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If one could "design" a female fighter, for example, by genetic engineering, what would be the optimal physical conditions? For example, is there a perfect size and weight? Would it really be advantageous to have big muscles or would it be better to be wiry, e.g. to have a higher speed in combat? Is a perfect relation between size and weight to maximize the impact and speed in full-contact combat? I was thinking about a "mixed-martial arts" style fighter. But may be I'm thinking in a completely wrong direction.

My story setting is in a dystopian near future and my female fighter should be optimized for close combat. She would not wear any heavy protection equipment. However, she may also use firearms as well as bow and arrow or a crossbow. The genetic modifications should be within a realistic range based on the human DNA. In other words, she should not have any "super power" but should be the product of optimizing the human genetic code.

The story would take place in a post-apocalyptic Europe, so the climate would be moderate, but there is global warming and great environmental pollution. The resources are limited, i.e. the nutrition would not be optimal and she may not have access to unlimited food.

April
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    Brawny or Wiry, Strong or fast. Super smart or Super obedient. The exact, concise answer to that question is "It Depends".... In your specific example, bulky and strong would a slightly better, for the hand-t-hand fighting, and better ability to just soak up damage without falling apart. The small+fast+wiry approach will be more lethal, but much less survivable, as your world includes some ranged weapons. One crossbow bolt in Conan is an irritation. One crossbow bolt in Alita(human version) will bisect her. – PcMan Mar 15 '21 at 14:04
  • Welcome to Worldbuilding! I would caution you that this question is probably too close to other questions that have been asked and is also a bit too broad as Worldbuilding prefers a strict one question, one answer kind of thing. All that being said, I'd recommend you check out MarielS's series of posts. I've linked the most recent one that includes links to the other 9. There's a lot of good information in there. – SirTain Mar 15 '21 at 14:07
  • Your desired attributes might cause your character to not be recognisably female(or even human). For comparison, check out Graham, the man optimised to survive car crashes – nullpointer Mar 15 '21 at 14:10
  • Hmm, I agree, that's a good point. The question was not perfectly clear. I was rather thinking if there is a perfect relation between size and weight to maximize the impact and speed in close combat. – April Mar 15 '21 at 14:12
  • Thanks for the helpful references to other questions. :) I was using the search function before but could not find those questions. – April Mar 15 '21 at 14:14
  • Do your females need to be completely functional for tasks other than fighting (do they bear children)? Are they grown or manufactured? Do you value longevity vs. ease of production? What is the climate they need to survive (arcology street fighting/war vs extreme sports arena battles/display)? Do they need to be truly human, or can they be mostly animal DNA? Do they need to be able to "pass" (imitate normal humans)? – DWKraus Mar 15 '21 at 14:17
  • She does not know that she was genetically modified, which means that the amendments should be within a realistic range, so that they are not obvious on a first look. – April Mar 15 '21 at 14:30
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    "She would not wear any heavy protection equipment" okaaay... "should be the product of optimizing the human genetic code" not optimising for brains, then? – Starfish Prime Mar 15 '21 at 14:31
  • The majority of the female MMA stars are tall and wiry. This would suggest an advantage for unarmed, unarmored, hand-to-hand combat. – Innovine Mar 15 '21 at 14:49
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    VTC:Needs Details. Asking for the "best," "worst" or in this case "perfect" of anything is always subject to the conditions of your story (therefore, VTC:Too Story Based is also valid). It could be said that the "perfect" female warrior would be a man with female genitalia. But that ignores the many advantages of human female physiology, which makes them (e.g.) on average more nimble/agile than males. So, unless you provide a specific example of the conditions your "warrior" will be needed (VERY specific!), this is an unanswerable question. – JBH Mar 15 '21 at 15:01
  • @Innovine your statement is very likely true, but irrelevant. the OP explicitly states armed combat, including some use of ranged projectile weaponry. – PcMan Mar 15 '21 at 15:38
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    In what way is the sex of the hand-to-hand fighter important? Is she going to use her feminine wiles to seduce her opponents, or what? – AlexP Mar 15 '21 at 18:23
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    @AlexP I think it's because male and female bodies generally have different patterns of muscle gain and fat storage. While I agree that it wouldn't matter too much in hand to hand fighting, it will affect how a "strong person" looks. A "strong female body" distinct to "a strong male body". Furthermore, it's not just "strong" - body builders can be described as strong but they aren't fighters. A female bodybuilder and a female fighter. Furthermore, the type of fighting matters will have different look just how Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't look like a boxer or a soldier. – VLAZ Mar 16 '21 at 08:01
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    @VLAZ: Unmodified female humans differ from unmodified male humans in many ways. The question asks for the best modified fighter. That modified fighter could be made to follow the female model for bones / muscles / tendons / subcutaneous fat / metabolism / etc. / etc., or could be made to follow the make pattern, or a combination, or something else entirely. It is irrelevant that unmodified women are different from unmodified men. – AlexP Mar 16 '21 at 09:37

2 Answers2

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My story setting is in (...) near future (...) (...) may also use firearms as well as bow and arrow or a crossbow.

No need to make any changes to DNA. Your warriors just need to be well fed and disciplined.

No amount of brute force will allow a human do to more melee damage than a bullet. No amount of thick skin will allow a human to shrug off rifle shots. No amount of speed or reflexes will allow a human to dodge bullets. So what you really need is good shooters. And that comes with training and discipline.

If you really, really wish to make a better markswoman through genetics, then having 20/20 eyesight would be great. If you wish to go sci-fi they might have even better eyesight, but that's it.

Other than that, being a woman could be an advantage because on average, women tend be shorter than men, so they are smaller targets. But that's it. I have been to firing ranges with people from all genders and none seems to be a better shot than any other.

That's considering guns are easily available. If they are to exchange kicks with others, then more testosterone would help. It is produced in the ovaries too, though in smaller quantities than testicles would. It is also produced by the adrenal glands. Consider the women who usually win UFC and similar championships. You're looking for that kind of physique.

Again, training and discipline are important. I personally know women who are black belts in some martial arts (judo, karate, brazilian jiu-jitsu and aikido, and muay thai though I don't know if the latter has belt ranks), and I can guarantee that they could give any non-martial artist the beating of their lives.

The Square-Cube Law
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    To be fair, over short distances bringing a knife to a gunfight isn't completely suicidal (see the 21ft rule etc etc) but wearing some light armour and paying attention to your surroundings goes a long way to counteracting that particular special case. – Starfish Prime Mar 15 '21 at 14:33
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    Who needs a knife in a nuke fight anyway? – VLAZ Mar 15 '21 at 14:37
  • Although I agree with most of it I want to suggest a correction. The energy imparted by bullets is nearly always lower compared to melee. As the opposing force is equal, your arms soak up an equal force in recoil that the bullet has. It has a kick, but nothing compared to a swing of just a fist. An arm swing with a heavy weapon practically always has more energy. The way they impart that energy onto a target is just radically different. Guns just allow you to impart that energy so much easier in a sufficiently destructive manner. – Trioxidane Mar 15 '21 at 14:41
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    @Trioxidane it depends on the weapon and ammo, really. Some shots can give you in the range of a thousand calories per shot. For reference, a foot pound is about a third of a calorie, and here is a handy table with the muzzle energy for many different kinds of ammo. – The Square-Cube Law Mar 15 '21 at 14:46
  • Answer seems to assume that the fighters will only attack each other "fairly". In reality, you'd want to avoid shootouts. You might get shot yourself, after all. The viability of different ranged attacks heavily depends on what kind of warfare is being fought. While weapons are always better at killing people (we've made them very efficient), the goal might be to subdue enemies for interrogation. Or slavery (post-apocalyptic setting). Alternatively, you may want to take control of an enemy occupied building. Shooting in close quarters might not be better than a knife. – VLAZ Mar 15 '21 at 14:54
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Situational Adaptations:

If you want a really perfect human fighter, make a human. But if you want someone specialized for close hand-to-hand fighting and hand missile weapon/pistol ranges, you can do that. It doesn't make them better, it just makes them better contextually.

Some of these adaptations would make your fighter incompatible with humans, but still based on the general human design, so if your fighter needs to be able to interbreed with humans, ignore the appropriate parts. I've included them in the interests of completeness and noted them as such.

  • Good low-light vision: Your person might even see in black and white. Don't stress about far away, the lights might be out and you're fighting a few feet away in the dark. In fact, the darkness might be your friend, and they deliberately turn them off/break light bulbs to make things dark so they have the advantage.
  • preponderant fast-twitch muscle and nerves: Assuming most fights are lightning-quick affairs where you need to bring overwhelming force to bear rapidly, a higher proportion of fast-twitch muscles might allow them to hit harder and faster. We aren't optimizing for long-term endurance, only winning a street fight. Extremely fast nerve response and reaction time is also a plus here. Your fighter might rest a lot, but be nervous and jumpy when active.
  • Mental illness: You want your fighter to be able to ignore pain, ignore ethical issues around killing, and not run screaming at the prospect of their own imminent and highly intimately ranged death. Single-minded dedication to the practice of fighting and sports would help too. Mental modifications to allow this might resemble people who are autistic, obsessive-compulsive, or sociopathic. You don't NEED these, but if we're going perfect killer...
  • Intelligence: The difference between a grunt you throw cheaply at an enemy and a great fighter is smarts. clever goes a long way in outfighting something as devious as a human being.
  • Thick tough skin/neck: If your neck is too thick to cut off blood flow and oxygen, and the skin is smooth but leathery, you'll just be tougher and harder to cut or strangle.
  • Poisonous/infectious saliva: Okay, this is really nasty, but fighting to win means biting. If your opponent walks away and dies six hours later of a massive infection, you win. Even if the fight didn't go so well at the time. Like a person with rabies, your female is a biter (compulsively). She doesn't realize that like a Komodo dragon, her saliva is filled with lethal bacteria. All she knows is she likes to bite and her enemies die later. [POSSIBLY COMPATIBLE WITH HUMAN]
  • Strong, heavy bone structure: You and more worried about getting crushed, hit with a car, smacked with a 2x4, and shot with a pistol than being heavy. In fact, being heavy in a fight isn't a bad thing (it just slows you down a bit). Arrange your bone/bone-like material as parallel bones that can tolerate one or more being damaged while still allowing limb function. [HARD BONES COMPATIBLE WITH HUMAN, BUT MULTIREDUNDANT BONES NOT COMPATIBLE WITH FULLY HUMAN]
  • Bird lungs: Go for the pump-style respiration birds have to improve oxygen input. Your person never really noticed their chest barely rose and fell like others, because that's how they ALWAYS breathed. Flight requires constant high-level respiration, and your fighter will need as much oxygen as possible to fight. Since the lungs are more rigid, they are less prone to people squeezing the air out of them when wrestling. independent lungs minimize loss from punctures, so isolate those things and allow fast circulation shifts to prevent blood loss. [BIRD LUNGS OR MULTIPLE LUNGS INCOMPATIBLE WITH FULLY HUMAN]
  • Redundant organs and regeneration: Why have one heart when you can have two, with valves that allow the switching of blood flow in the case of serious injury? Why not three small livers, where damaged ones atrophy and new ones grow in their place? Accelerate healing like crazy, and injuries can be temporary. Lizards can even regenerate. Your person would be prone to serious blood clots and cancer, but those don't kill you in a knife fight. [REDUNDANT ORGANS INCOMPATIBLE WITH FULLY HUMAN]
DWKraus
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  • You'll not get bird lungs, redundant organs or poison spit given the requirements in the OP: "genetic modifications should be within a realistic range based on the human DNA". That said, human mouths are already quite unpleasant and infectious; human bites which break the skin get propylactic antibiotics in the real world, after all. – Starfish Prime Mar 15 '21 at 15:37
  • The sentence I quoted was present in the original version of the question as well as the current one. You can check for yourself: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/revisions/197863/1 – Starfish Prime Mar 15 '21 at 15:42