Did Code 46 come true?
Mostly not yet. Code 46 (2003) has a P(n) of 32% on Nearfi's P(n) Board, our estimate of the chance its future arrives within 20 years. Of its 4 tracked predictions, 0 have arrived and 1 are arriving. Its central premise, 'A state checks genetic relatedness between partners and enforces a ban on reproduction between close genetic relatives, ending pregnancies that break it', is expected within 50 years. The next prediction is estimated to arrive around 2030.
Code 46 is most prescient about the border: movement gated by biometric records is now being built at real frontiers. Its genetic law, its empathy-enhancing virus and its targeted memory edit are all further off, and the coercive state that would enforce the law is a political choice, not a technical one.
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How this P(n) was calculated
P(n) is the chance that this work's future arrives within 20 years, by 2046. For each prediction we turn our estimate into a probability: arrived is 100%, diverged is 0%, and otherwise the low end of our 80% range counts as a 10% chance, the median year 50% and the high end 90%. Each prediction is weighted 1–5 by how pivotal it is to the story, and P(n) is the weighted average. P50 does the same by 2076. P(n), explained.
| Claim | Prediction · why this weight | Weight | Status · estimate | By 2046 | By 2076 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C46-1 | Movement between regions requires a biometric travel document checked against a central record, and people without one are held outside the cities. Major: forged travel papers set the plot going, and the border regime frames the whole love story. |
4 | ARRIVING 2030 (2027–2045) | 91% | 100% |
| C46-2 | A state checks genetic relatedness between partners and enforces a ban on reproduction between close genetic relatives, ending pregnancies that break it. Core premise: Code 46 is the title, the engine of the plot and the reason the lovers are doomed. |
5 | NEAR 2060 (2040–2120) | 22% | 61% |
| C46-3 | A treatment gives a person a reliable, heightened ability to read other people's thoughts and feelings. Supporting: William's empathy virus drives his work as an investigator and why he falls for Maria, but the plot would run without it. |
3 | FAR 2090 (2060–2200) | 6% | 31% |
| C46-4 | Authorities can erase a person's memory of another person and plant a lasting aversion to them. Major: the memory wipe and fear conditioning drive the second half and the ending, though the law itself is the premise. |
4 | FAR 2090 (2060–2200) | 6% | 31% |
| P(n) = P20 = Σ(weight × chance by 2046) ÷ Σ weight = 5.1 ÷ 16 = 32% | |||||
| P50 = 9.2 ÷ 16 = 58% | |||||
Already here today (arrived 1, arriving ½, weighted): 12%.
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C46-1
Movement between regions requires a biometric travel document checked against a central record, and people without one are held outside the cities.
Weight 4/5 · Major: forged travel papers set the plot going, and the border regime frames the whole love story.
The EU's Entry/Exit System began rolling out at its external borders in October 2025 and has been fully operational since 10 April 2026. It records short stays by non-EU nationals digitally, with a facial image and fingerprints in place of a passport stamp. That covers short-stay visitors at one border bloc, not movement between every region, and the early weeks brought long queues. We set the median at 2030 for wider adoption of the same pattern across major borders. 123
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C46-2
A state checks genetic relatedness between partners and enforces a ban on reproduction between close genetic relatives, ending pregnancies that break it.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: Code 46 is the title, the engine of the plot and the reason the lovers are doomed.
The tools for relatedness checks exist, but only on a voluntary basis. A 2013 Icelandic app, built on a national genealogy database, warns users if they are closely related, and Britain caps each sperm donor at ten families. In Europe, though, donor limits differ by country, and a 2025 investigation traced one donor to at least 197 children in 14 countries. No state mandates relatedness checks on couples or ends pregnancies that fail them. The film's cloned mother also assumes reproductive human cloning, which has not been achieved. This is the hardest-to-date claim in the ledger because it turns on politics more than technology, and the range allows that it may never happen. 456
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C46-3
A treatment gives a person a reliable, heightened ability to read other people's thoughts and feelings.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: William's empathy virus drives his work as an investigator and why he falls for Maria, but the plot would run without it.
The best-studied candidate for a chemical empathy aid is intranasal oxytocin. Its published effects on social behaviour are doubtful: a statistical critique argues that these studies are generally underpowered, and a systematic review found that most interactive effects were never replicated and that most attempts to do so failed. We see no credible route to a reliable enhancement of reading others, let alone one delivered as a virus. The date range reflects that uncertainty, and the claim may never be realised. 78
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C46-4
Authorities can erase a person's memory of another person and plant a lasting aversion to them.
Weight 4/5 · Major: the memory wipe and fear conditioning drive the second half and the ending, though the law itself is the premise.
In human volunteers, the beta-blocker propranolol, taken before a learned fear is reactivated, reduced the fear response a day later and kept it from returning. This dulls an emotional reaction, not the memory itself. In mice, researchers have created a single false fear association by optogenetics, which is far short of removing a relationship from a brain or building a phobia of a particular person. The experiments also raise ethical objections, and the film's use is coercive. We expect partial emotional editing well before anything that selective. 91011
- FOR Entry/Exit System - full implementation from April 10th 2026. gov.pl (Poland in the US), 2026-04-07. Describes EES as a fully digital system registering non-EU short-stay travellers at the external borders of 29 European countries, launched in stages from 12 October 2025.
- FOR EU's Entry/Exit System fully operational as of 10 April 2026. EY Global Tax News, 2026-04-28. Confirms mandatory collection of facial images and fingerprints at EU external borders from the full start date.
- AGAINST EU's Entry/Exit System fully operational as of 10 April 2026. EY Global Tax News, 2026-04-28. Reports substantial delays, missed flights and long border queues in the first weeks of full operation.
- FOR New App Tells Icelanders If Their Hookup Qualifies As Accidental Incest. Popular Science, 2013-04-18. A student-built app uses the Islendingabok genealogy database, said to cover up to 95 percent of Icelanders, to sound an alarm when two closely related users bump phones.
- CONTEXT Donating your sperm. Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, 2026-11-06. UK rules say donated sperm cannot be used to create more than ten families, a cap on the number of half-siblings.
- AGAINST At least 197 children were fathered by sperm donor with cancer-causing gene. Some have already died. CNN (via ABC17 News), 2025-12-10. Rules on donor limits differ greatly between European countries, and the sperm bank says it supports a common limit, so no systematic relatedness control exists.
- AGAINST Statistical and methodological considerations for the interpretation of intranasal oxytocin studies. Biological Psychiatry (via PubMed Central), 2015-02-01. Argues that intranasal oxytocin studies are generally underpowered, so many positive findings may be false positives.
- AGAINST How Can Intranasal Oxytocin Research Be Trusted? A Systematic Review of the Interactive Effects of Intranasal Oxytocin on Psychosocial Outcomes. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2020-09-01. Finds that most published interactive effects were never tested for replication, and that most replication attempts failed.
- FOR Beyond extinction: erasing human fear responses and preventing the return of fear. Nature Neuroscience (via University of Amsterdam repository), 2009-02-15. Propranolol before reactivation of a learned fear reduced its behavioural effects 24 hours later and kept fear from returning.
- CONTEXT Mice "incepted" with false memories provide insight into neural phenomena. RIKEN, 2013-07-26. Optogenetics was used to create a single false fear association in mice, far short of a planted aversion to a person.
- AGAINST Beta-blocker erases fear response related to bad memories. Medical News Today, 2009-02-16. Mind's chief executive questioned a pharmacological approach, and a medical ethicist asked whether such erasure might also affect positive memories.
Ledger updated 6 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method