Planting Seeds (Ambrose)

Cheri raised an eyebrow at the strangeness of Ambrose’s ‘greeting’ words, though, in truth, she wasn’t particularly surprised. It was something she could work with, certainly, but not something that inspired confidence. If Cheri’s initial reckoning was right, those were the words, and this was the tone, used by someone who didn’t care anymore. ”Hello, Doctor Ambrose Regulus. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you under calm conditions, too.” Her smile was slight and diplomatic, in the sense that diplomatic smiles came naturally to her, but no part of it seemed artificial or ‘put on’. She was seated at the largest table around, the one with the most ‘props’ resting on it. Because this was a tuffle laboratory, it was quite small by the standards of a saiyan, human, or one of any of those many bipedal species who’d grown up under low gravity conditions, but with only Cheri and Ambrose here, it looked perfectly standard in size… well, OK, perhaps not, Ambrose was shockingly tall for a tuffle, but, shh, ignore that. Cheri was also rather a bit above average tuffle height so, if anything, the laboratory still looked small.

”I was informed, and later personally verified, that you are a leading expert in genetics in the revitalisation space.” She didn’t specify a leading tuffle expert in genetics, but, of course, she didn’t need to. The lists of the greatest tuffle scientists and the greatest scientists in general were much the same list. Sometimes it felt like a very small galaxy indeed. In response to her words, a few holograms moved around, presenting papers he’d been involved with. ”For the purposes of best ‘fleshing out’ the next step in Plant’s revitalisation policy, I had hoped that we could engage in discussion.” Notably, she spoke of Plant, not just any one sector or any other division of it— and not Sadala, either, that was a distinct project in need of a whole other grade of ‘revitalisation’.

”To recap: destron saturation,” to use a more technical term, ”is decreasing. Inconsistently, but in the expected manner.” Cheri was, of course, referring to the famous ‘Destron Saturation Paradox’, where destron cleanup statistically seemed to be the most effective in areas that were currently mildly saturated still: this was because the more completely saturated areas tended not to be on the forefront of the cleanup effort and so could only be reached by moving through other fully saturated areas, and because the areas with low saturation were running out of destron to clean up, so the destron that was still around was harder and harder to get to, resulting in an interesting statistical relationship that defied initial expectation. Cheri, of course, presumed that Ambrose was quite familiar. ”Tsufurogenic wildlife reclamation is commencing as expected.” ‘Tsufurogenic’ was a tuffle equivalent of the Earth-centric term ‘anthropogenic’, derived from an ancient term for ‘tuffle’ in a long-forgotten language that nobody uses ever, ever. ”Despite some alarming headlines-breaching suggestion to the contrary, it has been confirmed that the saiba are not somehow creating more destron; all signs point to their rapid adaptation into the new environment being, if not a boon, then not directly a bane.” Cheri was referring, of course, to the saiba that were evolving and adapting in ‘clean’ environments where the environmental pressures were not so absurd— few would claim that saibas, as a whole, as they currently were, were helpful to the planet’s people. ”The water cycle is once again finding its ground. Macronutrient pathways are establishing, like water forming into rivers towards its lowest energy state. Any comments, before I move on?”

Cheri’s eyebrows curved and raised, fascinated. Why would seeing her be a rare sight, she wondered? She’d been here the whole time! Obviously! Absolutely no reason to think otherwise! Shh!

She listened to Ambrose explaining the extent of his involvement in the field, and his own plans. She nodded at his referring to ‘adjusting’ foliage without shock, though already problematic elements were showing themselves. There were no intrinsic value judgments to be attached to genetic manipulation, of course, it was one tool among many, but, already, the way Ambrose presented his ideas were approaching the questionable. Not ethically questionable, just questionable in their aims, and the assumed/implied direction of the planet. ‘Foliage adjusted to suit a destron-damaged environment’ held a wildly different connotation from something like ‘foliage adjusted to help counter destron’— but perhaps that was just a short-term project. It was too early, and Cheri had too little information, to judge or criticise.

Ambrose turned his expertise to the micro-level, with a more specific example of ecological concern. She nodded agreeably. ”Naturally, Doctor. A focus on the minutiae is to be expected. And, frankly, given our resources, time, and significance of the project, it is obligated.” The doctor’s final words implied a wisdom in understanding genetic manipulation as a powerful, if unsubtle, tool, helping to alleviate concerns developed prior. ”Let us consider, for example, the abiotic organisms of your example. What would you propose as the appropriate policy, with regards to our handling of them?”

Cheri, once again, nodded. Thus far, little that Ambrose was saying was disagreeable or problematic at all, helping to inspire her confidence in his competence and wisdom. She was hoping for a little more detail in this particular case, as her asking had been her extending the opportunity for him to demonstrate his expertise, but the ‘our response cannot be generalised’ response wasn’t necessarily a cop-out answer, either.

”It certainly is, yes.” More resource intensive, that is. ”Or, rather, it is some arbitrary middle ground between resource intensive and temporally taxing.” In the sense of taking too gosh-darned long. ”But, given Plant’s current political and socioeconomic state, with war less of a concern than it’s ever been in our modern cultural memory and galactic cooperation being in the best state it’s ever been known to possess, we are fortunately well-positioned to clear such a hurdle.” A sporting metaphor; she hoped its meaning was clear. ”Besides, such efforts have the cultural zeitgeist on its side, and it is at least mildly of a higher priority than the similarly resource-intensive Sadalan Restoration Plan.” Though the two projects had quite a bit of overlap, where expertise developed in one would be of use in the other. Via analogy with the Plan’s acronym, ‘SRP’, the Plantian Revitalisation project had picked up the euphemistic title ‘PR campaign’. ”And we have Vegetan assistance, too, far more helpful than the saiyans actively curbing our ecological revitalisation efforts we'd been facing for decades. I do not doubt our ability to take on such an approach.”

Cheri stifled a laugh. Well, no, phrased like that, it almost sounds rude: she politely stifled a polite laugh, politely. ”No, no, certainly not.” Cheri was hoping that he was referring to the Plantian Revitalisation project here and not the just-mentioned Sadalan Restoration Plan but, not being able to tell with certainty, she instead elected to choose her words in such a way that her answers would seamlessly make sense given either interpretation. ”The Vegetans know what to expect, and are actively a part of the process, on organisational levels micro- and macro-.” Not long before, Cheri had provided a new lot of anti-destron technology to the Vegetan government. Not long after, she would provide it directly to the people, too. And for the Sadalan Restoration Plan, of course they’d be heavily involved, it being their planet and all. ”I’ve had correspondence with Vegetan leadership on this matter precisely.” And, soon, discussion far more direct than mere correspondence.

Ambrose brought up a valid point: it was possible that an atrocity on a comparable level to destron could reappear in the future: in general, yes, but, pointedly, in this case, on Plant itself, whether as produced by the tuffles as a measure against the Vegetans if the War resumed (or regardless of that, like with the ‘blue flower virus’ Yangcong showed her just days before), or by the people of Plant as a whole against its future galactic enemies. ”There are countless avenues of scientific inquiry which, improperly explored, could lead to discoveries comparable in their scale of dread to destron, and each day brings novel avenues of inquiry the scientific leaders of yesterday could not yet have conceptualised. A meaningful solution, then, must be two-pronged: it must be judicial, and it must be cultural. The former prong has already been addressed, but, as the threat of emerging technologies must always be interpreted (as any laws must be), it depends on the latter prong: we must be certain that we, as a collective people, do not wish to resort to such measures. That much, though, is a slower effort.” That was the oversimplified layout, anyway.

Cheri cleared her throat and had a look around, admiring the scenery. ”If only as a break: might I ask what your most recent project has been?”

There wasn’t much for Cheri to do beyond subtly shrugging. Education had always been pivotal to the tuffles as a whole, and, historically, it had been the oldest tuffles who were the keenest to keep the war active, like with the late Doctor Satsuma: set in their ways, and often more closely attached to the states of the war that justified the use of destron and such in the first place. ”The ‘Kronos’ case is a fascinating example, though there’s little indication that the attacker was tuffle-educated.” Among the usual obvious reasons was the notion that, had the kid been raised a tuffle, he would have put some more thought into his attack. Based on what Cheri learnt from interrogating Onoma after the fact, it seemed quite likely that he’d lived on Earth for a while, too. ”The young tend to defy the old, certainly— but a society must actively maintain an Othering culture of war propaganda to sell death to its youth. Especially when that war involves the old sending the young to die.” There was an old Earth saying for this, wasn’t there? ‘The kids are alright’— or at least they will be, provided no one else mucks it up for them. Cheri spoke both of the death by war, as a long-term event, and of the death by ‘weapon’, as something that could go by in an instant; destron-successors. But, no, it seemed rather unlikely that the War for Plant would resume: if the wickedness of destron were to return, it would likely be against some other threat altogether, as she had discussed with Vocado. Plant would be riddled with spite for generations to come, yes— but that was a distinct hurdle.

Fortunately, Ambrose was not one of those scientists who wouldn’t or couldn’t give a straight answer by instead saying something along the lines of ‘my enterprises are too many and too complex to summarise’. And, as Ambrose described it, it seemed a perfectly reasonable course of action: ‘exaggerating useful attributes’, after all, was much of what the selective breeding of domestication accomplished: neandertuffles had figured that much out long before they even knew what DNA was. ”Oh? I would have expected something more ‘out there’ from such an accomplished scientist’s ‘side project’. What makes your project not suitable as more than a side project?”

Ah, well, that made sense as well. ”Then I wish you well on your ’main project’.” Had the two had champagne glasses, she would have taken the opportunity to clink them together, as if part of an implied toast to good luck and a life well lived. The side-project was a side-project precisely because the ‘main project’ was not a scientific or technological endeavour, but rather his own parenting: what otherwise would have been a safe and conventional scientific main project has instead been relegated to a mere side project? Perhaps. Still, from one so removed from the usual scientific culture, she was expecting something more out there from it… but she wouldn’t pry, not much more than she thought would be appropriate.

”You are experienced in matters of genetic health, genetic manipulation, and the wider ecosystem-genetic sphere.” Much of this was by his own admission, simply from what he’d described of himself and his work previously, but Cheri also understood this before their meeting— indeed, that’s why she’d chosen him as a potential aid in the Plan, why the two were having this talk in the first place. ”You have an eye for ecosystem-specific ecological conundrums, and would be well-aware of the perhaps otherwise unforeseeable repercussions of genetic alteration and revitalisation, in cases of destronogenic genetic decay or native organisms we wish to return to the wild no longer being fit to their environment. Is your asking motivated by any concern?”