The Hopeful Horror of ‘Humanity Lost’



From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh… it disgusted me.

A new exploration of Callum Stephen Diggle’s incredible ‘Humanity Lost.’ AVAILAIBLE HERE: https://linktr.ee/c.s.diggle

First Entry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxVjFYi-9JU

Once you’ve become a shambling mass of flesh… there’s really no cure.

Not in science fiction, anyway. Whether a character is mutated by a virus, or absorbed into a hivemind — once their body transforms… it’s probably too late. “They’re too far gone!” Another character might shout, just so we’re clear that person is no more, their humanity digested along with their physical form.

I assumed that ‘Humanity Lost,’ a graphic novel by Callum Diggle, would follow the same conventions. I assumed its narrative of an AI mutating every person into a warped nightmare would not be a story about humanity persevering. I was wrong. ‘Humanity Lost’ is a stirring tribute to how personhood can endure no matter how altered the flesh, and with a special edition of the first volume now available, I think it’s time to take a deeper look at this surprisingly hopeful dystopia…

0:00 Humanity Lost: New Horrors
1:08 Pustules and Boils
2:58 Unlikely Heroes
3:45 Flesh Machines
5:25 Vivisecting the World
6:46 Aliens Aren’t Cuddly
8:28 Gods of the Stars
10:38 Resistance is Futile
11:42 The Borg Scare Me, Okay?
13:44 That Other Pestilence…
15:01 A Light in the Darkness
16:30 Hopeful Horror?

Other Media Shown: Inside, Akira, The Thing, The Last of Us, Star Wars, Predator, Edge of Tomorrrow, Galaxy Quest, Mass Effect 3, Life, ET, Scorn, Halo Wars 2, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo: Anniversary, Halo Legends, Star Trek Beyond, Star Trek: TNG, Alien Planet, Expedition, Carrion

Copyright Disclaimer: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. All video/image content is edited under fair use rights for reasons of commentary.

I do not own the images, music, or footage used in this video. All rights and credit goes to the original owners.

♫ Music Used – Submarine (Inside), Read Access Memory (Superhot), Main Menu Theme (Metro 2033), Promise (Okami), Baptism (Bioshock)

♫ Additional music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio:
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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43 thoughts on “The Hopeful Horror of ‘Humanity Lost’”

  1. 13:16 maybe the viruses/hive minds/robot type zombies/just zombies are a projection of humans ruing animalls to help human culture?,
    chicken are litterlly the serviters in warhammer 40,000,
    research what happens=its a dystopia.
    if i still have the super power or the magic empath might be it?…,of getting information from eating people,
    (this is why thinking is dark/everything is bad.),i eat alot chicken/stake/other food.

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  2. Fun little science/genetics fact for those of you with autoimmunity conditions; there is a relatively high probability that you had ancestors that survived the bubonic plague. There was a gene bottleneck for protein coding for auto-immune response that happened during the plague and one specific variant, which is largely present in modern day individuals with auto-immune conditions, gave individuals a 30% better chance at surviving the the plague if they contracted it.

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  3. one of my favorite “loss of humanity” examples is in made in abyss, with nanachi’s “perfect” transformation juxtaposed with mitty’s “imperfect”, immortal transformation. that whole series is just absolutely horrific and heartbreaking, but its horror and worldbuilding is, in my opinion, almost unparalleled in its beauty and detail.

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  4. The first wave of the pestis black plague changed the carbon footprint of humanity so many died. It killed more than a third of the planet. And if people like Trump Putin and Biden and other corrupt demonicly evil people gets their way than i can assure you that it will happen again. These perversions of moral humans the very spirit of corruption manifested as man stands for excess and that means antibiotikum aswell.

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  5. I absolutely despise the All Tomorrows – or whatever they're called – works, mainly because of the bleakness of the story, and the frankly garbage artstyle. To frame my feelings about them into something you said, they feel pestilent to me, bonus points on that front for the viral status they have garnered.
    Aaand now I see this thing, and gotta say, I love it. The artwork looks slick as hell, and I'll always and forever be a sucker for a happy ending. Will look into it, thank you for bringing it up.

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  6. These monstruos humanoids that seem to come right from a Dan Seagrave cover art… A guy named Deicide… The sinister quality of the whole story… Seems to me that Callum Stephen Diggle is a death metal fan!

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  7. It’s been a while since I saw one of your videos and I must say the quality has grown a ton! It’s got an excellent Jacob Geller vibe of exploring one story through the lens of a shared theme in others and I think it works really well! Keep it up and can’t wait to see more!

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  8. I gotta say that I adore the overall theme of Humanity Lost's interpretation that the fleshy form… doesn't actually matter that much. Yes, it provides the foundation for our survival and experiences, but not our individual, spiritual existences. Obviously, major disfigurations to our physical bodies like amputating a limb will seriously affect us, but it's not like a big piece of who we are necessarily lost with it. It's why the cyberpunk idea of "adding cyborg parts will erode your humanity" utterly fails today, because our physical forms only define us as far as we allow them to.

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  9. Any body horror that dares to go deeper than 'wouldn't it be fucked up if your body was different' is fundamentally about agency, autonomy and authority – the idea of not being in control of yourself, of someone or something else dictating your choices, and not being able to confront it because it's part of what you consider 'you'.

    The real terror of Phyrexia in Magic or Chaos in Warhammer or countless other examples isn't that they'll destroy your body or twist your flesh – it's that they'll change who you are as a person so fundamentally that you'll lose yourself in the process.

    "I am weak. Make … me … ideal.” – Caress of Phyrexia

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  10. @CuriousArchive
    If you love body horror that's a little offbeat, I implore you to check out The Silt Verses. It's an audio drama folklore horror fantasy.

    Gods are real, and so common that they're practically mundane, and can be invented by anyone with enough belief. But as always, this requires sacrifice.

    It's got some powerful writing, and the sound staging is phenomenal. The visual imagery it conjures is just *chefs kiss*, not to mention the lore and worldbuilding. 3 seasons now.

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  11. I love the different between the humans technology compared to everything else, seeing the hard metal edges as opposed to the keratin shells of the ships is a cool way of showing how different the technologies are and yet how they are still some what similar

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  12. I like this opposite view.
    Fleshy ones make things of metal it’s fine, yet when metallic ones make fleshy things it’s horrifying.
    How disturbed we feel is probably how disturbed they feel.

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  13. I think i've said this in the last video about humanity lost, but its what i've always wanted in space sci-fi: aliens that look completely alien, but are important characters and more than just monster villains.

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  14. If you really think about it, we can call something a runaway Ai but it could easily represent a Runaway form of invasive Biological life? One that continues to spread and reproduce and alter other life forms around it..?

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  15. depends if the brain changes. the body is just the meat robot that we use to sustain and protect ourselves, so as long as the brain and its chemistry stays unchanged you are exactly the same person even if you're a bloated mess. The worst body horror stories are the ones that involve implied permanent alterations to the brain matter whether it be invasive parasite or biological engineering or somehow destroyed altogether.

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  16. Good example is: All Tomorrows , unwillingly transformed into the some of the most deceptite beings, however against all odds they succedeed against the creature that did this to them. All of them altered but still humans.

    The ending is ambiguous, if it was a unfortunate end or if something better happened, the story was always set as speculative history and we are left to decide how we want the story to end.

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