"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.
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.