Genetic memory in fiction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Main article: Racial memory

• In Jekyll (TV Series, 2007), 'Hyde' recalls memories from the original Doctor Jekyll. He is described by the scientist Dr.Gilligan has having race memory that works unlike that of a 'normal humans'.

• Stel Pavlou uses genetic memory as the central theme in the novel Gene 2005. The debate over nature versus nurture is embodied in the two central characters whose revelations of past lives through genetic memory stretch back from modern day to the Trojan War.

• J. R. R. Tolkien explores the idea of a linguistic race memory in The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers, and speculates about the real world in English and Welsh.

• Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End incorporates genetic memory as a plot device.

• In Pierre Boulle's novel Planet of the Apes, important exposition is given by a primitive human who has been hypnotized into revealing subconscious racial memories.

• The idea of racial or genetic memory is central to the Dune series by Frank Herbert.

• In the animated series Ben 10, Ectonurites such as Ghostfreak have their entire consciousness present even in a few strand of DNA.

• Terry Pratchett uses the idea of race memory in his Discworld book Sourcery, when antihero Rincewind confronts the monsters of the Dungeon Dimensions, where race memory (accessed by a Sorcerer, Coin), tells him not to use magic against them as it only makes them stronger.

• The Goa'uld, an alien race featured in the Stargate SG-1 television series, possess a genetic memory. In the sister series, Stargate Atlantis, the whale species flagisalis also possesses a genetic memory

• In The Devil Take the Hindmost, an episode of the television series Andromeda, there is a group of genetically engineered humans, possess genetic memory. Tiama, a Hajira, forcibly extracts Rev Bem's genetic material and uses it to infests herself with parasitic Magog larvae, resulting in her death. These "Hajira-Magog" inherit the Hajira's genetic memory, retaining Tiama's memories.

• In the Star Control series of games, there is a race called the Mycon that can pass on memories to their offspring, thus achieving a state which they term "shared immortality".

• In the novel Life, the Universe and Everything, an ancient series of terrible wars known as the Krikkit Wars manage to affect most civilizations in the Universe, including the one which would eventually become Earth. Vague racial memories of the events of the war lead the humans to create the sport cricket, forgetting what they're basing it on. The rest of the universe, noting how shameless it is to create a sport based on such horrible events, chose to shun the Earth due to its tactlessness, which is why Earth still remains uncontacted by aliens.

• An episode of The X-Files dealt with genetic memory. A police detective is having visions of crimes committed by a rapist. It turned out she was the offspring of one of the rapist's surviving victims and in turn was his biological daughter. The urge to kill the surviving woman nearly overtakes her.

• The alien species in the Alien films possess genetic memories.

• In the Doctor Who serial Doctor Who and the Silurians, humanity is revealed to possess a racial memory of the (misnamed) Silurians, humanoid reptiles who ruled Earth in prehistoric times. Since the "Silurians" treated primitive humans as at best pets and at worst vermin, the racial memory is one of abject terror, and the sight of a "Silurian" can drive a person mad.

• In the anime series Macross 7, the Zentradi, a cloned species, are revealed to have a racial memory of the Protodeviln, so terrible that they (and those of mixed human/Zentradi blood) are driven into wild rages by their close presence.

• The Jack London book The Call of the Wild deals with a tame dog rediscovering his wolf heritage. As this occurs, he vividly remembers one of his ancestors living alongside a cave man. Interestingly, at the time the book was written, very little was understood about genetics and the idea of genetic memory did not seem to have been introduced. Jack London appears to have been ahead of his time.

• The video game Assassin's Creed is about accessing the memories of an ancestor of the main character, reading his genetic memory in a machine called the "Animus".

• In Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a distant descendant of Genghis Khan shows attributes of his ancestor: he likes axes, and often has visions of angry men, horses, and war when he becomes angry.

• In Jean Auel's Earth's Children series -Clan of the Cave Bear, The Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, The Plains of Passage and The Shelters of Stone - The primitive Neanderthal people who adopted and raised the Cro-Magnon main character had ancestral memories that they could draw upon at will as adults. Children were born with these ancestral memories and needed only a "reminder" to be able to recall this knowledge. This ability was necessary for communication and survival due to their undeveloped verbal abilities. These ancestral memories were important because they grasped new ideas only with great difficulty. It was far easier to recall what had already been done than to work out new ways.

• In Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time fantasy book series, wolves are sentient and innately retain the memories of their wolf ancestors. Mat Cauthon, even before gaining memories through passing through the ter'angreal in Rhuidean, retained memories of his Manetheran ancestors and was consequently able to sometimes speak the Old Tongue.

• In Star Trek: The Original Series, episode Catspaw, the idea of racial memory is central to the plot.

• In the classic anime film Akira the character Kei ponders the dangerous consequences of awakening the dormant memories that are passed genetically from being to being since the beginning of the universe.

• In the video game Psychonauts, Fred Bonaparte, head orderly turned inmate of Thorney Towers, is haunted by a genetic memory of his ancestor, Napoleon Bonaparte, who won't leave until Fred finally beats him at a game of Waterloo.

• The film (and the book) Altered States plot features incidents of physical regression of a scientist (William Hurt as Dr. Edward Jessup) based on a fictitious quality similar to genetic memory, with the difference that the ancient information is encoded not at the cellular level (DNA), but at the atomic level. There is an apparent progression of concepts implied in the film's science:
  1. individual person-based memory (neural system, or possibly even whole organism),
  2. cell-based memory (genes),
  3. atom-based memory (matter),
  4. …?
  The implied suggestion seems that memory could be present at every scale of matter, down to the very energy, innate to it—to the universal, primordial "substance" that everything in existence is made of. This way, the film advances the seminal idea behind the concept of genetic memory to a completely new level. The story is loosely based on actual research done by Dr. John C. Lilly.

• Within the Warhammer 40,000 universe Genetic memory is present within Space Marines such as the Blood Angels who remember the tragic death of their founder, with whom they share genetic material. Also one of the super-human abilities of the Marines is to consume genetic material of living things to absorb their memories via the victims DNA.

• Within the Dune universe, women called Reverend Mothers are capable of accessing the memories of all their female ancestors, and seek a male equivalent who can access both male and females past lives.

• The Superman villain Doomsday was cloned thousands of times by his father, Burtron, who was trying to make him into the ultimate being. Every time the baby was killed by the vicious fauna on ancient Krypton, Burtron harvested the remains to make the next clone more powerful. Doomsday possesses the genetic memories of all of his deaths, causing him to hate all life.

• In the movie The Eye, Jessica Alba's character receives paranormal aspects of vision due to her newly transplanted eyes via similar concept known as Cellular memory.

• In the science fiction stories of Larry Niven, there are frequent references to memories being stored in RNA, and being transferable from one person to another. This plot element was based on actual research with flatworms, which was later discredited.

• Stories of Dr. Zeus Inc. by Kage Baker feature a race of small humanoids who have shared memory, apparently genetic in origin.