OK. I just needed to keep reading:
Titans are genetically engineered for "...strength and endurance, infantry to go where war machines could not..." (p. 226);
Chemos can survive high levels of radiation or pollution which, however, no longer occur.
Titans/giants and redundant metamorphs are common to the Harvest Of Stars future history and to Starfarers.
Do Tinies work in the small spaces inside machines?
One theme of this blog is "Remember Wells." In Chapter 16, Moon-dwellers were referred to as "Selenites," a term coined by Wells. In 17, the metamorphs remind us of Wells' Selenites whose bodies and brains are distorted from birth to specialize them for just one kind of manual or mental work. Wells did not know about the possibility of distorting genes instead of bodies.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Oops! I typed too hastily in the immediately previous combox!
And were "Tinies" even smaller than African pygmies but still as intelligent as modern humans? How small can people be made, thru genetic engineering, before that affects intelligence?
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I forgot to mention, because of you citing Wells, how we see that author speculating about modifying animals, including raising their intelligence, thru surgery in THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU.
And there were quacks in Stalin's time who convinced him to try breeding for super soldiers by breeding humans with apes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Breeding humans with apes? Give me strength!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Sickening, I agree! There were attempts at doing that in the 1930's.
Ad astra! Sean
Crossbreeding humans and apes wasn't possible with 1930's tech.
It would probably be possible now.
Humans and chimps diverged about 12-6 million years ago, but it was a "braided speciation".
That means that there were interbreeding incidents after that, which can be detected in the DNA of both humans and chimps -- which is one reason why it was so difficult to find a point of divergence between the species.(*)
Interbreeding between our ancestors and ancestors of modern chimps probably occurred (with decreasing frequency) up until about 4 million years ago.
So it would be possible. What you'd get would probably be very strong -- a chimp is stronger than a human by a factor of about 4x per pound, and they don't need exercise to build muscle either.
However, the result would also probably be dumb as a bucket of rocks, might not be able to learn to talk, and probably psychologically unstable.
(*) likewise, humans and Neanderthals diverged about 400,000 years ago, but interbreeding occurred after that, in bursts as the species came into contact, up until the disappearance of Neanderthals about 35K years ago. If there were Neanderthals around now, they'd probably be interfertile with us -- though with some difficulty. Much larger numbers of matings were always necessary to produce a human-Neanderthal hybrid than each species on its own would take with other members.
If you wanted a 'supersoldier', the way to do it would be using CRISPR to splice in specific genetic sequences into a human genome.
The ones for muscle tissue, attachments to the bones, etc.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Many thanks for these fascinating comments! Both about how the ancestors of humans could breed with chimps up till about four million years ago and how modern humans and Neanderthals did the same, up till about 35 thousand years ago.
And I think you had your appalling Draka using CRISPR to splice in desired human or animal characteristics into varying species. And of course that was probably how the Draka modified their children, turning them into homo Drakensis.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment