Interesting site… I have now realised how complex taxonomy can be. I have studied up to the level of kingdom, Phylum, class, order, family, Genus and species. I would not really want to go any deeper than that. I suppose it depends on whether I want to impress the scientific community or whether I want to concentrate on just writing a good novel. I just believe that good science fiction needs to be made believable. Attention to detail is vital.

Thank you for the site and the suggestions. I really need to decide how deep I want to go with this in a scientific sense. I want to concentrate on the human side of story writing but I am also interested in the idea of exploring a non-human intelligent organism.

I would also be interested in exactly how advanced genetic science is these days. I am under the impression that genetically engineering humanoid species is against international law. The question is, what do scientists get up to behind closed doors? It is nothing new with regards to science fiction but I do wonder sometimes exactly how far genetic engineering has gone. There must be many rules and regulations that stop people creating mutants that the general public would just never know the truth; people would be guarded about what gets out into the public. I am sure that people can do more than create glow-in-the dark dogs.

I suppose it would be conceivable that a new humanoid species could be engineered. Anyone know who governs that kind of thing? How do people enforce rules on that kind of research?

Thank you Alex,

I agree with what you say. I think sometimes we need to hear what we already believe from someone other than ourself. That kind of confirmation is necessary at times…

Things are beginning to slip into place for me. Believe it or not, this is a project that was conceived more than 5 years ago! It has never become much more than sketchy pieces of writing, plans of the characters and many large gaps. A perpetual day dreamer cannot hold his imagination down though. Now it is all about the discipline to sit down and just write, write and write some more.

I wish you well in your own writing endeavours.

That reminds me of the "Borg" in Star Trek where collective consciousness is concerned. It is an interesting, but at the same time, believable concept.

I will definitely have to bear that in mind. I like the idea of the ethics surrounding "superiority". If a humanoid species was found or genetically engineered you could be certain that people would find a way of proving that they are inferior to us. I love to delve into the philosophies of exactly what "superiority" is. The amount of controversy that goes on with regard to different "races" is phenomenal… and we are all the same species.

It is acceptable to presume that a human is superior to a dog. We can’t forget the fact that most dogs can run faster and have a greater sense of smell though. If there was a new humanoid species to compare ourselves to then how would people define their level of sophistication? It could create some excellent controversy. I think that many films focus on the concepts of evil, twisted, mutants being created. I believe it would be more challenging to explore the reactions to an apparently weaker humanoid species.