China had given one of the fruits of their genetic research to the North Koreans. The North Koreans hadn't quite realized what a doomsday weapon the virus would turn out to be.
The Chinese name was long and involved the phrase "Flowers Of Heaven" - and it involved a virus they'd developed utilizing Jusenkyo's waters as a culture medium. In particular, one special spring. "Spring Of Drowned Girl" was that culture medium and the waters altered the virus. As anyone dunked in those waters became a fairly attractive girl, though individual appearances varied, the viral effect was predictable.
Like most viruses this was not an airborne disease. Body to body fluid exchange was necessary, or sharing needles, or doing something else that involved the spread of such a medium.
The Chinese had not envisaged the North Koreans working out a method for the virus to be spread by planting an agent in one of the medical facilities of a MASH unit, who tainted their blood supplies and then went on to the Central Command to do the same. As many medical supplies were sorted through Seoul and Tokyo, other agents attended to those.
It was wildly successful. The MASH 4077th became the test case and after conversions there, the spread continued through Japan and South Korea. The North Koreans began to celebrate such a marvelous victory and began moving their forces through the chaos that they had sown.
Except that viruses do not respect political lines. Now that the genie was out of the bottle, putting it back was impossible. The virus mutated just a little, becoming a short-lived but airborne contagion. Sneezing or coughing - though the odds were against infection that way.
When Beijing saw a fair amount of its populace becoming young girls, the decision was made to nuke their own ally in North Korea.
As it was a virus, antibiotics were ineffective. When the virus finally began dying out, the gender balance had become skewed. Those who had gone through the illness (Korean Ex-Y or Tireisian Flu) became girls down to the genetic level. Because of the crushing effect this had on the neurochemistry, the new girls were usually more feminine acting than those born that way.
The gender ratio went from 2:1 to 4:1 for the most part, though in some areas the gap was higher. Mainly in Asia and other areas that were the worst hit by the virus. After initial high suicide rates, counseling and gender orientation therapy was mandated for all victims in most countries.
With the gender ratio skewed like that, multiple marriages became more commonplace. The most common method of infection remained sexual, but if one avoided the virus in the communicable stage - it would die off after a few months. After that, infected water or shared needles. Screening blood kept it from spreading in that manner. It retreated from the headlines unless someone important or a celebrity caught it. On occasion some guy would catch the bug, spend a few months quarantined and getting their counseling. When she emerged, she was then smoothly reintegrated into society.
So it was that many years later, in Japan, multiple marriages such as had occurred with Genma Saotome or Ryoga Hibiki were normal. Most guys neither wanted nor needed that many wives, but if some guy did - it was no big deal. Having a number of wives meant that much more safety as opposed to the dreaded casual sex where one could literally lose one's manhood.
So Ranma continued to dream, but now he was dreaming of much safer matters - mainly training in new and powerful martial arts special techniques - still not knowing what havoc he'd begun with the Great Will firing off or that he didn't have nearly the problems with fiancees.
Also not knowing a problem with this new timeline was that:
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(Posted Mon, 31 Mar 2003 12:41)
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