Quantico By Greg Bear: Article Analysis

Whenever the public hears about the use of bioengineering and its involvement in modern technological advances, it is portrayed in a beneficial manner that encourages progress in society. However, the wide variety of usages that it allows leaves an unfathomable amount of possibilities for people to bring harm to others. Biotechnology is most prominently used in the creation of bioweaponry, which has been the medium of many terroristic attacks worldwide. This idea is followed closely in Quantico by Greg Bear, a story in which we follow the lives of FBI agents at Quantico, an FBI research center, as they try to stop a bioterrorist from committing heinous acts in Saudi Arabia. The book mostly tracks the story of Rebecca, a bioterrorism specialist

In attempts to affect the largest groups possible in public spaces, the usage of bioweapons is constantly pushing new uses of technology and extraneous substances to receive the most devastating effects. In Alexander Ioffe’s article “Biological and Chemical Weapons,” it can be seen that anthrax is typically mixed with silicon to help disperse the powder more in airborne attacks. Adding silicon helps to make the bioweapon more reactive and volatile. Anthrax is a bacterial endospore, making it very easy to spread into open areas with wide coverage. Moreover, once it has foreign substances increasing its effectiveness, it becomes far more enticing to terrorists considering the wide range of possibilities that permits (“Anthrax, terrorist use”). Quantico examines the experimental usage of materials to attack large masses through bioterrorism. Sam mixes aluminum and shellac into his bioweapons to increase their area of diffusion. This helps him increase the reactivity of the medium in which he is spreading anthrax, enabling his bioweapons to have greater effects (Bear 88-89). The application of shellac and rubber is not an exact parallel to the substances used to enhance anthrax in real life, but the concept of using extrinsic materials to boost the reactivity of bioweapons is a realistic process that Bear depicts the experimentality of perfectly. When executing his plan, Sam utilizes fireworks lined with anthrax to cover large areas and bring little attention to his machination. This usage is very experimental and requires a lot of attempts to perfect it due to its potential to backfire (Bear 213). Bear’s choice of making Sam employ fireworks as a means of spreading anthrax draws no parallels to any real acts of bioterrorism and is fully an act of experimentation. Bear examines this topic through a very experimental, yet scientifically backed lens that allows for the usage of bioweapons to