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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness. They don't say that anymore."''|'''Vincent''', ''[[Gattaca]]''}}
One of the biggest downfalls of [[Lego Genetics]] is the fact that it's hard to modify an adult. They're already done growing and the idea seems a bit far fetched to most people. If you modify them before they're born, however, then it's far more plausible.
The resulting child is often seen either as more perfect and wonderful than normal people, or as a freak/monster who should have never existed and must now be
It is not uncommon to have settings, especially in [[Science Fiction]] of the [[Dystopia
See also the [[Evilutionary Biologist]] and [[Social Darwinist]].
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== Anime & Manga ==
* That's a big part of the premise behind ''[[
** Considering that men were the only survivors. Which doesn't make a lot of sense when you consider you CAN clone females from males. If women were the only survivors, it would make more sense. [[Artistic License: Biology|But at the end of the day, that's not really important]].
* An interesting variant occurs in ''[[Simoun]]'', in which one of the enemy nations has replaced the traditional method of sex selection among the [[Human Aliens]] who populate the world: instead of everyone being female until 17, and choosing a sex then, the enemy nation assigns sexes to babies shortly after birth through hormones and surgery.
* ''[[Monster (
* In ''[[Vandread]]'', humanity has split into a planet of all males called Tarak and a planet of all females called Mejare. DNA from a couple is manipulated to give a new baby. On Tarak, this means a factory birth, while on Mejare, the baby is implanted in the womb to be born normally. This makes them effectively a pair of [[One-Gender Race|One Gender Races]], though normal breeding could be resumed. Note that these are not the only colony worlds left, just the main ones we see.
** It was later revealed to be due to an [[Ancient Conspiracy]] involving the mass organ-harvest of [[Expendable Clone
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
* In ''[[Gundam Wing]]'', all of the Winner family's children {{spoiler|(except Quatre)}} were test tube babies, due to the then-current difficulties of natural birth in space.
* The Abh from ''[[Crest of the Stars]]'' are all
* In the [[Needs More Love|(little known)]] anime ''[[Himawari]]!'', most of the ninjas, {{spoiler|including the title character}}, are test tube babies, designed to be perfect ninja.
* Ayanami Rei and Nagisa Kaworu from ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' fit this trope, minus the whole metaphysical mumbo jumbo that accompanies them and their superpowers, of course.
* It is quite heavily implied that {{spoiler|Aoi Hidaka, the main heroine}} of ''[[Dancougar Nova]]'', was born this way.
* In ''[[Utawarerumono]]'', it's eventually revealed that the various [[Petting Zoo People]] actually descend from a vast series of genetic experimentation projects that was undertaken in a hidden underground lab, apparently as part of a project to reclaim the (for some reason) uninhabitable Earth above. Their ancestors were all grown in the titular jars by the human scientists.
* In ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
== Comic Books ==
* In [[Superman]]'s [[Crisis
* ''[[
* [[Marvel Comics]]' Thundra came from a future [[Lady Land]] [[Dystopia]] where babies are engineered in the "Temple of Genetics".
== Fanfiction ==
* Like in ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'', the first Nazzadi are this in ''[[
* ''[[
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== Literature ==
* An early example is ''[[Brave New World (
* [[Utopia]] Example: ''Herland'', by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The titular land is a [[Mary Suetopia|utopia]] because it is inhabited ''only'' by women, who can reproduce parthenogenically (without a male), and without genetic diversity/contamination, only pass amiable, peaceful, and otherwise perfect (boring) personality genes onto their offspring.
** Though it's really more an example of eugenics than designer babies. Women who are considered a danger to society are not allowed to breed.
* Another 'utopian' example, is the city of Diaspar, the last bastion of humanity, in Arthur C. Clarke's ''Against the Fall of Night''/''The City and the Stars'', where humanity appears to have given up on sexual reproduction, in favour of an unimaginably massive database of personalities. Whenever a new person is to be born, a personality is downloaded into a created body, and assigned a couple to be its parents. When a person dies, they may choose what memories of theirs will be carried into their next incarnation, which may be ''millennia'' in the future, such is the size of the database, and those memories will become available to their new incarnation once it becomes an adult and has developed a truly unique personality through its childhood. 'Uniques', personalities seemingly generated during the creation process, do occur, but are viewed either as a wonderful accident, one of many little tricks to prevent stagnation, or as some great and possibly subversive plan by Diaspar's architects. Of course, {{spoiler|later on it turns out that there is a second remaining pocket of humanity, Lys, where humans have chosen to be born naturally, and die without the assurance of artificial reincarnation, living an Agrarian lifestyle and having over time developed empathic capabilities. Interestingly however, neither is presented as 'right', rather, as two distinct, viable versions of utopia. The part the book presents as ''wrong'' is the two cultures decision to totally isolate themselves from one another.}}
* In [[Woman On The Edge Of Time]], this is how the [[Mary Suetopia]] society reproduces. It's all but stated that this is a necessary sacrifice to eliminate the last vestige of gender discrimination. On the upside, a child is not only raised by the whole village, but get three parents to look after and nurture it. The society also tends to be a [[Free
* In [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s [[Vorkosigan Saga]], the Cetagandan Haut-lords in the Vorkosiverse reproduce entirely without sex or even coupling being involved... every child is created through contracts arranged by high-ranking family members, frequently with positive genetic alterations added, then the baby cooked up in a replicator and handed to the appropriate parent. The Haut are practically considered a superhuman sub-race at this point.
* The ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] gives us the Khommites, who believed their society was perfect, and froze it by cloning themselves for a thousand years. This changed when the 81st clone of Dorsk was found to be Force-sensitive and left to become a Jedi, eventually bringing Khomm into the galactic war they had avoided up to that point due to their planet's isolation and lack of resources that anybody else cared about.
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* Partial example, in ''[[The Darksword Trilogy]]'', sex is banned and impregnation must take place magically.
* In ''The Court Of The Air'', female slaves in Cassarabia ''wish'' their wombs were used to incubate this trope, and not the [[Biological Mashup]] monstrosities which the local bio-wizards dream up.
* In [[
* In ''The Fifth Sacred Thing,'' by Starhawk, post-eco-apocalypse southern California is ruled by a high-tech religious dictatorship with several genetically engineered slave-
* In the ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' universe, the outlawed [[Evilutionary Biologist
* The inhabitants of Sulva (Earth's Moon) are said to be born this way in [[That Hideous Strength]]. Apparently they can only be turned on by [[Sex Bot|sexbots]] and therefore can't make babies the normal way.
* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s novel ''Friday'', human society has learned to grow custom-tailored humans and other creatures; these are known as "Artificial Persons" if they are superficially human and "Living Artifacts" if they are clearly not human. Both are subject to a great deal of [[Fantastic Racism]]; the eponymous protagonist is an AP and suffers from a crushing inferiority neurosis because of it.
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** Interestingly, at least one job that is assumed to be Spec-only can be done by an extremely-skilled Natural. This is shown in the novel where a Natural becomes a starship navigator, a job that requires one to memorize the multidimensional (about 18D) map of the galaxy and be able to plot a safe and fast course through FTL. He turns out to be a pretty good navigator, despite his preference for wearing skirts (not [[Insistent Terminology|kilts]]).
** The protagonist mentions that, by law, every Spec has a right to remove his or her specialization. However, in practice, this never happens. For one, each Spec loves his or her job. And two, many changes are simply irreversible.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Infinity Beach]]'', genetic engineering is common. The main character, Kimberly, is a clone of her older sister Emily.
* In [[Kevin J. Anderson]]'s ''[[Blindfold]]'', the Truthsayers are a group of genetically-engineered people trained from birth with the use of the [[Meaningful Name|Veritas]] drug, which temporarily increases their brains' receptive abilities, allowing them to detect another brain's EM impulses (i.e. [[Psychic Powers|read thoughts]]). While it is possible for a normal person to use the drug, the results are unpredictable. There is also the fact that it is a gross violation of privacy. Since the Truthsayers have no familial or genetic ties to anyone outside their group, they are used as [[Living Lie Detector
* [[SL Viehl]]'s ''[[Stardoc]]'' series follows a young female doctor named Cherijo Torin, who discovers in the first novel that she is a genetically-modified clone of her "father", who eventually wanted to marry her. That's right, not only did he want to [[Screw Yourself|screw himself]] (and later novels indicate that he already did that with his ''male'' clones) but he wanted to do it with someone he raised as his daughter. Cherijo (who name is, actually, an acronym meaning [[Fun
** Oh, and genetic engineering is forbidden in human space ({{spoiler|except by her "father", who has helped to pass the law and received special dispensation}}), and any "freak" is to be caught and executed as a [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|non-person]]. When the colony finds out that she is a clone, some of the [[Jerkass]] characters immediately start calling her "it", claiming that her "intelligence" is merely an imitation programmed into her.
* ''[[My
* C.J. Cherryh's ''[[
* Basically the premise of ''[[Replica]]''.
== Live-Action TV ==
* In ''[[Blake's
* Ransik's villain motivation in ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]]'' is that, in the year 3000, he was a [[Mutants|mutant]] instead of a designer baby like everyone else, and was a pariah growing up. In fact, all of the [[Monster of the Week|Monsters of the Week]] are mutant accidents.
* In the ''[[
* ''[[
* In one episode of ''[[Picket Fences]]'', it's discovered that a reproductive services clinic is gestating human babies inside of cows. One infertile woman who has contracted for her child to be grown this way says that this is done to bypass the legal minefields associated with hiring a human surrogate mother. ("I own the cow!") Subverted in that nothing is said about selecting for superior genetic traits, and the use of cows as surrogates is voluntary on the part of the parents, albeit done in secret to avoid controversy.
* In the ''[[
* In ''[[Century City]]'', a fertility specialist is sued for having his clients babies turn out gay.
* Played with a lot on ''[[The X-Files]]''. There are many attempts to make a human/alien hybrid. Most notable was Emily, Scully's {{spoiler|daughter}}, who ends up dying soon after she meets her. And though many attemps are made, nothing sticks. All the hybrids die. This becomes a problem when Scully conceives William, who is what everyone involved in the conspiracy has been
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* ''[[Paranoia]]'', in which everyone's a clone. Six times over, in fact.
** Well, sort of... some times. In early editions there were clone families of six that were decanted and raised in the same environment, and treated more or less as one person. This did not make sense (not that Alpha Complex ever does), as we're left wondering where the other 5 are most of the time (it was occasionally addressed, but mostly just left off-camera). Later editions have it so every citizen is, theoretically, cloned when they die (except traitors that have earned an erasure), but the red tape delays it to the point of never happening, but Troubleshooters have six immediate backups because they are in highly lethal situations, but with important missions that must be completed. Higher ups tend to buy more packs of six clones when needed, and Ultraviolets are so important the Computer gives them an essentially infinite number of quick clones. This still doesn't make sense, but in a way that works.
* In ''[[
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== Video Games ==
* An old DOS game called ''Gender Wars'' plays off this trope - in the game world, human males and females are embroiled in a literal battle of the sexes, each intent on exterminating the other. Because traditional reproduction is effectively banned, each side uses artificial means of conception and incubation to maintain their populations. The twist, of course, is that neither side possesses the means to reproduce without "help" from the other; the males routinely attack female storage facilities to steal frozen eggs, while the females do the same to male bases to obtain sperm samples.
* In ''[[Prototype (
* Miranda Lawson from ''[[
** It seems that Daddy may have {{spoiler|put in some "[[DRM|Fabrication Rights Management]]" into Miranda, as the dossier on her that the Shadow Broker has indicates she may be infertile.}} Wonderful guy, her dad.
** Grunt is another example, designed to be a [[Super Soldier]] even by [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|krogan]] standards. Thanks to [[Neural Implanting]], he's "born" with the body and vocabulary of a young adult but no sense of place or direction (enter the player character...).
** '''Humanity''' as a whole is moving towards this. By the twenty-second century, genetic engineering has advanced to the point where the [[We Will Have Perfect Health in
* The Sivadians in [[
* In ''[[The Sims 3]]: Into the Future'', it is possible to “Engineer a Baby” with other Sims in the future world of Oasis Landing.
== Web Original ==
* All Coalition (Ourkind) soldiers are created this way in ''[[Unlikely Eden]]''.
* The superiors, tweaks, splices/rianths and most nearbaselines in ''[[
== Web Comics ==
* Dr. Bunnigus from ''[[
* In ''[[Homestuck]]'', {{spoiler|All four kids are revealed to be these, John and Jade being made from Grandpa's and Nana's combined DNA, and Rose and Dave being made from Mom's and Bro's. According to the trolls, anyone who's destined to play Sburb is created in this manner.}}
** In the same sequence, it's revealed that {{spoiler|the Guardians (Grandpa, Nana, Mom, and Bro) are all clones ''of themselves''. It's not clear from what, if any, source the genetic material of the kids destined to play the game comes, but it seems to some degree to be tailored to success at Sburb.}}
* [[Freefall
* [[Word of God]] explanation for Rhonda in ''[[Umlaut House]] 2'', who has [[Homosexual Reproduction|two biological fathers]]. A throwaway line by her grandmother towards the end of the first series implied that this is fairly common in their era.
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[
== Real Life ==
* Gattaca Calves, Gattaca Chicks, Gattaca Pullets, Gattaca Lambs: this trope is ubiquitous in the livestock industry.
** And in the seed industry. Gattaca Corn, Gattaca Cotton, Gattaca [
* [
* [
* As of yet, is illegal in many countries.
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[[Category:Alien Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Television]]
[[Category:Transhuman Tropes]]
[[Category:Designer Babies]]
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