Evolutionary Levels: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Evolution, in reality, is a giant amalgam of changes over time caused by stressors or preferential mutations.

 

 

 

 

 

The [[Ultimate Lifeform]] is at the top of these levels.

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* [[Gundam]]

* ''[[Devilman Lady]]'' by Go Nagai: The reasoning behind humans suddenly transforming into monsters in the anime adaptation is that they are flukes in the first stages of humanity's next evolution and based on the transformee's [[Personality Powers|talents and personality]] (e.g. a talented swimmer grows gills and scales, someone with severe [[A God Am I]] might become an angel, etc.) The main character is a frail young model that represses all feelings, thoughts, and urges unsuitable for a [[Yamato Nadeshiko]]. She transforms into a violent, muscular demon with no inhibitions.

* ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'': The chimera ant queen transfers the "most worthy" DNA of [[Lego Genetics|whatever she eats to her progeny]], resulting in every batch of eggs giving more powerful (and human-like, since humans are the best food) ants than the last, culminating in the King being the supreme being.

* ''[[Getter Robo]]'': A major theme, since the energy that powers their [[Humongous Mecha]] is the spirit of evolution itself, or taken another way, the embodiment of life/survival itself.

 

== Comic Books ==

* [[Marvel Comics]]

** '''Mr. Immortal''', who is so evolved that he's not just "homo superior", he's "homo supreme".

** ''[[Excalibur (Comic Book)|Excalibur]]'': One issue (written by [[Chris Claremont]]) says that all mutants are just a bit ''more'' in every department. Nightcrawler, for example, healed from his broken leg a bit faster then a regular human would. Nightcrawler doesn't have healing powers, he's just That Awesome because he is a mutant.

** Sometimes, [[Marvel Universe|Galactus]] is said to target worlds at the "apex of their evolution" to devour. For evolution to have an "apex", it has to be a finite process with multiple levels, and a highest, "best" level.

 

== Film ==

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Literature/Odd John|Odd John]]'' by Olaf Stapledon: The titular character is one of a new species of supermen who happen to be born here and there around the world at roughly the same time. This story is apparently the origin of the term "Homo Superior" for such beings.

* ''[[Literature/Last And First Men|Last And First Men]]'' by Olaf Stapledon: After leaving a dying Earth and settling on Venus, humanity goes through eighteen stages of evolution, each adapting to their unique environment. For example, the dwarf "Ninth Men" who are limited by size due to excessive gravitation, the flying "Sixth Men" who live a harsh existence competing their seal-like relatives, and the "Tenth to Seventeenth Men" whose sentience reemerges after the "Sixth Men" civilization crumbles into savagery.

* ''[[Literature/The Man Who Evolved|The Man Who Evolved]]'': The whole premise of Edmond Hamilton's 1931 short story. In the story, a man uses a modified form of radiation to [[Devolution Device|evolve himself in minutes]]. In the end, he eventually evolves into {{spoiler|protoplasm, since, for some reason, evolutionary levels apparently go in a cycle.}}

** Hamilton liked the idea that radiation caused evolution, since he took the implication to be that worlds without radioactive elements would have little to no evolution. "Devolution" takes another approach to the same problem: {{spoiler|the highest form of life to ever exist is a kind of alien bacteria that forms a benevolent [[Hive Mind]]. All life on Earth is descended from some of that bacteria that was stranded here, but evolution has weakened rather than strengthened us, costing us our unity.}}

* In ''[[The War Against the Chtorr]]'', it's stated that since Chtorran lifeforms have a billion-year evolutionary head start they have a massive advantage over Earth lifeforms.

* ''[[Literature/Tomorrow Town|Tomorrow Town]]'' by [[Kim Newman]]: Parodied, one of the claims made by the futurists who have set up shop in the titular town is that they have evolved beyond their 1970s contemporaries, or '[[Fantastic Racism|yesterday men]]' as they are called. Of course, like most things to do with their "futopia", they're quite, quite mistaken.

 

* ''[[Time Traxx]]'': Humanity is depicted as being on the cusp of an evolutionary advance granting some (almost realistically) minor abilities such as greatly enhanced agility and the ability to "time stall" (Nothing strange and extratemporal: the term refers to an ability to alter the way the brain processes sensory data giving the ''perception'' of time slowing down). An episode featured protagonist Darien Lambert meeting a young boy with enhanced athletic skills similar to what's described above. Darien wondered if this boy might be the "missing link" between the present humanity and future humanity. In the end, it turns out the boy is himself from the future, brought there by his father when he was very young.

* ''[[The Tomorrow People]]'': The entire premise revolved around "the next step in human evolution".

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** Using the concept of "evolution being to better adapt for survival" is the sliver's end game. During the the Planar Overlay of Rath onto Dominaria (essentially a bridge between Phyrexia and Dominaria), the slivers are destroyed when the location of their hive is overlaid onto a volcano. A few sets later, some scientists are tasked to artificially recreate slivers that are true to the lost species. Once this is accomplished, the artificial slivers gain sentience, break free, kill everyone, and escape into the wild, where. One card's text reads "Death couldn't contain the slivers. What made us think we could?", spoken by one of the scientists.

** By that same concept one could make a case for the Sliver Overlord being the "end of evolution" in that it has the ability to grab any sliver in the deck. This gives it (not really, but good enough for fluff purposes) the ability to react to any change by making itself and all other slivers able to thrive with that change. If evolution has an end it's at the point that a creature will ''always'' be ideally suited to its situation, no matter how that circumstance changes.

** The write-up for the "Evolution" power in MSH even lampshades it: "This is comic book evolution, people, the kind where super-strong cavemen eventually evolve into giant brains with vestigial limbs."

* ''[[Forgotten Realms|Pages from the Mages]]'' [[Played With]] this. The spell "Evolve" changes a normal animal into an intelligent and more or less human-like form. [[Don't Explain the Joke|The punchline]] is that glorified name aside, the spell just permanently transforms the target halfway to its caster (presumed to be a human smart enough to use a 8-level spell), using his own blood sample(!) as a component.

 

== Video Games ==

** However, the part about "evolution is always the same" is averted with a couple of Pokémon. Eevee has had new evolutions constantly discovered due to its "unstable genetics". So while it can evolve into Jolteon thanks to a Thunder Stone, if it levels up in a [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sinnoh_Route_217 specific] [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Twist_Mountain area] with a [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Ice_Rock special glacier] that's covered in snow, it becomes the Ice-type Glaceon. A similar process occurs with Eevee's evolution Leafeon. Likewise, Nosepass and Magneton evolve into Probopass and Magnezone respectively when they level up in certain areas of [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mt._Coronet Sinnoh] and [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Chargestone_Cave Unova]. This actually makes sense in a way. The reason people couldn't get these certain evolutions before was simply because nobody had discovered the effects certain areas had on certain Pokémon. In other words, they adapted to their new environment. Yes, it happened in the matter of five minutes (or less with a Rare Candy) but it's still a slightly more realistic take on the usual fixed evolutionary lines. But while there ''are'' those sensical ones, there are also some nonsensical ones. Piloswine evolves into Mamoswine by leveling up and knowing Ancientpower...despite being able to learn Ancientpower as far back as its introduction in Generation II. The same goes for Lickitung and Rollout. And, regarding Eevee, you mean to say that there was no day versus night in Kanto? That's ridiculous....and yet, even in the remakes, oh so true.

** All in all, the only straight example ''Pokémon'' seems to have is the vaguely fetus-like Pokémon Mew, which is supposed to be the evolutionary origin of almost every Pokémon in the traditional evolutionary sense... and evidences this by having their complete genomes integrated into its own — the "hardcoded future evolution" misconception not just written large, but in 50-story flashing neon pink letters.

* The Commodore64 game ''Dino Eggs'' had as a hazard the possibility of getting bit by a spider and suffering "devolution" into a spider due to genetic contamination. Seriously.

* ''[[EVO Search for Eden|E.V.O.: The Search for Eden]]''. In each chapter, you start as a "basic" version of whatever the chapter is about (fish, amphibian, reptile, mammal), and you gain "evo points" by eating other animals, which you can then turn in to alter your body parts. Oh, and whenever you evolve a body part, you get the helpful message "MYSTERIOUS TIME STREAM EVOLVES YOU." Also, occasionally (say, when you're a reptile or mammal and have to do a water stage), you'll get the message "CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES CAUSES EVOLUTION", followed by your characters feet becoming fins. Even if you're a mammal, or a bird.

*** It should be noted that the main character in E.V.O. is a time traveling agent under direct orders of [[Genius Loci|Earth herself]], tasked with taking care of eventual historical screwups, and apparently isn't subject to the same rules as everyone else.

* The creature stage of ''[[Spore]]'' is E.V.O. with better graphics. Oddly enough, Will Wright had intended ''Spore'' to be more scientific in its conception and presentation, but [[Executive Meddling|marketing won out]], leading to massively bad reviews from the biology community for the missed opportunity.

* In ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'', {{spoiler|Alfimi}} was created to be the "apex of human evolution".

* Amazingly enough, ''[[Geneforge]]'' manages to [[Justified Trope|justify]] this. All the game's monsters are [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke|the result of genetic engineering]], and the super-powerful ones were created when basic designs were modified. (These modifications are random, so you encounter a few screwups that are insane or slowly dying.)

** Much of the art work of the game is various schematics and plans for the Mons. Many have notations to things like lack of this causes mutation leading to death or including this gives fire breathing...

* ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' gives us the vorcha, who are decribed as, essentially, living stem cell banks, allowing them to adapt to normally inhospitable environments over the course of a few ''hours'' rather than several generations. However, it is somewhat averted in the [[Encyclopedia Exposita|Codex]] when it explains that when an organ adapts, it cannot adapt in a whole other direction (can't adapt to breath water after it's adapted to breathing volcanic sulfur). Gameplay-wise, this means they regenerate very quickly, so you have to make sure its internal organs have STOPPED before you let off the trigger.

** In ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'', {{spoiler|the Catalyst claims that merging all organic and synthetic life is the 'next step in organic evolution'.}}

* Monsters in the ''[[What Did I Do to Deserve This My Lord]]'' games evolve under pressure: thus, presented as changes of individuals rather than species. However, the parent race does ''not'' mutate due to pressure; they merely have a higher chance of giving birth to a new form, and odds are just as good that you'll get a useless mutation. If they're being killed off by starvation, the survivors will give birth to forms that are better at hoarding food. If they're dying to predation, they birth [[Weak but Skilled]] forms that can paralyze those that eat them (and invading heroes). It's tricky to force this adaptation to occur due to the random nature of the game, but it's there.

 

== Western Animation ==

** Also in ''Futurama'', the Professor accidentally creates evolving robots, who evolve much faster than organisims. Within a few days, they go from microscopic plankton-esque lifeforms to murderous trilobites to dinosaurs to cavemen to modern humans to [[Energy Beings]].

** [[Fridge Logic|Shouldn't they turn into toasters or something]]?

** {{spoiler|[[Shaggy Dog Story|He evolved from a goldfish... into a goldfish.]] Dispite the fact that Bob himself had claimed evolutionary superiority before, he was very unhappy with this outcome.}}

** Of course, like most recent versions of the Green Goblin besides Spectacular's, the Green Goblin saying this is insane, so we have a bit of an [[Unreliable Expositor]] situation going on here.

** It's Pinky. Anything at all would be a higher form of life.

* One ''[[Prometheus And Bob]]'' had an evolution chamber that could evolve a club into a laser, and devolve it back. In the course of it, the monkey was evolved into a human, bob was evolved into a pink version of Prometheus, Prometheus devolved into a purple Bob, and the monkey evolved into a floating telekinetic brain.

** We also see a wolf evolved into a domestic dog and a piece of wood evolved into an ''aluminum baseball bat''.

** [[Word of God]] claims that the Ultimate forms are actually the ''projected'' evolution of a species based off of a simulated planet-wide civil war lasting millions of years.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Transformation Causes]]

[[Category:Reality Is Unrealistic]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Common Fan Fallacies]]

[[Category:Artistic License Biology]]