pantropy means the process of adapting humans through genetic and/or cybernetic means to thrive in environments otherwise inhospitable to them, such as outer space, the deep sea or other planets. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why this word is great
PANTROPY — [Noun] The process of genetically or cybernetically adapting human beings to survive unaided in environments otherwise lethal to them, such as the vacuum of space or the atmospheres of alien worlds. From the Ancient Greek παν- (pan-, meaning "all") + τροπή (tropḗ, meaning "transformation" or "turning"); coined by the American science-fiction writer James Blish and first attested in 1952. Unlike "terraforming," which sculpts a foreign world into a likeness of home, or "transhumanism," which dreams of transcending human limits, pantropy is a doctrine of radical humility: to persist, we must cease to be us. It is the grafting of gills for methane seas, the calcification of skin against perpetual radiation, and the slow rewriting of the genome until a child can breathe air that would sear its ancestors' lungs—the ultimate admission that the universe is not ours to conquer, but to join, on terms not our own.
noun
- The process of adapting humans through genetic and/or cybernetic means to thrive in environments otherwise inhospitable to them, such as outer space, the deep sea or other planets.