Why can't my biopunk nation's advanced biotechnology be reversed-engineered?

Question

In my modern setting, North Korea experienced a revolution. Afterwards, they became the only nation to have developed advanced, biopunk-esque biotechnology through a series of lucky discoveries. The other nations' tech levels are the same as ours. Using their biological technologies, they are able to carve their own geopolitical niche. Their status as the undisputed trailblazers of biological sciences remains unshaken because their creations can't be reverse engineered.

I'll define their advanced biotechnology as the creation and use of unique living organisms designed as tools for manipulating the environment. Examples would be massive molds tunneling underground to create underground train systems, coral ships, living homes, eyeball cameras, etc.

Considering the developed world's history of successful reverse engineering, why can't other nations, especially big ones like the US or China, reverse-engineer the technology even when they are aware of the possibility, see the usefulness, and retrieve big samples to analyze?

I intend for this North Korea's biopunk tech to be unique to itself. I'm trying to look for a doable justification based around inherent traits of biological systems that could prevent reverse-engineering attempts.

Answer 1

First of all, I'd like to direct you to one of my better answers. What it'll teach you is that, fundamentally, it's already very difficult to reverse engineer almost anything. Not impossible, but not easy.

Add to what that other answer explains the fact that you don't have an integrated circuit or a piece of encrypted software. You have the result of the application of the technology someone is trying to reverse engineer. Let me explain.

Reverse engineering an integrated circuit means re-creating the schematic diagram. But not re-creating the fabrication facility. There's never an assumption of an overwhelming leap in innovation (real innovation doesn't work that way, no matter what the magazines claim). In other words, while one might need to tweak how a fabrication facility works, it's always possible to re-create the chip. Said another way, a lot of assumptions can be made based on "we know how to do X and they appear to do Y," and since chip manufacturing is kinda all the same thing, it can be assumed that F(x) = y, which gets you further than you might think.

But unlike an integrated circuit (and making allowances for talking about a non-existent, even fanciful technology) there's really nothing about a genetically engineered creature that explains how that creature came to exist. There isn't, so to speak, a cross-section of the silicon substrate that can be examined to reveal information about the fabrication facility. It's a vague area within which you can achieve your goal. I have before me a completely new kind of frog! I know how to clone frogs! But that doesn't mean I can know, only through examination, how to build the equipment that produced that new frog.

And that's a wordy way of explaining why your tech can't be reverse engineered (at least not quickly... I'll get to that in a moment). We can look at the loaf of bread, but that doesn't mean we know anything about yeast, how to create it, or how to use it... or ovens... or rolling pins.... Whatever device was used to create our biologic, it's that device that needs to be reverse engineered. It's like trying to reverse engineer a chip fabrication facility when all you have to work with is an example chip. Yeah. You're well within the world of suspension of disbelief.

Now, having said that, there is a caveat. In that other answer, the OP was asking about an object the physics of which we did not understand and the operation of which we did not understand. (There were problems with that OP's assumptions, read the answer to understand that.) But it's an important distinction. You see...

Anything invented by one human can be invented by another.

In fact, the history of science is replete with examples of multiple scientists/engineers/inventors coming up with a solution to the same problem at about the same time despite acting independently. Unless you're proposing the innovative leap in your world isn't just a leap, but a world-record setting power jump way, way, way beyond a reasonable "realistic" expectation, what you have is the discovery of a technology that need only wait for someone else to discover it.

In short, while reverse engineering is whomping difficult, it's not impossible unless you're introducing Clarkean magic, as the other OP did.

So, while it's believable that people can't reverse engineer your biotech because extrapolating the devices needed to create a biolgic is not (at all) a direct and reasonable conclusion based only on looking at a genetically engineered sample, the reality is that there's a window of time before the first sample capture and the day that everybody has the tech.

You get to set the size of that period of time. Saying "it can't be done" is simply deciding the period of time is outside the window of your story.

Answer 2

It is already difficult in real life

ASML creates machines that in turn make computer chips. They are the pinnacle of computer chips, making the current smallest chips in the world, and if I'm not mistaken they are several leaps and bounds above anything else. They even provide several more easy to fabricate larger sizes that no one else can. With ever advancing technology smaller chips represent a huge boon. They use less electricity, less silicon, have more calculation power per area of space, are easier to cool and a lot more. No wearable today would be possible without these advancements. It is something incredibly powerful to have and thus control.

China wants it. China has roughly 490 million university schooled people. The USA has a total population of about 335 million people, so less total people than China has in university schooled people. Europe has a total of about 743 million people. So China has about 66% the European population as university schooled. They have a lot of knowledge and research power. So far they do not have anything close to the machines of ASML. Why is that?

First of all, they can't glean much from the chips themselves. If you grab any generation chip, all you can tell is that one is smaller than the other. Despite you only seeing a smaller version of silicone transistors, the fabrication process is wholly different for each. Different types of photolithography, with ever smaller wavelengths of light are used. Each with an ever increasing complexity of supporting processes. Much of the processes are known in general terms. Even so, China has yet to replicate the result.

China does have some (older ASML) machines themselves. This is probably a great starting point for them. However, even if you have the machines themselves you might be stumped. It isn't just about the ability to create them. It is about the ability to be able to create them at acceptable volumes and cost. They might be able to make a prototype machine that creates one wafer every week. That is just not acceptable. All this is not even mentioning the programming that goes on a chip. Without the right software the hardware is nothing.

Now in biology

Through advancements we know more and more about the world than before. These advancements are going quicker every year. There's still areas that leave us stumped. Spider silk is an amazing material. It has great strength and elasticity. They have broken it down to it's components and every autumn it is hard not to walk into a web and get the web factory crawling on your face. I ask you, where is spider silk now? In writing this I'm pleased to announce they have replicated it by making some bacteria produce it. As far as I could find it was still all via biological means and not pure synthetic. It is definitely not ready for mass production at an effective cost. Despite years of research we do not have this wonder material. Even with all our advancements it is still not fully grasped.

For your biopunk biology

It isn't inconceivable that a country or company goes leaps and bounds beyond others, without them being able to replicate it in years. Especially in biology where we have plenty research to do still. There are so many confounding variables, things we do not yet understand and just sheer complexity that it is hard to replicate anything in a controlled environment. It is easy to imagine that a few of the biopunk technologies are cracked or understood. Some might even be replicated. It is safe to say that many will not. They only have the end result, or the chip/silk. Even with the fabricator/spider itself they might not be able to replicate the success. Even if they do, they might not have it viable in quantity and cost effectiveness. Imagine them only able to create a tiny culture of tunneling fungus that barely tunnels 30cm after a lengthy process. And again, they might have all the things right, but lack the right programming of the cells.

Depending on the subject, it can be very difficult to reverse engineer. Your biopunk technology can easily be safe for decades.

Answer 3

Life grows and without the initial conditions, it is impossible to reverse engineer

Okay - thought experiment time:

I present you with two fully mature adult humans, one male and one female.

Imagine you have never seen a baby before - what would you imagine that juvenile humans look like?

Let us take this one-step further, humans have been having children for a very long time, it was only in the 1800s that we knew the pre-conditions needed for life (e.g. an egg and sperm) - despite them being discovered nearly 200 years earlier.

That is to say, humans knew about babies (obviously) without the means to 'reverse engineer' how they were made (I mean, they knew about sex, but the actual mechanics were not well understood)

And herein lies the problem with reverse engineering a biological technology - as living things grow, they change. A mighty 150 year old oak tree started from a single acorn. You might be able to infer the oak started smaller and grew, but exactly how it started (the preconditions) it is impossible.

Answer 4

Simplest answer; everybody BUT Korea is lacking a crucial element to actually figure it out.

Do note that this is highly hypothetical, and even after looking it up, I am struggling to find relevant examples of reverse engineering being countered in history.

Korea is in the possession of the only and unique source of whatever allows the development and research of this technology.

A real world example would be the difficulty to research and create nuclear devices in the absence of fissible material. Of course, people could still have figured it out, because the theoretical knowledge about nuclear material was already out there. It is not rocket science to aim your research when you have Curie's work and the country across the ocean calls it a nuclear bomb, but it is still massively complex to bridge from "I think they are doing that" to "here is the actual, tried process on how to do it".

Fictionnal example would be the Wakanda in the MCU. Why does Wakanda is so much more advanced than the rest of Earth in the setting? Because all the other backwater countries can not even begin to research the application of vibranium.

What does this mean in your context?

You want a bio-punk bio-technology. Right. I am spitballing here, the details are up to you.

To fit your theme, Korea detains the only source in the world of an organism that allows you to develop this bio-technology. Maybe a strangely programmable sort of mushroom. Maybe a type of bacteria that allows you to easily do complex gene splicing. Maybe you found a kind of bug that does the very sciencey bio-technobabble. Preferably, this does not leave any trace of itself in the finished product: it is more of a tool than a component, and as such is not something you can substitute as easily in the reverse engineering process.

It is not even that unlikely. Biological niches are actually "frequent". Some organisms need very specific criteria and actually did not spread out of the cave from which they emerged - because they could not reach another biome they could survive in.

What does this mean, in your world, in practicality?

This ressource is the single most valuable ressource in your fictional version of Korea (and possibly, in the world). If other countries get their hands on it, they will figure out how you did it.

This ressource is the most guarded secret in your fictional version of Korea. If other countries even learn of it, you will be swarmed with governement spies and corporate spies. They will try to buy a sample. They will try to acquire it by force. They will wage war on you and target wherever that element does come from to either get it, or destroy it.

Therefore, this ressource is most likely owned, exploited and protected by your government. Your citizens at large ignore it even exists. You do not have any academic exchange on the topic with anyone else - forget even using it as a bartering chip; it is that precious. Only people with Top Secret clearance can even mention it. Their actions are scrutinized and treason is met with the harshest form of punishment.

The extent of the control is up to you. But if you have that kind of unique, breakthrough technology, and the key to unlock it, it is that valuable.

Answer 5

A Big Lead is Harder to Catch Up on than Most People Realize

Most reverse engineering is based on being only one or two generations of technology behind a competitor and figuring out how to adapt what you know to what you are experimenting with; however, there are a few historical examples of cases where one civilization took a large number of technological steps forward before other countries even theoretically considered the technology as a possibility. A recent example of this is American stealth technology. The United States began officially researching stealth technology in 1958; however, this tech was so secretive that the world at large did not know about it or even begin to research it until 1980.

To this date, other militarily advanced countries are still way behind the USAF. For example, Russia's newest stealth fighter, the Su-57 is much stealthier than previous generations of Russian fighters, but still is not even considered a stealth fighter by American definitions with it having a similar radar cross-section to America's F-18 Hornet. Other stealth next gen fighters like China's J-35A or Japan's X-2 will theoretically close the gap more than the Su-57 did, but the J-35A has a highly secretive stealth capability which China seems to only do when they design a system that does not meet or beat their Western counterparts, and the J-3 will not even begin active service until 2030, and current reports suggest a radar cross section somewhat bigger than the now 19 year old American F-22.

In short, Countries all over the world have been trying to rip off American Stealth tech for a long time now, but are still just as far behind as they started. In the case of North Korea, they are such an isolated country, that other nations know very little about what they do behind closed doors; so, by the time other countries even think to want to have similar biotech, they could already be decades behind. For all the wealth and manpower of larger countries, there is just no competing with a population of second and third generation bioengineers using guys who are do not yet even fully understand the the theories upon which that tech is based.

Every Story is Just a Moment in History

So, even with samples to work from, it will take other countries decades to maybe sort of catch up. That is a lot of time for an entire TV or book series to play all the way through the story you have to tell. So, even if your world will eventually catch up 50+ years later, it does not matter if the story you need to tell will be over in 1-10 years.

Answer 6

They are using biological engineering to make reverse engineering harder. They make sure that there isn't enough DNA/RNA inside the creatures (when they are mature) to handle their growth and development. For example, imagine that there are two types of cells, governors and fabric. The governor cells handle the growth while the creature is small while the fabric cells are only capable of growth. All the governor cells are killed before the creature leaves some well-protected lab.

Additionally, correct development might be dependent on the presence of various substances during various stages of development. This not only makes espionage harder but also makes development easier. You could use a single genetic stock but alter the final properties by changing the concentrations

Some important enzymes might not be synthesised outside of the lab and genes responsible for this would be destroyed before leaving the lab. Either you go with red-bool-cell-like removal of the entire nucleus or have an enzyme that removes a part of DNA. That would limit the lifespan to maybe 200 days.

Additionally, the hard part might be creating things and not understanding how they work. Imagine you can design arbitrary enzymes. Reverse engineering the enzyme might be possible by throwing enough x-ray diffraction at some samples but this would be extremely expensive. This would not answer the question of how can they design an enzyme like this.

I hope this shows some possibilities.

Answer 7

It consumes the template its built from. Which has to mean, the cells, can not go back to stem-cells, not go back to anything, or replicate after they reached maturity. This sounds alien, but it could be done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology

The cell has a template to form around and divide initially and as a last step- the cell just devours it. You have perfect specimen. You have some repair mechanisms, you have some proteinproducers, that can copy the stuff they are supossed to produce, but you do not have the original dna. Once the cell dies, it dies- which means, if you want the creature to be functional, it has to have almost imortal remainder-cells.

Many other biological functions, will have to be wildly different - or if they are replication based (like liver (or colon, bloodcells, you name ends in cancer your on this list)) - the template has to be radically simplified once maturity is reached. There can be not sexual reproduction either. Its a one time, one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayfly going about its job. Want a replacement? Buy it.

If that is too limiting for your world, consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_seed - which means the offspring of a hybrid would be non viable. A hybrid can be cloned though.

Answer 8

It dies. Then it rots.

The biotechnology is heavily and immediately dependent on something that only the biopunk nations have. Captured biotechnology dies quickly, and then rots quickly because of the fragility of the alterations. You can't reverse engineer rotten goo.

Answer 9

Simple, make the underlying tech impossible to recreate. First by the fact that it isn't going to be seen as the underlying tech, and secondly by keeping it secret.

This technology is not the breakthrough, it's a symptom and/or product of harnessing the mind power of Downs Syndrome babies. So while it seems to be multiple scientific breakthroughs, at it's most basic it's actually a psychiatric treatment breakthrough that makes these kids have a totally different way of seeing how things work and solving problems. Not better, just different..

The rest is just details.