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For my story, I want to create a group of superhumans- to be clear, not humanns with powers, but just humans who have been bioengineered beyond normal human capabilities. This can be something with genetic engineering or surgery, preferrably both. Think HALO Spartans. These humans need a few things-

Elevated durability- They don't need to be bulletproof, but they should be able to get a chair smashed over them and keep going, or crash through a plate glass window and keep going. They also need to be able to withstand high g-forces, which is probably the most important part. 4 g's sustained shouldn't be a problem.

Elevated strength- Again, they don't need to lift cars or anything. But they should be able to operate under the standard 4 g's even with a constantly changing axis of gravity, while still sticking as close to human proportions as possible.

Elevated reaction time- They can't dodge bullets, but they can make split second decisions while moving at speed.

Any elaboration needed will be added, I'm looking forwards to seeing what you come up with.

Edit: Although this is hard science, you can handwave implantation methods. Turning bones into steel is impossible with modern science, but it would make them stronger, so it's an acceptable answer.

H Franklin
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    Just so you know, the "hard science" tag makes this question virtually unanswerable -- because it calls for equations and citations and such, but you're asking how to use hard science to do the impossible. – Zeiss Ikon Nov 12 '21 at 20:14
  • I seem to have neglected a requirement, whoops. – H Franklin Nov 12 '21 at 20:20
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    Whilst it may be helpful to an answerer to have the full list of capabilities available in case they are in some way related in the way they'd need to be engineered, it might be better to separate this into a series of questions - each focusing on a single aspect of their "powers". What sort of answers are you looking for? Ones that delves into the biomechanics/biochemistry or more what animal's characteristics might help if they were spliced into their genome... or something else? Can you specify. See [Dark Angel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Angel_(American_TV_series) – Escaped dental patient. Nov 12 '21 at 20:24
  • I nearly agree with Zeiss here ... except, I'm not going to say "impossible", only unproven. So far, all our efforts to perfectly replace natural flesh with prosthetic anything have fallen short. Cataract surgery is the best of a bad lot, but don't forget your reading glasses. Even infant formula falls terribly short of real human milk. "Artificial blood" is invariably an excuse to innovate new definitions of medical consent until several dozen unconsenting adults are dead. Artificial retina, bionic replacement for the spine? I wouldn't count on it any time soon. – Mike Serfas Nov 12 '21 at 20:26
  • @ARogueAnt. I'm lookng for biomeachanical stuff. "Make the muscles stronger by splicing them with carbon fiber", etc. – H Franklin Nov 12 '21 at 20:29
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    How "human" do these superhumans have to appear after they are out of the gene blender? – Gillgamesh Nov 12 '21 at 20:31
  • They can be slightly altered- greyish skin, weird looking muscles, slightly off proportions, but I'd prefer they stay recognizably human enough that they can pass in public with only slight disguising. – H Franklin Nov 12 '21 at 20:39
  • Might I direct you to the Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine biologically-altered religious fanatic child-supersoldier? Such an entity easily fits your requirements. – KEY_ABRADE Nov 12 '21 at 21:09
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    You need to ditch the hard science tag because the question is far too general in nature for anyone to be able to provide the links & citations required by the tag (might be a bit more possible if you were only asking bout one specific alteration to human norms but even then I'm doubtful anyone here could meet that tags requirements for you), none of your three answers so far meet the hard science tag criteria, none of them have even pretended to attempt to meet the hard science tag criteria, not a single link or citation among them, consider that evidence for what I'm telling you here. – Pelinore Nov 13 '21 at 02:49
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    I’m voting to close this question because question asks for hard science when there just isn't any way to fill that requirement. – StephenG - Help Ukraine Nov 13 '21 at 16:40
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    Just how "super" do you need them to be? I'd argue that anyone who has made it into the Navy SEALs or similar comes pretty close to qualifying. You might also look at the breeding of "super canine" feature in sled dogs: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080925072436.htm – jamesqf Nov 13 '21 at 18:06
  • Science considers negative answers (as in 'hypothesis is not proved' or 'hypothesis is rejected') as valid (and very useful) answers. I do not know whether this question has a positive answer, but I think that closing it because the community here cannot come up with positive answers is not right. It is always possible to write an answer supported by hard science explaining why the OP's goal is not achievable with currently available knowledge and technology. – Otkin Nov 13 '21 at 18:32
  • Your question is rather broad, but perhaps you can find some help in some of the answers I had on my own questions on this topic: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/118331/creating-a-scientifically-semi-valid-super-soldier-part-9-temperature-control – Demigan Nov 13 '21 at 19:14
  • What sort of trade-offs are acceptable? For example, muscles are rated not only on strength (how much force they can apply) but power (how quickly they can transfer energy) and endurance (how long they can operate). You could increase strength at the cost of endurance. Would that be acceptable? – outis Nov 14 '21 at 00:01
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    the hard-science tag seems to be somehow optional? Also : Is it valid to make some traits worse in the course of reaching the three goals? For instance replacing all bones by some carbon-nanotube contraption would certainly enhance stability, but their immune-system would be very much impacted, and they would need blood-infusions daily... High reaction time is easy if you can downgrade overall cognitive abilities ... and about the 4g - if you change the axis often, that actually makes it easier - worst would be if they had to endure 4g standing up for days - is that required? – bukwyrm Nov 15 '21 at 11:12

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Exoskeleton Research

While current research may not provide humans with super strength, it can augment and reinforce the abilities of the human body. Ironically, some of the most interesting research in the area addresses how people with injuries, not superhuman, can adapt. Unfortunately, because of the specificity of certain tasks, exoskeletons are not guaranteed to work in every situation, and this is due to many factors. Some surprising research is bridging the divide between the mind and the synthetic body, but we are still many years away from real super humans.

You can consider multiple areas of research. One of these areas is exoskeletons.

The National Science Foundation together with a company named Sarcos that builds commercial exoskeletons funds a project at Virginia Tech university. One of the researchers, Divya Srinivasan, who is an associate professor in the Department of industrial & Systems engineering describes her research areas in the following ways: human factors & Ergonomics, human movement control and coordination, biomechanics, human performance assessments and Augmentation, human robot interactions, physical activity interventions, and work-related musculoskeletal disorders.

The research she is doing is related to augmenting strength required in demanding physical tasks in industrial settings to minimize or prevent workplace injuries. In an interview, she answers a question which helps us to understand what the current state of the art is:

"What are some of the areas of research you’d like to see tackled in the years ahead?

There is so much variability in people’s sizes that making exoskeletons that would optimally fit anyone in the population is a big challenge right now. There is also so much variability in how individuals perform tasks, the strategies they use, how they adapt when they feel tired or uncomfortable, and the effects of those strategies on performance and their own bodies.

So, when and how an exoskeleton can optimally assist any task performed by any individual are huge challenges that need to be tackled. While these are design challenges, on the evaluation side, the state of the art now is to test multiple use cases on several individuals – a sort of brute-force method that needs a lot of time and resources."

In the interview, she also outlines that there are many different types of commercial exoskeletons. Some broad market categories according to catalogue are consumer, industrial, medical, military.. Other broad types and classifications are answered according to many questions such as:

What body parts are actuated or powered? Is it powered? Is it mobile? How is it controlled? How is it built? What is the origin?

Military: One of the military exoskeletons that I looked at was being pitched as counter IED (improvised explosive device)tool. The investors were NATO and the UN. The experts being interviewed in the promotional materials for one of the suits called "the UPRISE tactical passive exoskeleton", explained that injury prevention through effective load bearing was a main design goal of the suit, because they had to carry heavy 45-50 kilo objects. The soldiers were wearing protective suits as well as using the exoskeleton.

NASA: Nasa also has an exoskeleton development program called the X1. It appears to also be designed for injury prevention of the lower body, reinforcing the lower back, knees, hips and ankles.

What is the state of the art?

If you go to the wikipedia entry on exoskeletons and look at the limitations and design issues, you will see a good list of problems that researchers are currently dealing with now. They talk about design problems such as power supply, the materials of the skeleton, the actuators, the joint flexibility, the power control and modulation, and the adaptation to user size variations. Here is a quote from the control section:

Power control and modulation[edit] "A successful exoskeleton should assist its user, for example by reducing the energy required to perform a task. Individual variations in the nature, range and force of movements make it difficult for a standardized device to provide the appropriate amount of assistance at the right time. Algorithms to tune control parameters to automatically optimize the energy cost of walking are under development. Direct feedback between the human nervous system and motorized prosthetics ("neuro-embodied design") has also been implemented in a few high-profile cases."

The cited "high profile case" is work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Biomechatronics Lab. According to a 2018 BBC article, the lab aims to make exoskeletons that work in harmony with the body. They are using treadmill data and motion capture to determine how much people move their joints and muscles, then they will apply this" data to help people run or walk faster or more efficiently." The article links to a Ted Talk to an MIT professor who is a "bionic man", who has prosthetic legs. His bio in the ted talk says the following: "At MIT, Hugh Herr builds prosthetic knees, legs and ankles that fuse biomechanics with microprocessors to restore(and perhaps enhance) normal gait, balance and speed". In this ted talk, he describes how his nerves are connected to his legs in order to control them, however he has no touch sensation. He is attempting to design microcomputers that would enable him or another amputee to feel his legs. He calls his methodology "NeuroEmbodied Design". In this TED talk, he describes how his improved designs allow users to react more automatically to the environment. If the user encounters an obstacle in thier way, they know about it.

If you want to get deeper into the research and learn more about the state of the art, you can learn more about Hugh Herr's work at MIT or the work being done at Virgini Tech as just a starting point.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44628872

https://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_how_we_ll_become_cyborgs_and_extend_human_potential#t-104836

https://vtx.vt.edu/articles/2018/10/researchers-study-iron-man-like-exoskeleton.html

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/divya-srinivasan-exoskeletons-virginia-tech

https://exoskeletonreport.com/

https://exoskeletonreport.com/product-category/exoskeleton-catalog/military/

https://exoskeletonreport.com/2015/10/books-on-exoskeletons-and-wearable-robotics/

https://www.ihmc.us/research/biologically-inspired-robots/

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140000694/downloads/20140000694.pdf

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