I know there are a lot of sci-fi writers on this website and their judgment is likely better than mine, but fictional eugenics doesn’t seem like very fertile ground for stories.
Most people think of eugenics as being very creepy and it would take a long time for a social norm like that to change, so a society that went for it would need to be a long way off in the future.
Workable genetic engineering isn’t that far off, and genetic engineering pretty much dominates eugenics. Why use the sperm of some noble prize winner you’ve never met when you could just use your husband’s sperm but GE the kid to be smarter than the noble prize winner and also be thinner taller and less likely to get a wide range of diseases?
Consequently, you have some heavy narrative constraints. There’s a very narrow window before the march of technology makes the subject irrelevant, and you would need to explain some fairly radical (and quite implausible) social change during that window.
I know there are a lot of sci-fi writers on this website and their judgment is likely better than mine, but fictional eugenics doesn’t seem like very fertile ground for stories.
Most people think of eugenics as being very creepy and it would take a long time for a social norm like that to change, so a society that went for it would need to be a long way off in the future.
Workable genetic engineering isn’t that far off, and genetic engineering pretty much dominates eugenics. Why use the sperm of some noble prize winner you’ve never met when you could just use your husband’s sperm but GE the kid to be smarter than the noble prize winner and also be thinner taller and less likely to get a wide range of diseases?
Consequently, you have some heavy narrative constraints. There’s a very narrow window before the march of technology makes the subject irrelevant, and you would need to explain some fairly radical (and quite implausible) social change during that window.
The story in question doesn’t take place on Earth, so social norms can be decided by Author Fiat.