The concept of uplift can be traced toH. G. Wells's 1896 novelThe Island of Doctor Moreau, in which the titular scientist transforms animals into horrifying parodies of humans through surgery and psychological torment. The resulting animal-people obsessively recite the Law, a series of prohibitions against a reversion to animal behaviors, with the haunting refrain of "Are we not men?". Wells's novel reflects Victorian concerns aboutvivisection and the power of unrestrained scientific experimentation to do terrible harm.
Other early literary examples can be found in the following works:
Franz Kafka'sA Report to an Academy (1917) is a short story in which Red Peter, anape, describes his capture by humans, adaptation and mimicry of their behavior, habits and speech (originally in order to escape), and subsequent integration into human society.
InCordwainer Smith'sInstrumentality of Mankind series "underpeople" are created from animals through unexplained technological means explicitly to be servants of humanity, and were often treated as less than slaves by the society that used them, until the laws were reformed in the story "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" (1962). Smith's characterizations of underpeople are frequently quite sympathetic, and one of his most memorable characters is C'Mell, the cat-woman who appears in "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" and inNorstrilia (1975).
David Brin has stated that hisUplift Universe was written at least in part in response to the common assumption in earlier science fiction such as Smith's work andPlanet of the Apes that uplifted animals would, or even should, be treated as possessions rather than people.[4] As a result, a significant part of the conflict in the series revolves around the differing policies of Galactics and humans toward their client races. Galactic races traditionally hold their uplifted "clients" in a hundred-millennium-longindenture, during which the "patrons" have extensive rights and claims over clients' lives and labor power. In contrast, humans have given their uplifteddolphins and chimpanzees near-equalcivil rights, with a few legal and economic disabilities related to their unfinished state. A key scene inStartide Rising is a discussion between a self-aware computer (the Niss) and a leading human (Gillian) about how the events during their venture (and hence the novel's plot) relate to the morality of the Galactics' system of uplift.
The 1963science fiction novel by French author Pierre Boulle was adapted into the 1968 filmPlanet of the Apes, launching thePlanet of the Apes media franchise.[6] The series also explores the opposite of uplift, the reduction of the human species to a regressed, atavistic, savage-like animal state.
Starting withSundiver in 1980, Brin's six novels (and several short stories) making up the Uplift War and Uplift Storm pair of trilogies describe a universe dominated by a society built around a process of uplift, where full sapience is deemed virtually impossible without the intervention of another species through uplift.
Uplift is a major theme. Some cards have "UPLIFT" highlighted in the title and can help score points and achieve goals. Designer Tom Lehmann attributes the inspiration for uplift to David Brin's Uplift series.[7]
Before the events ofthe first game, theSalarians, a hyper-intelligent but physically weak alien race, uplifted theKrogan, a combative andrapidly-reproducing race, in order to defeat the Rachni, ahive-minded species, in an interstellar conflict.[8] When the Rachni were defeated, the Krogan experienced a massivepopulation boom and found themselves in conflict with other species in the galaxy. In response, the Salarians launched abiological weapon called the Genophage against them which only made 1 in 1,000 pregnancies viable, with the rest beingstillbirths. The ethical ramifications of the uplift and bioweapon are used as plotlines throughout the series.[9]
Three novels (also includingChildren of Ruin andChildren of Memory) explore how various earth animal species evolve and develop civilizations onterraformedexoplanets when uplifted by a human-developed nanovirus originally intended for monkeys.Children of Time focuses onspiders,Children of Ruinoctopuses, andChildren of Memorycorvids, though the novels have connected narratives and also portray interactions between these uplifted species and spacefaring humans.
Pilkington, Ace G. (2017)."Uplift".Science Fiction and Futurism: Their Terms and Ideas. Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Vol. 58. McFarland. pp. 145–149.ISBN978-0-7864-9856-7.
