Mesan super-baby market

I have not read the CoS series yet, so if this is mentioned I apologize for being frivolous, but I have been wondering about something.

Despite the fact that the Beowulf Code makes genetically tampering with humans unnecessarily a taboo practice in the Honorverse there are bound to be people who think that having a baby with super-human prowess sounds like a good idea. Mesa is notorious for their virtual monopoly on genetic slaves, but is that the extent of their use of their genetic engineering prowess? One would imagine that they could make a tidy profit offering neonatal services to improve the intelligence and physical prowess of children of clients outside of their own citizenry.

I agree that manpower could make a tidy sum by genetically improving the offspring of the rich, except for one thing, the alignment.

The mesan alignments goal is to take over the galaxy, it would be a lot harder if it started improving others that it will want to rule. The number one rule of dictators is make sure your subjects are weaker than you are.

GabrialSagan wrote:I have not read the CoS series yet, so if this is mentioned I apologize for being frivolous, but I have been wondering about something.

Despite the fact that the Beowulf Code makes genetically tampering with humans unnecessarily a taboo practice in the Honorverse there are bound to be people who think that having a baby with super-human prowess sounds like a good idea. Mesa is notorious for their virtual monopoly on genetic slaves, but is that the extent of their use of their genetic engineering prowess? One would imagine that they could make a tidy profit offering neonatal services to improve the intelligence and physical prowess of children of clients outside of their own citizenry.

GabrialSagan wrote:I have not read the CoS series yet, so if this is mentioned I apologize for being frivolous, but I have been wondering about something.

Despite the fact that the Beowulf Code makes genetically tampering with humans unnecessarily a taboo practice in the Honorverse there are bound to be people who think that having a baby with super-human prowess sounds like a good idea. Mesa is notorious for their virtual monopoly on genetic slaves, but is that the extent of their use of their genetic engineering prowess? One would imagine that they could make a tidy profit offering neonatal services to improve the intelligence and physical prowess of children of clients outside of their own citizenry.

In Cauldron of Ghosts, there is mention of a Mesan genetic consultancy that is willing to do more than wash the Tay-Sachs out of your genome.

There's been a lot of history in genetics since the early 90s when Weber started this series, but here it is:

Beowulf has nothing against removing genetic diseases or making piece-meal improvements as long as they're within "normal human variation." They don't even have anything against making wholesale improvements to fix environmental problems. There's a scene in Cauldron of Ghosts where the Beowulfer discusses Honor and Yana, and doesn't find anything particularly objectionable. Even though both of them are superior in certain respects, neither the Meyerhdahl II genome nor Yana's genome is going to take over the galaxy - they've got compensating weaknesses.

What they don't want is to restart racism by having a race of superior people - like the Mesan Alphas.

Also, Manpower doesn't make retail genetic fixes. There are a lot of medical clinics that do those.

GabrialSagan wrote:One would imagine that they could make a tidy profit offering neonatal services to improve the intelligence and physical prowess of children of clients outside of their own citizenry.

Within Mesan society, the Long Range Planning Board controls reproduction of citizens as well as slaves. (Seccies seem to be an exception.) So in that respect, every Mesan baby is custom-tailored -- just not to the parents' order.

Outside of Mesan Society, there's too much competition for neonatal tampering. There is also a galaxy-wide aversion to "genies" with a few exceptions, like Myerdahl where a large percentage of the population are technically genies. Even there there's an aversion to "scrags" and other uber-mensch "genies."

As John Roth says, there's no real objection to gene-tampering, not even one-off custom engineered children, but there's too much competition for that market. There's too much prejudice against mass production of super-men outside of Mesa and too much control inside Mesa.

I'm not sure that is true. I think the Long Range Planning Board is a secret MA creature that has no official existence or ability to do anything outside of MA members and manpower slaves.

kzt wrote:I'm not sure that is true. I think the Long Range Planning Board is a secret MA creature that has no official existence or ability to do anything outside of MA members and manpower slaves.

The LRPB is in control of all Alpha, Beta, and Gamma lines at minimum, and that pretty much covers all "first class citizens" on Mesa. They don't have to be inside the "Onion" for the LRPB to have jurisdiction.

darrell wrote:The mesan alignments goal is to take over the galaxy, it would be a lot harder if it started improving others that it will want to rule. The number one rule of dictators is make sure your subjects are weaker than you are.

That really isn't the alignment's goal though. The goal is both smaller and grander than that; smaller, in that their prime objective is to discredit a certain philosophy, grander, in that they seek to alter the definition of what is human.

Let me explain. The prime objective of the alignment is the repealment of the Beowulf code. To do that, the primary enforcers of said code (Namely, the solarian league) have to be removed from play in one way or another.
The thing is though, the Alignment has no interest in taking over that whole mess. They don't want to rule all of humanity (and why would you), they just want conditions where transhumanism can take off for real. Once the League falls, and successor states like the Renaissance Factor demonstrate that widespread genetic engineering is a recipe for success and prosperity better than anything run by Humanity 1.0, they'll have completely succeeded (Right now, they have achieved partial success).

There is no indication that the Alignment intends on ever being more than a small but influential actor behind the scenes.

Weird Harold wrote:

kzt wrote:I'm not sure that is true. I think the Long Range Planning Board is a secret MA creature that has no official existence or ability to do anything outside of MA members and manpower slaves.

The LRPB is in control of all Alpha, Beta, and Gamma lines at minimum, and that pretty much covers all "first class citizens" on Mesa. They don't have to be inside the "Onion" for the LRPB to have jurisdiction.

I agree with KZT. I'm not at all sure the Mesan Alpha, Beta and Gamma lines exist outside of the Alignment. If they did, it would be very hard to keep the secret. As it is, I have a hard time imagining how they've kept the Alignment itself secret - having a million members in a secret society kind of goes against the old adage that three can keep a secret, provided two of them are dead.

Audrey Hanrahan (sp) is an Alpha line, and I don't think she is aware of the MA, likewise the reporter who gave her the New Tuscany records is a beta line and also not aware of the MA.

I suppose we should consider whether or not knowledge of the MA is the same as knowledge of the Onion, I think they would not be the same.