Chapter 28: Dangerous Technology

Behind each of these three possibilities lay a deep ethical problem.

But to make Artificial Womb Technology work, to ensure the Human Reproduction Device could function,

this step had to be taken.

There was no way they could push the widespread use of the Human Reproduction Device without small-scale testing first.

The potential risks would be disastrous otherwise.

“We’ve already held several emergency meetings about your experiment. The higher-ups probably discussed this multiple times too,”

“Ultimately, the decision was yes. First, trust in you, Professor Qin Yu. Confidence that the Human Reproduction Device your team developed has basic safety. Or rather, it’s believed that Professor Qin Yu, given the current technical conditions, this research, this technology, is definitely the best that can be achieved.”

“Secondly, in the era after the 2611 Longevity Injection, we really do need to research Artificial Womb Technology and develop the Human Reproduction Device.”

This is what Shen Yaoguo said to Qin Yu. Then, he let out a long sigh.

It was clear, even Shen Yaoguo, someone who had seen many things, was under a lot of psychological pressure at this moment.

“Let’s hope we haven’t opened a ‘Pandora’s Box’. Professor Qin, please begin your experimental work. I’ll observe here and won’t interfere.”

Qin Yu nodded.

He simply said to the researchers beside him, ‘Begin.’

Naturally, researchers moved to carry out the experiment’s procedures.

Before this experiment began,

the fertilized egg for the test had already been selected ahead of time from the Doomsday Gene Bank.

All preparations before the start had actually been completed.

And the nurturing process the Human Reproduction Device aimed to achieve was also highly automated.

So, starting the experiment now meant only placing the pre-selected fertilized egg into the designated spot in the Gestation Chamber.

Though the process was simple,

Shen Yaoguo beside Qin Yu, along with all the Researchers in the Laboratory, watched intently without blinking.

This was, in many ways, a historic moment.

If this experiment succeeded, it would mark the beginning of the first-ever human born entirely outside a mother’s body.

Perhaps its impact on human society wouldn’t be as immediate or dramatic as the Life Extension Technology at first,

but it would be deep and significant.

Nearby, internal staff from Research Institute 011 took a photo of the scene inside the Laboratory,

capturing this historic moment.

The process of placing the fertilized egg into the Gestation Chamber didn’t take long.

A notification sound came from the Human Reproduction Device, signaling it had officially entered working mode.

Next, the entire Human Reproduction Device would run non-stop for over ten months.

Right now, when the fertilized egg had just been placed inside,

nothing was visible to the naked eye.

Even relying on the various monitoring instruments built into the Human Reproduction Device,

the relevant data changes captured at this point were very slow.

However, including Academician Shen Yaoguo, the Researchers didn’t immediately look away;

Qin Yu’s gaze also remained fixed on the observation window of the Human Reproduction Device.

The group watched the operating Human Reproduction Device for a while longer.

“Professor Qin, it will take ten months to see a result now, right?”

“Strictly speaking, not that long. Once the embryo enters the fetal stage and gets past the very earliest phase of development, it basically means the Human Reproduction Device’s most crucial function is working. The follow-up fetal development doesn’t present many technical hurdles. But yes, the entire gestation process still takes that long. Theoretically, it could even go a bit longer, by a few months, letting the baby develop further inside the device.”

Shen Yaoguo asked, and Qin Yu provided an answer.

The Laboratory fell quiet again for a moment. Qin Yu didn’t say anything more.

In fact,

beyond the issues this specific experiment faced,

later, after Artificial Womb Technology matured, even more problems would arise.

If Artificial Womb Technology was widely used to create new humans,

what form should this widespread use take?

Would officials build a human reproduction center, producing batches of babies each year according to a plan?

Or would these Human Reproduction Device be provided to families wanting children,

letting them claim the right to use one particular device, then use their genes to nurture a child?

That child would then grow up normally within their family, born differently but otherwise the same as any child now.

The problem with the first way was that babies born like this would have no natural family ties.

Would society, or the state, directly raise them afterward? Or would individual families be responsible for raising individual children?

Having families adopt them would be pointless compared to just letting those families use the device directly in the first place.

If the state raised them directly, where would the needed resources come from?

Also, would other individuals lose the choice to have children naturally or use a Human Reproduction Device?

If people born and raised these two different ways existed at the same time,

wouldn’t these two kinds of humans naturally oppose each other?

People fight bitterly over meaningless things all the time.

How much more for something fundamentally so different?

Seen this way, just providing Human Reproduction Device to families wanting children seemed like the best choice.

But this went directly against the original reason for needing such devices.

These devices were needed precisely because, after average human lifespan greatly increased, the number of new babies born each year dropped sharply.

If the Human Reproduction Device only took the place of childbirth for the relatively small number of people still willing to have a baby the old way,

the impact on the total number of new humans would be limited, not huge.

Because the main reason for the population slowdown was that individuals, living so much longer now, felt less need to have children in the first place.

Beyond that problem,

widespread use of the Human Reproduction Device also meant a future risk of misuse.

A person grown in a Human Reproduction Device,

before being placed into human society, had no social connections.

They existed essentially outside of human society.

If no one except their creators knew they existed,

some truly horrifying and terrible things could happen.

This was also one of the ethical problems with the Human Reproduction Device.

…

“Professor Qin, I don’t know much about knowledge in the Field of Life Sciences. I just want to ask… if the Human Reproduction Device experiment succeeds,”

“does that also mean, with cloning technology, there’s actually no need for a fertilized egg? Just some cells could grow a newborn inside the Human Reproduction Device?”

Academician Shen Yaoguo suddenly turned back and asked Qin Yu another question.

“Cloning technology is already quite mature.”

Qin Yu didn’t answer directly and said just this.

Shen Yaoguo fell silent for a moment.

Inside Research Institute 011, surely no one would do such a thing, nor would there be any reason to.

But once the Human Reproduction Device was widely used, it was hard to guarantee that some people might do this for their own various purposes.

Strictly speaking, this issue wasn’t directly related to the Human Reproduction Device.

It was just that earlier cloning technology required placing the embryo back into a living mother,

whereas now, it only needed placing inside the Human Reproduction Device.

The Human Reproduction Device simply served its role during the incubation period.

On this matter, the need for the Human Reproduction Device was the same.

Its existence just made the process seem a bit more unnerving.

Human cloning had always been taboo,

not because, as in some sci-fi works, clones might replace the original person.

A clone would need to grow up step by step, possessing none of the original’s memories.

It would be an entirely separate individual, much like an identical twin of the original.

The main issue lay in guaranteeing the rights and social integration of such an individual.

Tragedies could occur.

Simultaneously, there was the risk of degrading the human gene pool.

“…If the Human Reproduction Device is to be used widely in the future, its use may need strict management.”

Shen Yaoguo shook his head, sighing.

Qin Yu also said nothing more.

The group stayed in the Laboratory a while longer, then left.

The first operation of the Human Reproduction Device wouldn’t yield results any time soon.

…

The 29th year of the Common Era, March.

Three months passed.

During these three months, Qin Yu lived quite peacefully inside Research Institute 011.

Although the Human Reproduction Device’s first operation experiment continued,

the entire process required very little human intervention.

Qin Yu only occasionally checked the data collected by the instruments in the Laboratory.

Apart from that,

he occasionally pondered life, and when nobody noticed, activated his Intangibility ability to wander around outside.

He kept an eye on outside developments, watching for any looming threats that might destroy Human Civilization.

It had to be said, even though Lingchuan University had employed Qin Yu as a Professor,

Qin Yu hadn’t taught a single class at Lingchuan University all this time.

The school and the department, aware of his current situation, also hadn’t mentioned anything about Qin Yu supervising graduate students.

His salary was transferred to his account every month on time.

Though money meant little to Qin Yu at this point,

he still occasionally felt a bit awkward getting paid like this.

Of course, the school seemed perfectly fine with it.

Sometimes,

Qin Yu felt his life was a strange blend of both urgent and leisurely states simultaneously.

The urgency came from not knowing when Human Civilization would face its next crisis,

forcing him to prepare defenses against threats that might emerge thousands, even tens of thousands of years later.

The leisure stemmed from his extremely long lifespan; whatever he wanted to do, he had ample time to do slowly, enjoying life.

…

Outside, events both pleased Qin Yu and presented complexities he couldn’t easily define.

First,

though a year or two had passed without any public appearances from Qin Yu,

clearly, during this time, people across the globe had not forgotten his existence.

His name was still brought up occasionally online,

especially in discussions about lifespan extension.

Around the one-year anniversary of the announcement of the 2611 Longevity Injection,

many people around the world spontaneously organized online “New Humanity Anniversary Celebrations,” cheering once more for their vastly extended lifespans.

Numerous awards, domestic and international, had been announced for Qin Yu,

though he hadn’t accepted most of them.

To Qin Yu, these awards held little real meaning.

Perhaps, in the grand sweep of history, these prizes wouldn’t last as long as the name “Qin Yu.”

The fever, even frenzy, for Life Extension Technology research,

played out much as Professor Shen Yaoguo had predicted.

It wasn’t just academic circles; the internet buzzed with it.

Some tabulated the immense sums invested by wealthy individuals in such projects.

Compared to investments in other fields, these contributions to life-extension research were staggeringly generous.

Quite a few famous wealthy people, both domestic and international, had once publicly addressed Qin Yu online,

offering research funding with no strings attached, just hoping Qin Yu would continue his research.

Qin Yu hadn’t paid attention to these messages at the time.

He didn’t need their funds and naturally didn’t respond.

Furthermore,

over the past year or two, multiple research teams

publicly claimed they’d made “breakthrough discoveries” in Life Extension Technology based on Professor Qin Yu’s theories about the aging mechanism.

Unfortunately, none delivered concrete results, though they did absorb lots of funding.

Most people worldwide basically viewed it as a big show.

Two other incidents touched Qin Yu indirectly.

One,

the ongoing war west of the Nine Provinces gradually ground to a halt.

Many sociologists analyzing the reasons

cited the significant reduction in Human Civilization’s internal fighting urge,

partially due to the extended lifespans granted by the 2611 Longevity Injection.

However, many also believed this change might only affect their generation.

Only they, who originally expected to live mere decades, suddenly gained life expectancies exceeding a century, making them cherish life more.

Future generations, born into a world where humans naturally lived 180 years,

wouldn’t experience this profound psychological shift.

For now, though, it was certainly a good thing.

The incident Qin Yu found harder to assess

had to do with himself.

Just two months prior,

to celebrate Human Civilization entering a new era, a new age due to the 2611 Longevity Injection,

a space agency launched another commemorative probe beyond the Solar System.

It was named the “Yu Craft.”

Its destination: two stars named Qin Yu A and Qin Yu B in recognition of his contributions.

Inside the probe: a map marking the Solar System’s planets,

basic male and female human body types and facial features,

audio recordings of the cheers erupting worldwide on the day the 2611 Longevity Injection was announced.

Qin Yu, a sufferer of Apocalypse Anxiety, really didn’t know what to say about this gesture.

He knew the probe was almost certainly meaningless—that it would likely never exit the Solar System before it broke down, long before Human Civilization reached an interstellar age. The chance of Extraterrestrial Civilization intercepting it was vanishingly small.

But Qin Yu still couldn’t quite bring himself to approve or disapprove of the act.

…

Then, that very month.

The Human Reproduction Device operated stably.

Although the birth of the first baby grown inside it was still some time away,

by prior standards, the Human Reproduction Device was now essentially a success.