"Dr. Weirdlieb, are you sure about this?" asked Colonel Moreau, as he watched the snaky-man thing slither out of the chamber and down the gangway out into the alien world.
"Ya vol, mein herr! Er, I mean, yes, sir. It is the best way to colonize this alien world," the strange man in the wheelchair explained again.
"But wouldn't it be better if they knew who they were and what their mission was?" said the colonel with consternation in his voice. "I mean, that was Ensign Rand, and she didn't know who she was and now she's that snake thing, and male."
"And now she has a better chance at surviving on that world than she did before. If the main ship hadn't been damaged by that meteor shower, I would be terraforming this planet now, but that's not an option. The only way, our people will survive is if they adapt to the new world, and blanking out their personalities, genders, and everything is the best way. They are blank templates, only aware of what the swampy disgusting alien world is like from the scans implanted in their memories. They decide on the form that they think they should have to survive in such an environment, and then make their informed decision."
The colonel sighed. The doctor inferred that the colonel had a thing for the former buxom blond ensign. He thought it best to say something.
"You know snakes have the opposite sex chromosomal selection from mammals, so Ensign Rand still has two x-chromosomes. Perhaps, that is why she is male now?"
"Still two x-chromosomes? Hm, but that means the female snaky things have x-y?" he said distastefully.
The doctor shrugged, the colonel as senior personnel wasn't supposed to be transformed anyway...but, well, the doctor would see how his plan went. The terraforming equipment hadn't really been badly damaged, he just wanted to create new exciting lifeforms to bring the human race into their full potential to conquer the universe. Still he couldn't say as much to the colonel. At least not yet.
The door chimed.
"Enter," said the colonel.
"Corporal Doolittle reporting, sir."
"Very good, Doolittle, please, if you would be to strip naked?" asked the doctor in his odd accent.
The man looked uncertainly at the colonel, who simply nodded.
Being a good soldier, the corporal stripped. He climbed into the pod. Soon he was floating in a saline solution. Everything was drifting away. He was blanking in both mind and body. The doctor paused to wonder whether he was blanking the soul too, but decided it didn't matter. The pale humanoid shape could have been male or female, and the race was difficult if impossible to make out. There was a suggestion of the subject being in a VR vacation pod, and making a selection as to the lifeform it wanted to spend the next two weeks- two months- two years? Two somethings? It was strangely vague, but reassuring. The former Doolittle thought about the thick gaseous toxic fogs, and bogs, and the carnivorous plants and fish and snakes, and flying needle bugs that inhabited their New Earth. There was one sun, but two small moons (one was silver-white due to aluminium composition, the other iron and lead based moon was grey and red). The buttons were everywhere. His hand reached out. An orange potion appeared, and he drank it....