Genetic Adaptation: Difference between revisions

 

Not to be confused with [[Empathic Shapeshifter]]

* This is a major part of ''[[Avatar]]'''s plot, though humans don't change their bodies, instead remotely controlling eponymous avatars.

* In [[Clifford Simak]]'s ''City'' series of novels, the only way to survive on Jupiter is to become a jupiterian. When such a technology is discovered, people find out that jupiterians are absolutely superior to humans in every single way: they are immortal, superintelligent, telepathic, et cetera. Thus everybody just move son Jupiter, and humanity as a species ceases to be.

* In ''[[Hyperion]]'' cantos, we eventually learn that this is how the Ousters came to be - pioneers of interstellar travel, they had to radically alter their biology to survive. When rest of the humanity finally caught up with [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|Hawking drives]] and means for terraforming, Ousters [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|became persecuted]].

* The 'Amphibians' of ''[[Gene Catlow]]'' colonize other planets using this method - but on Earth, they screwed up somehow. Seeing as Earth is mainly ocean, they figured that an amphibian form would work best there - while failing to notice intelligent life evolving on dry land at the same time.

* In ''Surface Tension'' by James Blish humans colonize a mostly water-covered planet by creating a race of humanoids out of their own genes hand-crafted to best suit this planet, and leaving all their knowledge, up to and including how to build spaceships, in form of tablets to be read when they develop enough to manage to do so. The driving point of the story is that being made to perfectly suit the world in question includes being ''microscopic''.

* Western Comics: Marvel's 1970's Guardian of the Galaxy series. Lead by Vance Astro, the secondary members of the team were former humans bio-engineered to survive the harsh conditions of the other planets of the Solar System. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080606-[[FB Guardians Galaxyv 1]].html