Humanity in the Strange Stars

Human soldiers in a still from a military recruitment animation

Evan of In Places (Spaces?) Deep asked on Google+ the other day if there were still humans in the Strange Stars. The short answer is "yes," though the details require a bit of explanation.

The over a trillion sophonts of known space can be placed in a few broad phyles or phenotypes: infosophonts, moravecs, and biologics. Biologics include the descendants of organisms that evolved naturally (either on Old Earth or some other world), created organisms, and bioroids (biologic androids). Members of subtribe Hominina comprise most of the naturally evolved biologics, though their are also uplifts and splices that contain genetic material from other (mostly Terran species). There are sophonts that may be exobiologics, but given what information has been lost in various dark ages, system crashes, and data corruptions since the human expansion, it is difficult to know for certain.

Two thrill-seeking humans find danger in a condemned amusement station

The human-descended biologics at a glance mostly resemble 21st century humanity, aside from a few cosmetic differences, like skin color. Centuries ago, they looked more like 21st century movie stars, but standards of beauty have expanded since. Beneath the surface, there are numerous small genetic tweaks and ubiqitous minor cybernetic enhancements. These vary from culture to cultural, and with tech level.

Baseline or near baseline delegates from a distant habitat

The terms baseline human (indicating beings who vary little from the basic type) and near baseline (beings unable to pass for baseline, but with few signifcant biological variations) are sometimes used, but these are obviously imprecise. The Phantasists, Zyann, Uldras of Boreas, and Ogüptans of Deshret would probably qualify as "baselines," as would most of the inhabitants of the Instrumentality of Aom. The Smaragdines, Algosians, and Vokun would be termed by most as "near baseline."