@Khalsi The topics, and especially how the two worlds relate, are heavily influenced by themes in academic anthropology. It's not a coincidence that Ryan is taking anthropology classes. Also, much of Vatruvia's dialogue is paraphrased closely from the work of current synthetic biologists Craig Venter and George Church. Craig Venter actually transfected a cell with a synthetic genome several years ago, and I used much of the debate around his creation to frame Kristen's point of view.