Randomly-Generated People

I've got this short story in my head, tentatively titled 'The Procedural Generation' about a Generation Ship-type-thing travelling through space, where new people are, well, procedurally generated: their genetic code is derived from a seed and written into a zygote, which is then incubated in a machine.

The problem I'm having is finding a situation where the system breaks down. At present, the random generation is purely for DNA, which kind of makes it hard. I could, for instance, have the seed determine someone's entire life, or have the creators of the system be believers in genetic determinism.

Really, this kind of system has all sorts of potential for horrifying implications: What happens to people with genetic illnesses? They could simply not happen because of special rules in the algorithm, or they could be made into Soylent Green. For this type of story to work, there HAS to be a fatal flaw in the system.

Any ideas?

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Who, if anyone, has influence on the program? I'd start there.

Racism is always a great place to mine drama.

Who is responsible for raising the children(who aren't theirs)? Do they want to do this?

Are men forced to work or be fed to the reactor? A generation ship is one of the few places where I could advocate a draconian form of government. But if the program is truly random, you'll run into inefficiency.

Does someone want to change the program to stop this inefficiency? What are their real motives?

How long has the ship been out? Are there people who actually were born still left? What do they think of the randomly-generated crewmembers. If there are still people breeding normally, what do the two groups think of each other?

Don't bother actually answering, I'm just giving ideas. Good luck pulling it off. :)

I think for the superficially egalitarian society I'm envisioning here, it's probably best to run with the genetic determinism angle.

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I'm assuming these people still have to go through a natural human growth process?

Yes.

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Hmm how are these kids raised? Artificial family units like in The Giver or collectively?

They're raised artificially until around 5 years old, at which point their education begins and it's the teachers looking after them.

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One thing that comes to mind is that algorithms are, I think, very seldom perfect: even if thoroughly tested, a human-made (or computer-generated) algorithm is likely to have at the least some obscure case in which it does something odd. Give it enough runs and the probability of that obscure case turning up may increase significantly. And when the "something odd" is being done in the writing of a human being's genome, then you could have some rather unpleasant problems...

In another direction, if the creators of the system believe in genetic predetermination, then you could simply show them to be incorrect: have the system sort people according to their genetic traits, and show people chafing against their place, and finding skill and enjoyment in things outside of their predicted roles.

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Kind of reminds me of Man of Steel.

How hard does the science have to be? Because in the real world, there's no good reason why this should produce any particular problems.

If you're going for soft sci-fi, then you could have it so that certain rare genetic patterns somehow turn the people into horrifying monsters. In a more hard sci-fi universe, maybe there could be some sort of social problem along the lines of racism, with people discriminating against each other on the basis that 'the Algorithm chose you to be inferior' or whatever.

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Artificially means man made. Shouldn't all child rearing be artificial? Linguistics aside, that seems like a good place for things to go wrong. Something the kids are missing, too little actual human contact in the early years?

That's why he wants you to have the money. Not so you can buy 14 Cadillacs but so you can help build up the wastes

OK, just thought of something- what if the seed is generated using a pseudorandom number generator, like RANDU, where the number generated can be predicted? What sort of implications would that have for the system?

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Sorry for the double post, but would an Orion Drive be suitable for a Generation Ship like this? It's just about at our present-day tech level, and running out of bombs would be a way to create dramatic tension.

The way the ship is designed is like a skyscraper, with floors arranged vertically, and the drive needs to generate around 1g of acceleration.

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Yes, a fission pulse drive is (as far as we know) a good way to boost an interstellar vehicle up to substantial cruising speeds. However, the number of charges required for acceleration and deceleration would be carefully calculated out beforehand, so the ship would not simply 'run out'. Some sort of accident (or sabotage) would have to happen during the trip in order for that to be an issue. Also, the drive would not provide a constant 9.8m/s² acceleration and deceleration during an entire interstellar voyage. Rather, there would be a short acceleration phase, followed by a long cruising phase, followed by a short deceleration phase near the destination. At 9.8m/s², a cruising speed of 0.1% of lightspeed would be achieved in under a day of constant acceleration, during which the ship would only travel about 10 million kilometers or so. Constant acceleration and deceleration throughout an interstellar voyage is not realistic for a fission pulse drive to achieve. Fortunately, the ship can easily maintain gravity for its inhabitants by spinning itself, in the manner of an O'Neill cylinder.

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Alright, I'm going with some sort of fusion-powered engine, but NOT a ramjet. Also, the whole thing is a test. All the questionable design features of the ship are intended to test whether the crew can think for themselves. They actually reached their destination a long time ago, and freeing themselves from the confines of the ship and its society will mean they're able to survive on the new world because reasons.

edited 10th Jul '14 9:39:07 AM by optimusjamie

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I would not make the 'procedural generation' bit the main source of drama to begin with, just a constant in the background of the setting. In fact, it'd be kinda funny if it's the one thing on the ship that actually works properly from day to day. (Insert a scene from Red Dwarf here.)

This sort of story will work without a fatal flaw in the system, if you're willing to focus on the social aspect of such a setting - enclosed, large parts of one's life being necessarily controlled, no limit on resources so long as the society functions as planned, some aversion of Creative Sterility - rather than as a 'gadget' or 'adventure'-type plot. (Info here.)

There's the question of whether everyone in the ship is sterile and/or has a sex drive or not. How much do you know about asexual romances?

If the plot requires them to overcome their predetermined lives, it should be the characters who get stronger, not the controlling factors weakening. I'm reminded of the situation in Xabungle here, where the whole idea was for the Civilians to actually be 'strong' enough as a society to overthrow any external control and take their destiny into their own hands.

edited 23rd Jul '14 11:29:40 AM by DeusDenuo