posted
This is something I've had floating around my brain for a while... Give me your thoughts!
Since the Desceladores (That craazy semi-sentient virus from the Speaker Trilogy, henceforth reffered to as "The Big D") has the ability to recode DNA so quickly that your body doesn't reject it, it can be used as a kind of super-gene therapy, right? But instead of being limited to changing a cromosone or two, in Xenocide and COTM, we're told it's capable of making major changes to the entire gene set. Hence, Path inhabitants become geniuses (genui?) and the Piggies on Lusitania keep the Third life while giving host to a neutered Big D.
Well, in this universe that OSC has set up, with this cool story telling device, what's to stop some brilliant but screwed up geneticist from using The Big D to actually change himself or others into different people, right at the genetic level? Imagine, an army of clones in a day, or the ultimate witness protection tool.
But why stop there? This is the perfect tool for spies, crooks, double agents, the loney, rejected, depressed, transexuals, heck... anybody who doesn't like/want some of thier nasty inbred traits. It could be the ultimate cosmetic - blonde and thin in the morning for jogging, redhead and voloptuous at night for the party.
And why stop with humanity? Obviously Ela, Jane, Miro, etc. are smart enough to figure out how the Piggies pull off the whole species changing trick, so lets use that, too! Studying animal behaviour? Why not become an animal like your test subjects? "Hey class, today we're going to become dolphins and go on a field trip to the ocean to look at fish. I hope your parents signed your Genetic Recombination Release Form and your all brought tuna for snack time."
So, while you're all dazzled with my sheer billiance, the real reason I bring this up is to suggest one of the many reasons why OSC hasn't gone back to play in the Enderverse after COTM takes place and why he left so much "undone". There are simply too many cool possibilities now - FTL travel by thought, computer/human interfaces at the SPIRITUAL level, designer genes, and of course, the Bid Daddy of them all, access to unorganized intelligences. Anybody want to play God?
While I can understand if OSC never touches that end of the Enderverse again, part of me also hopes he writes something more, just so I can read along as he plays with all the coolest new toys. And we thought the world was a screwed up place now...
Wonder Dog
BTW, for all your REALLY old timers, you might remember an distant year when the original Wonder Dog roamed these forums, annoyed people, and tried to build a Hatrackateeer website. Well, I am he, long since returned from my mission in Ontario and finally ready to return to Hatrack life. Long live the Nerds! :0)
Posts: 353 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Hey, welcome back! I was wondering if you might have been the same Wonderdog. That site was a great idea, by the way.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I just have one question about this. Doesn't the descolada virus (any form of it) get passed on automatically to anyone you touch? You wouldn't want all of the humans in the country to turn into dolphins for one class's field trip. But yeah, there are a lot of open possibilities.
Posts: 981 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Good point, Julie. Somehow Ela kept the changes that neutered the Big D and let the Piggies keep the Third Life from changing the human and bugger colonists of Lusitania into trees when they die. I assume this also stopped the Big D on Path from turning every creature there into a super-smart human. So, in theory, does that give Ela enough control to tailor the Big D to respond only to certain individuals? Or is this a moot point since OSC didn't address this issue?
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posted
I thought the one on Path made it so everyone is like Wang-mu: really smart but without the OCD-like symptoms. Thus it spread to everyone on the planet. Does that mean that it someone else were to show up on Path they would also become super smart?
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Hasn't OSC mentioned that there will be further Enderverse novels? Something that reweaves the Shadow series back to the Speaker Series?
Posts: 1843 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Julie, I think you're right - any human who comes in contact with someone from Path will get the super smart gene spliced in by the Big D. Although, Peter mad a snide comment about not wanting to get the virus during his brief stop on Path. But these changes only apply to humans, while the Big D invades every kind of orginism it contacts, without turning them into humans, apparently. So I guess the Dolphin field trip is doable.
Erik, I've also heard the same rumors. (Bean's child hooks up with Ender/Peter or Jane?) But I don't know if OSC will address the issues surrounding the Desceladores - it'll be pretty messy. If anyone could pull it off though, OSC can!
Posts: 353 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
A flu like virus that everyone catches would seem to be not so cool if you are having little babies. It seems the plague was a self limiting one that would only affect those who were alive at the time on Path.
Wasn't it that supposedly no one died of the virus? I dunno. It's hard to imagine nobody dying of it. But if we accept your scenario, it would become a hot natural resource, and might turn Path into some kind of economic monstrosity. Like Dune with the spice.
Anyway, the big D can only be engineered in that way through the cooperation of Jane. Does she have to go into relativistic flight in order to keep her Valentine body young? Will she and Miro's children inherit some way of containing the philotic network?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Pregnancy never crossed my mind... what happpended to all the children who were in-utero when the alterations swept Path? We're not told much about how the splicer version of the Big D works, other than that it caused a fever and incapacitated people for a day or two.
You're also right that Jane, in reality, controls both Philotic travel and the designer gene industry - however, the Descoladors are obviously smart enough to creat the Big D, so perhaps some really intelligent but screwed up human could come up with ways to majorly change the Big D without Jane's power.
Interesting aside: Could Jane regulate an entire industry subconsciously that would allow a lot of humans to use Philotic travel regularily? ie. Is Philotic travel ready for the masses or the select few that Jane is cloes to/aware of? OSC leaves a lot of room for all possibilities. I guess the two extreems(sp?) would be: 1) Jane is mortal like the rest of us, she can't handle more that a dozen trips to outside at a time, limiting Philotic travel to those she immediatley knows, and her kids can't duplicate her powers.
OR
2) Jane is much longer lived than the rest of us, has the power to move people outside subconsciosly using the Mother Tree network, and her kids tap into the same powers, thus giving all of the brotherhood of races access to Philotic travel and changing the course of history in a major way.
So does history rest in Jane's hands, or are her powers a brief freakshow in the history of the universe?
Posts: 353 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I guess when Jane's Val body dies, she will go back to being non corporeal. And the idea of her children having non human aiuas is inconsistent. Then again, Val and Peter coming into existence at all was rather strange.
I one time thought of a story where people were using teleportation as a healing modality. But it took years of schooling, months if you were desperate, to prepare for your trip such that you got better rather than worse. I guess I discarded the idea when I realized how similar it was to Miro's restoration, but then I realized there are few really new ideas. So...
I guess someone with Anthon's key (Bean or his children) could suspend time through interstellar travel and come out to be "healed" by an FTL teleport. But there would be some reason it would stink for them to give up their mutation. Like they are the only one who can communicate with the Descaladores. It takes some kind of lateral intelligence that can't be simulated by another human or a computer. Well, bordering on fan fiction here.
I also had a really great story idea, same problem, about Theresa Wiggin actually having attended Battle School and being assigned by Graff to marry Jean Paul. I guess it's easy to write stories about characters that have already been developed by a genius.
posted
Maybe OSC's toyed with the idea, but thought better of it because he thought some group of OSC addicts might get the wrong idea and think he might one day put some weird transexual in a Speaker book... j/k
I do think that's a good idea, and maybe OSC really has thought about it. It could come in handy, depending on where OSC will take us in the future of Enderverse. Posts: 667 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote: So, while you're all dazzled with my sheer billiance, the real reason I bring this up is to suggest one of the many reasons why OSC hasn't gone back to play in the Enderverse after COTM takes place and why he left so much "undone".
posted
Well... er... I thought it was a neat idea.
Actually, I imagined a story in which a psycho genetisist used the descaladores to change himself/herself into other people to murder/steal/live in thier lives/whatever... Achilles descendant, if not biologically, then at least ideologically.
Posts: 353 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Relax Wonder Dog. It is an interesting idea, I was just jesting you for that particular comment about us being awed by your brilliance. Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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