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Before the Dawn by Chris Nicholaidis


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It was in 2667 that the first ship using the Chaotic Transport Drive (CTD) left the orbit of our sun and arrived in the orbit of Alpha Centauri in the blink of an eye. The rules had changed, mankind now had the tool to travel faster than light, the Planet ships became obsolete, converted into great Space Stations and waypoints between far flung territories that demanded multiple CTD jumps.

This great leap of technology allowed smaller vessels to venture into deep space and also brought about a new era of trade throughout our new empire. This new trading empire brought about many advances but one of these ‘advances' was to have a darker side. On a planet named Cyphus, a plant, more of a lichen, was discovered. This might not sound like a great find but hidden in the genome of this plant was the secret of genetic manipulation. It allowed us to change our physical nature without permanently altering our genes. It started as a breakthrough but ended up changing us and compartmentalized our race forever.

We found out too late that these changes became permanent to our genome if left for 10 years or more. We were ignorant and didn't heed the warnings and as a result we destroyed our pure genome. 6 distinct new species of human became prevalent, each possessing genetically altered features originally chosen to help them with their given tasks in life. The changes that people thought were temporary ended becoming ingrained in their genetic code, passing these genes onto their children. Some of these new human ‘sects' had only minor changes made but others altered their physical appearance so drastically that they no longer appeared to be human at all.

One of these sects were the Space Farers who became known as the Farers. These were once the pilots, navigators and crew of the deep space vessels. They modified their bodies to take advantage of the low G conditions they kept their spacecraft in. All deep space vehicles kept gravity to ¼ of Earth's norm, this value was found to be the best average between known planet's different gravities. To take advantage of this they elongated their limbs, softened their skeleton and created biological interfaces between their minds and their ships allowing them to become one with the ship's sensors and systems. They also modified their lungs and internal organs, allowing them to eat less, breath less oxygen and excrete waste products much more slowly. These changes made the farers 8 feet tall with arms and legs over 5 ft long and their trunk a mere 2ft. Their skin took on a bluish tint because it was thinner and their feet were more like hands. Their eyes also changed a black colour and gave them the look of an alien from some 20th century horror film. These humans could no longer set foot on earth without the aid of special suits to reinforce their skeletons.

The most normal looking sect were probably Engineers or or ngins, these were the men and women who once controlled the technical processes of society. Although they had robots to assist they still needed to be strong for certain tasks and as a result they changed their body muscle to fat ratio and strengthened their bones 6 fold.

 

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