# High Technology in a Low Technology World



## Kaellpae (Aug 19, 2011)

Last night I got a really good idea for my story and the origins of the world.

Would you or do you know of many authors that include High Technology (nanites, lasers, and the like) in a Low Technology world?

Well when I say I got a good idea, I mean it was good to me. I would be implementing this setting in my story and possibly making it a major plot point for one of my characters.

Basically there are three scientists who have perfected a nanite that makes the host body immortal, because science is cool. As long as the nanites are left undamaged, and the repairbots are able to fix the downed bots. Playing with the idea to make them self replicating so the bots don't all get destroyed or go out of commission.

I think it would be best to have a housing unit in the body, that way if by some chance the nanites were in an evil 'god'  the said person could still be killed.
immortality with certain drawbacks. But being immortal with no weaknesses is boring.
Also, this would be going along with my Post-apocalyptic Fantasy World.

Feedback wanted. And if I need to clarify I will, as soon as I get to a computer.


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## Ravana (Aug 19, 2011)

I'm the wrong person to ask about nanites–not because I don't know about them, because I hate the way they get (ab)used by most authors. 

Lasers are easy: they're just focused light. I'm not sure how much "low" tech it would require to generate a useful one–the amount of power required would probably be prohibitive in most settings–but at least in principle they could be developed by any culture with sufficient knowledge of optics. 

I've seen plenty of authors who used technological remnants in a post-technological world. Not sure I've seen any that used new technology, stuff that was developed after a collapse. As for whether or not it would fit, just remember Clarke's Law; anyone not recognizing it as technological would regard it as magic. Which, around here at least, is fine.   (The one that comes to mind immediately is Gene Wolfe's _Book of the New Sun_ series–though some parts of that are so bizarre that even you as the reader aren't sure whether it's magic or technology at work. It's some great writing, at least, whether it helps in your situation or not.)


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## Kaellpae (Aug 20, 2011)

How about a bacteria created by scientists to keep them immortal?
no nanobots, because yes they're over used.

Three scientists develop bacteriums that make the host bodies immortal, one for strength, possible increased mental abilities, or something of the sort. Then they decide to destroy the world. To start over and raise themselves as gods. Only the last human test subject they had didn't die. So he's out there, immortal, and they don't know it yet. He knows what has happened and wants revenge, but he knows he has to bide his time. He waits a few hundred years (make sure to completely surprise the gods, and to get to the era I want), then sets about getting his revenge for destroying everything he loved. If he gathers a group of people to help, he wouldn't tell them the real reason he wanted revenge. Not the whole story at least, just in case he gets double-crossed.

Opinions?


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## Ravana (Aug 20, 2011)

It's not overused, so much as misused: most people treat nanites as if they _were_ magical, ignoring the fact that they come with some pretty stiff limitations in the real world. Yes, bacteria would be considerably more plausible, in my opinion. (In fact, in order for a nanite to be useful for much more than a single simple repetitive task, it would require complexity approaching that of a microorganism anyway… and self-reproduction is _not_ among the world's "simpler" tasks. Neither is keeping yourself from being eaten by antibodies, if you're going to be introduced into a living system.…)


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## Kaellpae (Aug 20, 2011)

Bacteria it is then!
I would need the nanobots to be complex, and I could see an alternate, modern earth having bacteria engineering breakthroughs before nanotech.


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## Shadoe (Aug 20, 2011)

As far as high tech in a low tech world, I can think of Doris Egan's Ivory series. William Dietz did it in some of his worlds, too. In both cases, I thought it worked well.

Nanites to make the person immortal, that would be the basis for Lynsay Sands' books. The people with nanites were "vampires," and required blood to keep the nanites working. Since they were originally created in ancient times on Atlantis, that would probably include high tech in a low tech world, but nobody talks about that period, so...


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## Kaellpae (Aug 20, 2011)

It would be after an apocalyptic event. Some remnants of our world would remain, but most usable technology would be gone. The only people remembering the technology first hand would be the immortals. Some of the world would probably be reminiscent of Lud in the Dark Tower Series in the way that the city is standing, but just barely. I couldn't see many people populating the old cities, as they would be too hazardous with no way to keep them from falling down all around them.

I like the idea of vampires, especially off the map variations of them. Lately, though, they seem to be way too oveused. The same with zombies, and some other basic fantasy creatures.


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## Lord Darkstorm (Aug 20, 2011)

If you are going to use bacteria, don't forget mutations.  So they are immortal, and maybe one is really strong...but dumb as a rock, and another really smart and can hardly move without help...or maybe some have been changed so they no longer look human...or whatever your imagination might dream up.  

That's the fun of living organisms, they can change and do things not intended by the creators.  (which gives me a few ideas for one my stories I'll get back to one of these years)  Yep, glad I dropped by for this one, I should have considered mutations in mine.


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## Kaellpae (Aug 20, 2011)

Mutations are a given. If there were enough of a certain mutation then you could have a new race. There will be nuclear mutations, as my universe is taking a real world and comic book take on nuclear exposure. Radiation sickness and some pretty cool genetic mutations (good way to introduce new animals).


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## Ravana (Aug 20, 2011)

One interesting thing about the immortality bacteria is that it would have to be immune to mutation itself–and so presumably protect anyone who has it similarly. If it mutated, it would almost certainly stop working… or at least stop working the way it was intended to. 

(Which could be a good reason to favor nanites, as they're rather less prone to mutation–though they would _not_ be immune to it: one random glitch in a "program," one replication error, even soaking up exactly the wrong radiation and having an important atom in your makeup change into something less, ehh… "compatible," and you could be right up that same creek.)


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## Lord Darkstorm (Aug 21, 2011)

I think the bacteria mutating would be the most fun.  How many little changes could they have while still fulfilling their original purpose? Maybe they change every other month, causing variations in how the achieve their repairs.  One day the immortal finds they have gills and can't breath above water...

So much potential...


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## Kaellpae (Aug 21, 2011)

Maybe the science in my world has fused bacteria and nanobots. Could have the best of both worlds?
Make it sound halfway legitimate at the very least. Maybe put a disclaimer saying I just made up the scientific facts so it would fill the needs in my story.


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## Hans (Aug 21, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> I think the bacteria mutating would be the most fun.  How many little changes could they have while still fulfilling their original purpose?


A lot changes. With a sufficiently large genetic code, which all creatures we know have, most mutations have no effect at all. Most of the remainder make the individual less productive. Only a tiny amount of the total makes them a little bit more productive. With lots of mutations in lots 'n lots of individuals you get progress.
There never is the one big mutation. It always is very many very small steps. And there always are detours, indirections and dead ends. Lots of dead ends.
I once had some numbers somewhere but can't find them right now.


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## Shadoe (Aug 21, 2011)

Kaellpae said:


> Mutations are a given. If there were enough of a certain mutation then you could have a new race. There will be nuclear mutations, as my universe is taking a real world and comic book take on nuclear exposure. Radiation sickness and some pretty cool genetic mutations (good way to introduce new animals).


This may sound whiny, but a lot of folks use the nuclear mutations thing... wrong. I would suggest first doing a lot of research on what a real nuclear mutation consists of (not nearly so cool as folks make it out to be). Or, perhaps the mutations could come from some "new" kind of dirty bomb - something that could cause the kind of mutations it sounds like you're looking for.


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## Kaellpae (Aug 21, 2011)

I haven't seen any examples of people using nuclear mutations wrong. And I know you would probably be more likely to get cancer or radiation sickness, but I will be looking into it. Most likely I will make sure it shows that it's a new type of biological/nuclear (bionuclear?) weapon that causes weakening of DNA so as it can be more easily confettied and fused into different ways. Lately I've been stuck on one character's origin and Dragons, so it's nice getting the origins of the world buffed out.


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## grahamguitarman (Aug 21, 2011)

I don't know about nanites, the only mention of nanites in a novel I can recall would be william shattners star trek novels where captain kirk was resurrected using nanites.  

But I have just recently read the voyage of the Jerle Shanarra trilogy which has lasers, robots & a supercomputer trying to kidnap magic users to enslave as power sources.


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## Ravana (Aug 21, 2011)

Hans said:


> A lot changes. With a sufficiently large genetic code, which all creatures we know have, most mutations have no effect at all. Most of the remainder make the individual less productive. Only a tiny amount of the total makes them a little bit more productive. With lots of mutations in lots 'n lots of individuals you get progress.
> There never is the one big mutation. It always is very many very small steps. And there always are detours, indirections and dead ends. Lots of dead ends.
> I once had some numbers somewhere but can't find them right now.



Hmm. It would depend on how "little" the little changes were, I suppose. Yes, mutations occur all the time: they're occurring in your body right now. In fact, that's part of why they can't mutate–or only mutate trivially–here. 

The problem is that aging, under our present understanding of it, comes about through the failure of cells to continue replicating themselves perfectly… which would mean the simplest route to immortality would be something that ensured cells _continued_ to replicate perfectly. And it has to be the replication (if you want to be bound to "reality"): the cells _themselves_ can't become immortal… because if they did, you'd swell to gigantic proportions as they continued to replicate without dying. Alternately, if the cells became immortal but stopped replicating, your body could never replace anything it lost–say, blood, for instance; you could never produce new antibodies (though I suppose you could make the immortal cells immune to all pathogens, making that rhetorical). So, at least on the simplest route, the immortality bacteria would have to be immune to any mutation that could possibly alter its effects on the organism… and I'm not sure how you'd do that without making it immune to mutation, period. After all, immunity to mutations–the ones that cause aging–is what you're after in the first place, under this scenario.

In fact, one of the undesirable cell mutations that happens all the time is when a cell _does_ become immortal–yes, it happens–and continues to replicate itself while avoiding normal processes that cause cell death. We have a word for this: cancer. 

I do like the fact you pointed out that "there never is the one big mutation," though. This is one of my gripes about comic books: no, we don't expect "reality" there, but I often try to write comic-style stories (that is, ones with "super"-beings in them), adhering as close as possible to the real world… and this is far and away the most common violation of real-world mechanics. A mutagenic event that caused someone to obtain super-powers _would have to rewrite the genetic code every cell in that person's body at once_–and in the _same_ way–or, at a minimum, would have to rewrite significant portions of them, to enable them to outcompete and replace the person's "normal" cells over time… without causing the normal effect of such a change, which would be death. (The person's, not the cell's.) And the body must be able to continue to produce these new cells even afterward, to replace normal losses, so it requires that the genetic code be rewritten: otherwise, the body will produce its original, "non-super" cells, and the alterations (powers) would fade… rapidly. Even allowing for the fact that some cells do mutate under stimulus to a better-adapted form, the possibility that it could happen as a flash event across the entire organism is, shall we say, "minimal," when you consider that 100 trillion cells have to jump the same way at the same time. And I can't count the number of times someone received Captain America's blood (or anyone else's: that's just the one I remember seeing most often), and ended up getting his abilities… pure crap: (A) if his blood could outcompete the cells of the recipient, it would kill that person; or (B) the person's genetic code would not be rewritten, so he/she could not replace the lost "super"-cells, let alone would the alteration spread from a relatively minimal number of one type of cell to all the other cells in the body–muscle, bone, etc.; or else (C) the person's genetic code _would_ be rewritten… and that person would become a clone of Cap (or whoever), not just someone who ended up with the same powers. 

Like I said, we tend to suspend disbelief when it comes to such matters in comics. Though I've also _learned_ a lot of science from comics… so I'd kind of like to see them make up their minds. (Along the same lines: don't even get me started on comic-book "mutants" as a separate "species".…  )


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## Ravana (Aug 21, 2011)

Kaellpae said:


> I haven't seen any examples of people using nuclear mutations wrong. And I know you would probably be more likely to get cancer or radiation sickness, but I will be looking into it. Most likely I will make sure it shows that it's a new type of biological/nuclear (bionuclear?) weapon that causes weakening of DNA so as it can be more easily confettied and fused into different ways.



It really depends on your time frame. Mutations accumulate over time, and as a result of reinforcement through breeding. You aren't talking about having everyone in your world sprout wings because some bombs went off; you're talking about numerous generations descended from those persons who managed to survive the radiation—at least long enough to reproduce. Under such circumstances, beneficial mutations would get reinforced—actually, any mutation that didn't lead to fatality would get reinforced, whether it did the organism any good or not; differences would accumulate, and in the long run you would get new "species" of humans (and everything else). The radiation would accelerate the rate of random mutation… and, yes, in the real world, most such mutations would not be benign; bioweapons might have had similar, or synchronistic, effects; and so on. Some of the bio (or chemical, or even radiological) weapons might have been designed specifically to cause fragmentation in genetic structures… but the randomness of such effects could have hastened the rate of adaptive mutations just as much as it would harmful ones. 

No matter how many generations you've gone through, odds are your humans still won't have wings (and if they do, it's because their arms adapted, not because they now have six limbs)… but there are a host of other things that might have arisen. Careful, selective cross-breeding produces new "breeds" of animals all the time, in a very few generations. Your people don't have the option of making such choices for themselves (probably—although the "lords" who run the place might have made such choices _for_ them…): they're pretty well stuck with breeding with whoever else happens to be available, rather than making conscious eugenic choices to produce new "breeds" of themselves; all that means is that it will take more than a "few" generations to set the mutations in a given population. As I recall, you were talking centuries, if not millennia, since your initial event… plenty of time.


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## Kaellpae (Aug 21, 2011)

So if a mutagen was spread through everyone on Earth, survival and mutations would be minimal? Because that's what I'm hoping for.


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## Lord Darkstorm (Aug 21, 2011)

One thing we have found out over the years...radiation kills.  While changes can be made through breeding, exposing someone to high radiation will pretty much kill them, and if not, they might wish they were dead.

Radioactive spider....sure....


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## Ravana (Aug 21, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> One thing we have found out over the years...radiation kills.  While changes can be made through breeding, exposing someone to high radiation will pretty much kill them, and if not, they might wish they were dead.
> 
> Radioactive spider....sure....



Exactly. That spider bite would have had to rewrite the victim's entire genetic code–almost instantaneously. Every cell started working in a new way, as well as replicating accurately in that new way. So, "realistic," not even close. Of course, that's why we write fantasy: so we don't have to obey _every_ law of reality. 

The survivors would be the ones who were exposed only to moderate levels of radiation–at least unless there was something at the time that would aid persons who received high dosages, or which could protect against same: remember, this _starts_ in a high-tech world. What they could do then has nothing to do with what they can('t) do now. There could have been treatments that reduced the overall effect of radiation exposure, or at least its consequences… which would allow more people to survive, and survive longer, while still being exposed to the radiation stimulus, which in turn would create more opportunities for mutations to arise and get established. (Assuming, of course, that the radiation treatment didn't specifically prevent this: I was thinking more along the lines of alleviating radiation sickness, perhaps along with some good early-stage cancer treatments. Can't prevent cancer completely, though, since it's the consequence of mutation, and that's what you want.)

And, yes, most of those would probably die as well; most of the cellular mutations that did occur would never survive to propagate through the host body–antibodies and other processes would recognize these as "intruders" and try to eliminate them… so the person would survive, but the mutation wouldn't take; many of these would be malign, with at least the potential of killing the host before he could reproduce; most of the mutations that did manage to perpetuate themselves would be trivial in individual effect; few of these would be beneficial, though any number of them could be neutral or possess effects that rarely mattered to the host's life one way or the other; a large number would probably be recessive, and fail to get reinforced–and remember, to reinforce a mutation, you want two beings with the _same_ one. (Think about breeding dogs… or pigeons. You can find great background materials on both, to give you some idea of what it takes to "naturally"–that is, using only those mutations that arise normally in an organism–set a particular trait in a population (and allowing for the fact that breeders get to choose which animals to breed, unlike populations surviving in the wild: this would give you a baseline to compare to, at least). Believe it or not, the body of reference on pigeons is probably the more extensive of the two.…) Et many cetera. 

On the other hand… organisms _do_ evolve. We certainly don't look the way we did 50,000 generations ago. The radiation and bioweapons merely speed things up. So, by the way, do small, isolated populations: limit the amount of genetic interchange, and the odds of any given mutation taking increase. Competitive advantage (survival of the fittest) will weed out less well-adapted persons–mutated or otherwise–at a far greater rate in a post-holocaust wasteland than would be true in our well-fed, high-infrastructure society. And even among small, isolated human populations, there _will_ be a certain amount of selective breeding, consciously or otherwise: you will be far more likely to seek a mate who you perceive as being better adapted to at least survive, if not prosper, in the conditions you find yourself in… and you'll want to pass that advantage on to your offspring. 

So, really, all that the holocaust is doing is accelerating natural processes. As long as you don't want your mutants to be the first generation after it happened–or even the tenth–there shouldn't be much of a problem. Especially if you're thinking of this as fantasy rather than SF.


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## Hans (Aug 21, 2011)

Ravana said:


> Hmm. It would depend on how "little" the little changes were, I suppose. Yes, mutations occur all the time: they're occurring in your body right now. In fact, that's part of why they can't mutate–or only mutate trivially–here.


Most mutations in the Body of a multicellular organism are of no interest here. If the individual survives, which is not a given, think cancer, only mutations in the reproductive cells (sexual cells in higher organisms) have any chance of propagation. 



> The problem is that aging, under our present understanding of it, comes about through the failure of cells to continue replicating themselves perfectly… which would mean the simplest route to immortality would be something that ensured cells _continued_ to replicate perfectly. And it has to be the replication (if you want to be bound to "reality"): the cells _themselves_ can't become immortal… because if they did, you'd swell to gigantic proportions as they continued to replicate without dying. Alternately, if the cells became immortal but stopped replicating, your body could never replace anything it lost–say, blood, for instance; you could never produce new antibodies (though I suppose you could make the immortal cells immune to all pathogens, making that rhetorical).


You could theoretical have an organism with a few unspecialized immortal cells that keep reproducing. The produced cells can specialize and replace the dying cells.
I don't know of anything like this in a real existing creature. The next best to this are social insects. And even there the reproducing insect is far from immortal, though much longer lived than any produced insects. The complete hive as individual is potentially immortal.

I don't know much about comics or the supers genre, so I can't comment on that.


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## Kaellpae (Aug 21, 2011)

Alright, hypothetical situation time. Could you eventually have humans mutated into a halfbreed race such as Centaurs or an elemental race (naiads/dryads)? 
How I would do that is with the mutagens have them effect the cells. The people who received lower doses live, but their reproductive cells are altered so that a dominant gene almost guarantees a mutated offspring. There are the same amount of chromosomes, so the offspring can reproduce, but if they find a mate that is un-mutated the mutated genes are more likely to be passed. From human to centaur would take multiple generations, with each new generation getting more extreme traits.
I know with evolution it's going to only let the best genes be passed on. In a world after a holocaust with beasts running rampant it would be genetically advantageous to have the brain and hands (for weapons) of a human and at least legs that could run faster (horse, wolf, cheetah?) Getting away from predators.

In a (semi)realistic fantasy world could this seem scientifically plausible?
I just don't want to say, 'Everyone got nuked and became horsemen, treemen, seamen, etc.'
I want to have it seem at least half way plausible, even if I know it could never happen.


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## Kaellpae (Aug 21, 2011)

Also, how would a man made virus work for the immortality agent?


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## Ravana (Aug 21, 2011)

Realistically… no, on the centaurs, and the "elementals" would depend heavily on what you meant by it. 

The problem with centaurs is that they have six limbs. Absolutely no higher animal on Earth has more than four–and by "higher," I mean every last mammal, bird, reptile and amphibian in existence. This is why I said they wouldn't have "sprouted" wings: that would be adding extra limbs. I can't imagine any normal evolutionary process leading to additional limbs in the timespan you're looking at. A lobster might become centaur-like some day–if it developed a skeleton in the meantime: there are pretty severe limits on what an exoskeleton will support, as far as we know–or a scorpion (Mesopotamian legend actually had these: girtablilu): they already have the extra limbs to work with.

Deliberate intervention, on the other hand, is a completely different story. This would be major super-science, but conceivably some Dr. Moreau somewhere started experimenting in "grafting," and somehow managed to get at least one of his experiments to take. (Presumably, this would have happened either before or immediately after your holocaust, or else was done by one of your elite who still retains the scientific knowledge… and looked upon the new world as a playground. This would require major genetic intervention, to convince the different parts that they were the same organism–surgical rejection is the least of your worries: you need its genetic code to include all the elements of both, or it won't even be able to replace its own lost cells, let alone reproduce. It would probably be just as easy to start with a single cell and change its genes until you got what you wanted. Likely easier, in fact.)

Less extreme would be if the mutates remained bipedal, but developed characteristics similar to the ones you have in mind. Legs and feet in particular could be subject to change: we're more evolved for standing than for running. (Even that can be viewed as a "halfway" stage: we haven't completely shed the morphology we inherited from being tree-dwellers.) Moving from quadruped to biped is trickier: the advantages of having a couple free hands are pretty obvious, but I can't think of a single animal that has "gripping" hands that isn't, or didn't start out as, an arboreal creature… so the odds of, say, felines or canines developing them is pretty slim. (Leopards, maybe: they like to hang out in trees.) The problem is imagining the intermediary stages–because hands are lousy to run on: whatever it was that was making the transition would necessarily have _not_ needed to be able to run quickly, or else the change would never have caught on.

On the other hand, I can think of no reason why increased brain capacity wouldn't evolve–as long as there was an advantage to it. Most alpha predators are already as smart as they need to be: they wouldn't be alpha predators otherwise. So there's no pressure to evolve the brain further–and human brains come with massive disadvantages, as far as energy use and dispersal are concerned. Radically change the predator's environment, though… who knows what they might evolve to cope with their new situation.

(This, by the way, is also one of the "realistic" limitations on evolution in general: if you don't need it, you aren't going to evolve it… natural selection will largely stop selecting once the organism has adapted sufficiently to its niche. Which is one of the reasons to have  the nuclear war: everything starts suddenly mutating in random ways, niche or no niche, with a select few ending up with mutations that never would have made it under normal processes.)

Water breathing is also problematic: we evolved from creatures with gills, but they developed lungs _before_ they started breathing air… and nothing that breathes air has shown any inclination to grow gills back, even if it lives an entirely aquatic existence these days. (If sea snakes haven't done it, ain't nobody gonna do it any time soon.)

As for "elementals": like I said, it depends a lot on what you mean. Realistically, I'd have to say no. On the other hand, I can see creatures gradually incorporating substances that are not normal parts of human anatomy, as long as the new elements provided an advantage without curtailing survivability. Chlorophyll would be a great addition to any creature's survivability–there is exactly one non-plant group that is capable of photosynthesis: a group of sea slugs, which obtain the chlorophyll from their diet, but manage to retain it long-term to perform photosynthesis. (See "kleptoplasty." I love doing this, by the way–researching answers: I wasn't aware there were any creatures that could do this. So I've learned something today. Thank you for asking the question.  ) As this is essentially a result of symbiosis, one could see humans obtaining a similar result… or it could still be at a pure symbiosis level, with the humans hosting chlorophyll-bearing microorganisms that have become permanent parts of their skin. Likewise, external mineral deposits could accumulate, giving "rocky" skin, as well as possibly altering bone composition. (Note, however, that heavier bones are normally disadvantageous: they limit mobility.)

If you mean "creatures that can merge with trees/rocks," or "have power over them," I'd say you're definitely looking at magic there.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 21, 2011)

I didn't read the whole thread, it's bit heavy for the early hours of morning, but have you ever heard of the potentially immortal jellyfish, turritopsis nutricula? It alters it's own cells to a younger state, but you'll have to read up on the wiki page I linked to see if it could help with your story.


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## Kaellpae (Aug 21, 2011)

It would only be a taking characteristics of elements. Rocky, grainy skin with heavier built bones and more muscle mass (counters weight, but not a swift creature). Bark-like skin with living hair containing chlorophyll (haircuts would be painful, and clothing minimal to increase sunlight absorption.). Obtaining clear or at least partially clear skin (watery type "elemental").

The people that made themselves immortal would be 3 of the best and brightest geneticists (right?) of the world. So I think if they really wanted centaurs, and it was a controlled experiment, it could be probable. Is that what you mean?
Centaurs aren't a necessity. I want to stay out of standard magic and creatures that were made "because God said so."

I had an idea for a fox that molts its entire hide in spring, skin still covering underneath, so that it can survive with shorter hair for the blazing summers, and have enough fur grown for the beyond freezing winters. It has to survive for two seasons of extremes and I thought that it would be fun to have an animal that sheds its skin like a snake, giving new meaning to shedding its fur coat. Then also local humans could have a easily gathered source of winter clothing. I was worried about making it too convenient, but I liked the idea too much to care.


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## Kaellpae (Aug 22, 2011)

Does this sound like it could be a good story setting? Interesting?


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 22, 2011)

I'd look at existing examples of evolution if I were you. The water elementals could have evolved similar to swim better, with webbed hands and feet, and a slimmer streamlined physique. They could also have large eyes that take in more light, which helps them see underwater, and be hairless, a with a bluish hue to their skin, giving them camouflage.

As for centaurs, I haven't read everything - but I get the idea the scientists are making them? You've got to ask yourself why they would do that, when there are probably better uses for their time in a post-apocalyptic world.


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## Kaellpae (Aug 23, 2011)

If you were an immortal geneticist wouldn't you want to make a few creatures of your favorite books? Tons of time on your hands to get it right. But maybe that's just me. Heh.


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## Ravana (Aug 23, 2011)

Great way to avoid boredom.…


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 23, 2011)

I get the feeling that if you were a geneticist talented enough to discover immortality - creating for the sake of creating would be beneath you. Perhaps it's a power thing though - maybe your character wants to play god. Wouldn't it make sense for him to put so much time and effort into bettering _himself _though?


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## Kaellpae (Aug 23, 2011)

Actually. That's the entire reason they made themselves immortal and then released the mutagen was because they were setting up themselves as self proclaimed gods. I would imagine if they were telling everyone they were god then they would prove it. 

If I made my own creature I would go crazy and add a series of different animal parts. Perhaps the tail and body of a beaver with a duck bill and feet... oh wait..


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