Okay, that's enough monologue from you, creepy space lady. I think we all get the point by now: She's evil and she hates humans. (sooo… what exactly is she, then?)
In my Kuiper Belt Bestiary (2015), I mentioned a faction of colonists known as “mooners.” The main schism between the mooners and other human groups is that the mooners have chosen extreme biological modifications as their method of adapting to life in deeps space, whereas most other people adapt by surrounding themselves with technology and through cybernetic improvements which leave the underlying human physiology intact. That's what Osprey's ranting about here: The mooners view cybernetics as an evolutionary dead end.
Speaking of evolution, I thought this would be a fun (if at best tangentially related) little snippet. As we all know, anatomically modern humans (homo sapiens) are just one of a number of homo species to come and go over the last few million years or so. And it's common enough knowledge that modern humans even coexisted at one time with the Neanderthals (homo neanderthalensis). But as it turns out, there were several homo species that modern humans shared the Earth with at one time or another. So I thought it'd be fun to do a quick photo album of some homo species that we may have coexisted with. Sasquatch, sadly, did not make the list…
NEANDERTHALS (homo neanderthalensis, 350,000 – 40,000 B.C.) Not only did we coexist with the Neanderthals, but we very likely interbred with them, as Neanderthal traits may contribute to as much as 4 percent of modern human DNA. Unfortunately, Neanderthal humping is probably also how our species was first introduced to HPV. There's always a trade-off!
DENISOVANS (Denisova hominin, ??? - 40,000 B.C.) A cave-dwelling species native to Russia. We don't have any complete skeletons of Denisovans, but from what we've found, we know that they were heavily built and Neanderthal-like, but genetically unique from Neanderthals. There is evidence that humans and Denisovans did interbreed and produce hybrid offspring, however no Denisovan DNA survives in modern humans, aside from possibly some mountain tribes in Tibet.
RED DEER CAVE PEOPLE (unnamed species or hybrid, ??? - 9,500 B.C.) Populations of this currently unnamed homo species lived in parts of China until fairly recently. Unlike Neanderthals and Denisovans, the morphology of the Red Deer Cave People suggests a very ancient species, much closer to homo erectus or homo habilis than modern humans. They hunted, used primitive tools, and cooked their food, but looked very different from modern humans and did not contribute to our gene pool.
THE HOBBIT (homo floresiensis, 190,000 – 50,000 B.C.) These diminutive three-foot-tall “little people” stalked the forests of Flores island, Indonesia, until at least 60,000 years ago. Despite having tiny brains, even relative to their small body size, homo floresiensis used tools and likely controlled fire. Their extinction appears to coincide with the arrival of modern humans to the island.
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