Heritages Draft

Humanity spread across the dark and, having no aliens to compare itself to, spent its restlessness remaking itself instead. In the Federal Republic, a “heritage” is less about where you were born than about what you have done to your body to survive the work. Two modification cultures dominate the frontier, and most everyone on a station like MacMillian Station IV falls somewhere on the spectrum between them.

The Modification Cultures

• Chrome Jockey — cybernetics and implants. Steel, silicon, and reinforced limbs bolted onto a baseline human frame: CPU implants for fast math, construction-grade arms, hardware you can buy, fit, and replace cheaper and faster than growing it. The blue-collar path to being more than you were born.
• Skin Freaks — bio-engineering. Flesh architects who rewrite the body itself: cat-eyes for night vision, gills, a new skin tint, an extra pair of arms. Some of it is style, some of it is a limb replaced after an industrial accident, and some of it goes much further than that.

Neither is a species apart. They are people, citizens and residents alike, who chose (or could afford) one kind of edge over another.