...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Evolutionary Stasis
- 95 statements
- 16 feature instances
- 18 referencing feature instances
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| Evolutionary Stasis | comment |
So, you have a story that's set millions or billions of years in the future. It's safe to assume that there are still humans, or possibly other organic life forms, still reproducing. One would think that, even if natural selection has ceased to be a factor because of a static environment, mutation and genetic drift would still be factors. Even the proponents of Designer Babies rarely intend to micromanage everything. Genetic drift will happen in the parts that aren't controlled, after all. And even cloning gets mutations. And if any other species has survived, then they should be affected by evolution, too. But writers tend to ignore any possible evolution unless it's directly related to the plot. It may be on purpose, to save the trouble of imagining new species; Worldbuilding is a major distraction from writing, after all. And it's commonly believed that humans as we know them are more relatable than barely recognizable semi-humanoid beasts who don't even resemble any other known species. The ones that do resemble known species generally have undergone an Anthropomorphic Shift, which generally did not happen naturally. A nonhuman human might as well be an alien, from a storytelling perspective. Or maybe the writers didn't do their homework. Even if the fact that there will be genetic changes is possible to research, the nature of the changes would be a good deal harder. This also happens with Lost Worlds, where the dinosaurs and other prehistoric species look exactly like the ones that were around hundreds of millions of years ago (and in especially egregious examples, may include species that are further apart from each other in time than we are from any of them). Keep in mind that modern-day humans aren't that different physically from prehistoric Homo sapiens. If you took a human from 50,000, or even 100,000 years agonote But not millions, although some (very rare) other species didn't change much externally for even longer. and raised them with modern nutrition and medicine, they'd probably be indistinguishable from any of us. See also Medieval Stasis, Modern Stasis and Space Age Stasis which is about lack of cultural changes over millennia. |
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Dropped link to Downplayed: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_1ffa9e7 | type |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_1ffa9e7 | comment |
Now and Then, Here and There is set 5 billion years in the future and humans haven't changed at all. It's possible the human population was brought to the future by time travel, the way Shu is, but that's never implied in the series. Other modern-day animals, such as cats, cows, and vultures, are also seen in the future. However, there are also some "futuristic" creatures that do seem to have evolved from those of the present, such as some weird bird-like bipeds and a massive Antlion Monster. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_2f1b5710 | type |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_2f1b5710 | comment |
In the BBC series Jekyll, the antagonists justify their attempts to kidnap Tom Jackman and experiment on his other personality on the basis that humanity is doomed to this trope, without Hyde's unique genetics. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_36984148 | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_36984148 | comment |
The major genetic evolution in humanity has been the emergence of psykers, and even then they're around one in a million. Somewhat enforced, however, in that FTL travel is far from easy: the populations of planets become known for very particular traits (every Catachan looks like Rambo and the Predator squad) and there is little opportunity for interbreeding. The other major modification, which involves taking the cloned genes of a long-dead superhuman warrior and injecting them into a human until they're seven feet tall and bulletproof also makes them sterile. | |
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| Rambo (Franchise) | hasFeature |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_525c9c7a | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_525c9c7a | comment |
In the Dinotopia books, the dinosaurs on the island still look exactly like they did millions of years ago (or at least, how we thought they looked when the books were written), even though evolution has continued to progress normally in the rest of the world. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_62570927 | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_62570927 | comment |
A recurring plot point over the years with Marvel Universe species the Kree, who have retained the same basic look for millions of years, and their DNA has stubbornly resisted any attempt to get it to budge, despite some very, very spirited efforts from their leaders (up to and including blowing up a chunk of their home galaxy to give them a kick in the metaphorical ass). ... of course, it would probably help if a lot of the Kree weren't also fanatically racist and hell-bent on maintaining "genetic purity". One plotline, during Avengers Forever, had them actually breaking the stasis... and then this got promptly ignored by every other writer afterward. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_7988cb68 | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_7988cb68 | comment |
The vorcha from Mass Effect have DNA that has been unchanged for millions of years. This is due to their ability to adapt rapidly to any environment as individuals, which removes their need to evolve as a species. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_7fd1ab56 | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_7fd1ab56 | comment |
King Kong (1933): Despite being a Lost World where the Dinosaurs still roam, none of Skull Island’s wildlife look any different from what we thought the Dinosaurs looked like back in 1933. The 2005 remake averts this by populating Skull Island with fictional dinosaur species descended from real ones. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_90d45233 | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_90d45233 | comment |
Averted in The Underland Chronicles in that the underlander humans' eyes turned purple and their hair turned a very light blond. Although how living underground could cause a change in melanin levels that quickly could be an example of artistic license. The serpents seem largely unchanged from plesiosaurs though, aside from losing their eyes from living underground. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_a50d9f34 | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_a50d9f34 | comment |
Green Lanterns: Taken to absolutely absurd extremes during a time-travel arc, when Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz go back four billion years to when the Green Lanterns were first founded. Half the first seven choices are of species who are still around in the modern day, and who look exactly identical. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_b618b457 | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_b618b457 | comment |
In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it is mentioned that the Vogons stopped evolving shortly after they stopped being an aquatic species. The planet Vogsphere has created many other life forms far more appealing than the Vogons, which they inevitably destroy for their own amusement. To lampshade it, the book even states that evolution threw up its metaphorical hands in horror at the sight of the Vogons in daylight, refused to let them evolve again, and produced the other, amazingly beautiful creatures of Vogsphere in compensation for the Vogons. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_bcadd7cb | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_bcadd7cb | comment |
Warhammer 40,000: The major genetic evolution in humanity has been the emergence of psykers, and even then they're around one in a million. Somewhat enforced, however, in that FTL travel is far from easy: the populations of planets become known for very particular traits (every Catachan looks like Rambo and the Predator squad) and there is little opportunity for interbreeding. The other major modification, which involves taking the cloned genes of a long-dead superhuman warrior and injecting them into a human until they're seven feet tall and bulletproof also makes them sterile. This is actually averted with the various "Abhumans" who sometimes show up as Imperial Guard auxiliaries. In contrast to the various mutants created by Chaos energies and genetically altered supersoldiers, Abhumans are new races who have evolved naturally on planets with different environments than Earth, most notably the Squats, who evolved on a high-gravity planet. |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_c0c57462 | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_c0c57462 | comment |
In Chrono Trigger, humans haven't changed one iota in 65 million years aside from the development of magic, and there's a number of other species that haven't changed at all either except for color. Justified when you fight the final boss - turns out Lavos has personally controlled humanity's evolution since its crash landing in 65 Million BC. Apparently the original form of man serves it best for its meal. | |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_c43df4d8 | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_c43df4d8 | comment |
Doctor Who: In "New Earth" and "Gridlock", taking place 5 billion years in the future, pure humans are extinct, but the descendant species look identical. In "Utopia", taking place trillions of years in the future, humans still look identical. At some point in between they spent time as clouds and data, but they apparently keep returning to human form. |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_d59a50df | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_d59a50df | comment |
Despite being born millennia in the past, the immortal Vandal Savage still looks identical to the modern Homo sapiens. An easy Hand Wave for this is that Vandal is probably a common ancestor for most of humanity by this point. | |
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Evolutionary Stasis / int_d59a50df | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_e8ac3eea | type |
Evolutionary Stasis | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_e8ac3eea | comment |
The Dying Earth books take place so far in the future that the sun is on the verge of going cold. Yet if humans look any different from the way they do now, the changes aren't noted. | |
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Evolutionary Stasis / int_e8ac3eea | |
| Evolutionary Stasis / int_f8a2cb3f | type |
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| Evolutionary Stasis / int_f8a2cb3f | comment |
Averted in Seveneves, where humans five thousand years in the future have evolved to live underwater, underground and on the moon and are drastically different from contemporary humanity. | |
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