Justifying bioroids

[AlexanderHowl]

You can design a bioroid off the genes of the parent(s) as well. Anyway, the purpose of human reproduction is memetic as well as genetic, as children usually share many of the memes of their parents as well as their genes.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You can design a bioroid off the genes of the parent(s) as well. Anyway, the purpose of human reproduction is memetic as well as genetic, as children usually share many of the memes of their parents as well as their genes.

Bioroids don't have parents or the opportunity to bond with caretakers by first appearing as babies.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Bioroids don't have parents or the opportunity to bond with caretakers by first appearing as babies.

Hm. That's an interesting point. Is it possible to have a bioroid that grows from infant to adult or are they required to be constructed fully grown? There are reasons it could be the latter.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You can design a bioroid off the genes of the parent(s) as well. Anyway, the purpose of human reproduction is memetic as well as genetic, as children usually share many of the memes of their parents as well as their genes.

Sterile bioroids can’t have children, thus it’s more difficult for them to continue the line (they’d have to adopt, or also commission a bioroid). It’s doable, certainly, but I think more people would be interested in having “enhanced” children rather than starting a family line like that.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Hm. That's an interesting point. Is it possible to have a bioroid that grows from infant to adult or are they required to be constructed fully grown? There are reasons it could be the latter.

I could see it going either way. Bioroids with synthetic components are more likely to be made fully-grown, but being made in an infant form seems like it should certainly be possible.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Hm. That's an interesting point. Is it possible to have a bioroid that grows from infant to adult or are they required to be constructed fully grown? There are reasons it could be the latter.

If it were the former, would we called them "bioroids" rather than "genetically-engineered organisms" or "parahumans"?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Hm. That's an interesting point. Is it possible to have a bioroid that grows from infant to adult or are they required to be constructed fully grown? There are reasons it could be the latter.

Such an idea blurs the line between bioroid and parahuman. The basic advantage of the bioroid is that while some of them are made to look like children (for reasons that are usually quite disturbing to think about) they are manufactured without the need for years of delay before they can be deployed as troops or workers.

[AlexanderHowl]

Which might be desirable for slaves, but it is not desirable if you are trying to augment your number of productive citizens for a TL10+ society. Female bioroids can have functional wombs though, you could even technically give them human ova, so they could have certainly have human children with human men (or with male bioroids given male human equivalents).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Which might be desirable for slaves, but it is not desirable if you are trying to augment your number of productive citizens for a TL10+ society.

The reason bioroids are permitted to have features that are not available to parahumans is because bioroids don't need to be able to grow from an egg, and thus you don't have to design in the full growth path. Now, that doesn't mean you can't make it able to grow at all, but it does mean that there are (not clearly defined) limits on its growth ability. If bioroids have to be made as adults, that's a technical limitation, not something done for the convenience of the makers.

[Tyneras]

One of the defining features of a bioroid, to me at least, is that they are essentially meat machines, not an animal in the traditional sense. They are assembled in their complete, and only, form with no intermediate stages.

That is not to say that parts aren't grown. You could very well grow muscles and bones and organs in vats then put them together like Legos. The parts don't even need to have similar genetics, so long as whatever passes for an immune system, which may be entirely artificial, doesn't attack it. A bioroid may have random artificial bits where a biological component wouldn't be able to take the strain or would be too complicated.

Taking a skin sample from a bioroid and growing it could result in some wild genetically engineered monstrosity you've never seen before because that gene line is used exclusively for the skin cells.

If you can grow and entire "bioroid" from a single cell, what you really have is a parahuman.

[Pomphis]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Hm. That's an interesting point. Is it possible to have a bioroid that grows from infant to adult or are they required to be constructed fully grown? There are reasons it could be the latter.

IMO that´s the point of them. You put them together from vat-grown parts as young adults. You get instant workers and your genetic engineers can skip all those parts of the code that would be required for a living organism in all pre-adult stages of development.