Jurassic planet

Alright so this requires elaboration so bear with me. I want to create a setting where dinosaurs have not only been brought back from extinction but overtake humanity as the dominant species. I'm talking cities overgrown by plantlife, dinosaurs roaming about, and humanity on the brink of extinction. My main issue is figuring out how humanity lost.

Unless the dinosaurs have guns, I can’t exactly see that happening. Of course, something brought them back, so you might posit that same force had a hand in wiping out humanity.

Alright here's an idea, what if whatever brought them back also enhanced them to the point that 9 times out of 10 firearms don't do the trick?

There are a lot more ways to kill things than just guns. So they can shrug off bullets. What about 40mm grenades or autocannons? Anti-tank weapons? Something even bigger?

But realistically I think the larger point there is that dinosaurs are just animals. It’s going to be very difficult for any animal to strategically overrun a modern society like that. They’re not going to have any coordination or drive to hunt down humans, any strategy or tactics, or any weapons other than teeth and claws.

Works with similar premises usually have a secondary thing going on, like a plague that the super-animals are mysteriously immune to, or a guiding intelligence coordinating their attacks. On their own animals are liable to just leave humans alone for the most part, we’re more trouble than we’re worth foodwise.

That too. The premise is classic, if you just start with humans on the run and dinos taken over I doubt anyone will really question it. There’s no need to dive too deep into the why, that’s how you get Fridge Logic.

Edited by archonspeaks on May 29th 2019 at 11:28:19 AM

You should probably just write your story, and handwave the reason the dino's took over. The idea itself is inherently cool enough that most readers wont sweat it.

Well, you need something to wreck our technological society so that the idea of people on the run from big reptiles makes any kind of sense. One thing to note, though, is that one of the reasons why animals could get so big back then was a higher oxygen concentration in the atmosphere. Whatever disaster lets the dinos come back would also have to radically overhaul the global environment.

There's just no other plausible mechanism why they would not only return, but become "dominant". Humans are orders of magnitude smarter than dinosaurs, no matter what Jurassic Park wants you to believe, and technology beats claws and scales.

Edited by Fighteer on May 29th 2019 at 2:42:19 PM

Perhaps resurrecting dinosaurs also resurrected prehistoric diseases in their bodies which then mutate and spread to humans.

Sounds like civilization needs to be destroyed first and then you reintroduce dinosaurs.

Also, keep in mind that dinos are only possible with higher oxygen content so humans are going to have more stamina than normal.

Maybe we could add a little sci-fi to the mix and instead of human beings ressurecting dinosaurs they just flood in from their own time. Different dinosaurs, different periods, from different continents placed haphazardly across the globe. Gives an excuse to see a T.Rex fight a Stegosaurus no?

Edited by sifsand on May 29th 2019 at 2:26:34 AM

Another, slightly more scientific possibility is that you have a Jurassic Park scenario combined with Planet of the Apes: scientists manage to bring back dinosaurs through DNA manipulation and cloning, while simultaneously releasing some kind of super-virus that kills 99% of people, and then a climate change event radically increases the oxygen content of the air.

All three of those happening at the same time, despite being extremely unlikely, is still more believable than time travel. Heck, it's even plausible that the oxygen content of the atmosphere might rise after humans die off, as all the CO2 we released would feed plant growth and make the climate warmer.

The main problem is that it would take thousands to hundreds of thousands of years for dinosaurs to repopulate the planet, stipulating that we managed to produce a breeding population in the first place, and any short-term effects of CO2 recapture would have long since worn off by then.

Edited by Fighteer on May 29th 2019 at 4:49:17 AM

This is perfect actually, I might just use this. It begs the question though of where the virus went when humanity is almost gone. I was hoping this setting would be post apocalyptic, humans would still be trying to survive. We can also just hand wave the dinosaur breeding by saying they breed fast.

Edited by sifsand on May 29th 2019 at 1:58:42 AM

Maybe the humans lost because they unintentionally caused an intelligence growth within dinosaurs, the dinosaur population spiked up suddenly and began overtaking humans or there may have been an entirely different subject that resulted in humanity's decline

In regards to world-building, I would strongly suggest in having a balanced and nuanced perspective when it comes to the human characters, the dinosaurs and their interactions with one another. I strongly dislike the notion of one /race/species being completely in the wrong, so I think having a mixed morality rate can bring in very interesting views and perceptions between different kinds. And of course, a character's moral alignment can be variable from the one who wants a peaceful coexistence, someone with a troubled past relating to the lore, and antagonist with noble intentions to a antagonist with no moral high ground and willing to to anything for his/her goal.

Dinosaur species should be varied. I'll detail those in another post.

Well Naturally the dinosaurs wouldn't be pure evil, they're fighting to survive just like we are. If anything the biggest conflicts between human and dinosaur besides the obvious predator would be an ecosystem thing. You try growing crops when a hadrosaur or Sauropod comes along and tramples it or just eats it.

I also had a plot in mind for the main cast similar to Attack on titan where a guarded sanctuary is destroyed and the inhabitants are thrust into the Jurassic Wasteland.

Edited by sifsand on May 29th 2019 at 2:03:48 AM

"Dinosaurs magically breed faster" is quite the handwave, but sure, let's go with that. My main concern is that the "cloning experiment gone awry" combined with "super-virus kills humanity" and a climate change moral really ramps up the Scale of Scientific Sins preachiness, and you'll need to balance that out somehow if you don't want humans to come across as complete dicks.

As for the virus, once most of the survivors are immune to it, it can just die out. Viruses tend to be species-specific, so unless you want to completely rip off Planet of the Apes and have it give dinosaurs bigger brains too, you won't need to worry about it.

I mean Jurassic Park readily hand waves genetic abnormalities with the hybrid genes, I don't see why us making them wouldn't have an unintentional effect of increased intelligence.

Edited by sifsand on May 29th 2019 at 2:22:00 AM

It's all rule of cool in the end. I really wouldnt worry about it too much. Still, if you need must have a rationale, a few human could very easily be immune to the virus, no matter how fatal it is to most of us.

When does the story take place, during the catastrophe or afterward?

Afterward, it's post apocalyptic and humanity is trying to survive in this new world

Then, depending on your stye of writing, you can just not offer any sort of explanation at all. Mankind has fallen, dino's rule, and that's it. I've read and enjoyed stories like that. Perhaps the surviving human descendents dont know what happened. Perhaps there is more than one theory, and no one in universe knows which one, if any of them, are correct. Maybe aliens did it.

Bottom line is, the writing and the story are what matter, so unless the cause of the apocalypse is plot-relevent, you dont need to cover it in any detail.

That said, an eco-terrorist plot makes the most sense to me.

Edited by DeMarquis on May 29th 2019 at 5:53:16 AM

Additional question - Would you rather put more or full emphasis on traditional dinosaur species or on more obscure dinosaurs?

I’d just go the handwave route. Trying to get too detailed will create way too many unanswered questions.

The subject of morality is a little tricky for a story like this. Unless they’re somehow superintelligent dinosaurs don’t have any morality, that’s a man vs. wild story.

I'd prefer an even mix of obscure and well known, and yes I'd prefer the morality be between the human characters. Dinosaurs are animals whos only thoughts are to survive and breed.

I'm still confused about the "dinosaurs take over" thing. Are they supposed to have human level intelligence and be able to strategically wage war? Because if not, having dinosaurs simply take over is... rule of cool doesn't really save that. Now, have suggested things like plagues or whatever, which works well with a generic "nature takes back the land" kind of thing that would inevitably happen when there's not enough people to maintain infrastructure. In the absence of humans, animals, including dinosaurs, just move into the available spaces. They become a complicating factor rather than a deliberate malicious threat. It doesn't really seem like you want them to be super intelligent. Ok yeah, you really don't want them to be human level intelligent. In which case, you need to be treating them as simply dangerous animals that make things difficult but are not really an active threat. Humans are pretty good at making defenses against danger; you could probably get some mileage out of figuring out how people defend against T-Rex and other similarly large predators. And if your goal is somehow humans and dinosaurs have a conflict, then you probably do need to give the dinosaurs human level intelligents.

Also, someone would definitely try to tame at least one of those species to fulfill the beast of burden or pet role. Or, you know, just to prove they could.

Incidentally, there's a comic called Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (or something alone that vein) that might interest you.

Edited by AceofSpades on Jun 12th 2019 at 12:02:22 PM

I've all but decided on just how the dinosaurs intend to play their roles. In the case of taming this isn't Ark where a wild animal can be tamed in a matter of hours. That kind of taming involves domestication or in the case of the less agressive ones just training them.

While dinosaurs are not dumb by any stretch of the word they aren't necessarily on the same level as modern animals, it's easy to tame a wild cow but less easy to tame an Edmontosaurus.

Edited by sifsand on Jun 13th 2019 at 4:22:19 AM

Actually, the smarter the animal, the easier it is totrain, not harder. Ive never heard of a trained cow.

Notice how I said domesticated, some animals were just simply breed to be that way.