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High Technology in a Low Technology World

Ravana

Istar
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

Sage
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

Inkling
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.
 

Ravana

Istar
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

Inkling
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.
 

Kaellpae

Inkling
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.
 

Johnny Cosmo

Inkling
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.
 

Kaellpae

Inkling
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.
 

Johnny Cosmo

Inkling
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?
 

Kaellpae

Inkling
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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