By the mid-twenty-second century genetic manipulation had become so well understood that biologists could modify or even create new beings. Extinct species such as the passenger pidgeon had been recreated, and human beings could be made virtually perfect. The average life expectancy without digitalization would be 124 years and because of cybernetics you could be basically immortal. But you can only improve a species so much, and biology tried to excel where cybernetics couldn't: the creation of fully functional original life-forms. The first few were simple animals, and after a while some parties started messing around with the human form. The idea of creating a lifeform as intelligent as a human was highly controversial but the practice started off very simple. The very rich could afford custom bodies - the first person who did this was a club owner who took the form of a suave devil. Eventually the practice connected with virtual reality and games, recreating popular species from fantasy and sci-fi universes, still only available for the upper class but slowly becoming more popular. Designing a body could be a very lucrative job and eventually a whole market formed. Certain designs became very popular and a century later a couple of them had even become wholly functional species. By 2400 the sci-fi dream of a colorful and crazy universe didn't seem very far away.

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