The Black Desert: Species Preview

         Good morning, RocketFans!  I've had a busy weekend of Christmas prep, boy birthdays, and holiday cheer, but I've still had the time to get most of The Black Desert: Species written and am now in the process of making the artwork, stats and other goodies that you'll need to use these Character races in your SF games.
          Below is an excerpt from the article on a species near and dear to all of us:  Humans!  Hope you enjoy!

Humans

Humans are the oldest and most numerous sentient species extant on Terra. There is some question in recent years as to weather or not they are still the most dominant.

 

History

Homo sapiens have existed in their current form for at least fifty-thousand years, and all of Terran recorded history is about their species. That being said, an argument may be made that, thanks to the advent of genetic engineering, humans are in the process of becoming a new species all together.

Physical Traits

Starting in the twenty-first century, breakthroughs in molecular biology and protein synthesis radically altered the natural course of human development and aging. The vast majority of humans alive today can expect to live at least two centuries, be free from genetic and contracted diseases, and maintain their vigor and vitality until only a few years before their deaths.

The use of genetic manipulation in utero to prevent hereditary diseases eventually gave way to a plethora of selective procedures that could decide nearly every physical trait and many mental ones as well. This “designer baby” phenomena have produced “racial” traits that have nothing to do with environmental adaptations, but are rather dictated by cultural conceits.

In North America, physical beauty and prowess are paramount; in fact, with the exception of ethnic sensibilities, most people in that region tend to look vaguely similar. Europeans and Africans, by contrast, favor intelligence over appearance, finding “natural beauty” too precious to dilute. In South America, human appearance is only slightly idealized, while their endurance and ability to shrug off disease is greatly enhanced. Perhaps the most radically altered members of the human family are the imperial citizens of Siberia; The classical concepts of human beauty that are embodied in Anime are seen in enlarged eyes, slight bodies, small mouths, and a dizzying array of eye and hair colors.

Culture

Humans have practiced a bewildering array of cultural and social systems in their history, and to a certain extent this is true today. The vast number of different ethnic families, nations, settlements and traditions mean that humans have nearly no universal cultural traits.

In general, humans live in family groups ranging from individual nuclear units to extended families to entire tribes. In addition to these ancient models, humans also live in virtual communities, military or pacifist communes, and even more radical combinations. Marriage and child-rearing customs run the gamut, with new variations being practiced everyday.

One universal trait to human living that is different from previous eras is the near total lack of privacy. Thanks to the ubiquitous nature of surveillance and information technologies, people are under constant scrutiny almost every second of their lives. For the most part, people don't mind this; it is, after all, normal and has been for centuries. One positive product of this is that neighbors and especially members of the same space outpost consider themselves as close as traditional family in many cases, and cooperation is typically favored over competition in most dealings.

This spirit of camaraderie does not, however extend much beyond the local group, as the devastation of the Great War made clear.

Relationships

Humans have rarely gotten along with members of their own species for any length of time, so it is perhaps no surprise that they are so ambivalent toward others species as well.

Among themselves, Human in the present day are most frequently divided along nationalistic lines. After a half-century of constant war, the ingrained mistrust of those who until recently were enemy combatants has led to widespread friction among various regions on Terra. The development of mega-states is an attempt to counteract this trend and it seems to be working. That being said, relations with the other mega-states have, if anything, made international tensions worse.

Among other species, the members of H. sapiens take a typically human-centric view. They consider AI, for the most part equal-in-intellect yet inferior by virtue of their lack of physical existence. NuApes are viewed as by-definition sub-human and not considered independently sentient under the law anywhere on Terra. Though few Humans admit it, Trans-humans are felt to be superior in many ways, and this feeling is the source of frustration, paranoia, and outright rage among many. Perhaps this is why the numbers of people that condemn Trans-humanism are surpassed only by the numbers that are joining them.