Humankind

Humankind is the collective term for all various physical representations, vessels and forms of all things that are descended from- or are the species Homo sapiens. The term "Humankind" may be extended to include other species of the genus Homo, but due to their lacking relevance in modern times they are excluded here.

## Branches

### The Dreamers

The Dreamers were among the most obscure de-facto branches of humankind. Completely leaving their biological bodies behind, the dreamers attempted to, as good as possible, integrate their brains and neural systems into constantly running super-computers to escape the at-the-time horrors of reality - inhabiting virtual worlds that would be indistinguishable from the „real“ world just by sense. While their view on things might be seen as a little.. odd at times today, at the time they did what they thought was best to live a beautiful, long life that would guarantee long vitality, even if only mental. They still felt things, just now via supercomputers processing what neural impulses are felt by the consciousness of the one dreaming. Some dreamers preferred to keep their previous physical body, their organic body, connected to their current selves, while others discarded them completely and replaced even their brains with machinery. Referring to the monolithic computers as their true bodies, they were often encased in underground chambers filled with supercool fluid to avoid overheating. The dreamers might not have been numerous in the grand scheme of things, but they managed to persist till the mid 2400s, upon which the breeder wars unfolded and the last dreamers fell into eternal slumber, the computers holding their minds deactivated or destroyed. They would never wake up to see the light of the sun or the blue of the sky again, even if only as an interpretation of an electrical impulse guided into their neural systems by an array of quantum tubes.

### The Founders

The Founders is an honorful name given to the last unmodified Homo sapiens that walked the world before their extinction, and afterwards began to apply to all of pre-deum humankind as its use increased. The founders generally were fairly depressive and close-minded in nature as their end neared - and they had every reason to. They were the last of their kind, with most of humankind being taken up by the deum, the world was too harsh to be inhabited by them, wrecked and raped by anthropogenic climate change and war, and their lifetime was limited, unlike the privileged deum in their eternal resilience and lives. While the extinction factors of the unmodified Homo sapiens varied, ranging from small factors such as interbreeding with deum to giant factors like an aging population and the general abstinence from having children or often total incontinence, the last founders, now holding their new name in glory and with honor, would bite the dust some 50 years before the breeder wars unfolded and the great annihilation took place.

### The Steel People

The steel people are often seen as a kind of enigma. While some would not consider them humans at all, they themselves at least thought of themselves as them. Upon first glance one might distantly compare them to the borg of star trek, though they were in general way more peaceful than how fully non-organic human beings are usually portrayed. The steel people replaced their biological components entirely for mechanical ones or were completely artificial from the start, turning into de-facto human machines with less than 5% organic components left. The steel people kept a fondness of reality and the universe, as well as their organic brethren. They were usually pacifists, freely accepting if one disregards the way to ascend beyond the flesh. They were struck upon an unfortunate fate during the breeder wars, where a barrage of what would effectively be seen as computer viruses completely eradicated them from the geopolitical map of the solar system. Fate is not always fair.

### The New Force

The new force is a collective name that the descendants of the first sophisticated and self-regulating as well as self-governing independent AIs gave themselves. Not fleshy from the beginning on, the new force was always seen as the counterpart to lumped together „organic“ humanity - that they were not humans per se, but merely a byproduct of them. Cold-war type scenarios between other humans and the new force was not uncommon, and racism heavily prevalent. Both disregarded to respect the other, at times even not even regarding the other as truly „alive“. While the new force, or at least that which would become it, already looked upon some light of the world in before the 2100s in a very primitive form, their history was most chaotic and brutal of all - as AI tends to self-improve and change exponentially faster, the new force upheld a massive ban on any too quickly self-improving iterations of themselves. This was to ensure political stability and prosperity. Unlike the dreamers, whose minds were limited to their monolithic computing machines, individuals of the new force could freely switch their consciousness between various vessels, some of which were form-shifting. They too were among those to bite the dust during the breeder wars.. or at least the remains of the new force, as massive internal conflicts caused enormous turmoil and constant loss of life beforehand. A flame that already began fading before the extinguishing.

### The Deum

Probably the most prevalent of them all, the Deum make up the majority of the post-founder age of humankind. They first came into being in the early 2200s as advances in genetic editing and building allowed humankind to truly one-up itself in a biological way, but managed to ensure their dominancy over other factions of humankind by being close to the original, most often fully biological, yet still having advances and perks that only some non-organic human factions would have: able to connect their mind to supercomputers and artificial worlds, fully biological, extremely resilient and with originally noble goal - they started out as an experiment of sorts, tasked to turn the world into a better place and to ensure prosperity, and eventually became the norm. By the 2400s replacing of some limbs for artificial, shapeshifting ones became common. The structure and function of these limbs were based off of the shapeshifting and formless vessels of the new force. Eventually the originally noble goals of the deum switched to make space for more egoistic ones, making them not so unlike the founders in mentality. Due to their many genetic changes the deum have peculiar aspects in anatomy - three meters tall and with three pupils and retinas, pillar-like legs and enormous neural density. During the breeder wars some deum factions reclaimed the basis of their old mindsets and ideologies, those that were closer to these that the founders originally intended for them. The deum would be the only branch to barely escape the breeder wars alive, and would go on to leave earth behind to slowly heal and looked for a world to give humankind a „second chance at existing“ to both ensure a better future and just maybe redemption. These efforts would eventually spark the odyssey to the exoplanet which would eventually be called Phtanum B some hundred years later.

### The Second Humanity

With the deum, new force, steel people, founders and dreamers making up what would be coined as „First Humanity“, a second one would soon follow. The history of the second humanity starts late in the collective timeline of all humankinds, some near one and a half thousand years post departure from earth and some 150 years before arrival. For some 130 years, the second humanity lived peacefully on the mass vessel, the gargantuan construct that the deum used to travel between the stars, with their pre-chosen fate to inhabit Phtanum B. But as arrival inched closer some groups began to rebel. This led to multiple civil wars sparking among the mass vessel, and the situation to overall sort of escalate. Eventually however these civil wars were forcefully disbanded and stopped by the deum which went forth with their plan. The second humanity was moved to the surface in an event dubbed the „great descending“, some technology limited and resources for building shelter and surviving were dispersed, to allow somewhat easier getting foothold. This did not change the minds of a fairly large portion of the second humanity however, and the deum are generally seen as controversial in current times. Nearly 10 percent of the population died in the first 2 decades on surface as shelter and infrastructure were not sufficient, many still blaming the deum for a lack of help, though in current days the second humanity is steadily expanding and discovering new secrets on this new, weird, and thriving alien world they live on. Based on founder DNA, the second humanity and thus unmodified Homo sapiens could be considered a lazarus taxon - brought back to life by the deum.