Eugenics...or genetic enhancement..in Traveller

[Prometheus]

I have just finished reading about eugenics and the human genome project. Interesting and thought provoking. My question I put to COTI is how waht and where would eugenics and genetic enhancement fit into the traveller universe?

 

[Anthony]

Eugenics isn't really the same thing as genetic enhancement, it's more a form of directed racism, and can conveniently be fit into many societies, particularly extremely repressive ones. Of groups mentioned in canon, the one most likely to engage in eugenics would appear to be the Solomani.

Genetic enhancement seems to be very rare in the Imperium, though I can see the Hivers or Solomani experimenting with it.

 

[Prometheus]

What about the Zhodani? And Anthony what about genetic enhancement or manipulation such as in the movie Gattaca or the isle of Dr. Morneu(the one with val kilmer and Brando).

The two books i read on the flight back home for the holidays are
- War against the weak: Eugenics and americas campaign to create a master race, by Edwin Black
- Genome: The autobiography of a species in 23 chapters, by Matt Ridley

 

[Flynn]

The Solomani have been highly involved in Eugenics and genetic engineering. They themselves have uplifted a number of races, including the Ursa, Orca, Dolphins, Orangs, and Apes. In addition, they've created a number of genetically altered subspecies of humaniti for surviving on a number of inhospitable worlds. This was first mentioned in the JTAS article on Dolphins as characters, and more fully developed in later editions of the game.

Hope this helps,
Flynn

 

[Jame]

I would think that the Imperium woud be better suited for light genetic enhancement, while the Solomani would be more interested in eugenics.

 

[jwdh71]

Jame#1 wrote:

I would think that the Imperium woud be better suited for light genetic enhancement, while the Solomani would be more interested in eugenics.

Actually, according to canon sources, the Solomani are highly advanced in genetic engineering, well above the Imperium. The Imperium has better gravitic engineering than the Solomani though, and a higher overall tech level.

We always played it as the Solomani would go for genetic modification much more, and be more accepting of it in others, than the somewhat stodgy Imperials. Bionics were more prevalent in our version of Solomani space, without the Imperial predjudice against them.

One character I ended up playing in the Solomani campaign was interesting, a former clone trooper. Derived from the best "True Solomani" genetic material, and creche raised to be "perfect" soldiers, Solomani clone troopers were in a unique social situation, being the perfect Solomani, and at the same time slightly less than human. The only way to play one was to get injured during character creation, and have the wound permanently affect your stats. My character was wounded, and lost a point of his STR stat, and the GM ruled that it was the result of a lost arm, which I had recieved a graft of a replacement (matching donors being all around, especially after a battle), which hadn't "taken" well. Blade 3471 Dark Blue (first name chosen by the clone trooper, number was order of decanting, and Dark Blue was the army he was in, and also skin color) turned into one of my favorite characters.

As always, YMMV
John Hamill
jwdh71 (at) yahoo.com

 

[Jame]

A Dark Blue trooper. Yeah, that sounds like the Sollies, alright. Now that you mention it, that's true about their biotech, and I like what you've done with it!

 

[mike wightman]

He hadn't gone "rogue" this trooper of yours by any chance?

 

[Prometheus]

Opening this back up, but interestingly I was re-reading the JTAS #24 and the Dynchia popped up. Are there any other minor races other than the Vargr and the Dynchia that are genetically engineered?

 

[Flynn]

Dolphins.... Ursa.... Orangs.... Miniphants.... Gibbons.... Orca.... and those are just the uplifted races from Earth.

The Prt' (Spica sector, detailed in Challenge 27, IIRC) believe that another race created and/or uplifted them, but their creator race has long since died out.

I'm pretty sure there are other examples, and that's without listing races modified by the Ancients.

Hope this helps,
Flynn

 

[Prometheus]

thx

 

[Straybow]

One wonders why Dex and End haven't been genetically "fixed" across the board, so to speak. While it wouldn't give everybody 12s it would eliminate the chances of being sickly or clumsy (2-5).

This would start by eliminating diseases like CF, MS, ALS, etc and genetic predisposition for heart disease and other life threatening health issues.

Phenotypic sight impairment, carpal tunnel syndrome and other maladies not considered life threatening could be prevented by tweaking genes related to processes of the womb controlled by hormones and things we don't understand yet IRL. Eventually (we're talking 1000 years or something) everything that "goes wrong" gets tuned out of the genome.

Doesn't require a Gattica-like prejudice and misery, or the comic-book charicatured Nietzcheans of Andromeda.

Considering the possibility of mods for heavy gravity or low gravity (genetic tendency towards naturally high muscle tone to prevent atrophy), population average and range for Str would shift higher over time (effectively a generic +1).

If such genetic tweaks turn out to be dominant it could raise the racial extremes and averages substantially (+3 easily possible). Spreading of those kinds of mods would not need to be planned. It would take a marked intolerance or prejudism against mods to keep it from mixing into the entire gene pool.

 

[kafka47]

The Sollies are open about their genetics program, whereas, the Imperium has tended toward using genetic uplift as a whole host of "Black Projects" usually carried out by the rather sinister "Ministry of Colonization"...at least that is my take on it (IMTU).

The Black Projects that succeed are given full fledged status as citizens of the Imperium but because of the initial period of experimentation and rejection, many of those experimented upon have a little ressentment toward the Imperium but are not unloyal toward the concept but wish they would stand on equal footing to the Solomani & Vilani founders. Equally bearing the brunt of hidden hostility have been the minor human races who not only fear a loss of culture toward the Imperium but an encroaching of "their" space by the big brothers of the Imperium. Luckily, most of these minor branches of humaniti are settled on worlds that the Imperium does give a hoot about (save, those in Illesh where the Surreat are meant to feel like second class citizens ~ but what sort of treatment can expect one when you are an uplifted neanderthal?).

Whereas, I have always assumed that the genetic experimentation of the Sollies was a direct result of using clones and other genetic crutches in the Interstellar Wars period, at time, when the human genome was dramatically altered to produce soldiers and colonists for the Rimward expansion (as I indicated in a previous post). Sollies continue to play around with the genome today, not, so much as to assert superiority over other humans but superiority over nature. I believe the Solomani desire to survive in a hostile environment outweighs any other consideration...consequentally a drive to affect change at even a genetic level. In contrast, with Vilani attitudes which would have lagged behind the Solomani for they merely would want to choose the most comfortable planets to live on and given their historical backwardness in the medical sciences compound an intital conservatism toward biotech.

I also see the statement of changing Earth's biosphere as the reason for the Solomani's drive outward indicative of their hubris toward the genome. We could live in a radically different world, if the Transhumanist ideas take hold by 2100 (the year we make contact) clearly the clash of civilizations between the Vilani and Solomani was also a clash about the superiority of each branch of humaniti. I could see how the Solomani would love to have their lifespans extended to Vilani levels without having to wait the time for evolution to catch up and as the Solomani spread through Chartered Space like a plague, the Vilani desire to get rid of this pest would force them to look at genetics. This combined with an anything goes attitude in the ROM and Long Night would have resulted a large polygot of humaniti who would look to a belovent State to welcome them...but is the Imperium that State?