Done 1.6 Nuking the National Rodent Research Institute from high orbit
Drop In: Yolanda calling. Wonk, you there?
Presence: It's 0400, can I have 5 minutes? What's up?
Emergency meeting of the High Table in 15 minutes
Blue Circle High Table? I'm not Blue
It may concern you, it certainly concerns Charles Vanderbilt and you are in the best position to speak as his advocate.
Toss me the meeting creds, I'll get everything ready.
Wonk jumped out of bed, he always slept in his underwear, t-shirt and socks, so all he had to do was pull on his SHORTS|PANTS and slip on shoes and make his way to the RV. He kicked self drive on, might not be a good idea to have presence emanating from his house, dragged all the files to the desktop, logged in and waited on mute. He only knew a few bits about Blue Circle, but he was fairly certain you wait to speak till you are spoken to.
Apparently either Gloria or Yolanda had taken the action to report "patient one" to the ethics committee. Wonk had not attended many business meetings, if he had been an old hand, he would have been amazed at the speed.
Human stem cell implantation in a rat was judged to be a bad idea. All of the scientists present had read the published paper and noted the reason for the experiment was missing, it really seemed to be a "what if", "Let's inject stem cells and see what happens".
To have allowed the rat to breed and then not destroy everything when the organiod was passed to the second generation bordered on Frankensteinian thinking. And to allow a level 3 experiment to escape set a new high in incompetence.
The discussion slowed a bit when discussing clean up of the escaped rat. Was it possible to totally destroy any affected rats? No. The robotic rat traps were not effective even on non-enhanced rats. Even a nuclear bomb was not a sure thing.
All voting parties agreed would have to be destroyed without a trace. Nearby buildings had already been purchased in cash and told to vacate immediately. Iron oxide, aluminum powder, magnesium and oxidents and accelerators were available in country and were being moved into the building. When the fire department gets the call, their engine will not start, it is far too dangerous for them to attempt to put out this fire.
Nothing was ever said about the employees of the research institute, but Wonk was pretty sure they were going down with ship and sure enough, Charles was the next order of business.
I met him in a civil disturbance, Wonk explained, but stayed in touch. He was judged to hard a case for Up and Out, but . . . Yolanda cut in, we put him to work on the canal that serves the Shiffer mine. They showed the Speak and Spell video. As unlikely as it would seem, Charles was the closest thing mankind had to an ambassador to this new species.
One of the older scientists spoke. I have served on this ethics committee for 30 years. Ethics is never open and shut. If an unconscious man arrives at EMR with Do Not Resuscitate tattooed to his chest, do you let him die? Does the rule of irreversible consequences trump his wishes? If an overloaded boat of refugees tips over and we have one summglerine in the area with a max crew of 6, who do we save, and why. There are never any hard and fast right and wrong answers, it always comes down to the pursuit of higher principles.
This life form should have never existed. It was foolishly man created and if it was within our power, I would order it man destroyed. But we are fairly certain we cannot guarantee anything like absolute destruction and I agree, rats and roaches have survived many attempts to eradicate them and both seem to be doing just fine. So instead of making war, given the circumstances, we should be ready to sue for peace. We have run simulations a thousand times and it is clear, the enhanced specie of rat will probably outperform the native rats and take their place. The really important question to ask is what if they mutate? Or to make myself clear, when they mutate. I am not a superstitious man, but you cannot look at the diversity of life in Madagascar, so many species that thrive living along only this one lake, or making their homes in only this one type of reed, not to know there is something about that island that almost guarantees mutation.
Presence: It's 0400, can I have 5 minutes? What's up?
Emergency meeting of the High Table in 15 minutes
Blue Circle High Table? I'm not Blue
It may concern you, it certainly concerns Charles Vanderbilt and you are in the best position to speak as his advocate.
Toss me the meeting creds, I'll get everything ready.
Wonk jumped out of bed, he always slept in his underwear, t-shirt and socks, so all he had to do was pull on his SHORTS|PANTS and slip on shoes and make his way to the RV. He kicked self drive on, might not be a good idea to have presence emanating from his house, dragged all the files to the desktop, logged in and waited on mute. He only knew a few bits about Blue Circle, but he was fairly certain you wait to speak till you are spoken to.
Apparently either Gloria or Yolanda had taken the action to report "patient one" to the ethics committee. Wonk had not attended many business meetings, if he had been an old hand, he would have been amazed at the speed.
Human stem cell implantation in a rat was judged to be a bad idea. All of the scientists present had read the published paper and noted the reason for the experiment was missing, it really seemed to be a "what if", "Let's inject stem cells and see what happens".
To have allowed the rat to breed and then not destroy everything when the organiod was passed to the second generation bordered on Frankensteinian thinking. And to allow a level 3 experiment to escape set a new high in incompetence.
The discussion slowed a bit when discussing clean up of the escaped rat. Was it possible to totally destroy any affected rats? No. The robotic rat traps were not effective even on non-enhanced rats. Even a nuclear bomb was not a sure thing.
All voting parties agreed would have to be destroyed without a trace. Nearby buildings had already been purchased in cash and told to vacate immediately. Iron oxide, aluminum powder, magnesium and oxidents and accelerators were available in country and were being moved into the building. When the fire department gets the call, their engine will not start, it is far too dangerous for them to attempt to put out this fire.
Nothing was ever said about the employees of the research institute, but Wonk was pretty sure they were going down with ship and sure enough, Charles was the next order of business.
I met him in a civil disturbance, Wonk explained, but stayed in touch. He was judged to hard a case for Up and Out, but . . . Yolanda cut in, we put him to work on the canal that serves the Shiffer mine. They showed the Speak and Spell video. As unlikely as it would seem, Charles was the closest thing mankind had to an ambassador to this new species.
One of the older scientists spoke. I have served on this ethics committee for 30 years. Ethics is never open and shut. If an unconscious man arrives at EMR with Do Not Resuscitate tattooed to his chest, do you let him die? Does the rule of irreversible consequences trump his wishes? If an overloaded boat of refugees tips over and we have one summglerine in the area with a max crew of 6, who do we save, and why. There are never any hard and fast right and wrong answers, it always comes down to the pursuit of higher principles.
This life form should have never existed. It was foolishly man created and if it was within our power, I would order it man destroyed. But we are fairly certain we cannot guarantee anything like absolute destruction and I agree, rats and roaches have survived many attempts to eradicate them and both seem to be doing just fine. So instead of making war, given the circumstances, we should be ready to sue for peace. We have run simulations a thousand times and it is clear, the enhanced specie of rat will probably outperform the native rats and take their place. The really important question to ask is what if they mutate? Or to make myself clear, when they mutate. I am not a superstitious man, but you cannot look at the diversity of life in Madagascar, so many species that thrive living along only this one lake, or making their homes in only this one type of reed, not to know there is something about that island that almost guarantees mutation.
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