Design Futures — Dystopian
They were looking for the wrong things.
The beginning of the war occurred in the early hours of January 18, 2031. Unlike the start of past wars, this one didn’t begin with the loading of guns, the takeoff of jets for some secret location, or even the killing of an individual. This one started in a foreign laboratory where a very slight manipulation to a piece of genetic code was introduced in female Anopheles mosquitos. The manipulated code would create a variant of Malaria, transmitted through these mosquito carriers, that would go on to infect millions of U.S. citizens with a highly untreatable version of the disease.
Within weeks of the attack, which began later that summer, when conditions were warm, humid, and ripe for spreading, the death toll would reach almost 20% of the United States population and would become the face of the new global bioterrorism front. The wake of this and similar attacks by foreign governments and radicalized groups have left governments and populations helpless to identify and respond fast enough to prevent continued widespread outbreak. Although treatments are available, none were specifically made for this modified disease and none were proven effective enough for fast treatment.
Biological weapons in warfare is an old, and extremely efficient, tool. As early as 1346, plague-ridden cadavers were catapulted over city walls to spread disease. Confederates in the Civil War sold clothing from yellow fever and smallpox patients to Union troops. Mustard gas, sarin, and other man-made toxins were heavily used in numerous conflicts during the 20th century. The natural progression to these types of attacks was to leverage the speed and flexibility that genetic editing provided and to introduce previously eradicated disease and toxins to unsuspecting populations.
The ability to modify the genetic code in humans isn’t a new technology. As early as 2016, genetic manipulation was being used for the betterment of the health and wellbeing of humanity. Eradication of disease, treatment of cancers and illness, and more, were all touted as life-changing options. In the case of the U.S. Malaria attack, scientists used a similar process with mosquitos, called a gene drive, to eradicate instances of disease in South Africa. That same process proved to be just as easily used in reverse. This could be done cheaply, quickly and with precision unlike before. Bioterrorists and nations alike now had the ability to recreate viruses, pathogens and more to use in their arsenal.
That’s not to say the US wasn’t aware of the threat. As early as February 2016, the United States’ Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, identified genome editing as a weapon of mass destruction. Clapper stated that “Research in genome editing conducted by countries with different regulatory or ethical standards than those of Western countries probably increases the risk of the creation of potentially harmful biological agents or products.”
What the general public didn’t know, was that numerous governments, including the US, and private groups around the world had already begun to utilize this technology in secret to create weaponized attacks. For years, medical ethicists had denounced the use of germline editing, deliberately changing the genes passed on to children and future generations. The practice had been officially outlawed since the early 2020s. What was being done in the public medical sector was the use of editing was focused on health. However, as is often the case, what a government advocates for its public was a far cry from what it did in clandestine labs and warfare aboard.
Once a global leader, the United States now faces a weakened position both in manpower and health, as well as influence and ability. Creating a treatment to these attacks has become the focal point of a group of scientists working to address and prevent future attacks. Government supplies of treatments and medicines are mostly ineffective. However, hope still exists through an underground group of scientists known as The JASONs. Named after the original group of scientists that tried to warn the government of the threat of gene drives and bioterrorism in 2017, this secretive group forgoes what were once ethical questions of the effects of genetic editing and now focuses on a cure to this, and future unknown attacks for our generation and those to come.
