As ever, I reserve the right to change my mind if I get better ideas.

From start to finish, the project lasts seventeen years. Like I said over in this post, the first six are spent on the base research and development to get everything off the ground, both the technology and the babies themselves. Figuring out how to maximize the carrying capacity of the artificial amniotic fluid, stuff like that.

When it came to the next phase, the two years of growing the babies to certain points and then inspecting them from the inside out, over time it included more and more tests on live subjects. None of them were around for more than twenty months, and that one was a particularly special case. After the final examinations, the bodies are cremated and the ashes are buried in a small garden near the lighthouse. It’s intended as a place for the scientists to go to relax, unwind, and eat their lunches in a place besides the cafeteria.

There isn’t an infrastructure for all of the scientists to stay on full-time; most of them commute from Marseille. What it does have is something like a college dorm made out of converted prison cells where people can stay on for extended periods if they’re doing part of a project that calls for them to be there during the night or first thing in the morning. It never gets cozy, but that’s not why they’re sleeping there.

The six groups are born over a two-and-a-half-year period, with some overlap with the phase previously mentioned. They’re very precocious so two years isn’t a huge age difference; it’s more the interactions they got with the scientists that shaped their mindsets.