This was also why most parents generally did not build up the expectations of their children so much.
The crushing disappointment that most children felt after they tested their genetic aptitudes after their tenth birthday was too great for them to endure!
Should Ves and Gloriana pretend that Andraste wasn't set up to become a mech pilot over the next decade?
"Perhaps this is better, but…"
As someone who interacted with many mech pilots and once dreamt of becoming one himself, he felt it was a huge pity of Andraste ultimately missed the opportunity of her lifetime.
"Do I truly have no power to affect my daughter's chances?"
Ves became so obsessed by this matter that he spent the next few days in a research frenzy.
He first read a lot of academic literature on this subject matter. Even if most of the medical and neurological theories and jargon went right over his head, he managed to understand the broad conclusions of the studies.
"There is no systematic method to instill genetic aptitude onto people."
In fact, the most predominant theory in the branch of neurological sciences was that almost every human was born with at least some viable form of genetic aptitude.
The problem was that as these children grew up, they would get subjected to many different environmental variables. Their nutrition, their exposure to different temperatures, their sleeping patterns, their head injuries and so on all imposed a positive or negative effect on a child's genetic aptitude.
Due to how quickly young children tended to grow, their genetic aptitudes swung so wildly that there was no point in measuring them at this stage.
It was only before the onset of puberty that their brain development no longer swung so wildly in this particular aspect.
If a kid possessed D-grade aptitude at the age of 10, then the chances were overwhelmingly great that this would be the aptitude that they would remain stuck with for the rest of their lives!
One group of neurologists believed that achieving the best genetic aptitude was a matter of raising a child as well as possible. If the positive influences outweigh the negative ones, then a kid had a high likelihood of developing decent genetic aptitude!
However, their theories were not convincing enough to other scientists. There were plenty of cases of children who grew up in poor and awful environments that nonetheless turned into highly talented potentates.
The contradicting theories and empirical data provoked a huge fight within the academic community that still raged on to this day!
Ves eventually sighed and shut down his terminal. "This is useless."
If the neurologists developed a secret formula that vastly increased the chances of developing the right genetic aptitude, then he was pretty sure that none of them were a part of the mainstream scientific community.
The acrimonious fight between the different schools of thought made it clear that most of these self-professed experts possessed no actual clue about this subject matter!
"If conventional science can't provide any answers, then what about unconventional science?"
Ves decided to pay a visit to the Larkinson Biotech Institute and the T Institute in order to find out whether any of the scientists under his employ possessed any viable ideas.
Unfortunately, there were few people within the two research institutions that possessed any expertise in genetic aptitude, and none of them possessed the guts or ambition to increase a child's chances of becoming a qualified potentate.
"What did you expect, Ves?" Director Ranya Wodin-Larkinson placed her hands on her hips. "There is no way that we can embark on such a difficult research project! It is easier for our clan to develop a minidrive than to invent a method that can guarantee that our offspring will develop good genetic aptitudes! What you have been puzzling over has driven so many neurologists and other biotech researchers crazy that it has pretty much become a taboo to dive into this rabbit hole!"
It was far too difficult to produce any results in this field. If Ves invested millions of MTA credits into building a specialized research institute that solely dedicated its efforts to studying genetic aptitude, the likely outcome was that he would have wasted all of that money while gaining absolutely nothing in return!
Ves didn't even have any hope that spiritual engineering might be able to handwave the problem away because there was no foundation for this kind of transformation.
"Stop dreaming, sir." Pesca Aduc, the recently appointed director of the T Institute, replied to Ves. "Let me put it in terms that you can understand. Biology is equivalent to the hardware of a mech while spirituality is the software of a mech. Genetic aptitude is solely determined by the quality, configuration and condition of the hardware. While there are ways for software to affect hardware, the possibilities are relatively limited and I cannot see how this interaction can solve such a difficult problem."
"Damn. It was worth a try."