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Bio Punk

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All the cynicism of Cyberpunk, but 100% All-Natural. We promise.

Bio Punk combines Punk Punk with Organic Technology and Bio-Augmentation, usually centered around genetic engineering and biotechnology. Expect to see a lot of Organic Technology, sculpted physiques and Beast Men walking around... or hopping, swimming, flying, slithering, etc. Many buildings and ships will be grown, and a general Womb Level aesthetic will usually prevail. Issues examined may include Designer Babies, What Measure Is a Non-Human?, what is human, various aspects of ecology and effects of modified crops/animals/bacteria. And you'll see Aesops (particularly Green Aesops about creating what you can't control), both real and Fantastic.

It should be noted that the line between Bio Punk and Cyberpunk is very thin, and the majority of cyberpunk stories will contain some limited Bio Punk elements. The line between Bio Punk and Post-Cyberpunk is sometimes even thinner and less gross, with Post-Cyberpunk sharing many more elements with Biopunk in addition to not using as many Cyberpunk elements as its precursor due to being a Fuzzy concept. And the last one is between Bio Punk and Solar Punk, which will usually use some elements but instead as a good thing.

In addition, proto-Bio Punk stories long predate Cyberpunk, with stories like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and H. G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau, making this one of the oldest subgenres of Science Fiction.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 

    Comic Books 
  • The comic book series Elephantmen deals with human-animal hybrids created in a war between Africa and China, and their struggle to reintegrate into society being essentially former child soldiers.
  • The X-Men series and its spinoffs trade pretty heavily in biopunk themes. X-Men (2019) has particularly emphasized it, with Sentinels — especially Omega Sentinels (cyborgs) and the like — being the ultimate enemies of mutantkind. Additionally, one of the future timelines (the 6th life of Moira MacTaggert) shows how while mutants surpassed humans through evolution, a third species, Homo Novissima, surpassed them both, because evolution became unnecessary once humans could alter themselves and their genetics however they wished, rather than relying on a random process.
  • Iron Man, while closer to Cyberpunk and the tech end of the spectrum in general, deals heavily in Transhuman themes and overlaps with this trope with the original Extremis storyline and Tony's self-enhancement with titular technology (originally nanotech that played with LEGO Genetics, later a virus) to be faster, stronger, a technopath, and contain much of the armor in his bones. This was later upgraded to the 'Bleeding Edge' armor, where Nanomachines were contained inside his body and could transform into his armor at a mere thought — and unlike previous versions, didn't have motors and servos, but a kind of artificial muscle. This had downsides, however, as it at one point allowed Ultron to possess him and transform his body into a replica of Janet Van Dyne's, and because of this/since Status Quo Is God, it was eventually purged.
  • Finder fits into this very well, being set in an After the End scenario where a biotech-based civilization collapsed, but many of its products, being self-reproducing living things, are still around.
  • In SCI-Spy apparently genetic modification with animals/aliens whatever is so mainstream that being a normal Joe attracts prejudice.
  • In Prophet, most of the Earth Empire's technology is a mix of biological/technological weaponry, not to mention the veritable army of genetically modified Clone Soldiers.
  • This is the core of the technology in the future colony setting of Adam Warren's Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone, with a smattering of Cyberpunk (like the ubiquitous neural jacks and Prosthetic Lass herself), but the biotech is the main emphasis, even forming the basis of the future slang used.
  • Orc Stain is set in a world where nearly all technology is Organic Technology, even when it makes no sense. Everything is a living organism of some kind, from weapons to soda cans, and the distinction between flesh and machine may as well not exist.

    Fan Works 
  • Most fanfictions that used science fiction category (like the BioShock series of fanfics and its crossovers) will use several elements from this punk for plot or backstory reasons.
  • Many fantasy fanfictions (like Zelda fanfics) may use some of this if the story focuses on human or non-human technology if set in Modern day fantasy or medieval times with seemingly modern day look.
  • Child of the Storm features the X-Men and Iron Man heavily, including many attempts to recreate the Super Soldier formula (with mixed success), and includes the Extremis virus, which is used by Arnim Zola to turn HYDRA mooks into Elite Mooks. The sequel, however, really focuses on it with the introduction of Sinister, who specialises in genetic manipulation and cloning, achieving, among other things; a Hive Mind of himself, which Doctor Strange later hacks and uses to hunt down all but the original, who's off the grid; clone Scott Summers and alter the clone's DNA to create Gambit and later alter it again when his powers start to malfunction; and create the Techno-Organic Virus that canonically infects Cable and here, infects Harry. More generally, the increasing options for DIY superhumans are noted In-Universe to be a developing problem, especially in places that don't have homegrown superhumans and want a deterrent of their own.
  • Plague Inc., available through Steam Workshop, offers mods in line with this genre: creating viruses that can make you a Splicer from the Bioshock series, turning uninfected humans into various monsters, or aimed at wiping out any remaining uninfected or unmodified humans.

    Films — Animated 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Splice is about scientists take care their genetically modified hybrid without being caught by their pharmaceutical company.
  • In Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue, the Cyborg Soldiers are genetically-modified mutant super soldiers created by the Foundation through intense gene therapy to be used in their intent to Take Over the World. The Hero itself also happens to be one who was infused with grasshopper DNA that allows him to transform into a rather monstrous-looking titular rider.
  • Proteus, based off of the novel Slimer.
  • Dark City has a primarily Diesel Punk aesthetic, but dips heavily into Bio Punk when it hits the story points about artificial manipulation of memories and aliens playing Puppeteer Parasite with human corpses. The creators of Bioshock have named it as a primary aesthetic influence on their games.

    Literature 
  • Monster Blood Tattoo seems to cross this genre with Steampunk and a healthy dose of nightmares.
  • Night's Dawn, a trilogy of well-researched Space Opera novels by Peter F. Hamilton.
  • In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, a sci-fi novel by S.M. Stirling set on John Carter of Mars-type world made plausible with Bio Punk technology given to the Martians by Ancient Astronauts.
  • Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris stories, especially the newest novel Finch are Urban Fantasy Biopunk, or perhaps Spore Punk, with the Graycaps' fungus-based high technology that almost passes for magic, as far as the humans are concerned.
    • Hell, in Finch we even get fungus-cyborgs in the form of the Partials.
  • Another Jeff VanderMeer work, Borne, is set in a Bio Punk post apocalypse, in a city where the biotech creations of a defunct company like memory altering beetles, giant security leviathans, and alcoholic minnows are facts of life. It seems to be a favorite trope of his.
  • China Miéville's Bas-Lag Cycle, though closer to Dungeon Punk, has elements of this with the ReMade: bio-thaumaturges can warp flesh, bone and biology to heal, remake a being as something new, or (far, far more often) to punish.
  • The books Oryx and Crake and its sequel The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood are set in the near future, and features many many bio-engineered animals, most notably pigs who can grow human organs for use in transplants.
  • The Dawnhounds features alchemical botany: splicing is a normal part of society in Hainak. Giant mushrooms are a form of cheap housing, and the plot is built around an engineered plague.
  • The Maximum Ride series skirt this genre, with the protagonists being genetically engineered bird people that were created by immoral scientists in order to find the secrets of immortality.
  • S. Andrew Swann's Moreau Series is a perfect example. The protagonist is Nohar Rajasthan, a half-tiger-half-human private investigator in a world where hybrid "Moreaus" (as in The Island of Doctor Moreau) are confined to ghettos as second-class citizens. The series also has genetically improved humans, called "Franks" as in Frankenstein, and aliens.
  • Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress, along with the attendant novels in the trilogy.
  • The Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld has fabricated Beasties created after Darwin discovered the "Threads of Life". Also uses LEGO Genetics.
  • The foundations of biopunk were arguably laid down as early as 1818, with the release of Shelley's Frankenstein — which means that biopunk was among the first science fiction ever published.
  • Another proto-biopunk tale that significantly predates the discovery of DNA is The Island of Doctor Moreau.
  • The West of Eden series by Harry Harrison is set in an Alternate History where dinosaurs never went extinct and the Earth is dominated by the reptilian Yilanè, who use specially bred creatures as everything from microscopes to submarines.
  • Brave New World centers around cloning, genetic manipulation and their impact on society. Arguably the Trope Codifier.
  • Eve and Adam is about a girl (Eve) who tries to genetically engineer the perfect boy (Adam). Said boy comes to life about halfway through the novel. Also, Eve herself is genetically engineered, to have healing powers.
  • Dune has the Bene Tleilax, who specialize in all things bio punk and all the horrible, nefarious ways in which they can be used — usually for the purposes of political intrigue and skullduggery.
  • One of the trademarks of Paolo Bacigalupi short stories and books. His anthology, Pump Six and Other Stories, comes with few different flavors. The bio-punk elements don't exist just for aesthetics of the setting, but rather provide the pivotal issue of given short story or important plot devices:
    • Pocketful of Dharma has an organic city, growing like a tree and creating protective membranes around itself, sheltering its residents from poverty and pollution around.
    • The Fluted Girl brings it to Body Horror territory, as the titular girl has her entire body (along with her twin sister) turned into a music instrument, allowing the twins to play each other. If that's not enough, then there is the head of security, Burson, a military-grade mix of human, jackal, dog and nanotechnology, with Chameleon Camouflage skin. Most of the "aristocracy" is made from Really 700 Years Old people that keep revitalising their bodies to stay in charge and alter bodies of their serfs according to their whims.
    • The People of Sand and Slag come with Bio-Augmentation so extensive, the resulting trans-humanity can sustain itself on titular sand and slag, regrown lost limbs in matter of hours, breath toxic fumes with no problem and generally gain Nigh-Invulnerability. The result is society of people that don't even understand what pain is and that can be (and are) completely indifferent to living in a Gaia's Lament hell-hole, because they don't need anymore sustainable environment to continue their existence. There is also a dog in it.
    • The Calorie Man and Yellow Card Man are set In a World… where handful of seed-making MegaCorps patented their strains of plants and sent artificial plagues to wipe out any other grains used in agriculture. If that wasn't enough, the world exhausted all oil it had somewhere in-between, so the calories derived from grain are the new currency, providing badly needed energy.
    • Pop Squad has medicine and genetic manipulation so advanced, humanity essentially becomes immortal, but to avoid overpopulation, procreation and having kids is the highest offense against the law. The titular Squad hunts down women crazy enough to get pregnant, while its officers struggle with understanding why would anyone want to have kids.
    • Small Offerings takes place in a world so extremely polluted, pregnancies must be done in two stages. The first one, known as "prenatal" is about using the fetus as a sponge for toxins within mother's body and dumping the resulting mass of cancerous cells into a biohazard bin. Then getting the real, second pregnancy. Yeah.
  • Vladimir Vasilyev's Wolfish Nature duology takes place in an Alternate History where humans evolved from dogs instead of apes. For unexplained reasons, dog-humans became masters of genetic engineering and focused all scientific efforts on this area instead of developing "dead" technology. By the 20th century, all devices, buildings, and even common things like paper are grown instead of manufactured and require regular sustenance (when was the last time you fed your house or computer?). All our familiar dog breeds are still there, despite a good number of them being the result of human breeding programs in Real Life. This is also explained by the early days of genetic engineering when plenty of Mad Scientists hid in their castles (yes, this happened in the Middle Ages) and tried to mess with dog-human DNA to improve their clans. "Dead" technology is a fairly recent development, as some inventions are better at their job than their "selected" (i.e. grown devices) counterparts, computers being the most obvious example. One of the greatest triumphs of genetic engineering is the so-called Bio-Correction, which took place hundreds of years ago and removed the "wolf gene" from every dog-human, removing their ability to kill without remorse. Anyone who even manages to kill another person is either insane or will go crazy and/or commit suicide. The Bio-Correction (which is a big lie of the Clap Your Hands If You Believe variety) results in a world with no wars, where murder is an extreme rarity, but where espionage has been elevated to an art form, and spies are the only ones specifically trained to kill without going crazy afterward. Interestingly, the author chooses to focus on the "espionage" part, simply using the Biopunk as a setting.
  • Slimer, which involves genetically turning a great white shark into a shapeshifting unstoppable killing machine.
  • Gene Wars covers the life of a guy named Evan from making genetically engineered amoebas when he was eight, to dying as essentially the last ordinary human.
  • Mira Grant's Parasitology revolves around a genetically engineered tapeworm designed to keep people healthy that winds up integrating itself into people's brains and setting off a Zombie Apocalypse. Her Newsflesh trilogy, about what civilization would be like after a Zombie Apocalypse if it didn't collapse, also counts.
  • Shit Narnia in John Dies at the End, which is an alternate Earth where technology branched off into this in the mid 19th century. It's also where Eldritch Abomination and Big Bad Korrok was born.
  • Genetic augmentations are abundant in The Nexus Series, for both combat and cosmetic purposes. Just don't go around using them in the US...
  • Nikko in Linda Nagata's The Bohr Maker is genetically engineered to survive in the vacuum of space. Likewise, the police dogs of the Commonwealth are a mixture of bio-engineering and cybernetic augmentation.
  • The Relic, which is about a Tragic Monster that Was Once a Man going on a rampage in a museum.
  • The Windup Girl is set in a futuristic Post-Peak Oil Thailand where calories are the most important resource and genetically-engineered organisms, including Synthetic Plagues, are common.
  • Bel Dame Apocrypha by Kameron Hurley, is set in the far future on a planet where descendants of Muslim colonists have split into two warring countries. Since this world is arid, water intensive animal husbandry isn't used. Instead, insects have been engineered to be the main source of protein and the level of genetic engineering is so advanced, the insects have become replacements for electronic equipment. Also, there are humans who have evolved on this world with the ability to control these insects via pheromones. The war between the two countries also makes extensive use of biological warfare, it's reached a point where the population has to regularly be checked and operated on for cancerous growths.
  • Genetic and ecological engineering play major roles in Paul McAuley's The Quiet War and indeed in most of his later work.
  • In Mark Hodder's Burton & Swinburne Series, everyday technology has been advanced by the Technologist caste with the two main branches being the steampunk Engineers and the biotech Eugenicists. Among the Eugenicists' standard innovations have been the specially bred dogs and parakeets used for sending messages, giant swans that tow people on kites, draft horses capable of hauling house-sized weights, and the broom cat — a shaggy cat that slides across the floor trapping dirt in its fur which it then eats. The Eugenicists have also developed transplanting brains and life extension treatments.
  • The world in The Egg Man is an alt-history variation where much of the biological weirdness comes from the way that humans evolved differently (the "bio" part) and how that has caused the rise of a modern society much more callous and selfish than the real one (the "punk" part). However, it also involves such things as people being employed as living computers, with their brains being artificially expanded to be larger than their entire bodies.
  • The Situation, a short story/novella by Jeff VanderMeer (also known as the creator of the The Southern Reach Trilogy) is set in a close-to-surreal near-future utterly transformed by BioPunk... with a large dose of Incompetence, Inc. and related tropes thrown in for good measure. The world described is most definitely not a nice place to live — the story verges on full-out horror in places, made all the more disturbing by the cold, bureaucratic tone in which much of it is told.
  • The setting of Twig is an Alternate History where instead of writing Frankenstein, Mary Shelley successfully invented an actual Frankenstein's monster. This dramatically changed the history of human technology development, and by the time the book starts in 1921 the rich can buy Stitched for use as personal servants, students at the Academy of Evil are giving themselves bio-augmentations, and the British Crown controls a third of the world through an army of monsters.
  • Under a Freezing Moon combines this with Magitek, as a Mad Scientist pieces together dead bodies, re-animates them and turns them loose.
  • Change Agent by Daniel Suarez, set 20 Minutes into the Future in 2045 where CRISPR has set off a biological version of the Industrial Revolution, is about an Interpol cop transformed into the criminal he was pursuing.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya takes place in the present day, but time traveler Mikuru Asahina implies that future technology will evolve along these lines.
  • This Mortal Coil (2018) focuses strongly on the setting's super-advanced 'gentech' Bio-Augmentation technology (which literally allows DNA to be rewritten as though it were code), and all of its potential applications and implications, for good and for bad. Technically it's not a straight example of the trope, given that gentech is powered by Nanomachines which generate cybernetic components inside the body, as well as enabling almost-unlimited genetic modification capabilities.
  • In the backstory of The Broken Earth Trilogy, there was a very large city known as Syl Anagist where the infrastructure and vehicles of were designed by genetically engineering plants and occasionally animals; houses are made completely out of living material, for example. This is helped by the people there being able to use magic from living things as the source of their technology.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In Babylon 5, Bio-Tech is the purview of the most advanced races. The Vorlon and Shadow ships are stated to be bio-ships, and it's hinted through their aesthetics, similar to those of the Vorlons and Shadows, that so are the other First One ships. To raise the tech level of their client races (Minbari for the Vorlons and Drakh for the Shadow) they grant them bio-tech (mostly ships' armor). It's also heavily implied in the last episode of season 4 that bio-tech is also the future of human technology as a human from AD 1000000 is shown boarding a bio-ship right before the Sun goes Nova.
  • Dollhouse is all about messing with the human brain.
  • Farscape features heaps of organic technology (from the Translator Microbes to the Living Ships), and quite a few plots revolve around genetic manipulation.
  • Kamen Rider:
  • Kidou Keiji Jiban has the Japanese-based Bioron, which has its monsters created due to genetic tests conducted by Kenzo Igarashi.
  • Orphan Black, a series about human cloning and eventually genetic modification, which explored the ethical consequences thereof. Most pronounced with the Neolutionists, a biotechnological faction who believe strongly in humanity using technology to take control of its own evolution, and who played a major role in the ominous Dyad Institute. Also, it contains lots of icky medical research and cybernetic-like biotechnological modified maggots implanted in people's cheeks in one episode.

    Pinballs 

    Tabletop Games 
  • In The Splinter symbiotic and living weapons aren't all that uncommon.
  • Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution includes drugs that release psionic power in individuals with the genetic potential for it, to say nothing of all of the lab-made monstrosities in the game.
  • Dungeons & Dragons: The Lords of Madness source book includes a "Fleshwarper" prestige class, designed for creating this sort of thing in a Heroic Fantasy setting.
  • Shadowrun offers Bioware, genetically modified cultured tissue that can be implanted in characters in much the same way as Cyberware. Bioware can provide the same benefits as cyberware, or other benefits, and eats up less Essence, but bioware is considerably more expensive much harder to replace.
  • Cyberpunk has similar stuff, albeit -at least in the rulebook- in considerably fewer numbers than Cyberware and like the latter cost Humanity Points, (though not as many).
  • The GURPS supplement "Bio-Tech" is all about Biopunk.
    • The Transhuman Space setting has Biopunk elements, including bioroids (biological androids), bioshells (biological bodies controlled by AIs or ghosts), parahumans and genetically-engineered oddities such as pharm goats (goats that produce drugs in their milk). 4th Edition Bio-Tech is heavily informed by Transhuman Space, which in turn was based on the vignettes in 3rd Edition Bio-Tech.
  • Eclipse Phase is Post-Cyberpunk, but most of the modifications available are biological in nature, and bio-morphs (bodies which are fundamentally organic— but still often weird) are culturally preferred over Synth-Morphs (robot bodies— derogatorily called the "Clanking Masses") or Pods (half-synth, half-biological bodies, the name comes from the derogatory "Pod-People," a riff on how the biological parts of the bodies are grown). For an example of the sort of bio-mods you can get in this game, see the Sex Switch— which switches your sex at will— or Eelware— electric eel cells for powering electronics or zapping enemies.
    • Also, the bio-engineered space-whales that live in the corona of the sun.
  • The aesthetic of the Simic Combine is something reminiscent of this, although not to the same extent as some of the other examples on the page. They are, in essence, to Biopunk what their cousins, the Izzet League is to Steampunk.
    • Phyrexia as a whole is also partly focused on this, though actual technology and metal, oil and severe Body Horror make it verge on conventional Cyberpunk
  • Rifts:
    • The Coalition State of Lone Star worries the other states as they create anthropomorphic animals and employ them around their labs and other secure facilities, however, the other states do approve of their output of Dog Pack Mutants, which fill out the lower ranks of the Coalition military;
    • Atlantis has Bio-wizardry, which can use imprisoned magical creatures to power Techno-wizard devices, and create superpower-granting parasites and symbiotes, up to large-scale replacement of body parts with such symbiotes, creating a "bio-borg";
    • The Lemuria book shows the Lemurians making their sea homes with Biomancy; Magic Organic Technology that is a lot more kinder to the living beings involved than the Splugorth Bio-Wizardry, along with armor and weapons. The Jungle Elves of Maga Island in South America use a more primitive form of the magic.
  • Splicers has an AI decide to take over the world and turn every piece of metal against humanity. The surviving free humans re-engineer their entire civilization around the use of Organic Technology, replacing with bio-engineered organisms their weapons, Powered Armor, AFVs, warships, aircraft, and Humongous Mecha.
  • One of the campaign settings for TSR 's Amazing Engine system, Kromosome, features a setting where Bio Punk and Cyberpunk coexist.
  • Warhammer 40,000 absolutely adores this trope. If we listed all the examples that its universe boasted, we'd be here until the cows came home. Special mention goes to the Dark Mechanicum and the Drukhari however, who take it to Brain Bleach levels of intensity.

    Theatre 

    Video Games 
  • Bio-Hazard Battle is about living ships navigating a world mutated by a global biowar to find a suitable place for the survivors of the war to build a colony and restart civilization.
  • This trope is a major theme in the BioShock series, in which genetic engineering plays a vital role in the iconic underwater city of Rapture, where the first two games take place. Thanks to a powerful, but addictive mutagen called ADAM, the city was capable of developing gene-modifying injections that grant extraordinaty abilities such as pyrokinesis, telekinesis, shooting bees out of your hands, etc., but at the price of addiction, insanity, and some truly nasty Body Horror resulting from both said abilites and ADAM withdrawal. And that bee-shooting superpower we mentioned? It turns your hand into a meaty beehive for bees to crawl in and out of.
  • Ciem 2 combines Biopunk with Cyberpunk and Spy Fiction. And a sprinkling of The War on Terror just for the heck of it. So in some chapters, Dirbine feels like a (mutable) Crapsack Town.
  • The Harmony path in Civilization: Beyond Earth is a path of technological development centering around genetic manipulation of both humans and aliens, nano-machines, and cloning. Harmony technology involves a lot of bioluminescence and organic curves. Just look at the development of their tanks◊, their gunboats◊ and their footsoldiers.◊
    • The Expansion pack introduces hybrid affinities and the Harmony/Purity hybrid also fits. Except where as just Harmony is more of a "at one with" nature approach (allowing for the alien version of nature on the planet), Harmony/Purity tends more to the philosophy of "Humanity Plus", using genetic engineering as well as lessons learned from alien life forms to engineer a better breed of human.
  • Escape Velocity Nova features the human race of the Polaris, who grow star ships and space stations of organic material.
  • Evolva gives this feeling.
  • Fallout is about stopping the proliferation of super mutants, who used to be human before they were somehow transformed into those creatures. Their spread throughout the wasteland is because The Master captures humans and exposes them to the Forced Evolutionary Virus to turn them into super mutants. He reasons that human biology is too weak to be able to last in the post-apocalypse, and mutations are necessary to prevent humanity from going extinct.
  • Final Fantasy VII has numerous examples of bioengineered Super Soldiers.
  • Fracture presents the world where the East and West coasts of the USA are split over biotech use. On the Pacific coast, gene modification and grown biotech is embraced as the key to humanity's survival in the post-climate change world, while on the Atlantic coast, it's banned and instead heavy use of cybernetics is the go-to future tech.
  • Spiderweb Software's Geneforge is this meets Dungeon Punk. The majority of people use Organic Magitek, which is exclusively produced by The Magocracy whose members are called Shapers. The process usually involves heavily modifying existing animals, plants and fungi. Oddly for a Bio Punk world (or any kind of Punk Punk as dark as Geneforge), the system enforced by Shaper control starts out between 'real life Democracy' and 'Post-Cyberpunk' in how bad it is despite being an Oligarchy; the one good trait they possess as a group is recognizing the responsibility behind the power to create life (they have all the right protocols to quarantine an island while remaining as humane as the real life CDC or WHO), and the main character is always a Shaper themselves working within the system as best they can... and then as the Shaper's creations go steadily out of control over the series, causing everything to get worse instead of better.
  • The Guilty Gear setting has this as part of its backstory with the creation of the titular Gears, genetically and magically engineered living weapons that were eventually hijacked and controlled into revolting, leading to The Crusades. Even in the present, where most of the Gears have been wiped out, there are still some that continue to pop up and cause trouble. In fact, protagonist Sol Badguy is both one of the original creators of the Gears and the original Prototype Gear.
  • The Half-Life series has plenty of elements like this, from the few weapons that are basically small weaponized aliens, to the Combine, whose army consists mainly of conscripts from their many, many Slave Races with various augments.
  • The main plot of the Killing Floor series is to fight off feral British genetically enhanced clone mutants that are later revealed to be created by Dr. Kevin "The Patriarch" Clamely, the original owner of that biotech company that enemies come from, in order to wreak his vengeance against the government.
  • Policenauts has shades of this. There are multiple types of bio-engineered Artificial Human (such as the Frozeners and Rebirthers), gene therapy is used for everything from organ modification to gender reassignment, and the setting's most prominent crimes are the trafficking of genetically engineered heroin and black market organs.
  • Project Altered Beast changed the simply magical nature of the original game's werebeasts to them being "Genome-Cyborgs" who can alter their DNA to let in animal features that make them anthropomorphic beasts. The enemies are also animals and humans who were killed and revived by a mutagen.
  • The [PROTOTYPE] series, about viruses that cause severe changes to those infected with it - the protagonists become Monstrous Humanoids who mold their bodies into deadly appendages and absorb other people's flesh for healing.
  • Quake IV makes heavy usage of this trope with the Strogg's technology, which involves the fusion of captured humans with their cybernetics, especially the Stroggification process.
  • The Resident Evil series is all about biotechnology gone wrong, with the first three games being about a man-made zombie outbreak engineered by Mega-Corp-turned-terrorist group Umbrella Corporation, plus a couple games that have mind control parasites as the true main villains. Not to mention the sixth game which returns to the genre's monstrous roots, and also a few genetically engineered mutants created by a couple of groups throughout the series.
    • The seventh game heavily implies that the true main antagonist Eveline was a genetically modified human-like mutant created by a different biotech corporation, who creates spores that put infected people under her mind control and turn the ones who stay under her control long enough into mutant-like slaves for her, as seen with the Baker family throughout the game. The sequel reveals that while the mold was cultivated by a Mad Scientist aristocrat, she was also one of the honorary founding members of Umbrella and was just as depraved as her student Spencer. Each of her minions uses a different type of parasitic creature to host the mold, resulting in the realization of classic folklore monsters to the townsfolk's detriment.
  • Septerra Core is all about Organic Technology. The core of the planet in the game is a colossal biocomputer with spines. Maya's weapon grows its own bullets. Not only that, but there are also Living Ships, which are grown by using Helgak.
  • In Technobabylon, the field of Gengineering allows for easy manipulation of organisms' genes to create new species. Many of the characters' jobs involve altering existing plants and animals on a commercial scale. There also exists a restaurant that serves cloned human flesh. Also, there are organic nanomachines called "wetware" which are used for many different purposes.

    Webcomics 
  • Where to even begin in Awful Hospital? Here, keratin is used as money and wood. The shells of vitamin capsules are used as houses. You don't want to know what they make life rafts out of...

    Western Animation 
  • Ĉon Flux inhabits a world where self-modification is the new makeup.
  • Arcane has the Undercity of Zaun where body augmentations and replacements are rather common and are sometimes powered by the organically-derived serum Shimmer.
  • Batman Beyond has strong elements of this with the splicers and Kobra cult who are heavily into genetic manipulation.
  • Buzz Lightyear of Star Command has the planet Rhizome, whose technology is based almost exclusively on genetically engineered plants (which is their way of living in harmony with nature, rather than perverting it). One episode, for instance, has Buzz and his crew switch out their normal Space Ranger hardware for plant-based suits to fight the energy-absorbing robot NOS-4-A2.

    Real Life 
  • Not really a huge concern as of yet, but western culture is well on the precipice of this being an actual thing in the not-too-distant future, with technologies such as the creation of organic body parts in labs being already being developed. The United Kingdom was the first nation to legalize the creation of babies from the DNA of three separate parents, and technology capable of actually modifying genes already exists (CRISPR, for example), although its capabilities are limited (for now).
    • Already, cloning is being carried out with animals on small levels, there are surgical gender reassignment operations and body modifications that use animal parts, which a few subcultures are adopting with punk and plastic surgery, touching on some of this trope.
    • Looking forward, nanotechnology has gotten a huge boost by integrating with microscopic organisms, and there have been other breakthroughs, like a prototypical memory storage device utilizing salmon DNA.
      • This type of technology even got its own Punk Punk in the OtherWiki when either Cybernetics or Bio-Augmentations are limited or banned put still retain some Biopunk elements.
    • A company named Monsanto has been working hard to make this a reality in food for years since mid-20 century.
      • It is worth noting that Monsanto is quite controversial in almost all cultures, and this is not necessarily a good thing.
      • It is especially worth noting that exhaustive, dispositive scientific investigation has concluded that existing genetic modifications of food are safe for human health and for the biosphere.note  Monsanto was purchased by Bayer in 2018, who retired the brand, although Bayer continues to produce the same products. However, research continues, and the context evinced by the preceding two bullets persists, in that the scientific consensus supports GM while a generally uncredentialed fringe opposes it. That being said, Monsanto has also engaged in some shady business practices and their heavy promotion of the use of pesticides has been linked to drastically decreased populations of bees and butterflies.
    • GloFish, genetically engineered, brightly colored zebra danios that glow under U.V. light, have been legal to purchase as pets throughout the U.S. since 2003.
    • Xenobots are biological robots created using the stem cells of frogs.
  • One can say this is Older Than Dirt, since agriculture depends upon the use of artificially created species. This is especially true for modern-day agriculture.
    • Dog and horse breeding are also forms of genetic engineering that have been around for millennia.
  • Today, a number of substances (insulin for example) are fabricated using genetically engineered organisms, usually bacteria.
  • Raelism, a religious group founded in the early 1970's by former French racecar driver Claude Vorilhon. One of their religious dogmas involves using cloning and mind-transfers as a way of achieving immortality.
    • Vorilhon actually created a corporation to research cloning, claiming at one point to have successfully cloned a human child. Considering the source, actual evidence is not forthcoming.

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