Russia To Clone An Army Of 3000-Year-Old Scythian Warriors

Summary

May 11, 2021: In an online speech to the Russian Geographical Society, Sergei Shoigu, the current Minister of Defense of Russia, implied their government was considering using recently discovered, potentially viable, ancient DNA to make human clones. The DNA in question is from a kurgan (burial mound) in Siberia where permafrost has kept the genetic material of the dead remarkably well preserved. The bodies in question are of Scythian nomad warriors buried between the 9th Century BC and 2nd Century BC.

(The article goes on to discuss the difficulty in cloning humans, past success cloning sheep and a previously-extinct breed of ferret, and the legal and ethical complexities around the science of cloning and genetic modification.)

Source

Bibliography

1. Original Article via Popular Mechanics

2. Original Article via Yahoo

Game and Story Use

• May be a hint of a Russian supersoldier plan, possibly combining the best bits of the genetic code of various historical badasses.
  • If these supersoldiers were to go all Jurassic Park they could escape into the wilds of Siberia and become nomadic outlaw bandits, or wage a guerilla war against the government that made them.
• Probably not relevant in this case, but in more exciting settings, you might find that what you thought was a human burial … wasn't. Serpent-men are favourites for this…
• Or it could be fun if those burial mounds were haunted or cursed. Woken from the sleep of the dead, the nomadic zombie horsemen might ride the length of the territory of Scythia from Siberia to Iran.
• Combining the super-soldier and zombie ideas could work in Shadowrun (or similar fantasy shifted twenty minutes into the future).
• Speaking of zombies … let's lay the question out: does a clone have a soul? If not, what does that mean if you have them running about everywhere? What about the offspring of a clone and a wild-type human?
• This could get political - there's a certain amount of friction in central Asia about the various historical migrations and invasions … and how they can be used to generate some kind of historical mandate. This could be another Aryan myth on the brew