BioPunk [genre]

[MS]

Cyberpunk and Steampunk are probably the two best known "X-punk" genres, in the world of creative fiction. To be fair, I do not get their "essence" as much, I do not know what are they perhaps truly about, but what I do know, is that they speak of certain civilizational collision, a transition time, in which neither the part of global influence is ready yet for the encounter. They also both speak of how the old and the new, unwilling to change, negotiate with one another, but most importantly, what is the sociological outcome of their mutual struggle.

What I wanted to propose, is a genre of analogous kind, called "Biopunk". What could be new about Biopunk, is that it tells about a civilization, which has discovered a new breed of alien species, being the subject of intense study. The aliens themselves, though, to definitive majority of population, are unknown, a mystery. Government tries to keep the study as restricted in access and secret as possible, but one thing is known for certain - this is the transition time, where the old humanity meets the new humanity. What I mean by that, is humans start to incorporate an alien "DNA" - in lack of better term - to their body structure, allowing for rapid changes and extended capabilities, unobserved thusfar in the mankind. The alien "strain" is obtained illegally, to be understood, thus the formation of wide, chaotic underground movement.

Emergent problems address typical "X-punk" patterns, such as, the questions of self-control, the questions of limits, the questions of being human, finally the questions of the future of human race. In the Cyberpunk genre, to compare, having too much of technological implants had been taken, one looses humanity and becomes more like a Terminator kind of cyborg. In the Biopunk, in turn, incorporating too much of the dynamically - infectiously, one could say - working alien strain into oneself, strengthens the connection with an alien mind pattern within oneself, further to be known as the overmind, which eventually takes charge of the newly formed post-human minions.

It could later on be revealed that the human government wages war on the alien species - which, false to prior claims, is not a study on dormant or trace subjects, but actually, is a full fledged race for survival - with the Biopunk behaviours affecting the human population, being one of the alien strategies to simply win the war.

[MS]

In real life application, "biopunk" would probably become a pejorative term for a biohacker.

Biohacker is a person employing the leverage of organic body clockwork, in order to achieve the enhancement of psycho-physiological capabilities. The effect could either be temporary or long lasting, depending on the nature of practices. The result is achieved through purposeful manipulation of lifestyle elements, primarily the diet, exercising, mental discipline and last but not least, pharmaceutical supplementation.

Biohackers - ideally speaking - go smart, which also means, they go legal way. Usage of any substances internationally - among the civilized countries - acknowledged as psychoactive substances prohibited by law, is what makes the difference between a junkie and a biohacker. The distinctive line may go blurry at times, though, referencing the practice of aware, disposable overdose in supplements otherwise legal, to achieve the significant stimulating effect. This further implies the difference between "clean" and "dirty" biohackers, which would respectively indicate on one hand those that lean on generally recommendable lifestyle discipline and on the other hand, those that live from one hazardous overdrive to another.

In general, to be a biohacker, means to take the clockwork of own body as the tool to work with for particular results. Such as with regular digital related hacking, competent biohacking demands a fair bit of knowledge on the related subject. Even though the primary purpose of biohackers is the extension of mental ability, bodybuilders and culturists also should count as biohackers by definition.

[MS]

Perhaps one day humans will outperform machines in comparable tasks, such as in Dune, where - due to discovery and proper application of a substance known as "spice", ever since to drive the economy as well - layers of abilities have been unfolded in man, allowing to entirely discard "thinking" machines given similar direction. Likewise to what has been said in The Matrix, the machines could be excellent at what they are designed to do, but they will hardly ever become unpredictably better or transcend their defined boundaries, which the humanity has proven to be capable of achieving and more so - by some bizarre rule of chaos - which is even expected to eventually happen, if the humanity only survives. "Thou shalt not make a machine onto the likeness of man", one of the pieces of wisdom in Dune says. Why is that? I think, to save oneself the pity.

EDIT:

There were also other reasons why "thinking" machines were discarded in the universe of Dune.

[MS]

The idea, is not all fresh, though. It perhaps subconsciously draws from an old Warhammer 40000 universe. The theme, are Tyranid, a flagship Xeno race - roughly associated with the Xenomorphs of Alien franchise. The Empire of Man fights a deadly war against all Xeno - as well as dealing with some severe infighting - therefore, one can easily imagine the tension that wild embracing of infectious Xeno strain - for self improvement - would cause in a fascist society of perpetual struggle.