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A lot of people aren't just born, they're made. Minor gene adjustments are almost routine in all but the most conservative of Earth cultures. Sex is commonly a banned modifier, to prevent population imbalance, and neurotype has become a protected characteristic in the U.E. to prevent outright eugenics. But hair and eye color, and even expected height, have all been selectable for decades now. In remoter communities, more lax or experimental norms have flourished, with Rheita being one of the more extraordinary cases of this.

Just as names are more mixed and harder to untangle than in previous centuries, lines between ethnicities are more often blurred after decades of 21st-century international migration and cross-connections, and the confounding effects of gene alteration and experimentation.

Things May Become Blurrier…