Challenge #01865-E041: Made to Order
does genetic engineering and other physical and mental enhancements exist in the amalgam universe? and what would humans use them for? -- Anon Guest
[AN: The short answer is: Anything they find acceptable. The long answer is... this]
The concept of the perfect being exists in every culture. On every world, there has been at least one brilliant mind who honestly believed that they could better their own kind through assorted means. Ethnic cleansing, or genocide as it is more commonly known. Selective sterilisation, which is just genocide slowed down to the breeding rate of the undesirable population. Selective breeding, which never really works in the long run. All things considered, genetic manipulation is a relatively modern fad.
There are worlds founded on the premise of finding the perfect genome. Most of them don't survive to re-integrate with Galactic Society. Some make it, barely, with their genome crippled to the point where the children are essentially clones of their parents. Only one had been exiled for what they were doing, and were smart enough to be pragmatic about their definition of 'perfect'. This is Vardia. One had gone with the broadest definitions of 'perfect' and ended up with a completely bioengineered population. This is B'Nar.
Both core worlds were named after their creators. One became an empire. One became an industry titan with some scary definitions to the bracket term 'humanity'. The only difference is that Vardia stopped their genetic tinkering with the human genome centuries prior, excepting in clear-cut emergency cases. The B'Nari never stopped looking for ways to improve. Nor expanding what 'improvement' means.
Vardians were the first to recognise, isolate, and select for the Luck Gene. But they are still cautious with its use. A strong Vardian 'Lucker' could just as easily be another Gregor Elfhand, tripping into the gold mine inside the midden, as they could be another Gladstone Gander, endlessly winning no matter what. The Luck Gene, they have discovered, is unstable, unpredictable, and often unfortunate for an extended radius. They can, however, retrogenetically 'tone down' a Lucker's field of effect. Often to the grave relief of the 'Bad-Luckers'. They cannot, alas, flip the switch for anyone.
The B'Nari, on the other hand, have augmented their bodies and their technology to such a point that the people can be interchangeable parts in a greater machine. Exchange crew have often stated that working on a B'Nari ship is "creepy as flakk" because the B'Nari merge their bodies and minds with their machinery. Reaction times are down, it is true, but they're still working on that personability factor.
It's difficult for more mainstream humans to talk to a B'Nari. They are from different realities. And the B'Nari reality is that they can transfer their memories from one interchangeable body to another. Kept in stasis for just such emergencies. They may well have the key to immortality at their fingertips, but the price is one that most other Humans are not prepared to pay.
And then there are Stepford Planets. Where the gender divide is regimented by one, dominant side, engineering the perfect other. This never ends well. What one side says they want is never what they truly desire. They tire of their sex slaves in rapid order, create disposable people, or otherwise collapse in their own toxicity. Some learn from this. Most... die from this.
Of all the gengineering worlds, be they genners who began with augmentation and then settled for the "old fashioned way" or ELF worlds that create each generation in laboratories, the most frightening one is Nufurria. Retrogenetics, body modding, hybridisation and plain old genetic manipulation created everything the original settlers could ever want. And, like giving any child everything they could want, it all went sour before a generation was up. It went corrupt. Beyond corrupt. It went vile. Decadent, debauched, deplorable, and depraved. Every low that one generation sank to became the new 'normal'. People chasing new highs sunk to new lows.
And when they rejoined Galactic Society, there was one hell of a mess to clean up. The B'Nari 'parts' system may be a nebulous grey area, but the Nufurrian genetic caste system was simply wrong, especially when it mixed in retrogenetic, teratogenic Uplifting rather than permanent and inheritable Augmentation. Thus bonding the current generation to beg their masters to save their children. At least until the Cogniscent Rights Committee found out everything and enforced some basic Cogniscent Rights on the world.
There are lessons to learn from every GMod world. Some are even beneficial.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / vchalup]
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The genetic manipulation is a real but a aberration too