The Vorkosigan Companion (15 page)

A third feature of the Vorkosiverse that plays a leading role in many of the stories is the almost unimaginable ease with which genes and entire genomes are manipulated to create new types of humans and other organisms. Bujold imagines an entire race of humans (quaddies) optimized to live in a zero-gravity environment by having an adjusted metabolism and replacing their legs with arms. The quaddies arose by use of genetic manipulation and use of the then-new uterine replicators (
Falling Free
).

Falling Free
is mostly concerned with the origin of the quaddies, but the quaddies are revisited in a story that takes place a few hundred years later, contemporaneous with Miles, and they have thrived and populated a number of space habitats (
Diplomatic Immunity
).

In
Diplomatic Immunity
, much of the action takes place in the quaddies' part of the galaxy, and many of the characters are quaddies. At that time, the technology also exists to aid quaddie/human couples in having children of either the human or quaddie type—or any other mix, for that matter (
Diplomatic Immunity
).

Fully functional hermaphrodites were created on Beta, one of the planets in the Vorkosiverse, but were a short-lived experiment (
The Warrior's Apprentice
). It never caught on as a preferred way of life, but one of the main characters in many of the books is a herm (
The Warrior's Apprentice
,
Mirror Dance
).

Yet another planet in the Vorkosiverse, Cetaganda, rules its entire multi-planetary system based on the manipulation of genomes (
Cetaganda
). The highest echelons of the society (the haut) are in charge of the Cetagandan genomes. The children of the haut are carefully genetically crafted by the women of the Star Crèche, placed in their uterine replicators, and distributed once a year to the rest of the haut, a very precious cargo to be delivered to the Cetagandan planets (
Diplomatic Immunity
). Thus, those who control the genomes in the Cetagandan society have the most power—and the struggle to control that power exists at the highest levels, as Miles discovers in
Cetaganda
.

Though the Cetagandans have these awesome powers of genetic manipulation, they must also experiment. They do so by testing new gene combinations in a class of genderless servants called ba who cannot reproduce.
Diplomatic Immunity
's plot not only concerns uterine replicators, but also hinges on one of these servants.

However, not all the genetic manipulation in the Vorkosiverse is on such a population-wide scale. A main character in
Diplomatic Immunity
is engineered to live underwater, which includes frog-like webbed hands and feet and a set of gills to go along with his lungs.

In
Ethan of Athos
, a very top-secret Cetagandan gene-  manipulation experiment goes wild, and another top-secret gene-  manipulation experiment to produce super-soldiers does the same in "Labyrinth." Though the victim of experimentation in
Ethan of Athos
does not appear again, the created super-soldier first seen in "Labyrinth" has a very interesting relationship with Miles, remains one of the major and most memorable characters in the Vorkosiverse, and becomes one of the two main characters in "Winterfair Gifts." Thus, wholescale genetic manipulation is a key factor in the Vorkosiverse.

Is it possible to manipulate genes and genomes in the same way today? On the one hand, people have been manipulating genes by agricultural methods and animal husbandry for thousands of years, and, for a hundred years now, scientists have been mutating, altering, and adding individual genes to lab model organisms which include plants, bacteria, yeast, worms, fruit flies, mice, and human cells. On the other hand, the kind of genetic manipulation implied by the substitution of limbs, a fully functioning hermaphrodite, and the rest described in the previous paragraphs is completely beyond what is attainable today. The comprehensive knowledge of what genes need to be manipulated to make those kinds of changes simply does not exist.

Scientists are mostly discovering the function of genes one by one, though all of the genome sequencing projects proliferating within the last five or so years since the completion of the human genome have added immensely to the knowledge of what sequences exist and how those sequences combine to form genes. The complete genomes also can be studied to discover how they relate to each other evolutionarily, which may shed light on the genes' functions. Yet, there are many genes for which we do not know the function.

An additional complication is that, even if the function of a gene is known, each gene affects many other genes and characteristics. Beyond that, any particular trait (such as skin color) is determined by many genes working together, but skin color may be only part of what any one of those genes does.

Genes also work differently depending on which other genes are being expressed along with them: in different stages of development, in different tissues, and in different organisms. Or a particular gene may execute exactly the same molecular function in another organism, but that same function in the second organism causes something else to happen at the next higher level of complexity. As a result, deducing what all the genes do and how they do it is an amazingly complex endeavor that may or may not ever be achieved by humans.

Scientists today can cut out particular pieces of DNA (a whole gene, parts of one, etc.), insert them into other places in the same organism (depending on which ones) or other organisms (depending again), delete genes in certain organisms, mutate genes in certain organisms, make artificial chromosomes and insert them into certain organisms, etc. Accordingly, some of the technical tools to make the kinds of genetic manipulations essential to create quaddies or herms may be currently feasible; nonetheless, the knowledge of how to manipulate genes to achieve those ends is lacking. The Vorkosiverse ability to genetically manipulate may then not be reached for many more years.

The fourth and final feature of the Vorkosiverse discussed here is the vital cryonics technology. Bujold postulates a technology with which people can be brought back to life from a death. But only if the death happens in a certain way, and particular equipment and expertise are nearby and can be brought to bear quickly enough. Cryonics technology is used quite often for the Dendarii Mercenaries (a mercenary group that Miles leads on and off throughout the books) and is mentioned in passing many times (
The Warrior's Apprentice
,
Brothers in Arms
).

However, at one point, the cryonics technique becomes much more important, as it impinges very closely on Miles Vorkosigan himself (
Mirror Dance
). The consequences of this particular use reverberate through to the following book as well (
Memory
).

For the cryonics technology to work, the person must be drained of blood, filled with cryo-fluid within four minutes of death, and then frozen in a cryo-chamber. The cryo-revival involves careful thawing and complete healing of the original injuries, which could include the cloning and growth of organs. The patients often end up with amnesia, which may or may not resolve. In the Vorkosiverse, doctors specialize in cryonics, and ethical questions arise when all the cryo-chambers are already in use and yet another person dies. Bujold has again explored a fascinating technology as well as some of the ethical debates that follow from its use.

Is cryonics simply a science-fictional invention or is there   current-day scientific research that supports it as a future advance? Some frogs freeze in the winter, then revive in the summer, and appear to do so by having extraordinarily high urea levels, which serves as an "anti-freeze." They are not the only organisms to survive freezing: the nematodes (worms) used as a model organism by many researchers are regularly frozen to be stored in liquid nitrogen and thawed for reuse. Organs from mammals, including the brain, have been frozen and brought back to some levels of function.

In addition, pigs have been taken down to very low temperatures (10 degrees Celsius core temperature for 60 minutes) using a method that sounds very similar to Bujold's description of cryonic techniques: the blood is drained quickly and replaced with a cold cryo-protectant fluid. After they were reanimated, the pigs were tested for brain function by learning and memory assessments, and they performed equivalently to pigs that had not been cryonically frozen and revived.

Along the lines of reproductive technology mentioned earlier, there have been advances in the freezing of sperm, eggs, and embryos for later fertilization/gestation. A group of well-respected scientists have even signed an open letter (www.imminst.org/  cryonics_letter/) that supports cryonics as "a legitimate science-based endeavor that seeks to preserve human beings, especially the human brain, by the best technology available." They emphasize that this is a credible hope for future technological developments rather than a current possibility. Thus, cryonics could be a very real possibility for the future, and some have estimated it happening within the next thirty to fifty years.

Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosiverse is an imaginary universe, yet its advanced biological technology still allows us to picture it as a future that we could see following from where we are today. The solid biological principles it is based on have stood the test of time for over twenty years. In my view, they are likely to be relevant and possible for at least twenty more.

Actually, as all four of the main technologies covered in detail here are currently progressing along the lines of Bujold's projections, the technologies may become everyday realities in exactly the way Bujold has described. The realization of many "futuristic" biological technologies may be closer than previously thought.

I hope that excellent science fiction authors like Lois McMaster Bujold will continue to write about and explore the ethics of such technologies so that readers and society as a whole will think about how to handle them when they arrive.

Lois loves her characters. As she says, when you are writing character-based books, each character tries to take over the story. Oh, but the things she does to her characters . . . 

Some of Lois's best character tortures are biological, but she supports and tortures her characters awfully well with other technologies, too.

Interstellar flight in the series is through jump ships, using mapped, fixed wormholes from star to star. Finding wormholes is dangerous survey work and wormholes may not take you to somewhere useful. Usually, there are several wormhole jumps and solar system traverses to move from one useful system to the next along a route. Interstellar travel can take days and even months depending on the distance, connections, and speed of the ship.

The opening of
Shards of Honor
is based on discovery of a route enabling the Barrayaran invasion and conquest of Escobar. Barrayar has found and mapped and is stocking supplies on a planet midway along the invasion route. Independently finding that planet from another entry, Cordelia Naismith's Betan Astronomical Survey ship begins surveying the planet for its potential, since science and research are the dominant products of Beta Colony. From Barrayar's point of view, allowing the Betans to report back could compromise the route and the invasion.

Many of the military technologies are established in the first dozen pages as Cordelia finds her survey camp torched and "nothing short of a plasma arc could have melted the fabric of their tents." Within minutes, she finds Lieutenant Rosemont dead, shot by a nerve disruptor. Moments after that, at a rustle in the grass, Cordelia snaps her stun gun to the aim.

We've been introduced to three of the main weapons used throughout the series. And the very civilized Cordelia Naismith, captain of a peaceful, exploratory Betan Astronomical Survey ship and pretty strongly anti-military-stupidity, is involved in the opening shots of a war.

Not all the technologies are military, certainly. Cordelia is wearing her short-range wrist comm, and the scientific party has assorted instruments and tough, durable equipment. Cordelia pulls out of a drawer a long-range communicator, powerful enough to contact her ship now pulling away from the planet.

Making its escape, the fast Betan ship can easily stay away from the slow Barrayaran warship. The means of propulsion are never mentioned throughout the series. Normal space accelerations are high, in the dozens of gravities range, with acceleration compensated by the ships' artificial gravity system.

Spaceships never land and shuttles are used which can land without problems with exhaust or blast effects, apparently supported by an anti-gravity effect.

Once the invasion of Escobar starts, technology comes into play in the plot twists. Beta Colony has a defense against the major Barrayaran ship-to-ship weapon, the plasma arc—the plasma mirror reflects the plasma-arc beam back to the sender. Beta Colony helps its neighbor Escobar by providing this technology.

A bit of side plot involves Escobar's female military people raped in Barrayaran captivity. Using uterine replicators, Escobar gives the raped prisoners' fetuses back to Barrayar.

In
Barrayar
, technology is the thumbscrew used to torture Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan.

Modern Barrayar may have jump ships, energy weapons, comconsoles and more, but the technological revolution is still new as Barrayar comes out of the Time of Isolation. Parts of even the capital city are still the old slums. The former city center, with narrow lanes and alleys and run-down buildings, has no   electricity—old technology that is used well in the story.

Since Aral Vorkosigan is the regent for the child emperor, an attempt on his life is made with a "class four sonic grenade, probably air tube launched . . . Unless the thrower was suicidal."

In the next attempt, poison gas is used. Though failing to kill Aral, the gas poisons him, Cordelia, and their unborn child, who suffers permanent bone-destroying damage from the poison's
antidote
.