| Callosum: Can you tell us some more about your research? |
| Sequencer: Well, I don’t want to start any rumors, especially when our results are far from incomplete. The initial project idea was to isolate the genetic traits that make transhumans susceptible to various effects of the exsurgent virus, particularly basilisk hacks. |
| Eludere: Ahhh, so we could breed out those traits and harden ourselves against infection. Great idea! How’s it going? |
| Sequencer: Well, we did have a breakthrough in isolating some traits, but our work is far from complete. There are a lot of interconnected factors at work. |
| Black Pharaoh: But you discovered a bit more than that, didn’t you, doctor? |
| Sequencer: Yes, well, after we discovered some of the traits involved, we did a survey sampling to see how widespread these traits were throughout the population. The results were alarming, but expected. They’re all but universal. |
| Black Pharaoh: You’re leaving out the best part, doc. |
| Sequencer: I’m not sure I know what you mean. |
| Black Pharaoh: You know exactly what I mean. NuForm. Don’t be coy. |
| Just Mortal: What’s NuForm? |
| Qi: Looks like they were a clone growth corp, pretty big right before the Fall. Assets both on and off Earth. They had done some of the larger production runs on various splicer and exalt models. They didn’t survive the Fall, though. |
| Just Mortal: How do they relate? |
| Black Pharaoh: Since the doc is playing mum, here’s a hint. They didn’t survive the Fall for a reason. |
| Plasmid: So someone took them out on purpose? Well, lots of corps and factions used the war as cover to settle grudges. What makes this incident special? |
| Qi: I’m going to guess it wasn’t rivalries. It was the TITANs, wasn’t it? |
| Black Pharaoh: We have a winner! Doc, care to explain? |
| Sequencer: I’m not sure what you hope to gain here, Pharaoh, but fine, I will explain. The traits we had isolated so far? They were missing from most NuForm models — at least, the few that were left. The TITANs apparently knew this and specifically targeted the corporation and those models for destruction. We looked into it and even found a few incidents where individual people sleeved in NuForm exalts were targeted specifically. |
| Psychscaper: So the TITANs were eliminating our capacity to resist their mind hacks, before we even knew we had that resistance? Talk about stacking the deck. |
| Sequencer: We haven’t investigated, but I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that they had targeted individual people, naturally born, who were also lacking those specific genetic traits. Many people had their genomes sequenced, the records were available. |
| Black Pharaoh: It gets even worse. NuForm’s genetics weren’t completely lost, of course. Many of their models lived on after the Fall, right, doctor? |
| Sequencer: Yes, mostly thanks to competitors that simply stole the genetics. NuForm wasn’t around to file lawsuits, after all. So the genetic resistance was still being disseminated … up to a point. We took a closer look. Within a year of the Fall, every single one of these corps that was using NuForm’s genetic templates had changed the templates. The immunity was eliminated from all ongoing production designs. |
| Just Mortal: This was after the Fall? After the TITANs had allegedly gone? |
| Sequencer: Indeed. It seems like their agents were still at work. |
| Qi: And were making coordinated efforts. |
| Nevermore: Doc, do these susceptible traits appear in uplift species as well? |
| Sequencer: They didn’t, until around AF 2. We’ve since found the traits in a significant percentage of the major neo-hominid and neo-neanderthal genetic lines, at least the few that we’ve tested. Other species seem immune. |
| Just Mortal: So they’re, what, breeding us without our knowledge? I’m going to be sick. |
| Rivet: Um, why aren’t we working to remove these traits from the rest of transhumanity? Like right friggin’ now? |
| Sequencer: At this point, it wouldn’t matter. Those traits that we had originally isolated, that made us susceptible to certain basilisk hacks? Well, our original research dealt with basilisk hacks that were recorded during the Fall. Turns out the TITANs have tweaked their formula … or it tweaked itself. Most of the basilisk hacks we’ve analyzed that appeared in the wild since AF 2 don’t take advantage of the susceptible traits we had isolated at all. In other words, the edge we thought we found had already been bypassed a good 7 years before we found it. |
| Sava: That’s a super-intelligence for you. Always five or six steps ahead. |
| Rivet: I don’t know what’s worse. The idea that the TITANs are selectively breeding us as a species or the fact that their vectors of attack against us are still mutating — or being shaped — to be more effective. |
| Nevermore: Neither bodes well for us, I’m afraid. |
| Just Mortal: Unfortunately, this also brings an all-new perspective to the argument for going exhuman. |
| Dante: Evolve or die, friend. Evolve or die. |