Meliorare Society

The Meliorare Society is a secret society based in Alan Dean Foster's fictional Humanx Commonwealth universe.
The society was dedicated to the illegal science of eugenics, specifically with the intention of creating humans who were able to use paranormal psychic talents such as telepathy through the use of gengineering. Hunted down by the Commonwealth's peaceforcers, the Society was eventually destroyed but not before creating several psychically talented individuals, most notably Philip Lynx and his sister Mahnahmi Lynx.
Although considerable progress in the field of genetic manipulation had been made since the first independent experiments on pre-Amalgamation Terra and Hivehorn, humanx scientist have carefully avoided the manipulation of the genes of sapient beings. Church strictures expressly forbid "tampering with the genetic destiny" of an individual, except where a detectable defective gene can be replaced with non-infected tissue in vitro. There are those however, who believe that genetic manipulation is the key to destiny. "If we fail to explore and master our own potential," their doctrines cry, "we do not deserve to master and explore the universe." One proponent of genetic manipulation was Henry Fowler, a Terran entrepreneur (458-508 A.A.) Upon his death, Fowler endowed the Meliorare Society a research institute dedicated to the genetics of human psionic Talents. However, the Meliorare Society rapidly went beyond the "basic research" charter set down by Fowler. Beginning in 514 A.A, secret experiments were performed on human embryos. A selective breeding program was designed and instituted to improve the human material for genetic manipulation. The results of these experiments were misshapen, tormented humanoids, casually destroyed as "experimental error." However, early failures did not daunt the Meliorares; over the next two decades, over five thousand children, many hideously deformed were born in Meliorare experiments. In 535 A.A. Church investigators uncovered records describing the Meliorare experiments, and closed an important Meliorare experimental facility. Society leaders were arrested, charged with multiple counts of child murder, and selectively mindwiped. The surviving experimental subjects became wards of the Commonwealth, and were treated where possible-and their psychic talents eliminated where present.
Society Appearances
* For Love of Mother-Not (1983)
* The Tar-Aiym Krang (1972)
* Orphan Star (1977)
* The End of the Matter (1977)
* Flinx in Flux (1988)
* Mid-Flinx (1995)
* Reunion (2001)
* Flinx's Folly (2003)
* Sliding Scales (2004)
* Running from the Deity (2005)
* Trouble Magnet (2006)
* Patrimony (2007)

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