Eugenic #2

[history79]

Comments

[reveen]

I'm really failing to see what giving the New Man upside down faces and lamprey mouths and purple skin is supposed to solve. I can't imagine any evolutionary advantages, and it seems like it would only cause problems by making it blindingly obvious that the rest of humanity was being supplanted.

If you just made the genetic supermen look like humans except better we might not even notice whats happening.

Also, they uh, totally jacked the plan of the Master from Fallout here.

[broblawsky]

They're also supposed to be stronger, faster and smarter than unenhanced humans.

[leoboiko]

They are superior in other ways: intellect, emotional control, health, resistance to diseases, longevity etc.

The superficial appearance is only an aesthetic hack to avoid tribalism. If they're all visually unique they won't evolve racism. Supposedly.

Yeah that isn't very convincing. Just go with it…

[mastermahan]

Those are nice benefits, but I still appreciate my superpowers of depth perception and being able to eat without food falling out of my mouth.

[matrix_dragon]

I'm thinking that the reason the writer chose that look was to shock the reader, or possibly to present a defense against critics of the story - 'you don't like it because they look ugly', that sort of thing. Which, when the criticism of the 'NuMen' starts with pointing out that they'd have so many problems functioning on a day to day basis, is a very weak defense indeed.

A bland or generic appearance, maybe something along the lines of the classic Grey Alien, would have worked better, I suspect.

[informationgeek]

I feel like we're getting away from the first issue into... rather unremarkable and generic territory.

[malitia]

That's how these 3 parters by this team seem to work.

[nyadnar17]

You ain't never lied. The first story made me angry but it was still different and interesting.

I don't care either way about this current state of affairs at all.

[matrix_dragon]

... asshole praised as saviour, generic 'numen' name, humans treated as pets for breeding purposes... man, nothing shocking here.

[fra080389]

Why people didn't stop to use that vaccine at the beginning? They didn't know it was that to cause the mutation for sure, but there were suspects...

[cyberghostface]

Over half the world had already taken it when the mutations were first noticed.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

...how do mouths on the top or side of the head even work?

[matrix_dragon]

Like I said last time, so many poor kids must have died from breathing or digestive issues... let alone live long enough to try and drive with eyesight like that O_O

[candyangelo]

uh...how do these guys eat or even see?

[michaelsaint]

They probably couldn't in real life. The look is just a literary hack to show that the Numans can't develop racism or prejudice.

They are "perfect" humans. (STRONG emphasis on the quotes)

[goattoucher]

Okay. There's a lot to unpack here.

The geneticist killed everyone who knew about his plan, and himself. How can he be a revered figure in Numan culture?

How did the Numans come to power? They would have been -far- outnumbered for generations.

If there was still a significant number of human births, how the holy hell did the -Numans- not end up being the ones getting sterilized in favor of the rarer breed of first strain humans?

It had been long proven that intelligence comes with -more- morality, not less. If the Numans are intellectually superior, and if they were not sterilized, and if they came to dominate the world, why did they not come up with a more humane way to coexist with humans?

This looked interesting after the first issue. This is just the same old "freedom fighters rise against the oppressors" story. What an opportunity, squandered.

And making the conventionally pretty people the good guys? Not interesting.

[nyadnar17]

Also why do the Numans even give a fuck? 10-15% is about the normal/high end population density for a single minority group today.

Why go full on genocide/Nazi vs just kinda treating non-Numans kinda shitty the way most racial majority do today? Seriously no other type of minorities exit. All physical disabilities and sexual orientation differences have been wiped out so the TOTAL population of all types of minorities as far as the Numans are concerned is 16%. At that point why even expend the effort being extra shitty to them?

[goattoucher]

Ill-conceived.