How To Make A Human Offshoot Who Won't Wipe Out Humanity

[Spacescifi]

In one scifi work there was an all female warrior race that was engineered as an offshoot species. Amusingly enough, their human male creator (in the story no less) made them simply because he liked the idea of warrior women, so he decided to engineer a whole race of them.

Because he designed them to only give birth to females, they literally must coexist with mankind to continue to exist at all. Meaning they either must keep men around for mating or marry and intermix into human society itself.... which they do not do so that makes them resort to using or buying men as mere chattel for reproductive purposes.

That is an example of a symbiotic human offshoot species.

Whether the author realized it or not, there is a clever reason for making a race of amazon women who only give birth to females.... far beyond any trivial fetish.

It ensures that the newly created amazon warrior race will never exterminate humanity. Since doing that would make themselves go extinct.


The first concern of any species engineer is to NOT engineer a species of living things that will one day wipe out or conquer your entire species.

To that end there are various genetic ways of coding a lifeform so they won't present an intolerable threat to their creators.

In nature, it is well known that in the ocean several life forms die either shortly after giving birth or a few months after mating. With insects the process is often more brutal.... since life is more disposable the way they see it. Which is why insects lay so many eggs to compensate for the high losses of insect life.

Genetic coding similar to this, such as a shorter lifespan or one that ends a few months after sex, are brutal but effective ways of ensuring that a human offshoot is unlikely to defeat humanity one day.


The very idea or reasoning behind making a human offshoot race is to 'improve' upon the original. Stronger, faster, smarter, more beautiful, or something else we wish original humans were better at. Some way to make them uber or super, otherwise why bother? Which is why it behooves any human bio-engineer to make 'failsafes' to ensure uber human offshoots never wipe out the originals.

Apparently many ancient powerful races in scifi goofed up on this... although they had to for plot so that is a given.

Vulcans from Star Trek, while not an offshoot in the show, would and could fit an example of a human offshoot.

Yet the flaw is that they are not used... logically I think. A cold dispassionate race that valued logical reasoning above all would without doubt be more powerful than the Vulcans ever are in politics on the star trek shows. So often the solo vulcan on a starfleet vessel is presented as one of the smartest people on the ship. And you're telling me there is a whole planet of them and they are not one of the major players in the galaxy?

They are ALWAYS major players in the microcosm of starship life, so they should be as well in the macrocosm of interplanetary life.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Spacescifi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Q

Interstellar.

[kerbiloid]

The idea is stillborn.
Who needs a dominant woman race without men to humiliate?

And now about the leather spacesuits for Kerbals.

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

The idea is stillborn.
Who needs a dominant woman race without men to humiliate?

And now about the leather spacesuits for Kerbals.

Well... to bio-engineer an offshoot race is arguably the most meta thing a human could possibly do so....  and the world is not a vacuum.

 

Most scifi renditions of Earth are based upon reality or at least was at some point in their distant pasts. Which means that bio-engineers would definitely scratch tge itch to make popular star trek races a reality if they had the power to do it.

Science imitates art and art imitates science.

Science fiction just is all that in a blender.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Spacescifi

[KSK]

Parthenogenesis says hi to the female amazon warriors. No males needed. 

I'm not even going to get into the ethics (or lack of) of eugenics and offshoot species.

What makes you think that politics is about logic? Cold application of logic would probably work fine for a Vulcan politician trying persuade a Vulcan constituency  because they respect that same application of logic.  Not so much for a Vulcan politician trying to persuade a constituency of any other species. As I recall, much of the interaction between Spock and the rest of the crew revolves around that point - humans do things which aren't logical. And that's humans - you think Romulans or Klingons are going to be any better?

Also smart people don't necessarily make good leaders. Without diving into politics, how many scientists do you see in key government posts on 21st century Earth. And how much respect do scientists and science get these days? 

Finally, microcosms don't always translate well to macrocosms. Staying the heck away from the eternal wrangling between the other major powers sounds like a pretty smart thing for the Vulcans to do actually.

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by KSK

[Spacescifi]

19 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

Well... to bio-engineer an offshoot race is arguably the most meta thing a human could possibly do so.... 

 

14 minutes ago, KSK said:

Parthenogenesis says hi to the female amazon warriors. No males needed.

And what makes you think that politics is about logic? Cold application of logic would probably work fine for a Vulcan politician trying persuade a Vulcan constituency  because they respect that same application of logic.  Not so much for a Vulcan politician trying to persuade a constituency of any other species. As I recall, much of the interaction between Spock and the rest of the crew revolves around that point - humans do things which aren't logical. And that's humans - you think Romulans or Klingons are going to be any better?

Also - smart people don't necessarily make good leaders. Without diving into politics, how many scientists do you see in key government posts on 21st century Earth. And how much respect do scientists as a whole get these days? 

Finally, microcosms don't always translate well to macrocosms. Staying the heck away from the eternal wrangling between the other major powers sounds like a pretty smart thing for the Vulcans to do actually.

Parthogenesis amazon warriors?

I thought we were trying NOT to create a race that could wipe us out later?

Creating  virgin birthing amazon warriors who are stronger and more agile than normal human females sounds like a recipe for our downfall and their rise, assuming they retain prettiness and human female intelligence.

You make valid points. All I am saying is pure logic should allow you to optimize ALL your technology to the nth degree.

Meaning Vulcans should by rights have some of the toughest starships in the setting abd be capable of one-shotting other vessels.

 

It is most logical to avoid a fight in the first place, but since that is not possible at times.... Vulcans should be better protected than they are.

 

I blame Jj abrams. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

An amazon race don't need parthenogenesis, as they can just use specially herded men.

So, the whole idea is pointless.

13 minutes ago, KSK said:

Also smart people don't necessarily make good leaders.

The shamelessness is the key.

[NFUN]

just follow the example of any media that has this. Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, Star Control, etc. Sure, they triedtried to wipe out humans, but their failure passes your condition! 

[Spacescifi]

7 minutes ago, NFUN said:

just follow the example of any media that has this. Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, Star Control, etc. Sure, they triedtried to wipe out humans, but their failure passes your condition! 

 

That's like going into war without putting the odds in your favor and hoping the enemy loses through sheer incompetence or a miracle or unexpected occurrence instead of your efforts.

I am not a fan of deus ex machina .

Winning must be earned 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Spacescifi

[Scotius]

Hey, what about not giving offshoot race reasons to wipe us out? Y'know - treating them well, making friends, teaching them things like empathy and altruism?

In effect such race would be humanity's children - so raise them and teach like children.

If you are treating an intelligent beings as your slaves or living weapons, you are setting yourself up for sudden but inevitable surprise down the line.

Who woulda thunk?

Oh, right - anyone who studied history of humanity.

[kerbiloid]

3 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Hey, what about not giving offshoot race reasons to wipe us out? Y'know - treating them well, making friends, teaching them things like empathy and altruism?

Too dull. Forget.

[Scotius]

I prefer to live long and prosper in mutually beneficial coexistence with female amazonian warrior race.

[Spacescifi]

54 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Hey, what about not giving offshoot race reasons to wipe us out? Y'know - treating them well, making friends, teaching them things like empathy and altruism?

In effect such race would be humanity's children - so raise them and teach like children.

If you are treating an intelligent beings as your slaves or living weapons, you are setting yourself up for sudden but inevitable surprise down the line.

Who woulda thunk?

Oh, right - anyone who studied history of humanity.

Hahaha... what their creator did is actually very much what an average guy would try... unless he is more noble than that... which he was not.

In the scifi work the creator's (long dead since his amazon warriors have been around for several centuries)  original intent was to start his own harem of beautiful warrior amazons. His first created amazon in the lab later rebelled, destroyed his lab, and ran away. 

I can only presume she and her daughter offspring were the progenitors of what began the warrior race.... since being beautiful they found it not difficult to find men willing to help them to conceive.

The warrior concept is something they hold sacred, when in reality it is simply a role more or less 'baked' into them by their creator.

Much of their culture was established by him originally, so he is revered more or less as a god to them... despite them being aware of their origins.

In practice, adherence to warrior tradition varies. Some are more strict, whereas others are more liberal with their views 

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Scotius said:

warrior race

Then why make them warriors?

[Scotius]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Then why make them warriors?

To shut up SJW's screeching about objectifying women.

Also, this:

Spoiler

 

[magnemoe]

Down the line we will uplift and make other species. 
Some probably make amazons, but you could simply make the same mods to standard humans, who would have the benefit in that they could sexually reproduce and more important this would be mainstream then most people are designed anyway. 
Worse thing will happen like uplifting cats, some will do it because they are cute and fun, but house cats are harmless because they are small , giving something like an Cheetah intelligence and thumbs sounds like an way more stupid thing to do. And yes its my avatar  

[Nuke]

this is fundamentally just a biological equivalent to asimov-derrived robots/androids. the laws of robotics exist so that robots will never take over. applying the same thing to biological constructs would work, but then you have to consider that biology is significantly more flexible than mechanical systems. and that flexibility leads to the rules being interpreted in strange and unforeseen ways (even asimov robots did that). 

another scifi trope exists where an engineered race will view their creators as a god figure. the jaffa in sg1 or the jem'hadar in st:ds9. thus the use of an engineered religion can be used to keep the race in check. if you get an individual or group of individuals that suddenly have a crisis of faith, the others of that species will seek to quell the heretics. religions tend to last for a really long time and is a tried and true way to keep a mob of individuals under control. religion also comes with other baggage as well, so expect to waste a lot of time carrying out rituals who's only purpose is reinforcing the religion of the offshoot. and you might also end up with a religion so good you are converting your own people to it. 

then you got chemical dependency. this is what they used in jurassic park as a fail safe so the dinosaurs would die if not given a supplement (the lysine contingency). the aforementioned jem'hadar were also made chemically dependent in addition to their engineered religion. in either case this did not work very well. the gem'hadar frequently had logistics issues with their ketracel white. and the enemy could easily cut supply lines and the soldiers on the front would die from withdrawl. this made their race very disposable. you also have the problem of what if they can come up with their own supply. or wean themselves off of the dope (this happened in one episode). 

engineered emotional imperative is another approach. the mammalian brain evolved to make better means of reproduction possible. the emotions evolved so as to make early mamals invest a lot of energy into caring for young, which they would not have done otherwise. most life before mammals used the scatter technique to increase the number of chances of successful reproduction. lets say you engineer a derivative species  and give them an emotion that motivates them to preserve their creators. if they get a feeling of disgust every time they do something that goes against their creators, or a feeling of joy or fulfilment if they do something to benefit their creator.  this is probibly not the best approach for a warrior race, perhaps a worker subspecies. of course you still have to treat such a race well, if you traumatize them then their emotional imperatives get distorted and you lose control of them. so you need to keep them in a good state of mental health. it makes a good story, they work out for hundreds or thousands of years, but then humans start treating them poorly and all the sudden are dealing with a mob of crazies that will fight you with reckless abandon. 

18 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Then why make them warriors?

i think a better question is: why let them reproduce? using laboratory produced clones might be a better option, as they would be unable to reproduce without our direct intervention. so any revolt could be fought off through attrition alone. the details of the cloning process would probibly become a state/corporate secret. no one worker would hold all the secrets, its sort of like the eye guy in blade runner. 

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Nuke

[Nuke]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Down the line we will uplift and make other species. 
Some probably make amazons, but you could simply make the same mods to standard humans, who would have the benefit in that they could sexually reproduce and more important this would be mainstream then most people are designed anyway. 
Worse thing will happen like uplifting cats, some will do it because they are cute and fun, but house cats are harmless because they are small , giving something like an Cheetah intelligence and thumbs sounds like an way more stupid thing to do. And yes its my avatar  

i think it would be a lot less dangerous to mod the main line human than to do an offshoot. but inevitably some people will not like that idea and refuse the mods for various reasons, and pass that attitude to their children, and eventually you will have two lines anyway. its sort of like gattica where people without enhancements are considered inferior stock. 

as for uplifting various cats, i dont think id do that to anything larger than a serval or caracal. can you imagine a thousand pound hyper-intelegent death tiger? humans would be reduced to cat food in no time. its interesting because in this case, the tiger species would probibly want to keep humans around as a food supply, 

[kerbiloid]

43 minutes ago, Nuke said:

can you imagine a thousand pound hyper-intelegent death tiger?

For deacdes.
https://wingcommander.fandom.com/wiki/Kilrathi

They have spaceships.

[Spacescifi]

2 hours ago, Nuke said:

this is fundamentally just a biological equivalent to asimov-derrived robots/androids. the laws of robotics exist so that robots will never take over. applying the same thing to biological constructs would work, but then you have to consider that biology is significantly more flexible than mechanical systems. and that flexibility leads to the rules being interpreted in strange and unforeseen ways (even asimov robots did that). 

another scifi trope exists where an engineered race will view their creators as a god figure. the jaffa in sg1 or the jem'hadar in st:ds9. thus the use of an engineered religion can be used to keep the race in check. if you get an individual or group of individuals that suddenly have a crisis of faith, the others of that species will seek to quell the heretics. religions tend to last for a really long time and is a tried and true way to keep a mob of individuals under control. religion also comes with other baggage as well, so expect to waste a lot of time carrying out rituals who's only purpose is reinforcing the religion of the offshoot. and you might also end up with a religion so good you are converting your own people to it. 

then you got chemical dependency. this is what they used in jurassic park as a fail safe so the dinosaurs would die if not given a supplement (the lysine contingency). the aforementioned jem'hadar were also made chemically dependent in addition to their engineered religion. in either case this did not work very well. the gem'hadar frequently had logistics issues with their ketracel white. and the enemy could easily cut supply lines and the soldiers on the front would die from withdrawl. this made their race very disposable. you also have the problem of what if they can come up with their own supply. or wean themselves off of the dope (this happened in one episode). 

engineered emotional imperative is another approach. the mammalian brain evolved to make better means of reproduction possible. the emotions evolved so as to make early mamals invest a lot of energy into caring for young, which they would not have done otherwise. most life before mammals used the scatter technique to increase the number of chances of successful reproduction. lets say you engineer a derivative species  and give them an emotion that motivates them to preserve their creators. if they get a feeling of disgust every time they do something that goes against their creators, or a feeling of joy or fulfilment if they do something to benefit their creator.  this is probibly not the best approach for a warrior race, perhaps a worker subspecies. of course you still have to treat such a race well, if you traumatize them then their emotional imperatives get distorted and you lose control of them. so you need to keep them in a good state of mental health. it makes a good story, they work out for hundreds or thousands of years, but then humans start treating them poorly and all the sudden are dealing with a mob of crazies that will fight you with reckless abandon. 

i think a better question is: why let them reproduce? using laboratory produced clones might be a better option, as they would be unable to reproduce without our direct intervention. so any revolt could be fought off through attrition alone. the details of the cloning process would probibly become a state/corporate secret. no one worker would hold all the secrets, its sort of like the eye guy in blade runner. 

 

 

In the natural world reproduction is far more common than cloning. Has a higher success rate too.

So if you want high numbers, you allow your creation to produce.

If you make only clones it will cost more resources to do so than simply making living beings who can reproduce.

Lab clones would unlikely ever reach high enough numbers to even be considered a race of their own.

 

At least with reproduction people won't have to be persuaded to pay for a a scientists crazy cloning project.

Which is harder to resist? A scientist asking for money to make more amazon warrior clones?

Or an ACTUAL beautiful Amazon warrior who requests your.... services?

 

The answer is obvious for a guy. In other words, there is far more incentive from the public point of view to help increase an Amazon population via actual reproduction.

For super obvious reasons.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

9 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

beautiful Amazon warrior

"beautiful" vs "warrior"

[KerikBalm]

 

I reject the whole premise of the question about ensuring that original humanity must be kept around... But going with the question's premise:

Any engineered offshoot species that is smarter, and has a biological need to keep us around, only needs to keep us around long enough to engineer our replacement.

Plus, even if they need us, that doesn't mean that they can't enslave us, and breed us like cattle to make us more compliant...

Like many works of fiction involving some vampire plot to take over the world and just keep humans as cattle.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

16 hours ago, Nuke said:

why let them reproduce

Monsanto agrees. 

No profits in self replicating improved strains. 

 

Now, before we proceed... Can we all agree that art direction for the Amazons should rely heavily on Frank Frazetta's work? 

[FleshJeb]

On 12/22/2021 at 12:34 AM, Scotius said:

Hey, what about not giving offshoot race reasons to wipe us out? Y'know - treating them well, making friends, teaching them things like empathy and altruism?

In effect such race would be humanity's children - so raise them and teach like children.

Anyone who wants to look at this notion in detail should read The Uplift War by David Brin.

Fiben Bolger is an uplifted chimp. He knows Uplift is a screwed up situation, but he's aware that humans do it more ethically and empathetically than everyone else. His motivations are complex and conflicting, and I think he's one of the best characters in science fiction. I'd have a banana and a beer with that guy.

 

[Nuke]

17 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

"beautiful" vs "warrior"

death by snu snu!