09-25-2013, 11:52 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-25-2013, 11:53 AM by stevebowers.)
The answer, I think, is that in the early part of the scenario there were lots of failures, of genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and neurotechnology, and we simply haven't described them in enough detail yet. Even in the latter part of the scenario I tend to find the failures and mistakes more interesting than the successes. A utopian world where everything works might be the norm for systems in the heartland of the Terragen Sphere, but further out towards the fringes interesting mistakes are still made.
A living failure might be euthanised, but if it were at least partly sophont, such an act would almost certainly be considered murder by some, or many factions in society. So one can imagine some sort of support structure for the results of failed experiments; a care home, or hospital, or even the equivalent of a leper colony. Maybe some of the larger asteroids or more obscure moons in the Solar System were convered into refugia for the results of bad genetic engineering or unsuccessful augmentation.
I think that Alan's bAdmod serial may have been an example of a partially successful attempt at augmentation that condemned the protagonist to a life of continual discomfort. There might be whole worlds of bAdmods out there on the fringes.
A living failure might be euthanised, but if it were at least partly sophont, such an act would almost certainly be considered murder by some, or many factions in society. So one can imagine some sort of support structure for the results of failed experiments; a care home, or hospital, or even the equivalent of a leper colony. Maybe some of the larger asteroids or more obscure moons in the Solar System were convered into refugia for the results of bad genetic engineering or unsuccessful augmentation.
I think that Alan's bAdmod serial may have been an example of a partially successful attempt at augmentation that condemned the protagonist to a life of continual discomfort. There might be whole worlds of bAdmods out there on the fringes.