By Russell Hemmell
Delphis—the Cheerful One—had known it since the beginning. She was going to remember the day the magic of gene editing was discovered in the multifaceted and famously riotous dolphin world.
It could provide a way for the planet to survive climate change, the developers claimed. Once we upgrade, uplift and upscale, we’ll teach the Dumb Ones in Command (read: humans) how to do deal with it.
True or not, the possibility itself was too good to be ignored.
Now, Delphis had expected outrage and disagreements, yet things turned out to be, as often happens, worse than that. Not only was there no consensus among the forty-three species of dolphins inhabiting the seas and the rivers of the blue planet, their quarrels escalated to a full-fledged (holy) war.
Amazon River dolphins—the Elder and Quiet Ones—rallied the rest of the river brethren and shunned the marine cousins away: Nothing can be gained by summoning the devil in the shape of a nasty, alien-looking technology. Weren’t human-devised climate change remedies worse than the ravages themselves? Bugger off. And don’t try to chase us up here, you sinners, or we will feed you to the piranhas.
Delphis was not surprised. Land-bound creatures were always more conservative. Remaining in the same environment all their lives didn’t help them develop an open mind. In the seas, as a matter of fact, positions were more diverse, if not always positive.
Spinners like Delphis and Bottlenoses were definitively interested in a few abilities that could give the clade an edge over the other Earthian species, marine or not, and so were the Pacific White-Sideds, although with somewhat less enthusiasm.
Others were not convinced, and Killer Whales—the (consistently) Worried Ones—were more doubtful than the rest.
Dolphins communicate but don’t talk; they whistle to one another, the naysayers said. Dolphins stay in the sea; they don’t walk around like monstrous bipeds or quadrupeds over a disgusting grey surface. Dolphins certainly do know better than messing with things they can’t manage, say, a past they can’t change, a future they can’t predict, a present they don’t even understand. They’d learnt the hard way to remain in the oceans and do climate change damage control—a time-consuming activity indeed. Dolphins definitively do not interbreed. And with whom—humans, maybe? That’d go in the opposite direction of any DNA upgrade—rational thinking first.
Oh, weren’t you the ones supporting the out-of-the-pond mating? Delphis chirped, immediately fin-slapped by her mother.
Bottlenose-—the-Rebels—were, as usual, the most outspoken (brash) of all species of the clade, using scientific evidence to reinforce their statements and with the clear intent of silencing contrary opinions.
Gene editing was not only good for acquiring skills not inherent to the species—although, they conceded, this was debatable—it was also effective for eradicating diseases, repairing biological damage and, once and for all, fighting those climate change effects their dear human friends seemed unable to understand, let alone to cope with.
Dolphins debated at length pros and cons of the procedure, which gained support especially among the calves, Delphis first of all. A 5-year-old Spinner with considerable migration experience no matter her young age, she was eager to pick up the challenge. What she fancied the most was getting Orca-like black and white spots. And talking, well, she would have loved that, too. Whistles and chirps and blips only worked to a point when it came to communicating with other mammals that didn’t understand the complex dolphin code.
Ethical aspects were also discussed, including the very idea of modifying by engineering something that was maybe better left to Mother Nature and its evolutionary laws.
But, Delphis mused, what if conditions changed and good Mother Nature was just too slow to take care of them? Dinosaurs and other poor Cretaceous creatures had probably made the same considerations, once upon a time.
With power comes responsibility, kids, the wise Clymene dolphins warned, making them all remain in a concerned silence. Extreme upgrade would most likely turn dolphins in the most powerful clade of the entire planet, with the moral duty of securing a future for the others. Are we willing, and, more importantly, are we ready? Once you are able to fly as an eagle and talk as a man endowed with tiger-like fangs and maybe other more esoteric capabilities, you might well start thinking you’re a deity, and be tempted to behave like one.
The brethren were not impressed with what they knew about the human gods.
Time passed by and, after many years of passionate arguments, the worldwide Delphinidae family, all species eventually in agreement, decided to avoid gene editing for the time being: It was too dangerous to mess with something you can’t grasp in all its complexity. A more advanced and wise species, most likely a non-Earthian one, would have to make an informed decision about that, in a far-away future—and, hopefully, deal with climate change, too.
Delphis—the (still) Cheerful One—on the other hand, secretly made the opposite choice. She could, since she belonged to the pond that discovered gene editing in the first place. She got the desired DNA upgrade as a coming-of-age gift and ended up joining one of the marine conservation parks in the Caribbean, working with a mild-mannered marine biologist under an always-shining sun. The scientist taking care of her was smart and willing to learn, already marveling at the unusual, amazing communication capabilities the new Spinner in the swimming pool was demonstrating.
Amazing—and amazed—Delphis had every reason to be so: As she had soon discovered, humans had just begun debating that thorny DNA upgrading issue that for so long had troubled the dolphin world. The science behind it was in its infancy though, she realised: They still called it genome editing, which was something far more primitive.
Clearly, they hadn’t the palest idea about the medium, its possibilities or even where to begin. Apart from playing mad scientists and writing shallow horror stories, their expertise only sufficed for some sheep-cloning, studying the basics of the double helix or messing with fruit fly genes. No DNA swapping or saving the world from greenhouse gas emissions any time soon.
But hey, you have to start somewhere. Delphis was there and keen to help them succeed, one spin at a time.
Russell Hemmell is a statistician and social scientist from the U.K., passionate about astrophysics and speculative fiction. Recent stories have appeared in Aurealis, Not One of Us, Third Flatiron, and others, and she was a Finalist in The Canopus 100 Year Starship Awards 2016-2017. Visit her website at earthianhivemind.net and follow her on Twitter: @SPBianchini.
Photo credit. NOAA.
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