The Reconstruction of the Biosphere

Of course, there was also always the risk that the species would mutate and so lose the gene, especially if the species was a bacteria or virus. It didn’t need it to survive, after all – did it? Actually, it did: this was why the genetic engineers made the gene regulate another which was necessary – indispensable – in the species’ biochemistry. This made it almost perfectly safe to unleash a transgenic species, or transspecies, into the biosphere. (To return to the aforementioned analog with drugs, this is similar to using antidotes, such as flumazenil used against overdoses of benzodiazepines.)

Usually, these species were not entirely harmless, but quite nearly so: like medicines, they were not always tested for long-term effects. Transspecies usually put the stability of their habitat in a metastable rather than fully stable state, meaning that, in many millions of years, if their descendants would still survive then, they could, in principle, cause moderate to severe harm to the environment. After all, who could have guessed that all that was needed for apes to involve into a high-tech civilization was for them to get out of their safe niche in the rain forests?

In this way, the health of the planet was bit by bit restored. What’s more, by thus increasing biodiversity, geneticists increased the world’s beauty. Often the common man met this beauty in their daily lives: not just when traveling to some far-flung natural park, be it live or through media, but also just when walking through their own cities. Very many transgenic species lived along with humans, either as pets or like gulls, rats and so on – cleansing the cities from litter.

In the end, the creations of nature that had been undone were replaced by our own creations: while once detracting from the ecosystems, we now supplemented it. As if to atone for our trespasses towards nature and be pardoned from them, we gave nature back part of her former glory. Her wounds were patched up, even though she would always show the scars of what humanity had done to her.

Though geneticists were often eager to unleash their creativity, most of these creatures were of rather modest design. We didn’t want to see all sorts of motley Frankenstein creatures around, did we? The transspecies were therefore designed to look as natural as possible. Sometimes, extinct species whose DNA was lost were recreated to the best of our ability based on empirical date. This was done, for instance, with the Thylacine.

Then and again, one of the more striking transspecies which would get the approbation of the scientific community would not be restricted to household use but unleashed in nature – an aspired honor for all designers. After all, even nature has many creatures one would think fit for fantasy and science fiction stories, like the thylacine or the angler fish. One condition in this case, however, was that the species was not too intelligent, as the chance was there, no matter how small, that in the long run they would otherwise form a community and become as harmful as humanity themselves, or even (in extreme cases) compete with them. This was not seen plausible in a matter of centuries, though, and this issue received excessive attention at the time, as did many other in technology (perhaps a good thing, as experience had already shown us that it’s better to be too careful than too reckless).