Mesan Genies outside the Onion

So far we have not been given evidence that people are being forcibley demodified of whatever changes or enhancements were give to their parents and passed along. Perhaps it just hasn't yet been germain to the story line.
We do see Honor's mother identifying mods (using a rinovirus as the infection vector) to adapt the original Grayson population to survive the conditions -with that massive mortality ration then affecting male embryos- but the infernce I took from the meeting with the leader of the Church was that once they had more research and eplinations plus what could be done to correct that (at least as far as the male embryos mortality rates) it could be an OPTION for people to have going forward to "clean up" the affected DNA such that the people so treated woud have children not carrying the modification.

It would seem nobody has bothered to undo the mods made to SCRAGS since they are apparently sucessfully breeding and passing along the entire packages (with or without normal variations) since the War.

It is possible that "fixing" a large list of known "historic" genetic disorders or discover and fix various really egregious mods or mutations is available for a price on places like Beowulf, Manticore and at least many Core Worlds. Possibly even free under whaterver medical plans are offered to citizens. If they are, they would be of minimal impact on the story line so far.

Note we have NOT been told of genetic slaves or their decendents on Manticore having been "relieved" of various Manpower changes to their genetics. Like the several with feline features etc. who are clearly accepted and working in the society.

Brigade XO wrote:So far we have not been given evidence that people are being forcibley demodified of whatever changes or enhancements were give to their parents and passed along. Perhaps it just hasn't yet been germain to the story line.
We do see Honor's mother identifying mods (using a rinovirus as the infection vector) to adapt the original Grayson population to survive the conditions -with that massive mortality ration then affecting male embryos- but the infernce I took from the meeting with the leader of the Church was that once they had more research and eplinations plus what could be done to correct that (at least as far as the male embryos mortality rates) it could be an OPTION for people to have going forward to "clean up" the affected DNA such that the people so treated woud have children not carrying the modification.

It would seem nobody has bothered to undo the mods made to SCRAGS since they are apparently sucessfully breeding and passing along the entire packages (with or without normal variations) since the War.

It is possible that "fixing" a large list of known "historic" genetic disorders or discover and fix various really egregious mods or mutations is available for a price on places like Beowulf, Manticore and at least many Core Worlds. Possibly even free under whaterver medical plans are offered to citizens. If they are, they would be of minimal impact on the story line so far.

Note we have NOT been told of genetic slaves or their decendents on Manticore having been "relieved" of various Manpower changes to their genetics. Like the several with feline features etc. who are clearly accepted and working in the society.

I think that it must be counter to the Beowulf Code to forcibly change anyone's genetic code. I am sure Beowulf would be happy to work with any ex-slave to fix problems and disorders that result from meddling by Manpower. I expect that they even have databases of known problems with each genetic slave line. The exotic modifications, such as feline features, might be much more difficult and expensive to ameliorate.

Hitler's dilution of "white blood" theory.

Is the galaxy in danger of normal humans becoming extinct?

Will there one day be a war between the modified and non modified?

What will mankind begin to resemble if Detweiler's vision comes to past?

cthia wrote:Hitler's dilution of "white blood" theory.

Is the galaxy in danger of normal humans becoming extinct?

Will there one day be a war between the modified and non modified?

What will mankind begin to resemble if Detweiler's vision comes to past?

ready for the main problem with the above?

Define "Normal Human".

It changes with everyone who makes the statement.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:Hitler's dilution of "white blood" theory.

Is the galaxy in danger of normal humans becoming extinct?

Will there one day be a war between the modified and non modified?

What will mankind begin to resemble if Detweiler's vision comes to past?

ready for the main problem with the above?

Define "Normal Human".

It changes with everyone who makes the statement.

I agree it is a huge can of worms.

But in this context, humans who are modified and those who are not. Baseline being the Sol system.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:
ready for the main problem with the above?

Define "Normal Human".

It changes with everyone who makes the statement.

I agree it is a huge can of worms.

But in this context, humans who are modified and those who are not. Baseline being the Sol system.

Except humans self-modify for their environment (given generations and environmental pressure) - even without the intervention of genetic engineering. A dozen generations down the line it can be hard to tell the difference between environmental pressure, selective breeding, or genetic engineering.

Even within the Sol system I suspect humans living on Mars or in orbital colonies (especially ones that did so back before grav plates) to diverge from those living on Earth -- and it's not like those living on Earth are all that uniform.

It's all a squishy mess

cthia wrote:Hitler's dilution of "white blood" theory.

Is the galaxy in danger of normal humans becoming extinct?

Will there one day be a war between the modified and non modified?

What will mankind begin to resemble if Detweiler's vision comes to past?

I realize that you did not mean it that way; but by definition "normal" humans can only become extinct, if all humans become extinct. Instead what you were really asking was whether non-modified humans would disappear? When we consider that Neanderthal Man still survives in our genes, then the answer is ambivalent. I do expect that all humans will at some point contain modified genes, but not as the result of a war; but just the result of the normal breeding process.

Consider that examination of mitochondrion DNA sparking interest in an ancestral Eve; not as the first woman, but as a woman with a mutation that allowed her to have children that were more successful. Perhaps she had wider hips such that she and her daughters were more likely to survive childbirth, while also permitting babies to have bigger heads and so more intelligence. Whatever it was, the genes from her and her daughters live on in all of us.

Consider that the Meyerdahl modification is passed to all the children. What happens whether there are two competing modifications? Do they merge or is there a stillborn baby? Whatever happens there is not a resulting baby with unmodified genes, so with the passing of time there will only be isolated pockets where unmodified humans will exist.

It depends on what you mean by Detweiler's vision: the original vision of accepting genies or the current vision of rule by genetically superior beings? I do not believe that a genetic dictatorship can survive, because nothing survives unchanged. When the true believer zealotry dies, then any dictatorship is liable to be overturned. However it might be replaced by a different dictatorship, since even genetically improved people are not perfect.

It's even more messy as one take on the Alignment perspective is that "Normals" are or will be anybody who isn't a Star Line or one of the lower cast lines for the Alignment.

Honor Harrington may have decended from an early Alpha Line ancestor(s) but while the Alignment may want access to her genes for research they are unlikely to let her inside.

Most of the genetic slave lines are considered little more than tools or cattle to be worked and expended at need. The Seccies on Mesa are in Limbo on Mesa and, again, the Alignment might have some interest in one or two if they showed something it though potentialy usefull.

The majority of humanity is, at best, a potential source of new material and/or usefull tools. Remember that the Alignment already has no problem at all killing or manipulating to be killed tens of millions of Normals- like what going to happen in most Parthian Shot events or what they did with the bombs on three habitas at Beowulf. Think about what triggered Adm. Byng to butcher the RMN destroyers ---a bomb planted in that orbial station and what was it--40,000 people died---just to provoke Byng into over reacting to his prejudices?

If the GA had rampaged though the SL starting with Sol and working outward- without Harrington being determined to accomplish the stopping of the League without massive deaths in the SLN and orbitals- there would have been millions more in each system not counting SLN crews and the violence would just have gone on and on for years.

No, anybody not at the top of the Alignment's designed leadership cast leves is just a worker ant and there are not only billions of them already but newer versions can be grown. The envisioned destruction of the League and Have as it's eventualy hammer was expected to kill billions and billions more as the Alignment butchered people at targets with the Spyder Drive ships to break any potentialy effective gatheirng of resistance and stoke the killing.

Normals.....alive, dead what ever it takes as far as the Alignment is concerned.

tlb wrote:Consider that the Meyerdahl modification is passed to all the children. What happens whether there are two competing modifications? Do they merge or is there a stillborn baby? Whatever happens there is not a resulting baby with unmodified genes, so with the passing of time there will only be isolated pockets where unmodified humans will exist.

It would depend on the exact (an unknown) mechanisms by which the modifications were locked together.

I suspect given the level of genetic control it would require to lock a suite of modification together than a conflict between locked mods would far more likely result in failure at the fertilization stage before the egg even tries to attach to the uterine wall. (Rather than happening far enough along to be recognizably pregnant before losing the baby to genetic conflicts). So incompatible mods might simply result in infertility between those partners.

Alternatively the mods may work in an all or nothing manner with their locks forcing the fertilization merging of the parent's DNA to pick (possibly at random; or possibly one mod always wins) either the mother's entire locked suite or the fathers.


Since we don't have any known mechanism for locking gene suites like that we can't look at 'real world' behavior. And the author hasn't delved deeply into the mechanics in the books so we can't judge from that. All we can do is speculate.

And my speculation is that RFC wouldn't want this causing stillbirths from clashing mods and so it would manifest in some less distressing manner -- infertility or uniform selection of one or the other; rather than potentially non-viable random merging.

I think we should remember that Beowulf is not against genetic modification. They are against flirting with the dangers of genetic modification by crossing a certain threshold in research and tampering with unknowns, which obviously require inhumane methods. The Frankenstein Complex, and the Final Wars.