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Fan Works
The divisions between the Men of Iron, Men of Stone, and other varieties of human were becoming increasingly blurry during the Dark Age of Technology, with human minds uploaded into computer processors, positronic brains of A.I. clothed in artificially grown human flesh, and everything in-between. The Men of Gold took this to an extreme, with bespoke organs fabricated in high workshops and plastic and metal components grown within their own bodies. With the Men of Gold, it was a very real question where the biological components ended and the mechanical ones began.
Film
"You are deluded, Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality, you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear!"
— Johann Schmidt, Captain America: The First Avenger
Literature
The Crowned Pawn was like a ship turned inside out. It centered around a core of massive magnetic engines, fed by drones from a chunk of reaction mass. Outside these engines was a skeletal metal framework where Lobsters clung like cysts or skimmed along on induced magnetic fields. There were cupolas here and there on the skeleton where the Lobsters hooked into fluidic computers or sheltered themselves from solar storms and ring-system electrofluxes.
They never ate. They never drank. Sex involved a clever cyber-stimulation through cranial plugs. Every five years or so they "molted" and had their skins scraped clean of the stinking accumulation of mutated bacteria that scummed them over in the stagnant warmth.
They knew no fear. Agoraphobia was a condition easily crushed with drugs. They were self-contained and anarchical. Their greatest pleasure was to sit along a girder and open their amplified senses to the depths of space, watching stars past the limits of ultraviolet and infrared, or staring into the flocculate crawling plaque of the surface of the sun, or just sitting and soaking in watts of solar energy through their skins while they listened with wired ears to the warbling of Van Allen belts and the musical tick of pulsars. I saw within them the first stirrings of the Fifth Prigoginic Leap — that postulated Fifth Level of Complexity as far beyond intelligence as intelligence is from amoebic life, or life from inert matter. They frightened me. Their bland indifference to human limitations gave them the sinister charisma of saints.
They never ate. They never drank. Sex involved a clever cyber-stimulation through cranial plugs. Every five years or so they "molted" and had their skins scraped clean of the stinking accumulation of mutated bacteria that scummed them over in the stagnant warmth.
They knew no fear. Agoraphobia was a condition easily crushed with drugs. They were self-contained and anarchical. Their greatest pleasure was to sit along a girder and open their amplified senses to the depths of space, watching stars past the limits of ultraviolet and infrared, or staring into the flocculate crawling plaque of the surface of the sun, or just sitting and soaking in watts of solar energy through their skins while they listened with wired ears to the warbling of Van Allen belts and the musical tick of pulsars. I saw within them the first stirrings of the Fifth Prigoginic Leap — that postulated Fifth Level of Complexity as far beyond intelligence as intelligence is from amoebic life, or life from inert matter. They frightened me. Their bland indifference to human limitations gave them the sinister charisma of saints.
— ''Cicada Queen", by Bruce Sterling
"You know what they say the modern version of Pascal's Wager is? Sucking up to as many Transhumanists as possible, just in case one of them turns into God."
— Crystal Nights, by Greg Egan
"I'm not human, but my ancestors were, and what they dreamed, we are."
— Gwendolyn Ingolfsson, Drakon
"Since this body cannot do the job, we will have to build you a new one."
— The Emperor, The Elder Empire
"If someone came from the past, to meet us here and now, what do you think they'd say about us? Would they even call us human?"
Lisa looked at me seriously. "No. They'd call us gods."
Lisa looked at me seriously. "No. They'd call us gods."
— Pump Six and Other Stories, "The People of Sand and Slag"
Live-Action TV
Seven of Nine: Meditation, it rejuvenates you?
Cmr. Tuvok: Indeed it does.
Seven: I suggest you try Borg regeneration. It's much more efficient. A simple cortical implant would be required...
Tuvok: [queasy] Another time, perhaps.
Cmr. Tuvok: Indeed it does.
Seven: I suggest you try Borg regeneration. It's much more efficient. A simple cortical implant would be required...
Tuvok: [queasy] Another time, perhaps.
— Star Trek: Voyager, "Night"
Tabletop Games
"Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it. Extinction is approaching. Fight it."
"We regard the present human norm as a transitional state. We will not give up our humanity, but we will perfect it in a thousand diverse ways."
— Ian R. Walker, Transhuman Space
Long before the cult of the Nailed God, long before warrior tribes invoked the names of Dagon and Baal, the most accomplished Tzimisce attempted to transcend the limitations of mortal clay: reworking the structures of their bodies, they reshaped themselves to conform to their visions — or nightmares — of perfection.
— Vampire: The Dark Ages: Transylvania By Night
Although flesh may blacken and fail, fear not, for this too can be replaced. You can be reincarnated — reborn in steel by the will of the Omnissiah.
— The First Litany of the Doctrina Augmentata, Warhammer 40,000, Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus 8th Edition
Video Games
"Is human nature perfect? No. Therefore, improvements are to be welcomed."
— JC Denton, Deus Ex: Invisible War
All previous versions of humanity will no longer be supported as of this update.
— Registry Update 40000.b595135.omega, Civilization: Beyond Earth
"I turned them into post-human warriors. You're a soldier, think of it as a necessary sacrifice. [...] The Ceph are coming, Prophet. Soon. You think we'll defeat them with ordinary human soldiers? This isn't a war ordinary humans can win. This is the future. Death's an inconvenience now. Nothing more. We are all dead men walking!"
— Jacob Hargreave, Crysis 2
"From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine. Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved. For the Machine is Immortal."
— Narrator, Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
"We have placed such unnecessary limitations on ourselves, my friend. It fills my heart with sorrow to know what we could be, but are not. I would see those limits stripped away. Peeled back and discarded, for the betterment of all. In the future that I foresee, we will open our eyes to the possibilities that surround us. Bodies reshaped to thrive in the deep ocean and the depths of space. Bodies inspired by nature, or the human imagination, or both. Bodies that can be used, and shed, and used again, inhabited as their wearers see fit. The timely realization of such a future is what drives me forward. It is the cause to which I have devoted my life. And, thankfully, it is inevitable ...Assuming, of course, that we don't destroy ourselves first."
— Racter, Shadowrun Returns: Hong Kong
Other
"It's in this context we should look again at Roddenberry's famous 'Box' for Star Trek: The Next Generation, forbidding any kind of interpersonal conflict among the crew, even disallowing children to mourn their parents. Indeed, Roddenberry's idealized Enterprise seems suspiciously inhuman, or a level above human. Perhaps his 'New Human Movement' wasn't just a throwaway."
"Deus Ex: Human Revolution centralizes the debate surrounding transhuman augmentation. Would you, it asks, supplement your body with machinery? What do you mean, would I? I already wear spectacles. And a wristwatch. And I always carry a phone which I am currently in the process of duct-taping to the side of my head. Anyone who talks about technological development being 'unnatural' deserves to be abandoned in the wilderness wearing nothing but a fig leaf, but even if I weren't biased, if there's a conflict growing between people with ocean-liner pistons for forearms and a group of people who insist that everyone should be forced to be as shit as they are, I know which side I'd rather be on. Hey, I've got a better name for the pro-humanity movement — the sore losers club!"
