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But with so many sources of imminent demise, which one should you worry about the most? Well, you could try doing literally hours of research and science, but something will probably enslave or kill you before you finish. That’s why we’ve compiled an irrefutably accurate list of the races, creatures and things most likely to make a grab for humanity’s “Most Superior Race” championship belt.
The downside: They’re going to eat us.
Will they replace us? Dinosaurs are the only species on the list that were, at one time, the actual dominant species on our planet. They had a nice run from several hundred million years ago, beginning in the Triassic period and coasting right through the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago, when they suffered a global mass-extinction. That gives them several hundred million years during which they were the most powerful race and we were just a couple amoeba in their primordial bath water.
It was only after dinos were wiped out (possibly by one of the other races on our list) that the age of mammals began, and human beings took their tremulous position as Earth’s number-one superior race… for now!
Above: The end of the Cretaceous period marked the beginning of the age of mammals
Don’t make the common mistake of thinking the ruling reptiles are down for the count because of something as insignificant as “mass extinction.” Although our planet’s dinos are gone (with the exception of small subterranean pockets of T-Rexes hidden near the center of the Earth) Turok has shown us that space dinosaurs are still alive, thriving and mega-pissed-off. It’s only a matter of time before dinosaurs and men once again clash in the Ultimate Battle for Earth: Part 2, to finally decide who has the strength and indomitable will to rule Earth once and for all. That is, unless one of the other races doesn’t subjugate us all first.
Above: We do not know what weapons World War III will be fought with, but Ultimate Battle for Earth: Part 2 will be fought with knives and dinosaur teeth
Evidence and source material: Portal
Why they’re superior: While they’re not technically living and, even if they were, they’re more a single being than a “race,” we count them because of all the games we’ve played where a supercomputer has tried to replace humans. You’ll thank us when you’re prepared for the takeover.
Supercomputers take our unreliable human emotions and replace them with squeaky-clean logic and encyclopedic knowledge of the multiplication tables. They also don’t have weak fleshy bodies; instead, they exist as sentient lines of code and upgradable pieces of hardware with no expiration date.
The downside: Frequently, their cold logic and disassociation from physical form cause these self-aware sociopaths to see exterminating the human race as a good thing. Or, instead of genocide, they might chose to use their super-brains to put a stop to illegal MP3 piracy. Either way, it’s bad.
Above: One way or another, we will no longer be able to download this [Pirates arr bad – Ed. Note]
Will they replace us? The only computers smart enough to become self-aware and destroy us are located in the secret vaults of private organizations only really, really rich people know about. As games journalists, we don’t know all the details of those vaults.
Instead, we’ve gleaned from games like Portal that when the sentient software goes sour and starts psychological experimentation and widespread slaughter, the still-living scientists and technicians will quickly evacuate the facilities. The ones who make it to safety will, of course, be under non-disclosure agreements and unable to reveal the looming threat to the appropriate authorities. This will leave one or two captives (held for testing) and a handful of experimental weapons (left haphazardly lying around the top-secret labs) as the last line of defense keeping the artificial overlord from taking over everything.
Above: If you find yourself in one of these, it’s your job to save humanity
So far, this failsafe system has worked out fine for humans.
