It's about four hundred years hence. Earth has founded about three hundred colonies scattered around the wider universe and has come into contact with about four dozen other species. As you can imagine friendliness varies a lot and there were a lot of wars fought because of real estate, resources, simple miscommunication and human being tasty. So the default interstellar government the Inter-System Authority (stupid name?) decided to build a force of special operatives. They opted to make use of two relatively recent scientific advances. First was the perfection of genetic engineering, and second was mind transference. Mind transference was originally formulated as life extension. The elderly could become regain their youth by having their conciousness moved into a specially created clone. The technology hadn't yet been released to the public since nobody could figure out how to deal with the probable over crowding it would cause. But the Inter-System Authority had thought up a socially "safe" use... Basically the idea was to offer parents of intelligent, but terminally ill or severely disabled children a cure. Basically the deal was the kids would undergo mind transference. But not just into healthy bodies, but into massively genetically enhanced ones. Then the parents would relinquish most rights to their child and he or she would be carted of for years of special forces training. The rationale was children would be able to adapt to the new bodies as they grew up, and that their conditions would make them view the change as a gift and instil loyalty. The story would focus on six of these children growing up together. They're recruited at the age of eight. Also no they don't see combat (at least they're not supposed to) until they're about twenty. Do intend to explore the ethical ramifications (of which they're is obviously many) of the whole thing. First "important" question is what effect would transplanting the mind of say a child with Down's syndrome into one of these bodies, which of course have perfectly healthy brains.
If they are already 8 years old when they get mind transference i don't think they would be able to adapt adequately. I am no expert but i believe that if one has a degenerative disease like down's syndrome and suddenly finds himself with a healthy brain without going through the healing process, the mind wouldn't be able to properly adapt. Your idea sounds great, but for it to work realistically you would need to set the recruitment age much earlier than 8 years old, possibly as infants and maybe set an adapting period of six-seven years before they start training so that your story starts at that age.
Hmm, what difficulties would Wesley (the boy with Down's Syndrome) face? Also the kids probably don't start "real" training till they're twelve.
While this is true, research is never a bad thing. Best thing you could do Lorddread is read about Down's syndrome. Google it and you will find an abundance of information on the subject. And besides that, you said the recruits would be intellectually superior people, but Down syndrome patients have almost 100% mental retardation of 50 IQ points+ so a recruit like that is contradictory. If you accept the premise that the mind is completely autonomous from the brain and a Down syndrome patient can be cured by mind transference, then there would be no need to select intellectually superior children in the first place, as anyone transferred into a genetically enhanced body with a genetically enhanced brain would automatically become intelligent. If however the mind and brain are connected then a Down syndrome patient would never become a candidate. If you want to keep your setting as it is and still use Wesley as a Down syndrome patient, then you might want to change the criteria on which someone is selected as a recruit from intelligence to something else (feel the force, young Skywalker).
Wesley is an exception, a test case. Also mind transference as infants would sort of defeat the point.
Well, as i said Down syndrome patients have 99.8% about 50 IQ or so. So even as a test case in my opinion he could only be viable from a medical point of view. Selecting him for an elite force while he has 1/3 of the intellectual abilities of what the other recruits have would put him in a disadvantage, wouldn't it? If they selected him for other qualities than his intellectual ability maybe it could work, but if all the others were selected on this criteria your setting would seem inconsistent and thin to many.
There are other qualifications. Ability to obey authorities, not overly aggressive, good ability to work in teams.
So you work under the premise that the recruits' characters are fully developed by the age of 8, right? If not you can't know if they obey authority or work well in teams since these kind of things are something you train for, not something you are born with. If so then you can take artistic license and make stuff up about the complications the process would produce for Wesley, like difficulty in socializing or learning disabilities.
Hmm, going to have to think about this. Also they're hoping Wesley can become average for Special Forces eventually.
You could make it so that there is another reason they recruited him that is kept hidden until much later in his life, possibly when he sees combat for the first time or something like that. Then you can show Wesley struggling with his disadvantages compared to his peers and with the doubts concerning the reason he was selected even though he is less than optimal as a candidate.
