Idea for a futuristic monarchy

[funkervogt]

Queen Elizabeth's death has reminded me of an idea I had for a new type of monarchy that used technology to ensure the purity of the bloodline without the risk of inbreeding.

The man and woman who founded the monarchy (I'll call them the First King and First Queen) would have their DNA, sperm, and eggs collected and stored in a cryobank. The same would be done to their children, who shared 50% of their DNA; their grandchildren, who shared 25% of their DNA, and their great-grandchildren, who shared 12.5% of their DNA.

The head of the monarchy would serve for life, and would have to share at least 12.5% of their DNA with either the First King or First Queen. I choose 12.5% (1/8) as the cutoff since that is, in my experience, the maximum genetic distance two people can have while also retaining obvious similarities of appearance. Additionally, people who share less than 12.5% of their DNA can have children with each other with almost no heightened risk of inbreeding, and the inability to safely have children with another person is a hallmark of relatedness.

Everyone sharing at least 12.5% of their DNA with either the First King or First Queen is a member of the "Royal Family."

After a few generations, the King and Queen positions would no longer be determined by primogeniture--succession to the throne would be decided by a majority vote within the Royal Family. Whoever won would hold the title for life. Votes would be rare, epic events.

To prevent the gradual dilution of the Royal Family's bloodline, DNA samples of dead members--including the First King and First Queen--would be used to make clones. As genetic technology improved, the clones would be successively "tweaked" with improvements, especially targeted at fixing the flaws of their predecessors.

Additionally, the frozen sperm and eggs of dead Royal Family members would be thawed out and used to create new members, and fertilized with DNA from extraordinary people unrelated to the Royal Family.

It would be standard practice to use IVF to ensure none of the new Royal Family members were born with genetic defects.

This cycle of resurrection via cloning, expansion of the Royal Family's diversity (within the 12.5% limit), and genetic improvement would go on forever. Additionally, there would be a moratorium on cloning a dead Royal Family member until after all of their own children had died, as it would be too weird for adult children to interact with child versions of their own parents.

A few centuries into the Monarchy's existence, and you'd see clones from different eras interacting with each other, along with new faces who had just married in.

[Tadasuke]

In a manga I read, monarchs were monarchs, because they had the strongest affinity for magic, being able to defeat anyone in a magic duel, so they were the crowned ones. Always leading the troops in the front line.

In real life, monarchs could potentially be the most augmented humans, with the most improved DNA or something along the lines. Being a king just because your distant ancestor did something important isn't right.

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

funkervogt thank you for the write up for it is fascinating! Also not surprising but very particular in my view of how there is a structure to it. It all makes sense and is something very specific that I thank you for sharing when you easily could have not because this is impressive.

Now being honest there is no way the Aristocrats would be down with microchipping their brains. Let's be real. So with that in mind that may be precisely where the issue in this plan may be. Some thoughts about this are:

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- Who is going to oversee the tracking of the family members dying to have them ready to be revived as clones or otherwise? Is it going to be AI? Are there safeguards in case it all goes wild because the presumption is that the clones and non clones are aware of the AI and do not interfere with it or maybe they do. Even if it may be other Royal Families you still run into the same issues.

- What will be the plan for when some of the non clones or worse the actual clones themselves become self aware that something is wrong and some weird things are going on? Kinda reminds me of the movie The Island that I think is about clones suspecting something is up. You want to talk about entertainement? Wait till the clones & non clones figure out what is going on and start FREAKING OUT! I'm not sure most people would be ok with knowing their clones or themselves will be revived later on with or without their memories with advanced tech. Or maybe they do who knows.
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As for the inbreeding that is rough. I thought they were just using that for historical mention since it seems to me, as an outsider to the UK, that every so often the genetic lines get a little variety to avoid inbreeding like Megan Markle and a few other situations here and there. I guess this new tech will help avoid that and simplify things I suppose.

Maybe some get the high tech brain chips whether clone or non clone in the Royal Family later on who knows. I still believe this is something that will be an experiment in itself for them to see how it pans out.

[funkervogt]

- Who is going to oversee the tracking of the family members dying to have them ready to be revived as clones or otherwise? Is it going to be AI? Are there safeguards in case it all goes wild because the presumption is that the clones and non clones are aware of the AI and do not interfere with it or maybe they do. Even if it may be other Royal Families you still run into the same issues.

I don't understand. The members of the Royal Family would all be known to each other and would stay in regular contact with each other. If one of them died, the others would quickly find out about it, just as you'd find out if a member of your family died. AI wouldn't be needed for this task.

- What will be the plan for when some of the non clones or worse the actual clones themselves become self aware that something is wrong and some weird things are going on? Kinda reminds me of the movie The Island that I think is about clones suspecting something is up. You want to talk about entertainement? Wait till the clones & non clones figure out what is going on and start FREAKING OUT! I'm not sure most people would be ok with knowing their clones or themselves will be revived later on with or without their memories with advanced tech. Or maybe they do who knows.

Again, I don't understand. Cloning would be accepted within the Royal Family, and clones would be told from childhood that they were clones. It would not be shameful in any way.

As for the inbreeding that is rough. I thought they were just using that for historical mention since it seems to me, as an outsider to the UK, that every so often the genetic lines get a little variety to avoid inbreeding like Megan Markle and a few other situations here and there. I guess this new tech will help avoid that and simplify things I suppose.

Obeying the simple rule of not allowing Royal Family members with 12.5% or more of their DNA in common to have children would go a long way to solving the problem. However, as I said in my original post, they would also use IVF to make offspring, which would let them screen out embryos that had any kind of defects. I'm sure there would be tons of jokes about them being inbred, but they would actually be genetically healthier than the general population.

Maybe some get the high tech brain chips whether clone or non clone in the Royal Family later on who knows. I still believe this is something that will be an experiment in itself for them to see how it pans out.

My idea has nothing to do with brain chips or AI.

One more thing to add: There would need to be a group within the Royal Family that would ensure the reproductive rules were followed, and to handle any weird situations that might arise. I'll call it "The Conclave."

If one of the Royal Family members were really heinous, like a murderer or rapist, then the Conclave would have say over whether the person could ever be cloned, and if so, what tweaks needed to be made to their genes first to ensure the same life problems didn't recur. Very troublesome branches of the Family Tree could also be discontinued or only allowed to continue if they agreed to genetically modify their offspring.