Line #70 Main/TranshumansInSpace


1	%%%
2	%%
3	%%
4	%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
5	%%
6	%%
7	%%%
8
9	Groups of {{Transhuman}}s [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin living in space]].
10
11	In the time-honored SpaceOpera genre, characters tend to be either aliens, robots, or standard humans--maybe somebody has a prosthetic limb or two, but generally [[NoTranshumanismAllowed augmentation is frowned upon.]]
12
13	{{Cyberpunk}} and its less gloomy successor PostCyberpunk, on the other hand, feature rampant {{Transhuman}} augmentation despite tending to be set on Earth.
14
15	It shouldn't be too surprising that [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs eventually somebody decided to combine the two]].
16
17	Compare TranshumanAliens, for when transhumans are substituted for aliens, GeneticAdaptation, for when humans adapt themselves to new environments, and SpacePeople, for when humans adapt themselves to live in outer space.
18
19	While ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'' certainly qualifies, they are not to be confused.
20	----
21	!!Examples:
22
23	[[foldercontrol]]
24
25	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
26	* ''Manga/KnightsOfSidonia'' is a fairly standard SpaceOpera of a colony ship of humans fleeing the destruction of Earth by alien creatures known as the Gauna, but being written by Creator/TsutomuNihei, transhumanism is rampant to the point where there are no baseline human characters. A short list of transhuman features present in the series are human capable of the photosynthesizing to reduce (but not eliminate) the need for food (everyone except the main character), [[ImmortalityInducer medically induced immortality]] (the command crew), an enhanced HealingFactor implied to be tied to an innate form of biological immortality (main character Tanikaze), [[ArtificialLimbs cybernetic replacements for lost limbs]] (Lalah and later Isana), an artificially created third sex that eventually transitions to either male or female after becoming attracted to someone (Isana and a couple of minor characters), mass cloning ([[ClonesArePeopleToo the Honoka sisters]]), SuperStrength (again, the Honoka sisters). That doesn't even begin to cover some of the more extreme instances in the series courtesy of [[MadScientist Ochiai]].
27	[[/folder]]
28
29	[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
30	* In ''WesternAnimation/StrangeFrame'', humans have moved out to the Jovian belt. In order to survive in the different environments of the Jovian moons, most humans have undergone some degree of genetic or cybernetic modification.
31	[[/folder]]
32
33	[[folder:Literature]]
34	* ''Literature/Aeon14'': {{Cyborg}}s, BioAugmentation, and fully self-aware {{Artificial Intelligence}}s are all over the setting, up to and including known cases of [[MergerOfSouls AI merging with humans]] and organics and AI [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascending beyond flesh and silicon]]. At the same time though, they still have recognizably human personalities, behaviors and motivations, and love, hate, fight, laugh and cry.
35	* ''Literature/{{Blindsight}}'' has a team of transhumans sent to the Oort Cloud to make FirstContact. The entire crew have hibernation genes from prehistoric vampires, the biologists have cybernetic senses at the expense of expressive control, the linguist has four artificially induced split personalities, the combat specialist is wired into a team of drones, the captain is an actual vampire, and the protagonist had a radical hemispherectomy to cure his epilepsy, so he has a prosthetic brain hemisphere.
36	* ''Literature/CrestOfTheStars'' has the Abh, a race of humans with genetically engineered modifications to better withstand space travel (and also for cosmetic reasons). Even more heavily modified groups exist, but they are generally fairly reclusive. The only non-Abh modified character we meet is a United Mankind intelligence agent who is descended from a group that modified themselves for extended lifespans.
37	* ''Literature/TheCulture'' is a civilization spanning a good chunk of the galaxy whose citizens engage in frequent body-modding ranging from drug glands to extra limbs to brain backups.
38	* ''Literature/{{Eldraeverse}}'': The Eldrae were transhuman to begin with, being TransplantedHumans genetically modified by {{Precursors}}. Around the time they started venturing out into space, they were taking things further, such as adding BodyBackupDrive to their "natural" lack of aging.
39	* Creator/GregoryBenford's ''Galactic Center'' saga is an early example, written starting in 1977. In the first two books, humans use [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum technology salvaged from hostile aliens]] that attacked the solar system to travel to the center of the galaxy at near light speed. By the third book, their descendants have become post-human cyborgs who rapidly swap out cybernetic implants and can copy much of their memories onto computer chips, despite having [[FutureImperfect lost nearly all of their knowledge of history]].
40	* ''Literature/GreatShip'': Humanity, who for the most part have started replacing their brains with ceramic hardware, was the first species to gain access to the titular massive starship.
41	* ''Literature/{{Incandescence}}'' has a combination of BodyUploading and DestructiveTeleportation. If someone moves from the physical world to a processor, their body is destroyed when their mind is digitized. If they want to take on a physical body again, computers design one to their specifications. There are also nodes in interstellar space where people live full-time on a processor. At the start of the book, Rakesh hasn't been in the physical world in 96 years, and his friend Parantham was created de novo on a processor and never had a body to begin with.
42	* ''Literature/MoonRainbow'' concerns the emergence of the first transhumans ("exotes") during humanity's initial exploration of the Solar system and their subsequent exile from Earth to a nearby star system. After a massive TimeSkip, the last published novel sees exotes allowed back on Earth in return for their help in exploring the wider galaxy, since regular humans cannot pilot FasterThanLightTravel spaceships, which the exotes have invented during their exile.
43	* ''Literature/OldMansWar'': The human Colonial Defense Forces go all out with their engineered SuperSoldier bodies -- super-strength, super-senses, enhanced reflexes, green skin, ''fully synthetic blood''. They have to, in order to stand a chance against other species more blessed by evolution.
44	* ''Literature/{{Schismatrix}}'' portrays a spacefaring setting dominated by transhumans and split between shapers who favor biotech and mechanists who favor cybernetics. Characters routinely and casually receive bionic and biological enhancements, especially in short fiction set in the shaper/mechanist 'verse.
45	* In the ''Literature/TakeshiKovacs'' series, Earth humans have colonized several star systems by uploading their brains to cloned bodies, often with biological or cybernetic enhancements.
46	* In ''Literature/ThatHideousStrength'', N.I.C.E. hopes to bring the vision of ''Literature/OutOfTheSilentPlanet'''s villain to life by creating an interplanetary empire. Unlike him, they have also set their sight on eliminating the flaws of organic matter and hope to replace humanity with a select few minds that have been stripped of their flesh, allowing them to eventually create a totally hygienic and controlled universe.
47	[[/folder]]
48
49	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
50	* ''TabletopGame/BluePlanet'' has genetically and cybernetically modified humans and uplifts exploring an oceanic planet.
51	* ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'': During a Singularity gone wrong, Earth was evacuated by BrainUploading to artificial bodies produced throughout the solar system.
52	* ''TabletopGame/HcSvntDracones'': After a nuclear war on Earth the corporate colonies on Mars repopulated the solar system with genetically engineered human-animal hybrids and RidiculouslyHumanRobots. 700 years later there are entire {{Mega Corp}}s specializing in Bio or Cyber augmentation.
53	* ''TabletopGame/{{Mindjammer}}'': Ten thousand years after launching STL colony ships, Earth develops FTL travel and the planet's immortal oligarchs reach out to the various branches of humanity scattered throughout the stars.
54	* ''TabletopGame/NovaPraxis'': A seed AI known as "Mimir" provided the nanotechnology both to convert a human brain into a synthetic neural network and to build stargates.
55	* ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'' takes place in the year 2100 in a solar system colonized by genetically engineered humans, {{Artificial Human}}s, and AI.
56	[[/folder]]
57
58	[[folder:Video Games]]
59	* ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'': Most of the Affinities use some variety of this concept when SettlingTheFrontier of alien worlds. In those cases, the Affinity level indicates how far the faction has diverged from the human baseline.
60	** ''Supremacy'' uses {{Cyborg}} enhancements, ArtificialIntelligence, and eventual BrainUploading to develop a civilization that can flourish irrespective of conditions on alien worlds. Its unique victory option returns to Earth to share its technology-born immortality in what might be a BenevolentAlienInvasion, an AssimilationPlot, or [[BlueAndOrangeMorality both]].
61	** ''Harmony'' uses BioAugmentation and GeneticAdaptation to adapt to alien environments, ultimately becoming part of the alien ecosystem. Its unique victory option merges all life on the planet into a single transcendent consciousness.
62	** The ''Harmony-Purity'' hybrid Affinity believes that HumanityIsSuperior and engineers DesignerBabies in an attempt to refine the human race into an UltimateLifeForm.
63	** The ''Supremacy-Harmony'' hybrid Affinity uses both biological and technological enhancements so enthusiastically that it can become nigh-impossible to distinguish flesh from machine, never mind tell whether the organism was human to begin with.
64	* In ''VideoGame/RimWorld'', humans across the galaxy can have bionic body parts and brain implants, and with rare nanotech therapies, regenerate missing parts, learn new skills, or even come back from the dead. In the expansions, there are a variety of people vats and bioengineered subspecies.
65	[[/folder]]
66
67	[[folder:Webcomics]]
68	* ''Webcomic/AliceGrove'': Humanity is divided between transhumans living in space habitats and a low-tech civilization on post-apocalyptic Earth, with a couple centuries-old super soldiers living covertly on Earth. [[spoiler:It eventually turns out that the "space habitats" are actually massive alien plants who created the transhumans as a "what could have been" if humanity hadn't knocked themselves back to the 19th century in a RobotWar.]]
69	* ''Webcomic/AlwaysHuman'': BioAugmentation "mods" are ubiquitous on Earth, humans are beginning to colonize the solar system, and space travelers get a suite of specialized mods to acclimate themselves to off-world conditions as a matter of course.
70	* There's a lot more in the way of GeneticAdaptation in the part of the ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' universe we see, but there's ''also'' a major focus on robots, uplifting, and how AI can be just as human as anyone else. (Also, Sam, whose BlueAndOrangeMorality is played for laughs -- and turns out to be a lot more human than expected.) Different characters have different viewpoints, and Qwerty and Dvorak are basically ''synthetic'' transhumanists. The biggest transhumanist we see, later on, is Tess Thurmad, whose views are basically, 'let's barrel forward, full speed ahead!'
71	* ''Webcomic/QuantumVibe'' is a romp across a ColonizedSolarSystem where [[BrainComputerInterface cortical implants]] are as common as smartphones and [[LongevityTreatment life-extension]] is common, at least in the prosperous regions. The characters encounter HumanSubspecies like the multi-armed Spyders, the super-strong Belt Apes, and (most heartbreakingly) the FantasticCasteSystem of West Terra. After the TimeSkip, BrainUploading into android bodies becomes common.
72	* In ''Webcomic/RunawayToTheStars'', humanity stands out among explored space's five known sapient species by their predilection for genetically engineering themselves. There are dozens of "clades" of genetically modified humans ([=GMHs=]) and many more one-off creations.
73	* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'': The military characters host BoringButPractical [[SuperSoldier "soldier-boost"]] nanotech, which gets increasingly advanced over the series, to the point of armor-piercing claws, [[{{Pun}} secreted weapons]], growing an armored carapace, and [[spoiler:cheating death as a BodyBackupDrive]]. One human character chooses to keep her carapace, even in civilian life as a scientist. Many characters are {{Uplifted Animal}}s and [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation humans with unusual skin colors]].
74	[[/folder]]
75
76	[[folder:Web Original]]
77	* ''Website/OrionsArm'' is a future history where, over the course of the next ten millennia, humanity branches off into millions of modified clades, creates countless varieties of AI, and uplifts seemingly every species on Earth and many other planets within a 5,000-light-year radius of Sol.
78	[[/folder]]
79

Context Main / TranshumansInSpace