Overview of Genetics/Genetic Engineering
in the 2300 AD RPG Universe

For Humans we know the following five facts from the 2300 AD Adventurer's guide ( 2300AG p. 22):

• We know enough facts to tailor many organisms for desired results.
• A lot of genetic engineering is in the area of crop management, for both Earth and off-world uses.
• Medicine has eliminated most inherited diseases and allows some selection of an infant's appearance to be selected.  Mental traits are still hit and miss.
• Still don't totally 100% understand the Human genome, even if they have mapped it in its entirety, since they are still researching cures for some genetic disorders.
• Replacement organs can be force-grown from the patient's own tissues.

Since you cannot easily wait ten years for a decent sized heart, there must be accelerated growth involved in the forced growth process.  So we can assume there is widespread use of rapid forced growth on entire simple organisms, and individual parts of the more complex ones.

This leaves open the door for very limited ( highly experimental) forced growth of humans, if the GM wants it for story purposes.  Even if you could grow a mature human clone in a year or two, giving it an adult intellect/personality is most likely beyond human capability ( Humans haven't developed stable artificial intelligence, so they don't know everything about the mind's processes, let alone reading/scanning, then replicating one).

There is one other path to limited immortality beyond anagathic therapy, and that is brain or more precisely entire head transplants.  Microsurgical techniques will be up to the surgical end of the task.  With supercomputer assistance running electrical stimulation/feedback sensors, it should be possible to map which nerve is which at the severance point on each body, allowing for 95% or higher accurate individual nerve reconnection success. Only very rich individuals could afford this type of surgery.  Needless to say the common man will look upon this with disgust, shades of Frankenstein and his monster.

In Ships of the French Arm:
In the description of the Brazilian Vaca-class animal transport they mention that after 2250, shipping live embryos became the preferred method for shipping animals to the colonies.

So we can assume they have developed an artificial womb in which to gestate them.

I saw a news report last year ( 1996), that in Japan, they had an early artificial womb in which they were experimenting with finishing just the second half of a sheep or goats gestation.

The only detrimental effect of artificial wombs is for those mammals whose mothers ( or social group) teach many of their social and hunting/survival skills ( the nurture improves on the genetic nature's base skill level if any).

For small cats, the best predictor of 'mousing' ability is if the mother cat trained them to hunt.  I've seen articles stating three- to four-fold difference in hunting success ( especially success with the killing neck bite).  Large cats also exhibit the same gradual teaching process of their young.

Female gorillas, raised alone in zoos, make terrible mothers, as they have not learned infant care from observing older females in the normal social group ( the troop).

Elephants learn their social/herd structure from their herd.

Chimps have several tool-use tricks ( like fishing termites from their nests using long shoots of grass or twigs) that are only passed on by example.

The best way to get around this problem, is to import a small group of adult animals, and then introduce the vat grown infants if that animal species readily accepts orphan infants.  Humans will have to provide some infant formula/feeding duties, but as long as the animals imprint on their own species, this should not be a problem since most colonial animals will be already domesticated species.

The Colonial Atlas ( CA):
2300 AD has DNAM modified humans for the planet King.  They also know enough about the humans to design symbiotes for up to lifelong usage ( the atmospheric sulfur fixing symbiotes in the lungs of the King settlers).

Glass, on his now-defunct website ( 2300AD--Earthspace: Game Page), postulates a new Zero/Low-G DNAM with higher resistance to decalcification and other Low/No-G ailments.

The 2300 AD Director's Guide:
Provolution is a contraction of Pro-Evolution, and they think the ignorant masses are standing in the way of human evolution ( which will naturally be according to their plan).  They don't care for what happens to their failed experiments, they died for the (r)evolution.

In the Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook:
Provolutionists use "'genetically enhanced' baboons wielding melee weapons as guards".

In a Challenge magazine article ( issue #65, One of us Always Stays Awake by Andy Slack), Provolution created a failed super race with some characteristics of classic, mythical vampire ( anemic blood drinkers with sun sensitiviy).

As for the Pentapods, well it might be quicker to list what they cannot yet achieve easily with genetic engineering.  Humans in 2300 AD seem to think Pentapods can do just about anything with genetic engineering, given enough time.  What is the truth???  The simplest answer is whatever the GM needs for the game.

From here on is all my opinion and supposition:

In the 1980s, when GDW wrote the game, and even still today, there is the irrational fear amongst mankind in the West, and particularly here in the United States, that genetic engineering will run amok, and create hordes of Frankenstein's monsters, or escaping mutant creations, who will destroy the world.

There are signs this kind of fear still exists in 2300 AD.  OQC ( Orbital Quarantine Command) proves they correctly fear natural extraterrestrial organisms, and surely this has to spill over into fear of some, if not all, lab creations.  There have been serious extra-solar plagues.

In 2241, on the French colony planet of Nous Voila, in the Beta Comae Berenices system, a virus called BCB-IX infected half the colonists and killed over a third of those sick ( in other words, over 16% of those exposed die).  It spread to other colonies, yet those outbreaks were less severe. It was around two years until an antiviral vacine was discovered.  Starships visiting the planet were banned from travelling to Earth, so most merchants avoided the world.  Quarantines are very bad for business and shipping ( For more detailed information see the Colonial Atlas pages 36-37).

Yet they seem more accepting of plant/bacteria manipulation, than we are today.  Probably because eating is important, for some strange reason, on Earth with 12 billion plus souls and the colony worlds, and if that requires tweaking corn, wheat, and other plants' genes, well so be it.

Significantly there is no mention in GDW products of significant manipulation of animals or higher lifeforms by human society as a whole in order to create super-beings ( except by the Provolutionists).

The colonial DNAM programs, as GDW designed them, have significant limitations ( especially the half normal lifespan, excessive bleeding/cardiovascular, and breathing difficulties).  I would imagine that, because of these flaws, many normals consider King DNAMs slightly inferior to normal human stock, and so no threat.

The Provolutionists, on the other hand, given their media stated goals, scare normals, and with good reason.  At a gut fear-inducing level, the message is "you normals don't deserve to reproduce", and "our super children will inherit the universe".  Shades of the master race, the eugenics movement, and all those other pogroms from mankind's history to today.  Humans fear 'the other', since they might come to our village and kill us before we go to theirs and kill them, which has played out endlessly through history at varying scales of slaughter.

Back in March of 97 on the 2300 AD mailing list, we discussed S.M. Stirling's Draka novels ( one version of a genetically enhanced master race), and at the beginning of April, Jerry Pournelle's ( some with Larry Niven) CoDominion books whose timeline has an interstellar dark age triggered by civil war with the Sauron supermen.

I would highly recommend the third Draka novel ( The Stone Dogs) for a possible successful Provolution genetic master race design, and insight into how they might view/treat normals.

Briefly, Drakan's are far stronger and quicker than normals.  They have some mental augmentation ( selection for higher IQ, etc.), and control of some normally autonomic body functions, as well as their pheromones.  Initial lifespan was doubled, but with viral upgrades of adult Drakans, they ended up in the multi-hundred year potential lifespan.

A great 2300 AD campaign could evolve around discovering and stopping them, without giving in to the temptation of joining a Provolution version of them.

What would the characters do if offered the chance for their offspring to be made into Provo-Drakans, especially if it looked like the Provolutionist's side will win?  What if it is phrased in terms of "the new human race is humanity's only hope of defeating the Kafer"?

If a PC is ever captured, imagine how flattered they might be if told their genes make the grade for their offspring to receive the modification in vitro to become the part of the master race.  Will they now willingly aid/spy for the Provolutionists?

The Provos would not be beyond blackmail or threatening the child, naturally raised in an unknown to the PC location ( a Provo safehouse or small community).  Just send the PC untracable pictures of the child's first step, birthday, and other childhood milestones if the campaign lasts enough game time, as 'friendly' reminders.

Will the PC play off both sides?  Even if they stop the fiendish plot, will they attempt to hide their superior child to guarantee their descendants' advantage?

Even if they personally resist the temptation, can they be sure every official they deal with hasn't been approached and accepted the Provolutionists secret offer.  The fourth book of the series 'Drakon' shows how one Drakan, who passed through a dimensional rift, almost conquered our Earth through this kind of selective subversion of useful individuals and officials.

The Draka novels also have an uplifted baboon transgenic species called Ghouloons ( given limited speech, and an opposable thumb) used to keep watch and also as shock infantry troops ( using both firearms and melee weapons).