Neogens

Artificial life forms are a characteristic part of habitats throughout the civilized galaxy. Even though natural terragen and xenobiological species are popular as pets and companions, or as necessary members of any local biosphere or biohab ecology, often there is need for a completely artificial, custom-made life-form, a neogen. These are still fully organic, fully biological, and - unless specifically designed otherwise - are able to reproduce like any other organism. As with everything, boundaries are fuzzy: is a lazurogened Tyrannosaur made from respliced chicken DNA a neogen or not? For convenience, we can say that a neogen is a type that is totally new; it is not an attempt to enhance or to reconstruct a pre-existing species.

Although most neogens are subsapient organisms, there are still a large number of types that have either been designed as sapient from the start, or provolved to sapience later. Such sapient neogens have played an important role in the history of terragen civilization from the interplanetary age to the present day. Some, like the Goliaths, are specifically hominid, and can even be considered just one more form of nearbaseline or sub-superior clade, although they were custom geneered. Others, like Replicants are essentially biological androids, although phenotypically indistinguishable from any human. Others again, like Erotogini, are specifically non-human, being essentially biological dildonics, even though many separate races and species of moldie have been provolved to sapience, and today moldies form an important element of galactic society, both sub-sentient, subsapient, or fully sapient.

Inevitably, neogens have ended up in the sex trade, as companion sapients, bodyguards, soldiers, or fulfilling a particular role that may be unsuited to other sentients, or simply to add some local color.

Despite frequent rulings and local regulations to the contrary, and the best efforts of memegineers through the centuries, neogens frequently suffer from prejudice and even persecution at the hands of local nearbaselines and other subtoposophic majority groups. For this reason, many neogens tend to be distrustful of mainstream galactic society, and tend to congregate in enclaves and free zones, or amongst other equally oppressed minority groups. In these polities they not infrequently become more prosperous then the surrounding nearbaseline communities (hence adding to the resentment among the ignorant, although intelligent neogens are able to play upon this for their own advantage).

Neogens A-Z

Home | Search | Site Map | Glossary | Encyclopaedia Galactica | Intro | Timeline | Galactography | Sophonts | Topics | Voices from OA | Extras | Community | Top of Page | Parent Node

Unless otherwise specified,
this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.