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| Future Predators of Humans | |
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| Topic Started: May 17 2009, 06:07 PM (9,980 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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| Holben | Jan 23 2010, 08:44 AM Post #301 |
Rumbo a la Victoria
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No, but it resists matter, which has an electromagnetic charge. I don't really think humans could survive multiple supervolcano strikes anyway, or a 300m asteroid. If one disaster goes after another, we're gonna l;ose all infrastructure and people will seperate and not work co-operatively. Then, the second will slaughter us. Even a new predator arising as we are seperated would be lethal, potentially. |
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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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| T.Neo | Jan 23 2010, 02:54 PM Post #302 |
Translunar injection: TLI
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Thus energy can still affect anything inside. Detonate a nuclear device on top of one, and the object inside will vaporise. It is also not immune to positrons, protons or neutral particles, btw.
Supervolcanoes occur one every few 20 000 years or so. "Multiple" strikes aren't very plausible. We'd still be able to survive though. We're just far too adaptable.
300... meters? That is tiny. If it hit a city, said city would be totally destroyed. If it hit an ocean, there could be some relatively large tsunamis. However, global climate effects will be very minimal, if they occur at all. A 300 meter impactor would not affect the survival of the human race in any way. If you meant 300 kilometers, then such an object would probably repave the entire surface of the Earth; it would kill every organism on the surface and boil our oceans. But the catch is, such objects don't cross paths with the Earth. While asteroids on the order of 300km or so exist (see: Ceres), they lie in pretty stable orbits out in the asteroid belt. While rogue objects could certainly exist, they would be very rare.
Oh, most scenarios would have us lose all or most of our infrastructure. Even if a disaster destroyed all infrastructure and half the world population, we'd still be more then able to survive the second. And, worldwide disasters are don't happen often. Ask the fossil record. So two or so in a single lifetime would be extrodinarily rare.
Do you know how long it takes for new organisms to evolve? In the wake of a planetary disaster, most megafauna will be extinct anyway. 100 years after a cometary impact, say, we'd probably be surviving very well and well in the process of rebuilding. Even if we reverted to stone age technology, we'd be able to kill any realistic organism off. We did just that with stone age tools. |
| 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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| Temporary | Jan 23 2010, 03:05 PM Post #303 |
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Transhuman
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Then how do Particle Accelerators work? I'm pretty sure they use the repelling force of the magnets to keep the particles from hitting the sides keeping friction as nonexistent as possible. |
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| Holben | Jan 23 2010, 03:27 PM Post #304 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Yes, the magnets reflect the paticles, so the particles wouldn't kill the mudarch. Organisms evolving in a few years? Hell no! I'm not that stupid! I meant animals arising in sponateous ways. Dunno how. I type too fast. it was km. Multiple strikes, say Yellowstone ands the Siberian traps at the same time. Although i don't think the Siberian Traps are operative any more. Stone age tools couldn't kill doedicurus. |
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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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| T.Neo | Jan 23 2010, 04:04 PM Post #305 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Mudarch? Depends on which particles. Neutrons would go straight through the field, AFAIK.
"Dunno how". Riiiiight... That's the thing. The only plausible means for any effective predator to come around "instantly" would be for Prawns (:P) to leave behind a few of their pets on Earth...
Fair enough, 300km would be more then lethal. But still highly improbable.
Siberian traps are long extinct, AFAIK. They far outclassed any supervolcano as well, AFAIK. We'd probably be able to survive even an event of their magnatude. A small supervolcano would just be a little pinprick in the huge puncture wound to humanity.
Fire could. |
| 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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| Holben | Jan 23 2010, 04:11 PM Post #306 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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On destroying humanity, this wikipedia entry should be useful. |
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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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| T.Neo | Jan 23 2010, 06:44 PM Post #307 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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The majority of that article is utter nonsense. Machines taking over? Right...  Others, such as climate change and bolide impacts have already been discussed here. While civilisation might be very vulnerable to such events, the actual human species is highly adaptable. Far less adaptable organisms have survived such events. We would be more then able to. |
| 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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| Holben | Jan 24 2010, 12:29 PM Post #308 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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By chance. We are affected by all the variables, from inter-national anxieties and tensions and all that stuff. One disaster in China? "It was the Americans! Retaliate!" And then the whole world would collapse. We'd slaughter each other. And in the age of nukes, we don't really have much hope of holding on to society. Machines couldn't take over unless we programmed them to. 
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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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| T.Neo | Jan 24 2010, 01:00 PM Post #309 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Right. And since we are able to calculate our survival methods, we have a higher probability of them working out...
I'm saying that we as a species would survive, not our current civilisation. Civilisation is fragile, the species it not. And I am sure any nation with nuclear weapons would be careful before making a brash retaliation.
Indeed. Only a moron would do that... |
| 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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| Holben | Jan 24 2010, 02:23 PM Post #310 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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heeheehee.. But we, as a species, would fall back onto primeval technology. With the know-how, we could get society going again, is that what you're saying? |
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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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| T.Neo | Jan 24 2010, 02:43 PM Post #311 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Well, a primeval lifestyle. For a short term at least after the disaster we'd still have firearms etc. Smart people will have a larger chance of survival, so I can see at least some know-how surviving, but I think even if it were minimal, we'd be able to get back to an industrial society. Half of an invention is the actual idea. The other half is making it reality. If people have had the idea before, half of your problem goes away. 
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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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| Margaret Pye | Feb 3 2010, 05:49 AM Post #312 |
Adult
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As a genetically-engineered human-eating critter, I'd go for a vaguely housecat-style thing that lives in hives like a bee. Make each one capable of turning into a queen and starting its own hive, and probably parthenogenetic or hermaphroditic, so that you have to kill all of them to get rid of them: but most of the time, most of them have no regard for their own lives. Each one is small enough to easily get away and hide, but a big group of them can kill a human at the cost of a few of them. They should be carnivores, and they should have a very wide range of possible prey species (harder to wipe out that way), but since they were deliberately designed by an evil genius, he or she should have designed them to crave human flesh and prefer it to any other meat. Not sure what they should look like, although I'd go for a basically mammalian bauplan just because it'd be the least effort for the evil genius to design. Maybe something small-monkey-ish, with a sabretooth cat head and big, big claws... somewhere... maybe not on the fingers, maybe give them blades sticking out of the sides of their hands, that'd give them more manual dexterity. Hmm, maybe they need venom. And the hero can be a scientist who invents a biological control agent that stops them... |
| My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont. | |
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| T.Neo | Feb 3 2010, 09:06 AM Post #313 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Or poison derived from chemicals that can be purchased at a supermarket? |
| 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 | Feb 3 2010, 01:26 PM Post #314 |
 
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That also leaves you with flake free hair? Just to add to this, atomic weapons would be lethal when fired at any creature. Shrapnel, Radiation and what not are of no importance, it would just be vaporized. And Humanity is going to be pretty hard to kill. Kill everyone who lives on the continents and we still have millions left. I think Civilization is a good deal more hardy and other people here, but humanity is definitely going to be something that is hard to destroy. Even if you did the survivors would rebuild. |
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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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| T.Neo | Feb 3 2010, 02:03 PM Post #315 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Atomic weapons would IMO have far too much collateral damage. Nukes are *not* the end-all, be-all weapon. They're useful for destroying population centers, disrupting military formations and bases, and perhaps they are useful in spacecraft to spacecraft battles, but not for killing animals. Flame weapons and chemical weapons would IMO be the best here. This includes fuel-air explosives or napalm bombs. Fumigate entire tracts of land. |
| 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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