyfriend, brilliant young Alan Fletcher, another of the Wiser Ones. Lisa was in the water swimming by herself while Alan tanned. Suddenly an undertow began to drag Lisa out to sea. Lisa tried in vain to swim back to the shore, but could not overcome the undertow. Lisa began hollering for help.

Alan stood at the edge of the water, yelling, “Swim parallel to the beach!”

A muscular young man named Rod noticed Lisa struggling in the water.

Rod plunged into the water, and began swimming out towards Lisa. He grabbed Lisa's arm, and pulled her away from the undertow.

When Lisa got back to the shore, she asked Alan, “Why didn't you try to save me?”

“I recalled the high rate of swimmers who die when trying to save other swimmers from undertows,” said Alan. “I calculated that the risk was too high.”

The next day Lisa dumped Alan, telling him that their relationship was over. She began dating young Rod. He was much less intelligent than Lisa's previous boyfriend Alan, but there were certain physical ways in which Rod greatly surpassed the wispy young Alan.

At first Lisa thought that her involvement with Rod would merely be a short-term fling. Rod, after all, was not one of the Wiser Ones. He was just an ordinary run-of-the-mill human. People like Lisa did not get seriously involved with people like Rod.

But after a few dates, Lisa found herself falling madly in love with Rod.

Eventually Lisa told her father about her new romance. Her father did not take the news well.

“You've 'fallen in love' – and with an ordinary human?” said Dad. “First of all, 'falling in love' is a primitive emotional syndrome that may be all very well for ordinary little-brained humans, but it is something that we Wiser Ones avoid. We Wiser Ones make life decisions that are products of rational cogitation, not some emotional churning of hormones. Secondly, if you do want to 'fall in love' you should do it with another of your own kind, another Wiser One.”

“Dad, you may be a genius,” said Lisa, “but you know nothing about matters of the heart.”

Lisa went with her boyfriend Rod to various social events of the Wiser Ones, where she was treated as coldly as a man introducing a gay husband at a reunion of a Navy Seals unit. Everyone was thinking: what's the problem with Lisa, dating a regular human rather than one of her own kind?

Finally Lisa and Rod decided to marry. Her father begged her one last time to reconsider.

“Do you really want to bear children with a man whose IQ is only about 130?” asked Dad. “Your children would be so simple-minded – their IQ's would be only about 200.” Lisa was not persuaded, pointing out that her children would probably still be in the top 1 percent in intelligence.

Lisa and Rod invited quite a few of the Wiser Ones to the wedding, but all of them came up with excuses for why they could not attend.

Lisa was sad to have been spurned by the other Wiser Ones. But the fact that she married an ordinary human proved to have one advantage. When Lisa finally ran for President of the United States, she ran against another one of the Wiser Ones. The voters figured that the Wiser One who had married an ordinary human would be more likely to care about the interests and problems of ordinary humans.

Lisa won by a landslide, becoming the sixth female President of the United States.