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Tweaks Sentient > Sophont > Tweak
[1] [interplan age - recent] generic term for human or other genemod in which the original genotype has been optimised for existence in extreme environment conditions
[2] A corporate modified hu, usually the augmentation is part of the contract and is removed at the end of the employment |
From the very beginning, the colonization of space and other worlds divided into two distinct philosophical approaches; mastery verses adaptation. This is a philosophical divergence that still exists to this day.
The baseline and superior normals, and to a lesser extent the cyborgs, attempted to modify the environment as much as possible to suit their origin terragen biological nature. So they find the best gravity to be 1 G, the best atmosphere to be 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen, etc. Everywhere the normals went they tried to make that place like an imitation of the Earth they had left behind. Even much later, after the Great Expulsion by the AI called Gaia, of 99.999% of Earth-bound baselines, they still insisted that every planet and biosphere should emulate Earth Normal standards.
In contrast, the tweaks [1] considered the best approach was to modify or evolve themselves to suit their environmental conditions. So on the Moon they adapted their physiology to one sixth gravity, on Mars to one third gravity. In the asteroid belt and other microgravity habitats they actually altered their metabolic structure, musculature, and bone structure to survive indefinitely in zero gee environment.
The first tweaks were those specifically adapted or designed a such, such as the space people, the merpeople, and the Martians. But by the later interplanetary age many hu groups were modifying themselves, taking up the biohack flame that had languished with the corporatisation of the original tweaks and biopunks of the information age.
Despite the best attempts of AI memegineers like Kilburn, the Anaxander Agent Clique, Silicon God, Mycroft, and 110001, baseline fear and ignorance of these new species would flare up, although fortunately rarely erupting in violence. (cliological simulations have repeated shown that were it not for the efforts of the early hyperturings, the result would have been very different). The baselines feared and resented space-adapted superiors, who they felt to be stealing the future from them, and who they called apes or chimps because of the modification of their feet to prehensile organs (very useful in zero-gee). This was ironic because "ape" was a favourite term of insult the tweaks tended to throw at the normals (which was a fact resented by the small population of mostly Earth-based human-anthropoid ape provolves, who absolutely detested the tweaks for slandering their race).
The isolation of the dark age, resulting from the nanoswarm disaster of the early 26th century, resulted in tweak and superior colonies forming isolated colonies where DIY gengineering drastically accelerated the standard Darwinian process of genetic drift. After four or five centuries, many of these populations were so strongly modified that they were unable to interbreed with other populations. They were not just near baseline clades but distinct subspecies and species, and in some cases even validly considered if not a distinct genus or family - so great were the genetic differences. Every habitat, asteroid- and comet-state, had its own unique guilds, races, subspecies and species, and these in turn further cladized among themselves. Creating a common focus for this astonishing and often squabbling diversity was one of the tasks that the First Federation set itself, but was never able to fully realise.
Eventually the tweaks were to colonize much of the galaxy, the Superiors congregated in the more established and comfortable centers of civilization, the nearbaselines making up the mass of "proles", and the original baselines became a rare and exotic minority, even a protected species in reserves. Often the distinction between tweak, superior, and nearbaseline is academic; generally a tweak is a hu altered to an extreme or non-Terran environment, or modified for corporate purposes; a superior is any superbright (above-baseline but below-posthuman) humanoid, and a nearbaseline the standard mongrel hu with an admixture of genomes but not departing too greatly from the basic Homo sapiens condition. However the definition of these and other terms differs among cultures and clades.
Anakim - common type of tweak that is adapted for higher than earth-normal gravity. There are many variants but all are similar in appearance and capabilities. They were originally designed to settle mineral-rich worlds with unusually deep atmospheres
Kobolds - a clade of high gravity tweaks gengineered for life on the planet Sisyphos
Radiation Nation - radiation resistant biont superclade
