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Future Predators of Humans
Topic Started: May 17 2009, 06:07 PM (9,996 Views)
rufus
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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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Could we replace the amphibian with an insectoid? Parasitoids already live a life-style pretty close to that.
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Carlos
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Or maybe a mammal like a monotremate or a marsupial, whose larval forms (the joeys/poogles) aren't little harmless mammalian beans
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The Dodo
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I like the idea of an insectoid, maybe it could change it's host's behavior making it more aggressive so it will bite other people to spread it's eggs, it then kills the host and moves on to the next one.
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colddigger
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use the gliding frog, spread the skin further and just pull off an amphibious bat creature...

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lamna
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How would it fly though. It would need to be warm blooded and would then need a major overhaul to make that work.
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colddigger
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i don't see why it needs to be warm blooded, it can just live in the tropics, the thing i wonder about is the heart...

also i would see this as something that only flies once then dies, much like a mayfly...
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seascorpion
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the way i see it, its not what it uses or how it kills people, that is sadly quite easy- not to mention humans would probably be stupider by then ( watch a movie called idiocracy) but the true question is how it takes humanity by surprise on a global scale ( making rats, bats and other global species that live near and all around us perfectly suited to the job) in an instant, for something to be able to wipe out humanity in that way it would have to be a very intelligant creature
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colddigger
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lol idiocracy... that's not a good movie to base your expectations for the future on...
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lamna
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Sounds like tiresome film whining about how things were better in the good old days, which they were not. Advertising while Henry VIII was king was much more primitive, and it was even worse when William the Bastard was king. Back in Henry VIII reign capitalism and consumerism was starting to come along, because people had better lives and more time and money to devote to enjoying themselves.
People in the past were hardly the morons some people think they were, but they did know a lot less than us and generally had worse lives. We are getting smarter and healthier. Maybe some people are fat, but hardly anyone has polio and nobody has smallpox.

Unless somebody cocks it up and forces us to move backwards in terms of technology people of the future will be better educated, healthier and have better standards of living. Man in the future won't be blobs in chairs that uppity rats can eat at their leisure. We will be much harder to kill. Go back 150 or more years ago we only had single shot muzzle loading rifles and telescopes. Think of the weapons and equipment we have now.
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sam999
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The alien from the movie alien or something very like it.
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lamna
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Or lots of small insects that are very string and have venom. That would be harder to kill than a large predator.
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sam999
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lamna
Sep 10 2009, 01:35 AM
Or lots of small insects that are very string and have venom. That would be harder to kill than a large predator.
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colddigger
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how about humboldt squid that live in tanks that sit in red metal wagons pulled by five year olds?








that take steroids.
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The Dodo
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It would probably need to evolve at a fast rate to be able to build up resistance to any chemical weapons or to be able to capture it's prey.
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lamna
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They could quickly become immune to it, and fighting of a swarm would be tricky. I suppose you could use a flame thrower if you don't mind getting burning liquid all over you.
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