Little is known about the civilization that came before.

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Recovered documents describe humans exhibiting unusual abilities, behaviors, and physical characteristics during a period now known as the Workplace Era.

 

Historians believe the system they inhabited was called the Circus. This conclusion is based on frequently

recovered statements including:

 

“This place is a circus.”
“Welcome to the circus.”
“Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
**No evidence of monkeys has been found.

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Each day, humans traveled through a slow-moving network called traffic to enormous structures made of steel, concrete, and artificial light. They spent much of their time in small enclosures described as offices and cubicles, where they exchanged electronic messages with other humans seated several feet away.

 

They gathered in special rooms to discuss the work they were not doing. These gatherings were called meetings. Some prepared humans for future meetings. Others reviewed previous meetings. Meetings that produced another meeting appear to have been considered especially successful.

 

Records indicate that some humans juggled priorities, walked tightropes, jumped through hoops, spun plates, put out fires, and wore many hats.

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They also performed exhibitions called Horse and Pony Shows in front of audiences known as customers, leadership, and a mysterious but powerful group labeled stakeholders. **No evidence of horses or ponies has been recovered.

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The show had no identifiable location, schedule, or ending. It appears to have been a continuous performance known as professionalism.

 

The records also mention deadlines, email chains, strategic plans, and a ritual called the quick call.

 

Deadlines transformed ordinary assignments into emergencies.

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Email chains transformed simple communications into documents longer and more complicated than the tasks they concerned.

 

The purpose of strategic plans remains unknown, as little evidence has been found of anyone using them.

 

Despite its name, the quick call produced some of the longest conversations of the Workplace Era.

 

Historians remain fascinated by this circus-based system.

 

Why did humans create meetings to discuss problems created by meetings?

 

Why did they develop a specialized language called corporate jargon, then shorten it into acronyms that appeared to create even more confusion?

 

Why did they create elaborate processes and automations to track and execute simple tasks, then spend significant time maintaining the complex programs designed to complete those tasks?

 

Why did they express frustration with the Circus while simultaneously dedicating enormous effort to maintaining it?

 

Historians are still unsure.

 

One thing historians agree on: Prolonged exposure to the Circus produced unusual adaptations. ​Some humans detected errors invisible to everyone else. Some located blame before anything had gone wrong. Others scheduled meetings whenever productive activity was detected.

 

More curiously, ancient accounts describe physical mutations including enlarged heads, loose lips, silver tongues, heavy hands, missing spines, and, in several particularly unusual cases, heads lodged in asses.

 

Surviving records suggest that individuals often displayed multiple adaptations at differing levels of intensity, depending on environmental conditions. These adaptations appear to have been temporary, chronic, or oscillating, with mutations emerging at varying rates.

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Whether the Circus caused these mutations, attracted those already affected, or was constructed by them remains unknown.

 

Historians continue to study the surviving evidence in hopes of better understanding these strange adaptations and their function within the circus.

 

Using recovered texts and advanced reconstruction technologies, historians have reconstructed visual records of these mutations based on evidence from the Workplace Era.

 

These are the first of those records.