The Vorkosigan Companion (14 page)

The last romance that I'm really waiting for is Ivan's. What clever lady is going to see beyond his carefully cultivated façade of the cheerful dolt to the strong, honorable man below?

While I'm waiting, I'll reread the whole Vorkosigan series. Again.

"All true wealth is biological."
—Aral Vorkosigan in
Mirror Dance

Lois McMaster Bujold's science fiction series that takes place in the "Vorkosiverse" is excellent for many reasons. One of them is Bujold's exceptional grasp of biology, including her ability to imagine and depict future biological technologies and their social implications.

Though she began writing the series more than twenty years ago, the sound basis for the biology in her Vorkosiverse books makes the future biological technologies in them still relevant today. Even more satisfying to a biologist, these technologies do not become the bad guy, as is common for science fiction stories such as
Frankenstein
and
Jurassic Park
. The good and evil both come not from the technology, biological or otherwise, but from within the characters.

Bujold does not thrust these biological technologies on her readers as extraneous frills, but rather the technologies are an intricate part of the plot, the setting, or even the characterization in her stories. In one scene, after an assassination attempt against them by poisonous gas fails, Cordelia Vorkosigan tells her husband Aral not to worry, that all they need to procreate is ". . . two somatic cells and a replicator. Your little finger and my big toe, if that's all they can scrape off the walls after the next bomb . . ." (
Barrayar
). That quote alone implies a whole area of advanced reproductive technology: the ability to clone somatic cells and differentiate them into viable eggs and sperm, outside of the body; as well as the ability to grow the fertilized egg into a baby.

Unfortunately for Cordelia and Aral, the antidote to the poison is very damaging to their unborn son. Cordelia manages to organize some advanced galactic technology on their backwater world and the son, Miles, survives, though the repercussions, physical and psychological, last throughout his entire life (
Barrayar
).

In
Ethan of Athos
, the world on which the story begins is comprised of only males. Again, advanced reproductive technology allows the entire population of Athos to be maintained by Reproductive Centers where the sperm of potential fathers is collected and used to fertilize eggs from ovarian cultures that have lasted over two hundred years.

The Vorkosiverse also has other advanced biological technologies, such as cryonics (being brought back from death after being specially frozen) and the eidetic memory biochip implanted in Simon Illyan's head that ends up being the target of sabotage, the consequences of which are very far-reaching (
Mirror Dance
,
Shards of Honor
,
Memory
). Not to be forgotten are the live cat blanket that purrs, likes to half-strangle one in sleep, and is associated with a murder plot (
Brothers in Arms
,
Winterfair Gifts
); the genetically beautified (and metabolically modified) butter bugs (
A Civil Campaign
); and a kitten tree in
Cetaganda
.

The kitten tree is not even the most impressive of the Cetagandans' biological innovations, as they are a multi-planetary civilization run by master gene manipulators. Though this list of biological technologies that exist in the Vorkosiverse is far from complete, this article will focus on four of the main technologies whose influence is felt throughout the Vorkosiverse series.

A prominent feature of the Vorkosiverse is the uterine replicator technology. The uterine replicator is a piece of technology that frees women from pregnancy and allows men to have babies without women around. This piece of high-tech scientific equipment is used by Bujold in a wide variety of ways.

A particular uterine replicator is the most important object in the universe in one of her books (
Barrayar
); a slew of them cause an entire series of catastrophic events in another (
Diplomatic Immunity
); and the technology itself is the basis of life for the inhabitants of an entire planet in yet a third (
Ethan of Athos
), and those are just a few examples.

In some areas of the Vorkosiverse, there is a choice between a traditional pregnancy (called a "body birth") and a uterine replicator. If a couple wishes to have a baby by uterine replicator, the sperm from the father fertilizes the egg from the mother
in vitro
(in the lab) to create a zygote. After a few cell divisions, the zygote becomes a blastula. In a female, this is the point the embryo would become implanted into the uterus. Instead, the blastula created by
in vitro
manipulation is implanted into a uterine replicator. The embryo then grows into a baby in the uterine replicator and is "decanted" rather than birthed at the end of the process. The replicator must be monitored and maintained (addition of nutrients, elimination of wastes, etc.) throughout the
ex vivo
pregnancy, but is completely independent of the mother's body. Naturally, this kind of technology could have huge repercussions on society and even the direction of further human evolution. Bujold has depicted some of these fascinating possible outcomes and worlds for us.

How close is this kind of technology to what is done today? Recent research into in vitro fertilization (IVF) has allowed the discovery of many of the factors essential for the initial stages of embryonic development, and research into helping premature babies survive has allowed babies born after as few as twenty-four weeks of gestation to live. The gap between a few days and twenty-four weeks must be overcome before a baby can be produced completely outside the mother. However, researchers have recently been experimenting with improving IVF rates by co-culturing the fertilized human eggs with endometrial cells from the lining of the womb before transferring the blastocysts to the mothers.

In other experiments, the same group has produced tiny artificial wombs by growing these endometrial cells in a collagen matrix, which allows the cells to form a plug with a 3-D structure. They have even added fertilized eggs to these uterus-like plugs of cells and found that the early-stage embryos implanted themselves within the plugs at about six days post-fertilization just as they would in a womb. Implantation is a very essential step in growing a baby, so this area of research may very well lead to fully functional artificial wombs within the next fifty years.

Another group of scientists examined the possibility of creating an artificial placenta to keep mid- to late-stage goat fetuses alive. They attached catheters to the umbilical blood vessels, exchanged nutrient-enriched blood with the blood of the fetuses while they were held in a tank of artificial amniotic fluid, and managed to keep a few alive to full term. For various reasons, these experiments have not been continued, but the research does sketch out a path for future exploration.

Though there have been some exciting advances in the area of reproductive technology, today's technology has not yet reached the level of the Vorkosiverse uterine replicators. As Bujold explored this topic more than twenty years ago, it is impressive that the uterine replicator technology is not now outdated, but rather a cutting-edge topic of research.

A second major feature of the Vorkosiverse is the cloning technology, which includes creating specific body parts or whole humans. Cloning to create tissues or body parts or even organs from the genetic material from a single cell is called therapeutic cloning. Bujold explores this kind of cloning in the Vorkosiverse: characters get their hearts replaced with new ones grown from their own cells (
Mirror Dance
), reconstructive surgery can replace a face better than new (
The Warrior's Apprentice
;
Ethan of Athos
), and new body parts can even be grown that can then convert a female to a fully-functioning male (
A Civil Campaign
).

Reproductive cloning, or cloning whole humans from a single cell, is usually the immediate thought when cloning is mentioned. Bujold addresses this type of cloning head-on: her main protagonist, Miles Vorkosigan, is cloned by his family's enemies. That clone first becomes part of the picture in
Brothers in Arms
, but his role as a main character continues throughout many of the books in the series.

In
Mirror Dance
, Miles's clone, known as Mark, not only is one of the main characters, but is a viewpoint character for much of the story. Not coincidentally, the storyline for
Mirror Dance
involves many other clones as well, including an entire family of doctors created by cloning, the Duronas. Cloning means taking all the genetic material (the nucleus with its   chromosomes/DNA) from one cell and creating a new tissue/organ or a whole new organism from that genetic material. While some science-  fictional depictions of clones have the resultant organisms being   completely   identical in mind as well as in body, Bujold's clones are appropriately individual even though they share the same genetic material.

In reality, a clone is no more than an identical twin born at a different time. Identical twins also share the same genetic material, but most people who have met identical twins will know that they do not really look completely identical and that they are not mental duplicates of each other. Thus in Bujold's work, the clone Mark's personality is accordingly as much shaped by his experiences as is Miles's.

In science-fictional contexts, a clone also has a tendency to appear in almost no time at all, which would really be impossible to accomplish. In the Vorkosiverse, Mark was not born yesterday; he is appropriately only five or six years younger than Miles and was growing and being trained for years. Avoiding other science-fictional clichés, the clone also does not become Miles's evil twin.

Bujold has also explored some of the ethical and societal effects of this technology: one of the main plotlines in
Mirror Dance
involves a clone-farming operation that provides young healthy new bodies to wealthy elderly clients, utilizing a technique known as brain transplantation. Unsurprisingly, this is not looked upon as an ethical option, but as an illegal blot on society. In addition, different planets in the Vorkosiverse have different legal guidelines for dealing with clones: on Beta a clone is a legal sibling and on other planets a clone may be a legal child. All in all, Bujold does an impressive job of depicting a universe where this technology of cloning parts or people is extant.

What about current-day technology? Does the cloning of Dolly the sheep mean people can be cloned now? Cloning of humans is, understandably, a controversial subject. Reproductive cloning of humans, essentially creating a whole new person from the genetic material from one cell of a person, has been ruled illegal in many countries. Cloning of animals, on the other hand, has been taking place for as many as fifty years. However, the cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996 was a huge advance in cloning technology—it was the first time a mammalian clone from an adult cell was successful (the adult cell was an udder cell, hence the sheep was named for Dolly Parton).

Since then, cloning of other mammals has been announced on a regular basis: goats, cows, mice, pigs, cats, dogs, horses, and rabbits. Though there have been no successful adult clones of non-human primates, macaque monkey embryos have been created by cloning, which implies that adult clones may yet be achievable. A report or two claim to have demonstrated successful human cloning, but those reports have never been substantiated. Because cloning is possible in many mammalian species and early stages have been demonstrated in non-human primates, the technology to clone humans is a distinct possibility for the near future.

Nevertheless, at the current level of technology, not only is cloning very expensive, but the resultant cloned animals are riddled with defects. To start with, there are on average only one or two offspring that survive out of a hundred, and those clones that do stay alive past birth have problems such as high rates of infection, tumor growth, poor health, and early death. The cause of these problems appears to be faulty reprogramming of the DNA of an adult cell to that of a developing new organism, but there may be other problems as well.

At the current state of technology, then, it would be irresponsible and unethical to attempt to clone humans, which is reflected in the law in most countries. However, as more is discovered about the technique and the ability to modify the DNA more directly is developed, cloning humans may become a more viable option.

Therapeutic cloning is somewhat less controversial, though any use of human tissue is highly regulated in most countries. If a tissue or organ can be created from a person's own genetic material by therapeutic cloning, that means it can be transplanted into that person without being rejected as are tissues or organs from other people. As stated earlier, macaque monkey clones have been created to develop as far as embryos and those embryos have been used to create primate embryonic stem cell lines. This may be one step on the way to creating primate clones, but it is also a step for therapeutic cloning.

If researchers can apply the techniques used in creating the   primate-cloned-embryos for human cells, human therapeutic cloning may allow the production of individualized human embryonic stem cell lines in the same way. Also necessary for human therapeutic cloning is the ability to mold the embryonic stem cells into tissue, organs, and parts. Some of that research is taking place as this is written, but is mostly at early stages.

Reproductive cloning of humans, however, will hopefully not be attempted until the technology is hugely improved and shown to be much safer in animals. Even then, if it is scientifically possible to clone whole humans, we, like the inhabitants of the Vorkosiverse, will have to address the ethical and legal issues as to whether reproductive cloning should happen, and if so, what the legal status of the clones produced will be. Again, Bujold has managed to incorporate biological technologies that are still very current topics of research today.