Let’s keep things simple two rules.
- No giving sentience, This is a no brainer issue.
- Let’s keep it to beings under the Animilia kingdom. “mutated virus/bacteria” is a common trope.
To start:
Let’s modify ants to have lungs.
Most insects are constrained by the amount of oxygen they can acquire through their exoskeleton.
Imagine how big they can get if they didn’t have that constraint?
Rewatching the newer Apes movies makes me scared shitless whenever I see a gorilla on screen. They’re big, loud, strong as hell, and smart as a person. Especially the scene in Dawn when the guy goes back to the settlement to try to negotiate and you just see that gorilla come out of nowhere and just scream at the guy.
And then I laugh whenever I see one riding a horse and think “that poor horse.”