cloning technology, but not with clones

[Terry Mixon]

Because the clone was based on those rare individuals with 12s in their core characteristics. You have 11,000 worlds and a population of trillions, finding someone to provide the blueprint for your clones is likely to be a trivial data base search, then all you need to do is persuade them to take part in the cloning program...

I did something like this in the Aslan Hierate but looking for INT 12 and EDU 12 so the clones would be able to do the same. Obviously, the EDU would need to be instilled.

 

[Condottiere]

Education is acquired.

Social Standing is inherited.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Education is acquired.

Social Standing is inherited.

SOC is also for people who are famous or socially powerful, not just for the nobleborn.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Because the clone was based on those rare individuals with 12s in their core characteristics. You have 11,000 worlds and a population of trillions, finding someone to provide the blueprint for your clones is likely to be a trivial data base search, then all you need to do is persuade them to take part in the cloning program...

Agreed, but look at prenatal care now at TL-8ish. Now extrapolate the trend to remove genetic defect. Is low intelligence? Is a lower lifespan?

 

[Condottiere]

At age eighteen, internet famous.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Agreed, but look at prenatal care now at TL-8ish. Now extrapolate the trend to remove genetic defect. Is low intelligence? Is a lower lifespan?

The ethics of genetically manipulating unborn children is a conversation that will have to be had at some point.

Genetic screening for disease or disability is done now, but the politicians want to stay away from implications of parents screening their offspring for desired characteristics.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The ethics of genetically manipulating unborn children is a conversation that will have to be had at some point.

Genetic screening for disease or disability is done now, but the politicians want to stay away from implications of parents screening their offspring for desired characteristics.

No ethics involved. We genetically manipulate everything else. So, it is not ethics, it is human supremacy. If it were ethics, it would apply to "lower" lifeforms as well.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Selectively breeding humans and weeding out undesirable traits has been practiced culturally for centuries even millenia.

The USA, the UK, Sweden, Germany all had major proponents for selectively breeding people and sterilising those with unwanted traits.

But there is a considerable difference between breeding people to achieve desired traits in their children, and killing the unborn children who lack the desired traits.

Ethics is the correct term for this:

Ethics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MasterGwydion]

Selectively breeding humans and weeding out undesirable traits has been practiced culturally for centuries even millenia.

The USA, the UK, Sweden, Germany all had major proponents for selectively breeding people and sterilising those with unwanted traits.

But there is a considerable difference between breeding people to achieve desired traits in their children, and killing the unborn children who lack the desired traits.

Ethics is the correct term for this:

Ethics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Who said anything about killing? Modifying, not killing. It already exists on a large-scale in Charted Space. Humans genetically adapted for life underwater or in desert environments.

 

[Sageryne]

Have you watched the movie Gattaca with Ethan Hawke and Jude Law? Once gene editing becomes commonly available, not using it to ensure your child has every possible genetic advantage will be tantamount to child abuse.

I can see the same in cloning. If you are going to go to the expense of creating a clone, you are not going to make an inferior one. You are going to make the best possible clone for the purpose... i.e. Roy Batty in Blade Runner.

 

[Condottiere]

It's an arms race.

With likely the same outcomes as artificial intelligence.

The wild card would be interventions by conservative religious parties.

 

[rinku]

I'd be pretty good with using the cloning rules to cover geneered people. There's nothing that says a template has to come from just one donor; for the science baby of two individuals, add their age 18 stats together and divide by four to get the baby's base stat. Or other maths if more than two individuals are involved.

That's also a top grade TL15 clone. Unless your assumed TL is 15, starting characters wouldn't be using that without permission. Mustering out gear is capped at TL12, so starting as a clone or geneered person should usually also be capped at TL12. Which would be a maximum base of 8 with a variance of +D6.

Given that clone *children* are probably pretty legal in most places, the RBH rules pretty much imply that at TL13+ you can have extra stat kids for a moderate fee (a TL13 naturally grown and matured self-clone will have stats of half the original donor's +D3+6, for no template cost or extra stat premium, for Cr50,000). Or a TL8-12 one with (1/2 donor stat rounded down +D6) for the same price.

As characters don't pay their own costs for being born and raised, I'm pretty cool with a player rolling up their parent donor's or donors' age 18 statline(s) and then making a TL12 baseline, normally grown clone of it. I haven't analysed the maths of it, but I suspect it reduces high and low results but raises the centre bell curve a little.

Now, if they want to be *enhanced* TL12 clones... that would seem to need an offset of some kind. Definitely require them to designate their enhanced stats before rolling variation.

Maybe count it as medical debt? A player probably won't be able to afford to commence as half-million credit +5 to all stats clone, but a few +1 to +3 stats should be affordable. If they're the legal property sort of clone, maybe the offset is their obligation or contract.

Quick grow clones might also be legally children until they're chronologically adults for their species. I could see that as a convenient loophole for a legal parent (corporation) to keep them under control.

"Slaves? Oh, greatness no, officer. They're all my beloved children, AA-100 through AB-914. Ages three through nine, all paperwork neatly up to date. Naturally when they reach 18 they'll be free to stay or leave, as they see fit. Child labour? Nonsense. Don't your kids have chores to do? It's the same thing! Ours are just a little more... industrial."

 

[rinku]

The real problem with eugenics is that someone is making decisions about "best" for individuals, when what is really "best" is a wide variation within a population. If you're narrowing the gene pool you're making the population vulnerable. And I would think that societies where these tools have been around for millennia will have made all the mistakes and learned all of the lessons.

By all means screen out stuff that is known to cause disabilities. Short circuit the agony of miscarriage and childhood death and disability where possible. Use external wombs to make growing kids safer and more convenient (see Lois McMaster Bujold's books for really good exploration of that last one). But be very careful about executive decisions on anything else.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The real problem with eugenics is that someone is making decisions about "best" for individuals, when what is really "best" is a wide variation within a population. If you're narrowing the gene pool you're making the population vulnerable. And I would think that societies where these tools have been around for millennia will have made all the mistakes and learned all of the lessons.

By all means screen out stuff that is known to cause disabilities. Short circuit the agony of miscarriage and childhood death and disability where possible. Use external wombs to make growing kids safer and more convenient (see Lois McMaster Bujold's books for really good exploration of that last one). But be very careful about executive decisions on anything else.

The question that really hurts my head is once you have eliminated all genetic defects and disabilities, will something like a low intelligence start being considered a genetic defect or disability? That is where I think the ethical questions come into play.

 

[Terry Mixon]

The question that really hurts my head is once you have eliminated all genetic defects and disabilities, will something like a low intelligence start being considered a genetic defect or disability? That is where I think the ethical questions come into play.

You know the answer to that already. Of course it would. That’s why ethics is important in this process.

 

[rinku]

The real issue issue is that there isn't any one type of intelligence, and you want as many types in your gene pool as you can manage. For that matter, even in the physical sphere, breed for speed or strength? Endurance or sprint? Cold climate or hot climate adaption? Some el Dorado of "purity" or hybrid vigour? Rhetorical questions; you want as deep a gene pool as you can. You never can tell when an adaption might be needed, especially in space. And technology reduces the survival aspect and opens up adaptions that would not have occurred otherwise. Far Future people are probably better adapted to artificial light and variable gravity as a matter of course, however that might be expressed.

 

[Condottiere]

Establish unaugmented human reservations.

I believe that Brave New World has savage reservations.

 

[rinku]

Indeed.

And you're not going to stop persistent racism; any fool with the means to is going to be able to set up an exclusive colony for any number of reasons. If they're delusional that they themselves are the pinnacle of evolution, a cloning tank and no supervision ends up at predictable destinations. Although they might just prefer their own company; There was a scientist in the Bujold books who chose to have clone children just because she was an iconoclast and couldn't be bothered with other people, but wanted to keep her research projects going longer than her own lifespan.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Indeed.

And you're not going to stop persistent racism; any fool with the means to is going to be able to set up an exclusive colony for any number of reasons. If they're delusional that they themselves are the pinnacle of evolution, a cloning tank and no supervision ends up at predictable destinations. Although they might just prefer their own company; There was a scientist in the Bujold books who chose to have clone children just because she was an iconoclast and couldn't be bothered with other people, but wanted to keep her research projects going longer than her own lifespan.

Don’t forget the noble that had 300 clone girls to marry off and increase his holdings. That the emperor made pay a hefty dowry for each one.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Establish unaugmented human reservations.

I believe that Brave New World has savage reservations.

Luddite worlds that choose low TL would be the reservations.

Other worlds would just make different choices what to keep. Some might only allow certain classes the option or keep it expensive so only those wealthy enough have it. Each world would "conserve" different genes allowing recovery if bad choices were made.