One year ago…
After the Antares Authority of the Terran Accord confirmed its decision to surrender, all of the world’s classified documents were released - including medical research records. This wasn’t notable to me… not until I got an email from a subdivision of the now-defunct Antares Authority.
Curious, and confused, I looked at the subject line -
Secure message - Important declassified document released. Verify your identity to view
I clicked on it, and looked at the sender and the attachment. Everything was legitimate, so I provided my fingerprint and accessed the document. It was some sort of research paper
Antares Authority Department of Health - Genetic Engineering Division
Experiment 7831 - Control, Case 12
Name: VANESSA White
Date: Decembrary 78th, 2529
Test subject documentation, Abridged Version
Experiment 7831, case 12? Those numbers were small; far smaller than the 15 billion people on Antares A3. That must mean that not everybody got this kind of paper; I was unique in some way. I had no idea what document this was… was I a test tube baby or something? No… I had baby pictures, right? And two completely normal parents. What had they done to me? Possibilities began to course through my mind - but the answer was right in front of me. Why waste time on that? I already knew that I was going to read the whole thing, so I immediately skipped the abstract, going right to the “purpose” section.
2 - Purpose
The obesity crisis has been seen as unsolvable due to the outright refusal of the Standard Food megacorporation to reduce the glucose proportion of most of their foods. Most obvious attempts to promote public health have been blocked with lobbying from Standard Food, which makes any overt attempts to alter consumers’ spending habits impossible. However, more covert attempts remain feasible as long as they can be explained by something outside of the Antares Authority’s control and remain classified.
If widely disseminated to a substantial proportion of unborn children, a genetic modification could slip under the radar and solve the obesity crisis within a generation.
Although the entirety of the Terran Accord is affected by the obesity crisis, defeating the obesity crisis would allow Antares to gain yet another advantage over the rest of the Accord, dramatically reduce medical costs, and increase our productivity and lifespans. This could be the solution that catapults our influence over that of Sol.
2.1 - Payload
This isn’t a novel idea; experiments 7712 - Adapt and 7594 - Burn have explored utilizing various genetic modifications to fight obesity, including (a) modifying the brain/tongue to not crave sugary foods, as well as (b) modifying the body to burn additional fat. However, these won’t work, as case (a) will result in Standard Food finding a substance other than glucose to capture Antares’s cravings, and case (b) will result in the starvation of those without enough resources to feed their new metabolisms, and increase the spending on food required of our populace.
Instead, we propose (c), experiment 7831 - Control. This genetic payload would, instead of directly attacking the fat or the cravings, allow recipients to better control their bodies so that they could be adapted to their own needs. If done correctly, it should be able to increase the level of connection between the conscious mind and the peripheral nervous system, allowing recipients to, if they are educated on how to do so, directly alter their heart rates and stimulate their muscles, control their metabolism and nutrient absorption rate, and better control their own emotions.
This would not only give various other benefits to Terrans within the Antares Authority, but it would allow the population to better refrain from giving into cravings, and more easily burn off existing fat in a controlled manner. Introduced to the Antares population, unlike (a) and (b), this would have a high likelihood of completely solving the obesity crisis with minimal side effects.
2.2 - Terran psychology
Various dissenters have expressed doubts as to whether this will work. They believe that increasing conscious control over the body will lead to a decrease in happiness and fulfillment, as inhibitions make it more difficult to find peoples’ true desires.
This line of thinking, however, is based on the pseudoscientific idea that the subconscious mind is some sort of infallible wizard that knows exactly what a person wants. Not only is this untrue, but this misinformation is incredibly dangerous.
For example, if this line of thinking were true, signature of legal agreements while the signer is under the influence would be binding and valid, as they would be in line with the participants’ true desires. Consent for sexual intercourse could also be given while under the influence, and those under the influence who gave consent would have no legal recourse .
Additionally, studies have shown that depressant usage, which lowers conscious control of the body and inhibitions, doesn’t actually lead to people being truer to themselves, or making decisions that they’re likely to enjoy later on. In fact, the opposite is true - the decisions that people make with a decreased conscious control of their life generally end up having far more negative impacts on their lives than decisions made while not under the influence.
Subconscious desires represent a person’s raw desires and emotions, and therefore highlight unfulfilled needs . Using them to guide our actions, however, is a horrible idea, as our subconscious minds cannot comprehend the long-term effects of those actions. For example, an individual could have an unfulfilled need for attention. As a result, they could subconsciously (or consciously) desire to be famous. However, being famous has long-term effects that erode peoples’ mental health. The person with the subconscious desire to be famous would be better off finding another way to acquire the attention that would fulfill their need.
In another situation, somebody with an unfulfilled need for sustenance could subconsciously (or consciously) desire to eat a large quantity of sweets. Such a person might find themself struggling to maintain a diet. However, giving into this desire would lead to a variety of long-term consequences - stomachaches, lethargy, as well as, over an even longer term, obesity and a general decline in health. Additionally, this wouldn’t lead to the person’s fulfillment. This person would be better served by eating something healthy, even though that is not subconsciously desired.
In our final example, we look at the BDSM community. In the Terran Accord, there exist some individuals who are into petplay. Even those who are not into petplay (but have been exposed to it) have repressed desires to be a pet. However, this does not mean that giving into these repressed desires will lead to emotional fulfillment. The idea that the subconscious is the arbiter of what makes us happy leads us to the preposterous idea that anybody with the subconscious desire to become a pet, would benefit from being forcibly encaged and paraded around on a leash.
In summary, there are lots of things that people subconsciously want that do not benefit them. An individual’s conscious mind is a far better arbiter of what would benefit the individual. While the subconscious mind should indeed be listened to, the actions and situations that the subconscious desires should not be taken as “true” desires. We can say a similar thing about the concept of “going with one’s gut”.
Subconscious and “gut” desires are animalistic, vulnerable to exploitation, and do not lead to better emotional fulfillment than random chance. The conscious repression of these desires is the very thing separating us from animals, and, counterintuitively, it’s actually what allows us to have happy, fulfilling lives. Without repression, we would be unable to consider the long-term consequences of our actions, and we would thus suffer - consider that lack of long-term consideration for the consequences of one’s actions led to the Terran climate crisis. Therefore, enhancing conscious control over the brain and body will increase the overall fulfillment that the population feels.
In summary, it is the conscious mind, not the subconscious mind, that is the most responsible, mature portion of the brain. Thus, it knows best for us, and it should be given more authority over the rest of the body, and that will lead to higher overall happiness.
2.3 - Case 12 specific notes
We’ve prepared the standard seven different genetic payloads; all of them will be tried at least three times, for a total of 21 different cases minimum before we can come to any conclusions. Thus, case 12 will use modification 7831-05, along with cases 05 and 19.
Modification 7831-05 works slightly differently from most of the other modifications; it’s most similar to modification 7831-03, though even that’s a bit of a stretch. Instead of taking the standard approach of allowing the cerebral cortex to control unconscious parts of the cerebral cortex like the amygdala and the brain stem, this modification will expand the direct pathways between the cerebral cortex and the spinal cord, allowing for direct, rather than indirect, conscious control over more elements of the body.
The modifications required to produce this also make the brain far more extensible, as various additional pathways are constructed, which should allow for efficient adaptation to additive prosthetics (rather than just replacements). If widely distributed, this could allow for incredible body modification potential, which could have revolutionary implications for civilian labor.
However, it also has some drawbacks. The increase in generic connections requires more neurons and general brainpower, which will be drawn from other portions of the cerebral cortex. Existing cognitive enhancements can be utilized to combat this, which should allow recipients of 7831-05 to operate with similar intelligence to the unmodified population. However, these cognitive enhancements aren’t comprehensive, and certain areas of the brain may be left uncovered. Thus, recipients may see a deficit in social functioning, which would leave the future of modification 7831-05 uncertain.
Despite the risks that would normally disqualify this modification from human testing, the high potential benefits have resulted in this modification being escalated past computer simulations regardless. Additionally, even if these human trials don’t qualify to be introduced to the general population, the modification might have potential applications for various subpopulations, such as the Antares A3 Computing Province, or the Antares A2 Generational Terraforming Team.
Even if 7831-05 is withdrawn from consideration in this study, we still recommend its use in relevant future studies.
3 - Procedure
Currently, we are doing preliminary testing on what might end up to be Antares Systemwide Species Modification 009. Seven different modifications have passed rigorous computer simulation tests and show promise in terms of effect to side effect ratio. Each modification will be given to three distinct subjects. Progress will be monitored for each modification over 10 years, with rigorous, detailed body scans documented each year. Then, the two most promising results will be tested further, or the experiment will be declared a failure if we cannot find one with sufficient promise.
If everything goes well with the selected two modifications when tested on a larger scale, the one with the most promise will be disseminated to the entirety of the population.
Assuming a modification is selected, contemporary models say that all new non-Naturalist births will be modified within 20 years, and 99% of non-Naturalist births will be modified within 140 years.
3.1 - Combating Naturalists
The Naturalist movement [those opposed to direct genetic modification of children] is a massive logistic problem present in every attempt to genetically modify the population of Antares. As a law enforcing mandatory genetic modifications is too unpopular to pass, this forces us to utilize more creative measures.
This often leads to a “lag”, where naturalists never receive important genetic modifications, and thus lag behind the general population in key areas such as intelligence, apathy, and maturity. If no steps are taken to compensate for this, it could lead to de-facto discrimination against naturalists.
Avenue 1 [all levels of naturalist modification adoption]: Adoption
As Naturalists don’t generally marry non-Naturalists, introducing the modification into the naturalist gene pool is difficult. However, as Naturalists generally aren’t opposed to adoption, we can make naturalists unknowingly modified children, and vice versa. This strategy is difficult to notice due to the opacity of the adoption system, and was used successfully various times prior.
Avenue 2 [all levels of naturalist modification adoption]: Political Stressing
We can also increase Naturalist marriage with modified individuals by increasing coverage of issues perpendicular to Naturalism. This will lower Naturalists’ desires to stay away from modified individuals, and hopefully insure that the gene can cross into Naturalist gene pools quickly and efficiently.
Avenue 3 [>75% level of naturalist modification adoption]: The Defect List
The final strategy we can utilize is The Defect List. As The Defect List is too politically popular to repeal, we can consider anybody without the modification to be “defective”, and enforce the abortion of all unmodified fetuses. This can be cripplingly effective, but failed during Modification 001, when it was used too early. At that point, for about a month, close to 90% of Naturalist fetuses were considered defective, which led to an incredibly high amount of backlash, and forced the Department of Health to temporarily reverse that policy.
Although we cannot directly introduce the modifications to the population on a large scale, we can incentivize that gene’s propagation via sperm/egg donation, as well as using a combination of gene testing and selective abortion (adding lack of modified genes to the “defective” list).
Using these methods, the modification in experiment 0058 (modification 001) was applied to 99.95% of the population of Antares over approximately 150 years, without significant backlash. Currently, the modification from experiment 0058 is present in 99.9% of new Naturalist births. Modification 001, for context, is the general intelligence booster that was responsible for the success of Antares as a commercial and scientific hub.
Modifications 002 through 006 have achieved similar prevalence, while 007 and 008 are new, but still making progress. Lack of modification 007 has just been added to the defect list, with absolutely no backlash recorded. Therefore, we can say that the political climate will not adversely affect Naturalist adoption of genetic modifications.
3.2 - Case 12 specific notes
The genetic payload will be delivered before birth during a routine checkup. As is standard, parents have given consent, but have agreed not to tell the subject until the observation period is over (10 years after birth). Records of modifications CANNOT be disclosed to anybody else; this will be enforced with the threat of legal consequences.
Routine checkups will be done every year to monitor the effects of the genetic modification, which will include detailed scans. Case 12 will be told that this is normal; preliminary testing has shown that subjects who receive additional scans will not see this as abnormal, and won’t ask questions. Therefore, this method is acceptable and will not interfere with the study.
4 - Results
4.1 - Modification usage & introduction
The specific results of each modification are available on addendum 4.1.
As of ~10 years after the preliminary trials of each modification, we have arrived at a conclusion: Modifications 7831.02 and 7831.04 are best qualified for usage in the general public, due to their lack of side effects and their greatest effect when it comes to allowing subjects to control their appetites. Larger sample sizes have been approved, and cases 7831.100 through 7831.599 are about to be prepared.
Due to a favorable political climate (lower support for Naturalism), we estimate that the non-Naturalist population will be modified ahead of schedule, in ~100 years.
4.2 - Modification 7831.05 results
Most of the other modifications weren’t notable; they simply either produced results inferior to 7831.04, or were outright negative. However, case 7831.05 yielded more interesting results.
While the control that recipients of 7831.05 were given was far better than was featured in 7831.04, and the additional generic channels had various beneficial implications, 7831.05 also reduced recipients’ social skills. While all recipients should still be able to live a relatively normal life, the effect is too strong to introduce to the entire population of Antares. This side effect was noticed least in case 12, and most, by far, in case 5, but even the effect on case 12 would be too severe of a side effect.
We recommend that modification 7831.05 be considered in studies such as the Digital Manipulation Program, with a scope other than a sweeping modification on all civilians.
…What?
It was a nice, comfortable room. The paint was light green, making it feel almost as if we were talking during the beautiful Antares A3 sunset. Sarah, my therapist, was sitting cross-legged on a simple wooden chair, taking notes on her tablet. It was nice that I had someone who I could talk to now - The Antares Authority’s universal healthcare was still great, and it was one of the few things that had remained intact after the surrender.
“So, I don’t know what to think of this, Sarah. I mean, my autism, I thought it was just an unfortunate oversight, but - ” I trailed off, not even needing to finish.
“Well, Vanessa… do you feel like you were unable to do anything you wanted to do because of your autism?” Sarah asked. Of course - autism was literally on the defect list, meaning that, if they caught it during genetic testing, abortion was mandatory. It was nice knowing that disabilities were so rare; I knew how hard my life had been as an autistic woman, and I was one of the lucky ones.
“I mean, yeah,” I reply, thinking for a bit, “I mean, sure, I was able to hold down a job and make some friends and stuff, but I wish I could’ve actually connected with normal people, Sarah. I mean, it took me so long to get to a point where I could conduct myself in a way that people saw me as… equal to them, and not someone to pity. And, even now, I can’t go much longer than an hour before people realize that I’m defective.”
“I mean, you’re fine now, though. You’ve pushed past it, and you’ve gotten a satisfactory life. You’ve found some friends who don’t care about your defectiveness. So, what’s the problem?” Sarah asked.
I immediately knew the answer. “They used me, Sarah. Everyone involved did. Even my parents…” I trail off, taking a deep breath. More raging thoughts violently bubble up through my brain, as I direct more and more of my anger into my words. “And then the modification wasn’t even used! It was discarded because it was not good enough for civilians on Antares. But it was apparently good enough for me, and now, because of them, I was a complete social pariah for most of my life. It says it right there, they caused my autism, and I wasn’t compensated at all for it! They hurt my brain! They made me defective! They - They…” I started sobbing. Finally, I had found somebody to blame for all of this pain - why my friends were so few and far between, why I struggled so much with being taken seriously, why finding a job was so insanely difficult. It was all the fault of the Antares Authority Department of Health.
And there was nothing I could do. It was completely hopeless. I was crushed, and there was no way out, no way to undo what they had done to me. There was no way I could resolve this in any way. I was nothing but an individual, one of tens of thousands of random scraps of progress. Perhaps the worst part was that the Antares Authority was gone. There was no entity to punish or sue for this injustice. I just had to accept it, pick up the pieces, and make do with what I had.
And then, just to kick me when I had finally gotten up, the Affini Compact had come. “And, just two years after I’ve finally conquered my disability, after I’ve finally built a life despite the odds… the Affini Compact ruined everything!” I exclaimed, “they ripped the entire government up, and now I have to start over again! I’m working as some sort of glorified secretary, my routine’s back in the shitter, half of my friends completely disappeared off the face of the planet, and I’ll never be able to go outside easily again!”
Drugged up florets were just like animals to me. They walked on four legs, they constantly invaded your personal space, and they had teeth .
I was afraid of basically everything alive. Living things were incredibly unpredictable and dangerous for me. I never knew when they could randomly bark or bite you or tackle you or try to cuddle in an absolutely horrible way. I couldn’t be around them without being cripplingly afraid of them. Of course, the only exceptions were plants - because they didn’t move around, and they were peaceful - and other Terrans, because they never did the horrible, fearsome things that other animals did. They would almost never get up in your face or anything, and you could communicate with them in a reliable way.
But the Affini Compact had completely changed that. Now, the first class-J florets were filling the streets, and they were growing more and more common. And they were so unpredictable, so violating, so wrong. Their owners barely controlled them.
And the Affini were plants that moved. Plants that were threatening, plants that could do horrible things to you and force you to enjoy it. The Affini Compact had ruined both of my safe lifeforms. It had ruined the streets, making them undesirable to walk on. My social life, already strained and small, had already begun to suffer even further as the outside world became something that I had to brave, rather than something comfortable, like it was supposed to be.
I tried to cheer myself up, and focus on something else; maybe there was a bright side to all this. I apparently had direct conscious control over every little piece of my body. Perhaps that could be useful for something; it had to be at least kind of worth the price of becoming defective.
Perhaps it was time to learn something about my anatomy.
