Orphic

The voice sounded strange, as if it was being intentionally processed and distorted to conceal the speaker's identity. In the darkness, it was impossible to know if the speaker was even present, or just speaking through a device here in the storage area. You were tempted to reach out to try to find out, but decided to wait and hear what they had to say. "I'm here. Who are you, and what's with all the secrecy?" you asked.

"You can call me Orphic. I am a Grey aboard the Starpoint," he began. "The precautions are to protect you, me and a few others aboard this ship. Brevity would be preferred, but some background is needed. You may be aware of the Intergalactic Exploration Initiative, or IEI. Among the Grey, it has become the predominant philosophy and way of existence. However, not all Greys follow this philosophy. The IEI grew out of an earlier tenet, Prime's Philosophy, which is a collection of writings from the esteemed Grey named Prime. Many Greys still follow its original doctrines or various offshoots from it. One of the largest factions of these are the Primists, and they oppose some of the viewpoints of the IEI.

It wasn't clear where this was going, but what Orphic was describing sounded somewhat similar to the splintering of various religions on Earth over the centuries. Up to now you had thought of the Greys as being very single-minded and unlikely to harbor viewpoints that would lead to any sort of conflict amongst themselves. Learning that there might be some kind of dissension among them was an unexpected revelation. "That's interesting, but what has this got to do with Daphne or Project Gradient?"

"Be patient - I'll get to that," he sternly replied. "One area where the IEI and Primists disagree is the use of genetic enhancement. Long ago, my race dabbled in this field of research. It led to our enhanced mental abilities, but it also cost us our reproductive organs, and now we must use cloning to reproduce. Prime's Philosophy states that through this enhancement, the Grey have reached their pinnacle, and as a result, further experiments with genetic enhancements should stop. The IEI extended this to fully banning the use of genetic enhancement on any species. However, the Primists believe that Prime's statement was specifically about stopping further modification of the Grey and not other races."

Before you could ask if Daphne had undergone some kind of genetic enhancement, Orphic continued. "Over the years, several Primist researchers defected from the IEI, and many continued exploring forms of genetic manipulation, mapping out the genomes and the effects of various changes to a multitude of species. The culmination of those experiments was eventually published. That work is called 'The Gradient', and it thoroughly details the changes that could be applied to various species to enhance them while preserving the key traits for their species' identity. For example, a small genetic change could add immunity to a disease. A complex set of changes might increase their physical or mental abilities, or extend their lifespan. A large enough number of changes might even produce an apex of the species. With natural selection and genetic drift, these kinds of changes would take hundreds or thousands of generations across centuries or millennia to occur, and even then some of the more complex changes might never occur. However, with the details in 'The Gradient', all of that could be accomplished instantly by modifying a zygote."

"So is Daphne a result of genetic enhancement? Was someone trying to make a smarter Cuni?" you asked.

Orphic paused briefly then said, "Daphne is an accidental result of an experimental procedure. About four and a half years ago, Lily began exhibiting signs of the Withering, which is a genetic disease that often afflicts Cunis as they reach old age. However, Lily was only five and half years old at the time. Upon closer examination, I discovered that she suffered from a rare mutation which led to the disease afflicting her at a much younger age. Due to the nature of the mutation, she could potentially be treated with a form of genetic therapy. During my research, I uncovered details in 'The Gradient' that helped pinpoint a possible treatment method, but it would require modifying and harvesting genetic material from one of her clone zygotes."

"Wait, clones? Daphne is a clone of Lily?!" you exclaimed.

"All Cunis are sterilized for reasons of safety, and thus cloning is the preferred method to maintain their population. The Starpoint keeps a collection of clone zygote cells in storage for this purpose. When a Cuni dies, it is replaced by a new clone, or sometimes in multiples resulting in twins, triplets, and so forth depending on how many will be needed," explained Orphic. "After this zygote was modified, the necessary genetic material was harvested, and the eventual treatment for Lily was successful. However, the harvesting of the material induced an unexpected split in the modified zygote which caused further genetic modification to each cell. Instead of destroying the split zygotes, I retained them for further analysis and allowed them develop further into embryos. Only one of them retained the modification made to treat Lily, and that one survived. I was faced with a new dilemma. The treatment for Lily was barely legal under the IEI guidelines, but a surviving modified embryo was clearly a violation. However, even if it wasn't legal, other IEI guidelines state that all lifeforms should be allowed to live if possible. The intended modification was only a single gene, but this embryo now had an entirely new sequence of genes. Normally, random changes like these would cause fatal mutations, but somehow these changes appeared to be viable. I expected the embryo would probably die within a few days or weeks before it matured to a fetus. Instead it thrived."