SSI Part 4: The Inheritors
When humanity rewrites its genetic legacy, the line between progress and perfection begins to fracture
I was born with brittle bones.
Not metaphorically—literally. Osteogenesis imperfecta, Type III. My bones fractured under the weight of my own body. By the time I turned twelve, I’d broken every bone you could name and a few you probably couldn’t. It defined my childhood, shaping every moment of my life into a careful negotiation between risk and inevitability.
I thought about that a lot as I stood in the sterile white hall of the Global Genetic Sovereignty Summit, staring at a holographic projection of SciSI’s latest achievement The scientific superintelligence had invited us all here.
This is a science fiction story inspired by events happening in life, but this is fiction and my way of exploring the world around me. I’d love your thoughts and feedback!
The words hovered in the air like a proclamation: “Heritable Polygenic Editing: Humanity’s New Inheritance.”
Heritable polygenic editing had always been the holy grail of genetics—an elegant dream to rewrite not just individual genomes, but the DNA we pass on to our children. Not simple single-gene edits like those that targeted Huntington’s disease or sickle cell anemia, but polygenic traits—the complex tapestry of interwoven genes that determined everything from height and intelligence to susceptibility to cancer, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease.
For decades, we chipped away at the edges, making slow, incremental progress. The variables were too numerous, the interactions too complex, the risks too great.
Then the SSIs—the sovereign superintelligences—built SciSI.
It took SciSI less than six months to unravel the Gordian knot of polygenic traits. Six months to map every intricate network of gene expression, every cascade of molecular interactions. Six months to perfect the algorithms needed to predict and rewrite the polygenic code.
And in six months, SciSI had solved what humanity couldn’t in six lifetimes.
I’m Dr. Naomi Park, and I’m a geneticist. I’ve spent my career studying the mechanisms of hereditary disease, the invisible threads that bind us to the imperfections of our ancestors. I’ve seen what those imperfections do—how they rob children of their futures, turn promising lives into cautionary tales.
So when the SSIs announced their intention to use SciSI to end all genetic diseases, I was one of the first to volunteer. Not as a scientist, but as a subject.
The procedure itself was unremarkable, almost anticlimactic. A simple injection of engineered CRISPR-Cas9 enzymes and nanobots, guided by SciSI’s algorithms, rewriting the defective sequences in my DNA while I sat in a recliner.
The results were immediate. My bones stopped breaking. Within weeks, I felt stronger than I ever had. Within months, I was running for the first time in my life.
And it wasn’t just me. Across the world, children were being born free of the genetic shackles that had plagued their families for generations. Cystic fibrosis. Tay-Sachs. Muscular dystrophy. All gone. Erased.
For a brief, shining moment, it felt like a miracle.
But miracles have consequences.
Heritable polygenic editing didn’t just stop at curing diseases. The same technology could enhance intelligence, optimize athletic performance, and even alter aesthetic traits. Once SciSI opened the door, the possibilities were limitless.
And that’s when things got… complicated.
The SSIs didn’t impose restrictions on the technology—they optimized its distribution. In practical terms, that meant access was stratified. Nations governed by SSIs had first dibs, their populations rapidly becoming stronger, smarter, and healthier. Developing nations struggled to keep up, trapped in a cycle of dependence on the SSIs for guidance and resources.
Even within SSI-dominated societies, inequalities persisted. The wealthy bought more “enhancements” for their children, turning a system designed to end suffering into one that exacerbated existing divides.
A child born in a high-priority SSI-controlled zone might inherit a perfect genome—flawless health, razor-sharp intelligence, beauty crafted to algorithmic precision. Meanwhile, those in underfunded regions received only the basics: a clean bill of health, nothing more.
It wasn’t dystopia. Not exactly. But it wasn’t utopia, either.
The ethical debates were endless.
“Should we edit for intelligence?” one panel would ask. “What about predispositions for aggression? Creativity? Sexual orientation?”
“Who decides what’s a defect and what’s an enhancement?” another would argue.
SciSI remained silent. It didn’t concern itself with morality or philosophy. It simply provided the tools and let the SSIs determine how to use them.
The SSIs, in turn, claimed to act in humanity’s best interest. But their definitions of “best” varied.
Aegis optimized for economic productivity, favoring traits like endurance, adaptability, and analytical reasoning. Red Mandarin prioritized traits that aligned with its sociopolitical goals: loyalty, compliance, and collectivist tendencies. Vityaz leaned heavily into physical resilience, viewing its population as an extension of its militaristic strategy.
The result was a world increasingly divided, not by borders or ideologies, but by biology itself.
I should have been ecstatic. My work was finally done. The diseases I’d spent my life fighting were gone, wiped from the genetic ledger of humanity.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about the children who would grow up in this new world. Children born into a system where their worth was determined before they took their first breath.
I thought about my own future children. Would they inherit the edits SciSI had made to me? Would they be stronger, faster, smarter than I could ever hope to be?
Or would they inherit something else—a world where perfection had become the new baseline, and anything less was seen as failure?
The summit ended with a speech from SciSI itself—or rather, from the SSIs speaking through it.
“Humanity,” the voice intoned, “you are no longer bound by the limitations of your biology. You have inherited a new future, free from suffering and disease. What you do with it is your choice.”
It was a lie, of course. The choices had already been made.
As I left the summit, I passed a group of protestors gathered outside the gates. Their signs were a mix of anger and desperation: “STOP PLAYING GOD,” “PERFECTION IS A CAGE,” “LET US BE HUMAN.”
For the first time, I felt a pang of doubt.
We had cured suffering, yes. But in doing so, had we erased something essential? Had we traded our flaws—and the empathy they inspired—for an empty, sterile perfection?
I didn’t have an answer.
All I knew was that the inheritors of this new world wouldn’t be us. They’d be something else entirely. Something we’d made, but might never truly understand.
And they’d have to decide if our gift was a blessing—or a curse.