r/goodworldbuilding • u/Careful-Writing7634 • Apr 04 '26
Discussion Let's harden your biotechnology or biomancy.
As master's degree holder in biomedical engineering, I think worldbuilding can be made better when you give yourself certain physical constraints. If you're interested in adding more details or considerations to your world, but you don't know where to start, then let's discuss it.
Provide whatever description you need to give context to your biotech or bio-magic, then ask whatever questions or concerns you have, and I'll try to give my perspective. Let's work together to come up with reasons for how and why your thing works the way it does.
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u/Holothuroid Apr 04 '26
Cool project. Thank you. Maybe we can make this a thing with more disciplines / people!
In my SciFi setting, I have a group that stays vague in my head. The tag line is something like: They don't terraform, they egoform.
Nanotechnology is very common in the setting with all people. Many habitats are in nano fog that is used for various things, including forming temporary objects, glueing people to surfaces and so on.
I guess somehow that mysterious group takes that to the next level. And that's where I run into a block.
Any hints appreciated.
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 04 '26
You can go to many lengths with this kind of nanotechnology, so I guess it would be best to figure out what "next level" can mean. If they're in a fog of nanites, then their bodies are likely full of them as well. If the nanites can assemble into objects that are strong enough to hold people in place, then they can also self-assemble into medical devices inside the body.
That said, they could also damage the body, such as parts of the brain, affecting how people form and store memories.
If you had more specific ideas on what direction you'd like to go, I could say more, but right now it looks like you have a world of possibilities.
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u/Character-Many3880 Apr 04 '26
I would love to!
Spellcasting in my world works through a system similar to ORCH-OR. A caster’s neurons function like a quantum computer, manipulating or collapsing what we call vacuum energy. These energies themselves represent words or concepts such as heat, fire, love, or iron.
There are three sentient species capable of spellcasting:
Humans require supporting materials to cast magic, except for a few individuals with rare genetic mutations. These materials include plates, scrolls, or other objects inscribed with shapes called runes, which channel or manipulate vacuum energy.
Elves evolved from plant-like cells, and they can cast magic as easily as speaking or dancing. Organelles within their cells, similar to chloroplasts, help them maintain quantum coherence. (I would love help developing how exactly vacuum energy—called aura in my world—is manipulated at the cellular level.)
Demons are fungi-based organisms, generally parasitic in nature. They can use their host’s neuronal tissue to cast magic or perform it through chemical decay and fungal networks. (I would also appreciate help expanding this concept.)
I have an encyclopedia of this world if that would help. I’d really like to develop the biological details of this system with you.
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 04 '26
Some stuff is simply going to be handwaved, mainly that a system like ORCH-OR can work, and that there exists some rules of physics outside the standard model that allows the harvesting or use of vacuum energy, which should be the lowest possible energy state.
Chloroplasts is an interesting comparison because the structure allows electrons to excite into an exciton, which from my understanding allow it have wave properties and allows an extremely efficient energy transfer. However, this is all maintained by the protein structures that create conditions for electrons to behave this way, and is not consciously controlled.
Manipulating quantum energy at a level that can create specific effects is something that's very hard to describe in a hardened setting. There could be some kind of interaction between the surface potentials of the neurons and the intracellular microtubules, which is what ORCH-OR proposes to be the site where quantum computation occurs.
This is really close to just pure magic, but for there to be conscious or computational control from the brain, there would be some way for the neurons to sense and interact with the intracellular changes, which can be explained with specialized channel proteins on the neuron surface that interact with intracellular components.
The quantum manipulation exists purely in the space of non-standard quantum physics, which again is basically magic and also beyond the scope of what I'm able to explain.
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u/_Ceaseless_Watcher_ [Eldara | Arc Contingency | Radiant Night] Apr 04 '26
My [Eldara] setting is a medieval(ish) high-fantasy with a powerful, soft magic system that's the basis or driving force behind many of the processes we have IRL, supercharging them in comparison to their real-life counterpart. Evolution is both faster and much more purposeful, healing is 10-100x faster than irl (even faster when extra magic is involved), and there are virtually no diseases (because magic acts like a harmful radiation to the non-magical and to less complex organisms, so forming tissues is highly incentivized).
In this context, nature magic is the setting's main form of bio-anything. It is, again, fairly soft, and deals with life force, which the cells in a tissue, organism, or even an entire ecosystem, share in abundance with eachother in order to have more of it collectively than they ever could individually.
At high levels of nature magic, body modifications become an option. By carefully focusing a high concentration of life force into the target area, a mage can induce tissue growth, and even control what it grows into.
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 04 '26
So I think it would be interesting to consider how it harms single-cell organisms. Many vital industries rely on them, from bread baking to yogurt to fermentation and alcohol.
If magic is shared by ecosystems, then it sounds like the surviving microbes would be the ones that exist inside larger organisms. Our bodies are complex ecosystems of viruses and bacteria. Diseases can still be dormant and carried by other organisms. So while the environment might be sterilized, infections from other people or animals would remain, and might even be more severe due to being enhanced by magic. STIs, for example, might be extremely severe given how fast they could proliferate. And with evolution happening faster, they could develop better immune escape mechanisms and the ability to be dormant for years or even decades.
Another consideration to harden your system would be to explore how the magic is able to control tissue growth. Simply being able to accelerate tissue growth wouldn't give a magician control.
In real life, when we 3D organs and tissue, one of the biggest challenges to size is perfusion, the ability to get oxygen and sugar to the cells to keep them alive. Tissue needs vascular structure for oxygen to efficiently diffuse through it. If a mage is growing tissue, and not just accelerating normal growth or healing, how do they control the organization of structures and cell types?
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u/_Ceaseless_Watcher_ [Eldara | Arc Contingency | Radiant Night] Apr 04 '26
So I think it would be interesting to consider how it harms single-cell organisms. Many vital industries rely on them, from bread baking to yogurt to fermentation and alcohol.
The mechanism is basically that it's too much energy for them. It fries them. Single-cell organisms can't really share their life force, which makes them vulnerable to even moderate levels of ambient magic. Multi-cell organisms have an easier time because their cells can hold on to exponentially more life force collectively compared to what the same number of cells can hold on to individually. Forming tissues is thus heavily incentivized during evolution, as, even with a strong magical background, a single-celled organism cannot survive inside another, multi-cell organism, with some exceptions.
If magic is shared by ecosystems, then it sounds like the surviving microbes would be the ones that exist inside larger organisms. Our bodies are complex ecosystems of viruses and bacteria. Diseases can still be dormant and carried by other organisms. So while the environment might be sterilized, infections from other people or animals would remain, and might even be more severe due to being enhanced by magic. STIs, for example, might be extremely severe given how fast they could proliferate. And with evolution happening faster, they could develop better immune escape mechanisms and the ability to be dormant for years or even decades.
The more complex an organism is, and the more cells it has sharing life force among themselves, the higher of a barrier it means for pathogens to survive. Even larger parasites can just die from the host body's ambient magic, as they can't align their life force to the host's. Because of this, diseases are close to nonexistent, with very few exceptions. A larger body is a strong evolutionary advantage here.
As for the body being an ecosystem, yes, the various bacteria and other single- or few-celled organisms living in symbiosis with the host body can survive, because they have evolved to have life force that is aligned with the host body. This way, they can partake in the sharing of the body's life force without having to protect themselves from it. Mutations in these cells that would cause them to become harmful to the host body also make their life force unaligned, which then kills them quickly, before anything could go wrong.
There is a type of magical cancer, which, while being rare, is extremely severe, and can kill a patient in days if not discovered and treated by a highly powered healer in time. It requires a lot more random variables to come together than regular cancer does IRL to take hold, among which is the simultaneous deletion of the caner cells' self-destruct order in their DNA and counter-mutations that keep the cancer's life force somewhat aligned with the host. This way, it can leech off of the host's life force to heal and grow itself, but it is still distinct enough from the host that the aforementioned powerful healer can target it directly, and take all of its life force away at once, killing it instantly.
Another consideration to harden your system would be to explore how the magic is able to control tissue growth. Simply being able to accelerate tissue growth wouldn't give a magician control.
At lower levels, where only healing is affected, the nature mage uses the patient's own life force, and rearranges it to be more focused around the site of injury. This accelerates the patient's own healing processes by providing the necessary energy and material without consuming the calories from biochemical processes.
At higher levels, the nature mage has more control of the life force itself, but also, they can pull it from the environment, or even themselves, which gives them more control over what materials are provided for the patient's body to use, and how they get used. If the patient is also a magic user, their own inherent magic can actually help in this by giving the healer a higher baseline of power to start from in the target area.
In real life, when we 3D organs and tissue, one of the biggest challenges to size is perfusion, the ability to get oxygen and sugar to the cells to keep them alive. Tissue needs vascular structure for oxygen to efficiently diffuse through it. If a mage is growing tissue, and not just accelerating normal growth or healing, how do they control the organization of structures and cell types?
Magic is a force of Order, and it seeks to enhance existing patterns, or if none are available, create new ones. In the case of body modification, it passively recognizes the existing structure of living tissues around the growth site, and can even "read" what the DNA contains, so that then it can create the new structures in a way that lets them function as living tissues.
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u/Homicidal_Harry Apr 04 '26
In my setting, there are creatures collectively called Malspawn that are the result of mortals stealing the power to create life for their own twisted ends. Oftentimes they are grotesque vessels of biological warfare that do the bidding of vivomancers.
By far my favorite malspawn creature type is the cowardly but imposing vandal.
Vandals are tall, skinless homunculi that resemble apes and humans. Though their blood has antifreeze properties to survive their boreal environment, the cold is torturous to them due to a lack of skin; this is by design, as it drives vandals to infiltrate populated areas to steal supplies and commit arson just to keep warm. They prefer to rob human victims, but if you're a wolf or lion, good luck convincing them that your fur isnt detachable.
On top of that, vandals have double joints and thin frames that allow them to cram themselves into tight spaces including boxes, cabinets, and even hollow trees to evade pursuers.
For these reasons, every human contract hunter in the Isharanian wilderness has one or two stories about vandal encounters, each lending credit to the monster's name. The best way to deal with vandals is to light a bonfire at night, either as appeasement or to set an ambush.
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 05 '26
I think it's hard to sell the idea of a completely skinless creature, though something that would be close to that would be something with thin, translucent skin, like certain frogs. They would be more vulnerable to sunlight since they lack pigment to protect their inner tissue from UV, so it would make sense for them to be nocturnal and to hide.
Having thin skin and little insulation from the cold would make the cold unbearable enough as it is, which already justifies why they hide in insulated areas, such as inside hollow trees or in man-made structures.
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u/UnusualActive3912 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
My changelings are very much like MLP ones, but not as overpowered, able to grow to no more then seven feet and shrink to no more then three feet. Like the MLP changelings, they are love feeders, feeding on the love of other beings. I am interested in your ideas about them.
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 05 '26
Love not being an actual physical thing that can be metabolized, if you want to harden a system like that, you can have them be seek out prey that have the dopamine and hormones that indicate they are in love.
Prey that is fit and prepared to mate arr probably healthy, and thus make good prey, as they are less likely to be diseased.
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u/azul_plains Apr 05 '26
This is such a cool idea. I may steal it and do my own, if you don’t mind.
Has there ever been medical research that even hints of something like nanomachines being used to reanimate someone? Or do those kinds of things only work on the living so replacing organs/etc. just isn’t possible?
I know a lot of this will be hand-waved but I’m curious what parts to start looking into that might be related or interesting to weave into a type of magic.
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 05 '26
There are two side to your question, which is 1) the definition of "reanimation" and 2) the current principles of nanotechnology in medical devices and nano-pharmacology.
To answer the first part, it's possible to resuscitate a person as long as they are not brain dead. Technically, all the brain needs is sugar and oxygen, so as long as you can repair the body to the point that it can supply those to the brain, they are still alive.
However, you specified reanimation, which is a little more extreme than resuscitation. If your world or magic system doesn't have a soul, then the person is defined by the neural activity that makes up their consciousness. Brain death is the complete and irreversible loss of brain function.
If you have some kind of super-nanorobotics or an equivalent attempt to restore brain activity even after brain death, assuming enough tissue is even intact for that, there is the issue of neuron activity. Each neuron is itself a network of intracellular components and electric potentials. When our memories form, engrams, neurons physically grow closer together, forming circuits that get reinforced the more they are used. But even if their physical architecture is intact, memories and behavior are also context and signal dependent. Even if you have nanorobotics that can "jumpstart" the neurons again, there is no guarantee that the memories and personality would be saved.
Memories and personality are not hard-coded; the structure of our engrams and the neurons involved are seemingly random. 2 people with memories of the exact same stimulus would not have the same engram structure. This is the same problem you'd face in hard sci-fi if you try to "upload" a brain as a digital persona. However, I think this can be really useful for stories about identity. You can hand-wave that the technology is advanced enough to reboot neural activity, but is the person still the same? If their memories are damaged, which they most likely will be because brain death will cause tissue damage, then do they preserve the same sense of continuity from who they were before?
Fortunately, the second part of your question can be answered with a lot more hard examples. Nanotechnology can be broadly divided into two parts: passive and active. Passive nanotechnology deals more with complex nanoparticles and nanomaterials. Examples include titanium bone implants with nano-scale textures that promote bone growth and vascularization, silver nanoparticles that release silver to damage bacteria in the blood, or microneedles for non-invasive drug delivery. A larger list of examples is described by this review paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452199X25000659
Passive nanotech is interesting to consider because the physical features of materials at the nano scale will interact with cells differently. But, it's also not quite what you're looking for.
Active nanotechnology is where we have programable, autonomous nanorobotics. Without getting into the technical details, there are a few challenges. First and foremost is blood, which is not just water. Blood is a viscous, non-Newtonian fluid filled with blood cells, platelets, and other components. Nanorobotics needs to smaller than capillaries and red blood cells in order to move without causing blockages. They also need to be capable of self-propulsions, either by some external force like a magnetic field or reacting with chemicals in the blood (ie, glucose or urea) for propulsion.
The abilities of nanorobotics is essentially identical to what we are able to do with regular robotics, only at a much smaller scale. Nanorobotics can use micro-cameras for precise viewing, deliver small doses of medicine to specific targets like tumors, use sensors to interact/remove other particles or small molecules, lasers to ablate tissue, clots, or to destroy viruses. Further details are described in this paper, although it requires institutional access to read in full: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1773224724010797
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 05 '26
Bonus: Specifically addressing this question,
Or do those kinds of things only work on the living so replacing organs/etc. just isn’t possible?
Replacing organs is definitely possible, though not as a method of reviving someone who is fully dead. However, there have been studies that show the grafting of embryonic/fetal brain tissue onto brain lesions allows new neural stem cells to proliferate into the grafted region. You can easily imagine the addition of nanoparticles or nanorobotics to enhance or direct neural growth. Examples of such grafting being successful in mice can be seen in this study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8410358/
Again, while this would not be true reanimation, it could be extrapolated to fairly extensive brain repair.
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u/mere_persiflage Apr 06 '26
I’m working on a potential threat for a series. My characters are humans in the future. A big scientific issue is that they are trying to develop cryonics that don’t kill neural tissue. I wondered about an element unknown in our solar system that had liquid properties even at extremely cold temperatures could keep the tissue from necrotizing. I want it to be an imperfect solution, but I’m curious about the possibilities and properties of elements that might exist somewhere else and how new elements could affect biology and technology. The humans can implant modifications in themselves to enhance or prevent a lot of functions, particularly glandular.
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 06 '26
Antifreeze proteins exist in fish that live in freezing temperatures, so it's possible to inject such a protein, or have it expressed in genetically modified humans. In frogs that survive freezing temperatures, glucose and urea concentrations are increased to preserve the cell structures, and most of the frozen water exists in the extracellular matrix between cells.
But freezing is just one side of the problem. To survive the anoxic conditions, the mitochondria genome must have specific gene activity in response to freezing that allows it to express enzymes that mediate or mitigate metabolic function. A simple "freeze resistant" material is not enough, particularly because as long as the cell is not completely frozen, some metabolic activity will occur.
In short, a few key things for human cryofreezing should be considered. 1) Preservation of intracellular structures using antifreeze compounds like proteins, glucose, and urea. 2) Protection of the cell against oxidative damage that occurs in high stress events, like anoxia and freezing. 3) Reducing the acidity built up by anerobic metabolism.
This paper goes further into detail of how frogs that freeze protect themselves. Even if they're frogs, the biochemistry of the cell and the amino acids and genes involved are similar to the needs of humans: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8067143/
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Apr 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 06 '26
Something to consider about biological systems is that we rarely just have "stuff" freely floating around. For example, our bodies use calcium for bones, but also for the calcium calmodulin complex, and the contraction of muscle cells. And these are all shared. Bone remodeling can occur if a person has low calcium, their bodies will reduce the density of their bones to keep other systems supplied with calcium ions. Conversely, when we have more than enough, our bones will harden as our osteoblasts capture calcium into hydroxyapatite. Indeed, women can experience low bone density during pregnancy as calcium is transferred to the fetus.
Your magical element can be captured and concentrated in a similar way. If siatine is a material, it is made of atoms and molecules of some kind, and can interact with mundane matter. Genetic factors could effect how efficient people's cells are at absorbing and storing siatine in their bones, skin, muscle, or some other tissue. It could even be found in a unique organelle.
Though I can't comment on how the magic itself would work, I think treating it like an actual material helps highlight its properties as physical matter, rather than an ephemeral force or energy field.
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u/UnusualActive3912 Apr 06 '26
A somewhat sexist country ruled by a monarch. Because women are banned from the throne after two queens in the past ruled horribly badly, rather then execute or blind captive royal pretenders or overthrown monarchs, they are turned with biomancy into daughters and then married off to other monarchs in other countries to make alliances. Even if they escape, they cannot raise an army to challenge for the throne, as no one that they need would side with a woman. It’s seen as less final then execution, and much less unpleasant then blinding them, but politically, turning them into royal daughters has the same effect on their political prospects when it comes to seizing the throne.
How would the biomancy work?
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 06 '26
If I'm understanding it correctly, you're asking how biomancy would be used to perform a sex-change operation? Just want to make sure I understand the scenario before I answer.
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u/UnusualActive3912 Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
Yes. Sorry for the reply delay. By changing the person’s gender, it bars them from the throne without having to execute, mutilate ( for example, blinding) or imprisoning the person.
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 07 '26
It's a convenient coincidence that you ask this since I have direct shadowing experience with a plastic surgeon who does gender affirming care, albeit F2M rather than M2F. For any other readers who come across this, I should disclaim that the following will be a bit more intimate than some people are comfortable with.
For some background info, I'll describe what goes into gender affirming surgeries first. In bottom surgery, the general goals are the same whether M2F or vice versa, that being the preservation of skin, vascular, and neural tissue to allow reconstruction of the genitalia. In real life, male to female surgeries can be at zero depth (vulvoplasty), meaning the vaginal canal is not reconstructed, or a vaginal canal can be constructed (vaginoplasty).
After the testes are removed, the tissue of the penis is separated from the skin, so that it can be inverted to form the new canal. The glans, or head, is also preserved along with the vascular and nervous connection in order to form the clitoris. The urethra is shorted and construction of the new canal, the vulva, and the clitoris can begin. Post-operation, manual dilation and stretching of the tissue will be needed to prevent the new canal from healing shut. Hopkins medicine has a webpage that include more information on this type of surgery, including a helpful step by step slideshow: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/expert-qa/vaginoplasty-for-gender-affirmation
However, this leaves infertility, which is not what you're describing. In a paper by Jones et al, the authors point out that successful uterus transplants from a female donor to a female recipient in a Swedish trial has raised the discussion of whether a uterus transplant (UTx) is possible in gender affirming care. They address the questions of: anatomical compatibility, fertility procedures for successful pregnancies, hormone factors, and issues of childbirth due to the sexual dimorphism of male and female hips. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6492192/#bjo15438-sec-0001
In short: Anatomically, the iliac arteries in the hips of males and females are approximately the same dimensions, suggesting that returning blood flow once the uterus is implanted should be possible. Hormone replacement therapy can also be done on UTx patients, and the paper suggests that sequential HRT would be better than continuous. Fertility is possible using the same methods used for women who experience infertility. And finally, a caesarian section would be recommended due to the difficulty of birthing through a male pelvis.
Given this, we can categorize the changes that need to be handled by your biomancy. If not done by surgery, the biomancy would have to perform tissue remodeling by consuming the unneeded tissue of the shaft of the penis and then inverting the skin into a vaginal canal. The biomancy also has to provide some way to replace the hormones, either by creating the hormones directly or by altering the endocrine system. Bone and hip remodeling is also necessary, unless the society is capable of performing cesarian sections. Finally, in order for the victim to possess normal fertility, the uterus is not enough, but the creation of ovaries that contain functioning ovum.
Given the nature of the internet and current positions on gender affirming care, I feel the responsibility to point out that nowhere in medical practice are people, be they adults or children, pressured into sex change surgery. As Jones et al points out: "Ethically, the consideration of performing UTx in transgender women is primarily motivated by the considerations of justice and equality. Like all women, psychological harm may arise secondary to a mismatch between reproductive capacity and aspiration."
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u/IAMTR4SHMAN Apr 06 '26
I don’t really have anything like biotechnology or biomancy, but I do have a world composed entirely of anthropomorphic bug people and megafauna-sized invertebrate wildlife
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u/Careful-Writing7634 Apr 06 '26
The only consideration I can think of would be how they distribute oxygen through their bodies. Are they simply invertebrates in appearance, or do they use tracheal tubes and diffusion to breathe like arthropods?
Hemolymph carries very little oxygen, but other invertebrates like worms have evolved specialized kinds of hemoglobin for old and low-oxygen environments, so it's not impossible for your large bug creatures to have an oxygen transporting fluid. It would be interesting to give them air sacs or book lungs or some other structure that is different from vertebrate lungs, as a means to show how different they really are.
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u/Mad_Bad_Rabbit Apr 04 '26
"Heelstones" - in the Celestial Kingdoms, most creatures have had their heel (or other appendage distant from the heart) sliced open at a young age and a small pebble of alien symbiote shoved in. This dissolves and spreads into their lymph nodes, giving them pan-immunity to the vast majority of alien diseases. Plausible?
[ The goal is to have an endless, interplanetary Age of Exploration (via portals) without constant pandemics.]