As Whipsnade points out in the linked thread, the Gene War section in S&A is kind of hard to reconcile -- it was simultaneously an incredibly traumatic and influential event for the Confederation that has also been largely wiped from popular memory. It created fear and anxiety about genetic manipulation in a society that seems pretty supportive of Terran genetic tinkering.
Combined with the inherent difficulties in using DGP materials, I think MJD's 1248 books are the only subsequent canonical sources that even obliquely acknowledge the Gene War.
GURPS Traveller: Rim of Fire notes that "Aside from Dolphins, Terrans tampered with a number of other species to make them more useful partners in the colonial enterprise. For example, chimpanzees, gibbons, gorillas, and orangutans were all altered for greater intelligence and various other desirable traits" (34). While it's not definitively stated that these uplifts achieved sentience, the illustration of the pistol-packing gorilla certainly implies that.
Mongoose Traveller: Solomani has no such ambiguity: "Uplifted great apes – chimpanzees or gorillas – are the second most common genetically engineered intelligent animals created by the Terran Confederation. Like Humans ordinary gorillas and chimps are hominids. Although routinely referred to as ‘uplifted chimps’ due to their appearance most uplifted apes are neither chimpanzees or gorillas but
Troglodytes sapiens. This artificial species is a transgenic hybrid of gorilla, chimp and some Human genes first developed late in the Interstellar Wars period. They were perfected by Old Earth Union genetic engineers on Terra." By 1105 there are "several million uplifted apes living on Solomani worlds" (23).
Mongoose Traveller: Solomani Rim also notes that uplifted apes in 1105 "are quite rare in the Solomani Rim. . . . A few scattered communities exist on worlds [in] Albadawi, Sol and Capella subsectors. The Solomani Confederation raised uplifted apes to believe they are second-class citizens. Those living in the Imperium are usually treated as just another exotic minor race of Humaniti or confused with Suerrat" (33).
I think it's possible to reconcile all these sources if we accept three separate and distinct uplift attempts:
- An initial series of uplift attempts by the Terran Confederation late in the Interstellar Wars (-2400 to -2204), with one effort focused on orangutans and gibbons, another on chimps and gorillas, and yet another on a chimera ape species. These efforts boosted intelligence but generally stopped short of achieving full sentience.
- A second project by the Old Earth Union (-1110 to 588) that built on the TC hybrid project, successfully creating a talking, sentient Ape chimera, Troglodytes sapiens out of a mix of human and ape species. Given the TL requirements, I would assume this had to have occurred in the first century or so of the OEU, when Terra might still have harbored limited TL 13 tech*.
- A third project by the Solomani Confederation (871+) that built on the TC orangutan and gibbon project, successfully creating sentient Orangs and Gibbons (as well as human supermen), kicking off the Gene Wars.
* Per T5, genetic manipulation is "possible" at TL 13 (499) and geneering is "practical" at TL 14 (90). The TL of worlds during the Long Night is a controversial topic, but it's important to remember that TL is never evenly distributed across worlds and even within worlds some TL aspects may be higher than others. So I think it's at least
possible that Terra could have had the capability to create
Troglodytes sapiens even as late as -1100, but this would have been a remarkable achievement.
