I'm afraid I haven't paid much attention to the canon about the various uplifts and the Gene Wars. Are you saying the gorillas, chimps, and 'tangs are no longer present in the region near Terra, having fled from some menace?
Hans,
I can't cut & paste the entire Gene War section of
Solomani & Aslan, but here are the high points.
Uplift of "Simians" was begun
before the Interstellar War period in an effort to produce "quaddies" for a zero-gee work force. The development of artificial gravity ended the project
before the simians reached true sapience. The results of this aborted project were still somehow useful and a
"small number of orangutans and gibbons involved were scattered among a handful of minor colonies" by the time the Interstellar Wars began. (The italicized section is a direct quote.)
Jump forward centuries and
Confederation scientists
secretly complete the project. First, the entire passage constantly refers to "Confederation" scientists, "Confederation" reactions, "Confederation" this, and "Confederation" that, so it's pretty clear the event take place after the Rim War. Second, it is explicitly stated that the scientists had an ulterior motive for finishing the project and doing so in secret: They want to
"develop techniques to speed evolution in humans". (That's another direct quote.)
After the "speeding human evolution" bit leaks out, there's a giant public relations failure which leads to first a witch hunt and finally a war. Like much of
DGP's stuff, that result is a real head-scratcher. After all, the Sollies have already geneered several types of human "wogs" for various purposes. There's those illos of the guys with pipe organs in their heads in
S&A and an entire
Brave New World-lite world which produces "workers" and "executives"(1). Why more human geneering suddenly sparked a witch hunt and war is rather befuddling.
Anyway, the Simians got caught in the crossfire. The group or groups who uplifted them were being hunted down and executed, so they were guilty by association. As
S&A states, the Sollies
"stepped short of exterminating the Simians, but they also deliberately ignored them from that time on."
The same section goes onto to say that the Gene War helped propel the Confederation further down the path towards the "national security state" it has become, yet another statement which makes it clear the events took place after the Rim War. Reform movements in the Confederation are said to be trying to "tell the truth" about the Gene Wars and the Simians are also said to be part of an effort.
So, that's it. There was an post-Rim War uplift project that led to a nasty internal war which barely left a tiny number of Simians who have been deliberately ignored ever since.
What's wrong with being a neglected minor race (three races, actually)?
Two supposedly; orangs and gibbons. No mention of chimps or gorillas oddly enough.
More to the point, would the leaders of the expedition have taken that into account?
What expedition? The few Simians produced barely escaped being put down like unwanted lab animals and their descendants have been studiously ignored ever since because they're the living embodiment of a shameful episode in Sollie history. I don't think there were ever enough to form an "expedition" and it's pretty clear their descendants keep an extremely low profile.
IMHO, Simian colony ships jumping away to freedom are very unlikely. A Simian "underground railroad", on the other hand, moving small numbers of individuals along to some distant and free world is more plausible. Migrating rimward where the Confederation is thin and SolSec's grasp is weak should be easier than trying to cross the militarized borders facing the Heirate, Imperium, and Federation.
Intelligence has the potential to rise above instinctual behavior. Nature vs. nuture and all that.
Studies of our nearest relatives, the bonobos, have produced interesting insights into human sociology. While intelligence does raise above instinctive behavior, it still rests on instinctive behavior. While Ursan males shouldn't be killing Ursan children as their pre-sentient bear ancestors would, it doesn't also follow that the Ursa should be living in the 57th Century version of Mayberry RFD(2).
One thing that's potentially very interesting would be the interaction between the three species.
Orangs and gibbons.
S&A also states that Sollie scientists, in particular GenAssist, have uplifted "over two dozen"
alien species and, right out of the Hiver playbook, each is now a
"loyal member of the Confederation"
But there could be other species-linked proclivities.
Exactly. Which is why I brought up the Ursa as a "bad example".
Regards,
Bill
1 - In one of the very few displays of casual racism I've ever seen in
Traveller, the world producing specific humans for specific jobs like some insect hive just happens to be Asian-descended.
2 - The Ursa are they way they are due to meta-game concerns. The
T20 authors needed to keep them "player-character ready" and thus had to keep them more human than they should be. From that meta-gaming perspective, the Ursa are entirely correct.
