Cloning

I don't believe they were clones. Genetic material was used from favourable candidates, but I can't recall any mention of cloning.
 
Encyclopedia said:
The second strand of the plan was the creation of the genetically enhanced warrior elite, a process that would take generations. The first generation was the highly successful soldiers and pilots of the Kilrathi War, who were used as the genetic templates for the future generations. Christopher Blair was one such individual. The second generation were the Black Lance pilots such as Seether, who were grown from the first generation templates and further enhanced by bio-convergence technology. By this stage, the benefits of the process were already apparent. Despite being combat inexperienced, the Black Lance pilots flew better than many veterans, and were a match for battle hardened Border Worlds marines in hand to hand combat. The third generation would be the children of the second generation, further enhanced by bio-convergence technology, and so on. The Black Lance believed that the fifteenth generation created by this process would be like gods compared to normal humans.
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It's the use of the word "grown" and the Blair reference that make me think cloned. But I'm tired and that's open to interpretation I suppose. Good night.
 
It's important to highlight the fundamental difference between 'cloning' and genetic enhancement. Here in the 21st century, we've pretty much conquered 'direct' cloning within the last decade or so, it's a reasonably straightforward concept and we've already been able to pull it off for some time. The fun really begins when humans work out how to manipulate genetic traits and/or introduce beneficial elements of DNA from other subjects -i.e. genetic enhancement. The ability to switch certain genes on or off, or to mix and match the best genetic traits is a far more complicated undertaking.

In the Wing Commander Universe, we've had 500 more years to work on this, by then we'll have broken down certain technological boundaries and advanced genetic science (more specifically genetic enhancement) could be a lot more of a reality.

What I found reassuring about the closing moments of WC4 (as somebody that works in genetics) was the remaining sense of human outrage to the theory that (as Blair eloquantly puts it) "we as a race need tinkering with...engineering." I guess it opens up a fresh can of worms as to whether or not we'll have changed socially enough in the next half-millenium to accept modifying our own genetic makeup as a justifiable step to human survival.

I don't think it's something we'll see any time soon, not because as a race we're not getting close to being able to carry out these changes, rather the world is not socially prepared to accept that we can tinker with the fabric of our DNA, to change, for the first time, our nature-given makeup. Do we really know better than generations of natural selection? I personally think not.
 
-danr-:

How do you figure we've "conquered" direct cloning? Despite the hype up around Dolly success is more properly classified a freak accident given the ratio to failures. The fact it doesn't work like played up and translated to Sci-Fi doesn't help matters.

Unless you're declaring it a dead end, I would think one shouldn't begin to call it conquered until the breeders actual get delivered to them what was promised.

Gene therapy is a seperate technology they tinkered with by using engineered viruses. The problem is the immune system will swat them down. The one incident I'm aware of on record for a "successful" gene therapy was on a child with a suppressed immune system, who later died from a overactive immune system compliments of the Gene Therapy treatment. So one could argue it works after a fashion, albeit with insufficient active control in any existing method.
 
-danr- said:
Do we really know better than generations of natural selection? I personally think not.
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I don't disagree with you in principal, but the problem with this specific argument is that generations of natural selection has optimized our genetic code for swinging from trees and hunting bush babies. Human civilization has only existed for a few thousand years, maybe just over ten thousand at most. Our concept of "modern" society has been around only for about a thousand, and our modern technology has been around only for about a hundred. So we are very well adapted to live like animals do. Not so much to live (or fight a war in) a technologically advanced society. Technology simply outstrips evolutionary changes.

Two examples of this spring to mind. First, nutrition. The idea of having ample food anytime we want it (for many, if not all humans), is a relatively new concept. Traditionally, animals that could get as much stored energy as possible would survive better through winters and famines. Hence we're pre-disposed to think fattening foods taste good, and to try to eat as much as possible. But too much of these things is actually unhealthy. Our society has outstripped an evolutionary trait, and now we have to excercise self-control to avoid fattening ourselves to death.

A more direct example is in the field of head injury. Our skull structure is amazingly well adapted to protect our brain from impacts on the order of a less than 100 G's over time spans of 4-5 ms+--i.e. the kind of impact encountered if you fall out of a tree. It is not well equipped to protect our brain from impacts in different regimes--several hundred G's over a 1-2 ms timespan, which is what is encountered in car accidents or head heats in wartime from shrapnel. Yet such protection is possible...a woodpecker undergoes hundreds of such head "impacts" with no ill effects and has evolved a skull structure that protects it from them. Our skull structure is actually very bad at protecting our brains from explosive blast waves, because explosives have only been around for a couple of hundred years, and we haven't evolved natural protections against them.

Extrapolating forward, what makes a good pilot in the WC universe? A keen spatial awareness, heightened senses, heightened reflexes, and good manual dexterity. But physical athleticisim is not really necessary. So genetric traits evolved from natural selection don't help produce better WC pilots. Furthermore, women and men presumably do not choose mates based on their piloting prowess, so natural selection won't produce better pilots even given enough time. That's why Tolwyn and co. stepped in.
 
Farbourne said:
So we are very well adapted to live like animals do. Not so much to live (or fight a war in) a technologically advanced society. Technology simply outstrips evolutionary changes.
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While I don't like stepping into this discussion (especially since in the context of this thread, it's really off-topic), I'd like to point out that if you had a house that wasn't adapted to ordinary humans, you'd want to change the house - not the humans. If humans have a hard time living in a technologically advanced society, then it's the society that needs to change, not humans.
 
Sham-wow to the real thread: I believe Tolwyn points out, in the Wing Commander IV novelization, that The Project didn't master cloning; the idea is that Seether et. al. have been "enhanced" with various natural templates (including Blair!) and are now part of a multi generational breeding program to produce a Nazi superman.

One of the Privateer Online efforts (... the second one) did make cloning commonplace, to explain how players could die and then return to life.

Real-wow to the sham thread: urgh, go talk about the ethics of cloning in the off-topic thread so when I call you all platypuses and close the thread it won't damage this one.
 
Transhumanism is totally creepy and retarded.

The Privateer cloning concept is pretty silly too. why not just say there's auto-ejection, or even emergency teleporting or whatever saving your life. I'm generally not a fan of making things too weirdish sci-fi just for the sake of it.
 
why not just say there's auto-ejection, or even emergency teleporting or whatever saving your life. I'm generally not a fan of making things too weirdish sci-fi just for the sake of it.
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Why not just give you a funeral scene and kill of your character, and allow you to replay as his sun/heir/whatever who gets your belongings and credits after you died, ofcourse, running into a dogfight with a mercenary with zero kills who has been online since 3 years named "JohnnyKicksAssOMFG XXXVII" flying a tarsus with one laser would be pretty laughable...
 
I am still chewing on the rather elegant word "bio-convergence" in the Encyclopedia quote from above. The genetic template approach only means that they stole a bit of Blair & Co.'s DNA, replanted it into an egg cell and grew people the normal way, reminiscent of the controlled-breeding ideas in WWII.
But what then is bio-convergence?
 
criticalmass said:
I am still chewing on the rather elegant word "bio-convergence" in the Encyclopedia quote from above. The genetic template approach only means that they stole a bit of Blair & Co.'s DNA, replanted it into an egg cell and grew people the normal way, reminiscent of the controlled-breeding ideas in WWII.
But what then is bio-convergence?
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It's like LOAF said though. The Black Lance are not clones. Rather they've found a way to modify an existing person's DNA with desired traits.

I think bioconvergence is exactly what it sounds like. it's some form of science related to making separate biological agents (DNA) join or converge.
 
I am still chewing on the rather elegant word "bio-convergence" in the Encyclopedia quote from above. The genetic template approach only means that they stole a bit of Blair & Co.'s DNA, replanted it into an egg cell and grew people the normal way, reminiscent of the controlled-breeding ideas in WWII.
But what then is bio-convergence?
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I believe the encyclopedia entry quoted above is incorrect. Bioconvergence is the science that forms the basis for the gen-select bioweapon -- it was not involved in the initial creation of the GE pilots. Remember, you capture Doctor Brody (a "bioconvergence chemist") so the weapon can be finished... while Seether and company have already been around for more than twenty years at that point.

Tolwyn explains this a bit better in the novelization. He defines bioconvergence as "the idea that we might program physiological changes in the species" -- but he also makes clear that it's something new, not the initial basis for the genetic enhancement project. Seether and friends are the first generation - they're existing humans chosen for their abilities enhanced with genetic 'templates'. By Wing Commander IV a second generation has already been born (they make up Tolwyn's infantry and ground crews), which is the result of selective breeding. The *third* generation, he says, can now be "augmented by bioconvergence" -- they will benefit from the larger gene pool created by the gen-select attacks.

(I think we can see how this all went wrong, too. The initial project, during the war, wasn't any attempt to change humanity -- it was a process for creating a group of superior fighters to combat the Kilrathi. The generational (and all-encompassing) aspects come later...)
 
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