[Bio-Tech] Human Genetic Engineering When?

[scc]

Originally Posted by Varyon

So from this I'm assuming the society manages to go from TL 8 to TL 10 in several fields in the short 30 years between 2020 and 2050. That is an incredible rate of advancement. 2050 is when UT had TL 10 starting on the Accelerated path... but that also had us reaching TL 9 in 2020. You'll need an alternate history setting, probably with the point of divergence around 2007 (when UT was published) at the latest and then go with the Accelerated path... which if it holds will mean the society that sends them will have advanced to TL 11 by the time they arrive, and will have advanced to TL 12 by the time they would have returned if they didn't discover FTL travel at the alien megastructure.

Divergence point will be 2020, when reactionless drives are discovered. IRL we appear to be on the cusp of TL9, we are developing at least some of the technologies, so we're on the Fast or Medium tracks. Let's pick Medium. So that means my mission shouldn't be possible until 2120. Yet it's happening anyway. There are two factors here, a society have to have a a uniform TL, it can be ahead or behind it certain areas, this timeline as technology racing ahead in at least spacecraft drives and one medical area required to keep the crew alive long enough. The second is that this is a historical anomaly. Manned lunar spaceflight looks like it's a TL9 thing, yet we accomplished in the 60's, solidly TL7, what gives? Unique stressors on a society, like what's occurring in my timeline.

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'm reminded a bit of a short story I read a while back, about a sleeper ship that is sent to colonize a habitable world that is discovered some distance from Earth. When they awaken in the target system, they are shocked to find it already colonized. It turns out that some time after their ship launched, new breakthroughs allowed the creation of a colonization ship that would be able to arrive before the first one did, and a new colonization vessel was launched. Of course, they didn't make it there first either - turns out there were multiple such advances, and each time another ship was launched to arrive before the previous one. This ultimately culminated in the system being colonized a few years before the first ship even launched, due to the last set of colonists to leave using a drive that distorted time, and then the rest trickled in in reverse order of when they launched.

This kind of happen in the Honorverse, but in the background, I suspect a connection.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by scc

So I'm working through some stuff for a possible Space campaign and the backstory involves an manned interstellar mission to Alpha Centauri launching some time this century. The crew for this mission have will be gene-engineered with at least Longevity, Hibernation, and No Degeneration in Zero-G. What's the earliest that this could likely to spliced into a human genome?

No way of knowing. I was on the GURPS Bio-Tech Playtest and am a professional in human genetics. I have a long career as a scientist in biotech product design and I routinely advise my marketing counterparts that there are a number of required discoveries to unlock some product that they want, and there is no way to know or predict ahead of time how long to a given discovery. These are all discoveries that the underlying way to do could be unlocked next week, or in 50 years. I have no way of knowing. Guess, based upon your campaign world timeframe and then go from there.

Good luck!

-P (Paraj V. Mandrekar, Senior Scientist in Biotech)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by scc

This kind of happen in the Honorverse, but in the background, I suspect a connection.

It's possible. I believe I read it on 365 Tomorrows (a website that has a new piece of "flash fiction" - basically an ultra-short, self-contained story - every day, all in the general science fiction genre); the author may have been inspired by whatever part of the background of the Honorverse you're referencing here (I've personally never read anything in that setting). A lot of the stuff in there could be fleshed out into some rather fascinating campaign settings, although I honestly haven't read anything from the site in a few years.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

the author may have been inspired by whatever part of the background of the Honorverse you're referencing here (I've personally never read anything in that setting).s.

I thought I'd read most of it but do not flash on anything specific.

That said the history of interstellar technology in the setting does support this sort of thing. For example the first wave of interstellar colonization was sleeper ships travelliong at respecable percentages of c. the second wave had access tot eh "alpha" level of hyperspace and could travel 64x faster and so on for the "beta " level and further until you get to the levels that are useful for trips that aren't one-way or involve hibernation.