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Underground > Laboratory >

Clone Warriors - the Businessplan for a new level of carnage

02:44 / 03.11.07

I propose the following:

Uber-mice have worked. Apparently it´s possible to tweak exactly the same gene in humans. The probable result: People with longer life, better physical values and lots of agressive potential.

As in-vitro birth is still a bit far off, you´d need mothers willing to give birth for payment. In a third world country, that´s probably not that hard. Manipulation of the genetic material is conducted on random stem cells, implanting the most promising.

By now, with enough investors in your project, a sizable army of uber-people should be growable in about 30 years. Or 15, if the metabolisms quicken.

Now, to my questions: Do you think this would work?

Also, feel free to discuss the moral implications.

Closed for Business Time

10:15 / 03.11.07

I thought the Lab was properly kitted for discussions of medical ethics, so let's keep it all in-thread, shall we?

Gimme time, I'll be back with meat for the grill.

10:13 / 05.11.07

Do you think this would work?

In what way work?

It sort of presumes that a number of fairly basic ethical and legal hurdles would be jumped doesn't it? We go back to previous discussions about the creation of GM slave races. In the event that "super-soldier" grade GM-humans are actually bred they would, in theory, have the same rights as any member of society.

It's impossible to say what the result of modifying this gene in a human would be. They use the phrase "very aggressive" to refer to the mice. Assuming that maps across to a human modified this way then you are not necessarily going to have the perfect soldier. You could just as easily end up with a genetically-enhanced psychopath.

Whilst, arguably, aggression is a valuable trait to have in frontline combat soldiers I would imagine that the world's military have enough problems with the inappropriate agression of unmodified soldiers to have to worry about the Beserker Corps.

As in-vitro birth is still a bit far off, you´d need mothers willing to give birth for payment. In a third world country, that´s probably not that hard.

Unfortunately there are people in desperate circumstances the world over. Not just the third world.

11:54 / 05.11.07

A possible way for lots of hurdles to be jumped would be the labelling of said modification as gene therapy, used on consenting adults. The US gets to use speed, so what would stop them from experimenting with other enhancers? If proven suitable, stable and efficient, this could be the first step in establishing a population of supersoldiers somewhere in Nevada.

To the central question: Could genetic modification on some scale for military purposes happen without the public noticing or caring? Could a company claim custody of it´s creations? (Probably not yet, but we´te got DNA patents, so maybe it´s not that far off...)

jentacular dreams

12:48 / 05.11.07

Well you're looking at two dissimilar cases here. The mice are a GM breed, with the pat/matriarch transfected whilst still at the egg stage.

Genetically modifying an adult to this extent is currently well beyond our abilities. Even attempts to modify a cell culture typically result in only partial transfection, the majority of which is usually transient. To maintain a stable transfection in vivo antibiotics are used to select out the cells without the relevant plasmid. To attempt widespread transfection within a human adult would be very tricky indeed, with no guarantees as to what proportion of the cells will take up the transfectant, nor how long it would last (so to answer your second question, probably not - the gene therapy would wear off like most drugs).

As for creating soldiers whilst they are still just eggs, well it's possible but you've got an 18 year wait to see if it pays off with every chance that something better or cheaper will present itself in the meantime. Ethical issues aside, I don't think it's a good investment. If measures to introduce longer lasting transfection within adults are developed then that might change, obvs.

13:26 / 06.11.07

Also the comparative expense of breeding this army of "super-soldiers" would be balanced against the (admittedly callous and cynical) viewpoint that even a faster and stronger soldier is still going to get chopped into burger-meat by gunfire.

Could a company claim custody of it´s creations?

I find it extremely unlikely. Non-human animals have been patented. But what you describe there could be construed as slavery. Even in the highly unlikely event of a corporation being given custody of a child they would be held to laws designed to protect said children.

In the near-future of front-line engagements it seems much more likely that this is what will be comitting the battlefield atrocities.

jentacular dreams

13:55 / 06.11.07

Isn't that barbe-plugging ES?

Then again, with the wetware-hardware/software interfaces as described in transhuman tech, there's no need to rely on pure mechanicals obviously. Currently major injuries such as limb loss mean that members of the armed forces are no longer deemed fit for battle. How cheap and effective would robotic limbs have to get before limb replacement is considered more economical than the cost of recruiting and training a replacement soldier?

Back ontopic, I can't help but wonder if the "aggression" described in the mice was just a result of their appetite? I know plenty of people who get pretty cranky when hungry...

15:06 / 06.11.07

even a faster and stronger soldier is still going to get chopped into burger-meat by gunfire.

Yeah. Face it, a super-soldier is only going to be a few percent better than a soldier. Considering what highly trained killing machines many soldiers are already, it's hard to see what benefit a gengineered Rogue Trooper uber-infantryman would have. It's more likely gene therapy resistance to chemical and biological weapons will be devised before we see Captain America, there's plenty of wetware to come but probably not clone wars.

Example- for the cost of breeding a supersoldier, you could have a special forces soldier equipped with a powered exoskeleton with onboard miniguns and bulletproof armour, in fact probably a dozen of them. They'll make short work of a superclone, because you can't breed for bulletproof skin, and a well trained clone is not going to perform significantly better than a well trained soldier created by the traditional method of fucking (which is free).

07:53 / 07.11.07

Isn't that barbe-plugging ES?

Related topic surely?

09:29 / 07.11.07

@Quantum:

All quite true. Another big factor is that the clonewarriors would retain their free will of course, and would be subject to the same kinds of psychological problems.

But I do think the aforementioned maths don´t quite work out. How expensive is in-vitro fertilisation nowadays? About 4,000 Euro (But that´s the end-users price tag, not the production. I guess that could be lowered quite a bit.)

And what´s the price tag of your average Talon SWORDS Drone? Far away from any real autonomous action?
US $230,000

So it could potentially be cheaper to artificially accelerate population growth with people potentially yearning to blow stuff up. I guess price-wise, the supersoldier is quite a bit cheaper. ( Of course, vulnerable and everything, but potentially better at handling standard military equipment.)

11:05 / 07.11.07

How expensive is in-vitro fertilisation nowadays? About 4,000 Euro

But then you have a fetus, not a supersoldier. How much does it cost to raise a child to adulthood? It's an average of about $200,000 in fact (which will get you a Talon drone), then you have training and equipment costs on top, and of course it takes 17 years instead of a few months. What advantage does that have over a (free to produce!) new recruit of 17 who wants to join the army?

Basically I think from an army's pov there's a large resource pool of free bodies out there that are considerably more cost effective than a genetically engineered superperson. If you run short there's always the draft.