Human Subspecies: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Crest of the Stars]]'': The Abh, who were genetically engineered to work and live in space. In addition to youthful long life and an added sensory organ, they also have blue hair.

* It is hypothesized in ''[[Gundam]]'' that Newtypes are the next step in evolution. However, considering how vague Newtype abilities are, and how people become one, its difficult to say if its a result of a genetic adaptation.

* Subverted in ''[[Gundam Seed]]''. Patrick Zala believes that the genetically modified ''Coordinators'' are a superior new species. In reality, Coordinators are simply Homo sapiens with better genes. His rival Sigel Clyne points out the error: "We never evolved".

* ''[[Vandread]]'': Taraks and Majerans.

* [[Elfen Lied]] gives us ''Homo diclonius'', the result of mutant ovaries. They have neko ear-like bone horns, pink/purple hair, unpigmented (red) irises like albinos; besides that, they're basically a cross between humans (most of what they are), social insects (their internal variety), viruses (how they reproduce, for the most part) and gods (the vectors).

* ''[[Saint Seiya]]'': Lemurians from the continent of Mu. They look like humans except for strange eyebrows and have telekinesis. They are famous for their alchemy.

 

== Comics ==

* In ''[[The Hobbit]]'' we learn that Hobbits are most definitively our close relatives, it seems unknown whether or not they could crossbreed, but may still lead to [[Huge Guy, Tiny Girl]] (or [[Huge Girl Tiny Guy|the reverse]]) anyways. Possibly [[Truth in Television]]; see [[Real Life]] below.

* ''[[Dune]]'': Genetic engineering is commonplace, and modified humans take many shapes and fill many roles, some of them rather disturbing.

* ''[[Known Space]]'': The Pak, who are actually our ancestors Homo habilis. They eat a special root to become Protectors, superhumans that look over the rest of their bloodline. Humanity sprung from [[Lost Colony|a Pak colony went awry]]. Humans can also become Protectors, with the added advantage of being more intelligent and able to work with other (human) Protectors. [[Abusive Precursors|They hate us]] because we [[Uncanny Valley|don't smell right]] due to having mutated so much - the special root didn't grow right on Earth, so we mutated far too much without any Protectors to keep us in line.

** Human Protectors' ability to work together is probably a consequence of another of their quirks: a significantly heightened tendency to adopt the entire species as their bloodline (it seems to come naturally to human Protectors, whereas for Pak Protectors it is a rare reaction to the already rare situation of losing one's entire bloodline but somehow still surviving). It [[Captain Obvious|tends to be easier to work together if you have the same goals]].

* In ''[[The Hollows]]'', vampires and werewolves are humans that have been mutated by a virus. Elves are an inversion: they were once a completely different species (probably even belonging to a different order), but used magic to become capable of breeding with humans, eventually thinning the line between them. Then a virus came along that affected only humans.

* ''[[Last and First Men]]'': the [[Trope Maker]], which follows millions of years of human development, and dozens of human offshoots.

* [[Cordwainer Smith]]'s ''The Instrumentality of Mankind'': To survive on alien worlds, some humans have been so modified that they look more alien than human. Inverted with the Underpeople, who are animals modified to act and look human.

* ''[[Stationery Voyagers]]'' has Felts, Ooze Pens, Whiteouts, Highlighters, Up-Pens, Down-Pens, Gel Pens, Metallic Gel Pens, Thick/Thin Alcohol-Scented/Non-Alcohol-Scented Markers, Eraser-Man, Pencils, the artificially-created robot species of Librions (Mechanical Pencils,) [[Our Vampires Are Different|Mosquatlons]], [[Little Green Men|Grimplites]], [[Our Werewolves Are Different|Aviatets]], and Drismabons. Instead of evolution, they're descended from mankind [[A Wizard Did It|by reason of a divine curse]] that has [[No Ontological Inertia|Minimal Ontological Inertia]].

** The Neimodians are a Duros subspecies.

* In the ''[[Shannara]]'' series, the Trolls, Dwarves, and Gnomes are humans mutated by the consequences of nuclear war. Elves are commonly believed to be the same, but are actually descended from real faeries.

* Pretty much all the [[Human Alien|Human Aliens]] native to the Milky Way Galaxy in ''[[Perry Rhodan]]'' can trace their ancestry to Lemuria (Earth until ca. 50,000 BC), its colonies, and ''their'' colonies in turn. And then there are the descendants of colonists who started out from 'present-day' Terra and developed in a fairly diverse variety of ways. Some are more suited to interbreeding than others; Terran/Arkonide pairs can canonically have children despite one parent having an internal chest ''plate'' in place of ribs and a somewhat different brain structure, but somebody from Siga, whose ancestors ended up shrinking to only a few inches tall over a number of generations due to [[Negative Space Wedgie|an anomaly in their sun's 5-D spectrum]], would obviously make a poor match to anybody more 'normal-sized'.

* ''Spin'' by Robert Charles Wilson introduces the Martians who are descended from colonists who continued to evolve for thousands of years while Earth remained in slow-time. All of this time had forced them to adapt to a partially terraformed Mars, making them much shorter, very wrinkly, and relatively longer-lived (though that one is partly because of their advanced chemistry and nanotechnology).

* [[Harry Harrison]]'s short story "Final Encounter" had a team with members of two Human Subspecies looking for nonhuman intelligence. At the end, the very promising new species, which can't even breathe the same air we do, turns out to be of Earth descent too -- one group was expanding and searching clockwise around the galaxy, the other counter-clockwise.

{{quote| "[[Absent Aliens|We are alone]]," Hautamaki said, looking at the massed trillions of stars. "We have closed the circle and found only ourselves. The galaxy is ours, but we are alone."}}

** The Castalians (modified to survive underwater).

*** Interesting, on their planet there is plenty of [[Fantastic Racism]]... diverted at "air-breathers", i.e. normal humans.

** New Humans from the year 5 billion, who were originally created as lab rats on New Earth

** It's also implied that the Futurekind are an offshoot of humanity.

* ''[[Sliders]]'': Kromags are a example of a Human Subspecies in sharing a common ancestor with humanity.

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'': The Jaffa, modified to be incubators of Goa'uld larvae. Additionally, much of the galaxy is inhabited by ordinary, vanilla humans, who haven't evolved or changed at all since being plucked off Earth exty thousand years ago.

** The Deians: Pale blue people with blonde hair and the [[Planet of Hats|hat]] of covermodels.

** And maybe the Cygnans, who are pretty close to human, and are known to not be native to their own world.

* In ''[[Rifts]]'', there are too many to count. The Coalition States have the Janissary project to create the next step of human evolution. In addition, Psi-X Aliens are actually humans mutated by Desmond Bradford. True Atlanteans are human, but have innate supernatural powers. Amazons are human related but have innate supernatural powers. Most psychics are also implied to be human subspecies, especially Psi-Stalkers and Mind Bleeders who actually have somewhat distinct non-human physical traits.

 

== Video Games ==

 

** Homo Superior: Equal parts technology and biology, it uses the best of both worlds.

** Genejacks: Genetically engineered to be the perfect worker, with strong body and little brain.

** Fallout also has Ghouls, zombie-like former humans with radical biological changes. Ghouls have no skin and little soft tissue, but their exposed flesh has hardened. They are less susceptible to drugs, healed by radiation, and functionally immortal. While not explicitly addressed, it is implied that they are too physically damaged (remember, no soft tissue) to reproduce.

** The Enclave considers all humans outside their base and the Vaults to be mutants, which is probably right in that everyone has some mutations and the Wasteland is highly radioactive. But they don't really have any major differences from normal humans.

 

== Web Comics ==

 

* ''[[Alien Dice]]'': {{spoiler|The Rishan}} are humans abducted by aliens who have had superficial genetic modifications made to them. Sometimes, true humans will be born to {{spoiler|Rishan}} parents.

* The future of ''[[Quantum Vibe]]'' features innumerable different types of humans stemming from advances in cybernetics and genetics. Nicole specifically reads a piece about the Belt-Apes, large stocky humans genetically altered for optimum labor efficiency in the Asteroid Belt.