History Main / DevolutionDevice

* In RobertEHoward's "The Hyborian Age", the BackStory to ''{{Conan}}'', the fall of the {{Atlantis}} produced devolution:

* There was a devo ray used in an ''ComicBook/{{X-Men}}'' story in the 80s: most of the ones hit with it turned into apes but Nightcrawler devolved into something more feline looking.

* ''Film/SuperMarioBros'': King Koopa has one of these, he uses it to make the closest thing to a Goomba in the film. The most extreme use of it comes when it's used to [[spoiler:de-evolve Koopa, turning him first into a T-Rex and then eventually sludge]].

* The climax of HRiderHaggard's ''She'' has [[spoiler:the title character take another bath in the life-giving flame, which takes away her youth. Her dying form is described as being like a monkey]]. Darwin's theories had only recently entered the public consciousness when the book was written and the whole story is about the ''fear'' of "devolving" since people were scared that it ''might'' work backwards at the time.

** Then in another episode, Dr. Zygote uses the ray again to further evolve himself into a more advanced form, from a big brained alien, to a lemurian, to a floating giant brain, and finally into a flash of light. at the end, he [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence "evolved beyond good and evil" and left]]. There was a subversion along the way, as he became a [[strike:chicken]] fowl-like humanoid similar to Max's [[TheObiWan Obi-Wan]] Virgil, who mentioned humanity will find the form enjoyable, much to Max's surprise. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmB5NDeziMk

A fine weapon and/or [[AppliedPhlebotinum experimental prototype]] that does one thing and one thing only, reverse the effects of evolution on creatures! In particular, this device is often used to turn humans into something more apelike, often a [[YouFailBiologyForever modern]] Gorilla, or else AllCavemenWereNeanderthals. A bird or lizard can be turned into a giant dinosaur that can then be used to [[TheyCalledMeMad terrorize all those people that called you mad]]. That'll show 'em.

* "Liam Neesan" (a character, not the actor or even played by [[LiamNeeson the actor]]) from ''ThirdRockFromTheSun'' had a ray gun that turned people into monkeys. He planned to use it on the human race, but Dick Solomon stopped him by turning [[HoistByHisOwnPetard him]] into a monkey.
* Showed up as a serum in an episode of ''[[TheOuterLimits The New Outer Limits]]'': a meek bio-anthropologist developed it and used it on himself, turning him into an aggressive quasi-caveman.
* Naturally, there are several ''Franchise/StarTrek'' examples -
** "Where No Man Has Gone Before" from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''

* Naturally, there are several ''StarTrek'' examples -
** "Where No Man Has Gone Before" from ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''
** "Genesis", an episode of ''[[StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'' where the crew began "devolving" into various lower animals with no rhyme or reason. They tried to [[JustifiedTrope justify]] the stock "devolution" story with TechnoBabble about "activating the introns in the genetic code". At the time, the idea of introns as "fossil" or "junk" DNA left over from a species' ancestors [[ScienceMarchesOn was still in vogue]]. (There actually is "junk" DNA, but most of it seems to be deactivated viral code or parasitic "jumping genes" instead of fragments of formerly-useful genes. Occasionally transcription errors happen to make some of this into something useful to the organism; it's believed that the mutation that prevented the mammalian immune system from rejecting the placenta of a fetus might have come from such viral junk, for example.)
** ''StarTrekVoyager'' took considerable fire for [[CanonDiscontinuity "Threshold"]], in which a flight test at {{Ludicrous Speed}}s caused a character to "evolve" rapidly (just enough technobabble was applied to work around the fact that ''individuals'' do not themselves evolve; technically, he "experienced mutations consistent with the pattern of human evolution"), whose end-state was to turn him into a giant salamander with a Fu Manchu mustache. The fact that so many fans complained that "That's not ''evolving''; it's ''de''volving!" shows that TV has corrupted our understanding of evolution — there's no such thing as "devolving": evolution does ''not'' lead inevitably toward bigger, smarter creatures who would necessarily seem "more advanced" by human standards. [[WordOfGod Brannon Braga]] says this was the idea he tried to get across, but admits he failed spectacularly.

* There is also a short story by PhilipKDick, called ''Strange Eden'', that successfully manages to make pretty much every mistake about evolution mentioned here. It's about an astronaut that finds an attractive and immortal female Goddess-like alien on a far-away world. Immediately he wants to sleep with her, but she warns him that in doing so he will magically begin to rapidly evolve. Thinking that this will lead him to become a superior being like her (and for the obvious reason), the astronaut accepts the offer. However, it turns out that humanity's set evolutionary path is that we will evolve into bestial cat-creatures — exactly why is never stated — and so the astronaut is stuck as the alien woman's pet forever.

* Naturally, there are several ''StarTrek'' examples — "Where No Man Has Gone Before" from ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' comes to mind, as does "Genesis", an episode of ''[[StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'' where the crew began "devolving" into various lower animals with no rhyme or reason.
** The ''TNG'' episode mentioned above attempted to [[JustifiedTrope justify]] the stock "devolution" story with TechnoBabble about "activating the introns in the genetic code". At the time, the idea of introns as "fossil" or "junk" DNA left over from a species' ancestors [[ScienceMarchesOn was still in vogue]]. (There actually is "junk" DNA, but most of it seems to be deactivated viral code or parasitic "jumping genes" instead of fragments of formerly-useful genes. Occasionally transcription errors happen to make some of this into something useful to the organism; it's believed that the mutation that prevented the mammalian immune system from rejecting the placenta of a fetus might have come from such viral junk, for example.)

* ''MightyMax'' used this. In one episode, a mad scientist named Dr. Zygote develops a ray that devolves anything to their prehistoric state. A bunch of human tourists become apes, Max's pet lizard becomes a dinosaur, and Virgil (a lemurian who is supposed to be the next step in human evolution) gets turned into a pterodactyl (?!) Later it's used by Dr. Zygote to turn a bunch of devolved mutated monsters into primordial ooze. He surmises that the ray "reversed their evolutionary path to the final quagmire, an evolutionary dead-end"--which really makes no sense at all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZqBj0vLXU&feature=related

* One episode of ''TheRealAdventuresOfJonnyQuest'' had Team Quest discover alien technology which let whoever used it evolve or devolve species at will. Surd gets a hold of it and uses it on Race and Dr. Quest in Questworld. This causes them to mentally devolve and act in ape-like manners, even though their bodies stay the same.

* This once happened to the TeenTitans. Notably, alien Starfire devolved into a CatGirl rather than an ape.

* There was a devo ray used in an ''{{X-Men}}'' story in the 80s: most of the ones hit with it turned into apes but Nightcrawler devolved into something more feline looking.
* The De-Evolutionaries in ''{{Zot}}'' have these. Back to the trees! The Church of De-Evolution, a gang of ranting nutcases armed with TransformationRay Guns that turn whoever they shoot into chimpanzees. It's played almost entirely for laughs. [=McCloud=] says this is because they represented what he considered the least plausible outcome of our relationship with technology. (The other end of the scale is 9-Jack-9, if you're interested.)

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightYearOfStarCommand'' had a gas which did this (Buzz was turned into an apeman, Mira turned into a blue puddle of slime, Booster turns into a giant dinosaur-like creature and some highly intelligent aliens turn into red chimps).

* There was a weapon in ''{{Dinosaucers}}'', able to turn the pro- and antagonists, who are anthropomorphic sentient dinosaurs, into non-anthropomorphic, apparently non-sentient, and much bigger dinosaurs.

* An episode of ''BuzzLightYearOfStarCommand'' had a gas which did this (Buzz was turned into an apeman, Mira turned into a blue puddle of slime, Booster turns into a giant dinosaur-like creature and some highly intelligent aliens turn into red chimps).
* ''PhineasAndFerb'': "Phineas and Ferb's Hawaiian Vacation" -- Dr. Doofenschmirtz had one, and it worked. It devolved Doof into an ape in a labcoat, and Perry into something that was more birdlike than anything else. But it was ''physical'' devolution only. Higher brain function remained intact. Doof could still speak even when he'd accidentally devolved himself into an amoeba.
* In the ''LooneyTunes'' short "Mad as a Mars Hare", Marvin the Martian plans to use his evolution ray to advance BugsBunny into a "harmless but useful slave to me". Only he had it set to reverse, turning Bugs into a huge Neanderthal rabbit who easily pummels Marvin.

* ''{{TabletopGames/Ghostbusters}} International'' adventure ''Hot Rods of the Gods''. After Meera undergoes his magical power-up he uses the tablet to fire a red devolvo ray at the Ghostbusters. When hit by this ray a person becomes hairy, has their arms grow to knee-length, their jaw juts out like a stereotypical "ape man" and their intelligence decreases somewhat. The effect wears off in about 30 minutes.

** In the story ''[[http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Ghost_Light Ghost Light]]'', a clergyman is turned into a monkey by a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien; it is [[JustifiedTrope justified]], however, by suggesting that this is not "de-evolution" as such, because the alien could have turned him into anything and only chose the monkey form to mock the clergyman's anti-Darwinist beliefs. (Another character, for instance, is transformed into stone instead.)
* ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': The episode "Beer Bad", where enchanted beer turned a bunch of college guys and Buffy into cave-people.

* In the ''LooneyTunes'' short "Mad as a Mars Hare", Marvin the Martian plans to use his evolution ray to advance BugsBunny into a "harmless but usesful slave to me". Only he had it set to reverse, turning Bugs into a huge Neanderthal rabbit who easily pummels Marvin.

* It happens in the ''{{Buffy The Vampire Slayer}}'' episode "Beer Bad", where enchanted beer turned a bunch of college guys and Buffy into cave-people.

* ''MightyMax'' had an episode with such a machine. It worked both ways.

* The Saturday Morning ''Series/MegaMan'' cartoon managed to take the concept of devolution to the next stage, when Dr. Wily made a chemical that caused robots to "devolve" into more primitive robots. This meant they went from robots designed to look like humans to robots designed to look like cavemen, getting stupider in the process.

* One of the first-generation {{Pokemon}} trading cards was Devolution Spray, used to devolve a Pokemon to its previous state, removing all status effects in the process. Mew's first card also had an ability called "Devolution Beam", which did exactly the same thing.

* There was a devo ray used in an {{X-Men}} story in the 80s: most of the ones hit with it turned into apes but Nightcrawler devolved into something more feline looking.
* The De-Evolutionaries in {{Zot}} have these. Back to the trees! The Church of De-Evolution, a gang of ranting nutcases armed with TransformationRay Guns that turn whoever they shoot into chimpanzees. It's played almost entirely for laughs. [=McCloud=] says this is because they represented what he considered the least plausible outcome of our relationship with technology. (The other end of the scale is 9-Jack-9, if you're interested.)

* The serum version was used in a SherlockHolmes story.

* In RobertEHoward's "The Hyborian Age", the BackStory to {{Conan}}, the fall of the {{Atlantis}} produced devolution:

* "Liam Neesan" (a character, not the actor or even played by the actor) from ''ThirdRockFromTheSun'' had a ray gun that turned people into monkeys. He planned to use it on the human race, but Dick Solomon stopped him by turning [[HoistByHisOwnPetard him]] into a monkey.

** The TNG episode mentioned above attempted to [[JustifiedTrope justify]] the stock "devolution" story with TechnoBabble about "activating the introns in the genetic code". At the time, the idea of introns as "fossil" or "junk" DNA left over from a species' ancestors [[ScienceMarchesOn was still in vogue]]. (There actually is "junk" DNA, but most of it seems to be deactivated viral code or parasitic "jumping genes" instead of fragments of formerly-useful genes. Occasionally transcription errors happen to make some of this into something useful to the organism; it's believed that the mutation that prevented the mammalian immune system from rejecting the placenta of a fetus might have come from such viral junk, for example.)
** ''StarTrekVoyager'' took considerable fire for [[CanonDiscontinuity "Threshold"]], in which a flight test at [[LudicrousSpeed Ludicrous Speeds]] caused a character to "evolve" rapidly (just enough technobabble was applied to work around the fact that ''individuals'' do not themselves evolve; technically, he "experienced mutations consistent with the pattern of human evolution"), whose end-state was to turn him into a giant salamander with a Fu Manchu mustache. The fact that so many fans complained that "That's not ''evolving''; it's ''de''volving!" shows that TV has corrupted our understanding of evolution — there's no such thing as "devolving": evolution does ''not'' lead inevitably toward bigger, smarter creatures who would necessarily seem "more advanced" by human standards. [[WordOfGod Brannon Braga]] says this was the idea he tried to get across, but admits he failed spectacularly.

* {{Buffy The Vampire Slayer}} Two words: Beer Bad! As in, the episode "Beer Bad", where enchanted beer turned a bunch of college guys and Buffy into cave-people.

* Many superhero RolePlayingGames — like MutantsAndMasterminds and the original [[MarvelUniverse Marvel Superheroes Role-Playing Game]] — include, among the list of powers available to players, some sort of "Hyper-Evolution" power that lets a hero shift up and down along their "evolutionary path," generally affording them the ability to "devolve" into cave-man form (temporarily lower their intelligence to raise their strength).

* Congo from CongosCaper devolves back into a monkey from a boy when he takes damage.
* The Dinaurians in FossilFighters have ray-guns that de-evolve humans into "theriodonta", rat-like ancestral mammals.

* MightyMax had an episode with such a machine. It worked both ways.

A fine weapon and/or [[AppliedPhlebotinum experimental prototype]] that does one thing and one thing only, reverse the effects of evolution on creatures! In particular, this device is often used to turn humans into something more apelike, often a [[YouFailBiologyForever modern]] Gorilla, or else AllCavemenWereNeanderthals. A bird or lizard can be turned into into a giant dinosaur that can then be used to [[TheyCalledMeMad terrorize all those people that called you mad]]. That'll show 'em.

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* {{Buffy The Vampire Slayer)) Two words: Beer Bad! As in, the episode "Beer Bad", where enchanted beer turned a bunch of college guys and Buffy into cave-people.