The Hopeful Horror of ‘Humanity Lost’ 

the Belisarius Saga is an example of a story that says "I'm joining the war on human body horror on the side of the human body horror" and it's soooo good

Imagine what it must be like living in Biopunk universe before the biopunk is invented. And then someone invents the sphincter door and it’s 900% better than all other kinds of door and everyone is like *”PRAISE THE NEW FLESH”* and that’s just forever now.

My FAVORITE kind of horror is the intersection of body horror and cosmic horror. I think this series will be PERFECT for me.

Has it already been 2 years since your first video on humanity lost? Wow! Time really flies… 😭

Tandrax: "What if we take our solar system, and PUSH IT SOMEWHERE ELSE!"

1:08 Praise be to the Omnissiah

Perhaps this is an apt time for me to speak about a science fiction story I read well over forty years ago. It was in a book in our secondary school library, a science fiction anthology whose title may have been generic, but is now long forgotten, along with that of the story. Told from the viewpoint of the scientist in an exploratory team of four, it starts with the team falling into a gelatinous mass. We are then told that space exploration, and surveying new planets, has turned into something like a game of GO, a Chinese board game. This is why one of the team members is what is called a 'loyalty monitor', placed within the team to ensure everyone sticks to the rules laid down by the company funding the team. We learn that the gelatinous mass has digested everything but the brains and spinal cords of the humans, and uses the thought processes to make body parts that will enable it to better survive its environment. Each Team member comes up with different body parts- legs, arms, eyes, ears and so on. The four still have to work together to survive, though, and it soon becomes clear that the Loyalty Monitor is a threat to the protagonist and the third team member, having persuaded the fourth to side with her. When the organism divides into two, the Loyalty Monitor takes the opportunity try to kill or otherwise remove the protagonist from his half of the creature, but he survives. Now divided, he shares his half with the fourth team member, another scientist, who as per the LM's instructions, tries to kill him. Instead, No 4 is killed when a large rock falls on his half of the creature, crushing his brain and spinal cord to pulp. The protagonist recovers and goes in search of the other creature, to find that one of the brains and nervous systems is lying on the ground a short way from it. He discovers that the third team member, a female civilian secretary, is still alive and in sole control of the organism. She tells him that she grew bony armour to protect her brain and spinal cord when the LM tried to attack her- basically, she grew a skull and spinal column. At this point, the LM's brain and nerves were ejected from the body, she'd been excreted as waste detrimental to the survival of the creature. The story ends with the Protagonist and the secretary attempting to shape their gelatinous forms into something more pleasing. All this time, the protagonist has been trying to name this creature, using his surname as the species name, until he comes up with an entirely new name for the creature. I can't recall what the scientific name was, but I do recall its translation into ordinary English, which was 'Man's hope'.

I would totally love a series on Dinotopia!! It has been a favorite series of mine and just learning there are more books in the series the other day reignited my love for the series and the art in its pages.

Honestly, modern audiences in general have become divorced from the horrors of pathogens. The black death is obvious, but in 1800s Europe, approximately a quarter of all people died from Tuberculosis. Smallpox is another great example. We don't think of it in the same plague sense, but in a span of three years, a plague of smallpox killed 1/3 of the population of Japan.

I’ve always found fleshy diseases and mutations incredibly interesting because for me lots of it comes off as an allegory for cancer wether it’s intentional or not. Cancer cells mutate and rapidly spread throughout the body, avoiding detection and causing only destruction, and often times these shambling masses of flesh in fiction do a similar thing. I guess why it’s so scary is not only because of a heavily mutated and fleshy human, but the fact that something like this exists in real life, albeit on a cellular level.

it gives me all tomorrows vibes, more specifically the snakes who managed to evolve from humans that wrre turned into literal worms and yet somehow retained extremely human characteristics like it was still ingrained in their modified DNA

As A.I. go, this one isn't THAT bad. It just wants humanity to thrive and grow. Now there's more "human" in the universe than ever!

Me: ate ice cream at the restaurant and some dessert "Curious archives" meanwhile releases video about body horror: Me: that's for me!

I've been on curious binge the last couple days so I'm definitely glad you've made another episode

3:33 sir, that cut was _epic._

It is far too common for entertainment to rely on "Beautiful = Good" and "Disfigured = Evil" and that sadly seems to go far beyond the examples mentioned here. So it is good when a work pushes back against that visual language, still compared to other works that do the same, "Humanity Lost" seems both unique and extreme.

I created a Warhammer 40k faction called "The Covenant of the Flesh" in it they subscribe to the notion of evolution and modular Tyranid design but also pure unadulterated chaos. They would by all means be branded as heretics and their faction would be close to being snuffed out. They are not worshippers of the four (Chaos gods Khorne, Slanesh, Nurgle, and Tzeentch ) but worship the idea of Chaos itself. On the other side of that is the Chronus Mechanicus who are former Necrons, T'au and Adeptus Mechanicus. They subscribe to the purity of the machine. They would also be branded as heretics but not as much as the other faction would.

the indomitable human spirit against the face of many threats, including the IRS and utterly phallic spaceships. joking aside, this video does give me that glimmer of hope for tomorrow, even if that tomorrow ends up being either painfully mundane, samey-samey, painfully tragic, and sometimes actually great tomorrows. the feeling of longing for the distant horizons always reminds me that, for all the emptiness there is between each dot in the sky, and for all the discourse wedged between miles and miles of people and concrete forest, i'm kinda glad i still feel something.

It's currently 2:00AM. I'll watch this first to have the best sleep after 'cause of existential crisis

The alien designs in Humanity Lost are such a treat. I don't care if it looks like HP Lovecraft's loogies, I'd love a swordfighting jellyfish space buddy!

This video shows I rather look some blop eldritch horror but still have my mind rather still looking human but my mind being gone.

The echo of the generational memory of the plague is arguably one of the reasons such ideas of body horror exists

Glad you’re covering it, humanity lost is amazing!

In the show Farscape the lone human protagonist allies with a number of aliens of varying degrees of alien-ness in appearance, but all with more ‘humanity’ than the completely human looking Peacekeepers which they are on the run from. They also travel in a completely benevolent living ship, though it doesn’t look grotesque at all (until it starts taking damage and the innards get exposed)

I'm watching Scavengers Reign right now, and it would be awesome if you covered it!

I assume you read a lot of sci-fi books. Please make a sci-fi reading list video! I am always impressed by the topics you choose and would love to see what books might be the inspiration behind them!

Brillant work on this video! It was very much interesting to learn of this universe, and I feel like your thoughts beautifully convey what the essence of Humanity, what being Human means. As I envision it, it's not just a matter of body or flesh and blood vessel, nor just an humanoid shape roughly looking human, it's a way of being, of thinking, of feeling. No matter if you're some kind of amorphous fleshy blob, a being of metal alloys and circuitry or to borrow from fantastic literature a blood sucking denizen of the night, what matters is what lies in one's heart... On another note it's great of you to put the credits of the musics you used in this video, a few caught my attention and it's always a bonus to not to have to hunt down a specific piece.

I always sympathised with the visceral amorphous flesh monsters, like Carrion for example: it's a sentient being who was forced into a tiny glass tube to be watched and experimented on, can you blame it for breaking out and eating everyone in the lab? What other option does Carrion have when it can't communicate with its captors? James Heller from Prototype 2 does the same thing, only he was once a man and has the capacity to express his humanity to the humans around him, he's still a tendril monster that eats scientists for lunch, except his humanity is more visible. Carrion is totally alone in a hostile alien world, is it so different from a man abducted by aliens?

I can absolutely see the Wayne Barlowe influence!

Humanity lost was the very first video i saw in your channel. Now im an avid watcher. I'll still be here as your channel grows and still be watching.

I love how you compared the Black Death to the SciFi deseases and hiveminds that have been created today. I've never thought about it like that before and it was very interesting. Wonderful video! :D

How is it that you can discuss these stories - horrific images, grim philosophies, nightmares put to paper - and I'm okay with it...? You gotta understand, I'm an absolutely weenie about horror. Yes, I watched several of the Alien movies, I watched both Predator flicks, I even watched Nightmare on Elm Street (in defiance of my mother), and I enjoyed them... but I'll never ever watch Prometheus after the one scene I saw; the movie Event Horizon gave me such nightmares that I still can't even think about it without shuddering. The Animatrix, most especially the bits discussing the violence, made me physically ill. I'm a touchy-feely 'care bear' type person, and I'm definitely not a horror buff. But you find some kind of balance in how you discuss this stuff. Junji Ito is NOT someone whose work I would have ever glanced at before seeing your discussion of him. ("A hole made just for me" is still haunting me, btw.) And yet because of HOW you talked about that work, I can think about Ito with more coherence and calm than I can recall even one minute of Event Horizon. So from a fairly mouse-like little old lady - you have one hell of a talent, sir. My hat's off to you. Thank you for making something this terrifying so oddly accessible.

I love how many moulds this breaks.

I've been watching your vids for a while now, and they're all amazing! This is the only channel that will make me put down my phone, stay focused and really make me think and understand. After every video I'm left sitting here thinking. It's all amazing!

This is a story with a interesting premise. I remember the first video, where you were more focused on the worldbuilding, but this video you're more focused on the philosophy. The fact that the AI can be defeated by rejecting it is really a thing that I didn't count on. That reminds me of Warhammer 40K - it's also a really amazing setting, but to work it has to be grimdark; as much as I like the worldbuilding there, the grimdarkness can be frustrating (sometimes not negatively), even in its best stories.

it feels reminicent of the alien gauna from the manga by tsutumo nihei "knights of sidonia"

My dream is to make a science-fiction world so good Curious Archive will make a video on it

It’s been a while since I saw one of your videos and I must say the quality has grown a ton! It’s got an excellent Jacob Geller vibe of exploring one story through the lens of a shared theme in others and I think it works really well! Keep it up and can’t wait to see more!

I just realized how long I’ve been watching you I started around 10k you been making truly quality content since the beginning and are still finding ways to improve keep up the good work

Good example is: All Tomorrows , unwillingly transformed into the some of the most deceptite beings, however against all odds they succedeed against the creature that did this to them. All of them altered but still humans. The ending is ambiguous, if it was a unfortunate end or if something better happened, the story was always set as speculative history and we are left to decide how we want the story to end.

Excellent video. The narration was intelligent, well researched, and thought provoking. Thanks so much for offering me these bite sized summaries of stories, art, and media that showcase the best of my favorite genres.

One of your best video essays yet. Thank you, as ever, for posting!

I love the different between the humans technology compared to everything else, seeing the hard metal edges as opposed to the keratin shells of the ships is a cool way of showing how different the technologies are and yet how they are still some what similar

Going to order a copy of the book tomorrow! The art alone looks so surreal and out of this world, I can't wait to get into the story.

I’ve been so excited for your newest episode and you never disappoint

honestly this is how I felt about humanity in all tomorrows. It was horrifying what happned, yes, but also there were all the new species who stood back up and developed even beyond their original form.

I think i've said this in the last video about humanity lost, but its what i've always wanted in space sci-fi: aliens that look completely alien, but are important characters and more than just monster villains.

Always a good day when you post.

hi curious archive !! :D I really like your documentaries diving deep into rarely explored topics, especially when you take a deep dive into interesting lectures or video games.

For some reason, watching this reminded me of the 1980s animated series Jayce & the Wheeled Warriors (yes, I'm that old!), which featured robots/machines that were somehow also carnivorous plants.

I have never so consistently seen imagery that makes me feel like I'm inside of a mouth, stomach, or womb as I have watching this video.

H.R Giger, would have made a great addition to this addition. his collection of artworks "the Necronomicon" would fit in with the amalgamations of humanity's lost futures.

The parts with the hands used as seats reminded me in Shintaro Kago's Parataxis manga and his similar work "Industrial Revolution and World War". Recommended if you like body horror.

There is a point to be made about what we know as human truly being an idea in a not insignificant part. Carried by the weight of thousands of generations who passed on their ideas and thoughts to the next. Without growing up with the knowledge and thoughts of our predecessors, what would come would likely be quite differnt from what we know. Differnt ideas, differnt morals.

Your original Humanity Lost video is what hooked me onto your channel, and I've eaten up pretty much every video since.

Ah what an inspiration to my much earlier time period story- Sacred Circuitry, only just at the beginning of the first biotechnological revolution, tackling how humanity will grapple with this horrifying new freedom.

After your first video on this, I was curious about Humanity Lost. After this one, I'm definitely going to check it out.

The horror-fied human designs remind me of Barlowe's demons from his novel "God's Demon," which takes place in a hell where everything is made from flesh and organic structures. Also of note: check out Brandon Graham's "Prophet" comic run from 2012. In the far future humanity is comprised solely of clones of one man, and the human empire is galaxy-spanning and its members are often highly-modified transhuman creations. This series you're covering reminds me a lot of that series, given that in Prophet this future is not meant to be dystopian per se, just... What it is.

It always bothered me. People latching on to their archaic idea of humanity, which more often than not just means ugly=bad. Thanks for putting into words how I felt.

Absolutely loving these video essays CA.

This actually reminded me of an idea I myself had some time ago. I have always been fascinated by the organic and viseral style of some hostile races in science fiction and thus started to wonder if I changed things around and had it apply to the heroes instead. One particular thing about this was the realization that to those living with these kinds of trappings, to them this would be normal. They would be able to have the same quality of life and experience the human spirit even if things looked horrifying to us. Thus I had it so the the heroes were those who made use of this kind of biological technology to survive a harsh world after having been abandoned, eventually having to fight for their right and way of life to exist, being seen as abnormal by those around them.

despite being squeamish and not a fan of horror, body horror will often times not really phase me (but still it does sometimes). i just see a creature, not too unlike myself. I'm far more concerned with any given creatures intentions and actions than their looks a vast majority of the time

I like the ones where they are still “themselves” just the human form twisted, and they are just *chill* like “yo lets play lego star wars” [contorts to hand you a remote]

Absolutely love the Warhammer: 40,000: Mechanicus quote at the start.

The first video on Humanity Lost was absolutely entrancing and I'm so glad to see another one on it! Such an interesting world.

The Nomad Star megastructure is honestly on a scale that surpasses at least the modern 40K universe. When you get to those kinds of scales, you belong to the same classification as the precurors from Halo, or anything from the Xeelee Sequence. Completely in a realm of its own.

really need a proper motion picture adaptation of this and All Tomorrows. human naturally or artificially evolving into something different is such an inexplicably unexplored premise in on-scren sci-fi series/movies.

When I read that Cronenberg had the opportunity to direct 'Return of the Jedi' but turned it down. This was exactly what I pictured. I haven't heard of Humanity Lost until this video, now I have to investigate further. Thank you 💙

Thanks for bringing this awesome looking graphic novel to my attention! Went and ordered it immediately!!

13:44 On a tangentially related note, Old World diseases wiped out an estimated 60% to 90% of indigenous peoples in North America. And that was before any of the intentional genocide campaigns started.

I’ve never heard of this, but it’s absolutely fascinating. Thank you for diving deep into it.

Callum Diggle's art is eerily similar to some of my work when I was in my twenties, and the themes were spot on, as well. Fascinating.

Any significantly advanced technology could be indistinguishable from magic. Similarly, any significantly advanced civilization could be indistinguishable from nature.

I do like the take on biomechanical that allows the technology to "wear clothes" sorta speak- many people imagine the disturbing, Cronenberg take on biotech, one where you outright see veins, intestines and exposed muscle, but living beings don't parade with these exposed. They have skin, chitin, clothes, fur. That's what I do like about scorn as example- the world works on blood, muscle, ichor and siniue, but the properly working technology of that world "wears" chitin and bone on places that matter and leaves thin membaranes for either natal or misshapen or for things that require flexibility to work. I hope more people realize that you can do biotech in sci-fi without just making it look like if you are utilizing cancer growth to fight. On cancer- it also makes a very striking visual to show how biological technology "malfunctions", having your gun not as much explode but bulge out with hernia or pussfilled zits if you don't maintain it (going back to Scorn- the monsters of that world seem to be technological malfunction, flesh that refused to grow in confines of bone and chitin the civilisation uses)

This convinced me to pick up the physical copy of volume 1, I absolutely loved it. I'm desperate for more.

I had just been opining to my friends earlier today that I wished there was something Beksiński/Scorn-esque where fleshy monstrosities were the good guys. This is *perfect* timing. If anyone else in the comments has other recommendations, I am so here for it.

You have an affinity for using adjectives that suggest subtlety, when instead what's shown is the furthest thing from subtle. Anyway, interesting project.

Writing is my passion. My family has been fairly positive, but, really struggle to understand and support my more heart-felt works. Stories where, the main characters are not humans, but types of “monsters.” My family cannot see past the visual appearance of these characters. They can’t understand my explanation. In fact, it is immediately evident that humans (in this story) are the real monsters. The “monsters” are more human than mankind could dream of. That’s what makes storytelling so beautiful. It changes how you see the world. The “monstrous”, as you discuss in another video, CA, is often… just “different.” In years past, Down syndrome and autism were seen as “monstrous.” Dwarfism, mental illness, even something as small as heterochromia set people apart as “monsters.” In reality, those people usually end up being far kinder and warm-hearted than the most beautiful supermodel. The soul is really all that sets someone apart. You can be a beautiful monster, or a hideous hero, or anything in between. It doesn’t really matter what you look like. Humans look at the outside appearance. But we should really look at the heart.

Oooh, another deep dive into this wonderful world (should I put wonderful in quotation marks?)

The flux reminds me of yog-sothoth, and the project as a whole is very lovecraftian.

Great job! Much love from India!

You are such a good storyteller bruh, thank you for doing what you do.

Fantastic as always!! 🤩

I was like “Yipeee, new CA video.” Then 23 seconds in I get to see one of my favorite character designs, The Bloater from HBO’s The Last of Us. Thank you for another riveting video💙💙💙

this channel is incredible

I wonder if aliens would think our world is a biological terror since there are life forms everywhere. They may think of their own "womb world" as just lush and beautiful and miraculous

Suggestion: The Eternal Cylinder.

Biomechanics is one of my favourite things. Some people love mechanical stuff, some people love animals, I love mashing them together until you don't know what's what :)

I think you should make a full video on nausicaa from the valley of the wind, I think the whole insect/mushroom thing would be very interesting

Great stuff, I like your channel a lot!

I just bought a physical copy, looking forward to it!

You should do a speculative biology video on “Scavengers Reign” ‼️👽

i was waiting for you to bring up the bubonic plague and im so happy you did

Every time I watch one of your videos I add to my media list, this one just took first place low key.

Love myself Bio punk designs. I also don’t get why the power to alter flesh is ostracised as an evil thing.

Great video! And congrats on your channel growth. Seems similar to the Art that H.R. Ginger made, perfect marriage between biology and mechanics.

Would love to see you do a full video on the Borg!

one of my favorite “loss of humanity” examples is in made in abyss, with nanachi’s “perfect” transformation juxtaposed with mitty’s “imperfect”, immortal transformation. that whole series is just absolutely horrific and heartbreaking, but its horror and worldbuilding is, in my opinion, almost unparalleled in its beauty and detail.

I had a kind of opposite reaction to the borg, they were threatening but I found it notable that they initially were noted to be a consensus that itself was trying to assimilate methodologies to adapt to the unknowable winning conditions of the universe. I found some resonance in that and the goals of all life. Which is why I was rather annoyed when they got the Queen and more of a focus on the person being fully gone since I found the first elements of their introduction to be much more...respectably terrifying, I suppose. Resilient and an honest threat in the depths of why it acts as it does, natural for all of its mechanized aesthetic.

Yea i bought the first book a while back, it really is great. I still think that humans being the bad guys is an awesome concept for sci fi.