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earth-ambassador-jim · 4 years

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A Bad Reaction: Chapter 4

Story Summary:

“Changelings call it “Gravesand”. Derived from the pulverized bones of fallen Gumm-Gumms, gravesand aids us changelings in shedding our human form and embracing our more trollish nature…“

Strickler is a little off in his calculations and the gravesand draws out an unexpected response from Jim. Hopefully he can figure out what is wrong and how to fix it before it is too late.

Fanfiction - AO3

~~~~

“What happened?” Jim asked weakly, even as he hugged his Mom back. He felt muddled and strange and his head was pounding. The last thing he remembered, he had been in the sewers with Strickler and Nomura. “I thought I was…”

It was at that moment that Jim looked up and saw his surroundings. His eyes widened. Strickler and Nomura were still present but in troll form. They weren’t in the sewers anymore. Judging by the sleek white walls they were in the Janus Order base.

“Why are we here? What are you doing here?”

He could feel his heartrate picking up. His mom shouldn’t be here. She wasn’t supposed to know about this part of his life.

“Jim…” She said softly, grip tightening on his shoulders.

Jim’s hands twitched and the sensation echoed twofold. Jim pulled back from her in surprise and bumped into the wall.

Or rather something bumped into the wall and he felt it. Now that he was paying attention there were strange sensations coming from behind him.

Something twitched it felt like his arm but it was coming from his back. He let out a yelp and spun around, then twisted his neck and caught sight of leathery blue membranes bordered by armor coming out of his back.

“Jim.”

He reached over his shoulder and grabbed one then let go of it just as quickly the moment he felt it both in his hand and the alien appendage. He attempted to take a step back, but his foot didn’t set down right and he fell over.

“What… What’s wrong with me?!” Jim demanded.

His heart was pounding now and he could feel the Amulet’s magic pulsing alongside it as the enchanted relic responded to his panic.

Something was incredibly wrong with his body. Or he wasn’t in his body. (His breath was coming too short and fast.) That was something that could happen, right? He thought hysterically as he stared at the clawed feet at the end of his legs.

He was vaguely aware of his Mom settling beside him. She was talking to him but she sounded far away.

He remembered the gravesand, now.

What had Strickler said?

Hadn’t he said something about changes? Something about them being permanent?

Was… was he some kind of troll human monster now?

He wrapped his arms around himself and felt the strange new limbs do so as well.

~~~~

Nomora and Strickler were half turned away, watching the door, as Barbara talked her son through his panic attack; trying to be respectful to the Trollhunter in his moment of weakness. It was generally what changelings did for each other in such an event. The changeling code had never allowed for much closeness, so deliberate ignorance was sometimes their greatest kindness.

Strickler highly doubted his own proximity would make Young Atlas feel any safer at this point. All he could really do was wait and trust that Barbara knew what to do.

Now that the immediate physical danger was past Strickler found his mind mauling over the implications and possibilities of this development. It was partially out of habit and partially to distract himself so he didn’t start eavesdropping.

The Trollhunter was half-changeling. That was an even bigger game changer than him being human.

Gunmar may have destroyed the Arcadia Janus Order, but worldwide there were still more changelings. They would be enraged and bitter over their esteemed leader’s betrayal.

Jim’s new status would offer them an in that they had never had before with the larger trollish community.

Strickler paused his thoughts stumbling over that a little. He grimaced.

That was, of course, assuming that the trolls were still willing to accept Jim after discovering his heritage. A human had been hard enough for them to deal with from what he heard and a changeling would have been intolerable…

But how would they deal with a half-breed?

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. There were too many variables right now. They needed to get Jim to adjust to himself before they could go any farther.

The first test was to see if Jim’s trainer… Blinky… could get over his prejudice to accept his student’s change. If he couldn’t Strickler highly doubted they could expect any more from the rest of trollkind.

“Strickler.”

Strickler blinked and came back to attention. Jim was no longer on the floor but rather standing rather awkwardly leaning half on his mother.

“Yes, Young Atlas?”

“What happened?” Jim rasped. There was a slight lisp to his voice. “I thought you said that gravesand was safe for humans. Why did it…”

He gestured stiffly at himself. There was a hint of accusation in his tone. Strickler bit back his instinctual response, reminding himself that Jim had the right to be upset.

“I’ll explain, but I think you’d best sit down first.”

Barbara helped him over to one of the chairs and Jim awkwardly flopped down on it. He flexed the clawed toes on his feet and flinched, before turning his attention back to Strickler.

“Do you remember what I said about the effects of gravesand?”

The boy frowned, an expression made fiercer looking by the short tusks he now sported.

“You said it was supposed to bring out my feral instincts. You also said something about changes…”

Strickler nodded. He wasn’t surprised Jim would focus on that statement.

“And do you remember what I said its effects on changelings are?”

“Not really,” He admitted. He cocked his head. “But what does that have to do with me?”

Strickler sighed.

“Far more than you think.”

~~~~

“So Dad was a changeling.” Jim seemed to be rather stuck on that particular fact.

“Yes, I have his file on the computer if you would like to look at it.” Fortunately it seemed that no one had got around to banning Strickler out of the computer system.

‘No, I…” Jim trailed off and tried to run his hand through his hair but ended up catching it on his horns.

There was a moment of silence before Jim looked up through his bangs.

“Did you know him?”

“Not personally,” Strickler said. He had met most changelings in the Order in some form or another but there was a far smaller circle that he truly knew.

“Okay.”

Jim was quiet again.

“You looked at his file though. Do… What…” Jim frowned. “What did his troll form look like?”

Strickler sighed and turned back to the computer.

“Here, let me just pull it up for you.”

“You don’t have to…”

“It will be a lot easier than playing telephone, Young Atlas. Your mom has already looked through it.”

Jim closed his mouth at that.

“Here you are. Take all the time you need.”

Jim awkwardly slid the chair across the floor. It seemed he was not quite ready to try walking again.

Strickler scrolled through his emails as Jim studied the file.

“I don’t look much like him,” He said finally. “Not like this anyway.”

“Of course you don’t,” Strickler said, mater-of-factly.

“Why not?” Jim asked with a frown.

“That is because you were conceived while he was in human form. Changelings shift from fully troll to fully human. Therefore you did not receive any of his troll “DNA”.” Strickler paused. “I say use that term rather loosely in this case as trolls do not have DNA in the way that humans do.”

“Then what…”

“Your troll traits are from Nomura and me.”

Jim’s head jerked up at that, eyes widening.

“How?”

“I believe I explained the spell to you. Because Nomura and I contributed are blood and stone respectively, the magic borrowed from our traits to create your form.”

“Oh.”

Jim looked down at himself with wide eyes, examining his hands and legs and twisting to look at his wings with new understanding appearing in his eyes.

“But what about the tail?” Jim asked, flexing it and immediately stiffening at the feedback.

“That would be from me. I used to have one,” Strickler said.

Nomura looked at him in surprise.

“It didn’t match my physiology after I was made a changeling so it was… removed.” It was just as well, he supposed. With how big it was it would have been a hindrance but…

But it had not been a pleasant experience. Even after all this time he occasionally still had phantom pains.

“You shouldn’t have any problems with it though,” Strickler continued, banishing past memories. “You seem to have come out fairly well balanced.”

He wondered if the amulet had played into that.

Jim’s tail curled up into his lap and he examined it hesitantly brows furrowed.

“So I guess I’m related to you guys now?”

Strickler opened his mouth and paused. He wasn’t wrong.

Nomura started cackling.

“I guess you are, Little Gynt,” She said a broad toothy grin on her face. “Didn’t expect you to go where Peer Gynt wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll have to take you to watch the play sometime. It will make more sense that way. It’s been a few years since I last saw it anyway.”

“Ah.”

Jim smiled slightly at that and then frowned.

“I think I’d like to go home now,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “How…” He paused a rather fearful expression crossing his face. “Can I shift back to human?”

“You should be able to,” Strickler said quickly. “It was your latent shifting magic that caused all this in the first place.”

“Huh. So how do I shift?”

“I’m not sure,” Strickler admitted. “It comes naturally to changelings once we’ve been bonded to our familiars but you’re a unique case.”

“Oh.” Jim frowned. “Would a gaggletack work?”

“A gaggletack?” Barbara echoed the unfamiliar word.

“Gaggletacks are what trolls call iron horseshoes. They can force a changeling to change form.”

“Horseshoes huh?”

Barbara had a bit of a strange expression; her nose wrinkling as her brows drew together.

Strickler’s attention was drawn away as Jim cleared his throat.

“So would one work?” He asked. “I mean ran around with one for a whole day and it didn’t do anything before.”

“It’s possible that it would now,” Strickler said, vaguely realizing he was starting to stray into his ‘teaching voice’. “But I would be rather hesitant to rely on that because gaggletacks burn changelings.”

“They what?!” Barbara exclaimed at the exact same time Jim’s head jerked up to stare at him in surprise.

“I suppose shouldn’t be surprised that your trainers never brought that up,” Strickler said scornfully.

“Maybe they didn’t know?” Jim offered.

“No. They most definitely did. It’s common knowledge.”

He almost went further but stopped himself. There were things the boy was not ready to hear about just yet, not today anyway. He’d been through enough.

“How about we get you home,” He said instead. “It will do you good to adjust to your new form before we push you any further physically. I can get you excused from school tomorrow so you will have more time. How does that sound?”

“…okay.”

The young Trollhunter rose awkwardly to his feet. The daylight armor clinked as he shifted his weight.

Strickler frowned.

“You might want to take that off,” He said.

Jim glanced down at himself and sighed. He tugged at the amulet. It didn’t budge.

“I’m too tense. The armor is responding to that.” His tone suggested something like this had happened before.

Strickler’s brows furrowed a little further. A memory surfaced of seeing Jim in the armor for the first time in the school. Was that why? It seemed an inconvenient design.

“I see.”

The four of them traveled in relative silence through the remains of the Janus Order. The elevator ride proved to be twice as awkward going up as it had been coming down. Nomura was glaring at the speaker as if she was contemplating putting a sword through it. Strickler wasn’t going to stop her if she tried. In fact he might have even been willing to lend her a knife.

At the cars they parted ways. Barbara and Jim returning to their house and Strickler and Nomura going to their respective apartments.

~~~~

“So… How are you doing?” Barbara asked carefully once they had gotten back into the house.

She was… Well she had no idea how to feel at this point -Aside from drained- Far too much had happened. Way too much for one day.

But she wasn’t the one who now had wings and horns and a tail.

Jim grimaced, leaning rather heavily on the wall as he glanced about the house.

“I’m… fine,” He said after a moment.

Barbara gave him a disbelieving look.

“Jim.”

His shoulders tensed slightly, his ears actually tilted down a little and the tip of his tail (and wasn’t that something that was going to take some getting used too.) twitched like an agitated cat’s.

“I don’t know. Okay?” He said, rather sharply. There was the hint of a growl in his voice, causing her to step back. He flinched again then his wings pulled close to his back. “I don’t know,” He repeated again a little more quietly, hanging his head.

Barbara hesitated and then carefully came up beside him. He glanced up at her and his lower lip trembled slightly. His face was strange, he had fangs and horns now, but the expression was familiar. She’d seen it before, after a hard day at school or when Jim had taken on a little too much for his young shoulders.

Barbara wrapped her arms around him, carefully avoiding the wings, and pulled him close. He didn’t resist, though he staggered slightly before readjusting his posture. He pressed his face into her neck and his shoulders jerked. The armor disappeared with a soft flash of blue. Barbara tightened her grip. She murmured soft meaningless things into his ears as he cried.

There would be time for long overdue discussions later.

~~~~

Author Notes:

Okay. I was supposed to end it at this point, but I think I'm going to do one more chapter to deal with the "long overdue conversations". Also I want to do a little more with Jim dealing with the changes that have been forced on him.

Also I continue to hold to the opinion that having armor that requires you to calm down to remove it is a very unhelpful design if you have panic attacks.

Hope you enjoy!

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kylecrane · 7 years

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Dying Light: So many questions!

-and a few answers.

Hi Taff!

I’ve been interested in your blog for a while and I’d like to pose some questions, because thinking and theorising is fun, and I’ve not got anyone to do either of those things with.

Hi! Oh dear, look at all 'dem questions! Thank you! @target-on-my-redshirt.

First of, thanks for the interest to begin with. I love chatting about Dying Light, especially things away from game mechanics, since I'm a fan of the concept and characters first, the gameplay second. Even if the gameplay is an absolute blast and a very high bar to reach for other games. But I digress.

I'll be answering them on here, since this is my main Dying Light blog, and I hope you don't mind me answering them in public. Let's see if we get a discussion going, hm?

Do you think that beyond the obvious potential for DLC, techland will release any concept art, any ideas that were dropped in the cutting floor or initial ideas for the story?

There's already some concept art out, and you can find it in my /concept art tag on here. Though I admit, it doesn't show anything much of the cut content, though we do see different types of costumes that aren't found in the finished product. What we do know about though is that originally we were meant to be following four characters (much like Dead Island), from which I believe Jade and Zere were meant to be playable characters? Maybe even Spike or Brecken, it's been a while since I've read up on that.

Though they eventually settled on focusing on Crane.

I think we can still see some remnants of cut story content though, as well as gameplay mechanics that ended up dropped. The most glaring one being the extra vial of Antizin that Crane pockets as he is ordered to destroy the stash, right along with the hint on a side quest to collect spent vials to stop people from filling them with potentially poisonous shit and passing it off for the good stuff. And then there's a bugged overlay message you get when a Boomer Bomber explodes under you as you crawl through a duct in the Oh Brother Where Art Thou quest. You get a message along the lines of "You've been infected, etc..." which leads me to believe that originally you were expected to keep yourself dosed with Antizin. Much like the malaria infection in Farcry (2?) and the necessity for Zombrex in Dead Rising 2. Another leftover from the original is a reference from a survivor to recognizing Crane from the *posters*, which'd indicate maybe at least one of the original playable characters was famous for something or the other. Unless, of course, there was a bounty system in which Rais put up badly drawn Crane posters.

I wonder if they always planned on having a classic generic tyrannical villain, or if sights were initially set higher.

Are we ever going to hear about the other characters backstory? I loved the addition of the random encounter explaining Spike, and we've heard a bit about Jade - what about the others? Will we see the addition of any new characters? Will we know anything new about the witch woman who brews you the potions?

I'd love a little more background reveal, to be fair, but I don't see it happening. Not in the original Dying Light anyway, even with their planned content drops that will include story expansions. Mostly because that content is free, and anything that'd involve dialogue would require them to either ditch Crane as the main character (plausible, but unlikely), or look for a less prolific voice actor to step in.

Will there ever be the inclusion of tie-ins to the new novel that recently released? Will they consider releasing a small playable story prequel of their own?

The novel, Nightmare Row, was not recently released. It was only recently translated though, if I remember right. Either way, Nightmare Row read more like what we originally saw the game being advertised as, with quite literally the shift of night and day making all the infected more dangerous, rather than focusing on a new mutation and the occasional hyped Biter/Viral. Which I'm fond of, since it gives the virus some time to mutate and start producing the range of variations we see in the game.

Do I think we get a tie-in mission? No. Much as I'd love to play a game that takes place at the cusps of an outbreak like this, I don't think that'll be part of the Content Drops. Again, I think of the cost of assets to get this done.

And is there any new concept ideas for DLC in terms of playable story beyond extra skin packs? Do you think there’s any whackier ideas for weapons or side missions? Will there be any additions that will be definitively linked to the story? The following was an absolutely incredible addition, but I feel that many players were let down by the ending - especially as it directly contradicts Jades wishes (she wanted to keep fighting, and wanted to die for her friends, but Crane accepts a nuclear detonation in the end? Alternatively, we learn that everyone will die in vain anyway or turn into nasty Zambies?

Zera has been working on a cure with Camden for the entire story - does this bear fruit? What is the global backlash against the GRE?

As of writing this, the new content drop #1 was announced (though they deleted the Tweet- sneaky!), so here's your answer on the special weapons. And the story? Ahm, well, I have my very own set of bones to pick with it, in particular the implications of leaving the cure with a single scientist in a run down lab without supplies, and how we are expected to believe that the world turned its back to Harran entirely. That and, yes, Crane's sudden inability to think as he detonates a nuclear warhead that would do absolutely jackshit to clear the infection, but likely only make it worse. I am however quite interested in anyone turning into a sentient volatile once they've inhaled the experimental gas, since that is a scary thought and would make for an interesting extra level of challenges in Dying Light 2. If Techland chooses to go down that route, of course. Then again, it also does a good job explaining the Night Hunter, so there is that.

If there is extra content or a sequel, where techland take it? What new challenges will be bought to Harran?

I'd think that Dying Light 2 will not be taking place in Harran, but take us somewhere else for a scenery change. And considering I am leaning towards Volakyle being the canon ending, we're likely going to see a much larger spread of the virus than in the original.

When we left off, Crane had the GRE's 'secret document' - will they try and retrieve it?

He did not any more. In fact, Rais transmitted the document to the public, which caused the GRE to get into quite a bit of trouble.

Did any of Rise's (yes I butchered the spelling of his name) men survive? We killed his right hand man but what about men who may have defected? Will they be a threat to the Tower? Do the survivors of the tower ever get saved? What if the document is stolen and released to the world? Will there be other isolated incidents? Or might it become a world wide spread as seen in the Resident Evil cinematic universe? Will the GRE redeem themselves and try to re-recruit Crane into helping them on another mission?

I have so many opinions about this. Enough to have written a 210k word story on the matter, which isn't even halfway done, and deals with pretty much all of the above. Including the "What now?" and a few tweaks here and there, in particular to the Following expansion.

But since I am not going to expect you to read it:

After Rais fell (hehe, literally), I'd have expected someone new to take charge, but have you seen the amount of men suddenly turned? How did he do that? Did he weaponize the virus at his workbench in a day? According to the game, pretty much all of his men are dead or turned, which I suppose was really just done for gameplay purposes, rather than having any real story meaning. So, far as I am concerned, his garrison lived on after his death, though I'd hope that the Tower would have taken advantage of the initial confusion to at least get a bit of the Antizin from them. Aside of that? I'd wager there are still enough scared assholes in the Zone to cause the Tower problems and to compete for food and medicine.

The GRE redeeming itself has already fallen flat in the Following, as they stopped the Antizin drops. That's a death sentence for everyone inside the Zone. I find that unlikely, but that's what the Following led us to believe. Camden creating a cure is unlikely too, since he doesn't have the staff or resources for it. But it does lend itself to the question on what they'll do without the cure, and what will happen when the the virus *does* get out, because really. It will. It *did,* with quarantines existing outside of Harran already where they evacuated other infected to.

Anyway, those are some questions I have thought about!

...and I tried to keep my answers short, and if you'd like to talk more, I'll happily pop into private messages on Tumblr.

#Dying Light #Lore #Research #Answers

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jeyoteswritings-blog · 7 years

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Recueillement

Nothing could ruin this fine summer day. It was noon in a city with a name long since forgotten, on a planet called earth or reminiscent of earth. High above the main thoroughfare, in a large house in the upper-class district a young girl was thinking that. Out her window was a perfectly blue sky with a few fluffy clouds and a cool breeze coming off the shore to the west. She was reading something, half-reading and half-looking she couldn’t recall now. Recollection of her old life would become a wistful memory. Her new life was going to begin very soon and it would begin on this fine summer day.

Inside the large house, her father sat in his study. He was banker, and this room is where he spent most of his time. He would sit behind a green lamp with a large coffee cup, hot and steaming vapor curling upwards to mingle with the smoke of his ever-lit pipe that she always thought smelled something like blueberries. He would sit and pore over reports or receipts or some such thing while she would sit in one of the over-stuffed chairs in the corner of the room and read from the study’s immense bookcase until her father would shoo her out to go play outside or to go help her mother.

Outside on the patio, her mother was tending to the rose garden. She could see from her window, her mother on the patio and behind her the rolling green hills that extended from the house all the way toward the coast. She could just make out the horizon, all blue-green colors of the sea. Old man Galthston, their neighbor, spoke to her mother over the hedges. They talked about the weather or events at the capital or of his reminisces of his time in the war. A war that continues to this day.

A car, all black and shiny chrome quietly pulled up along the winding driveway toward the house. Her mother and Old Man Galsthon didn't seem to notice it yet. The girl threw down the book and ran downstairs to get a better view. Peeking through the blinds from the downstairs living room window, she saw two men dressed in black suits and coats get out and start up the walkway towards the house. A third, dressed identically, stayed by the car and seemed to stare at nothing from behind dark glasses.

A hand on her shoulder startled her. She jumped and made a noise but it was her father, who simply leaned down and said "Eveline, please go upstairs." The sternness in his voice brooked no argument, and worried her besides. His usual jovial attitude had disappeared and the way he carried himself when he went to open the door implied complete seriousness, tension even. She hurried upstairs but of course, being twelve years old, went to her hiding place in an upstairs closet where she could eavesdrop. There was a hole there, half hidden by a ledge that her parents had not noticed. Through it, she could see most of the living room and some of the dining room. Sometimes she would lay there after her parents thought she was asleep and listen to her father tell her mother stories about his work at the bank. She took her place at the hidden spot just in time to see the front door open.

"Eustis residence?" The two men entered. one thin, with a black mustache and a rather pointed chin. The other had a pleasant face but forgettable. He said nothing and stayed near the door as the other advanced into the living room with a quick boldness that only came from someone who was comfortable in their position, and had been in it a long while. "You are Jean Eustis?"

"Yes, I am. Please, sit-"

"I will remain standing, thank you"

Evaline knew these men. Not specifically, but knew of their position. She had seen others of them sometimes at her father's bank, there were always three of them and they always wore the black overcoats. They were voyant, The royal Overseers. It was not for her to understand what they did or what they represented, but if their presence worried her father it worried her as well.

"Mr. Eustis I am here representing the Emperuer and his Magistrat. You and the financial institution you manage have been very influential in matters concerning our neighbors to the West. I want to congratulate you. However, as you may know, all is not well between our two countries."

Her father shot a quick look toward her mother, who remained expressionless and tight-lipped. It was hardly perceptible, and Evaline almost missed it. She didn't think the Mustache Man noticed, though. "Thank you. Yes, I had heard that negotiations were crumbling...it seems tension along the border grows by the day."

His heavy-booted feet clicked on the hard wooden floor as Mustache Man began to pace the living room. "It’s worse than that I'm afraid, negotiations have not only crumbled but failed altogether. They have taken our lead ambassador hostage and offered us an ultimatum: the immediate cessation and removal of our forces in the gray lands to the North, or they will attack our coastal cities. Which is why I-"

-click-

Evaline tried to stifle her gasp, but it was too late. The small ledge she had been resting upon gave way under her weight and had broken off. She hurriedly tried to put it back into place as best she could as she heard her father excuse himself from the conversation and start up the stairs. She backed out of the closet, careful not to disturb anything else as she made her way out. Now she just had to shut the door silently. If she was lucky she could make it appear as if-

"Evaline" too late again. Her hand was still on the closet door handle as her father stood at the top of the stairs. "Go outside and play with Mae. Your mother and I will talk to you later."

If Evaline thought her father's expression was stern before, it was more so now. Frightened, she rushed past him and took the stairs two at a time -careful to avoid being seen by anyone in the living room- and nearly flew out the back door.

In that moment, crossing the threshold, she felt free. More free than she would ever feel. She ran across the grassy field that was her backyard, at home among the poinsettias and iris flowers that swayed carefree in the sea-breeze. Evaline ran. She ran from the adult world that she had tried to stick her nose in. Despite that, she couldn't help but feel like she would be there soon. It was a world more complicated than she could hope to imagine. She ran until she stood at the edge of her parent's property, on a cliff overlooking the sea to the south. All she saw was unending blue, with seabirds squawking overhead. How silly she must seem to them, a creature bound to the earth with no ability to soar above waves. They were the very essence of freedom, she thought. Someday, I'll soar above the waves too.

She doubled back toward the house, leaving the pristine waves and troubled blue sky behind. Her friend from school, Mae lived a short bike ride away. Evaline set out along the dirt path, lined by birch and silver furs. She felt at home here, riding alone to the arboreal symphony of leaves rustling, birds calling and insects buzzing. She always felt as if she had a special connection to the earth, and all life living upon it. She had recently come to realize the implications of the constant skirmish that her country of Nentoivese had with the neighboring Shah'ra. She shuddered to think of a land much like her own, cratered and blackened by bombs and weapons created for the express purpose of ending life. It was something she could never understand and vowed she would try to stop it somehow, someday if she could.

After a while, she rounded a corner and through a small copse of firs, spied Mae sitting on the low brick wall surrounding her home. "Mae!" She called out as she rode up. "Hey Evaline."

"What are you doing out here?"

"My parents are arguing again. Seems pretty serious this time."

"Oh...what happened?"

"Um, I'd rather not talk about it."

The sky which was clear earlier that day, had become dark and heavy with clouds. The wind had picked up, and Evaline tried to think of something which would cheer up her friend. "Follow me, Mae. I want to show you something."

They rode on, one red bike and one blue. Neither of them had any words to say at the moment. Evaline considered her companion, they were opposites in a sense. Where Evaline had pale skin and blond hair, Mae had flowing brown, with a darker complexion. Her mother was Shah'ra, a stranger in this land. As such, Mae had often faced adversity from the Nentoivese of her own age. Most days, Evaline could tell, she took it in stride. She always seemed to have an inner sense of self to resist such things. It was strange to see her quiet and reserved like this. They continued to ride through the countryside and the forest slowly gave way to golden fields of wheat, reflecting dully against the grey sky above them.

Soon it began to grow dark. A pink twilight could faintly be seen among the grey clouds. Beyond the wheat fields, there were train tracks which led from a small coastal town and eventually met the capital city beyond. They were forced to stop, as lumbering down the tracks there were a series of monstrosities. Large cargo beds held even larger war machines, secured by bright yellow straps. A massive train engine steamed and squealed with a metal-on-metal sound and rumbled into the night. They waited there for what seemed like an eternity, until the last, forlornly blinking running light of the cargo train faded away.

After a few more minutes of riding, the pair came upon a large embankment. A soft, blue glow could be seen from the edge of the steep, grassy knoll. "It's easier if we leave our bikes at the bottom" Evaline said, propping the kickstand into the soft earth. This was the farthest she'd been from home on her own. She came here from time to time, to think or to write or just to watch the billowing clouds that formed over the sea. She had always come here during the day and felt a bit guilty about being out after dark. She knew she would get a good scolding when she got home but today felt different. She couldn't shake the feeling that something big was about to happen.

"It's beautiful." Mae remarked as they crested the hill. The small town below them was lit up with streetlights, shop windows and glowing signs. The pink and yellow twilight was sinking below the horizon and the colors reflected off the crashing waves of the sea in the distance. Cargo ships were moored into the port for the night, but there were others circling the waters out at sea. Military ships. Destroyers. Evaline and her friend watched as the last of the light grew dim.

"There were strange men at my house today, dressed in all black. They were from the government. My mom and dad seemed...well, they weren't happy to see them."

"Yeah, those were probably the same men that were at my house today."

Evaline looked up at her friend in surprise. Her house too...Mae didn't take her eyes off the scene below. Mae decided not to inquire further. If she wanted to say more, she would. They sat in silence until a low booming sound could be heard from far in the distance behind them. To Evaline, they sounded like fireworks. A few seconds later, small pinpoints of light whistled across the sky high above them. Not fireworks, missiles. "We'd better get home", she said worriedly, getting up.

"Evaline." Mae who had been staring off into the distance the entire time looked back at her friend, with a certain glisten in her eye. "Do you remember that necklace you gave me a couple years ago for my birthday, the one with the intricate golden heart? Some of the kids at school nabbed it from me later that day and broke the chain, saying a Shah'ra like me had no business wearing anything so extravagant." Evaline nodded. She remembered.

Mae got up and pressed something into her friend's hand. "I... I don't know what's going to happen Evaline. But I want you to have this. Just in case."

"Mae..."

...................................

Evaline pedaled hard to get back home after seeing Mae off back at her house. She rounded the corner and saw that the black car was still in the driveway, but the headlights were on and the motor was running. The thin man with the mustache was saying something to her mother and father on the porch. As she rolled up, he nodded to them and quickly got in the car and shut the door. They drove away with the soft crunch of tire on gravel.

Hurriedly, she leaned her bicycle up against the house and ran up to where here parents were, about to apologize for being out past dark. Something in her father's expression stopped her from saying anything. He was staring at the red taillights receding into the darkness down the road. "Evaline I need you to pack your things. Nothing unnecessary, just clothes. We're leaving for the capital in the morning."

…………….Fifteen years later………….

Evaline stood on the command deck of the La Victoire. She stared out at a now-calm azure sky, but towering cumulus clouds in the distance warned of a coming storm. She didn’t want to be airborne when that storm hit. The La Victoire was the capital’s flagship zephyr, but even the most sophisticated armor and instruments could not prevent enemy cutters from slicing her up under cover of a storm.

Outside the command pod, her best flyboys stood at attention on the wooden deck. Their scarves fluttered in the high-altitude wind, maroon contrasting with their gold-and-black military colors. The same color scheme shone brightly on their porcupine stinger-jets, polished to gleaming as per Evaline’s expectations. They grumbled about the work of course, but she knew they were secretly proud of their “’pines”. They were the best of the best, and could take out a squad of cutters-storm or no storm. However, Evaline needed them at peak performance for the operation to come. Better to avoid a confrontation now, and take the offensive on her own terms.

Evaline had been an ace “flygirl” in her early military career, with a kill-to-crash ratio of 32/3 when she hung up the hat and goggles. Now, she found that command suited her, but rather than standard officer regalia she preferred traditional flyer gear: brown leather jacket, beige trousers and black knee-high boots. She wore the ensemble now, surveying her squadron out the large three-panel window of the command pod. She wore her long golden hair in a loose bun, and tried to feign an air of confidence.

The other officers in the room seemed relaxed, so she supposed she was succeeding. On the inside, a rising anxiety threatened to break her composure. She was nervous about the upcoming operation and the storm, but there was also another reason she was on edge.

Zzzzzzztttt…..

“A tele-video call for you commander.” Her communications officer broke the silence. “Shall I display it on-screen?”

A tele-video call? At a time like this?

“I’ll take it in my quarters. Inform me when our guests arrive.”

Commander Evaline Eustis turned on her heels, boots clacking on across the deck. It was a short walk through the narrow corridors of the zephyr and up a short flight of stairs to her cabin. The auto-doors slid open and she sat down at her desk. Upon it was a map of the current airspace, as well as a pair of binoculars and a bottle of Regent whiskey which she saved for special – or extenuating – circumstances. She considered taking a swig now.

Zzzzzztttt. The tele-video monitor buzzed, and she flicked it on. The typical static and grainy visual at first, and then her father’s face materialized on screen. She should have known.

“Papa, it’s good to see you!”

“Evaline, I hope I’m not too late. I called to wish you luck on this operation. I just got word.”

She sighed inwardly. The operation was supposed to be top-secret. Her father always had a knack for finding out what she was up to.

“You’ve been in the air for almost a month now.” He continued. “How are you faring?”

“Papa I’m alright. The La Victoire is a beautiful vessel. Powerful, too. I have no reason to believe the operation will be anything but a success. I’m flying with the best.”

“Yes I know you are, and I don’t doubt your capabilities, Evaline. You must be victorious. This is the key to our efforts on the western front. Things are not as well as they seem, here in the interior. There are mumblings of…well I can’t say. The Emperuer is a difficult man to deal with. I fear the coming weeks may challenge us all.”

There was a gleam of fear in her father’s eye that Evaline always hated seeing. He usually had an accurate premonition about such things. Every time she saw him, he looked worse. His hair and mustache were greying, and he looked thinner than before. It wasn’t just age, she knew. A deep-rooted sadness had caused his face to become gaunt, and withered with fatigue.

“Father, how are you doing? You look like you’re working too hard. I’m sure the capital can run without you for a few days, at least. Why don’t you take some time off?” She sighed outwardly this time. “it’s been a few years, dad. Have you even visited mom’s- “?

“Evaline.” Her father spoke sternly. “I must go. I am being summoned. Godspeed on your mission. Signing off.”

It wasn’t healthy. She feared her father would soon succumb to a rage-obsessed war fervor. But she didn’t have time to think about that now. Her intercom buzzed and her Com officer announced the arrival of another vessel in the zephyr’s airspace. It was time.

…………….

The auto-doors clicked open and commander Eustis entered the La Victoire’s conference room. She had waited a few moments before entering. She was hesitant, although she felt like she knew what was to be said in this meeting.

Her old friend, Mae looked up at Evaline as she entered. They both looked at each other for a significant, uncomfortable moment.

“Do you remember Mr. Galsthon?” Evaline blurted out, desperate to say something.

“Your old neighbor? Yes, I remember him! He had that curly mustache and would tell us old war stories.”

Evaline laughed. “That’s him. I wouldn’t miss that mustache anywhere. I ran into him at a café in the capital. I think you know the one, it has that sign with the frog out front. The Grenouille.”

Mae laughed with her. “I remember the place. Many of our carefree summer days after school were spent there.”

“It’s good to see you Mae.” Evaline crossed the room and hugged her friend. Mae looked well. Her dark hair fell in ebony waves down her back, and she was dressed in a plain blue officer’s uniform and cap. “I’ve been in the air so long…what’s going on in the interior, Mae?”

“It’s…not good I’m afraid. The Magistrat is starting to become divided. The original cause is lost and the war continues, fueled on bitterness and hate.” Evaline’s friend turned from her and strode to the conference room window, looking out. “Evaline, when I was young, this war seemed complicated. My people were expanding their holdings, yes. But at what cost? It seems like my whole career has been spent trying to uncover the truth. It’s simple, really. The Magistrat does not have our interests at heart. They don’t want to stop us. They want to destroy us. And I’m not the only one who feels this way.”

Mae turned and looked her friend in the eyes. “Evaline, I’m going to defect. My place is alongside my people. I’m only half Shah’ra but I feel their cause is more just and I…I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

A weight had been lifted, but replaced by one of a different sort. Evaline didn’t know whether she wanted to cry, or laugh, or simply say nothing at all. She knew this was coming. She tested her usual composure. “I…understand. You know what this means right? If we should ever meet on the battlefield…”

“I know, I know.” Mae’s eyes glistened now with reluctant tears. She grabbed Evaline and hugged her close. “I’ll write you. We need to stay in contact. There are ways to get through our decoders.”

“Mae…”

“When this is all over, we can find each other again. We just need to stay alive through this.”

“Agreed. You know that café I was telling you about? Let’s meet there when the war is over. That will be the place.”

“Okay…okay Evaline. I’ll see you there someday.” Mae sniffed and stepped away, regaining the stance of a military officer. “Now I must go. I need time to make it across the border. Godspeed my friend.”

They hugged one more time, and Evaline watched her friend leave through the auto-doors, sliding into place as she left.

“Godspeed.”

…………..Twenty years later………..

Excerpt from the Capital archives on the Great War. The last of a series of secret correspondence between commander Evaline Eustis of the Nentoivese and commander Mae Calisto of the Shah’ra:

Evaline, I hope this transmission finds you well. I can’t believe the war is finally over, but ours is a bittersweet victory. It came with so many losses, on both sides.

I apologize for not writing you sooner. Your last transmission came a few years ago, and I feel these last years of the war were the hardest. I am sorry to hear about the loss of your father. I remember he was a kind man, and much like yourself had a certain compassion for all life. My parents still live, although their health is declining. I fear their time may be coming soon.

Do you remember the promise we made as young women? Those days seem like something from another lifetime, now. I know you wouldn’t forget something like that, though. I went to that café in the Capital, the one we used to go to. The Grenouille. It’s still there, despite the destruction. It hurt my heart to see the state of your people, the war seemed to have taken the hope out of them. Now though, we can begin the healing, for both of our countries.

I went to the café as soon as I could after hostilities ended. I visited a few times, but I never saw you there Evaline. On my last visit, a waiter handed me something. He said he’d been instructed to give it to me. I’d never in a million years think I would see it again. It was that locket. You remember? The one I gave you when we were kids, before all this started. And you know another funny thing? I swear I saw your old neighbor, Mr. Galsthon, hobbling away down the street as I left.

Evaline, I look forward to your next transmission and hope I can see you soon.

Love, Mae

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jeroldlockettus · 6 years

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The Future of Meat (Ep. 367)

Over 40 percent of the land in the contiguous U.S. is used for cow farming. Can scientists build a more sustainable burger? (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty)

Global demand for beef, chicken, and pork continues to rise. So do concerns about environmental and other costs. Will reconciling these two forces be possible — or, even better, Impossible

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

* * *

Let’s begin with a few basic facts. Fact No. 1: a lot of people, all over the world, really like to eat meat — especially beef, pork, and chicken.

Jayson LUSK: If you add them all together, we’re actually higher than we’ve been in recent history.

That’s Jayson Lusk.

LUSK: I’m a professor and head of the agricultural economics department at Purdue University. I study what we eat and why we eat it.

DUBNER: In terms of overall meat consumption per capita in the U.S., how do we rank worldwide?

LUSK: We’re the king of meat eaters. So, compared to almost any other country in the world, we eat more meat per capita.

DUBNER: Even Brazil, Argentina, yes?

LUSK: Yes, and part of that difference is income-based. So, if you took Argentina, Brazil, and adjusted for income, they would probably be consuming more than us, but we happen to be richer, so we eat a little more.

The average American consumes roughly 200 pounds of meat a year. That’s an average. So, let’s say you’re a meat eater and someone in your family is vegetarian: you might be putting away 400 pounds a year. But, in America at least, there aren’t that many vegetarians.

LUSK: I probably have the largest data set of vegetarians of any other researcher that I know.

DUBNER: Really? Why?

LUSK: I’ve been doing a survey of U.S. food consumers every month for about five years, and one of the questions I ask is, “Are you a vegan or a vegetarian?” So, over five years’ time and about 1,000 people a month, I’ve got about 60,000 observations.

DUBNER: Wow. And is this a nationwide data survey?

LUSK: It is. Representative in terms of age and income and education. I’d say on average, you’re looking at about three to five percent of people say “yes” to that question. I’d say there’s a very slight uptick over the last five years.

So, again, a lot of meat-eating in America. What are some other countries that consume a lot of meat? Australia and New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Russia, most European countries. And, increasingly, China.

LUSK: One of the things we know is that when consumers get a little more income in their pocket, one of the first things they do is want to add high-value proteins to their diets.

DUBNER: What is the relationship generally between G.D.P. and meat consumption?

LUSK: Positive, although sort of diminishing returns, so as you get to really high income levels, it might even tail off a little bit. But certainly at the lower end of that spectrum, as a country grows and adds more G.D.P., you start to see some pretty rapid increases in meat consumption.

Meat consumption is of course driven by social and religious factors as well; by health concerns, and animal welfare: not everyone agrees that humans should be eating animals at all. That said, we should probably assume that the demand for meat will continue to rise as more of the world keeps getting richer. How’s the supply side doing with this increased demand? Quite well. The meat industry is massive and complicated — and often heavily subsidized. But, long story short, if you go by the availability of meat and especially what consumers pay, this is an economic success story.

LUSK: So prices of almost all of our meat products have declined pretty considerably over the last 60 to 100 years. And the reason is that we have become so much more productive at producing meat. If you look at most of the statistics, like the amount of pork produced per sow. And we’ve taken out a lot of the seasonal variation that we used to see, as these animals have been brought indoors. And you look at poultry production, broiler production: the amount of meat that’s produced per broiler has risen dramatically — almost doubled, say — over the last 50 to 100 years, while also consuming slightly less feed.

That’s due largely to selective breeding and other technologies. The same goes for beef production.

LUSK: We get a lot more meat per animal, for example, on a smaller amount of land.

As you can imagine, people concerned with animal welfare may not celebrate these efficiency improvements. And then there’s the argument that, despite these efficiency improvements, turning animals into food is wildly inefficient.

Pat BROWN: Because the cow didn’t evolve to be meat. That’s the thing.

Pat Brown is a long-time Stanford biomedical researcher who’s done groundbreaking work in genetics.

BROWN: The cow evolved to be a cow and make more cows and not to be eaten by humans. And it’s not very good at making meat.

Meaning: it takes an enormous amount of food and water and other resources to turn a cow or a pig into dinner — much more than plant-based foods. And as Pat Brown sees it, that is not even the worst of it.

BROWN: The most environmentally destructive technology on earth: using animals in food production. Nothing else even comes close.

Not everyone agrees that meat production is the environment’s biggest enemy. What’s not in dispute is that global demand for meat is high and rising. And that the production of meat is resource-intensive and, at the very least, an environmental challenge, with implications for climate change. Pat Brown thinks he has a solution to these problems. He’s started a company—

BROWN: —a company whose mission is to completely replace animals as a food production technology by 2035.

The meat industry, as you can imagine, has other ideas:

Kelly FOGARTY: We want to keep the term “meat” to what is traditionally harvested and raised in the traditional manner.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: everything you always wanted to know about meat, about meatless meat, and where meat meets the future.

* * *

What determines which food you put in your mouth every day? There are plainly a lot of factors: personal preference, tradition, geography, on and on.

LUSK: So, take something like horse consumption. It’s almost unheard of to even think about consuming a horse in the United States.

Jayson Lusk again, the agricultural economist.

LUSK: Whereas, you go to Belgium or France, it would be a commonly consumed dish.

But there’s another big factor that determines who eats what: technology. Technology related to how food is grown, preserved, transported. But also: technology that isn’t even related to the food itself. Consider the case of mutton. Mutton is the meat of an adult sheep. The meat of a young sheep is called lamb. I am willing to bet that you have not eaten mutton in the last six months, probably the last six years. Maybe never. But if we were talking 100 years ago? Different story.

LUSK: It’s certainly the case that back in the 1920’s and 30’s that mutton was a much more commonly consumed product.

Mutton was a staple of the American diet; one of the standard items shipped to soldiers during World War II was canned mutton. But shortly after the war, mutton started to disappear. What happened?

LUSK: A sheep is not just meat. These are multi-product species and they’re valuable not just for their meat but for their wool.

Oh yeah, wool. And unlike leather, which can be harvested only once from an animal, you can shear wool from one sheep many times, over many years.

LUSK: So anything that affects the demand for wool is also going to affect the underlying market for the rest of the underlying animal.

And what might affect the demand for wool? How about synthetic substitutes? Nylon, for instance, was created by DuPont in 1935, and became available to the public in 1940. A year later, polyester was invented.

LUSK: So, you know, any time you had new clothing technologies come along, that’s going to affect the underlying demand for sheep and make them less valuable than they would have been otherwise.

So an increase in synthetic fabrics led to a shrinking demand for wool — which meant that all those sheep that had been kept around for shearing no longer needed to be kept around. Also, wool subsidies were repealed. And America’s sheep flock drastically shrank: from a high of 56 million in 1942 to barely 5 million today.

LUSK: It is amazing. I’ve worked at several agricultural universities across the U.S. now, and often the largest sheep herds in those states are at the university research farms.

And fewer sheep meant less mutton for dinner. Is it possible Americans would have stopped eating mutton without the rise of synthetic fabrics? Absolutely: if you ask a room full of meat-eaters to name their favorite meat, I doubt one of them will say “mutton.” Still, this is just one example of how technology can have a big effect on the meat we eat. And if you talk to certain people, it’s easy to believe that we’re on the verge of a similar but much larger technological shift.

BROWN: My name is Pat Brown. I’m currently the CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, whose mission is to completely replace animals as a food production technology.

Brown grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., as well as Paris and Taipei — his father worked for the C.I.A. He studied to be a pediatrician and in fact completed his medical residency, but he switched to biochemistry research.

BROWN: I had the best job in the world at Stanford. My job was basically to discover and invent things and follow my curiosity.

Brown did this for many years and was considered a world-class researcher. One of his breakthroughs was a new tool for genetic mapping; it’s called the D.N.A. microarray—

BROWN: —that lets you read all the words that the cell is using and effectively kind of start to learn the vocabulary, learn how the genome writes the life story of a cell, or something like that. It also has practical applications, because — what it’s doing, in a sort of a deterministic way, specifies the potential of that cell, or if it’s a cancer cell.

Some people think the DNA microarray will win Pat Brown a Nobel Prize. When I bring this up, he just shakes his head and smiles. It’s clear that his research was a deep passion.

BROWN: For me, this was the dream job, it was like in the Renaissance, having the Medicis as patrons or something like that.

But after many years, Brown wanted a change. He was in his mid-50’s; he took a sabbatical to figure out his next move.

BROWN: It started out with stepping back from the work I was doing and asking myself, “What’s the most important thing I could do? What could I do that would have the biggest positive impact on the world?” And looking at what are the biggest unsolved problems in the world? I came relatively quickly to the conclusion that the use of animals as a food-production technology, is by far. And I could give you endless reasons why that’s true, but it is absolutely true. By far the most environmentally destructive thing that humans do.

There is indeed a great deal of evidence for this argument across the entire environmental spectrum. The agricultural historian James McWilliams, in a book called Just Food, argues that “every environmental problem related to contemporary agriculture … ends up having its deepest roots in meat production: monocropping, excessive applications of nitrogen fertilizer, addiction to insecticides, rain-forest depletion, land degradation, topsoil runoff, declining water supplies, even global warming — all these problems would be considerably less severe” if people ate meat “rarely, if ever.”

LUSK: You know, there’s no doubt that meat production has environmental consequences. To suggest that it’s the most damaging environmental thing we do is, I think, a pretty extreme overstatement.

But what about the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with raising meat — especially in the U.S., which is the world’s largest beef producer?

LUSK: Our own E.P.A. — Environmental Protection Agency — suggests that all of livestock contributes about 3 percent of our total greenhouse-gas emissions. So, I mean, 3 percent is not nothing, but it’s not the major contributor that we see. That number, I should say, is much higher in many other parts of the world. So the carbon impacts per pound produced are so much smaller here than a lot of the world that when you tell people, “the way to reduce carbon emissions is to intensify animal production,” that’s not a story a lot of people like to hear.

DUBNER: Because why not, it sounds like it’s against animal welfare?

LUSK: Well, two reasons: Exactly, one is there are concerns about animal welfare, particularly when you’re talking about broiler chickens, or hogs — less so about cattle — and the other one is, there are concerns about when you concentrate a lot of animals in one place you can get all this waste in a location, that you have to think about creative ways to deal with that don’t have some significant environmental problems.

DUBNER: So, the E.P.A. number, livestock contributing three percent, does that include the entire production chain, though? Because, some of the numbers that I see from environmental activists is much, much higher than that.

LUSK: The U.N. estimate that you often hear from — originally was created in this report called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” is something around 19 percent. But that 19 percent, roughly, number, is a global number. Actually, there was a study that came out pointing out some flaws in that, so they reduced it somewhat.

In any case, there is a growing concern in many quarters over the externalities of meat production.

LUSK: Over the last 5–10 years, there’s been a lot of negative publicity — stories about environmental impacts, about carbon emissions, about animal welfare. And if you just look at the news stories, you would think, “Boy, people must be really cutting back, given the sort of frightful stories that you see on the front pages of the newspapers.” But if you look at the data itself, demand looks fairly stable. And that suggests to me it’s hard to change people’s preference on this.

There’s something about meat consumption. Some people would argue that we’re evolved to like meat, that it’s a protein-, vitamin-packed, tasty punch that we’ve grown to enjoy as a species. There are some people that even argue that it’s one of the reasons we became as smart as we did, the vitamins and nutrients that were in that meat allowed our brains to develop in certain ways that it might have not otherwise.

Pat Brown saw that same strong preference for meat when he decided that the number-one scientific problem to solve was replacing animals as food.

BROWN: And it’s a problem that nobody was working on in any serious way. Because everybody recognized that most people in the world, including most environmental scientists and people who care about this stuff, love the foods we get from animals so much that they can’t imagine giving those up.

Brown himself was a longtime vegan.

BROWN: I haven’t eaten meat for decades, and that’s just a personal choice that I made long before I realized the destructive impact of that industry. That was a choice I made for other reasons. And it wasn’t something that I felt like I was in a position to tell other people to do. And I still don’t feel like there’s any value in doing that.

Brown makes an interesting point here. Many of us, when we feel strongly about something — an environmental issue or a social or economic issue — we’re inclined to put forth a moral argument. A moral argument would appear to be persuasive evidence of the highest order: you should do this thing because it’s the right thing to do. But there’s a ton of research showing that moral arguments are generally ineffective; people may smile at you, and nod; but they won’t change their behavior. That’s what Brown realized about meat.

BROWN: The basic problem is that people are not going to stop wanting these foods. And the only way we’re going to solve it is not by asking them to meet you halfway and give them a substandard product that doesn’t deliver what they know they want from meat or fish or anything like that. The only way to do it is, you have to say, “We’re going to do the much harder thing,” which is we’re going to figure out how to make meat that’s not just as delicious as the meat we get from animals, it’s more delicious and better nutritionally and more affordable and so forth.

In other words: a marginal improvement on the standard veggie burger would not do.

BROWN: It’s been tried. It just doesn’t work. It’s a waste of effort.

So Brown start fooling around in his lab.

BROWN: Doing some kind of micro experiments just to convince myself in a way that this was doable.

Those early experiments were fairly encouraging.

BROWN: I felt like, okay, there’s a bunch of things I thought could be useful, and then I felt like I could just go in with a little bit more confidence to talk to the investors.

“The investors” meaning venture capitalists. Remember, Brown’s at Stanford, which is next door to the biggest pile of venture capital in the history of the world.

BROWN: And basically my pitch them was very naive from a fundraising standpoint, in the sense that basically I mostly just told them about how there’s this absolutely critical environmental disaster that needs to be solved and—

DUBNER: And they’re probably expecting to hear something now about carbon capture, or—

BROWN: Yeah, that’s the thing. And most people still are. So I just told these guys, “Look, this is an environmental disaster. No one’s doing anything about it. I’m going to solve it for you.”

So how does the almost-pediatrician-who-became-a-freewheeling-biochemist build a better meat from the ground up? That amazing story after the break:

BROWN: Okay, bingo, this is how we’re going to do it.

* * *

It’s estimated that more than half of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with all animal agriculture comes from cows.

LUSK: And that is due to the fact that beef are ruminant animals.

The Purdue economist Jayson Lusk again.

LUSK: Their stomachs produce methane. It comes out the front end, not the back, as a lot of people think. And as a consequence — we look at carbon consequences — it’s mainly beef that people focus on, not pork or chicken, because they don’t have the same kind of digestive systems.

There has been progress in this area. For instance, it turns out that adding seaweed to cattle feed drastically reduces their methane output. But the scientist Pat Brown is looking for a much bigger change to the animal-agriculture industry.

BROWN: If I could snap my fingers and make that industry disappear right now — which I would do, if I could, and it would be a great thing for the world.

It is very unlikely to disappear any time soon; it is a trillion-dollar global industry, supported in many places by government subsidies, selling a product that billions of people consume once, twice, even three times a day. Pat Brown’s desire would seem to be an impossible one; the company he founded is called Impossible Foods. It’s essentially a tech startup, and it’s raised nearly $400 million to date in venture capital.

BROWN: So, we’ve only been in existence for about seven years and we have about 300 people. We started by basically building a team of some of the best scientists in the world to study how meat works, basically. And by that, I mean to really understand at a basic level the way, in my previous life, when I was a biomedical scientist, we might be studying how, you know, a normal cell of this particular kind becomes a cancer cell, understanding the basic biochemical mechanisms.

In this case, what we wanted to understand was: what are the basic biochemical mechanisms that account for the unique flavor chemistry and the flavor behavior and aromas and textures and juiciness and all those qualities that consumers value in meat? And we spent about 2.5 years just doing basic research, trying to answer that question, before we really started working on a product. And then decided for strategic reasons that our first product would be raw ground beef made entirely from plants.

DUBNER: Because burger is what people want?

BROWN: Well, there’s a lot of reasons why I think it was a good strategic choice: the largest single category of meat in the U.S., it’s probably the most iconic kind of meat in the U.S., it seemed like the ideal vehicle for communicating to consumers that delicious meat doesn’t have to come from animals, because it’s sort of the uber-meat for a lot of people.

DUBNER: Uber, lower-case “u.”

BROWN: With a lower-case, yes.

DUBNER: People are not hailing burgers, riding them around?

BROWN: No, thank God. And beef production is the most environmentally destructive segment of the animal agriculture industry. So, from an impact standpoint, it made sense as a choice.

So Pat Brown set about repurposing the scientific wisdom he’d accrued over a long, fruitful career in biomedicine. A career that may improve the health and well-being of countless millions. And now he got to work on a truly earth-shaking project: building a better burger. A burger that doesn’t come from a cow. An Impossible burger. So how did that work? What ingredients do you put in an Impossible burger?

BROWN: That’s an interesting aspect about the science, which is that we didn’t look for, “What are the precisely specific choices of ingredients that would work?” We studied, “What are the biochemical properties we need from the set of ingredients?” And then we did a survey of things available from the plant world that matched those biophysical properties of which there were choices.

So what are the main components of this burger?

BROWN: I can tell you what it’s made of right now. What it’s made of right now is different from how it was made two years ago, and that was different from how it was made two and half years ago and the next version we’re going to launch is a quite different set of ingredients.

We first interviewed Brown several months ago. The main ingredients at the time included:

BROWN: A protein from wheat; a protein from potatoes — not a starch from potatoes, but a protein from potatoes, it’s a byproduct of starch production. Coconut oil is the major fat source. And then we have a bunch of other small molecules, but they’re all familiar things: amino acids, vitamins, sugars. Nutrients.

But all these ingredients did not make Pat Brown’s plant-based hamburger meat taste or act or look like hamburger meat. It was still missing a critical component. A component called heme.

BROWN: Heme is found in essentially every living thing and heme in plants and human animals is the exact same molecule, okay? It’s just one of the most ubiquitous and fundamental molecules in life on Earth, period. The system that burns calories to produce energy uses heme as an essential component, and it’s what carries oxygen in your blood. And it’s what makes your blood red.

And none of this we discovered — this has been known for a long time and — so animals have a lot more heme than plants. And it’s that very high concentration of heme that accounts for the unique flavors of meat that you would recognize something as meat. It’s the overwhelmingly dominant factor in making the unique taste of meat and fish.

DUBNER: Is it involved in texture and mouthfeel and all that as well, or just taste?

BROWN: Just taste. Texture and mouthfeel are really important and there’s a whole other set of research around that. Super important — it kind of gets short shrift, because people think of the flavor as sort of the most dramatic thing about meat. But you have to get that other stuff right, too.

Brown and his team of scientists, after a couple years of research and experimentation, were getting a lot of that stuff right. But without heme — a lot of heme — their meatless meat would never resemble meat.

BROWN: So there is one component of a certain kind of plant that has a high concentration of heme, and that is in plants that fix nitrogen, that take nitrogen from the air and turn it into fertilizer. They have a structure called the root nodule, where the nitrogen fixation takes place and for reasons that are too complicated to explain right now they, that has a high concentration of heme and I just happened to know this from way back.

And if you slice open the root nodules of one of these plants:

BROWN: They have such a high concentration of heme that they look like a freshly cut steak, okay? And I did a calculation about the concentration of that stuff — soy leghemoglobin is the protein, which is virtually identical to the heme protein in muscle tissue, which is called myoglobin — that there was enough leghemoglobin in the root nodules of the U.S. soybean crop to replace all the heme in all the meat consumed in the U.S. Okay? So, I thought, “Genius, okay. We’ll just go out and harvest all these root nodules from the U.S. soybean crop and we’ll get this stuff practically for free.” Well, so I raised money for the company and we spent half the money trying to figure out how to harvest these root nodules from soybean plants, only basically to finally convince ourselves it was a terrible idea.

But if you’re a veteran scientist like Brown, a little failure is not so off-putting.

BROWN: You know you’re going to be doing things that are pushing the limits and trying entirely new things and a lot of them are going to fail. And if you don’t have a high tolerance for that and realize that basically, the way you do really really important, cool stuff is by trying a lot of things and not punishing yourself for the failures, but just celebrating the successes, you know, you’re not going to accomplish as much.

And the idea of buying up all the root nodules of the U.S. soybean crop wasn’t a complete failure.

BROWN: I mean, we got enough that we could do experiments to prove that it really was a magic ingredient for flavor. But then we had to start all over, and then what we did was: we said, ”Okay, we’re going to have to engineer a microorganism to produce gobs of this heme protein. Okay”? And since now we weren’t bound by any natural source, we looked at three dozen different heme proteins, everything from, you know, paramecium to barley to Hell’s Gate bacteria, which is like this —

DUBNER: That’s a plant? Hell’s Gate?

BROWN: It’s a bacteria that lives in deep sea vents near New Zealand that survive with temperatures above the boiling point of water that we mostly just looked at for fun, but funny thing about that, the reason we rejected it is that it’s so heat-stable that you can cook a burger to cooking temperature and it still stays bright red, because it doesn’t unfold. But anyway — and then we pick the best one, which turned out to be, just coincidentally, soy leghemoglobin, which is the one we were going after—

DUBNER: So your terrible idea was actually pretty good.

BROWN: It wasn’t really a brilliant idea, it accidentally turned out to be the right choice.

Through the magic of modern plant engineering, Pat Brown’s team began creating massive stocks of heme. And that heme would help catapult the Impossible burger well beyond the realm of the standard veggie burger — the mostly unloved veggie burger, we should say. The Impossible Burger looks like hamburger meat — when it’s raw and when it’s cooked. It behaves like hamburger meat. Most important, it tastes like hamburger meat.

Alison CRAIGLOW: I would like the American with an Impossible Burger.

WAITER: And how would you like that cooked?

CRAIGLOW: Oh, I didn’t realize — I’ll have it medium … medium. Is it pink in the middle when it’s … it is?

The Freakonomics Radio team recently ate some Impossible burgers in a restaurant near Times Square.

Zack LAPINSKI: I mean, I actually can’t taste the diff —

CRAIGLOW: It tastes like a burger

Ryan KELLY: Good day for the Impossible Burger

Greg RIPPIN: Yeah, approved by Freakonomics.

Their meal happened to coincide with the release of Impossible Burger 2.0 — an updated recipe that uses a soy protein instead of a wheat protein and has a few more tweaks: less salt, sunflower oil to cut the coconut oil, and no more xanthan gum and konjac gum. In my own tasting experience: Impossible Burger 1.0 was really good but a little slushy; 2.0 was burger-tastic.

These are of course our subjective observations. Here’s some actual evidence: Impossible Burgers are already being served in roughly 5,000 locations, primarily in the U.S. but also Hong Kong and Macau. These include very high-end restaurants in New York and California as well as fast-food chains like Umami Burger and even White Castle. This year, Impossible plans to start selling its burger meat in grocery stores.

BROWN: We’ve grown in terms of our sales and revenue about 30-fold in the past year. And our goal is to completely replace animal as a food technology by 2035. That means we have to approximately double in size and impact every year for the next 18 years.

DUBNER: Are we to understand that you are taking aim at pigs and chickens and fish as well?

BROWN: Yes, of course. So when we first started out, we were working on a technology platform and sort of the know-how about how meat works in general; we were working on understanding dairy products and cheeses and stuff like that. And then we decided, okay, we have to pick one product to launch with, and then we have to, from a commercialization standpoint, just go all in on it for a while.

DUBNER: As the scientist, or as a scientist, were you reluctant to kind of narrow yourself for that commercial interest, or did you appreciate that this is the way in this world things actually happen?

BROWN: Both. I mean, let’s put it this way: I would like to be able to pursue all these things in parallel, and if I had the resources I would. But if we launched another product right now, we’d just be competing against ourselves for resources for commercialization, so just doesn’t make any sense.

We put out an episode not long ago called “Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet.” It featured the science journalist Charles Mann.

MANN: How are we going to deal with climate change? There have been two ways that have been suggested, overarching ways, that represent, if you like, poles on a continuum. And they’ve been fighting with each other for decades.

The two poles are represented by what Mann calls, in his latest book, The Wizard and the Prophet. The prophet sees environmental destruction as a problem best addressed by restoring nature to its natural state. The wizard, meanwhile, believes that technology can address environmental dangers. This is, of course, a typology, a shorthand; a prophet doesn’t necessarily fear technology any more than a wizard fears nature. That said: if there were ever an embodiment of the wizard-prophet hybrid, a person driven by idealism and pragmatism in equal measure, I’d say it’s Pat Brown. Which means his invention has the capacity to upset people all across the spectrum.

The consumers and activists who might cheer a meatless meat are often the same sort of people who are anti-G.M.O. — genetically modified organisms. And the Impossible Burger would not have been possible without its genetically modified heme — which, by the way, the F.D.A. recently declared safe, after challenges from environmental groups like Friends of the Earth. Another group that might object to Impossible Foods? The meat industry. You know, the ones who use actual animals to raise food.

FOGARTY: My name is Kelly Fogarty and I serve as the executive vice president for the United States Cattlemen’s Association. And I am a fifth- generation beef cattle rancher here in Oakdale, California.

DUBNER: I’m just curious, as a woman, do you find yourself ever wishing the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association would change their name or are you okay with it?

FOGARTY: You know, it’s funny you mention that. There’s always a little bit of a notion there in the back of my mind of, you know, of course being in the industry for so long. I take it as representing all of the livestock industry. But you know, definitely having a special nod to all the female ranchers out there would be nice to have as well.

DUBNER: And what is the primary difference between the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association?

FOGARTY: As the United States Cattlemen’s Association, we are made up primarily of cattle producers. So your family ranches. You know, cow-calf operations run by producers and kind of for producers is what U.S.C.A. was built on. Whereas National Cattlemen’s Beef Association does include some more of packer influences as well as you know some of the processing facilities as well.

DUBNER: Can you just talk generally for a moment: how big of a threat does the beef industry see from alternative, “meat”?

FOGARTY: So from our end you know, in looking at the “meat” — and I appreciate you using those quotes around that term — from our end, we’re not so much seeing it as a threat to our product. What we are really looking at is not a limit on consumer choice or trying to back one product out of the market. It’s really to make sure that we’re keeping the information out there accurate and that what is available to consumers and what is being shown to consumers on labels is accurate to what the product actually is.

In 2018, Fogarty’s organization filed a petition with the U.S.D.A. to prevent products from being labeled as “beef” or “meat” unless they come from a cow.

DUBNER: Does that mean that your organization thinks that consumers are confused by labeling? Is that the primary objection?

FOGARTY: So the primary objection from the United Cattlemen’s Association is that we want to keep the term “meat” to what is traditionally harvested and raised in the traditional manner. And so when we see the term “meat” being put on these products that is not derived from that definition, what our producers came to us and really wanted us to act on was what we saw happened in other industries, specifically when you look at the dairy industry and where the term “milk” has now been used.

“Almond milk,” for instance. Which comes from almonds, not animals. Which led the National Milk Producers Federation to argue that it should not be sold as “almond milk.” The FDA agreed; its commissioner pointed out that “an almond doesn’t lactate.” There are important differences between so-called “milk” that doesn’t come from animals and so-called “meat” that doesn’t come from animals. Almond milk has very different nutritional content than cow’s milk; the Impossible Burger, meanwhile, has a similar nutritional profile to hamburger — including the iron content, which vegans can have trouble getting enough of. That’s another reason why Kelly Fogarty and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association might not want the Impossible Burger to be labeled “meat.”

DUBNER: I am just curious about the mental state of your industry because I was looking at your Facebook page and one post the other day led with the following: “Eat or be eaten. Be at the table or on the menu. Fight or be forgotten.” So that sounds — it would make me believe that the future of meat is one in which cattle ranchers feel a little bit like an endangered species or at least under assault.

FOGARTY: I think that speaks to a lot of misconceptions that are out there regarding the U.S. beef industry. Whether it be in terms of you know nutrition, environment, animal welfare. We’ve really been hit from a lot of different angles over the years.

DUBNER: Okay, well, according to some scientific research, meat production and/or cattle ranching are among the most environmentally damaging activities on earth, between the resource-intensiveness, land but especially water, and the externalities, the runoff of manure and chemicals into groundwater.

FOGARTY: I think one of the first points to make is that cattle are defined as what is termed as upcyclers, and cattle today, they’re turning plants that have little to no nutritional value just as-is into a high-quality and a high density protein. And so when you look at where cattle are grazing in the U.S., and then also across the world, a lot of the land that they are grazing on are land that is not suitable for crops or it would be you know kind of looking as a highly marginal type of land. And the ability of livestock to turn what is there into something that can feed the world is pretty remarkable.

Fogarty believes her industry has been unfairly maligned; that it’s come to be seen as a target for environmentalist groups and causes.

FOGARTY: I would absolutely say, the livestock industry and to that matter, the agriculture industry as a whole I think has really been at the brunt of a lot of disinformation campaigns.

Fogarty points to that U.N. report claiming that the global livestock industry’s greenhouse-gas emissions were shockingly high. A report that was found to be built on faulty calculations.

FOGARTY: So, it was really an inequitable and grossly inflated percentage that really turned a conversation.

The inflated percentage of around 18 percent was really around 14.5 percent — so, “grossly” inflated may be in the eye of the aggrieved. Fogarty says that even though the error was acknowledged, and a revised report was issued.

FOGARTY: Folks have not forgotten it as much as we wish. It’s still something that it’s hard to have folks kind of un-read or un-know something that they initially saw.

The fact is that the agricultural industry is massive and massively complex. Without question, it exacts costs on the environment; it also provides benefits that are literally the stuff of life: delicious, abundant, affordable food. As with any industry, there are tradeoffs and there is friction: activists tend to overstate their claims in order to encourage reform; industry defenders tend to paper over legitimate concerns.

But in the food industry especially, it’s clear that a revolution is underway — a revolution to have our food be not just delicious and abundant and affordable but sustainable too, with fewer negative externalities. Some startups, like Impossible Foods, focus on cleverly engineering plant matter to taste like the animal flesh so many people love. Other startups are working on what’s called lab-grown meat, using animal stem cells to grow food without animals. This is still quite young technology, but it’s very well-funded. I was curious to hear Kelly Fogarty’s view of this.

DUBNER: One of the investors in the lab “meat” company Memphis Meats is Cargill, which is a major constituent of the big meat industry. I mean, another investor, for what it’s worth, is Bill Gates. But I’m curious what’s your position on that. Because the way I think about this long-term, presumably a firm like Cargill can win the future with alternative “meat” in a way that a cattle rancher can’t. So I’m curious what the position is of ranchers on this kind of investment from a firm like Cargill or other firms that are sort of hedging their bets on the future of meat.

FOGARTY: You know it’s a really interesting point, and it’s been a bit of a tough pill for producers to swallow, the fact that some of the big three, some of these big processing plants that have been so obviously heavily focused and have been livestock-dominant are now kind of going into this alternative and sometimes the cell-cultured lab meats, alternative proteins. And it really has been a point of contention among a lot of producers who are kind of confused, unsure, feel a little bit — I don’t want to say betrayed by the industry, but a little bit so…

Others may soon feel betrayed as well. A company called Modern Meadows is using similar technology to grow leather in the lab, without the need for cattle. The Israeli company SuperMeat is focused on growing chicken. And then there’s a company called Finless Foods.

Mike SELDEN: Finless Foods is taking the seafood back to basics and creating real fish meat entirely without mercury, plastic, without the need for antibiotics or growth hormones, and also without the need for fishing or the killing of animals because we grow the fish directly from stem cells.

That’s Mike Selden, the co-founder and C.E.O. of Finless. He’s 27 years old; he started out as a cancer researcher. Like Pat Brown, you could call him a wizard-prophet hybrid. He does take issue with the idea of “lab-grown” food.

SELDEN: The reality is, labs are by definition experimental and are not scalable. So this won’t be grown in a lab at all. It’s prototyped in a lab in the same way that snacks are prototyped in a lab. Doritos are prototyped in a lab by material scientists looking at different dimensions of like crunch and torsion and all these other sort of mechanical properties. So what our facility will look like when we’re actually at production scale is something really a lot closer to a brewery. Big steel tanks that are sort of allowing these cells space in order to divide and grow into large quantities of themselves, while accessing all of the nutrients that we put inside of this nutritional broth.

The fishing industry, like the meat industry, exacts its share of environmental costs. But like Pat Brown, Mike Selden does not want his company to win on goodwill points.

SELDEN: So, the goal of Finless Foods is not to create something that competes on ethics or morals or environmental goals. It’s something that will compete on taste, price, and nutrition — the things that people actually care about.

Right now, everybody really loves whales and people hate when whales are killed. What changed? Because we used to kill whales for their blubber in order to light lamps. It wasn’t an ethical movement, it wasn’t that people woke up one day and decided, “Oh, killing whales is wrong.” It was that we ended up using kerosene instead. We found another technological solution, a supply-side change that didn’t play on people’s morals in order to win. We see ourselves as something like that. You know, why work with an animal at all if you don’t need to?

Indeed: you could imagine in the not-so-distant future a scenario in which you could instantly summon any food imaginable — new foods, new combinations, but also foods that long ago fell out of favor. How much fun would that be? I asked the agricultural economist Jayson Lusk about this.

DUBNER: If we had a 3D printer, and it, let’s say, had, just, we’ll be conservative, 100 buttons of different foods that it could make me. Does anyone press the mutton button?

LUSK: Well, you know, one of the great things about our food system is that it’s a food system that, yes, makes food affordable, but also has a whole awful lot of choice for people who are willing to pay it. And I bet there’s probably at least one or two people out there that will push that will mutton button.

I also asked Lusk for his economic views on the future of meat, especially the sort of projects that inventors like Mike Selden and Pat Brown are working on.

LUSK: I have no problems with what Dr. Brown is trying to do there, and indeed I think it’s very exciting, this technology. And I think ultimately it’ll come down to whether this lab-grown meat can compete on the merits. So, there’s no free lunch here. In fact, the Impossible Burger — I’ve seen it on menus — it’s almost always higher-priced than the traditional beef burger. Now as an economist, I look at that and say, “Those prices, to me, should be signaling something about resource use.” Maybe it’s imperfect; maybe there’s some externalities. But they should reflect all the resources that were used to go in to produce that product. It’s one of the reasons that beef is more expensive than, say, chicken — it takes more time, more inputs, to produce a pound of beef than a pound of chicken.

So, why is it that the Impossible Burger is more expensive than the regular burger? Now, it could be that this is just a startup, and they’re not working at scale; and once they really scale this thing up, it’ll really bring the price down. It could be they’re also marketing to a particular higher-income consumer who is willing to pay a little more. But I think if the claims about the Impossible Burger are true over time, one would expect these products to come down significantly in price and be much less expensive than beef production. You know, this is not going to make my beef friends happy, but if they can do that, good for them; and consumers want to pay for, this product, they like the way it tastes and it saves some money, which means it’s saving some resources; I think in that sense, it’s a great technology.

Whether or not you eat meat; whether or not you’re interested in eating these alternative meats, from plant matter or animal stem cells — it’s hard not to admire the creativity that someone like Pat Brown has exercised: the deep curiosity, the ability to come back from failure, the sheer cleverness of putting together disparate ideas into a coherent scientific plan.

* * *

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Zack Lapinski. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, and Harry Huggins; we had help this week from Nellie Osborne. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Pat Brown, founder and c.e.o. of Impossible Foods.

Kelly Fogarty, executive vice president for the United States Cattlemen’s Association.

Jayson Lusk, economist at Purdue University.

Mike Selden, co-founder and c.e.o. of Finless Foods.

RESOURCES

“Tackling Climate Change Through Livestock,” Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (2013).

Just Food by James McWilliams (Little, Brown, 2009).

“Changes in the Sheep Industry in the United States,” The National Academies (2008).

EXTRA

“Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet,” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

The post The Future of Meat (Ep. 367) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/meat/

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