Biotech: question concerning preservation techniques

Northwoods · 03-29-2013, 10:20 AM

Hello everyone. It has been a few years since I last played GURPS (the last time my group used the system it was still in 3rd edition) and I've decided to develop a campaign using 4th edition rules. In a nutshell, I'm designing an STL colony ship setting and one element I'd like to include is the colonists' practice of strict population controls while their ship makes the 180 year journey to a new home.

I have not worked out many of the cultural nuances surrounding family/reproduction issues for the setting yet but I've decided that the SOP aboard ship will be to allow each woman to birth enough children to keep population levels stable; any pregnancies in excess of this number will result in the fetus being surgically-removed, preferably at a very early stage of pregnancy, and preserved so that these children can be grown later in exowombs and used to help populate the new colony.

The setting is generally TL 10 and I plan to have the colony ship advance rapidly towards the cusp of TL 12 in biotech during the voyage. Could a fertilized human egg be preserved effectively using cryonic vitrification or would suspended animation be safer and more effective? I'd like to avoid using nanostasis as I'm considering limiting some nanotech applications within the setting. Also, how many ova could be stored in a preservation unit intended to fit a full-grown human? I figure this is relevant to concerns regarding available space within the ship.

Genesis · 03-29-2013, 02:38 PM

Cryonic storage of fertilized eggs (zygotes, early blastocysts) is possible even today, although the viability of the stored embryo isn't necessarily great (and is extremely sensitive to storage conditions). Depends on how late you want to extract the thing - we can't preserve anything more complicated than a few cells and have it be alive post-thaw. I have no problem allowing TL 10 biotech to store late-stage embryos, and TL 12 biotech can probably store fetuses even late into the pregnancy cryogenically (or using whatever other magic TL 12 tech you wish).

As for the space requirements, they're small. Ova are single cells - you can fit an arbitrary number of them (for the purposes of a colony ship) into the space taken up by a full-sized person. The labels take up a lot more space - if you want to know which embryo is which you're gonna have a lot of little tubes just big enough to write on. The question isn't "how many eggs fit", it's "how small can we get the writing?"

Refplace · 03-29-2013, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Genesis

The labels take up a lot more space - if you want to know which embryo is which you're gonna have a lot of little tubes just big enough to write on. The question isn't "how many eggs fit", it's "how small can we get the writing?"

Computer coding on the containers. I can imagine chip sized containers inserted into control panels that monitor and care for them and report as needed.

Anthony · 03-29-2013, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Northwoods

Also, how many ova could be stored in a preservation unit intended to fit a full-grown human? I figure this is relevant to concerns regarding available space within the ship.

It's really not; your big limit will be availability of exowombs, not availability of storage.

Flyndaran · 03-29-2013, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's really not; your big limit will be availability of exowombs, not availability of storage.

And time for gestation between uses, unless you have batsh*t crazy biotech and don't mind the occasional terratoma-baby by speeding up development. Ewwwwww.

03-29-2013, 10:20 AM	#1
Northwoods Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: The Canadian Northwest	Biotech: question concerning preservation techniques Hello everyone. It has been a few years since I last played GURPS (the last time my group used the system it was still in 3rd edition) and I've decided to develop a campaign using 4th edition rules. In a nutshell, I'm designing an STL colony ship setting and one element I'd like to include is the colonists' practice of strict population controls while their ship makes the 180 year journey to a new home. I have not worked out many of the cultural nuances surrounding family/reproduction issues for the setting yet but I've decided that the SOP aboard ship will be to allow each woman to birth enough children to keep population levels stable; any pregnancies in excess of this number will result in the fetus being surgically-removed, preferably at a very early stage of pregnancy, and preserved so that these children can be grown later in exowombs and used to help populate the new colony. The setting is generally TL 10 and I plan to have the colony ship advance rapidly towards the cusp of TL 12 in biotech during the voyage. Could a fertilized human egg be preserved effectively using cryonic vitrification or would suspended animation be safer and more effective? I'd like to avoid using nanostasis as I'm considering limiting some nanotech applications within the setting. Also, how many ova could be stored in a preservation unit intended to fit a full-grown human? I figure this is relevant to concerns regarding available space within the ship.

03-29-2013, 02:38 PM	#2
Genesis Join Date: Dec 2010	Re: Biotech: question concerning preservation techniques Cryonic storage of fertilized eggs (zygotes, early blastocysts) is possible even today, although the viability of the stored embryo isn't necessarily great (and is extremely sensitive to storage conditions). Depends on how late you want to extract the thing - we can't preserve anything more complicated than a few cells and have it be alive post-thaw. I have no problem allowing TL 10 biotech to store late-stage embryos, and TL 12 biotech can probably store fetuses even late into the pregnancy cryogenically (or using whatever other magic TL 12 tech you wish). As for the space requirements, they're small. Ova are single cells - you can fit an arbitrary number of them (for the purposes of a colony ship) into the space taken up by a full-sized person. The labels take up a lot more space - if you want to know which embryo is which you're gonna have a lot of little tubes just big enough to write on. The question isn't "how many eggs fit", it's "how small can we get the writing?"