Genetically Enhanced Humans

[tsofian]

In my Hive, Queen and Country Universe aliens have harvested humans 25,000 and 12,000 years ago and modified them for two sets of purposes. One is to be their general servants to aid in terraforming Mars. The second group will be simple farmers on a very different Venus, where they will grow organisms under direction of the first group.

The first group gets a full suite of genetic modifications. This includes removal of known genetic diseases. Since they will be living on Mars, which has less sunlight the first group is engineered so they can produce Vitamin D internally. What else should they have engineered into them? The aliens are only able to work in 1/2 G or less so humanity already seems physically strong and durable (human being scan survive things that will already kill most other quadrupeds (thing how fragile a horse is compared to a person). The stamina of human beings is far and away greater than most other land animals.

The immune system can be boosted. Since this is a servant relationship humans don't have to be made any smarter.

The second group is selected to be very fair skinned so they can deal with the world under the clouds of Venus. They still need Vitamin D dietary supplements, but their fair skin allows them processes the local equivalent of cod liver oil easily. I figure they will get an immune system boost as well.

I'm open to other ideas and suggestions.

[RandyT0001]

Venus atmosphere consists of more than 96% carbon dioxide with no free oxygen. The atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface is 92 times that of Earth, or roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) underwater on Earth. Venus is by far the hottest planet in the Solar System, with a mean surface temperature of 735 K (462 °C; 863 °F).

Mars' atmosheric pressure is  6⁄1000 that of the Earth's. The atmosphere is over 95% carbon dioxide and the mean surface temperature is about 210K (-63°C; -82 °F).

You might want to figure out how to modify the humans to live under such abnormal conditions before worrying about processing cod liver oil. If the aliens are smart enough to genetically alter a different creature than themselves (humans) I question their lack of knowledge to terraform Mars (why terraform if the have the capability of such drastic changes in genetics of other creatures than themselves, why not alter themselves to live on Mars if that is what they want?) through mechanical means (processing facilities, robots, etc.).

[kato13]

I was very confused until I saw you also posted this to the 2300AD forum.

[tsofian]

Randy
My universe is a little different. I'm well aware of the actual conditions on those worlds. That is why I write Victorian Science Fiction.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by kato13

I was very confused until I saw you also posted this to the 2300AD forum.

I figured there were some smart folks over here as well. If I cross posted in error, sorry!

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by tsofian

I figured there were some smart folks over here as well. If I cross posted in error, sorry!

<looks in mirror> Nope, sorry, not here.

[ArmySGT.]

Smart People! How dare you, Sir! WE have drawn and quartered, then burnt the remains of those that have done less!

[cosmicfish]

I think I at least need more info on how your Victorian Mars and Venus differ from the real ones and/or Earth. I also jumped on the pressure issue and am not sure what else I should ignore.

Have you looked at GURPS Bio-Tech? It might be a great resource, it covers a lot of ways to alter people. And alter not-people, too.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by tsofian

I'm open to other ideas and suggestions.

Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs Venus and Mars?

So you have a Servants, Overseers, Trades caste and a simple Labor class?

So elaborate on the details of that. These must have a hierarchy under one owner and then another when several owners come together.

Maybe, watch some Downton Abbey and note the Staff roles?

[mmartin798]

What type of work will the second group be doing on Venus? If it were some sort of farming, there is a layer in the Venus atmosphere between 50km and 65km above the surface that has earth-like temperatures and pressures where a 21% oxygen 78% nitrogen gas mix, like earth has, is a lifting gas. You could float entire cities and platforms in a steampunk manner in that zone using the air they need to breath, making it plentiful and renewable if they farm some algae or similar CO2 processor. Something like interconnected domes surrounded by bags of breathable air lifting them with bays on the bottom to allow ships to come and go without venting much gas.

This also help mitigate the vitamin D problem, since the solar flux at that altitude in the Venus atmosphere is about 67% that of the solar flux at the earth's surface.

[tsofian]

A little more background might help:

HQC is a hard science setting. Although things might seem odd except in those places where we out and out break things for story reasons (fairly few and far between) we've looked hard at the numbers and done the math and science.

The aliens need a servant race capable of working in the high gravity of Earth and Venus (they lost a lot fot heir tools on the way here-an even longer story)

Mars is as we see it today when they start, as is Earth, Luna and Mercury. Venus is very different. It is actually mostly oceans with lowlands of the landmases being very dry and releatively cool deserts (think the Atacama in Chile). The highlands were the land intersects with clouds are very wet cloud forests. We crunched the numbers and the high albedo of Venus would give a surface temperature slightly below that of Earth, if the atmosphere was almost entirely transparent to reradiated infrared radiation. The pressure is very close to earth normal as well.

The aliens want the first batch of servents in a few generations, so they don't have time to do the breeding.


Mars will have a thick atmosphere by the time anyone is playing unprotected on the surface and we gave Venus a hefty magnetic field, and Mars as well, to ward off much of the charged particle radiation, so the surface radiation isn't much higher than Earth normal. People can actually handle a lot more low level radiation than it might assume at first glance. Even near black sand deposits there aren't increased cancer rates. (http://www.nti.org/learn/facilities/342/). High altitudes see far more radiation than sea level populations and don't see a higher cancer rate. Considering how much radiation a smoker ingests over time and the fact that they die at fairly low rates is a good indication of just how much radiation a human body can handle, if it isn't a massive acute dose.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I think I at least need more info on how your Victorian Mars and Venus differ from the real ones and/or Earth. I also jumped on the pressure issue and am not sure what else I should ignore.

Have you looked at GURPS Bio-Tech? It might be a great resource, it covers a lot of ways to alter people. And alter not-people, too.

.

Thanks!

That is a great idea. I'll see if I have a copy. I can look at Blue Planet as well