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A Brief Note. . .

This article is intended to provide a background for players granted permission to play human characters, or for playing other characters 'in the know' who interact with humans, such as belters.

While other humans exist, this fact is not generally known to any non-human characters, nor are any of these humans playable characters at this time. If you wish to play a true human character, please contact a staff member to ask whether an opening is available and whether your character concept will work. In the meantime, feel free to create a belter, flatlander, or other human-like recom.

- Hagalaz

History

Humans are the creators – but also the ancestors – of recoms. Despite their animal traits, most recoms contain 98 to 99 percent of human-origin DNA in their genome.

In Furscape's setting, humans have become quite rare. The vast majority died in the Apocalypse War and its aftermath. Among the space colonies, surviving humans were viewed with mistrust – not only were they blamed for the war and for enslaving recoms, but they were also feared as possible vectors of bio-warfare agents.

As a result of this pressure, many of the surviving humans fled to the asteroid belt where they were assimilated into belter society, and their offspring in most cases were genetically modified to become belters. A few remained among the “furry” recoms of Luna and Mars, but underwent a similar process of producing furry recom offspring.

Among the general population, it is widely believed that humans are now “extinct”. However, this is not strictly true.

Surviving Populations

Firstly, there are still a rare handful of survivors from Earth. Before the war, scientists on earth developed an anagathic treatment called UAG-7 which halted the aging process and gave the subject effectively unlimited life span. Only the elites received this treatment, and most of them perished in the war, but a few escaped, and at least one human survivor is known to still be around. There may be one or two others, but, if so, they are keeping a low profile.

Secondly, there have been some deliberate attempts to recreate the human form. Although humans are typically looked upon with shame and distrust by recoms (with the exception of belters, who simply pity them for being born with two malformed limbs with club-like feet instead of graceful hands), there have also been some cults which revered humans for their advanced knowledge and for their creation of recoms. These cults have attempted to use genetic engineering to produce their own human offspring.

Thirdly, there are the flatlanders. As some belters have migrated to high-gravity colony worlds (and even Luna and Mars seem like high gravity to a belter), some have chosen to have their children modified so they come out with a pair of legs and feet instead of the usual belter's lower pair of arms and hands. Although not technically pure humans, they generally look human and retain most of the same human-like traits as other belters. They are still uncommon enough in recom space to prompt perked-up ears and questions, and they are known colloquially as “flatlanders”.

Human Traits

The physical traits of humans should be well known to our readers, but a few points of comparison with furry recoms are worth making for game purposes.

“Only mad dogs and Englishmen venture out in the mid-day sun.”

Due to their lack of fur covering and their ability to sweat, humans are able to tolerate high temperatures better than most furry recoms. They can move about and perform useful work in environments that would lay most furries out flat with heatstroke. Humans are vulnerable to cold weather and generally do not like it, but they can adapt with thermal clothing.

Although not noted for great speed or strength, humans have excellent endurance. A human in good physical shape can often continue running – or performing other exertions – long past the point when typical recoms would collapse from exhaustion.

Humans are omnivores with a few unusual dietary quirks. Pure humans, if they've not been genetically modified, have a mutation which prevents them from synthesizing vitaman C in their liver as most recoms do, and will become ill if they don't get enough of this substance in their diet. They do, however, synthesize vitamin D when their skin is exposed to sunlight.

“You humans will eat just about anything if it's covered in chocolate!”

Human fondness for chocolate is legendary – much like the stereotype of mice loving cheese, or rabbits loving carrots. Chocolate is toxic to many recoms, although some have picked up a tolerance for it through the human components of their DNA.

Human fondness for foods containing hot chili peppers (capsaicin) is another quirk that many recoms find incomprehensible. Although capsaicin is not toxic to recoms, most of them find it repellent.

A large minority of humans have a mutation which allows them to consume milk and dairy products for their whole lives, well beyond infancy. (In human cultures where this mutation was widespread, the lack of it was sometimes described as “lactose intolerance”.)

It is popularly believed among furry recoms that humans have no sense of smell. That is an exaggeration, but it's true that their sense of smell is quite limited compared to most furry recoms, and they have no vomero-nasal organ.

Human hearing is not sensitive to the higher frequencies that many furry recoms can pick up. However, humans are exceptionally good at identifying the direction sounds are coming from in three-dimensional space.

human.txt · Last modified: 2011/08/23 05:34 by hagalaz