Biologically adapting humans for exoplanet colonization

In this premise, humanity has developed highly-advanced bioengineering techniques capable of intensively manipulating human biology for multiple purposes. At the same time, there is a drive to colonize exoplanets as a result of population pressures happening in the Solar System.

As a result, the Solar System Government initiates a program to bioengineer colonists so that they would adapt to the environmental conditions of the habitable exoplanet instead of spending on the construction of expensive space habitats on the exoplanet's surface.

The main objective of the bioengineered colonists is to be the vanguard for further colonization and terraforming of the exoplanet. They would construct habitats and install machines on the exoplanet's surface to allow normal, unmodified humans to colonize the exoplanet.

For example, a group of biologically-modified humans slowly metamorphose into an amphibian species that is capable of living underwater on an ocean planet. They construct habitable structures such artificial islands and underwater cities for human colonists to live. They also work on resource extraction and weather modification for human colonists.

What do you think?

Is this voluntary? What are the incentives?

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

The process of biologically-engineering human colonists is a voluntary process. It's incentivized by providing scientific research and reliving humanity of its population-related issues.

However, the process of becoming a bioengineered settler comes with its drawbacks. The bioengineered colonist would have its train of thought slowly distorted due to alien sensory perceptions and metamorphosis adapting to the new environment. Eventually, the colonist would think of itself as a native lifeform of the planet, not a human anymore within a few generations.

As an example, bioengineered colonists on an ocean planet would develop amphibious traits through gradual metamorphosis such as larger lung capacity, moist, smooth skin, nictitating membrane on the eyes, loss of body hair, webbed limbs, gills and other adaptations pertaining to the environment.

Psychologically, these fully-adapted colonists would see the sea as their mother and consider extreme dryness to be a harmful sensation. Some would see the intrusion of humans in the sea as an act of hostility.

I had a similar bent, but that is more of an excuse as to why Little Bit Beastly folk and Half-Human Hybrids of the classical sense populate the cosmos. Basically due to the local phlebotinium, several mad scientists had engages in gray area bioengennerring to make better use of said phlebotominum, resulting in what is known as the Chimeric Century. A lost era that spawned several human subspecies that are centaurs, mermaids, catgirls etc.

It is primarily a backstory thing, but I think the term "mad scientist" leaves enough for the imagination to ponder how much of it was voluntary. The general idea behind it was to now only adapt to the hostile environments of the exoplanets, but to also better channels the very potent abilities of the phelebotinum as well, even for people that physically look like modern day humans.

It also eventually lead to the banning of such projects, though the species are allowed to live and have equal rights as it would be inhumane to spawn beings that are viable for life for things that that mostly had no choice in (owing to either being the offspring of the test subjects or being forced into the role of test subjects)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 29th 2022 at 8:01:52 AM

So what exactly is the question here? Moreover, how long does it take for the colonists (who I get the sense are unmodified) to get there?

Also is there a particular reason they don’t just make do with modifications for everyone they send?

The question is the ramifications of utilizing bioengineered colonists adapted to the surface environment of an exoplanet along with general discussion of the hypothetical scenario.

In this premise, space travel is cheap, easy yet highly-risky as it involves travelling through hyperspace that exposes humans to anomalous effects., leading to all sorts of health problems. As a result, space travel is heavily planned in advance and has strict criteria on anyone being an astronaut or colonist, assuming the individual is unmodified.

As said before, Biological modifications, especially intensive and intrusive modifications, is highly detrimental to the human psyche. Many bioengineered colonists, mainly the heavily-metamorphized ones, have completely alien worldviews detached from the human psyche. For example, a colonist adapted to aquatic environments would see the ocean as its "Mother" and would hate living on land.

The premise is fascinating. I love the blend of xenofiction with cyberpunk exploration of identity.

However, while alterations in psychology and perception are to be expected, aren't things like "perceiving the sea as mother" too specific to be biological? That seems more like a cultural development that one group of colonists may have adopted, but another on the same planet might reject, much like variance between human religions. Is there something about their adaptations that makes it biologically advantageous to have personal emotions for their environment, the same way that human children bond with a parent?

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

The first adaptation needed is the one to varying levels of gravity. High or low gravity. And is must be something generalizable; you cannot change a planet's gravity, so instead the people need to be adapted to it.

The second one is to atmospheric composition. Things like too little and too much oxygen, higher and lower atmospheric pressures, and toxic components of atmospheres.

The bioengineered colonist would have its train of thought slowly distorted due to alien sensory perceptions and metamorphosis adapting to the new environment. Eventually, the colonist would think of itself as a native lifeform of the planet, not a human anymore within a few generations.

I presume you are aware that using genetically engineered humans as mere road-pavers for normal humans is likely to create conflict. And in many cases (such as the gravity thing above), it'd be more reasonable to colonize planets with suitably adapted humans, rather than using normal ones afterwards. Plus the issue that many of the adaptations desired above cannot be done, or only impractically so, on already-born people.

The other point about identity, I think, is going to be context-dependent and not necessarily predictable in advance. Normal humans already subdivide each other into many categories, with varying degrees of arbitrariness. The idea that adapting people to, say, a different atmospheric composition and strength of gravity would radically change their psyche is very contrived, though. Also what ^ said.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I suppose that my question is this: Might these colonists not object to taking on work that will eventually lead to their descendants being pushed out of their new homes—perhaps even killed off, if the environmental changes that are required for unmodified humans are inimical to modified ones?

Indeed, might there not be outcry from unmodified humans at asking people to undertake work that has such consequences?

('d)

Honestly, to my thought the above isn't all that alien, given a group that's amphibious and has had generations in place. As the posters above me indicated, it just seems like cultural variation.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Nov 30th 2022 at 12:47:13 PM

My Games & Writing

@Noaqiyeum

It is a trait shared by most bioengineered colonists. It allows them to psychologically adapt to surroundings vastly different and hence alien compared to normal human habitats. It also provides a coping mechanism in highly stressful environments isolated from the human world, that would last decades or even generations before normal human colonization arrives.

@Ars Thaumaturgis

Let's use the ocean planet, dubbed Achilles, for instance.

Achilles is a habitable exoplanet similar to Earth. It has an atmosphere compatible with normal human biology, albeit with higher oxygen levels, a climate similar to the Pacific, and bountiful with natural resources.

However, this planet is covered by an large ocean with a many islands that are too small for major human habitation, except as outposts. Not only that, most of its natural resources are underwater and the seas are beset by regular tropical storms. Farming is impossible without highly-specialized, fragile equipment.

Hence, Achilles as a exoplanet is unattractive to potential normal human colonists. No unmodified human wants to spend their life as a deep-sea miner or an heavily-isolated settler. It's a miserable life filled with deep-seated fear, lifelong depression, and perpetual anxiety.

The solution is to deploy bioengineered colonists that slowly develop environmental adaptations through gradual metamorphosis. These colonists volunteer to settle the planet as the vanguard for further human colonization. They work to extract resources underwater, build utilities and settlements, install weather control devices, and other long-term settlement objectives.

Eventually, these bioengineered colonists would've become fully amphibious by nature and would resemble amphibious humanoids. After decades or even generations, the main unmodified human colonization ship would arrive and claim the things constructed by the bioengineered colonists.

The trillion euro question: What happens to these bioengineered colonists after the unmodified humans arrive?

This kind of dynamic where someone does a lot of work for someone else to exploit can easily go very very wrong. See Rwanda, African slave trade etc.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

That's... not what I'm trying to ask, I fear.

I understand the process that you're describing. I'm questioning the reaction of the bioengineered colonists to some of the effects of that process.

This is more or less what I was driving at:

If the bioengineered colonists know that they're making the place safe for unmodified humans, then they likely know that there's a good chance that their own descendants will be pushed out when the unmodified colonists eventually arrive.

And more, if there are more inimical planets than the one that you describe—ones with atmospheres that might require modification, for example—then they may well be altering the planet such that it becomes inimical for their descendants in the process. They would be settling somewhere, and then working to make it hostile to themselves.

Would many of them not find that objectionable? Might they not prefer to simply go there and be the colonists themselves?

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Nov 30th 2022 at 5:33:21 PM

My Games & Writing

And here's the 10 trillion (quintillion?) euro question: why on Earth would anyone volunteer for this?

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

@Ars They would unless there was some assurance that they could be readapted for an Earthlike world. Essentially, there would need to be promises that the exocolonists and their children could be turned back into normal humans or at least human enough to survive on a post-terraformed world.

Now if it terraforming group renegs on that promise then we've got a conflict.

Edited by Belisaurius on Nov 30th 2022 at 11:27:10 AM

As a link to the trillion dollar question.... why exactly do you need to colonize these places with regular humans afterwards?

If space travel is so difficult because of the risk, you would want to minimize the amount of travel. Sending millions or trillions of tonnes of matter through hyperspace because you want to settle these planets seems like the antithesis to the whole idea.

As mentioned already, there are plenty of adaptations that are going to be non-optional. A planet with high gravity is never going to be reasonably colonized with regular humans, so why bother?

So that basically brings me to the kicker of all of this: Isn't it a vastly, infinitely superior plan to simply seed bio-engineered people wherever they can go and establish diplomatic ties with the regular human homeworld, thus giving you maximal benefit at minimal cost? The general purpose of colonization is to get more ground, literally. You send people to maximize the extraction. Where few people were, usually as labor force, and in cases with people already there, to suppress the existing (slave) labor force.

The single biggest reason for colonists to go in the first place is that it allows you to build up a new life free from your old life. For the Americas, for instance, the wars of religion in Europe were a massive incentive to go practice your religion freely and openly across the ocean. For many poor people packing up and leaving was cheap enough to escape their old lives.

And in the other cases, like with the slave trade, the labor force sent to go did not go...willingly.

So absent an absolutely tyrannical totalitarian state forcibly experimenting upon it's malcontents and sending them away (which is also a terrible idea if you intend to re-colonize their territory with humans), why would anyone go in the knowledge that everything they build will be paved over?

EDIT: and as an aside, if bio-engineering is so easy, IS there even a regular human population. And as an aside-aside, the idea that bio-engineering is inherently psychically detrimental is not without it's... problems. It seems like a weird way to spin this too, since these people will be going to completely alien planets, potentially with profoundly alien bodies depending on how extensive the engineering is, into potentially highly unknown situations. Purely regular stress will do a number on people, and centuries of such living is just going to create regular whacky outcomes. There's no need to handwave a "they all went insane" unless you want to make a point about, say, unethical experiments by apathetic powers who consider such outcomes interesting research results.

Edited by devak on Nov 30th 2022 at 8:04:49 PM

@Septimus Heap

After the arrival of the unmodified humans, it can either lead to a few outcomes.

• Coexistence: Humans and bioengineered colonists live together. This only happens if the exoplanet is Earth-like and all possible conflicts are resolved peacefully.
• Uncertainty: Humans and bioengineered colonists live in a state of bad peace, with the looming threat of possible conflict. This happens if the exoplanet is Earth-like, but hostile and undergone terraforming.
• Annihilation: Humans and bioengineered colonists wage war upon each other with extensive use of weaponry. It's a depressing outcome, since bioengineered colonists are extirpated and the exoplanet colony is in ruins.

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@Septimus Heap

@De Marquis

@devak

In the context of the premise, it's not objectionable.

The colonized Solar System along with its peripheral colonies in Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, and Tau Ceti are terribly overpopulated and suffering from countless problems stemming from population pressure. The government needs to provide an opportunity for humans to have a new life free from the polluted, desolate and chaotic world.

The problem is that many exoplanets are habitable and Earth-like, but highly dangerous to human colonization without environmental engineering, or extremely hostile to human life without terraforming. As a result, the government does what is right and necessary for the whole of humanity.

For many bioengineered colonists, it's basically sacrificing themselves for the common good. It's them risking their lives and their descendants to give humanity a better life free from the horrors of their home, and an opportunity to make a new life on the frontier. However, the descendants of the bioengineered colonists will strongly fight to preserve their environment, as they have a difference in psyche between them and humanity.

Edited by AdeptGaderius on Dec 1st 2022 at 6:23:10 PM

If you're already detached enough from your human form to be willing to give it up to visit an exciting alien world, why would you want to go to the extra work of turning back? And this is a multigenerational project, so even if the original colonists agreed to change back there's no guarantee their descendants would feel the same. So there's every reason to expect significant posthuman resistance to being reverted, and a reasonable project planner would anticipate that and plan accordingly - either to leave space for human and posthuman colonists to share different regions of the planet, since they don't require a common habitat anyway, or to make deconversion mandatory by force if necessary.

Of course, political leaders are seldom known for being reasonable... I can easily imagine a situation where the agreement is to let the posthumans keep the planet with the support necessary to develop their own infrastructure, in exchange for shipping local resources back to Earth - but a few generations down the line, the Earth-appointed human governor decides trying to negotiate with the Deep Ones is icky and inconvenient and starts expanding the human-habitable zone in violation of the original charter.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

It's extremely difficult to reverse the effects of intensive and intrusive biological modifications, especially the descendants of said bioengineered colonists or if the biological modifications are at a genetic level.

Yeah, that's probably the most likely outcome, scientifically speaking. Many of the adaptations we are talking about can only be done on unborn embryos. Which would make them practically irreversible.

In that light, though, I think it'd be more feasible to use the bioengineering to make it possible for new generations to resettle on other non-Earthlike planets, instead of using it to terraform these. Because even if we ignore the inter-"race" relations issue, some planets cannot be made Earth-like. e.g these with different gravity.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

@Belisaurius

It's extremely difficult to reverse the effects of intensive and intrusive biological modifications, especially if the bioengineered colonists are heavily modified at a genetic level or fully-metamorphized. Descendants of the bioengineered colonists from the second generation onwards undergo sympatric speciation to become an evolutionary offshoot of humanity adapted to the exoplanet's environment.

For example, the descendants of the bioengineered colonists in Achilles are genetically divergent from normal humans as a result of allopatric speciation from intensive bioengineering and complete metamorphosis of their biology.

Biologically, the bioengineered colonists of Achilles are highly amphibious, spending most of their lives underwater and a portion at land, predominantly biologically female and capable of parthenogenesis through egg-fusion. They are masters of organic technology derived from biologically modified sealife of the planet and capable of creating ice-based constructs.

Psychologically, they consider the sea as their "Mother" - a transcendent, caring yet aloof entity that they worship out of fear and love. They consider the sensation of being submerged as a natural synchronization with the sea and being extremely dry as loosing the link to the sea. In terms of social values and moral attitude, they are extremely matriarchal, reliable, and seafaring.

So there's definitely a conflict of interests with the transformed colonists wanting the planet to stay as it is and the new colonists wanting it transformed.

>The colonized Solar System along with its peripheral colonies in Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, and Tau Ceti are terribly overpopulated and suffering from countless problems stemming from population pressure. The government needs to provide an opportunity for humans to have a new life free from the polluted, desolate and chaotic world.

It's a lot to unpack and i'm not going to unpack it all but... can't they colonize other planets in the existing systems? Or fix their problems at home. You're basically picking an extraordinarily complicated, costly, and difficult option when much simpler ones exist. Especially if both genetic modification and terraforming at great scale and with a massive scope are possible and not merely nerd fantasies like they are today.

>In this premise, space travel is cheap, easy yet highly-risky as it involves travelling through hyperspace that exposes humans to anomalous effects., leading to all sorts of health problems. As a result, space travel is heavily planned in advance and has strict criteria on anyone being an astronaut or colonist, assuming the individual is unmodified.

But why? If there are plenty of people who all feel it's their duty to leave, why bother with planning and regulation? If there are too many people, and i'll not unpack the inherent ecofascism in that, then surely losing a couple of thousand people in a hyperspace jump isn't a big issue? If extensive modification is possible, then modify people to withstand hyperspace. Pump out as many cheap hyperspace-capable ships as you can and just sell cheap tickets. Promise people that whatever ground they can hold is theirs on the frontier and you have people doing all the difficult work for you, pretty much.

>As said before, Biological modifications, especially intensive and intrusive modifications, is highly detrimental to the human psyche. Many bioengineered colonists, mainly the heavily-metamorphized ones, have completely alien worldviews detached from the human psyche.

But this isn't actually a downside at all. If these stellar governments are trying to get rid of an excess population through colonization, then why would they care that the people who colonize a frontier think the Sky is god or the water is their mom? Surely they have more pressing issues, and surely there can't be much racism and human supremacy if they're basically creating alien species out of humans. Every person that decides to leave is one less issue for them to worry about. Especially since their overpopulation issues are *now* and any sort of stellar rebellion is something for the far future. And they can avoid the whole rebellion issue if they simply interact with them diplomatically, especially since there will be a considerable flow of goods to support such efforts. There's no real point to antagonism here.

It simultaneously feels like you're overthinking this and underthinking this. You don't need so many mechanics to try and make it work. At the same time, the actual things that would happen are different though the outcome would be largely the same.

Edited by devak on Dec 1st 2022 at 5:30:47 PM

Thanks for the reply. I've been thinking ways to ensure the setting is feasible and not bogged down by too many fridge logic issues.

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In the setting, terraforming is a process that converts uninhabitable planets into Earth-like planets that are suited for human settlement. The process takes decades or even generations to fully convert a planet.

Terraforming is highly-expensive and requires constant human maintenance. The bioengineered colonists are tasked with maintaining the planetary engineering equipment, power stations, climate control installations and other terraforming infrastructure. Any failure of the terraforming infrastructure is catastrophic.

All bioengineered colonists spend their lives maintaining and constructing the terraforming infrastructure besides subsistence industry. Children are taught by the elders how to maintain coupled with compulsory participation in communal work projects for the settlement of the exoplanet.

For example, Nordberg is an potentially habitable exoplanet orbiting its star with an atmosphere similar to Earth. However, the planet is very cold, with the average temperature being zero degrees Celsius, and an atmosphere with highly-toxic concentrations of oxygen.

The solution is to biologically modify the colonists to become a yeti-like creature with very thick fur and highly-specialized respiratory system meant to alleviate the effects of high oxygen concentrations.

These colonists work on terraforming by burning fossil fuels derived from mining coal and methane clathrate on the planet. The burning of fossil fuels on the planet releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat from the sun and increases the global temperature.

Additionally, the colonists also cultivate a form of heat-seeking bacteria, native to the exoplanet, that uses oxygen for respiration. They use excess heat produced from combustion to stimulate the metabolic processes of the bacteria. This provides the food source of the colonists, as that bacteria can form thick colonies.

For me, the bottom line is that if this civilization is so advanced that interstellar travel is cheap and easy (cheap and easy enough that it's a viable method of population control), then they have the energy and the technology to solve the population problem by other means.

I mean think about it. To overpopulate a star system would require trillions of people, at the least. So they have the technology to transport a significant fraction of this—ie, billions of people? If you have the technology to build starships for all those people, then you have the technology to build space habitats for them instead. And if the system is over-run with space habs, then just attach engines to them and let them move normal humans somewhere else. No need to bother with planets at all.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

>I mean think about it. To overpopulate a star system would require trillions of people, at the least.

I actually don't agree. The solar system is vast and contains stupendous amounts of resources but only one planet on it is habitable and it's capacity is somewhere in the billions.

You can colonize space in theory, but in practice it's useless. What's the economic basis for an Oneill cylinder? It's nothing but a permanent black hole for resources. Bases on other planets are going to be limited by our capacity to provide artificial life support, which is going to be exceptionally difficult to sustain. We can't even maintain critical infrastructure for decades, imagine if say the USA was dependent on it's infrastructure to breathe. Everyone would be dead with that level of investment. Not to mention there's no bounce-back. On earth, if civilization collapses, you can still breathe and walk outside. On mars, if order breaks down you die.

Terraforming mars or Venus is mostly a nerd fantasy. Good luck getting a billion people on mars with pure technological life support. Or at least, making it survive for more than a couple of decades. Like, if interstellar travel is convenient enough that it's a practical solution to literally just even one thing, then shipping a billion people to another star system with an earth-like planet is infinitely easier than trying to terraform a dead dry world too far from earth into something liveable.

Terraforming by itself is also a very broad term that can be anything from mildly adjusting the atmospheric conditions (e.g. it contains a toxic gas or not enough oxygen) to creating an artificial magnetic shield, shipping trillions of tons of volatiles in, increasing a planet's rotation and mass to be earth-like. terraforming something already close to Earth is vastly easier than a dead rock.

There IS the element that if you have the means to ship so many people offworld you essentially have enough control to coerce them into not breeding like rabbits, or increasing Earth's carrying capacity by shipping in vast quantities of alien resources. But that's why i think the scenario shouldn't rely too much on governments, plus i think the governments will be too busy to keep the place from politically (or literally) exploding to really bother too much. People will try and get their own tickets offworld, as the rapid braindrain and unstable political situation will essentially make offworld colonization a wild west. Meaning that the ongoing solution to overpopulation (massive shipments to exocolonies) will prevent the powers in charge from doing anything else to battle overpopulation until a more stable arrangement occurs.