The Net Terminal Gene is a long-lost gene in humans that, at one point, allowed them to connect to the Netsphere. Killy's search for a living human with the Net Terminal Gene is the impetus for the entire manga.
Relevance in the Story[]
Hundreds of thousands of years before the manga opens, every human in the City carried a Net Terminal Gene. Using the gene, they could access the Netsphere and create anything they imagined from a digital template. It also allowed them to communicate directly with the Administration and the Safeguards. However, at some point, a strange "infection" spread throughout the City, deactivating the Net Terminal Gene and preventing people from being born with it. This left the City without any human capable of issuing commands to the Administration, Builders, or Safeguards. Without anything to give them orders, the Builders began to create chaotic and nonsensical new additions to the City based on their fragmented memory of previous structures. The Safeguard, under standing orders when the infection began to kill any infected and prevent the mutation from spreading, then believed every human was infected, and began to exterminate the entire human populace of the City.
At some point, the Administration used what limited power they had to create a provisional Safeguard unit in the form of Killy. They tasked him with finding a living Net Terminal Gene carrier with the intent of re-subjugating the City to humanity's control.
The Silicon Life, dependent on the City's innate chaos for their own continued existence, fear the gene's reemergence and actively hunt humans with the intent of destroying every possible carrier.
Spoiler Alert: Do not read below this line if you intend to read the manga.[]
At the end of volume 10, Killy finds the orb that Cibo left behind after she died defending it from the High-Level Exterminator unit. The orb contained her DNA and Seu's, in the form of a fetus. Since Seu was a carrier of the Gene, this fetus was, as well.
In the last panel of the manga, several years later, Killy is seen firing the GBE, protecting the now young carrier, who is wearing a full bodysuit and gas mask to keep away the infection. Blame!2, which takes place thousands of years after the original manga, reveals that humans have re-established control of the City.
Terminology
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General Terms | Base Reality * City * Factory * Language Matrix * Megastructure * Net Terminal Genes * Netsphere * Temporary Access Authentication * The World * Unofficial Megastructure |
Creatures and Professions | Carriers * Dismantler * Exterminators * High-Level Exterminator |
Technology | Anti Magnetic Cocoon * Electric Barrier Generator * Food Ration Bar * Forwarding * Gravitational Beam Emitter * Structure Conversion Towers |