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.

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

The Geneticist makes their home in the medbay. Your primary job is to research genetic defects and mutations 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. Using wacky corporate superscience, you could uplift them into humanhood and use them for HILARIOUS ANTICS. Or just find more mutations.

Normal Workflow

Starting Up

• Click on the GeneTek Console
• Click on the Research Menu link
• Click on View DNA Samples
• Find your name and click on it
• Click on the Unknown Mutation
• Find out what it is by clicking Research required
• Once the research finishes, see if there's a Mutation you'd like to activate
• Create a DNA Activator for each Mutation you like
• Inject yourself with the DNA Activator to activate the Mutation by clicking on yourself
• The DNA Activator will change to a filled DNA Activator
• Click on the GeneTek console with the filled DNA Activator to receive Research Materials and Chromosomes

Outreach

It's no fun if only you get all the cool powers. View DNA Samples of another crew member. Your fellow Geneticist is perfect, since they're usually close by and willing to step inside the GeneTek scanner and get their Mutations activated. If you're the sole Geneticist on-board, just pick anybody you'd like (the Clown, the Captain, or the Medical Director).

You can only change the Mutations of a crew member inside the GeneTek scanner, so you'll have to call them to the Genetics lab. You could say something like, "Hey, Pubby McJones, could you over to Genetics to get your electricity immunity Mutation activated?", or some other variation thereof that will clearly communicate to the crew member what exactly you're going to do to them.

To insert an organism into the GeneTek scanner:

• Click them with Grab intent and click on the GeneTek scanner.
• Drag and drop their sprite onto the GeneTek scanner sprite.

To eject an organism from the GeneTek scanner:

• Right click on the GeneTek scanner and choose Eject Occupant.
• Drag and drop the GeneTek scanner sprite onto the floor.

Alternatively, your could create a few DNA Activators and DNA Injectors and inject crew members in the hallways.

Genetics Etiquette

Don't inject people out of nowhere! It is rude, especially if you give them one of the more debilitating or annoying Mutations. Ask for permission first!

The Next Steps

All the while, steadily work your way through the Research upgrades for your equipment. One of the first Research is Gene Booth. With this upgrade, you can, for thirty Research Materials, sell Mutations through the public Gene Booth machine. The Gene Booth distributes Mutations to crew members without them having to visit your lab. That means instead of Research Materials and Chromosomes, you will recieve credits for your Research Budget.

Once you research DNA Injectors and Mutation Storage, the real fun of genetics begins. At this point you can store desirable Mutations, combine them with with other Mutations, and then use DNA Injectors to activate these Mutations, even in crew members who don't have it in their Potential.

Cloner Duty

Main article: Medical Doctor#The Cloner

Once in a while, check up on Cloning. If you see any bodies there, scan them in and try to clone them. You can leave after you start the process; most maps have some way to allow the clones to leave Cloning if they don't have access. Everyone in Medical's expected to man the cloner, but many maps prod Geneticists in particular into it by having Genetics be within viewing distance of Cloning. It's quick and easy and it's all documented here.

What's in it for you? Aside from the gratitude of those you've cloned, the cloner has a "Advanced Genetic Analysis" option that you can enable at the cloning computer. When enabled, the cloner will copy over any active genetic effects the person had when they were scanned, so people don't have to regain all of them after getting cloned (great for those playing non-human species!) In addition, while the cloner is cloning someone, it lessens all the cooldowns on the GeneTek and increases how many materials are passively gained every second. However, this all comes at a cost of increasing how long it takes to clone someone.

Monkey Discipline

Monkeys are nowhere as useful as they used to be, but if you're looking for a particular mutation and can't get it from the crew's for whatever reason (e.g. you find it in a sample, but the crew member is too busy to have it activated, you haven't found a test subject willing to take near-lethal does of radiation for the sake of science, etc.) you could try finding it in a monkey. Before you monkey around in this monkey DNA business, keep a few things in mind:

• Never leave the door to the monkey enclosure open. Once you're through, click it to prevent monkeys getting into the Operating Theatre or 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 can click on a monkey with a straitjacket or pair of handcuffs in your active hand. Both'll prevent them from attacking you, 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 click-drag your sprite onto the monkeys and put a bedsheet in its exo-suit slot to blind the monkey. This is preferable as it will stay perfectly still and not attack, whatever you do to it. Straitjackets and bedsheets can be found in the Operating Theatre.
  • Blindfolds have the same effect and are even easier to use: in addition to click-dragging their sprite onto you and putting the blindfold onto their eyes slot, you can also simply click on them while you have Head selected in the targeting area and are holding a blindfold to attempt to blindfold the monkey. In both cases, there is a short delay, and you'll get interrupted if you move or the monkey moves too far away from you. You can find them in Animal Control lockers (the nondescript, grey lockers) in your lab and/or 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.
• Monkeys will generally stop attacking you once you get into critical condition, so after you're beaten senseless, you have some time to limp to a Port-a-NanoMed or NanoMed and heal yourself with styptic powder patches or at least find a Medical Doctor who can. Unfortunately, no amount of styptic can heal your wounded pride...

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 GeneTek scanner in medbay. Most rounds, you won't get 5 people in the GeneTek 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 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 or Empowered High-Pressure Intestines 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...

Traitor Geneticist isn't all about clandestinely fiddling with everyone's genes, though. Combine the robustness of regular monkeys with an vicious desire to kill all life and an improved throwing skill, put them in a barrel just for pun, and you have the barrel of monkeys. Highly disruptive and virtually untraceable (Protip: Use a cargo transporter so people won't see you haul around the barrel), especially if you take some extra steps.

But why stop at evil monkeys or genetic debilitation? With the mindslave cloning module (aka, the mind "remapper"), you can unleash your inner mad scientist and build the clone army you've always wanted. When attached to a cloning pod, it makes all the clones that come out of it bound to serve your every command--forever! (No implants here, so people can't cut it out to remove mindslave status.) Now, since the module is incredibly obvious, you really can't attach it to the one in Medbay, lest some remotely aware schmuck remove it. Instead, you're supposed to build your own cloning lab in someplace secret, like in some forgotten closet in maintenance or the Ghost Drone Factory. Building one is pretty involved, but the results are very worth it.

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