Artificially Gestated Humans and STL Colony Ships

[Jeff M. Hopper]

I got in my old copies of 2001 Nights last night and one story had an idea that struck a chord in me, Night 4: Posterity . The story is about a Slower-Than-Light colony effort where the colonists were frozen spermatozoa and egg that were combined in an artificial uterus and birthed/decanted should a suitable world be found by the ship.

Now, is this idea even feasible? It is certainly possible, but is it feasible in that after a few hundred years a computer controlled machine could combine thawed sperm and ova, then grow that into a fetus and then a human child?

Gearhead-wise, I'm wondering how large and what tech level the machine would have to be to be able to do this.

Sociology-wise and psychology-wise, I'm wondering what effects this kind of dehumanized birthing process would have on the humans themselves. The initial generation would be the primary one grown, but how would this kind of cultural blank-slate human create their civilization afterwards?

Got to admit, I'm not sure if there is a game possible in this or not. I think there is, but I'm trying to get some more free-thinking going on to see where this initial idea branches off to.

 

[Ran Targas]

^ I posted in an earlier thread on a similar concept I used IMTU. But instead of viable individuals being grown, the ship grows clones of the civilization's best and brightest.

The clones are implanted with the personalities of the original crew (who lived out the rest of their lives at home), recorded in a massive CPU long before the ship ever left its origin.

New crews, with the same level of expertise, could be grown over and over again.

But in my scenario, something went wrong and the vats didn't produce viable clones; leaving the personalities trapped for a millenium in the ship's computer. Didn't make them very happy

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Interesting idea, Jeff. I see a couple of wrinkles.

1) I don't think it would be terribly successful combining gametes in vitro. It is just terribly inefficient. The human evidently doesn't like to not be given a choice.

Frozen embryos would probably work. Several children have been born and adopted in the last several years from frozen embryos (frozen for years, IIRC).

2) With no parents?! That is of course, where you are going with the "blank slate" idea. You would, at a minimum, need some kind of warm/soft/noise-making cuddling machine. Studies have shown that kids left untouched by humans grow up to be psycopaths. (There may be a bit of an exageration there, but the studies exist - and the kids don't turn out well.)

3) Besides the cuddling, how would they learn how to relate to each other? By watching vids? Human babies learn more by observation (and mimicry) than they do from instruction. So, you could get some serious issues of inappropriate touching (I'm trying to be family-friendly here), social heirarchies, not knowing how to do some of the social graces (like tact - "Hmmm, Barbara, this pea casserole is certainly interesting!"), etc.

4) How do they get disciplined? Is there a robot that swats their fanny when they don't play nice, or smacks their hand when they want to touch the hot plasma torch?

5) How do they reproduce? Depending on how you answer some of the questions above, you could postulate a society where there is no concept of sex. (Personally, I don't see that happening - ever.) The machine would harvest the necessary materials at maturity and would grow subsequent generations, etc. Or, they discover accidentally how reproduction happens because the machine wasn't programmed to provide contraception (medical or social methods).

Could be very interesting indeed. It could provide for a very alien culture for your players to stumble upon.

 

[Golan2072]

Ofcourse, it all depends on the quality of artificial intelligence in the specific universe; advanced enough AI (TL16 IIRC) will be able to provide all the emotional support a Human could give; pseudo-biological robots will make this even easier.

Ofcourse, the compromise would be to send a small group of humans in suspended animation with a big inventory of frozen embryos/sperms and ova/DNA to produce children with great genetic diversity (especially if the "live cargo" crew is too small for a healthy gene pool). This will be probably be doable around TL9-12 instead of TL16+ (which you need for a good AI in the OTU).

And, ofcourse, if your AI decides to play God(dess) with the new world, you could get VERY interesting societies, or (TL permitting) VERY interesting human subspecies...

Just imagine what SHODAN (from the System Shock computer game series) would be able to do with a big, well-equipped seedship with heavy genetic equipment...

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Although, 2-4601, an AI raising the kids would have some of the same issues I mentioned. It wouldn't be human, and it would therefore have a difficult time raising humans. Just as above, though: this isn't a show stopper, but instead a wrinkle to be exploited for a good story. (And, some of my thoughts become truly interesting with your "God AI" concept. Especially if it has some misinformation in its databanks....

)

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Yeah, I'm wondering about the lack of human guidance in the culture. Inappropriate touching could be the rule instead of the exception, I could see the first generation of kids growing into society of psycopaths easily. Even in a hopeful outcome, it seems likely that the first generation would be emotionally distant and have some very different taboos then Westerners do today.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

"Destination: Void" by Frank Herbert is a good one for this, and shows the hazards of letting a machine run things on that level.

I would think that a combined family/starship crew would serve the best. Not exactly "Lost in Space" but more like "Shall we have the Gunner Family over for dinner tonight?"

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Just had a thought. If the embryo decanting system is around in the Virus Era, a Virus-infested system could manufacture its own ironic army to challenge the players.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

Trolling on the Web recently, I found an alternate start point for the old 'Metamorphosis Alpha' RPG. It had a computer do the same process to produce new crew that would repair ship damage. Unfortunately, a radiation accident wipes out most of the implant programming.

This seems like a very worthwhile campaign hook.

At a minimum, one would expect a pseudobio robot tp be the 'den mother' to give them a biological substitute for physical contact. Other than that, no problems that I see.

 

[mike wightman]

Some form of memory implantation technology would help things out, along with growth quickening.

The implanted memories need not be complete, just enought to instill an empathic and ethical framework, and then further "training" memories to earn a trade.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Like RNA injections, perhaps Sigg?

Or some sort of bio implanted learning agent..tweaking some genes on faster learning ability..a modest +1 to INT for example?

 

[mike wightman]

Yep,
RNA injections, electronic memory transfer, etc.

Hmm, bio implant learning...

I like the sound of that one Liam

 

[Liam Devlin]

Well, in looking at the RNA shtuff--thats about TL-12.

Cloning comes along [ thank you Dolly] at TL-9.

Fast growth drugs TL-10+, then vats at TL-13 [era of the autodoc begins!].

The Bio-implant learning idea me bows comes from CJ Cherryh's novels on Cyteen & 40,000 in Gehenna in her Earth-Union series.

Creche-born humans, implanted with bio-matrixed learning capabilities for the jobs they will do when grown up, supplemented by 'deep tape memory as birthed [from cradle to walking stage], and tested along the way by monitors, computer systems that over see the project.

So if we're talking about TL's for these things, then without Jump drive, one must assume this society has higher medical tech than space & Power generations {[kind of like we are today..]

On a STL long range colony ship all of the planetary "support staff" for this would have to be streamlined, and automated or skeleton-crewed if you must.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Additionally:
the test tube grown baby first accomplished at TL-7 medically but thats exvitro fertilization then implanted in living mother-host.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
On a STL long range colony ship all of the planetary "support staff" for this would have to be streamlined, and automated or skeleton-crewed if you must.

I think I'd probably send some people in cold berths along for the ride as well...

they could help to reinforce the tape learned memories - my thanks to Liam for jogging the old memory about Cherry's works; especially those relevant titles, to which I would add Hellburner - and to guide the society which becomes established.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Well, in looking at the RNA stuff--thats about TL-12.
<snip>
So if we're talking about TL's for these things, then without Jump drive, one must assume this society has higher medical tech than space & Power generations [kind of like we are today..]

I agree, a base TL of between 10 to 12, with advanced medical TL up to TL13, but no jump tech should fit the bill.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Sigg--No, no jump technology--agreed, this is STL after all!

Jeff--dunno what ruleset yer using for the ship design.. for fuel and a colony's worth, and maybe a TL-12 computer system (low automation/ early robot brains)...maybe 50ktons maximum. wherever you set your tech on engines max thrust, figuring this is a one-shot "get there deal", and time to cross 4.6 LY a parsec...TL-8/9+ style thrust drives available...40-50 years passage a parsec [I'm ballparking actual numbers here--someone with better math / or degree can do the actual times/speeds than I]

In my way of thinking of STL colony ships you can go it one of several ways--

cold sleep of all adult colonists..TL-8 all the way there. Rotational waking crews.

carry more as embryonic/ exvitro and then frozen...still rotate waking crews TL-8 & 9.

The route you're looking at now...with creche born rotating colonists in flight to destination world/system, and a higher computer oversight. [mixed tech levels of medical being highest TL-D, to power generation TL's 7-8-9]

Sociologically...I'll tackle in another post.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Jeff--dunno what ruleset yer using for the ship design.. for fuel and a colony's worth, and maybe a TL-12 computer system (low automation/ early robot brains)...maybe 50ktons maximum. wherever you set your tech on engines max thrust, figuring this is a one-shot "get there deal", and time to cross 4.6 LY a parsec...TL-8/9+ style thrust drives available...40-50 years passage a parsec [I'm ballparking actual numbers here--someone with better math / or degree can do the actual times/speeds than I]

I had the initial design using solar sails and a powered perihelion maneuver, that can only get the ship to about 0.005C. Not bad for something without fuel, but still pathetic.

The second pass was a T4/TNE (FF&S1 and FF&S2) fusion rocket with a huge payload of hydrogen fuel and a final acceleration of about 0.05G (similar to the Enzmann design, but without daedelus style engines). That brought me to 0.02C, which was a lot better.

Made me wish that Bussard Ramjets actually worked. So now, as soon as I can free up some time, I'm going to try a solar sail coupled with a Zubrin magsail to see if I can get some better response out of that powereed perihelion maneuver. Of course, I'll have to write up the Zubrin magsail stuff too.

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:

Sociologically...I'll tackle in another post.

Yeah, that seems to be the one part that is the toughest. Yet, if I can get the design cheap enough, this might be a great way for a lot of the smaller subcultures to get out into space for an odd colony. I keep thinking that this may lead to something like, "We goths were persecuted on our own world - but with the financial backing of White Wolf Publishing and Hot Topic, we've been able to buy this seeder starship and will create our own world!" (Historical hilarity ensues...)

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Whichever way you go, Jeff, post it here and let us chew on it a bit. Your idea will come back a bit slobbered on, but you might get some really solid ideas.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

I posted this same question to several other boards in order to get a wide variety of answers to this open question. Below are the threads on those other boards, the discussions have been very interesting so far.

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=479841

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=7423

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=143434

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=210390

I'm sorry I have not updated this, I'm in the process of that today. I must admit that Real Life has gotten in the way (I am now working 72 hours a week on third shift doing a bit of crisis management). So stay tuned.