The Long Night Falls

RE: regeneration
I noticed that your description, although quite impressive in its information content, assumes a 2010 cutoff. But the TL reaches 2020. Isn't plausible that in the extra decade, they manage to make further significant advances ??

*Disclaimer*
Established principles can (and often have) become obsolete very quickly in molecular biology. Further significant advances in regeneration science are probable by 2020, not just possible. But we'll know less what those could look like than the 2010 version. We'd at least have a good idea about the problems they'd have to solve, but unexpected things lurk within us. We're making a projection based on the idea that undiscovered science around the corner (which exist independently of human will) won't be too wild and crazy. Also, projecting farther I don't feel comfortable just skimming 4-5 papers like with the p21 stuff: I'd want to read a heckuva lot more just to feel confident.
*End Disclaimer*

My very uncomfortable projection would be that the bad side effects of P21 deletion are hard to get rid of, its a protein with fingers in every pie (but then again, going from theory you'd expect P21 deletion to increase cancer rates, and that just doesn't happen). The first alternative would be turning it off outside the immune system and seeing what happens, maybe they'll get lucky. Even then, P21 doesn't seem to get you all the way to awesome salamander-style regeneration. They'd iron out many of the bugs in the salamander-style regeneration (taken and modified directly from salamander genes), and find presently-unknown ways to take advantage of their greater knowledge. More than any other aspect, problems would remain with central nervous system regrowth.

What other progresses they could have made about life extension that aren't related to drugs ? Quite promising approaches that I'm aware of include calorie limitation and telomerase manipulation (and for all that we know, they may easily be cumulative). The former could be done the hard way, by manipulating metabolism with drugs, or by germline/adult genetic engineering. The latter could be done with drugs, or with genetic engineering.
I think SENS is just about the right approach, though undoubtedly things will be discovered that demonstrate parts of it to be incorrect or incomplete. In reference to the list on that page, drugs could include include chemotherapy agents (targeted ablation of death-resistant cells, #4 on the list- fits under drugs I guess), or drugs to reverse the state of death resistant cells, and enzymatic drugs to break down ECM glycation end products (AGEs, #5 on the list). You could also sqeeze out a drug for #6 (extracellular aggregates) and #7 (intracellular aggregates) but you'd have to find a way past the blood-brain barrier. Besides drugs, therapies would include modification and replacement of stem cells and, like you said, adult or germline gene therapy. I personally think you'd need tissue engineering or transplantation for structures that don't end up repairing themselves spontaneously.

About Ashkenazi intelligence genes, I suppose that this is a field where all the relevant progresses about their eugenetic selection would be first done in the CFN, and later copied (stolen) by the EL.
If they find one without knowing that it's distinctively Jewish, then they might end up studying it. Otherwise, yeah, they'll copy this area from the CFN.


On an unrelated note, if the NEO doesn't stop trying to exterminate the Siberians until it gives up on colonization, then wouldn't that be 20-30 years the Siberians would be stuck without agriculture or permanent, above ground towns? Again, I'd think that you'd need an earlier relaxation of policy to have any substantial social organization to harness for building a Russian puppet state. I'd go with short-term profits subverting policy myself. Why send the army into Siberia all the time when you can get Siberians to collect the slaves for you?
 
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Eurofed

Banned
Disclaimer accepted. :D

My very uncomfortable projection would be that the bad side effects of P21 deletion are hard to get rid of, its a protein with fingers in every pie (but then again, going from theory you'd expect P21 deletion to increase cancer rates, and that just doesn't happen). The first alternative would be turning it off outside the immune system and seeing what happens, maybe they'll get lucky. Even then, P21 doesn't seem to get you all the way to awesome salamander-style regeneration. They'd iron out many of the bugs in the salamander-style regeneration (taken and modified directly from salamander genes), and find presently-unknown ways to take advantage of their greater knowledge. More than any other aspect, problems would remain with central nervous system regrowth.

This seems a reasonable picture. And I would expect that with the extra decade they can make substantial improvements at ironing out the kinks in salamander genes. As it concerns CNS regrowth, I'd expect that serious progresses can already be obtained just by turning glia scarring off.

I think SENS is just about the right approach, though undoubtedly things will be discovered that demonstrate parts of it to be incorrect or incomplete. In reference to the list on that page, drugs could include include chemotherapy agents (targeted ablation of death-resistant cells, #4 on the list- fits under drugs I guess), or drugs to reverse the state of death resistant cells, and enzymatic drugs to break down ECM glycation end products (AGEs, #5 on the list). You could also sqeeze out a drug for #6 (extracellular aggregates) and #7 (intracellular aggregates) but you'd have to find a way past the blood-brain barrier. Besides drugs, therapies would include modification and replacement of stem cells and, like you said, adult or germline gene therapy.

I essentially agree.

I personally think you'd need tissue engineering or transplantation for structures that don't end up repairing themselves spontaneously.

Or again, adult or germline gene therapy. It takes more time, but I expect that eventually all structures that can be repaired by drug manipulation or stem cell tissue engineering can also be made to repair themselves spontaneously by adult or germline gene therapy.

On an unrelated note, if the NEO doesn't stop trying to exterminate the Siberians until it gives up on colonization, then wouldn't that be 20-30 years the Siberians would be stuck without agriculture or permanent, above ground towns? Again, I'd think that you'd need an earlier relaxation of policy to have any substantial social organization to harness for building a Russian puppet state. I'd go with short-term profits subverting policy myself. Why send the army into Siberia all the time when you can get Siberians to collect the slaves for you?

Butr remember that early on, they adopted the policy that they don't enact extermination (or deportation, for that matter) in an area till they are reasonably sure they can swiftly repopulate it with their own settlers (and those locals deemed fit/manageable for assimilation). And in practice they never got to try and colonize Siberia and Central Asia seriously. The region may indeed suffer a lot of social disruption by being the dumping ground for populations that are deported, not exterminated, from NEO counterinsurgency efforts, and from short-term exploitation, as you put it. But extermination, they don't really get.

Moreover, there is exploitation and exploitation. Siberia and Central Asia also have valuable natural and the latter agricultural resources, too. If the NEO wants to tap them, to prevent total social collapse in the region is useful for them, too.
 
This seems a reasonable picture. And I would expect that with the extra decade they can make substantial improvements at ironing out the kinks in salamander genes. As it concerns CNS regrowth, I'd expect that serious progresses can already be obtained just by turning glia scarring off.
Having spoken to someone who recently got their doctorate investigating glial scarring, the expert opinion seems to be that glial scarring requires much farther investigation before we can safely and simply turn it off. Of course, maybe I'd discover differently if I read recent literature.

But remember that early on, they adopted the policy that they don't enact extermination in an area till they are reasonably sure they can swiftly repopulate it with their own settlers. And in practice they never get to try and colonize Siberia and Central Asia seriously. The region may indeed suffer a lot of social disruption by being the dumping ground for populations that are deported, not exterminated, from NEO counterinsurgency efforts, and from short-term exploitation, as you put it. But extermination, they don't really get.

Moreover, there is exploitation and exploitation. Siberia and Central Asia also have valuable natural and the latter agricultural resources, too. If the NEO wants to tap them, to prevent total social collapse in the region is useful for them, too.

Okay then, can the paramount warlord who delivers slave levies to the NEO be called Borys 'The Dragon'? Yes, there's a geeky in-joke.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Having spoken to someone who recently got their doctorate investigating glial scarring, the expert opinion seems to be that glial scarring requires much farther investigation before we can safely and simply turn it off. Of course, maybe I'd discover differently if I read recent literature.

Yeah, but but my rough expectation is that in the end it proves no more problematic to implement than p21 or salamander-genes regeneration.

Okay then, can the paramount warlord who delivers slave levies to the NEO be called Borys 'The Dragon'? Yes, there's a geeky in-joke.

Shamefully, I miss the reference. :eek:
 
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Yeah, but but my rough expectation is that in the end it proves no more problematic to implement than p21 or salamander-genes regeneration.

My rough understanding is that without glial scarring the blood-brain barrier is not maintained. Myelin (kind of important) is also critically involved.


Borys the Dragon is a creature from the Dark Sun setting D&D rulebooks and novels. Borys collects an annual levy of slaves from his former comrades-in-arms who are now despots and warlords subordinate to him. He sacrifices these slaves to maintain a spell keeping the ultimate evil from returning and destroying everything.


Borys is an alternate spelling of Boris. I'd picture him as a young Russian officer who turns coat and leads an antipartisan unit. He doesn't quite make the cut for pretending he's volksdeutsche after the war. Instead of going into a labor camp, a friend of his in the SS transports him and his little army past the frontier, where they're one of many groups exchanging an annual levy of slaves for the right to continue breathing[1]. Through political guile and military talent, he eventually climbs his way to the top of the heap. In the warlord state he usurps, his power allows him to 'protect' from NEO depredations what becomes a large class of serfs, though his vassal states chafe at a tax of human lives that seem harder to meet every year [2]. The NEO wouldn't admit to treating a barbarian like him as well as they do, but he often receives weapons and machinery in exchange for diamonds, ores, and other products from deepest Siberia. He lives to see the transition to less harsh policy in Russia. After he dies his still-civilized nation [3], centered on Novosibirsk, becomes one of the largest nuclei of the new Russian state.

1. Really, the right to live as something more than a fugitive nomadic hunter or forest-dwelling recluse.
2. Of course it does, it's meant to depopulate.
3. "Relax, we don't eat people in this town."
 
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Eurofed

Banned
My rough understanding is that without glial scarring the blood-brain barrier is not maintained. Myelin (kind of important) is also critically involved.

Yeah, but it still seems theoretically plausible that glial scarring can be selectively turned off except in really close proximity to blood vessels (of course the long-term solution is to disentangle BBB maintainance from glial scarring entirely), and myelin is given development stimulus that is not dependent on glial scarring. It also remains to be seen whether a slight weakening of BBB integrity really proves to be a major health hazard or not.

Indeed it is quite possible that the ultimate groundwork for the Russian Federation is laid by some successful Borys-like figures. Although, again, the NEO/EL never reached the point where they were really interested in putting major effort to implement depopulation of trans-Ural areas. If they impose slave taxes and the like, it's largely because they actually need slave manpower for some project or another; in modern times, this shifts to a more humane, albeit still exploitative, migrant workers deal, such as manpower to build the defensive barrier system.
 
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Eurofed

Banned
So are there any Jews or Slavs left in eastern Europe? :mad: (non-axis slavs like Bulgaria, I mean)

There are no pure-blooded (according to the Nazi racial classification laws) Jews left in Europe, apart from a few that managed to disguise their status as mixed-bloods, while the persons of partial Jewish ancestry were assimilated in the "Aryan" population.

The ultimate fate of the Jews is purposefully left ambiguous in the story, they may have been worked to death in eastern Europe, they may have been deported to Siberia/Central Asia, or a mix of the two methods may have been applied.

As it concerns the Slavs in eastern Europe and the Balkans, and the Arabs in North Africa and the Middle East, part were forcibly assimilated with the "Aryan" settlers, part were exterminated (by being worked to death), part were deported to Siberia, Central Asia, southern Arabia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

So yes, Slavs (except Bulgarians) and Arabs were annihilated as distinct ethnic-linguistic and cultural groups within the NEO/EL, but there is a quite sizable number of persons with Slav/Arab ancestry within European population. ITTL Slovakia and Croatia did not get Axis member status.

Likewise, Blacks of southern Africa were exterminated or deported to other regions of Africa (assimilation was not an option for obvious reasons). Mixed-bloods deemed racially assimilable (i.e. looking whiteish enough) were instead assimilated.

Anatolian Turks and Bulgarians got "honorary Aryan" status and became two of the constituent nationalities of the European polity.
 
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well to develop this timeline, you could make the Alliance for democracy discover FTL, and space exploration of other stars systems , to colonize. and maybe discover Alliens.:)
 

Gousting

Banned
Eurofed

I note their has been alot of discussion about colonization of of territory were native population has been exterminated and i think i might have the soultion to this problem.

Why not have the NAZIs go for a baby bounes for mums encoraging huge pop growth. Fictional Problem Solved
 
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Why has this TL not moved to ASB yet?
The steaming pile of bullshit pseudo-science is really grating.
Archaeo, you're an excellent hater. If I recall your specific objections correctly, it was all about eugenics, right? (well and you didn't like the Nazis prospering) Humans are multicellular creatures whose development is influenced by genes. Change the genes correctly (a bit of a trick, that) and you alter the resulting person as desired. The poor ethics of running around sterilizing or murdering people in the name of eugenics has nothing to do with whether or not eugenics (IE guided genetic selection!) and genetic engineering work.

By the way, what is YOUR job specialty? I'm a bioengineer, I read bioscience papers all day, every day. Sure, it leads to dumb arguments from authority on my part, but it means I can occasionally get off my butt and find the right documents to back up my assertions.

well to develop this timeline, you could make the Alliance for democracy discover FTL, and space exploration of other stars systems , to colonize. and maybe discover Alliens.:)

Take a good look at that Archeo, that's ASB. We don't have any adequate theories on how FTL could work yet, so that would have to be a spinoff in the ASB section.
 
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archaeogeek

Banned
Archaeo, you're an excellent hater. If I recall your specific objections correctly, it was all about eugenics, right? (well and you didn't like the Nazis prospering) Humans are multicellular creatures whose development is influenced by genes. Change the genes correctly (a bit of a trick, that) and you alter the resulting person as desired. The poor ethics of running around sterilizing or murdering people in the name of eugenics has nothing to do with whether or not eugenics (IE guided genetic selection!) and genetic engineering work.

By the way, what is YOUR job specialty? I'm a bioengineer, I read bioscience papers all day, every day. Sure, it leads to dumb arguments from authority on my part, but it means I can occasionally get off my butt and find the right documents to back up my assertions.

Anthropology - mostly physical (palaeoanthropology)
You're not merely doing arguments from authority: you're doing arguments from authority to support as possible genetic concepts which are either
a - outdated
b - pure science-fiction with little basis on current or foreseen knowledge
c - twisted beyond recognition
As you said: influenced. And guided genetic selection as an euphemism for eugenics is still bullshit pseudoscience. The whole premise of eugenics is unscientific: evolution is not, cannot be and will never be teleological, and this is probably the one thing Dawkins was right on above everything else before he decided to throw it out of the window. This thread is a shitty ASB nazi wank by some lab tech with quite frankly suspicious ideas and someone who claims to make his wank TL based on his favorite choices of hegemon. That's not exactly reassuring in terms of political sympathies.
 
Anthropology - mostly physical (palaeoanthropology)
You're not merely doing arguments from authority: you're doing arguments from authority to support as possible genetic concepts which are either
a - outdated
b - pure science-fiction with little basis on current or foreseen knowledge
c - twisted beyond recognition
As you said: influenced. And guided genetic selection as an euphemism for eugenics is still bullshit pseudoscience. The whole premise of eugenics is unscientific. This thread is a shitty ASB nazi wank by some lab tech with quite frankly suspicious ideas.

Archaeo, you're an inquisitor, in the 'spanish-inquisition' sense. Some ideas seem intolerable to you, and you want them excised from the public square. I've watched you bait people specifically to get them banned, and you've tried the same thing with me. I'm only talking to you to get you to express yourself honestly, to see what exactly you don't like about the whole thing. I'm a bit curious.


a- outdated
Yeees, there were eugenicists with stupid ideas ("more evolved", "more advanced"? WTF does that even mean in the context of Darwinian evolution?) But genetics works. Genes do things with verifiable impact on people's lives. You sound like you're disputing that at the moment, but previously you've espoused a more rational position. (and I'd rather go with adult genetic engineering because that means I could more easily personally benefit)
b- pure science fiction with little basis in current and forseen knowledge
Most of what I suggested was possible, as in we already do it with other mammals. That's a pretty solid basis.
c- twisted beyond recognition
What does this even mean?
 
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archaeogeek

Banned
So, what do you think of Boas?

A good statistician, a good field worker, a great humanist, and someone you have the most distorted reading of I have ever seen if you draw any inspiration from him. Plasticity is about environmental influence, not about eugenics.

Also, don't get on a cross too fast.
 
A good statistician, a good field worker, a great humanist, and someone you have the most distorted reading of I have ever seen if you draw any inspiration from him. Plasticity is about environmental influence, not about eugenics.

Also, don't get on a cross too fast.


What did I say about BOAS?

Nothing.

Sorry, you just made this too easy.
 
Guys, why are you arguing so strenuously?

The ''New Order'' lovingly envisioned in TTL is as ASB as the Domination of Draka or the objectivist fantasies of Ayn Rand.:rolleyes:
 

Eurofed

Banned
well to develop this timeline, you could make the Alliance for democracy discover FTL, and space exploration of other stars systems , to colonize. and maybe discover Alliens.:)

This could certainly be a worthwhile line of expansion for the TL. Unfortunately I do not trust my ability very much to develop it into a near-future hard sci-fi direction, and it would be rather low on my priority list, so don't hold your breath waiting for it.

Why not have the NAZIs go for a baby bounes for mums encoraging huge pop growth. Fictional Problem Solved


Good suggestion, but this already happens in the TL. The NEO/EL supports strong natalist policies thoroughout its history, it is one of the main ways they may come up with sufficient "Aryan" settlers to repopulate Eastern Europe, the Arab world, and Southern Africa.
 
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