Solar Storms Setting

By the dawn of the 23rd century, humans have visited every planet in the Solar System. A roving mass of man-made satellites swarm about Sol, and some three hundred million people do not call Earth home.

The vast majority of those who call themselves human are nearly immortal; over a billion people have entered their third century, and in the next few decades, a few will complete it. Genetic engineering has gone from curing the ills of aging and defects, to enhancing the human mind as well as the body. With each passing year, the limits of humanity's horizon seem to grow ever outward.

Though the drums of war beat silently in space, all can hear them. The Solar Consortium, fresh into its power, attempted to stamp out those that could one day challenge its might. The symbol of its failure is Ouranos Prime, a gathering of whom their government would see extinct.

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Over a century has passed since the Prometheus Accords, and the development of the Alpha Strain. This genetic modification divided humanity into two camps - those that rejected technology, and those who embraced it. The former cast themselves out of society, now living as hunter-gatherers, struggling alongside the common animals. For their faith, those who embraced technology, and the Alpha Strain, no longer know age.

With natural causes of death almost unheard of, genetic engineering is taking humanity to new heights. The Prometheus Accords called for further genetic modifications to humanity. Alpha Excelsior, the Beta Strain, and the Gamma Project all continue to seek a different idealized version of the human form.

Those who left refused to call these strains human.

Shortly after the discovery of the mobius patterns, the first team that worked on the Gamma Project made an exotic breakthrough, finding a similar alternate realm, and incorporating it into their work. The official report of the Solar Consortium is that the experiment caused brutal, painful deaths for all involved.

Some know better.

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During the American battle for independence, and the development of the mighty nation that arose from it, one of the founding notions has ever been:

"All people are created equal."

That notion is dying, on several levels.

Are artificial intelligences people? What of people created by the hand of humanity, formed together out of organs, a synthetic fusion of flesh and machine?

Can one honestly argue that a normal, pureblood human is, in any way, equal to one of the advanced strains?

There is a desire, for many people, to move up in the world, to take this power for themselves. Outside of the songs, much of it is firmly locked in the hands of those who already had power after the Martian Conflict.

And, for all that, no amount of money will allow a person to find their own Song. No amount of power will make one Chosen.

Only one's own merits can prove worthy.