Geneticist

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This is the place where dreams come true and abominations in the eyes of God are born in the same day.

This is the place where dreams come true and abominations in the eyes of God are born in the same day.

This is the place where dreams come true and abominations in the eyes of God are born in the same day.

This is the place where dreams come true and abominations in the eyes of God are born in the same day.

This is the place where dreams come true and abominations in the eyes of God are born in the same day.

This is the place where dreams come true and abominations in the eyes of God are born in the same day.

The Geneticist makes his home in the east end of the medbay. As a geneticist, your primary job is to research genetic defects, mutations and and hand out fancy superpowers to people, like a biological counterpart to the Roboticist's mechanical augmentations. When all the medical doctors are dead or incompetent and the roboticists are too busy putting butts on everyone's heads, you may also want to operate the nearby cloning device to revive fallen crew mates through the use of wacky clone science.

The Lab

Genetics has a couple of GeneTek Consoles, which the geneticists use to attempt to unlock the genetic code for super-powers. The process is absurdly elaborate, technical, and time-consuming, and there is too much to talk about for just one article section. To get a better understanding on how it all works, see the Guide to Genetics, especially the Potential section.

If at any point they make a mistake and regret giving themselves or someone else a mutation, or if someone walks into Medbay asking for someone to remove their Swedish accent, there's also bottles of mutadone pills to reverse it.

The monkey pen nearby is also home to a number of monkeys and a locker with electropacks, remotes for said electropacks, and blindfolds. Monkeys, once turned human, can be a great source of interesting/useful mutations to, once you've the relevant upgrades, store and hand out to the crew. They also make nice test subjects to dump activators into for more unfavorable mutations on so you can get those sweet, sweet materials and chromosomes.

Normal Workflow

Unless you have a specific plan that requires you complete genetic codes, this is what you should be doing on a standard shift as the geneticist.

• Have a look into your own DNA on the View DNA Samples page under the Research page, research some mutations to find out what they do (via Research Mutation) and see if there's anything you'd like to activate. If there is, create an activator for each mutation, and then redeem it into the console.
• Restrain a monkey (more details below) and put it into the scanner. Use the Body Type button to turn it into a human, then go to the Potential page .
• For each mutation the monkey-turned-human has, vend an activator, eject the monkey from the scanner, use the activator on the monkey, redeem the spent activator in the console, then put the monkey back in the scanner.
• Steadily work your way through the research upgrades for your equipment.
• Once you have activated all of a monkey's genes, and have brought the Radiation Emitters, you can go to the Potential page, and click on Scramble DNA to remove all of the monkey's mutations and provide a new set to begin activating.
  • Be aware that unless you have researched Radiation Dampeners and its various iteration, this will cause radiation damage each time it's used, which risks killing your monkey if you don't heal it in time.
  • Alternatively, if you don't have/want Radiation Emitters, just find and restrain another monkey as a test subject.
• Once you research DNA Injectors and Mutation Storage, the real fun of genetics begins. At this point you can begin storing desirable mutations from your monkey, combining them with with other mutations, and then using injectors to pass these mutations on to others. You can continue to scramble your monkey's DNA to find mutations to store.

Monkey Discipline

If you don't want to be rapidly beaten to death by enraged monkeys seeking revenge for their horrible mutations, there are several tips you need to be aware of.

• Never leave the door to the monkey enclosure open. Once you're through, click it to prevent monkeys getting into the Operating Theatre or into your Genetics lab. This is important, as once they get in there, they like to pick up staple guns or toolboxes. Not only does this make their attacks against you more lethal, it also means they're able to break the glass separating you from them.
• Restrain your monkey. There are a few ways to do this:
  • You can use a straitjacket or handcuffs to prevent them from attacking you. This works, but the monkey will still attempt to rush at you if angered. It won't be able to harm you, but will be very annoying for you and your geneticist colleague, you can alleviate this somewhat by buckling yourself to your chair.
  • Alternately, you can use the bedsheets or the blindfolds to blind the monkey. This is preferable as it will stay perfectly still and not attack, whatever you do to it. Blindfolds, straitjackets and bedsheets can be found in the Operating Theatre as well as the Animal Control lockers (the nondescript, grey lockers) in your lab and in the monkey pen.
• It's best to put your restraining item on the monkey while in the monkey enclosure, then use pull to bring it in to the genetics lab, as you risk it escaping your grasp and picking up something from Medbay on the way.
• Putting the restraining item on is annoyingly finicky as they like to move away before you complete the action, but if you stand so that the monkey is between you and the wall you should be able to do it before it moves away.
• Whatever you do, don't grab the monkey until you're back in the lab and the doors in are closed, as the others will attack and mob on you.

Expanding Out

At some point in your shift, perhaps before or after you get the Mutation Storage and DNA Injectors upgrades, you'll want to hand out activated mutations to other crew members. (And you should--it's no fun if just only one person gets all the cool powers.)

Since the genetics scanner is tied to the medical database, you have access to everybody's DNA sample right from the start. They can be found by going to View DNA Samples in the Research tab. From there, you can select the name of the person you want to work on. You can't alter the code of a sample while the person you're viewing isn't in the scanner, but you can note what powers they have and activate them when the person visits genetics, or just create an activator and take it to them. Don't just stab people out of nowhere, though, since people don't like that. Ask/notify them first!

IMPORTANT: If left in the scanner for too long, the scanner can run out of air and people can begin to suffocate! Consider giving your test subjects some internals to circumvent this.

Crew Objectives

As a loyal crew member, you can sometimes be assigned some strictly optional objectives to keep yourself busy while you wait for something to happen. As a geneticist, you can expect to see the following:

End the round with at least 5 people scanned
You need to get people into the DNA scanner in medbay. Most rounds, you won't get 5 people in the scanner period, let alone 5 people who won't be cloned, so if you really want to do this you might need to try accosting kindly asking people in medbay to let you scan them. Perhaps you can offer them superpowers for their time or remind them that the whole process takes roughly 10 seconds at most.

Syndicate Geneticist

Though genetics doesn't have exclusive control over the cloner anymore, the enzymatic reclaimer can still be a fantastic way to kill people that walk into your lab (or any volunteers you've recruited) if you have an EMAG and are able to score a flash off the roboticist (or hack his manufacturer yourself). Emag the reclaimer first, then if someone barges in, flash them, take off their headset and shove them into the reclaimer for an almost instant kill - or alternatively, lock them into the DNA manipulator and slowly irradiate them to death. Eccentricity and wandering is also expected from a geneticist. Hunting for superpowers is extremely boring, so many geneticists wander off to do something else. Nobody will question why you're dragging a dead body if you're heading back to medbay. Most people won't even mind if you stash a dead body in the morgue or grind it up for biomass as they'll assume you've already run it through the cloner first.

The newer Speed Injector can also make for some very fun gimmicks. Want to make everyone a monkey? Sure! Want to give people un-Synchronized Self Biomass Manipulation to make them gib themselves? Absolutely! The possibilities are only as limited as the number of mutations. And don't forget, just because you're a traitor doesn't mean you can't do your job to get yourself some significant advantages...

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