Re-Gene

**Re-Genes** are artificial humans made up of a biological, cloned, human body and an artificial intelligence chip in the brain stem.

## Appearance

### Appears in

Fallen Hero: Rebirth, Fallen Hero: Retribution

## History

The Re-Gene project traces its roots to medical research done by the GeniTech corporation in the 70s and 80s. Initially, GeniTech set out to, with cloning technology, create vat-grown organs for medical transplants in order to eradicate hereditary diseases like heart failure or diabetes. While they succeeded in 1986, it turned out to be more cost-efficient to simply treat these diseases instead of fully curing them. To not waste the research, the GeniTech board pushed for the research to push further. As such, Project Mesuthalem was born.

### Project Mesuthalem

With such advanced medical technology, curing human aging became the holy grail for medical companies. Various methods were attempted: cryotech was an attempt to preserve the already old until technology had developed so far that they could remedy their aging, but the main focuses were in the areas of mods and artificial bodies.

As medical technology developed, neural interfaces became significantly more comfortable for humans. Following this, it was attempted to fully transfer a human brain to an artificial body to preserve it, but it was mostly unsuccessful. Either the brains simply degraded naturally until the host expired or they experienced ABS or *Artifical Body Syndrome*. ABS would see a person become increasingly withdrawn and see their neural interface breaking down until the brain was trapped inside an immobile artificial body. The cause of ABS remains mostly unknown, but it's theorized that it's a result of the brains inability to realize itself as a part of the artificial body which would cause the self-image to break down. This is seemingly related to the feeling of disconnect that mods with artificial limbs experienced, also known as AHS or *Alien Hand Syndrome*.

In an attempt to circumvent this, Project Mesuthalem planned on taking the research used for cloning organs, and expanding it to entire bodies, cloned from the future hosts own DNA. Therefore providing the brain with artificial bodies of biological make, hopefully bypassing ABS. While this worked physically, the problems of the actual brain persisted and it did nothing for people suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's. GeniTech saw a solution in this when they acquired a small startup specializing in artificial intelligence in 1992, following their relocation to Los Diablos.

A new GeniTech division, focusing solely on merging the cloning technology and the artificial intelligence technology in order to solve the transplant mind issue, was set up. Two problems the division ran into was that the accelerated growth process resulted in serious developmental issues with the brain, such as Anancephaly or Microcephaly, and that the artificial intelligence aspect lacked the computational power to perform their part.

However, the single biggest obstacle for the project was the transferring of the human mind to the artificial mind. A breakthrough in this aspect only came when a third-party consultant working on digital storage for analog memories came to GeniTech. Following research on the mental effects of boost drugs, it became clear that certain materials could be affected by the human mind. As such, telepathically programmable memory circuits were born and the first fully artificial brain with implanted memories was put into a vat-grown body and functioned.

While this worked to an extent, it was completely economically unsustainable. The memories were not absolute copies of the donor and were subject to the will of the telepath implanting them, the memories would also break down unless they were continuously reinforced and conditioned. The project was at a complete standstill and risked being shut down until Dr. Fredrik Ljungstrand came up with a potential suggestion.

### The Re-Gene Project

While GeniTech was still working on cloning organs for transplants, they had built a massive database of genetic information that was then used for the creation of the clone bodies. Dr. Ljungstrand suggested taking this assortment of genetic information and, in combination with boost drug research done by other companies, attempting to develop bodies that had a greater likelihood of surviving the boost drug. Research had already been performed on animals but it was shown not to be transferable to humans. However, with access to a limitless supply of cloned human embryos the research could provide results with minimal ethical concerns. The genetic makeup of clones that didn't take to the drug would simply be flushed until suitable sequences were found. Dr. Ljungstrand was also in contact with people in the military willing to invest in the research in order to develop boosted organic weapons.

The board approved the project and Dr. Ljungstrand was appointed as the director. In order to keep information and material leaks to a minimum, the project was located in the wastelands of Nevada. The site was nicknamed The Farm and here the first Re-Genes were born.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Rydén, M. (2021, January 8). *Re-Gene creation and production.* Patreon. Retrieved February 28, 2023, from https://www.patreon.com/posts/re-gene-creation-60892098