Super-people

[veltyen]

IMU (systemless sci-fi rather then traveller) people were purpose built. It helped that interstellar travel made you infertile in as little as one trip. If you have to start from a vat, you may as well tinker.

In that universe I suppose you could consider nearly everyone supermen to some degree.

Common funtional adaptions:

Vacuum capable orifi (nostrils, urinary tract, anus, mouth). Often mixed with an unusually flat and thick bone structure around the eyes, this is to simplify surgically embedding eye covers.

Oxygen storage organ. Stores excess oxygen. This is useful for short term exposure to vacuum/low oxygen environments. The militarised version allows dumping excess oxygen into the blood stream at will.

Concious metabolic manipulation. This allows self directed hibernation.

... along with the expected modifications which are basically just selection from the outlying population. ie. When you have a choice use the best adapted muscle, digestive, connective, cognitive and skeletal systems you can locate.

Anyway, those were just my ideas.

 

[mbrinkhues]

For a classical "Enhanced Soldier" you could take a look at the Saurons of "War World":

+ Night Vision
+ Enhanced Strength
+ Enhanced Blood Clogging
+ Limited ability to shut down bloodflow to areas
+ Enhanced stomach for foraging
+ Accelerated healing

They paid for this with a birth-rate that produced mostly males, low creative intellect (No Sauron Shakespear) and a semi-recessive/instable genom

For an enhanced human for colonisation look at the Honor Harrington series (Starting with Honor Herself) with:

+ Enhanced Life Span
+ Increased Muscle mass
+ Increased Reaction speed

and paid for by a rejection of re-growth therapy and a huge appetite. They also had

+ Enhanced heavy metal tolerances (Graison)
+ "Optimised" sexual features (Mesa)
+ Enhanced reproduction control (Beowulf)

Just two of the more recent ones.

 

[veltyen]

Michael brings up a good point.

Everything biologically is a balance. Every adaption has its price.

Most just require more energy (healing, muscle mass), either directly[1] or more likely through greater food needs.

Some are nearly free. Enhanced night vision comes with only minor increased energy need (eyes really guzzle power and oxygen down) but is likely to result in a reduced color feild vision.

More likely supermen of the future will be 4 foot tall weaklings. Lower energy needed for their physical form means either more people or smarter people, both of which are advantageous to populations.

This is a fantastic subject. Part of the core idea around transhumanism.

[1]solar powered humans - one of my vacuum variants had this. Not for use instead of eating, it had an emergency/supplemental use only. Mixed with being vacuum capable, and able to self hibernate, allowed them to survive nearly indefinitely in space. Low berths without the ship being needed. Symbiots in the skin did the actual sugar/oxygen work.

 

[travlar]

Originally posted by veltyen:
Michael brings up a good point.

Everything biologically is a balance. Every adaption has its price.

Most just require more energy (healing, muscle mass), either directly[1] or more likely through greater food needs.

Some are nearly free. Enhanced night vision comes with only minor increased energy need (eyes really guzzle power and oxygen down) but is likely to result in a reduced color feild vision.

Only if humans are already optimized, which doesn't work with evolution.

 

[veltyen]

Only if humans are already optimized, which doesn't work with evolution.

Does it matter whether humans are optimised to start with?

GA's are a useful method of determining local minima, so there probably isn't a lot of slack to wind up. Sure, there are a couple of things I would like to tweak, but that would be my image of the species, rather then what is needed.

Even if that slack is enormous (and humans are very un-optimal) then adaptions still cost. The energy needs to come from somewhere.

 

[Laryssa]

Seems to me that the most adaptable life forms are machines that intelligently reproduce themselves. Machines can be developed to handle almost any sort of environment, and machines don't need much, they simply need energy, materials to build and repair themselves and intelligence to design next generations of intelligent sentinent machines. Machines can link up with each other and produce networks, a system of smaller machines will repair the larger while the larger machines will build more of the smaller, it basically turns into a self-repairing computer network that covers entire planets, and inside those machines and running on them is intelligent software. The software can be a number of different things, some are intelligent and other not, some run the physical machines and control robots and some software simply operates inside the machines as an environment, and there could even be digital humans living inside these machines in simulated matrix-like environments, if they want to go into the real world, then they download into humanoid robots as an astronaut would put on a spacesuit, digital humans would call them reality suits or something like that. The robot sensors would provide sensory information to the digital humans tactile sensory program, and their would be feed back and they could control these robots just as they control their simulated bodies. Real biological creatures produce more like themselves, but the shape of the next generation is just a combination of genes that come together, artificial life forms take an active part in designing what is to follow them.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

Anyone here read the first Superman novel?

It stated that Krypton was colonized by two stranded space explorers. Surface gravity was immense, forcing the first few generations to crawl to get somewhere!

Essentially the book states that these humans were 'tuned up' by a savage environment. Sort of like the Dune planet Salusa Secundus. Anyone here have a hostile world like that that exports mercenaries?

 

[Laryssa]

Which book was that? I have a book titled It's Superman! by Tom De Haven, the period covered in that book is from 1934 to 1938 and it details Clark Kent leaving the farm and getting a job in New York City. In this story it is Martha Kent that dies instead of Jonathan, his adopted Father. Lex Luthor is busy building robots to take over the World.

Don't know how humans can get to Krypton, but its a comic book World so I suppose anything is possible.

 

[Plankowner]

How about some Cybernetic Enhancements?

Built in weapons (laser pistol in the forarm..)

IR/UV vision

Enhanced HEARING

Enhanced Smell - Sounds weird, but given an enhancement, you might be able to use it for a limited emotion detector/lie detector.

Prehensile tail with a (weak) hand on the end. Good for delicate work, not for carrying things. There are lots of times when I could have used a third hand...

It would also be nice to adapt people to a specific environment.

 

[Border Reiver]

Which book was that?

Superman-The Last Son of Krypton for those interested.

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by Laryssa:
I don't think DC comics or Marvel will start publishing comic books about the Amazing Stomach Man anytime soon, ...

Actually, in a way, they already have.

Matter Eater Lad, anyone?

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by Plankowner:
How about some Cybernetic Enhancements?

Built in weapons (laser pistol in the forarm..)

IR/UV vision

Enhanced HEARING

Enhanced Smell - Sounds weird, but given an enhancement, you might be able to use it for a limited emotion detector/lie detector.

Prehensile tail with a (weak) hand on the end. Good for delicate work, not for carrying things. There are lots of times when I could have used a third hand...

It would also be nice to adapt people to a specific environment.

Wasn't it a laser in each index finger and an AT-laser in the leg?

And if you go "tail" why not go four arms with a weaker lower pair?

 

[Plankowner]

I thought about the laser in each finger actually, but I decided against it due to aiming issues (I point one finger at you and 3 back at me...).

I suggested a tail because I was trying to keep the person basically human looking. A prehensile tail could be tucked up and hidden in "polite society".

Quadies for 0-Gee work? Not really a Traveller race since Artificial Gravity is so common, but still interesting...