Mass Effect 2 quickly finds a way to separate Shepard from his original Normandy crew and give them a new group of allies, including Miranda. Eventually, Shepard reunites with some of her previous allies, and they learn more about the origins and lives of each companion who joins them on their missions through individual loyalty missions. While they each have parts of their past that make them unhappy, some details in Miranda's storyline have always made me a little curious about her views and the state of the beauty industry in the world. Mass Effect universe.
Mass Effect 2 opens with a dramatic sequence involving the Normandy being critically hit, requiring the evacuation of the crew. As commander, Shepard roams the ship and makes sure everyone else is able to escape before even considering his own safety. Because of this decision, Shepard is unable to evacuate, and they plummet to the surface of the nearest planet, labeled as killed in action. However, this sequence is the only reason Shepard ends up willing to work with Miranda (and potentially date her throughout Mass Effect 2) and his employer, Cerberus.
Part of Miranda's quest for loyalty feels like a plot hole
Gene editing should be advanced in Mass Effect
Miranda, like the rest of her crew, has loyalty missions that allow you to change her outfit and subsequently affect the likelihood of her surviving during the Collector Base suicide mission during Mass Effect 2the end. However, I find her storyline a little strange compared to other characters, and a large part of that is because I don't understand why she's so upset about something that other people would pay large sums of money to get. As you discover during the game, Miranda's father made her genetically perfectand she is not happy about it.
I never thought this made much sense, considering it would be an overall positive outcome if you were genetically perfect and didn't have to worry about multiple hereditary conditions or diseases. At most, I can understand her being upset that she didn't have a choice in the matter.especially if she suffered side effects from the process or it went wrong, but the game doesn't provide much information about how this process works, so it's difficult to guess its exact nature, other than it happening before birth and using only her father's DNA.
When it comes to not liking her father, I think she might feel wronged because he didn't have her permission to change her, and the way he treated her was abusive and horrible, so It's understandable that she doesn't like him. It is also possible that she is upset with his reasons for wanting to have genetically perfect daughters, as he planned to form a superior family line. Unfortunately for him, Miranda ended up being infertile, and this may be a result of the process that made her genetically perfect. But the idea of being genetically perfect would realistically be popular.
Depending on technology
A lesser-known piece of Mass Effect the tradition is that the Council has laws prohibiting genetic engineeringand the process used to create Miranda and her twin sister would certainly fall under that prohibition, I assume. Technically, this law should ban Medigel, but Medigel is incredibly useful for health purposes, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were other health reasons why items and technologies that would normally be banned are exempt from these laws. I think the engineering done in Miranda was either done illegally, or was allowed under the pretext that it was for health purposes.
Alternatively, we know that Miranda's father is incredibly wealthy. It's possible that the ultra-rich have more leniency in what they do, or that her father bought the Council and related officials to ignore his project. With these possibilities, and the likelihood that there are other people with money they could spend on these projects, it seems strange that there weren't more people who were extensively genetically modified among the wealthier populations. It would also be a big deal if it were legalized for cosmetic purposes, considering the size of cosmetic industries.
Overall, it seems strange that Miranda's situation isn't more common in the world of Mass Effecteven with the laws of the Council. If Medigel is exempt from the laws, the The Council could make similar exceptions for genetic engineering that affects health or appearanceassuming their main concern would be the wrong people trying to use genetics to create living weapons. When you look at all of the cosmetic procedures and options available in our society today, it wouldn't be a stretch to believe that genetic alterations would be the next step and would be popular among those who can afford it.
How much would Miranda's changes cost?
The price of perfection
The only information we receive about how much money Miranda's father spent on raising her and her sister is that it was an immense amount. So to add an extra layer of difficulty in trying to compare the cost to real life, we don't have quite the same level of capability when it comes to adapting someone's genes before birth in order to make them genetically perfect. Between these two factors, there is no reliable way to estimate the total cost, but we can assume that it would at least tens of millions of dollars.
Currently, gene and cell therapy is quite restricted by cost alone, which puts us in the millions for Miranda's situation as the lowest possible cost. According to Genetic engineering and biotechnology news, a single dose of gene therapy costs a million dollars on the low end. With that in mind, the cost associated with adapting one's genes to be perfect has to be astronomical, even in MYlimiting it to the richest people, like Miranda's father.
Miranda is justified in being upset with her father for raising her for his own use and for the abuse she suffered from him, but it's strange to me that there aren't more people who are becoming genetically perfect, regardless of its legality. I see a strong argument being made that genetic engineering should be permitted to the extent that it only addresses health problems or is used in cosmetic capacities. It's a small detail, but it seems like a plot hole that genetic alterations aren't at least a background problem in the world of Mass Effect.