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| 3 | %% The examples section has been alphabetized. Please add new entries in the correct place. Thanks! |
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| 7 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1321721464007271500 |
| 8 | %% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread. |
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| 10 | [[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/ThePowerpuffGirls https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1000009549.png]]]] |
| 11 | [[caption-width-right:350:Armies of [[SuperIntelligence super-genius]] [[MyBrainIsBig giant-brained]] simians: further proof that ChemistryCanDoAnything.]] |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ->''"(Earthworm Jim!) The soil he did crawl!\ |
| 14 | (Earthworm Jim!) A super-suit did fall!\ |
| 15 | Jim was just a dirt-eating chewing length of worm flesh!\ |
| 16 | But all that came to a crashing end!"'' |
| 17 | -->-- ''WesternAnimation/EarthWormJim'' theme song |
| 18 | |
| 19 | A more ScienceFiction-oriented version of the TalkingAnimal, where the creature's ability to think and communicate with people on an equal level isn't typical of their species, but instead the result of some AppliedPhlebotinum at work. Perhaps the animal's intelligence has been artificially increased (or inversely, people can communicate with them in their AnimalTalk) and/or their physical voice structure altered so they can pronounce human words, or they have been fitted with a TranslatorCollar; but these animals have come to be more or less equals to human in terms of ability, but their acceptance and status in human society can be questionable. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | This rarely becomes an actual plot point; it's usually just an unspoken, world-building background detail so that the author can place a TalkingAnimal in a setting that wouldn't ordinarily allow for them. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | See also {{Transhuman}}, PollyWantsAMicrophone, AnthropomorphicTransformation and ArtificialAnimalPeople. Contrast FormerlySapientSpecies. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | ---- |
| 26 | !!Examples: |
| 27 | |
| 28 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 29 | |
| 30 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 31 | * Ein from ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' is a "data dog", a product of highly illegal animal experimentation that wound up on-board the ''Bebop'' after a botched bounty hunt. None of the ''Bebop'' crew are aware of Ein's true nature, with the possible exception of Ed, later on. It's never explained exactly what a "Data Dog" is, but he's certainly more intelligent than your average mutt (and in fact may be the smartest member of the crew). Aside from a keen understanding of the world around him, he's shown an apparent ability to read, play chess, and even hack computers. He can't talk, however. |
| 32 | * ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'': The gadget Evolution Light can enhance and upgrade an animal's intelligence and make them sentient, able to understand speech and even operate machinery to a limited degree. |
| 33 | * While it's a bit unclear how common this is, in ''Anime/{{Geneshaft}}'', the main female protagonist routinely exchanges e-mails with her dog. While it apparently cannot speak English, it has no problems with using a keyboard and writing responses back to her and understanding what she sends him. |
| 34 | * The final episode of ''Anime/GunBuster'' shows a dolphin as one of the crew of a human ship. AllThereInTheManual: Noriko explains in one of the "Science Lesson" shorts that hyper-advanced human ships utilize cyborg dolphins as part of their navigation systems, alongside psychic humans. |
| 35 | * ''Anime/IGPXImmortalGrandPrix'' has a dog for Team Edgeraid, and Luca the cat for Team Satomi. This does not physically give them the ability to talk; we only hear either of within the mech cockpits and their lips don't move, implying that the interface functions as a TranslatorCollar. |
| 36 | * Iggy from ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' is a hyperintelligent dog who can't speak, but can understand humans perfectly. Whenever he "talks", it's his internal monologue. He is also the user of a Stand -- whose name is [[TarotMotifs The Fool]], ironically enough. It's generally displayed that giving Stand power to an animal automatically upgrades their intelligence to or near human levels. Examples include [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders the aforementioned Iggy, a bird of prey, an Orangutan]], [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable a rat]], [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean and even a colony of plankton]]. While readers aren't privy to the thoughts of any but the first and the last, they all display very human tactics. |
| 37 | * In the ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' series, this happens individually to animals with whom mages form a MagicallyBindingContract with to become their {{familiar}}. They gain the ability to take [[HumanityEnsues somewhat human forms]] and easily communicate with humans. This lasts for the duration of the Contract, but when it runs out, the familiar ceases to exist. For a familiar with an open-ended contract like Arf, this makes her a lifelong companion for Fate (and a longer lifespan for her), but giving a familiar a short contract like performing a single task is a good way to KickTheDog. |
| 38 | * ''Anime/MarsDaybreak'' shows that among the human colonists of Mars are a small number of porpoises/whales wearing PoweredArmor that allows them to move on land and translates their speech. A talking cat also happens to be a member of the crew, which is not considered ''too'' unusual. |
| 39 | * ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': Principal Nezu is an anthropomorphic mouse with a Quirk, "High Specs", which gave him SuperIntelligence (by ''human'' standards). |
| 40 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'': |
| 41 | ** Tony Tony Chopper was a normal reindeer ostracized by his herd [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer because he was born with a blue nose]]. He then ate the ''Hito Hito no Mii'' (Human Human Fruit) and gained sapience along with the ability to take on a half-human/half-reindeer form and a human form. This also caused him to be abandoned by his herd and hated by humans, resulting in him growing bitter towards all humans save two until he met Luffy. |
| 42 | ** Onimaru is a fox introduced in the Wano Country Arc, who is capable of human speech and is able to transform from a fox into a giant human. It was revealed in one of the ''One Piece Vivre Card Databooks'', that Onimaru is able to do this because he ate a Devil Fruit similar to Chopper. In this case, unlike Chopper who ate a regular Zoan fruit, he ate a Mythical Zoan, the ''Hito Hito no Mii Model: Onyudo''. (An ''Onyudo'' is a Japanese {{Yokai}} that takes the form of a giant Monk) |
| 43 | ** This also applies to the animal Homies of the Big Mom pirates, who have been infused with a human soul by the power of Big Mom's Devil Fruit, the ''Soru Soru no Mii'' (Soul Soul Fruit). |
| 44 | * In ''Manga/OutlawStar'', two super-intelligent cats help a human pilot a CombiningMecha. |
| 45 | * In ''Manga/PsychicSquad'', we are introduced to Igo (Literally 'Number 9') who is a telepathic, prescient dolphin genetically engineered by the 'Comericans' for combat purposes during ZKC's version of WWII. It's revealed in flashbacks that Igo is [[spoiler:part of a trio of dolphins who defected to Japan. The two who survived, Igo and Hachigo (Number 8) were integrated into the Japanese 'Imperial Esper Unit' and were ultimately responsible for the future prediction that drives a great deal of the story]]. ZKC also contains Momotaro, a flying squirrel who was engineered and cybernetically altered by the Japanese government to have telepathy and telekinetic powers, again for WWII. |
| 46 | * Bond from ''Manga/SPYxFAMILY'' is a dog who was experimented on as part of a secret government project to create hyper-intelligent dogs for covert operations. While he can't speak, he can understand human speech and complex instructions, picking up on things before even humans can. He also has the power [[{{Seers}} to see the future]]; while his visions aren't set in stone, he's smart enough to try avoiding any unpleasant futures he sees. [[DownplayedTrope That said]], he still usually defaults to thinking like a dog, and his ability to understand the complexities of human society is limited at best despite his general understanding of human language. |
| 47 | * ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': |
| 48 | ** Because Boota's constantly around Simon, he has absorbed a great deal of Spiral Energy and became much more aware than the average pigmole. Near the end, he actually taps into it and temporarily gains a humanoid form. Due to EvolutionaryLevels, this means he also becomes spontaneously [[LittleBitBeastly Kemonomimi]], also revealing that he was the strange man beside Simon over in the prologue of the first episode, acting as the second in command. |
| 49 | ** While the rest of the Generals are Beastmen that look pretty human, Guame looks the most like an animal, in this case, an armadillo. One of the musical {{O|riginalVideoAnimation}}VAs reveals that this is because rather than an artificially created lifeform, Guame used to be a regular animal. He was with Lordgenome back when the latter was a child, being the Boota to Lordgenome's Simon. |
| 50 | [[/folder]] |
| 51 | |
| 52 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 53 | * ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'': |
| 54 | ** In ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'', genetic experiments resulted in a group of monkeys as intelligent as humans that speak English, and who were eventually given human rights and their own ghetto in Mega-City One. Some of them went on to form a criminal gang. Uplifted apes also appear in the Dreddverse series ''Insurrection''. Originally a servile class in an ex-terrestrial mining colony, they join the mutants and robots (also slaves) alongside the human Judges in rebellion against Mega-City One. |
| 55 | ** ''ComicBook/ThargsFutureShocks'': A bunch of scientists try to increase the intellect of apes so that they can be used as manual labor. It looks like it didn't work, until one of the apes slips up and reveals that they have been ObfuscatingStupidity. |
| 56 | ** ''ComicBook/{{Kingdom}}'' is all about a group of genetically engineered [[WolfMan dog-people]] who keep fighting a race of [[BugWar giant insects]] after their human masters disappear. |
| 57 | ** In ''ComicBook/NikolaiDante'', at some point in the past, a group of endangered species were given human intelligence in the hope of preserving them. They rose up and overthrew humans, with the result that Africa is now ruled by the houses of [[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2129721/ Numa]] ([[KingOfBeasts lion]]), [[Franchise/{{Tarzan}} Tantor]] (elephant), and [[Franchise/KingKong Kong]] (gorilla). |
| 58 | * Dr. Dinosaur in ''ComicBook/AtomicRobo'' is either an uplifted dinosaur clone who happens to be completely insane, or a dinosaur given intelligence by the time-travelling disaster that caused the K-T event...who happens to be completely insane. |
| 59 | * An uplifted cat and dog appear in ''ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire''. |
| 60 | * ''Franchise/TheDCU'': |
| 61 | ** ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'' has Monsieur Mallah, a gorilla uplifted by [[BrainInAJar The Brain]]. Decades later, the two would fall in love. |
| 62 | ** In ''ComicBook/TheFlash'', Gorilla Grodd and Solavar were uplifted by aliens, making them the first two talking gorillas. They would eventually found an entire city of other talking gorillas. Then Grodd turned evil. |
| 63 | ** The ComicBook/GreenLantern Adam is from a species that "gives birth" to itself when they die. He was nonsapient due to being unable to learn (as all knowledge he did pick up would be lost when he died), but when the Green Lantern Corps found him they learned Green Lantern rings can store a person's memories. After a few generations, Adam became sapient due to his ring teaching him what his previous generations had learned. |
| 64 | ** ComicBook/RexTheWonderDog was presumably a normal puppy before the experiments which led to his near human intelligence. Though he originally couldn't talk since a dog's mouth isn't designed for such, he knew English and Japanese, can read, and could find other ways to communicate. After a drink from the Fountain of Youth the wonder dog developed the ability to talk as well, though he doesn't use it terribly often. |
| 65 | ** Mr. Tawny in ''ComicBook/{{Shazam}}'' started this way. He was an ordinary tiger raised from a cub as a child's pet and accused in adulthood as a man-killer. A HermitGuru type lived nearby, who apparently was also TheProfessor; he had invented a drug that would allow Tawny to speak so he could defend himself. Tawny not only retained the ability to speak, he became very civilized and took to wearing elegant clothes, making him a FunnyAnimal. He got a job at a zoological museum and his stories dealt with everyday problems while the Marvels were off saving the universe. |
| 66 | * ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': Gyro Gearloose once invented a 'think box' device that could make any animal as smart as a person. He ended up creating both a superintelligent rabbit and a superintelligent ''wolf'', the latter of whom he only barely stopped from stewing Donald alive. |
| 67 | * In ''ComicBook/{{Drowntown}}'', genetic engineering has resulted in "chimeras", animals with human-level intelligence. A wide range of animals have been subject to this -- we see gorillas, hyenas, rats, pandas, and others. They seem to function as normal citizens. |
| 68 | * ''ComicBook/GreaseMonkey'', a sci-fi graphic novel, has the uplifting of gorillas as part of its premise. The main character is such an uplift, who serves a space fighter mechanic on a space station. The almost {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s who visited Earth had a pattern of this: to bolster the chances of other races to resist a separate alien menace that follows them across the galaxy, the benefactor aliens uplift animals suited to the task. Their standard process is to uplift one individual, allow him to learn about the dominant species (humans in this case) and then decide on behalf of his race. The gorilla said yes, and now all remaining gorillas are as intelligent as people (they found out about a lot of [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters our bad points]] after the choice was made). The dolphin said no. He went with the aliens, and the rest of his species were left unaltered. |
| 69 | * ''ComicBook/TheHerderWitch'': Yanna used to be a common sheep until she met Morie the witch and was transformed into a human-like girl. That same magic allows her to shift between both forms, while still retaining her intelligence and speech ability. |
| 70 | * ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'': |
| 71 | ** The New Men, most of whom became the Knights of Wundagore, were once ordinary animals before the High Evolutionary subjected them to his experiments; some are more or less human than others; Sir Porga is basically a rotund human with pointed ears, Sir Ram has a humanlike face and has feet rather than hooves, Lady Ursula looks like a human-sized (and -shaped) bear, Lady Vermin is just an ordinary-looking rat who can't even speak without an electronic translator device, and Bova who is an anthropomorphic cow woman. |
| 72 | ** The Beasts of Berlin from ''ComicBook/AntMan'' are six gorillas uplifted by a fluke by an experimental ray reared in Communist Berlin. The ray itself has a reverse effect on humans, making them mindless beasts, but it's temporary in both cases. |
| 73 | ** ''ComicBook/BruteForceMarvelComics'' was a short-lived 4-issue series about a scientist who uses cyborg enhancements to makes five animals intelligent and speak, and fight evil -- mostly people trying to destroy rainforests and polluting the ocean, and a team of evil cyborg animals. In 2014, they got a one-shot revival in a crossover with ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}, via ''Deadpool Bi-Annual''. ''ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} & ComicBook/CaptainAmerica: Weapon Plus'' not only brought Wreckless (A.K.A. [[ADogNamedDog Bear]]) BackForTheDead (with the rest of the team being kept in stasis), but also revealed Brute Force to be part of the Weapon II project (of which the only other known test subject was a Wolverine-esque squirrel that appeared in ''ComicBook/TheUnbeatableSquirrelGirl''). |
| 74 | ** ''ComicBook/TheEternals'' reveals that humanity itself is one of many species which were uplifted by the Celestials, who not only modified fallow hominids into basic sentience, but also created two other groups which came to be known as the Eternals (a species of 'perfected' hominids with [[TheAgeless near-immortality]], PsychicPowers, and {{Heroic Build}}s) and the Deviants (a constantly mutating 'species' which on Earth ended up AlwaysChaoticEvil). It is later learned that the Skrulls were similarly uplifted, but that early on one Skrull Deviant developed their signature shapeshifting trait, and unlike with others if their kind, the trait bred true; the result was that this specific sub-group exterminated all of the other Skrull sub-types. While this was mostly ignored by other Marvel writers for the next few decades even in stories featuring various Eternals, it would become a key part of TheVerse's mythos later, especially in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse. |
| 75 | ** Sometimes, ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' enemy the Red Ghost has his Super-Apes uplifted into speaking intelligence. They always [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters try to take over from him]] in short order and attempt to either kill or enslave all humans, starting with him. |
| 76 | ** ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' features Cosmo, a golden retriever who's mysteriously uplifted when he was blasted into orbit during early Russian Cosmonautical testing. When he's eventually found in a colony in deep space, not only has he gained the ability to talk via telepathy, he does it in thick, Soviet-era broken English. They also have ComicBook/RocketRaccoon, another example of this trope. [[SitcomArchNemesis They don't like each other]]. When asked why, Rocket mentions that [[HypocriticalHumor he can't stand freaky–deaky talking animals. They give him the willies]]. |
| 77 | ** ''ComicBook/SpiderWoman'' (Jessica Drew) was indisputably intended to be an uplifted spider, but this got {{retcon}}ned. Apparently, Creator/StanLee thought this idea was too wacky. For the ''Marvel Universe''. |
| 78 | ** Ape X from the ''ComicBook/SquadronSupreme'' universe is an ape uplifted to sentience by experimentation who became a criminal super genius. |
| 79 | * Quality Comics had Gabby, a monkey surgically given mind and speech indistinguishable from a human's, who became the first companion of masked mystery-man Midnight (as his new "secret weapon against crime") after the secrets of the procedure were lost. He can still communicate with his non-uplifted brethren and, provided special stilts to reach the pedals, he's even a capable driver. |
| 80 | * ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' says that the planet Mobius is actually Earth in the future. The alien Xordas dropped [[DevolutionDevice gene-bombs]] on it intending to devolve humans. All they did was give humans FourFingeredHands and uplift the animals into {{Funny Animal}}s. |
| 81 | * In ''Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'', the title turtles and their master, Splinter were all once ordinary pet turtles (and a rat), but were all mutated into their current forms after exposure to radiation coming from a leaking can full of mutagenic ooze. (In a couple of the adaptations, Splinter was originally human, but the turtles are consistently turtles.) |
| 82 | * One of Reginald Hargreeves' most famous accomplishments in ''ComicBook/TheUmbrellaAcademy'' is uplifting chimpanzees. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 86 | * ''Fanfic/TheBodyReflectsTheHeartTheShadowReflectsTheSoul'': One of the many creatures that Sandā Arsenal had been experimenting on, a Japanese moccasin, latches onto Sho's finger while he's holding a Vane of Order and a Plume of Dusk. An explosion of power imbues the serpent with enhanced intellect, soon even enabling it to speak. Ayaka quickly claims him as a companion and names him [[Franchise/MontyPython Monty]]. |
| 87 | * In ''Fanfic/HuntersOfJustice'', a Tyrannosaurs rex was pulled out of the late cretaceous period accidentally by a S.T.A.R. Labs experiment. A ''separate'' FreakLabAccident gave the dinosaur human intelligence and the ability to speak. [[spoiler:That dinosaur named himself Henry Brown and became the mayor of Metropolis.]] |
| 88 | * ''Fanfic/LupineTree'' has the protagonist, Lumber Jack, as this thanks to Discord and a damaged human soul that Discord saved. Technically, as a timberwolf tree, he is a plant, but he can still hunt and move his puppets as if they were real wolves. |
| 89 | * {{Discussed}} in ''Fanfic/{{Medicated}}''. After Anne reverts into a {{human|sThroughAlienEyes}} for the first time, Hop Pop assumes that she gained her sapience from being a frog for most of her life, and she'll lose it eventually. Turns out that's not the case. Much later, [[spoiler:it turns out that Marcy believes this as well. She tells Anne and Sasha that Andrias is invading Earth to uplift humans. Since Anne has spent months on Earth and taught the entire resistance the truth about humans, they don't buy it.]] |
| 90 | * ''Fanfic/OogwaysLittleOwl'': According to ancient legends, all animals were once like they are on Earth, non-sapient and preying on each other, before they gained sapience somehow. |
| 91 | * ''Fanfic/TheParselmouthOfGryffindor'' has an unintentional example in the person of the Boggart (a non-sentient magical shapeshifter) who, by pure luck, turned into an accurate enough copy of a human being that he started to think. He hasn't stopped since. |
| 92 | * In ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace'', our heroes travel to Antarctica and meet Gneelicks, a human-husky hybrid who gripes about the problems with this trope. |
| 93 | -->"That's just those damned penguins stirring up trouble," growled Gneelicks. "They claim we're an 'introduced' species. Hah! We huskies have been here for generations -- my ancestors were eaten by Amundsen on his way to the South Pole! But the price of sentience is eternal politics -- it's enough to drive you mad. Seals don't want to be tagged because it violates their civil liberties. Whales demanding compensation for attempted genocide. Emperor penguins with delusions of grandeur, complaining that the solar mirrors are interfering with their pattern of life..." |
| 94 | * In ''Fanfic/PoniesAfterPeople'', Lonely Day and Cloudy Skies notice that the cows they end up raising seem more intelligent than usual; according to the setting bible, magic causes Earth ungulates to become slightly more sapient. |
| 95 | * A '''bacteria''' that has ascended to human-level intelligence is a one-shot foe in ''Fanfic/VoyagesOfTheWildSeaHorse'', with the transformation being justified through a combination of CannibalismSuperpower and the use of a [[HumanShifting Human-Human Zoan]] type of [[PowerUpFood Devil Fruit]]. |
| 96 | [[/folder]] |
| 97 | |
| 98 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 99 | * [[PollyWantsAMicrophone Iago]] is implied to be this in ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheReturnOfJafar''. WordOfGod is that Jafar moved a part of himself to his normal parrot to become less irritable. Thus Iago is essentially an angrier and more abrasive Jafar. |
| 100 | * ''WesternAnimation/AprilAndTheExtraordinaryWorld'' has this happen to a cat and a couple of lizards unintentionally when they are used as test subjects for a serum that is intended to [[ImmortalityInducer make its subject immortal]]. |
| 101 | * Gus from ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}'' is actually made sapient by receiving clothing like the other mice in the film. And possibly all of the other mice. |
| 102 | * ''Anime/DoraemonFilmSeries'': |
| 103 | ** The gadget Evolution Light (see the Anime & Manga folder) appears as a plot point in ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaInTheWanNyanSpacetimeOdyssey'' when Nobita using it on a bunch of stray dogs and cats that he deposits to 300 million years ago leads to the andromorphic dogs and cats creating a mini-civilization of their own. |
| 104 | ** ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheSpiralCity'' has Uplifted ''Toy'' Animals, in a planet populated by LivingToys. Most of the animal toys behaves like actual animals, but thanks to an entity called The Sower who randomly zaps intelligence on some of them, a few toy animals -- including the toy pig siblings Pibbu and Popi, toy sheep Thomas Meedison and toy bull Ain Motain -- are sentient, and in fact smarter than humans. |
| 105 | * In ''WesternAnimation/HelpImAFish'', there is both a fish potion and a fish antidote. The fish potion [[{{Animorphism}} turns humans into fish]], and the fish antidote not only reverses the fish potion, but can also make regular fish more human, granting them the power of speech and sapience. The BigBad ends up stealing the antidote and uses it to make his own metropolis of sentient, uplifted fish. |
| 106 | * In ''Anime/MaryAndTheWitchsFlower'', Doctor Dee turns animals into {{human|ityEnsues}}oids and has them do menial work in [[WizardingSchool Endor College]]. |
| 107 | * Franny's singing frogs in the future world of ''WesternAnimation/MeetTheRobinsons''. |
| 108 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsFriendshipGames'': Thanks to a mishap involving Fluttershy's magic and Human Twilight's device, Spike the dog is given the ability to speak, as well as causing his behavior to be less dog-like. Slightly unusual in that the past [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls two]] [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks films]] feature a different talking Spike the dog, who was originally a dragon. |
| 109 | * According to the OpeningNarration to ''WesternAnimation/RockAndRule'', WorldWarIII on one hand, wiped out humanity, but on the other created their successors by mutating animals into humanoid form who would soon follow through their predecessors footsteps (barring hopefully their last ones). |
| 110 | * The rats from ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH'' who [[spoiler:escaped from the '''N'''ational '''I'''nstitute of '''M'''ental '''H'''ealth after being used as test subjects for an intelligence-enhancing treatment actually take this one step above the standard procedure in the evolutionary ladder since most animals of their world are sapient on a basic level already and it was the way of great scientific and mystical knowledge (even greater than humans!) that they were led to, that distinguished them from the rest of their fellow creatures]]. |
| 111 | * The dinosaurs from ''WesternAnimation/WereBackADinosaursStory'' are all made sapient by being fed intelligence-boosting cereal. Later, the villain devolves said dinosaurs back into their primitive selves to frighten everyone, and the only way for them to become sapient again is to [[ThePowerOfLove have their children friends hug them.]] |
| 112 | * ''Animation/WhiteSnake2019'': |
| 113 | ** A {{downplayed|trope}} version: Blanca gives Dudou the ability to talk but he still acts like a normal dog despite that. |
| 114 | ** The snake demons themselves are a version of this. At their lowest level of strength, they seem to just be normal snakes, and it takes a great deal of time and effort for them to gain speech, shapeshifting and other powers. Taking on a fully human form is noted to be something only their most powerful individuals can do, said forms being sought after for the various advantages they bring. When Blanca saves Xuan's soul it takes so much power from her to do so that she is reverted back to a regular snake and it takes her centuries to regain her powers. |
| 115 | [[/folder]] |
| 116 | |
| 117 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 118 | * In ''Film/ColorMePerfect'', the intelligence-boosting gene therapy is tested on two chimps named Laverne and Shirley, who are raised to the intelligence level of a school-aged human child. |
| 119 | * Deconstructed in ''Film/DeepBlueSea''. A biologist performs a genetic engineering procedure that gives sharks larger brains and enhanced intelligence. The catch, however, is that this does ''not'' result in sharks that act like humans. Instead, they use their enhanced brains to do the things sharks normally do, but with more intelligence behind them. |
| 120 | * ''Film/JohnnyMnemonic'' includes the cybernetically-enhanced uplifted dolphin Jones, as in the original William Gibson story. |
| 121 | * Niner, the German Shepherd dog in ''K-9000'', has a partly computerised brain. |
| 122 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' cartoon, Rufus' anthropomorphic behavior is not deemed anything unusual. In the ''Film/KimPossible'' film, it is mentioned that he was a lab experiment. This explains his high intelligence, ability to [[SpeechImpairedAnimal talk]] (if only in short mumbles), and his general anthropomorphic behavior compared to a normal naked mole rat. |
| 123 | * ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'': |
| 124 | ** ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'': Rocket is the result of "illegal genetic and cybernetic experiments on a lower life form", specifically a raccoon. He is not aware of this, as he doesn't know what a raccoon is, instead believing himself to be an entirely artificial lifeform. |
| 125 | ** ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3'': Rocket is revealed to have been part of a batch of Earth animals uplifted by the High Evolutionary. The Evolutionary's actual goal was to artificially "evolve" animals into humanoid species, creating the Ani-Men. Rocket and the other cyborgs like him were just test subjects to perfect the process or expendable cannon fodder. |
| 126 | * The ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'' gets kicked off when this accidentally happens during the testing of an Alzheimer's treatment. ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'' in general may be the TropeCodifier. Primates get this treatment in the franchise prior to its ContinuityReboot as well: [[Literature/PlanetOfTheApes the original novel]] features modified apes replacing humans as menial servants, a notion carried through in the original film franchise. [[Film/PlanetOfTheApes2001 The 2001 re-imagining]] features a space station where simians are being modified to carry out routine space piloting and other technical tasks. |
| 127 | * ''Film/SuperMarioBros1993'' says the meteor that supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs actually sent them to AnotherDimension where they evolved to be like humans. |
| 128 | * Booga in ''Film/TankGirl'' (in the comics, Booga is a mutated kangaroo): |
| 129 | -->'''Booga:''' I was a dog, but because I was really good, they upgraded me to human. Uh, sort of. |
| 130 | * In the 1988 film ''Film/{{Watchers}}'', a super-intelligent golden retriever that can communicate through writing escapes from a classified research laboratory, meeting a young man named Travis who takes the dog in and tries to protect it. |
| 131 | [[/folder]] |
| 132 | |
| 133 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 134 | !!!'''By Author:''' |
| 135 | * Creator/DavidBrin: |
| 136 | ** ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' is the {{Trope Namer|s}}. Major characters include uplifted [[SapientCetaceans dolphins]] and chimps. Technically, ''every'' sentient species has records of being originally uplifted from animals (or plants, or fungi, etc.), except for humanity and the original prehistoric [[{{Precursors}} Progenitors]]. And the tradition of ''Uplift'' is so ingrained in 2 billion years of Galactic society that many clans refuse to believe that Humans, ul-Dolphin-ul-Chimpanzee, could be anything but "wolflings" abandoned by their patrons mid-Uplift. The mere suggestion that we might have evolved sapience on our own is usually considered a preposterous, laughable superstition, as impossible as claiming a deity sculpted us out of clay. At worst, the claim is blasphemy of the highest order. |
| 137 | *** Humans, dolphins, and chimpanzees avoid being "adopted" (aka enslaved and forcibly genetically altered) by the more-hostile Galactics [[ValuesDissonance only because humans had uplifted the dolphins and chimpanzees before first contact]]. Said Galactics then object to humans having started to also uplift dogs and gorillas. |
| 138 | ** In ''Literature/{{Existence}}'', a rich kid is saved from drowning by some partially uplifted dolphins who were abandoned when the project lost its funding. He makes sure the project is resumed and completed. |
| 139 | * 'Superchimps' or 'simps' (an in-universe misnomer -- they're uplifted monkeys, not apes) appear in some Creator/ArthurCClarke works, including ''Literature/RendezvousWithRama''. Clarke also used this theme with respect to humanity itself in ''[[Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries 2001]]''. The {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s took a tribe of apes and manipulated their intelligence, planting the seeds of modern man. They then [[spoiler:took a modern man and uplifted him to create a Star Child]]. |
| 140 | * Creator/LSpragueDeCamp wrote a series of short stories about "Johnny Black", a black bear given human-level intelligence by an experimental process that increased the efficiency of his synapses. |
| 141 | * Creator/AndreNorton: |
| 142 | ** In ''Literature/CatsEye1961'', the animals are of human intelligence, though they can communicate mentally only with Troy and with whoever has the controller. |
| 143 | ** In ''Literature/StormOverWarlock'', the wolverines are part of program that introduces mutated and highly trained animals to Survey Teams. The wolverines are the first fielded from their species, and Shan thinks they are more intelligent than they guessed. |
| 144 | * Creator/AlastairReynolds: |
| 145 | ** There are [[PigMan "hyperpigs"]] in the ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries''. Their origins are obscure -- no one now knows who gave them intelligence and language, or why. It is suspected that they were a side effect of genetically engineering pigs to be human organ donors... though whether the final uplift to sentience was deliberate tinkering or just an accident is never mentioned. In a more common variation of this trope, there are also many species of uplifted primates. |
| 146 | ** ''Literature/OnTheSteelBreeze'' has Franchise/{{Ta|rzan}}ntors, who are [[InsistentTerminology very insistent]] that they're ''not'' elephants. |
| 147 | * Draffut from Creator/FredSaberhagen's ''Literature/EmpireOfTheEast'' and ''Literature/BookOfSwords'' was a dog who was altered into an intelligent, bipedal, super-powered giant by advanced medical technology. Paradoxically, he was later worshiped as a god by human beings. |
| 148 | !!!'''By Work:''' |
| 149 | * ''Literature/{{Aristillus}}'' has four uplifted dogs as central characters, and each one carries a very unique personality, while each being very 'dog-like' in sensibilities and all of them being smarter than humans. Their role in the Lunar Colony of Aristillus is a central question examined by the book and the dogs, respectively. |
| 150 | * Literature/{{Babar}}, due to him spending his entire childhood living in Paris, France ever since his mother was killed by hunters actually started to become more and more sapient over time. Eventually he makes ''all'' animals sapient because of this. |
| 151 | * The progenitors of the [[WorldOfFunnyAnimals Galaxy of Funny Animals]] in ''Literature/BarskTheElephantsGraveyard'' were "raised mammals" genetically engineered by humans to be capable of language. According to the appendices, eighty-seven mammal species in total were raised, but the novel mostly focuses on the titular elephants. Secondary characters include an otter, a bear, a yak, and a cheetah. |
| 152 | * In ''Literature/BewareOfChicken'', a number of animals are accidentally uplifted through eating magic herbs. |
| 153 | * In ''Literature/{{Borgel}}'', Fafner, an ordinary dog, becomes able to talk after traveling to AnotherDimension. |
| 154 | * The talking dog Ralph Von Wau Wau from ''Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon'' is an unusual case. He was born a mutant, possessing human-level intelligence, but was artificially uplifted by a scientist who surgically altered his larynx and mouth structure in an experiment that would allow a dog to mimic human speech. Ralph would later [[ThisIsMyHuman "adopt" a mute man]] and act as his ventriloquist, cooking up a "my dog can talk" shtick to hustle a few bucks. |
| 155 | * In Will Shetterly's ''Chimera'', genetically engineered animals are somewhere between slaves and second-class citizens. The heroine is a jaguar woman named Zoe Domingo created to be a sex slave. |
| 156 | * ''Literature/ChildrenOfTime2015'': The prologue is about Doctor Kern starting an experiment intended to uplift monkeys on a terraformed world to full sapience within fifty generations. Unfortunately, a hardline faction against the "obsolescence of humanity" sabotages the project (at the same time as they start a war that ends up nearly annihilating the human race), resulting in all the monkeys being killed. However, the nanovirus intended to uplift the primates lands on the planet and finds hosts. While it was designed to avoid mammals and vertebrates to prevent the monkeys from having competition, it ends up finding fertile ground in invertebrate species, resulting in a world of BigCreepyCrawlies. However, since the virus was never designed to work with them, its results are mixed; some insects end up merely giant, but not really that much more intelligent, others become intelligent enough to use as work animals, and the ants remain individually completely mindless but create a biological calculation engine that becomes the world's first superpower, complete with metallurgy and siege weapons, despite ''not actually being conscious''. The apex predators, at least on land, end up being a highly evolved form of jumping spider that slowly develop culture and technology comparable to human, if still completely alien. |
| 157 | * ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': |
| 158 | ** The divine lion Aslan does this a few times. Note that [[MagicalLand Narnia]] contains a mixture of {{Talking Animal}}s and non-sapient critters, and Aslan himself is explicitly UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} in a form more appropriate for that setting. |
| 159 | ** In ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'', Aslan explains that he didn't initially create any sapient mice in Narnia. All Talking Mice are descended from a group of ordinary mice that Aslan rewarded with sapience for freeing him after the HeroicSacrifice detailed in ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'' (which is ancient Narnian history by the time of ''Prince Caspian'', even though [[NarniaTime it's only been a year on Earth]] for our English heroes). |
| 160 | ** The {{prequel}} ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' details the creation process itself, including how Aslan created both Talking Beasts and ordinary animals. During the process, a horse from our world ends up in Narnia, so Aslan uplifts the horse and even bestows him with wings for good measure. |
| 161 | * ''City'' by Creator/CliffordSimak has three distinct cases: |
| 162 | ** The dogs were surgically altered to have human-level intelligence and to speak. Somehow the surgery was made to be inheritable. This was done to provide a different point of view for problems humanity might face. The dogs got no hands, since there are robots to help them. When humans left Earth, sentient dogs remained there. |
| 163 | ** The ants were given ant-sized tools like carts and kept several years in a greenhouse, allowing them to pass experience to next generations.[[note]]Yes, the concept [[ScienceMarchesOn later proved to be incorrect]].[[/note]] When the perpetrator discovered how far they got, he tried to destroy the anthill, but that didn't stop the ants' progress. |
| 164 | ** Other animals of dog-dominated Earth evolved on their own. |
| 165 | * L. Neil Smith's ''Confederacy'' universe has intelligent great apes as part of the Confederacy, along with dolphins, porpoises, and orcas. In-universe, they were always intelligent, we just needed to learn how to communicate with them. In ''The Nagasaki Vector'', we meet G. Howell Nauhautl ("the G. stands for Greenriver"), a cybernetically uplifted coyote. |
| 166 | * Creator/MichaelSwanwick's ''Darger and Surplus'' stories are set in a post-utopian, post-A.I. rebellion future and uplifted animals feature quite often, including main character Surplus (an uplifted dog who's a swindler and [[KavorkaMan lady's man]]). |
| 167 | * W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear's ''Dark Inheritance'' uplifts chimps and bonobos in a modern setting. The authors are anthropologists so it goes into a lot of technical detail of how it was done, differences in psychology, various problems with zoonotic diseases, issues with uplifted chimps dealing with un-uplifted chimps, difficulties with something with the raw physical power of a chimp and the mentality of a human, and a lot of technical details. The chimps and bonobos in this cannot talk, only communicate via sign language or using a keyboard. It also shows various stages in the uplift process with different levels of change. |
| 168 | * ''Literature/{{Darkeye}}'' is about the trials of a motley pack of uplifted canines trying to keep two human children alive in a city populated by uplifted canines who have a taste for human meat. [[spoiler:The bouda -- hyenas who sometimes spontaneously turn into humans -- sometimes stop the transformation at the brain, as is the case with Vimbo. The webnovel also includes an inversion of the trope: the screamers, humans who voluntarily [[FormerlySapientSpecies gave up their intelligence]] generations ago.]] |
| 169 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': |
| 170 | ** In ''Literature/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents'', some rats gain intelligence by eating magic-laden garbage left by Unseen University, the Discworld's school of magic. Maurice the cat gains intelligence by [[spoiler:eating one of the rats]]. |
| 171 | ** In earlier books, Gaspode the Wonder Dog is uplifted ''twice'', by two different mechanisms (the latter being the result of magical detritus). It appears that all dogs are sentient in some way, but Gaspode has human-level intelligence and can actually speak Morporkian. |
| 172 | ** There's also [[PunnyName Quoth the Raven]], who appears to be substantially brighter that most birds, and can also speak to humans. Of course, he's still not that smart by human standards, and his attention span is not great either, especially when [[TrademarkFavoriteFood eyeballs]] are involved. |
| 173 | ** The Camels are a borderline case -- they're highly intelligent mathematicians, but it isn't clear whether they naturally evolved that way or were magically granted sapience. Either way, they're smart enough to know [[ObfuscatingStupidity not to let humans know how smart they are]]. |
| 174 | ** Speaking of sapience, there's the Luggage, a malevolent animated item of travel baggage made from sapient pearwood. Given that it is ambulatory and capable of reproduction, it might be considered a sort of uplifted tree (though as happens so often in the Discworld, the trees themselves seem to be intelligent, after a fashion...). That said, ''Literature/InterestingTimes'' suggests that whatever process allows the Luggage to dynamically react to its environment is more a facsimile of thought than actual thought. |
| 175 | * In the ''Literature/{{Dragaera}}'' novels, the reptiles known as jhereg were rendered intelligent and psychic as a sideline-experiment by the [[AbusivePrecursors Jenoine]]. |
| 176 | * ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'' has genetically engineered dolphins, though the human colonists of Pern forget that they're sentient for several thousand years. And the dragons themselves were engineered from native fire-lizards. Both species are telepathic but fire-lizards can only send feelings or images, dragons think in words. |
| 177 | * The ''Literature/{{Eldraeverse}}'' has several uplifts, of which the ''dar-bandal'' (canids) are most prominent, but also mentioned are cetaceans, corvids, octopodes, rat swarms (rather than individual rats), and at least one outright alien species. No apes, though, aside from the [[TransplantedHumans Precursor-engineered]] [[SpaceElves eldrae]] themselves. |
| 178 | * In ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'', cyborg cybernetic implants are standard issue for everyone, with advanced equipment for the military. Dog-adapted cybernetic enhancements are paired with genetic tinkering to make dogs smart enough to play chess, talk with an [[TranslatorCollar implant]] and the strength to hew [[SpaceMarine Imperial Marines]] to shreds. Oh, and they have [[HeroicSacrifice undying loyalty]] to the Imperial family. |
| 179 | * The residents of Santa Chico in ''Literature/FallenDragon'' prefer {{transhuman}}ism and this trope to terraforming; Instead of replacing the original climate, fauna and flora with Earth equivalents, they [[LegoGenetics exchange traits]] until they can coexist. |
| 180 | * ''Literature/ForestKingdom'': Book 4 (''Beyond the Blue Moon'') introduces Chappie, a dog who was experimented on by the High Warlock as a pup and gained human intelligence and the ability to speak as a result. He still has all the same concerns as a normal dog though, and is less worried about things humans would care about. |
| 181 | * ''Literature/GunWithOccasionalMusic'' features several, most notably the uplifted kangaroo Joey Castle. |
| 182 | * ''Literature/HeartOfADog'' involves a certain Doctor Preobrazhensky who implants human testicles and pituitary gland into a dog as part of his experiments in rejuvenation but accidentally turns the dog into a human instead. It becomes an issue because the new human takes so strongly to revolutionary ideas that he refuses to adapt to normal human standards of politeness and considerateness out of the assumption that they are too "bourgeois." |
| 183 | * John C. [=McLoughlin's=] novel ''The Helix and the Sword'' has a cheetah by the name of Pantolog Five engineered to serve as an encyclopedia and companion for the protagonist Dyson Tessier. |
| 184 | * ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'': |
| 185 | ** There are multiple prominent nonhuman sentient races aside from the divinely created Companions. Kyree and dyheli are essentially wolves and antelope, both very psychic but easily mistaken for normal if broad-foreheaded animals visually. Hertasi are more anthropomorphic LizardFolk while tervardi are fragile-boned bird-humans, and then there are the gryphons. Gradually through the series it's revealed that millennia ago, when magical science was at its peak, mages worked in teams to uplift animals. Hertasi were instilled with gratitude to their creators that makes them an ideal ServantRace. The most extravagant alterations were made to the tervardi, which were literally large songbirds before being altered. The gryphons were simply [[CreatingLifeIsAwesome created whole]]. |
| 186 | ** There are also ''partially'' uplifted animals, the Tayledras' bondbirds and the Shin'a'in battlesteeds. The former are birds of prey and corvids given greater size, intelligence, and psychic powers, the better to be {{Bond Creature}}s. Their smarts vary but some can speak in grammatical sentences and grasp the emotional states of strangers. The latter are huge, ugly horses with behavior so altered that they're in many ways more like dogs, and which are much tougher and more trainable than ordinary horses. |
| 187 | * In Creator/CoryDoctorow's short story "I, Rowboat", one of the hobbies of members of the transHuman race (and some robots) is uplifting individuals of a species to see what happens. The main antagonist of the story is an uplifted coral reef. By the end of the story, we find that [[spoiler:the reef has been uplifted several times in the past and each time manages to kill itself off before regenerating in a non-sentient form]]. |
| 188 | * Creator/CordwainerSmith's ''Instrumentality of Mankind'' series features the Underpeople, and their struggle for equal rights. |
| 189 | * ''Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau'' is probably the UrExample of "uplifting" in sci-fi, albeit [[GoneHorriblyWrong not a particularly successful variant of the procedure]]. |
| 190 | * ''Literature/JanitorsOfThePostapocalypse'' has a variation: aliens start uplifting {{Technically Living Zombie}}s and have to reconstruct a language for them. "Cured humans" still have black blood, are very difficult to kill, are not as intelligent as their natural human ancestors, and still have a chance of reverting back to animals under the right circumstances. The galactic community tends to think of them as pitiable creatures at best and barely controlled flesh-eating monsters at worst, and within a couple months of uplift the Krakau "curing" them put them to work as shock troops and menial workers in their military. Some humans are happier about this than others. |
| 191 | * ''Johnny Mnemonic'', part of Creator/WilliamGibson's Literature/SprawlTrilogy, includes a cybernetically uplifted dolphin named Jones, who was part of a United States Navy project to hack mines and other underwater military hardware. After leaving the military, he works in an amusement park and moonlights in data recovery. |
| 192 | * ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'': This trope is the difference between the animals of Eric's non-magical homeworld (Threa) and the animals of the magical world that he finds himself in (Tariatla). There's a certain level of {{mana}} saturation that increases the intelligence of animals to a human level. While they still can't communicate with humans, this is more of a language barrier than anything else and in any case it is resolved by Zaticana, the goddess of languages. |
| 193 | * A variation of this occurs in ''Literature/KeysToTheKingdom''. The Raised Rats were brought to the House by [[AllMythsAreTrue the Piper]], who gave them speech, intelligence, and made them much bigger. They are a rather mercantile people who trade their services for information (although they also remain loyal to the Piper), and their SteamPunk technology is damn impressive. |
| 194 | * ''Literature/KittyCatKillSat'': Lily, interestingly, did this to ''herself''. She was an ordinary, though immortal, house cat and the last survivor on the station. She spent decades slooowly learning human language, and eventually reached the point where she could tell a biolab she had found to make her smarter. |
| 195 | -->'''Lily:''' The first dose made me very sick, and I decided to never do it again. The second dose made me very sick, and I decided to never do it again. The third dose made me very sick, and one day later, it was like I'd woken up for the very first time. |
| 196 | * The ''Literature/MaximumRide'' books have Total, a genetically engineered black Scottish Terrier who turns out to talk in the second book, and who eventually becomes a [[SixthRanger seventh member of the Flock]]. |
| 197 | * Played with in ''Literature/TheMigaxCycle''. Skeefers were altered to make their brains function more closely to a human's, but they were sapient before and don't consider it uplifting. On the other hand, the same traditions of Uplift also force them to give humanity a modicum of respect, as patrons of not one but two sapient species. Had humanity not by sheer coincidence started uplifting dolphins and chimps before FirstContact, we might have been forced to become clients of another (likely abusive) species or even [[KillAllHumans exterminated]] for ecological mismanagement. |
| 198 | * In the ''Literature/MoreauSeries'', uplifted animals (the eponymous Moreaus) are second-class citizens in the mid-21st century. |
| 199 | * ''Literature/MrsFrisbyAndTheRatsOfNimh'' and related books have the eponymous Rats, as well as a group of mice. Notable in its merely modern setting. A series of injections, one mentioned to contain DNA, both increased their intelligence so they could read and understand, and increased their lifespan so the scientists would have time to see what that intelligence could do. The scientists found out what happens when you don't properly secure tools around intelligent rats. |
| 200 | * In ''Literature/NexusNine'', humanity uplifted dogs and cats, and a few thousand years later, the Tri-Galactic Union humanity's clients founded has contacted animalistic aliens that they believe were also seeded by their patron race. |
| 201 | * ''Literature/TheNorbyChronicles'': |
| 202 | ** ''Literature/NorbysOtherSecret'': The protagonists go back in time to see a prehistoric Jamyn, where the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent resident dragons]] are unintelligent and only have four limbs. Mentor First claims that the Others have left instructions for them to [[BioAugmentation re-engineer the dominant species]] into an intelligent civilization. |
| 203 | ** ''Literature/NorbyAndTheLostPrincess'': In this story, ''humans'' are the animals, as the Others took a colony of humans from Earth and gave them a civilization on the planet Izz. |
| 204 | * In the climax of ''Literature/{{Perelandra}}'', Tor announces as part of his plans for the new civilization of Venus that they will raise up the brighter species of animal until they become ''hnau'' -- Old Solar for "sapient beings". |
| 205 | * ''Literature/PerryRhodan'': The terran government wants to give genetically modified sapient apes the right to vote, but they refused repeatedly. |
| 206 | * Donald Kingsbury's ''Literature/PsychohistoricalCrisis'' has man's best friend uplifted to child-like sapience. |
| 207 | * In the ''Literature/RatsBatsAndVats'' duology, the titular animals are genetically engineered slave-soldiers granted human-like intelligence by means of cybernetic brain implants provided by the alien Korozhets. Both were created to help humanity defend itself against the insectoid Magha, and are considered less than optimal, due to their inherently BlueAndOrangeMorality -- this further causes them to be treated as property. [[spoiler:Their "soft-cyber" implants also compel them to obey orders given by the Korozhets, who are secretly masterminding the whole war with the intent of conquering the planet and taking humanity as slaves. They also mean that both species can engage in BrainUploading, allowing for a kind of ResurrectiveImmortality by having their soft-cybers retrieved and installed in new bodies.]] |
| 208 | * Most of the [=GELF=]s in the ''Literature/RedDwarf'' novels are humanoid MixAndMatchCritters: |
| 209 | ** Dingotangs are dingos crossed with orangutans. |
| 210 | ** Dolochimps have the heads of dolphins, the bodies of chimpanzees and the legs of giant locusts. |
| 211 | ** Alberogs have the heads of albatrosses, the bodies of bears and the legs of giant frogs. |
| 212 | ** Snugiraffes have the heads of cobras, the bodies of giant slugs and the legs of giraffes. |
| 213 | ** There's also another unnamed race of uplifted pigs. |
| 214 | ** In the ''Smegazine'' comic story, ''Evolution'', the [[DevolutionDevice E-accelerator]] turns a bacon sandwich into a pig, then into a humanoid woman. In disgusted response to Lister trying to eat her when she was a sandwich and flirt with her as a woman, she goes into stasis until the rest of the pigs evolve to her level. |
| 215 | * ''Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse'': People came to the conclusion that it was unethical to kill animals and eat them, so they genetically engineered creatures so that they would A) want to be eaten and B) be intelligent enough [[LetsMeetTheMeat to verbally express this fact]], thus removing any guilt one might feel while eating meat. Arthur Dent is horrified, of course, and opts to have a salad instead. The creature in question is extremely offended by this rejection. |
| 216 | * ''Literature/RiversOfLondon'' has a society of talking foxes who have been magically enhanced to have enlarged brains and human larynxes. For some reason, they are also highly trained in spycraft and tend to view everything as a spy mission. This presumably has some connection to the reason they were created, but they refuse to discuss this with the main characters because it's classified. |
| 217 | * ''Sirius'' by Creator/OlafStapledon was one of the first attempts to seriously imagine what it might be like to ''be'' an uplifted animal -- to [[{{Xenofiction}} try to get inside the head of such a creature]], in this case, the first of its kind, a dog, named after the "dog star", Sirius. |
| 218 | * In ''Literature/SoImASpiderSoWhat'', it's eventually revealed that [[spoiler:the main character Kumoko's past life was not as a human girl, but an ordinary house spider in Japan. When it was reincarnated with the students, the goddess D grafted a part of her soul and a set of modified memories onto the spider]]. |
| 219 | * ''Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse'': |
| 220 | ** The Choblik race are cyborgs; they were previously merely smarter-than-usual woodland creatures. The "Great Builders" installed their implants, artificially giving them sapience. This unknown race of Builders are considered the Choblik equivalent of "gods". Torvig Bu-kar-nguv from ''Literature/StarTrekTitan'' is a Choblik. |
| 221 | ** In ''Literature/StarTrekVanguard'', it's revealed that the [[spoiler:Tholians]] were also originally this, gaining sapience after being "domesticated" by the Shedai. |
| 222 | * Creator/JohnScalzi's ''Literature/StarterVillain2023'' includes uplifted cats, dolphins, and humpback whales. The cats are management. The dolphins and [[spoiler: eventually the whales]] are unionized and strike for better work conditions in the villain's organization. |
| 223 | * In ''Literature/SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic'', a polar bear commands a space station. |
| 224 | * In Creator/AlanDeanFoster's ''Taken'' trilogy, one of the main characters is a dog named George who has been abducted by aliens and given human-level intelligence and the ability to communicate. |
| 225 | * ''The Terraformers'' by Annalee Newitz takes place in a distant future where the technology to uplift animals is a long-established part of the setting, being set nearly 60,000 years after "the Great Bargain" when the technology became accessible. Among others, the book shows uplifted moose, cats, cows, dogs, naked mole rats, beavers, and ''worms''. In fact, the only regular animals left are the ones used for ecosystem maintenance, and when a corporation starts making animal cows for milk it disturbs people. |
| 226 | * The ''Literature/TortallUniverse'' has a fantasy version thanks to events in ''Literature/TheImmortals''. As a side-effect of her immensely powerful wild magic, Daine makes any animal that spends an extended amount of time in her company more intelligent even if she doesn't interact with it. If she ''does'', it gets smarter faster--and since she lives in the Palace for a while, every animal there is spookily intelligent (and very helpful to [[Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall Page Keladry]].) She can do it deliberately but on the whole dislikes this happening because it just makes life more difficult for them. The intelligence can range from full sentience (her pony Cloud is on this level thanks to biting her once and ingesting a bit of blood) to just smarter than average. |
| 227 | * ''Literature/{{Tuskers}}'' has the descendants of an escaped javelina (an animal related to pigs that's found from Arizona to Brazil, also known as a peccary) become human-hating genius killing machines who lead an army of their kind on a small Arizona town. |
| 228 | * ''Literature/WarWithNoName'' series by Creator/RobertRepino: The Change caused animals to become more intelligent and anthropomorphic, giving them the ability to talk, understand human speech… and hold a lethal grudge against their owners for being their long-time oppressors. |
| 229 | * The Creator/DeanKoontz novel ''Literature/{{Watchers}}'' features an uplifted [[AuthorAppeal golden retriever]] with near-human intelligence. He can't talk, so he spells out words using a few games worth of Scrabble tiles. |
| 230 | * In Simon Hawke's ''Wizard'' series, thaumagenes are augmented pets created by Magitek-powered genetic engineering. All are sentient and capable of speech, and some also exhibit [[MixAndMatchCritters Mix-and-Match Critter]] or {{Mechanical Lifeform|s}} traits. |
| 231 | * ''Literature/WordOfMouse'': Isaiah and his family are all [[AnimalTesting lab animals who have been subjected to experimentation]]. One of the side-effects of it is being able to read and write words, and [[TalkingAnimal communicate with humans]]. |
| 232 | * ''Literature/ZonesOfThought'': One otherwise extremely intelligent race in ''A Fire Upon the Deep'' relies on an archaic piece of cybernetics to give them a long-term memory, a device they're still so grateful to their ancient benefactors for that they consider tampering with its design tantamount to heresy. This turns out to have been a Really Bad Idea when its revealed [[spoiler:their mysterious benefactors were actually the BigBad EldritchAbomination of the novel, using them as part of a ThanatosGambit through a MindControl back door feature of the devices]]. |
| 233 | [[/folder]] |
| 234 | |
| 235 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 236 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders Planet of the Spiders]]", the Eight Legs are ordinary Earth spiders who gained intelligence and psychic abilities after prolonged exposure to the blue crystals on Metebelis III. |
| 237 | * Subverted by Fiji's cat on ''Series/MidnightTexas''. In season 1, we're meant to think he's her {{familiar}}. In season 2, we learn he's actually a human transformed by Fiji's aunt, his former lover, to protect him from a dark curse. |
| 238 | * Subverted by Salem in ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'', who is a human transformed into a cat as punishment for past misdeeds. |
| 239 | * ''Series/VRTroopers'': Jeb, Ryan's pet Redbone Coonhound, gained human intelligence and speech when he was accidentally caught in a power surge in their base in the series opener. |
| 240 | * The eponymous character of ''Series/{{Zoboomafoo}}'', a sifaka lemur, is sapient, but won't talk until after he's had his snack. |
| 241 | [[/folder]] |
| 242 | |
| 243 | [[folder:Podcasts]] |
| 244 | * The ''Jade Regent'' Campaign from ''Podcast/{{RPGMP3}}'' features a character called Skygni, who's a magically Awakened [[KillItWithIce frost]]-{{breath|Weapon}}ing [[AnIcePerson Winter]] [[SavageWolves Wolf]]. He swore a [[MagicallyBindingContract Blood Oath]] (under duress) to [[TokenEvilTeammate not eat people]]. Well, at least not the ones travelling with the heroes' caravan, anyway. |
| 245 | [[/folder]] |
| 246 | |
| 247 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 248 | * The title character in ''Radio/SeymourTheFractalCat'' is granted intelligence and the ability to speak to humans (or, more precisely, to [[CatsAreSnarkers snark at them]]) by a sentient computer network, all as part of their somewhat quirky plan for world domination. |
| 249 | [[/folder]] |
| 250 | |
| 251 | [[folder:Myths & Religion]] |
| 252 | * A particularly grisly variant is found in Thai folklore, where it is believed that a tiger can gain human intelligence and/or become a [[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent weretiger]] by eating human flesh. |
| 253 | * In a similar vein, the Danish believed that [[CreepyCrows ravens]] who ate the body of a chieftain became ''valravn'', with human intelligence and supernatural powers. |
| 254 | [[/folder]] |
| 255 | |
| 256 | [[folder:Roleplay]] |
| 257 | * ''Roleplay/VoidOfTheStars'' has the Dolphins, who are now a spacefaring species. |
| 258 | [[/folder]] |
| 259 | |
| 260 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 261 | * ''TabletopGame/AfterTheBomb'' features an apocalypse caused by a SyntheticPlague that wiped out most of humanity and accidentally spliced human genes into several animal species who have inherited the earth in the aftermath. |
| 262 | * ''TabletopGame/TheChroniclesOfAeres'': The beast-god Tolgamyr was unable to create his own race from scratch like his counterparts. He discovered a workaround and created his own race of followers, the [[BeastMan Wilderkind]], by voluntarily granting humanoid forms and intelligence to the beasts of the [[EnchantedForest Gruncrist Forest]] where he dwelled. There are rumors of {{Talking Animal}}s, the rare remnants of a FlawedPrototype of the ritual. He later discovered he could also [[{{animorphism}} transform humans into Wilderkind as well]], granting this as a boon to the settlers of the Gruncrist so they would have the strength they needed to repel an army of orcs and goblins. Tolgamyr is known to continue to uplift animals into Wilderkind even in the present day, although both "origins" of Wilderkind are true-breeding. |
| 263 | * ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'': |
| 264 | ** The Moreau are genetic/magically uplifted animals, from tigers to rats to orcas, used for military purposes. |
| 265 | ** In the Urban Arcana setting, it is possible to give sentience to an animal or plant, increasing his/her Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma, and even giving him the ability to speak. Doing so is a complex incantation, and serve little purpose except for the more creative players/game masters. |
| 266 | * ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': |
| 267 | ** 3rd Edition has the ''awaken'' spell, which grants a normal animal human Intelligence and a Charisma bonus, and one or more languages. It also changes their type from "Animal" to "Magical Beast", so it no longer counts as an animal for most purposes. For example, a FriendToAllLivingThings druid can no longer order it around, he needs to use Diplomacy just like he would for a human. Although they are by default friendly toward the druid that awakened them. |
| 268 | ** In the ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' setting, the darklord Urik von Kharkov began life as a black leopard, but was transformed into a human by an evil wizard for use as a shapechanging assassin. That was just the start of his troubles. |
| 269 | ** On the D&D Wiki, someone posted an [[http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Uplift_%283.5e_NPC_Class%29 Uplift]] NPC class. It's been called one of the [[http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227249 worst classes]] ever made for ''D&D''. |
| 270 | ** This is the backstory for the Thri-Keen in the ''TabletopGame/NentirVale'' setting, uplifted from lowly sand beetles by a very powerful Primal Spirit. |
| 271 | ** The book "Savage Species" also has this in the form of a template a DM or player can apply to a "base animal". The template is even literally called "Uplifted Animal". |
| 272 | * ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' has uplifted apes of all kinds, plus [[SapientCetaceans dolphins]], parrots, crows, octopi, orcas, whales, and pigs, all of which are entirely common player character backgrounds.: |
| 273 | ** Actual biological neo-cetaceans aren't too common after the Fall since there aren't very many oceans left, a lot of them had to [[BrainUploading re-sleeve]] in more common human morphs. |
| 274 | ** There are also some morph designers working on synthetic bodies for various uplifts, such as the takko (a synthmorph shaped like an octopus), and whales who really want to swim in something can sleeve into a [[SpaceWhale surya]], which is designed to operate ''on the surface of the Sun''. |
| 275 | ** Uplifted elephants are mentioned, but they went extinct during the Fall. |
| 276 | ** There are also "smart" animals such as dogs, cats, rats, and monkeys who tend to have vocabularies of less than a hundred words. |
| 277 | ** The [=TITANs=] had their own projects along these lines, which gave us the Ny'knikiin, captured and mutilated "pod" morphs (essentially a synthmorph/biomorph mix) inhabited by the minds of uplifted mantis shrimp. Unlike uplifted animals that are part of transhumanity, Ny'knikiin are AlwaysChaoticEvil and are deeply sadistic (although strangely ''not'' infected with TheVirus). |
| 278 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': |
| 279 | ** Haltan ata-beasts and san-beasts are an example of this. |
| 280 | ** Sidereals can uplift their animal familiars, turning them into little gods. |
| 281 | ** The Lunar exalts can achieve this through the medium of PowerPerversionPotential... they turn themselves into animals, and then [[BestialityIsDepraved have sex with various other animals]]. The offspring can be rather more intelligent than at least one of their parents... |
| 282 | * ''TabletopGame/FengShui'' has primates that were given human intelligence by the Architects of the Flesh, a precursor to the arcanowave technology they would later develop. The apes TurnedAgainstTheirMasters and now work with the few humans of 2056 that are immune to the influence of Chi as the Jammers. |
| 283 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Mindjammer}}'' has "xenomorphs", not to be confused with the few actual aliens in the setting, which are produced from a variety of species and were originally created as slaves, on some worlds they still are. However they've established many colonies of their own such as the Sentience Alliance. |
| 284 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' 2e takes the Awaken Animal spell from ''[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons D&D]]'' and turns it into a {{Ritual|Magic}} that has a 1 in 20 chance of making the awakee instantly hostile to the casters. |
| 285 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Pugmire}}'' is a HumanitysWake setting populated by multiple species uplifted by Man before their extinction/ascension/disappearance. The dogs of the Pugmire Empire have attained a roughly medieval state while treating salvaged human technology as magic, with the cats of the Monarchies of Mau in a similar state, and the beastiary also includes sapient rats, badgers, and lizards. |
| 286 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'': [[SapientCetaceans Dolphins]] and Orcas are considered somewhere along the lines of {{Noble Savage}}s and allies by the Good seafaring civilizations. Their governments actually produce PoweredArmor that can be used by Dolphins and smaller whales, and assigned when they're working for them. The game also features Dog Boys, uplifted dogs created by [[TheEmpire the Coalition]] to serve as scouts and shock troops. |
| 287 | * The ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}'' game by Creator/{{Chaosium}} has [[SapientCetaceans dolphins]] as playable characters. They can move around using powered suits. |
| 288 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'' has uplifted bears as a playable species, no one knows why they were uplifted as it was during the Gap so they kind of struggle to develop their own culture. |
| 289 | * ''Franchise/{{Thunderscape}}'': Ferrans are a playable race. Wizards created them as slaves by giving traits of standard fantasy races to animals. Ferrans have won their freedom a century later with a bloody civil war. There are actually 3 branches of them: mammals (most common), birds (nearly wiped out) and reptiles (rare because of low birth rate), ferrans can only reproduce with ferrans of the same branch. However, they aren't the only [[BeastMan Beast Folk]] on Aden, just the most human-like and outwardly diverse. |
| 290 | * ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'' has Doolittle [[SapientCetaceans Dolphins]] and K-10A Postcanines, amongst others. |
| 291 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' has uplifted apes and [[SapientCetaceans dolphins]] (though you hardly hear about them), and the Vargr were genetically engineered by the [[{{Precursors}} Ancients]] from wolves. |
| 292 | * ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' has the Lupus, werewolves who started out as wolves rather then humans. While already unusually smart as wolves, once they shapeshift for the first time they permenantly jump to human intelligence. There are analogues in other Breeds too -- perphaps the biggest leap is the Ananasi, who can jump to human intelligence from being a ''spider''. |
| 293 | [[/folder]] |
| 294 | |
| 295 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 296 | * VideoGame/CrashBandicoot, is along with all of the other seen and talking representatives of the (mostly) Australian fauna a result of the animals becoming (mostly) intelligent thanks to [[BigBad Doctor Neo Cortex's]] experimenting with the purpose of creating an obedient army to take over the world. Which means that they can all call him Pa. |
| 297 | * You can hear two gangsters talk about [[{{Pun}} Dogmentation]] in ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution''. |
| 298 | * ''Franchise/DragonAge'' features the Mabari. A very large, muscular dog breed, they were bred by the [[TheEmpire Tevinter]] [[{{Magocracy}} Imperium]] using magic and meant as war dogs. They have high enough intelligence to strategize and to understand complex human speech (but are ultimately still dogs in personality). When they were used to invade the Alamarri tribes (the ancestors of modern Ferelden), the dogs turned against their Tevinter masters and sided with the Alamarri. The Mabari has been a symbol of Ferelden ever since. In the second game, Varric has managed to teach the Hawkes' mabari how to play a card game, and the pooch is apparently quite good at it ([[MyInstinctsAreShowing except when he wags his tail when he has a good hand]].) |
| 299 | * ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'': Rosehill is full of beasts turned into sentient, talking animals, courtesy of Psaro's Secret of Evolution. |
| 300 | * The Super Suit that made ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim'' has its A.I. interact with the wearer's brain in an entirely symbiotic relationship. When it fell into the planet Earth it landed straight on the humblest of creatures, a common earthworm that like all earthworms spent its life crawling deep in the soil and avoiding birds of prey. As it didn't find much of a brain to begin with, some of its energy waves were passed on to the worm, leading to its body growing larger and it developing human-sized eyes, a mouth and a (basic) brain. Thus Jim the champion of annelids was born. |
| 301 | * When the [[SapientCetaceans dolphins]]' most noble traits, among them Intelligence, are stolen in ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin: Defender of the Future'', they turn into dumb animals. Humans artificially uplift them in the Man's Nightmare levels. Well, the story ''was'' written by [[Literature/{{Uplift}} David Brin]]... |
| 302 | * In ''VideoGame/EndlessLegend'' and ''VideoGame/EndlessSpace'', the [[PreCursors Endless]] uplifted many species before their civilization was destroyed in a massive civil war. The Drakken of ''Legend'' are a race of dragon-like creatures that were uplifted, which has caused the Drakken to revere the Endless and study the artifacts left behind. [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum Dust]] has the power to grant sentience, sapience, and emotions in animals, which is seen with the Necrophages of ''Legend'' and the Cravers of ''Space'', both of which are normally unthinking killing machines. It can also [[InstantAIJustAddWater uplift robots]], as seen with the Automatons in ''Endless Space'', which gained true sentience from contact with Dust in a derelict Endless freighter. |
| 303 | * ''VideoGame/{{Extrapower}}'': King Leo, a 200-year-old talking lion who owes his sentience to a blessing of [[ThePhoenix the flame princess]]. |
| 304 | * ''VideoGame/Fallout2'': |
| 305 | ** The [[BioweaponBeast mole rats]] Keeng Ra'at and Brain were endowed with sapience by the [[MutagenicGoo Forced Evolutionary Virus]], although the former went mad and [[StarterVillain launched an assault on the town of Klamath]] with an army of rats while the latter became a benign cult leader in the town of Gecko. |
| 306 | ** [[ANaziByAnyOtherName The Enclave]] created a race of sapient [[DemonicSpiders Deathclaws]] ([[NuclearMutant giant mutant chameleons]]) to use as shock troops. Your GeniusBruiser companion Goris is one of them, but sadly a couple of weeks after meeting them the Enclave declares YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness and sends [[DragonInChief Frank Horrigan]] to wipe them out. |
| 307 | ** K-9 was a [[RobotDog cyborg dog]] also created by the Enclave and endowed with sapience & vocal organs. He joins TheChosenOne as an EleventhHourRanger, but sadly according to WordOfGod he and your other cyberdog companion were both [[DroppedABridgeOnHim confiscated and disassembled by the NCR]] for research into Enclave tech. |
| 308 | * ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': |
| 309 | ** The TeamPet Fou reveals at the very end of the first storyline that [[spoiler:he was ObfuscatingStupidity this whole time as he actually became sapient long ago via his power of Comparison. If humans are in conflict with another over something, envy each other, or denigrate their own shortcomings, he will instinctively leech onto that negativity to feed himself and eventually become sapient. However, if he gives up all that consumed power for an act like revival from the dead, he will revert back to non-sapience. It's later implied that this isn't as big of a sacrifice as it seems since he just starts feeding himself once he's around humans again and is becoming sapient once more.]] |
| 310 | ** Lü Bu's legendary horse Red Hare is eventually summoned as a Servant. Red Hare gains the ability to speak, and comments that he was an ordinary horse before the summoning. |
| 311 | ** The god Daikokuten granted mice intelligence and the ability to speak to serve him. The mice eventually get summoned as Servants. |
| 312 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': |
| 313 | ** ''Stormblood'' has the beings known as auspices, foremost among them [[TheFourGods the Four Lords]]: animals that somehow lived to be over a thousand years old, at which point they underwent a "change" that granted them increased intelligence and powerful magic. |
| 314 | ** In ''Shadowbringers'', amaro who live a long time become known as tupaq amaro, able to speak in human languages. They were granted sapience by mages in ancient times to better serve them, but the enchantment went dormant over the ages, reverting them to mere animals; however, every once in a while, an amaro reawakens their intelligence. |
| 315 | * This is the backstory of ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend''. [[spoiler:In the fight against a particularly deadly breed of the Avian Flu virus, humans created a virus to annihilate birds, who were unwittingly spreading it. However, while the virus killed plenty of birds it [[GoneHorriblyWrong increased the intelligence of the survivors]], doves and pigeons among the first affected.]] By the time the story begins, humanity has been vastly reduced and the society is now dominated by the entire columbidae genus, with other species having joined the uplifting -- the Prime Minister of Japan is a shoebill stork and the first puffin to hold office has recently been elected. The phenomenon is still ongoing: there are still wild birds, but even those are changing too. FeatherFingers is in effect, the birds seem [[AnimalsNotToScale somewhat larger]], and they live longer, though pigeons still have decidedly shorter lifespans than humans. |
| 316 | * ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheSeasons'': Nestlei was once an ordinary sheep, but gained humanlike intelligence after drinking from an enchanted river. |
| 317 | * ''VideoGame/InheritTheEarth'' is set in a [[LowFantasy medieval]] world populated by {{Beast M|an}}en and set against the backdrop of a [[AfterTheEnd ruins of human civilization]]. |
| 318 | * ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheForgottenLand'': The only member of the Beast Pack who speaks beyond animalistic noises is [[KingOfBeasts Leongar]], who actually speaks fluent English when talking directly to Kirby, because he's been [[spoiler:[[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed]] by the game's BigBad, Fecto Forgo. Then, when Leongar goes down, Fecto Forgo begins speaking through him, a clear sign that speaking this way is ''not'' natural for Leon. And because of this, his wife Clawroline (known at the time as Carol) stopped understanding him (she only spoke in meows).]] |
| 319 | * ''Legend of Keepers'' from Goblinz Studio has one of the [[FinalBoss 3 Masters]] -- Lira the Monkey Engineer. She was a regular monkey but was experimented on by evil monster scientists from the Dungeons company and she mutated into a BeastMan that's got [[WorldsSmartestMan hyperintelligence]]. In a high fantasy setting with largely medieval technology, she's making her monsters out of MiniMecha piloted by gnomes and it's impossible to tell if her technology is {{Magitek}}, or is it MagicFromTechnology by way of WeirdScience or both simultaneously. |
| 320 | * The cybernetic S'pht in ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' were uplifted so long ago, they weren't even aware of being cyborgs, imagining their machine implants to simply be organs like any other. On examining naturally sentient creatures after FirstContact, they're horrified at the realization that the "birthing operation" may be all that separates them from the brutish beasts of their homeworld. |
| 321 | * In the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' universe, these are mentioned as being regulated, though allowed in more permissible regions, where they blur the line between "property" and "sapient being". |
| 322 | * ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'': |
| 323 | ** Winston is a genetically altered super-intelligent gorilla, part of a troop of uplifted gorillas living in an experimental moon colony. The others revolted against their human masters, forcing Winston to flee to Earth and join up with Overwatch. |
| 324 | ** Hammond, AKA "Wrecking Ball", is a super-intelligent hamster who hitched a ride to Earth alongside Winston. He crash-landed in the Australian Outback, and spent some time fighting in mech battles using his modified escape pod. |
| 325 | * ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheUnwoundFuture'' gives us "Subject 3" a rabbit who was experimented on to be able to walk bipedal and talk. Though this has not only given him a pissed off attitude 24/7 but a nasty outlook on life and hatred towards all humans. Though he's TheWoobie if anything. |
| 326 | * ''VideoGame/{{Rimworld}}'': The Pigskin race added in the ''Biotech'' DLC are explained in FlavorText to not be genetically modified humans like the other races, but in fact pigs which have been genetically modified with human DNA to become [[PigMan pig people]], giving them human-level intelligence, an upright posture, and tissues compatible with baseline humans (indeed, they were originally created by some long-disappeared government to act as organ farms). |
| 327 | * Several characters in ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' are animals or fantastic creatures of animal-equivalent intelligence that have been uplifted to sapience by divine power. Some even got to skip human-equivalency and went straight to godhood themselves. |
| 328 | ** The Guardians of Guthix include the green tree python Juna, the gnomish war tortoise Valluta, the earwig Fiara, the automaton Cres, and the demonic Ocellus. All of these were granted sapience and powers by Guthix to maintain the banishment of gods from the world in his absence (he entered hibernation to abide by his own banishment); all but Ocellus were given precise roles in this mandate. |
| 329 | ** Zaros raised the vampyres from a pack-hunting animal to the civilized menace of Morytania. He also personally raised Nex from a barely sentient Nihil (a race of Zaros's own creation, which he considered failures). If you ask him about Ocellus, Zaros is surprised to learn his old pet demon gained sapience and became another god's enforcer. |
| 330 | ** Of the desert pantheon, Tumeken the sun god raised three animals directly to godhood and adopted them (along with Het, who was originally human) as siblings to his own children. Scabaras was originally a scarab, Crondis a river crocodile, and Apmeken a desert monkey. |
| 331 | ** The non-sapient gorilla Marimbo became a goddess after a god of merriment challenged her to a drinking contest, and drank himself to death trying to keep up with her. It's implied that they were [[MundaneUtility drinking from]] [[ArtifactOfDoom the Elder Horn]]. |
| 332 | * In ''VideoGame/SimEarth'', it is possible to do this to ''any'' creature, including prokaryotes, carniferns, and trichordates. |
| 333 | * ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'': The final Alterna Log reveals that [[spoiler:[[MysteriousEmployer Mr. Grizz]] is an actual grizzly bear, one who gained enough intelligence from human experimentation to secretly run a company and conduct various experiments of his own]]. The Logs also reveal an accidental example of this with [[spoiler:''all'' the sapient descendants of human-era sealife (Inklings and Octolings included); basically, when the last surviving humans accidentally destroyed their shelter, the special liquid crystals they had been using to store their memories fell into the sea and were absorbed by the local sealife, which granted them human-level sapience and directed their evolution in a more anthropomorthic direction]]. |
| 334 | * The space stage in ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' allows you to use a Monolith item to uplift a species on a planet, causing that species to, after going through the creature, tribal, and civilization stages, become a new space empire that you can deal with. |
| 335 | * Most of the space-faring species encountered in ''VideoGame/StarcomNexus'' are suspiciously similar to Earth animals. Later on, the player can find several separate pieces of information strongly hinting that the ''Morningstar'' was carrying several animal species from Earth when it went back 12 billion years to the early Milky-Way. Those animals were already subjects of rudimentary intelligence-enhancing tests carried out on the ''Morningstar''; they apparently got loose in one way or another, and over a very long period of time afterwards managed to evolve into fully sentient races and spread throughout the galaxy. |
| 336 | * Uplifting nearly sentient animals is a possibility in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}''. Typically, it's so a xenophilic empire can integrate a pre-sentient with desirable traits or a planet preference opposite the uplifter's own, like an ocean world native uplifting a species from a desert world. Or uplifting anything [[HadToBeSharp hardcore enough]] to survive a [[AfterTheEnd Tomb]] [[DeathWorld World]]. Xenophobic and/or Authoritarian empires may also uplift near-sentient animals, although their [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential motivations]] are likely far [[SlaveRace more]] [[SapientEatSapient nefarious]]. |
| 337 | * ''VideoGame/TheSunAtNight'' stars a heavily armed cybernetic talking dog from space who aids a rebellion against the Soviet Union. |
| 338 | * The animals of ''VideoGame/SuperCatboy'', including the titular humanoid feline, all used to be ordinary animals before they were experimented upon by the main villain, an EvilutionaryBiologist. Most of the villains' mooks are dogs, with Catboy spending the game fighting them while preventing more animals from being abducted and experimented upon. |
| 339 | * ''Franchise/{{Tekken}}'': The series features several uplifted animals as part of the martial arts tournament: Kuma and Kuma Two are both brown bears that are the pets of Heihachi Mishima, Panda is a panda who serves as the bodyguard of Ling Xiaoyu, and Roger the kangaroo, his son Roger Junior (and Roger Jr's unnamed mother) as well as Alex the velociraptor are all the results of genetic experimentation. |
| 340 | * In ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'', the [[MonsterLord Ethereals]] routinely go about the galaxy, pulling a TechnologyUplift on sentient species to see if they can master [[PsychicPowers "the Gift"]] without sacrificing their physical robustness, and drafting those who fail (i.e. every species to date) into their empire. With the [[BigCreepyCrawlies Chryssalids]], they tried to uplift a pre-sentient race... [[GoneHorriblyWrong and failed spectacularly]], resulting in a species of absurdly lethal {{Explosive Breeder}}s. At that point, the Ethereals more or less gave up and used the Chryssalids as nothing more than [[AttackAnimal living terror weapons.]] |
| 341 | * Animals who become {{youkai}} in ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch'' turn into {{Funny Animal}}s. Jibanyan was a NearlyNormalAnimal in life named "Rudy" ("Akamaru" in Japan) but is a bipedal, talking cat currently. |
| 342 | [[/folder]] |
| 343 | |
| 344 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 345 | * The rabbits of ''Webcomic/AntiBunny'' are a species born from escaped lab rabbits exposed to "U-cells." This caused them to rapidly evolve, becoming their own distinct species of sapient rabbits known as Lagosapiens. Almost no one knows about this. Every so often one of them also develops psychic powers. |
| 346 | * ''Webcomic/{{Epiphany}}'' has not only an entire world populated by Uplifted Animals, [[http://epiphany.ianjay.net/?comic=2009-12-23 it shows that the gods uplifted said animals as a way to]] ''spite them.'' |
| 347 | * ''Webcomic/{{Fifine}}'': Eventually Fifine and company find proof of the existence of humans, only to discover that they are all the descendants of uplifts. Animals were uplifted to be the companion to the last human child. |
| 348 | * In the ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' setting, chimpanzees were the first to be uplifted, but it didn't work very well, since they turned out to be natural sociopaths. Main character Florence is an uplifted red wolf, part of an experimental breed -- only 14 of them exist so far, out of an initial batch of 20 created. It has since been revealed [[spoiler:that her creator, Dr. Bowman, is the last surviving chimp uplift]]. In the ''Freefall'' universe, it's not just animals that are uplifted. Dr. Bowman, MadScientist extraordinaire, used his design to uplift ''[[AIIsACrapshoot robots]]''. Cue panic in three, two... |
| 349 | * ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': |
| 350 | ** Krosp the talking cat was given human intelligence by a MadScientist who intended him to become the "Emperor of All Cats" and use his cat army as spies and saboteurs. This didn't work, because, despite understanding and accepting his authority just fine, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome normal cats can't understand complex concepts and have very short attention spans]]. This ultimately deemed Krosp a failure and he was slated to be terminated, but Krosp was [[GoneHorriblyRight smart enough to deduce his impending fate]] and escaped, and eventually became a follower and [[{{Realpolitik}} advisor]] to Agatha, the titular heroine. |
| 351 | ** The Sparkhounds, in service to Martellus Von Blitzengaard, count as well. Though they're nowhere near as mentally acute as Krosp was made to be, they're still smarter (and larger and stronger) than a regular dog. He also uplifts an as-yet-unnamed female cat, who annoys Krosp (on purpose), [[spoiler:and serves Martellus as Agatha's weasel serves her.]] |
| 352 | ** The Bear soldiers are another group of intelligent animals, close to human, who were made by Martellus's mentor, [[spoiler:Krosp's creator, who made them loyal to him as well]]. |
| 353 | * In ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell'', it is suggested that birds were uplifted in our far future. When humans [[AfterTheEnd ruined Earth]], the birds went back in time and used an intelligence ray to uplift all animals, leading to animals evolving in the place of humans. |
| 354 | * In ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'', superintelligent gerbil Artie objects to the hierarchal implications of "uplifted". |
| 355 | * ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'': |
| 356 | ** Uplifted gorillas feature among Earth's citizens and armies. Later, a couple join Tagon's Toughs. |
| 357 | ** Elephants have been uplifted at least twice. The first round got intelligence; the second round also got a decreased size, the ability to stand upright, and hands. A member of the latter signs up with Tagon's Toughs. |
| 358 | ** In addition, a couple of intelligent chimps have been seen (one of whom was a corrupt judge). |
| 359 | ** Uplifted [[SapientCetaceans dolphins]] have been mentioned, including as participants in the UN. |
| 360 | ** Landon, a [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2014-10-26 polar bear]], was an officer in an order of non-violent peacekeepers, and later worked as UNS embassy security. |
| 361 | ** According to the RPG the alien Polyflorians were uplifted by the Gzeaul. |
| 362 | ** The Frellenti have genetic markers suggesting genetic tampering long ago but nobody knows who did it. |
| 363 | ** Kreely had this happen completely by accident; they grow up sapient if they're infected with a certain bacteria soon after hatching, but they encountered the bacteria completely by chance when they were already spread around the galaxy as food animals (their culture sees no moral issue with treating the non-sapient ones as just animals, leading to CarnivoreConfusion among other races). |
| 364 | * ''Webcomic/{{Sheldon}}'': One of Sheldon's early experiments resulted in his pet duck Arthur gaining human intelligence and the ability to speak. |
| 365 | * Frog of ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' is one who was made accidentally. He was affected by a bug that would increase intelligence at the expense of social ability when it afflicted humans. One bug affected him, and it apparently just turned him into a frog with an average human's level of intelligence. |
| 366 | * In ''Webcomic/{{Terinu}}'', Teri's race was uplifted from alien animals by the Varn for their ability to generate massive amounts of electricity. |
| 367 | * ''Webcomic/UNAFrontiers'' has the G.E.M.'s, Genetically Engineered Morgans, a gene-tinkered breed of horses incorporating cetacean and wolf genes to boost their intelligence and alter their behavior from "herd" to "pack" mode. An unexpected byproduct was the eventual development of psychic abilities as well, allowing a few of them to draw on the brain power of associated humans. |
| 368 | * ''Webcomic/{{Unity}}'' is centered around a {{generation ship|s}} populated by sapient descendants of terrestrial animals. |
| 369 | [[/folder]] |
| 370 | |
| 371 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 372 | * ''Website/OrionsArm'' takes the idea of making unintelligent species intelligent (as in, human-level) to an extreme, with over 138,000 Earth species as well as alien species uplifted, including even plants, fungi, protists and colonial prokaryotes. The in-universe philosophy of pan-sophontism holds that ''all'' life should be uplifted to sentience. |
| 373 | * In ''Literature/SailorNothing'', Himei's normal kitten Dusty is given sentience and the ability to talk by Magnificent Kamen. |
| 374 | * ''WebAnimation/ShadowstonePark'': The animals on Earth have been given the ability to think and talk [[spoiler:as a result of a BenevolentAlienInvasion. The aliens hoped that sharing the planet with talking animals would convince humans to stop kiling them, and each other, and eventually abandon their killer instinct to pursue a more peaceful existence. Unfortunately, HumansAreBastards and it didn't go as planned]]. |
| 375 | * The progenitors of the Canis family in ''Literature/WonderCityStories'' were uplifted wolves created by a supervillain before they gained human forms. |
| 376 | * Parodied and played for laughs in [[https://youtu.be/OHvc4CaHOy8?feature=shared this]] ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'' animation by WebAnimation/DoobusGoobus, where a Bulborb mentions that he went from a mindless Pikmin-eating animal to a TalkingAnimal with morals after [[EveryoneHasStandards being horrified from watching how Louie eats Pikmin]]. |
| 377 | -->'''Olimar:''' Wait, he was so disgusting that your brain ''evolved'' just so it could process the horrors it was witnessing?\ |
| 378 | '''Bulborb:''' Yes, and now I can comprehend my nightmares, which I've had ever since seeing them, so ''fuck'' you, Louie! |
| 379 | [[/folder]] |
| 380 | |
| 381 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 382 | * ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': |
| 383 | ** This evidently happened on a planetary scale some time in the thousand years between the fall of human civilization and the time the show is set. Sapient non-human animals are now basically the norm and are commonplace on Ooo; in particular, all dogs are now like people, and non-anthropomorphic dogs are only seen in locations outside of Ooo (such as Marceline's zombie poodle, which was born before Ooo existed, or the alternate Jake in the Farmworld timeline where Ooo never came to be). This is lampshaded by a character who froze herself from non-magical human times and finds herself in Ooo now. |
| 384 | --->'''Patience St. Pim:''' Yo, dogs didn't used to talk! Did you know that?! |
| 385 | ** The Vampire King is a perfectly ordinary, non-sapient lion... who was made anthropomorphic and highly intelligent when he became a vampire. [[UndeathIsCheap When the vampirism is cured]], [[DeathOfPersonality he is once again a non-sapient cat]] -- and he was completely fine with it beforehand. |
| 386 | ** The Cretaceous ice elemental Evergreen's apprentice was a talking green dinosaur named Gunther, and it's offhandedly mentioned by Evergreen that he stole an egg from a dinosaur nest and mutated the embryo's brain to create Gunther. |
| 387 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'', not only animals but also plants [[AnimateInanimateObject and things that aren't alive at all]] can become {{Funny Animal}}s because of the world they live in, although it seems that a lot of them are just this way because their parents were. Darwin, who was a pet goldfish before sprouting legs, is the only character explicitly stated to have gained intelligence this way. |
| 388 | * When WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain return in ''WesternAnimation/Animaniacs2020'', Brain creates an uplifted animal of his own. During a senatorial bid, he infuses Julia, an ordinary female lab mouse, with artifacts from famous First Ladies past. It works perfectly, except that Julia is sane and not evil and thus [[GoneHorriblyRight seizes control of the campaign from him]] until his attempts to mind-control her go awry, causing her to do a FaceHeelTurn and become his vengeful ArchEnemy. |
| 389 | * ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' has a gorilla being used as a test subject for an intelligence-boosting experiment GoneHorriblyRight. The gorilla is uplifted to roughly human intelligence, and promptly goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the poacher who kidnapped him and his mother. |
| 390 | * ''WesternAnimation/CaptainSimianAndTheSpaceMonkeys'' is about a group of non-human primates uplifted by a race of {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s. |
| 391 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Centaurworld}}'': Horse was a regular horse in her own world, but finds she's capable of not only speech in Centaurworld, but has multiple dimensions of movement (being able to point "like a person") and is literate, knowing what letters are now. She's naturally confused by all of it. |
| 392 | * ''WesternAnimation/ConanTheAdventurer'': Tired of the incompetence of both the Snake Men and his own minion Drix, Ram-Amon used the power of Set to anthropomorphize a common Stygian Gila Monster, hoping to create a much deadlier, more intelligent villain. [[GoneHorriblyRight He succeeded]]. |
| 393 | * An episode of ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' sees Dexter give a Yellow Lab the ability to talk with one his of machines in order to understand why the animal is freaking out over it. It turns out that it's not because there's something wrong with it, the appearance just freaks the dog out. The Labrador keeps his ability to talk too, which winds up backfiring for Dexter since he refuses to shut up. |
| 394 | * ''WesternAnimation/DnAce'' has Mendel, a squirrel who gained the ability to talk (and ResurrectiveImmortality) after being hit by a MagicMeteor. |
| 395 | * In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'', the [[spoiler:[[WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers Rescue Rangers]]]] are reimagined as this, initially appearing as average rodents before getting shot with a ray that makes them intelligent. |
| 396 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': |
| 397 | ** Fry's college roommate in "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E11MarsUniversity Mars University]]" is a monkey uplifted by the hat Professor Farnsworth gave him. He eventually grows [[IntelligenceEqualsIsolation to dislike his intellect]] and is happy at the end of the episode when the hat is damaged and makes him [[BitingTheHandHumor just smart enough to become an executive at Fox]]. |
| 398 | ** "[[Recap/FuturamaS6E9AClockworkOrigin A Clockwork Origin]]" introduces Dr. Banjo, an [[EruditeOrangutan orangutan]] and creationism activist. |
| 399 | ** Furthermore, "[[Recap/FuturamaS7E15FryAndLeelasBigFling Fry and Leela's Big Fling]]" largely takes place on an entire planet of uplifted apes and monkeys, including Gunther (Fry's aforementioned roommate) and Dr. Banjo. |
| 400 | * The ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "[[Recap/GravityFallsS2E6LittleGiftShopOfHorrors Little Gift Shop of Horrors]]" has a segment in which Mabel's pet pig Waddles becomes a genius after eating a magic mushroom. He eventually realizes that despite the great things he could do with his newfound intelligence, he'd be sacrificing the time he spends with Mabel, so he reverts himself back to normal. |
| 401 | * ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyTest'': Johnny's pet dog Dukey was originally filthy and untrained, and Johnny had no desire to train him, but also wanted him as his best friend, so his Super Genius Sisters[[superscript:TM]] genetically modified him to talk, walk on his hind legs, and be "very civilized" (they also made him a master martial artist and accountant). Dukey became the [[NonHumanSidekick sidekick]] for all of Johnny's adventures. He's also the [[OnlySaneMan voice of reason]], not just to Johnny but his sisters as well, constantly calling their experiments unsafe, insane, and pointing out that everyone on the show is pretty much nuts. |
| 402 | * ''WesternAnimation/KipoAndTheAgeOfWonderbeasts'' takes place in a future post-apocalyptic Earth where all animals have been mutated, with many of them developing sentience. In season two, it is revealed that [[spoiler:a group of human scientists have been working to figure out what caused this so they can reverse the process. Lio and Song succeed in uplifting an animal, but hide that information because they realize it would be wrong to reverse the process. Dr. Emilia subverts this trope in the last season by developing a cure for mutation, and her darts turn any mutant into an ordinary animal]]. |
| 403 | * [[CatFolk The Leopard Men]] from ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTarzan'' were all made sapient by Queen La's dark magic. When La is killed in their second appearance in their show, the magic spell cast upon them is broken, and as a result they all turn back into ordinary leopards. |
| 404 | * ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'': In "[[Recap/LoveDeathAndRobotsThreeRobots Three Robots]]", cats have been given thumbs and the ability to speak like humans shortly before [[spoiler:[[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness they ended human civilization]]]]. |
| 405 | * The eponymous character of ''WesternAnimation/MarthaSpeaks'' apparently gained her ability to talk from having alphabet soup go into her brain instead of her stomach. [[{{Pun}} You know how much trouble you can get into when things go to your head]]. [[SuspensionOfDisbelief While it doesn't make much sense to begin with]], it makes even less sense that, if the soup is missing certain letters, she would not be able to say said letters causing her speech to become gibberish, and if she is fed from the can being open upside down, it causes her to say the opposite of what she means, and if she eats alphabet soup from another language she can only speak that language until it wears off. It apparently only works with [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane one certain brand]]. |
| 406 | * ''Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse'': |
| 407 | ** In ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower'', Spirit is first transformed into Swift Wind to be She-Ra's animal sidekick. It's implied that this is actually a reverse of [[WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse1983 Battle Cat]]'s situation: Swift Wind is his true form, looking like a normal horse is just a disguise. This may be why Spirit can still talk when he's not a WingedUnicorn. |
| 408 | ** In ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'', Swift Wind used to be an ordinary horse until Adora accidentally turned him into a WingedUnicorn, which also gave him the ability to speak. |
| 409 | --->''"I've had the ability to form complex thoughts for, like, a week, and even I know you can't help anyone by hiding."'' |
| 410 | * According to their show's ExpositoryThemeTune, WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain are sapient because "their genes have been spliced". With what is never explained. |
| 411 | * In ''WesternAnimation/PlanetSheen'', the atmosphere of Zeenu apparently does this. One of the main characters is a chimp from the old space program who crashed there and gradually developed sentience, and in one episode they find another Earth primate, this one from the Russian space program, who did as well. |
| 412 | * In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'', Professor Utonium accidentally does this to his pet chimpanzee, who would become the girls' arch-enemy Mojo Jojo. Mojo's [[WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirlsMovie first scheme]] (chronologically) is to do the same with all of the primates in the local zoo, creating a swarm of villains themed on their species, such as Hota Wota, a Japanese snow monkey. [[RecurringExtra The Talking Dog]] may be an example too. |
| 413 | * The subplot of the ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' episode "[[Recap/RickAndMortyS1E2LawnmowerDog Lawnmower Dog]]" has Morty's father Jerry frustrated by Morty's dog, Snuffles, ignoring commands, peeing inside, and constantly begging to go out and come back inside over and over for no reason. Jerry asks Rick for a device to make the dog smarter which Rick, reluctantly, agrees to, giving Snuffles a helmet that [[WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong boosts his intelligence]]. At first, it works perfectly, the dog suddenly understands all their commands, even ones it hasn't been trained with at all. However, we learn that Rick originally set the helmet to operate well below its full potential, and after Snuffles realizes and figures out how to crank it up to 100% (putting in a second double-a battery), he becomes intelligent enough to create a device that allows him to speak English, then a MiniMecha, which he uses to replicate his helmet and create an army of superintelligent canines. It doesn't help that he's still pretty sore at Morty's family over being recently neutered. |
| 414 | -->'''Snuffles:''' Where are my testicles, Summer? They were removed. Where have they gone?\ |
| 415 | '''Summer:''' Oh... wow... that's an intense line of questioning, Snuffles.\ |
| 416 | '''Snuffles:''' Do '''NOT''' call me that. "Snuffles" was my slave name. You shall now call me [[MeaningfulRename "Snowball"]], [[ExactlyWhatitSaysOnTheTin because my fur is pretty, and white]]. |
| 417 | * ''WesternAnimation/RoadRovers'': |
| 418 | ** The title characters, except for [[FurryConfusion Muzzle]]. They can fly planes, pilot boats and submarines, and perform fairly complex mathematical equations on the fly. Collen's enhanced intelligence partially remains even in the episode where [[spoiler:she's [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext turned into a werewolf]]]]. |
| 419 | ** It's implied that Muzzle cannot be fully "uplifted" due to being completely insane. [[spoiler:Turns out it's because he was driven insane by a shoddy knockoff of the uplifting technology.]] |
| 420 | ** It's later revealed that [[spoiler:General Parvo]] is an uplifted cat, a result of the Master's shady assistant performing unauthorized tests. The helmet is to hide the ears. |
| 421 | ** [[spoiler:Groomer]] successfully uplifted three cats at one point, and they were quite loyal to [[spoiler:her]]. The Road Rovers busted it up, though. |
| 422 | * ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' has the Canine Archeologists in the second episode, led by Professor Ut-er, taking Jack through the Ruins of what looks to be the City of Townsville. By now, the Talking Dogs can walk upright and even have British titles. |
| 423 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E15DeepSpaceHomer Deep Space Homer]]", one of the secrets NASA considered revealing to boost their popularity was that [[ApesInSpace all of the chimpanzees they sent into space]] came back superintelligent. The idea is shot down by one of the heads of NASA who ''is'' one of these chimps. |
| 424 | * The ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' story listed above was written for the unmade third season of ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM''. The main difference being that Robotnik and Snively were to be the only remaining humans due to being [[ButWhatAboutTheAstronauts off-planet]] at the time. |
| 425 | * While most ''Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' series depict Master Splinter as the [[WasOnceAMan mutated Hamato Yoshi]], [[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003 the 2003 series]] has him as this trope, showing him as a normal domestic rat (albeit one capable of mastering ninjutsu by simply watching his master) who was exposed to a mutagen. The turtles themselves are this trope in every series. |
| 426 | * The cattle in ''WesternAnimation/WildWestCowboysOfMooMesa'', thanks to a meteorite hitting their cow pasture. |
| 427 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Wishfart}}'': One of the main characters is [[TalkingAnimal a talking puffin]] named, well, [[ADogNamedDog Puffin]], who gained speech capacity and intelligence when Dez used his wishing powers on him. |
| 428 | [[/folder]] |
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