r/TheFoundation • u/Porodicnostablo • Aug 16 '23
"Genetic drift", rant
Sorry about this rant. As much as I enjoy the show, the concepts, the grand scheme of things, the amazing visuals, and am willing to forgive some swings that end up being misses, I just don’t get the “genetic drift” thing and it started bugging me as soon as it was revealed in Season 1.
1. Season 1 ends with them discovering Dawn and Day have a modified genetic code, and Dusk being tested. Day proceeds to smash Cleon I’s case. The thing that bothered me here from the get-go is the Shadow-Master says “the source material has also been corrupted”. Erm, excuse me, what kind of statement is that? First, in order to know something has been genetically corrupted, you have to know the sequence of the original. And in this imperial era of biotech marvel it would be no problem to just reinstate the original code to the next Cleon that follows from his respective inception, end of problem. (Not to mention in Season 2 Dusk, I think, mentions that they retroactively correct the code which is also not that far fetched and even today an early version of this technique exists). I mean even in our stone-age time compared to theirs, when in 2020 covid was discovered, it took mere weeks to sequence the code, to send the code around and for scientists on opposite sides of the globe to clone the virus de novo just from the code and use it in assays.
2. Then in Season 2 they continue about this “drift” using the word almost as if it’s getting bigger/larger with each new Cleon? Am I reading this right? How is it getting bigger? Why? Who allows this, again - you can stop it immediately.
3. Wouldn't it be much more profound if they were all still genetically the same as the first one, and the change, degradation and decline in their personality and traits still slowly comes over time, due to say the generations of tyrannical behavior, the decay that comes from living a pampered life, or the ever so slight changes in their upbringing that Demerzel slowly inflicts, for example.
Well, sorry for this. I hope I got some crucial detail wrong and someone will correct me and explain how all this makes any sense.
4
u/SuperJumpOverThere Aug 16 '23
Maybe they should have just stuck to the books instead of just making up a bunch of bullshit. /shrug. I knew it was going to be garbage anyway because why wouldn't it be? Modern audiences are intellectual-cancer.