We’ve explored the scientific basis for future evolution, extinct species and alien life enough to know what it might look like in real life. But how does this knowledge translate in media? In fictional stories like movies, TV shows, books and comics?
About the Book
Humanity Lost is a comic series written by the science fiction/fantasy artist and writer Callum Stephen Diggle.
Volume One of Humanity Lost is a compilation of the first five issues of the comic, along with a guide that explains the worldbuilding and species of the series.
Plot
Our protagonist Losté wakes up from stasis, in the remnants of a space station he boarded as part of their mission to colonize the planet Chiron. He was only supposed to be in stasis for a few years, instead 400 years have passed while he was under. He’s the sole survivor of his crew, with only the ship’s AI Belfast being left to help him make sense of what happened.
While he was in stasis, mankind declared war against the Conglomerate, an allegiance of alien lifeforms. The war was declared over humanity’s colonization and enslavement of the natives of Chiron, for which the Conglomerate wanted justice. Desperate to rise against their enemies, humanity created an AI called the All-Mother, which allowed them to win the war.
But it had a terrible cost. The All-Mother went rogue and reached singularity, growing beyond human control and enslaving them. Humans were mutated into unrecognizable shapes and forms, being turned into food, soldiers and whatever else the All-Mother needed. The All-Mother spread out throughout the universe, creating more and more colonies as she tries to take over the Milky Way. The Conglomerate continues to be locked into war with her, hoping to stop her from assimilating the entire universe.
In all this Losté, as the last remaining unmutated human, seems to be the key to defeating her.
Themes
Humanity Lost discusses themes of identity – How do our memories define us? What does it mean to be human? What happens to us if we lose sight of what’s important? How will technology change us? How will our view of the world change if we meet alien life?
As well as considering dichotomies like faith vs. science, destiny vs. free will, control vs. autonomy. At its core, the story is about hope, about trying to overcome the worst that has happened to humanity and finding a way to fix it – or at the very least stop it.
Designing Alien Life
Alien designs are often victim to a human-centric view of the world; at best they have an unnatural skin colour, some extra eyes, tentacles instead of hair…and almost always two arms and legs. They never dare to stray too far away from what’s familiar and thus appealing to us.
Humanity Lost breaks away from this familiarity to create aliens that are truly out of this world. Their shapes are hard to parse, lacking any features that mimic ours – often even lacking something we could possibly recognize as a face. Their design undermines how out of place Losté is in this strange new world. And despite all that making connections with others, looking beyond what’s on the surface as he is forced to adapt if he wants to make it through alife.
Various alien species that are part of the Conglomerate
The Future of Man
Humanity Lost explores not a natural, but a forced evolution of mankind. How we could look if any kind of autonomy and personality was taken from us, instead being broken down into tools with base functions. What will we look like if stripped of anything that a machine deems unnecessary? How will a human looked when optimized to fulfil a specific duty?
A lot of these new humans look like giant insects with dense bodies. Creatures made from exposed bone and muscle, gifted with powerful psychic abilities. Any familiar shape is lost, forcing us to confront what is left of us if we can’t even recognize our own faces. How we are meant to move on if life as we know it is forever out of our reach and we are forced to make a new world out of what is left?
Humans before and after undergoing forced evolution at the hands of the All-Mother
Sources
- Diggle, Stephen Callum: Humanity Lost. Volume One. Poland: Amazon Fulfillment 2023
