Humanity in Runaway to the Stars is notorious for not always looking very human, but there’s a few different routes by which humans end up with bits and bobs they were not genetically intended to have.

The pre-natal route involves the altering of an individual’s genetics and in-utero conditions before they are born in order to design the desired look or function. This can be as small as disease prevention or eye color, or it can be extremely radical body changes, limited only by humans rights laws requiring some features (like hands, legs, skull, brain, overall size, and sexual characteristics) remain within certain boundaries so that the resulting person can function in regular society. These laws and the morality of creating GMHs is hotly debated in universe.

Supporters view designer babies of this type to be morally allowable because no human consents to being born, being born with six legs isn’t an offense to a fertilized egg any more than being born with the regular amount is. Detractors cite the fact that changing a baby from the genetic default opens them up to possible discrimination and poor treatment wildtype babies do not face, and potentially increases the cost of their medical care both in giving them unique anatomy but because unforeseen medical issues later in a GMH’s life aren’t uncommon. There’s also concern from many activists about the interaction of GMHs and capitalism, where GMHs existing is seen largely as a result of late 21st century capitalism shifting the Overton window on human cloning for its own financial benefit at the expense of human welfare, and this kind of designer baby is only seen as acceptable in current societies because of the current existence of other humans who have already been altered in this way. Even GMHs themselves tend to have pretty varied views on the legality and morality of making more GMHs.

The whole issue is further confused by the fact some GMH groups are now established populations that can produce offspring the Regular Way with the same traits. Additionally some genetically altered traits, like non-standard hair, skin, and eye colors and patterns can be passed on to children with wildtype partners, and are now floating around in the ostensibly “wildtype“ human gene pool.

Post-natal changes, or bio-modding, is a whole other kettle of moral fish. It’s almost always done at the request of consenting adults, and is close in spirit to modern extreme body modification. There are limits to what can be modded– most plastic surgeons are only willing to culture and swap out soft tissue, and gene therapy is usually required during the healing process for grafts to be accepted. Muscular additions are a bit of a crapshoot because there’s not telling how well the brain will adapt to and learn to control new muscle tissue. The feelings between bio-modders and designer GMHs are often slightly hostile… while a GMH doesn’t elect to look the way they do and can be at risk for prejudiced treatment, a bio-modder opts into almost the same situation for few reasons other than aesthetic preference.