Progenitory

A progenitory is a facility where Sidh artificial procreation takes place. Operated by the Imperial eugenics program, progenitories are essentially vast industrial complexes that manufacture tens and hundreds of thousands of new Sidhae each day, the biotech assembly lines never stopping.

## Background

When early Sidhae established their first colonies, the problem of rapidly populating them and increasing their numbers beyond extinction risk became apparent. Natural human procreation and growth rates simply could not hope to produce the necessary number of offspring within a practical timespan, so Sidhae would consequently turn to science and technology for aid.

This problem wasn't exactly unexpected, the Emperor and his leading scientists having recognized the problem beforehand and planned in advance. Early experiments in artificially growing humans at an accelerated rate had been conducted already back in the Confederate era on Old Terra to replenish battlefield losses and implement eugenic breeding within a timespan practical for observation and analysis. While these technologies were comparatively crude and were never widely implemented before the fall of the Confederacy, they did provide the theoretical and practical basis for the later progenitory technology.

While in principle growing a human body to adult size at an accelerated rate was well within the possibility of Confed science thanks to advances in genetic engineering and synthetic biology, that still left the early Sidhae with the problem of also developing these vat-grown humans to adult capacity mentally, a task that proved much more challenging. While neural mind-machine interfaces were already known and commonly used in powered armor suits and some other military applications, developing something as complex as human mind and personality into a functional adult was a whole different matter. Even after decades of experimentation and numberless test batches lost or requiring to be euthanized, the results were still far from satisfactory, the vat-grown prototypes at best turning out emotionally stunted and mentally-unstable, or downright imbecile or insane at worst. For this reason, alternatives were also considered - for example, the crews of several colony ships in the Pilgrimage fleet volunteered (or perhaps at least partly were volunteered) to be genetically-altered, increasing their fecundity and altering the male-to-female ration in their offspring to 1:10. These ships were unfortunately lost to a misjump, ending up in a different part of the galaxy and establishing the realm of Altmark that would centuries later be rediscovered by the Imperium of Sidhae.

Despite the difficulties and the first generation of Sidhae born planetside being born naturally, the technological issues were finally overcome by 2080, the first progenitories coming online shortly thereafter. It would, however, only be in 2088 that the first fully-artificially bred generation of Sidhae was activated. Nonetheless, the result was well-worth it, the first batches of this generation outnumbering all Sidhae then alive by eight times. This new generation could in turn be put into the production cycle almost immediately afterwards, the population growth now being only limited by the progenitory capacity, and that of industries necessary to support the new population. By the time of Skargh Wars, Sidhae had already grown their population to tens of billions from an initial 20 million.

## Overview

The process of Sidh procreation begins with the harvest of genetic material from both sexes of Sidhae. While the process is relatively straightforward for males, obtaining sufficient amounts of female gametes requires a more invasive procedure that involves extracting parts of their ovaries and maturing their constituent egg cells in a hormonal and nutrient solution. An originally unintended side-effect to this procedure is sterility, Sidh females being unable to conceive children naturally. With progenitories in full operation, however, this issue was not regarded as problematic and in fact played well with the government's efforts to abolish family and put procreation and raising of new citizens entirely under state control. Eventually, procreating exclusively by artificial means would become an innate part of Sidh identity and culture.

After assessing the properties of the harvested material, eugenicists match and combine various samples that meet their desired criteria and begin to culture them. It is at this stage that the majority of genetic alterations are carried out, entire artificial gene sequences being spliced into the new Sidh genomes. The specimens are then seeded into gestation pods and allowed to grow in a nutrient and hormone-rich amniotic solution.

Once the brain is sufficiently developed, neural interfaces are grafted into the new body as the first of a series of cyber-augmentations it will receive in the coming years. The infant Sidh is hooked up to a neuro-interactive simulation, a virtual reality construct called Dreamtime that allows the youngsters to interact with a virtual world and learn much like human babies would. Much of this interaction takes place at a sub-conscious level up to the point of activation, Sidhae only having vague and hazy memories from their dream-like pre-activation state in the VR, hence it's name Dreamtime. As their brain develops, large amounts of academic and theoretical knowledge are imprinted into it, ensuring that every Sidh awakens with a standard educational data package slightly above that of a contemporary human high-school education. Sidhae inside the Dreamtime may interact with each other as well to learn social skills, although most have little to no recollection of their pre-activation relations.

During this period, various cyber and nano-augmentations are also installed in the young Sidhae. In earlier days, this often entailed invasive surgery and implantation of prosthetics. Modern methods rely mostly on injecting seed populations of nanites that then develop into the desired mechanisms, structures and artificial organs.

All this time, the gestating Sidhae are constantly monitored for abberations, being immediately euthanized and recycled if any are discovered. While not 100% glitch-proof, this ruthless quality control has ensured that things like hereditary disorders and diseases are entirely alien to Sidhae. On average, only around 40 Sidhae out of an initial batch of over a thousand make it to activation, the overwhelming majority being terminated still in embryonic stages. That, however, is still far more than anything naturally possible in baseline humans - even more so considering that one Sidh couple can produce 40 new Sidhae each year rather than 20 at most during their entire lifetimes.

Those specimens that pass the rigorous quality control are finally activated after roughly 8 years of growth at a biological and mental age of 20. After a week or two of adaptation and aptitude testing, they are imprinted with a Codex, assigned a name, a residence and their first job, the latter depending on their specific aptitude scores. Customarily young Sidhae are allowed to choose their first role in society themselves, although progenitors will exert considerable pressure to persuade them to pick occupations their genetic background and aptitude scores best predispose them to.

Despite being for all practical means and purposes adults, young Sidhae are characterized by great energy, bravado, eagerness to assert and prove themselves and insatiable childlike curiosity, being very much like human teenagers. Most mature soon enough and learn to temper themselves, the more rebellious ones usually joining Freelancers and spending some years travelling the galaxy and adventuring before settling down.

## Trivia

Every Sidh generation is assigned a generation number, which makes the first digits of one's Codex. Those born before the advent of the eugenics program are designated with 0, colloquialy being known as "Gen-Zero" . First-generation converts admitted into the eugenics program are also technically designated as 0 (the digit indicating the number of generations of ancestors in the eugenics program) but a special marker is used to distinguish them as recent converts, true Gen-Zeroes being extremely rare in the present age.

Because of this mode of procreation, family is a largely alien concept to most Sidhae. The Imperial authorities certainly deem it desirable - a lack of familial ties ensures that no Sidh has loyalties other than towards the state, nor one can use them to advance in society or otherwise leverage advantage against the Sidh principle of meritocracy.

Sidh citizens take great pride in being products of science and deliberate engineering rather than results of accidental natural randomness. In keeping with the doctrines of the Word, they believe that every species with the necessary technological capability should take control of their own evolutionary destiny and use all available means to enhance themselves. For this reason, humans who still practice natural procreation are often derided as "cunt-borns" and regarded as stubborn and ignorant barbarians for their refusal to embrace eugenics and augmentation.