"`Over twelve thousand seven hundred children already, either decanted or in embryo. And still going strong. We'll beat them yet.'" (7)

This quote occurs in the beginning, ass the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning is showing students around the Fertilizing Room of their center in London. Mr. Foster then joins in to share with them this information. The process in which thousands of children are produced from one embryo is called the Bokanovsky's Process, where an egg is hit with the maximum amount X-rays it can stand to encourage division. The Bokanovsky's Process, viewed as the major instrument of social stability, is also practiced in other centers around the world. These other centers have been able to produce a greater number than the center here in London and so it has been set as a goal to beat them.

This quote strikes me as more disturbing than interesting. These human beings aren't being created one at a time as children, but thousands at a time for the purpose of social stability. This may be one of the story's main ideas in that there is a need of creating perfection and that it can be controlled. This quote reveals that these characters find nothing wrong with this idea and treat it lightly by turning the process of it into a competition. They don't even relate to what they are creating or how they are affecting them as they are the ones above them, the creators.

How would one feel to be in a batch of uniform individuals? There would be no sense of identity and no attention to give them individually. It's like being given up for adoption and never being accepted, except this time as a group. These people may suffer in the future but it seems like it's of no importance. There is no emotional attachment to these creations and it's unfair. What is happening in this quote is kind of relevant to the issue of cloning in real life today. It's crazy to think that just anyone can play God but some people today, like the characters in this book, find it as the way to go.