Terraforming & Genetic Engineering

[SciFiGal777]

In some of the novels I'm writing, I use the idea of terraforming, so that there are several habitable planets besides Earth for the human race to colonize. (I don't have aliens.)

I also use genetic engineering to explain how some of my characters have various superabilites which helps create conflicts between groups of people. (People who have an ability, versus those who don't, or between people with different abilities.)

I was just wondering if anyone else uses these ideas and how they're implemented.

[waldenwriter]

I don't use either of those ideas myself, though I have seen them implemented in other stories. They are definitely valid ideas. The genetic engineering would work in a hard sci-fi, provided it was based on known science; the terraforming maybe too depending on how you approach it. Both could also be used in a "soft sci-fi" (not based on hard science); the movie Gattaca is a great example of genetic engineering driving a more psychological story.

I took a class in Human Heredity last fall (for my math/science upper division G.E.) and I still have the notes, so if you need any info on that, I might be able to help you there.

I personally write more soft sci-fi, probably because I'm not a science buff (though I have a friend who is) and because my sci-fi experience up to this point has been pretty much from movies (particularly Star Wars) and anime. (I'm reading some sci-fi now though, plus several years ago for school we read Asimov's story "Rain, Rain Go Away").

[SciFiGal777]

I'm not sure which category my sci-fi falls in. Maybe a bit of both??? Most of my sci-fi has been from movies and tv shows too. I don't really explain a lot of details about how the terraforming/genetic engineering works. Mostly just use it to explain certain things in my stories.

[newburydave]

Don't know if anyone's still watching this thread but I'm developing a universe with both of those technologies playing a key role.

A barren planet is terraformed into an enhanced evolution environment by a bunch of fanatical materialistic evolution fundamentalists (with a lot of money). It succeeds in creating a hellish environment with rapidly evolving Monsters from the seeding that the "scientists" did to make life happen.

The "monsters" absorb the scientists and their genetic materials (a bioengineered capability to enhance "evolution") and make their escape into space. They become a marauding race that destroys/devours most of the human federation all the way back to the core planets around the Terran system.

A warship/research vessel is marooned in the rapid evolution planetary system by battle damage in one of the first battles of that war. The crew bio-engineer a set of traits into their "human" descendants to enable them to survive in this "evo-hell" of a planet until they can recover enough technology to return to space.

The bio-engineered generational survivors do make it back to technological skill after the new human federation arises. They are rescued and become the new standard of humanity due to their superior bio-engineered survival modifications.

This is a multi novel story cycle.

[Spokane Flyboy]

I've been working with terraforming in a space-opera (soft sci-fi) setting myself that mostly works by a process I refer to as "seeding". The massive colony vessels carry a large collection of seeds for various flora, along with gasses needed to make the planet livable for the plants. They pretty much fire bombs at the planet that burst in the atmosphere to release these gasses as needed and then bombard it with bombs that scatter the seeds.

They make their calculations as to the quantities of gasses needed. Then on further calculations based on expected climate data once the plants start producing oxygen, they tailor seed mixes to be bombed into specific areas. As the plants grow and produce oxygen, they fire more bombs of gasses for final adjustments. For story purposes, the process takes about 10 years allowing me to keep a tighter timeline.

[newburydave]

Interesting concept.

It sounds similar to the terraforming approach used on Mars, in a movie on the SyFy channel, that I watched while in hospital. Can't think of the name but it was quite good, with a trick ending of course.

I believe Sigourney Weaver was the female lead (no it wasn't an Alien sequel).

[ryain]

I use gentic enginering quite often. Usually to make some sort of a super human or to hinder someone(ie: tracker, tracer, modified behaviour.)

Some of those Ideas sound reallly cool!

[Andy]

Hey, these are some great ideas. I watched a special on Discovery a while back that one of the requirements for sustainable life (and thus a part of terraforming) is the creation of liquid water. Necessarily then, you'd need appropriate temperature so your water wouldn't boil off or freeze. So you'd need to find a planet rotating a suitable distance from the star, or some other extrinsic way of protecting the water supply.

[newburydave]

Or some way of moving the planet into the "habitable Zone".

[tris]

Increasing the planet's atmosphere would also protect your water supply. Atmosphere plants (buildings not actual biological things with stems and leaves) could break down the molecules and recombine them into a suitable atmosphere. The more you have the better chance your water supply will stabilize.

It's one of the reasons La Paz, Bolivia is so dry -- the atmosphere is very thin.

[newburydave]

How about dropping ice asteroids on the planet until you build up a suitable hydrosphere?

[Therin]

One example of a fairly easy terraforming project is Mars. Its got a lot of CO2 frozen in its polar ice caps. If we could melt that (say with giant parabolic mirrors in space) we could release the gas and bring the atmosphere up to levels in which plants could survive. Once we do that, we seed Mars with algae or something and eventually bigger plants until it has enough oxygen for human life. This requires bringing very little actual material from elsewhere, so planets of this type would probably be the best for terraforming.

If you think about it, dropping comets onto a planet would also help heat things up (reentry, you know), so you get both water and heat. That'd be pretty good on Mars.

[newburydave]

I just read a short story that incorporates this idea for Terraforming Mars in an anthology. It was actually sort of a YA, Sf romance, . . . but hey that's Sf too.

Why can't we incorporate romances into the Sf world? After all Sf heroes and heroines doing amazing things in the universe of Zorkdoodle get lonely and need somebody to love.

A cool space ship is scant company in the dark night out beyond Betelgeuse.

SGD

[Spokane Flyboy]

I believe they call them Space Opera's Dave, and typically have a libidinous Captain like James T. Kirk.

[newburydave]

Ooooh, That's the Opera part? I always thought it was the exploding spaceships, marauding aliens, death defying heroism and the the hero thinking his spaceship was the coolest thing in the universe.

Yeah, makes sense, the fat lady sings, the hero carries the heroine off to their asteroidal honeymoon cottage in the sky.

I guess you guys who fly things see stuff that the rest of us ground pounding mortals miss.

SGD