By now, you should have finished Lethal Savage. At least, I hope you have. But if you’ve jumped to this section without reading the preceding chapters, let me warn you that there are spoilers—or semi-spoilers—herein that will reduce the thrills and excitement of the plot. You’ve been warned.
In the opening pages we learn that Darnell Price is obsessed with correcting what he believes to be out-of-control human population growth. And it’s true, as pointed out in the Author’s Notes, that the number of people inhabiting the Earth has grown at an alarming and exponential rate since about 1800. However, over the past decades, population growth has slowed in the nations with the highest GDP. Indeed, Japan and many European countries have a negative population growth rate. This trend is broadly attributed to more women choosing a professional career and deferring, or forgoing, child bearing. Whether the trend will continue, and whether the decline in some regions will be sufficient to offset gains in other regions (namely, Africa and South Asia), remains to be seen.
Drones have made minor appearances is previous Peter Savage novels, but they are essential to the plot in this book. I have to admit, remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicles frighten me (but they do not hold first place, see below). They are small, agile, hard to detect, and damn near impossible to take down. Drones can carry explosives, biologicals (as in this plot), and cameras (visible and infrared) for real time video. We’ve heard news reports of drones flying near operating commercial runways where the small aircraft could intentionally or accidentally damage passenger aircraft on takeoff or landing. Although it is illegal to fly drones in the vicinity of manned aircraft, the practice still happens too often.
Due to the drone’s small size, getting a good radar reflection is difficult. Shooting them down is also very tough for the same reason; not to mention that shooting at aircraft over population centers is virtually guaranteed to lead to collateral damage, perhaps extensive.
The U.S. Department of Defense has experimented with methods to defend against drone attacks. Two promising methods are shooting a net at the drone in flight, and jamming the radio control signal. Obviously, specialized and/or sophisticated equipment is required to carry out either option—more work is needed.
Finally, I was drawn back to viruses and genetic engineering in writing this novel. You may recall that genetic modification was a central theme of Relentless Savage, and the smallpox virus figured prominently in Deadly Savage. Recently, advances have been coming at a furious pace in the field of specific genetic modification using the CRISPR-Cas9 method, which has attracted widespread publicity. This technique has been reported in scientific journals as a tool for modifying human pathogenic viruses; the goal is to arrive at novel therapeutic treatments.
The potential for the CRSIPR technique to yield robust and high-yield crops, reduce disease, cure cancer, cause pigs to grow human organs, etc., is difficult to overstate. The field of gene editing, and through that, genetic modification, is still embryonic. A host of questions and guidelines concerning ethical practices must still be resolved.
However, there is also a dark side to this technology. Major food crops could be genetically altered to make the plants more susceptible to disease, potentially causing widespread famine. Viruses could be altered to make them more contagious, or transmitted in new ways (as in this story). And yet with all this risk of CRISPR, the technology is not regulated. Anyone can buy the reagents and tools and carryout genetic modifications at will.
Unlike terrorist attacks employing conventional weapons (firearms, explosives), or chemical or radioactive materials—which are localized and cause casualties at or near the time of the attack—once genetically modified organisms are released in the ecosystem, they will continue to reproduce and spread. Eradicating dangerous genetically modified plants or insects or viruses would be challenging to say the least.
Natural viruses such as smallpox, Ebola, and HIV are frightening enough. The prospect of genetically modified viruses is truly terrifying, and this occupies the top position on my most-frightening scale.
As humankind races forward, developing powerful technologies unlike anything we’ve known before, will we be equally successful as a society in restraining the harmful applications of these miracle discoveries? For the sake of all, I hope so.
Cheers
DE