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| Future Predators of Humans | |
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| Topic Started: May 17 2009, 06:07 PM (9,985 Views) | |
| rufus | May 17 2009, 06:07 PM Post #1 |
Newborn
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I rememebr that once in Peter Ward's book he mentions the differnt things that could possibly thin the human population. He mentioned, then dismissed at once the possibility of a new sort of predator. As he correctly observes, any such predator would be quickly elininated or contained if it started preying on our species. Humans would simply not allow ourselves or our children to become food. But that got me to thinking. Suppose some future genetic scientist, engineered some sort of future predator to prey upon humans, perhaps as a way of cleansing the population of :defectives" or undesirables". The species could be genetically programed to hunt only humans as a food source. And it might be programed to eliminate only those humans who carried certain traits such as genetic maladies. This would have to be done in such a way that the human population would not know what was happening, and could not take the action needed to eliminate the predators. This creature would be engineered from humans themselves.The creature could have engineered traits from other animal species, such as camaflauge abilites, and perhaps sonar from bats to stun their prey. BTW, I thought of this idea long before that "future predator" thing from Primeval, and I thought of posting this today, even before I read that other thread. I also thought of making this idea into a story, in which the heor has to find who is releasing and controlling these predators and how to stop them. I usually try not to bash genetic science in my stories, like some authors do, but in this case the plot would demand that I do have a rogue geneticist. |
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| GundamX67 | Dec 25 2009, 10:18 PM Post #226 |
Zygote
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You know, I think we're thinking too much about active predators. What about dormant ones? Some sort of protist that is altered to remain in a cyst until certain traits of an undesirable disease shows up, upon which the protozoa are hatched, fed to the brain via the circulatory system, then BAM. Dead. And the bonus part for this, is that it can be injected into every living person under the guise of a "vaccine" or through mosquitoes. Personally, I like the mosquitoes. You'll never look at the blood-sucking females quite the same again. |
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| sam999 | Dec 26 2009, 06:12 AM Post #227 |
Adult
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So it would only afect sickly people? Nasty, it gets back into the idea this thread had at the start. |
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.   Comeon, thy dragons need YOU! Visit them here please... | |
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| Holben | Dec 27 2009, 03:31 PM Post #228 |
Rumbo a la Victoria
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Then we got onto DOOM slime. What an idea. But if you're not happy with that, people tend to make their mind up about what they're looking at as soon as they see it. So, a disguised creature, that could have polymorphous sahpe and colour, like a mimic octopus? It wpould have to fare well in crowded places, however. Or a dragon? |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| sam999 | Dec 27 2009, 04:13 PM Post #229 |
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Adult
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AntiAirCraft guns |
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I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad. Comeon, thy dragons need YOU! Visit them here please... | |
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| Holben | Dec 28 2009, 01:43 PM Post #230 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Dragons are bullet- and shell-proof. In case you didn't know. And they move as fast as a plane, can wheel and flip in the air, and breathe fire. They grab the AA guns, and throw them into your assembled regiments. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! They are also clever enough to opertae computers, and they will meltdown all the nuclear plants and cause radiation to fill the skies. The burning of everything flammable will block out the sun, and plants will starve (unless they've already been vapourised). Humanity will resort to nuclear missiles, and dragonscale isn't that good. So we all die! Two sentient species together. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| sam999 | Dec 28 2009, 02:22 PM Post #231 |
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Adult
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So how would your dragon's biology work? |
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I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad. Comeon, thy dragons need YOU! Visit them here please... | |
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| Holben | Dec 28 2009, 04:31 PM Post #232 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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I should really start a topic. Its skin is a silicon-metal alloy, and it has hydrogen and stuff inside and big wings which are really powerful and fire from internal fusion (or hydrogen reactions, take your pick) and superdense muscles which contract 10 times as fast and nerve reactions ten times faster than us because of the lattice solutions and ions carrying the currnet and a really big brain and a well-developed cortex etc etc. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| sam999 | Dec 29 2009, 09:30 AM Post #233 |
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Adult
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And how does that work... |
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I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad. Comeon, thy dragons need YOU! Visit them here please... | |
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| Holben | Dec 29 2009, 12:54 PM Post #234 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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That's why i need to start a topic... |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| sam999 | Dec 29 2009, 01:21 PM Post #235 |
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Adult
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Well then, start it. 
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I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad. Comeon, thy dragons need YOU! Visit them here please... | |
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| Tamara LH | Jan 4 2010, 05:21 PM Post #236 |
Newborn
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Regarding "the Wolfen", I meant the book of course (I even mentioned that in the entry). They are not dogs (as in the "species" Canis Familiaris, but simply members of the dog family. The book hints that they share a common ancestor with the gray wolf but the description of their heads made me visualize them as as being similar to a Borophagus or similar genus. Note that Borophagines are less hyena-like than cryptozoologist claim, see Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History by Xiaoming Wang for what this subfamily really looked like. The book is also fairly old, being written way back in 1978! One of my pet peeves is people thinking that opening doors is hard. I have had several Siamese cats that figured out how to open doors. These included ones that were latched with a hook and eye (the cats simply jumped up and hit the hook until it pooped out), screen doors in which the cats simply depressed the latch with their paw (Ive had dogs figure this one out too), and even one cat that learned to jump up, grab the door handle and twist it while hanging on, the cats weight causing the door to swing open a few inches so the cat could simply push it further open with its head! Needless to say we quickly learned to keep the doors locked with bolt locks, something those darn cats simply didn't have the physical strength to operate! If a cat can do it I figure the Jurassic Park "Raptors" could do it too, after all they have fingers and the door was a simple latch that only needed to be pushed down, something our cat could open in seconds, and not an actual door knob. The animal could have opened it simply by pawing at the door, so it's not like it needed much brains to figure out how to open it. Note the Raptors couldn't figure out how to open a dead bolt either and had to come through the glass once the door was locked. Edited by Tamara LH, Jan 4 2010, 05:31 PM.
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| sam999 | Jan 4 2010, 08:45 PM Post #237 |
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Adult
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Something that looks like the cuteist little puppy. When taken home it stings the person while they are sleeping implanting its eggs. The hachlings eat their way out alien style. |
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I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad. Comeon, thy dragons need YOU! Visit them here please... | |
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| T.Neo | Jan 5 2010, 11:56 AM Post #238 |
Translunar injection: TLI
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As I said before, effective predators of humans simply are not possible. Humans don't like their own kind getting eaten, used as incubators or getting killed period. And if there is an animal that does that, I can garuntee that it will be wiped out. We've done so to animals that posed us far less of a threat. The only "predator" that could possibly stand a chance against humans would be some sort of sophont that has a penchant for eating other sophonts (read: humans). We'll try to wipe them out too, but they'll be a bit harder to kill, having guns of their own. 
Edited by T.Neo, Jan 5 2010, 11:57 AM.
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| A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork. | |
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| lamna | Jan 5 2010, 12:12 PM Post #239 |
 
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The best predator then would be powerful nation that decides humans are delicious and starts "harvesting" smaller and weaker nations. Like the Aztecs only worse somehow (or better, if they use every part of the human) Or the Russian Empire in The Peshwar Lancers. |
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Living Fossils Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural 34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur. [flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash] | |
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| Holben | Jan 5 2010, 12:54 PM Post #240 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Humans have a tendency to rely on proved methods of killing, like guns. Although a bullet is dangerous, it's hardly the killiest piece of tech in the galaxy, is it? Anything liqueous or gaseous would be immune. Anything with scutes or thick armour would be immune. And, another fault is our lack of being able to think rationally- like many non-sophontic beings. We might get pulverised by a liqueous life form that uses poison, or suffocation. In fact, that gives me the an idea- a fog which descneds from the sky and suffocates all life. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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