Humanity first achieved working cold fusion technology in the year 2000, jumpstarting an era of space exploration and colonization. This push to develop technology to live on places other than Earth was driven in part by urgency regarding Earth’s changing climate, which was being heated gradually by a buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere created as a byproduct of hydrocarbon-burning industry.
While the wealthy financed off-world habitation and gradually moved away, material conditions and climate change continued to worsen on Earth. As global temperatures increased, regions of Earth became inhabitable to humans and sea levels rose 300 meters, triggering a massive refugee crisis and the failure of coastal infrastructure around the globe. Systemic intervention was blocked again and again by corrupt power structures and corporations who had already left Earth and had no incentive to spend time and money mitigating the mess they had left behind. Many saw the disaster as a “natural” solution to overpopulation on Earth.
In 2138, this tension finally came to a breaking point between US colonies on Mars and the continental United States, beginning the Second American Civil War. Allies were drawn into either side of the conflict with wealthy parties of many different nations seeking to control spreading dissent on Earth, among transit workers on Luna, and in the mining colonies of the outer solar system. This culminated in orbital bombardment of several highly populated regions of the USA, Russia, and China.
Although off-world colonies had a lot of financial power, they were ultimately relatively fragile and dependent on lifelines of mined material from the outer planets and resources provided from Earth’s biosphere. Supply line choking to prominent stations in orbit of Earth, cloud colonies on Venus, and Martian surface colonies began to seriously strain the resources of the off-world powers. The nail in the coffin for the war was armed worker revolts directly on American Martian soil and Russo-Chinese Venusian skies. In 2143, the former United States and Russia had shattered into a collection of independently controlled territories scattered between 4 different planets, and the war was over.
In 2145, a United Nations summit met on Earth to address the state of human space after the war and the climate crisis on Earth. Luna and Jovia were declared independent autonomous polities and the use of hydrocarbon fuels on Earth was almost universally banned.
After WW3, the genetech industry faced a large wave of public scrutiny and calls for regulation on more extreme designer baby body types and “company” GMH. Company GMH were clades created specifically for the private labor market, such as tailed spacers. Although these clades were generally not forced into labor on paper, in practice they were often financially and institutionally pressured into preferred private labor positions, or designed with bodies that made it inconvenient to work in fields outside those intended by investors. In modern times company GMH clades are nigh-universally banned under criticisms of being modern slavery; but creation of clades for civic or scientific projects or designer baby marketing campaigns remain controversially less regulated.
As part of the post-WW3 scrutiny, a set of legal guidelines for GMH bodies was introduced by international human rights organizations, and acknowledged by the UN. These guidelines are:
GMH who do not fall into these guidelines are considered off-model, and the parties responsible for the undesirable result can face legal consequences. Severity of the penalty depends on the degree of intent and negligence, meaning labs that can prove that the off-model results were a result of nurture, or unforeseeable accidents usually only walk away with a slap on the wrist and minor fines.
These rules also apply specifically to natal labs and genetic scientists designing GMO humans in laboratories from scratch; and not to adult humans consenting to body modification. Laws about the extent to which biomodders are permitted to alter themselves with surgery, lab grown limbs, and cosmetic gene therapy vary regionally.
The most commonly spoken languages in human space are English, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, and Hindi. The story mostly takes place in Anglophone space, and there are a couple of regional variants.
Jovian English is the dialect of English spoken in the outer solar system. It is a descendant of Martian English and the two are very similar, although accent, slang, and word usage varies enough to make them distinct.
Jovian English has three sets of singular third person pronouns. She/her/hers for assumed female humans; he/him/his for assumed male humans; and they/them/theirs; which is used for humans of unknown gender, assumed non-binary or unisex humans, or aliens (who regardless of sex comparisons, are usually considered different genders than human male and female). The extremely frequent use of they as a singular pronoun has led to the common use of a slang word "th'all," a contraction of "they all," meaning the same thing as a plural they. Its possessive form is th'all's.
Martian English more closely resembles the American English it descended from, and is spoken in the two countries on the surface of Mars that used to be U.S. States. There are other Anglophone regions of Mars that speak English dialects closer to the countries that their regions are affiliated with, but they tend to be influenced by Martian English because there is much greater lag between Earth than Mars locals.
Martian English speakers refer to some sophonts and technology differently than Jovians. Centaurs are called tigerhorses, wormhole generators are called gates, and bug ferrets are called gateworms.
Martian English shares the "she" and "he" of Jovian English, but disagrees on the neutral singular. "They" is not commonly used as a singular pronoun outside of cases of a hypothetical human or human of unknown gender, for assumed non-binary or unisex humans xe/xem/xers is preferred (x pronounced as a "Z"). Aliens, who are also assumed non-gendered, get their own singular pronoun group: xey/xem/xeirs.
"X" pronouns are fairly popular in tailed spacer communities and can be found in several different forms there, including both the Martian variants, xe/xim/xis, and xe/xer/xers.
American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual-manual language originating from the USA, a former nation of North America, from which it spread as dialects to other nations in Earth and space. It is a descendant of French Sign Language and although it commonly uses English loan words, it is not the same language. Sign languages that originated from different Anglophone locations on Earth, such as British Sign Language and Australian Sign Language, are not mutually intelligible with ASL.
Like most human sign languages, it is intrinsically tied to Deaf culture and is most commonly found flourishing in areas with Deaf schools and colleges. The largest communities of ASL users are found on North America on Earth, around institutions such as the North American Republic's College for the Deaf.
The cultural descendants of the USA on Mars (the SRM and MFS) and Jovia also speak dialects of ASL, sometimes referred to as M-ASL or J-ASL, but have much smaller, more scattered Deaf communities and fewer schools. This is in part due to how SRM, MFS, and Jovian medical care prioritizes auditory implants and gene therapy as a solution to hearing loss over sign language acquisition; and generally practices oralism, which is the prioritization of oral language acquisition over alternatives. Most of their hearing-disabled populations are older humans not seeking treatment, or unusual medical cases where implants and gene therapy aren't effective. As a result, the SRM, the MFS, and Jovia have not formed strong Deaf cultural communities, and have higher social isolation rates for those with hearing disabilities.
The subject of treatment and oralism focus verses cultural and manualism focus is highly controversial within Deaf culture and among medical professionals, and many young Deaf Jovians and Martian Staters end up leaving their birth polities to live closer to other signers.
"Spacer" is a generic English term for a person living off of a planet, though, in practice, it's extremely relative. Anglophones on Earth use it to refer to anyone who lives off of Earth. On Mars they use it to refer to people living on moons, ships, and space stations. On Luna and other moons they use it to refer to people living in ships and space stations. People living in ships and space stations... are one of the only groups to self-identify as spacers. So folks from Nexus Jovia like Talita, Idrisah, and Gillie would consider themselves spacers.
Ironically, though tailed spacers derive their clade name from this term, a tailed spacer living on a planet (like Shyam) would not be considered a spacer. The nickname for tailed spacers is the portmanteau "tailer" partly because it removes ambiguity.
Gene therapy is genetic editing that can be done to post-natal human body. It has broad medical applications and is used variously to treat cancer, autoimmune disorders, allergies, microgravity body degeneration, genetic diseases, and more. It is most effective at treating issues related to "soft" or actively growing tissues, but cannot significantly change adult bone and body structure. It is typically administered through a subdermal injection regiment. A small percentage of patients have severe immune reactions to these injections, or other poorly understood intolerances to the treatment that make gene therapy impossible or ineffective.
Off-model GMH typically go through corrective gene therapy in their childhood, which can help alleviate some of their worst potential health problems, but this rarely makes them on-model.
Gene therapy is often administered in conjunction with lab grown limb replacements or augmentations to decrease rejection rates. It can also be used on its own for minor cosmetic changes; such as hair, skin, or eye color; with varying success rates.
Although public perception of human genetic alteration has shifted significantly towards blasé acceptance in the couple hundred years since the first GMH was created, the laws and morality of pre-natally changing the human body remain hotly debated.
Supporters consider GMH creation morally allowable because no human consents to being born, so being born with six legs isn’t an offense to a fertilized egg any more than being born with the regular amount. Detractors cite the fact that changing a baby from the genetic default opens them up to possible discrimination and poor treatment wildtype babies do not face, and potentially increases the cost and failure rate of their medical care, as unforeseen medical issues later in a GMH’s life aren’t uncommon. There’s also concern from many activists about the interaction of GMHs and capitalism, where the phenomenon is seen as a result of late 21st century capitalism shifting the Overton window on human cloning for its own financial benefit at the expense of human welfare, and this kind of designer baby is only seen as acceptable in modern times because of the existence of other humans who have already been altered in this way.
Even GMH themselves tend to have pretty varied views on the legality and morality of making more GMHs. Although the continued existence of reproductively stable clades is considered a non-issue, the whole issue is confused by the fact some clades, like androtherians, are far too diverse for most members to have healthy, genetically similar children without natal lab intervention. Children between two members of different clades essentially require a lab.
Social treatment of GMH varies wildly depending on their clade and class history.
Many androtherians are descendants of historically wealthier families, having been created mostly as designer babies or novelties. The material conditions for modern androtherians are quite variable, but they are often assumed to be upper middle class. They tend to be an insular group in the modern day, seeking other androtherians as partners but frequently designing their offspring to have unique traits that they personally find interesting. Androtherians are still a popular choice for typ parents seeking designer babies, and there is a cultural divide between the androtherian children of typs (sometimes called "typ orphans") and androtherian children of androtherians (sometimes called "pedigree kids"). The former may feel bitter about being born outside the community of the latter, or actively seek it as an adult.
Unique GMH are a modern status symbol, and are rarely not from money. The typical presumption is that the more unusual the design, the more money went into making them, and the weirder and more distant their parents are. Unique GMH are sometimes sarcastically referred to as the "ultimate designer pet." They frequently have difficulty finding partners, for a number of reasons. They are definitionally not in the same reproductive group as any other humans, often have appearances that are striking but not conventionally attractive, and many are socially awkward as a result of their position. Typs dating unique GMH are often assumed to be gold diggers or trophy partners.
Tailed spacers have a long and complex history as company GMH originally created as indentured microgravity labor, and a unique flavor of bigotry gets directed at them by other humans. Tailers are simultaneously presumed to be the best choice for any microgravity job, and resented for "taking" those jobs from other humans. Tailers working outside of the aerospace or on the ground may be especially poorly treated, as they are seen as rejecting a "free career," and inferior to other human workers on the ground. Other stereotypes paint tailers as conspiratorial, duplicitous, demanding, and willing to throw anyone under the bus for other members of their clade. This is partly a reaction to tailer labor rights movements, community solidarity, and their perceived "takeover" of Luna post-WWIII.
Cetasers have some similar problems to tailed spacers when seeking life outside of their perceived "built-in" jobs. Most of their communities live in coastal regions of Earth, and they are fairly rare elsewhere. Their bodies are rather awkward out of water and accommodations for their shape are rare off Earth. Other humans tend to perceive them as clumsy, unkempt, "wild," or innately in touch with Earth and the natural world. Extremely exaggerated rumors circulate about them being able to communicate with whales and dolphins.
Magpie Bridgers avoided some of the "built-in job" resentment that tailers and Cetasers get, mostly because the project they were designed for is stuck in development hell. Within their home country they are seen as having been a waste of government money on a frivolous utopia project when there were much more prescient problems that could have used the attention; outside China they are mostly seen as an oddity or just another bird-winged GMH. They find themselves a target of Sinophobia more often than GMH-related discrimination.
Off-model GMH face compound discrimination, as they are often visibly "ugly" or "imperfect," and many have disabilities related to their genetic status. They make an easy target for run-of-the-mill bullies looking for someone to torment, and may face employment discrimination as a result of their disabilities. Some off-model GMH, like Gillie, will choose to selectively conceal their off-model traits in an effort to avoid assholes.
Most of the discrimination GMH face comes from fellow humans, but skimmer avians are more likely than any of the other aliens to harass GMHs. The reason is a little esoteric: There’s a cluster of old skimmer religions that states in doctrine that there was originally one avian species, and then after a fall from grace they were split into multiple imperfect species. This myth has historically been used to justify colonialism and treatment of the other members of their genus as lesser beings. The story, whether or not it's interpreted literally, still has a lot of cultural power. So, in the eyes of many avians, humans are falling from grace in real time– enacting the beginning of a mythic history that has created a lot of strife on their planet. Skimmer avians tend to see GMH either as a huge mistake that will result in interspecies war, or as a place to project their racist anger at other avians that won’t get them in trouble (with other avians).
"GMH" generally refers to humans that were altered pre-natally. Biomodders take up the process as adults, which eliminates most of the moral ambiguity, as they can consent to the changes and understand the potential complications. It's close in spirit to extreme body modification.
But as adults with a fixed body frame, there are limits to what can be modded– most plastic surgeons are only willing to culture and swap out soft tissue, and gene therapy is usually required during the healing process for grafts to be accepted. Muscular additions are a bit of a crapshoot because there’s no telling how well the brain will adapt to and learn to control new muscle tissue.
The feelings designer GMH have about typ biomodders are often slightly hostile. While a GMH doesn’t elect to have the body they do and can be subject to medical problems and discrimination for it, a biomodder opts into almost the same situation for few reasons other than aesthetic preference. Some typ biomodders also very much want to be considered GMH, or attempt to "pass" as GMH in order to join their communities, which is considered rude at best. This is an over-reported phenomenon, though— most biomodders are simply seeking to inhabit a body that they enjoy more than the one they started with.
Some GMH also undergo biomod procedures, though most often it's off-model GMH looking to appear more "normal," or other GMH wanting to have traits closer to typ beauty standards. Extravagant and statement biomodding is overall about as common in GMH as it is in typs.
Predating genetically humans in culture was a GMO pet craze. First popularized by Chinese genetic companies, designer pets such as neosaurs, "dragons," toy versions of large wild animals, chimeras, giant housecats, and more spread like wildfire to other first world nations. Competing gene labs popped up like wildfire looking for a slice of the market, subsidized by local governments looking to slow down the influx of imported foreign GMOs.
One of the chimera style designer pets popularized in North America was chabbits (also known Easter bunnies, skvaders, or boultry) which came in a variety of different body types imitating domestic rabbit and chicken breeds. Chabbits are capable of interbreeding, and does of different varieties each laid a distinct egg color and pattern. They are simple hexapod GMOs with one ribcage, two upper limb girdles, and a lower pelvis. Their winged midlimbs are not functional for flight. The chabbit upper body has fur, and the lower body has feather tracts.
Chabbits later became popular as a commercial livestock in space habitats. They are a sturdy hybrid, quieter than chickens and more sociable than rabbits, and produce eggs and meat on a completely vegetarian diet. In space stations, they can be used to produce agricultural waste products and roughage back into fertilizer. Commercial breeds tend to be simple white or brown in appearance, but egg farmers often still breed for eye catching eggs or a pleasing variety of patterns and colors. Most commercial chabbits are multipurpose egg and meat breeds, but meat breeds are selected for larger breasts on the midlimbs and a thicker backstrap on the lower spine.
There is a viral dance craze in Runaway to the Stars "modern day" (approx. 2325), because what is society without a viral dance craze. It began on Martian social media and then spread to the rest of the human internet via the extranet social platform Megaforum.
It is called "The Whop."
It takes some skill to whop quickly without losing your balance, and videos of skilled whoppers dancing in increasingly ridiculous and inconvenient locations has plagued the human internet for years now. It has a resurgence every time a new bubble of human space discovers and spreads it.
There is also a two-person version of The Whop:
Two-person whopping is extremely popular among children, much to the dismay of their elders. If you don't pay attention and keep time with the other party, it's extremely easy to slap them square in the face. Video compilations of people getting injured while whopping abound. School nurses have seen many victims of the viral dance, sent in with bruises and bloodied noses after whopping too hard.