"Superhuman" Breeding Program and Actual Human Limits, In HERO Terms

[Black Rose]

I've been trying to figure out how best to convey this idea, so here goes.

 

Lets say that, over the course of the last 5,000 years -- some starting at the very beginning, and others coming in later -- various groups have attempted to create "perfect humans". In this case, "perfect" means "better than normal people". The methods used vary, but in the end they boil down to Breeding and Training.

 

For Training, there are virtually unlimited options, and I would make extensive use of 5e Pulp HERO and Dark Champions Super-Skills, as well as some of the special abilities from 6e Ultimate Martial Artist as good sources. Although, if you have interesting ideas on that front, please share them. What I want to focus on, though, is the idea of Breeding. Without getting into some kind of Captain America ludicrousness, what would be the plausible physical limits achievable by humans solely based on their genetics?

 

I was going over my copy of GURPS Biotech, and there is a wealth of information there. But I prefer HERO, and their power build system just doesn't work for me, so

 

I know we have the Characteristic Maxima Table (6e1 50), but aside from those basic points (all 239 of them... sheesh), what else could be considered "natural" maximums for humans; by which I mean the limit past which you're slipping into the superpowers section of town? Many of the Talents could simply be "things I can do" -- I know several people who just have Bump Of Direction -- but I think you would have to actually have a reason for Danger Sense.

 

I'll start a list of the maximums as I think of them; if any of you have suggestions, please give them and I'll list the ones that work for me.

[dsatow]

We'll there are in real life genetic abnormalities which can give superhuman like attributes.  Myostatin(sp) Deficiencies for instance seems to prevent muscle loss but doesn't increase actual muscle.  There is another abnormality which doubles or triples the hardness of bone which I think might be related to the elephant man syndrome (too much of a good thing) but I can't remember it right off hand.  

 

You might want to reference genre.  For example, scifi and comics might have higher maximums.  For the most part, I try to simulate comic books, which seem to raise the maxima up by 25-50%.

[Black Rose]

14 hours ago, dsatow said:

We'll there are in real life genetic abnormalities which can give superhuman like attributes.  Myostatin(sp) Deficiencies for instance seems to prevent muscle loss but doesn't increase actual muscle.  There is another abnormality which doubles or triples the hardness of bone which I think might be related to the elephant man syndrome (too much of a good thing) but I can't remember it right off hand.  

 

You might want to reference genre.  For example, scifi and comics might have higher maximums.  For the most part, I try to simulate comic books, which seem to raise the maxima up by 25-50%.

I'll have to look into those. I didn't know that about the Elephant Man,

 

As far as genre, think cinematic Very Powerful Heroic/Low Powered Superheroic. There might be things (power armor, magic devices, esper powers... actually, that's it, really) that grant the effect of someone having STR 45, but an actual human simply can't contain that kind of power. They'd tear themselves apart. Like, imagine if the Spartans had been ale to continue their "we're gonna turn ourselves unto perfect warriors, and have slaves deal with all that other stuff, like raising crops" plan for another 2,500 years, what would they even look like? I mean, aside from their amazing hair; seriously, look it up, they taunted the Persians by basically doing stretches and making sure their hair was immaculate.

 

And, not really relevant for this discussion, but... for this setting, even if someone had enough "superhuman strength" to one-hand lift a 20' shipping container (2300 kg), they're not built to hold themselves together under that kind of strain. The weight would tear it apart around your hand.

[unclevlad]

One of the first places to go might be the Senses.  IR and UV might be practical;  complete Nightvision might be your bridge too far.  Ultrasonic hearing, or at least wider range.  Ultrasonic gives a dog whistle as an example, and Wiki says that's 23 to 54 kHz.  I suspect you could breed for up to 40 kHz, that's 1 full octave higher.  PLUS, breed so the higher freq hearing lasts into adulthood better.  We lose the top end very early.  I could also see a few levels of Telescopic, but probably not Microscopic.  

 

Hm.  Rather than allow a Dex over 20...Lightning Reflexes can be argued to be a good combination of training and breeding.  But going too far gets into the powers-like feel.

 

Hmm...a bit of physical, nonresistant Damage Negation is a nice way to say someone's tough.  Resistant...or negating energy...that's getting into powers.

[Duke Bushido]

I wish I had something offer, as this is a subject I love doing thought experiments on.  Perhaps it's a result of the day I've had, but all I can come up with at the moment is longevity, lack of hair loss, and hemophilia. 

 

I'm sorry.

 

I swear I can do better!  Let me think on it and get back to you. 

[dsatow]

The only reason I know all this is in creating a possible character.  (Google is your friend!)  Here is some of the more interesting links I've found.

 

https://www.storypick.com/superhuman-capabilities/

 

https://www.pcmag.com/feature/323873/13-humans-with-real-life-x-men-mutant-super-powers/12

 

http://sapienplus.com/real-life-superhumans/

[mallet]

I think part of it will be based on the setting, and how other characters are built, how NPC's are built and what other technology is available and the groups doing the breeding and the technology they have access to. 

 

For example, if every Player Character is going to be part of the Breeding Program, then you might start them all off with 15 in each STAT for free (rather then the normal 10) and set the Maxima for all Players at 22, with a Cap at 30 for every STAT. 

This assumes that the groups doing the breeding programs had the resources (and lack of government oversight and morals) to get in on Genetic manipulation early on in the late 70's or early 80's and without legal restrictions began experimenting on their already bred to exceptional subjects making them even more capable to reach above human STATS (so 30) rather then the 20ish a normal person could reach.

 

If you have different groups doing competing Breeding programs, then a different group might not use genetic manipulation, so characters from those programs, might start with STATS at 15, with a Maxima set at 20, and a Cap set at 25. But these programs might focus more on training, rather then the "brute force of genetic superiority", so they might have higher OCV and DCV caps and maximas then the genetically modified groups to represent the focus on training. 

 

As for special abilities, I would think Enhanced Senses would be possible, with a +1 to +3 for All Sense Groups, or just one or two Sense Groups (as I don't know if it would be common or desirable to have most of your super soldiers having super touch or taste as it could be debilitating in some ways (depending on how "realistic" you want these enhancements to be).

 

Double Jointed and other talents, as mentioned above. 

 

Their movement STATS will probably be higher for running, leaping and swimming. 

 

Low Levels of Life Support might be acceptable (able to go longer without sleep, or Food, or holding their breath for a long time, and maybe immunity to some diseases (common cold, flu, etc...))

 

Maybe a +1 Overall Skill Level to represent just being a bit better at everything because of their great genetics. 

 

Very Low Level Regeneration might work, although to be realistic, it might be better just to have a very high REC stat (or something like +10 REC; only for healing BOD) so they recover from injury a lot quicker then normal people, but not quite at the superhuman levels that Regeneration gives. 

 

Hardened Bones might give a +1d6 HA (similar to wearing Brass Knuckles), and some extra PD. Depending on the optional rules (if you are using them) for hit locations you might say that it takes more BOD damage to sever a limb for characters that have hardened bones then with a normal person. They might also have a little bit of Kockback resistance (if you use Knockback in your game).

 

Characters raised together in a specific breeding program would probably start with a very good Teamwork skill (with + levels for working with each other) and they might even have their own "language" or code for communicating with each other, even if it is just a very old or ancient language not in use any more in the "real" world. Latin, Ancient Persian or Greek, etc... 

 

That's is all I can think of right now off the top of my head. 

 

 

 

[megaplayboy]

I once had an idea for a character whose only ability was to get 1% better every day, so long as he worked steadily at all the things he wanted to get better at.  At that pace, he would improve 1000 fold every couple years.  

 

I think primitive eugenics will only get you so far, with respect to breeding.  Eugenics coupled with genetic testing will likely go a lot further.  It's easy to imagine someone with legendary level strength, charisma, dexterity, intelligence, and so forth. Perhaps even some special talents or enhanced senses.  If you couple all that with genetic engineering and gene splicing(adding genomes from other species), you can get pretty far into the superhuman range.  

There would certainly be some intersection between breeding and training, and also gray areas like performance enhancing drugs and post-breeding treatments.  

But in terms of superhuman...well, imagine Bruce Lee, only 6'5", 240 lbs, just as fast, and hitting a lot harder.  Or Da Vinci, only with perfect recall and a genius in thrice as many fields of inquiry.  

[Norm]

hmmm...  What megaplayboy said reminds me of Robert Asprin's Myth series.  In one of the books, the party has to play something like a football game to win something.  They were surprised when the game started because the people that made the deal (weak, skinny intellectuals) looked nothing like the players (small hulks).  Turns out there was a selective breeding program over the centuries that cause the race to basically evolve into two different species.  Sorry about being vague, read them about 20-30 years ago.

 

Anyway.....  Back to what megaplayboy made me think of....  

Would a program described in the original post over the millennia develop specialized perfect humans?  Perfect soldier, perfect scientist, etc.  You could basically have starting templates for all of the different 'perfect' types.

 

Or after having perfected each type, would the program then try to dovetail them back together for the ultimate human?

[Duke Bushido]

5 minutes ago, Norm said:

 

 

Or after having perfected each type, would the program then try to dovetail them back together for the ultimate human?

 

 

Speaking from purely a breeding point of view, putting the specialized traits back together rarely works out.  It's possible to select a trait or two (or possibly three) from another variety and re-incorporate it, but generally breeding more than two "breeds" back together results in something not unlike the original mutt you started with, sans the specialties you'd been breeding for in the first place.

[Norm]

11 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Speaking from purely a breeding point of view, putting the specialized traits back together rarely works out.  It's possible to select a trait or two (or possibly three) from another variety and re-incorporate it, but generally breeding more than two "breeds" back together results in something not unlike the original mutt you started with, sans the specialties you'd been breeding for in the first place.

 

Bummer.  I figured after 5000 years, they would have gotten it to work.

[Duke Bushido]

We've been breeding dogs longer than that.  Mix them together, and in seven generations or less, you get mutts unless you pick consistently from the same two breeds and _only_ select stock that exhibits the strongest tendencies for the traits you desire.  Oddly, the mutts (except Chihuahuas, which only re-affirms my firmly-held belief that they are not actually dogs) have a near-uniform similarity, but it doesn't get all "wolfy" like people expect.  Probably too much breeding for that, without fresh wolf input.

 

Given that people take much longer than dogs to reach breeding age, and that we rarely throw litters, I suspect we'd have had to start that breeding program back in the caves and stuck to it viscously in order to mix-and-match.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Joseph Greenstein, the Mighty Atom:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Greenstein

 

https://www.thehumanmarvels.com/joseph-greenstein-the-mighty-atom/

 

There have always been people who seem to challenge any "reasonable" notion of what's humanly possible.

[massey]

I guess I'm unclear on this.  Are you asking what is possible, in the really real world?  Or are you asking what is believable in a particular genre of fiction?

 

In the really real world, the best specimens we're likely to see are professional athletes.  They haven't been selectively bred, other than in the normal "famous athletes sleep around a lot" way.  Not selective breeding in a Nazi eugenics way.  And with our very large population, we offer tremendous cash rewards for people with outstanding athletic ability to come forward.  So basically we're harvesting the physical cream of the crop, generation after generation, and giving them lots of money to engage in extreme physical training.  The biggest, strongest, and fastest are selected and are basically given their choice of breeding partners.  Wilt Chamberlain supposedly slept with 10,000 women.  I wonder how many people in the NBA today are actually Wilt Juniors.

 

One problem you're going to get is that historically, the standards for a "perfect human" are going to be different than what we've got today.  When food is scarce, some guy who is built like Shaq is at a serious disadvantage.  And cultures are going to value different things.  Some modern athletes are so muscular that they literally sink in the pool.  That's no good if you're a nation of swimmers.  And then you've got plain old ignorance.  In addition to racial goals (the Nazis wanted their people as white and blond as they could get), you've got other weird ideas.  The royal families of Europe thought they were special, that they were "better than normal people" because they'd been selected by God.  And so they had problems with inbreeding.

 

Realistically, our professional athletes today are far more likely to fit our own ideal of what it means to be a "perfect human specimen".  I'd say stats in the high teens to low twenties is reasonable for a modern athlete in their prime.

 

Now, in fiction?  Depends entirely on your genre.