No event impacted humanity as much as the institution of the genetic caste system by the Solar Empire. Once a homogeneous species, humanity lost the right to its own genome following the empire’s rise, and so was twisted without consideration for its wellbeing into tools which could better serve its ruling class. The lo-caste existed as physical tools, their bodies sculpted for specific environments, within reason. They had no intention of making humans that could survive freezing tundras or the crushing depths of the bottom of the sea, methane breathers or winged fliers. Theirs was a more practical art. In the sprawling industrial zones the short-lived hivers gave birth to litters of fetal larvae, raised in incubators until they could walk. The oceans of homeworld and terraformed seas of new acquisitions hosted aquatic strains, greatly reducing the logistical burden of underwater habitation and exploitation. And in the planetoids and moons, where gravity itself or the lack of it could ruin a human body and prevent conception, the fragile spacers were built to maintain themselves without the expenses that terrestrial humans demanded.

The hi-caste, on the other hand, were built for social roles rather than environment. The ideal bureaucrat, soldier, performer, scientist, these and other archetypes were sought. While they could not perfectly sculpt a mind suited for a task, they came close. The empire grew to know the science of inclinations, and could produce humans whose thoughts, interests, and behaviors tended towards certain proclivities. Screened at childhood, those who could not conform to what was demanded of them were quietly retired or disposed of, their higher status unable to save them from the perfection demanded by their rulers. If anything, their closeness to the imperial clade only made their restrictions more severe, even if their material quality of life was often higher.

And that imperial clade was truly something, for its time. It was artisanal to say the least. Perfect humans by homeworld standards, yet their beauty was unearthly. With a single display of targeted pheromones or enhanced, almost hypnotic microexpressions a normal human would easily be psychologically dominated. If not forever, then so long as they remained in the presence of the ruling species. And what physiology could not do, a lifetime of propaganda and indoctrination to revere the Imperial Clade did instead. Everything about them was exquisitely designed to inspire awe, fear, and a desperation for approval. Of all the things of purely flesh, the imperial clade was perhaps the most sophisticated and inspired creation, even to this day.

Of course, one could say that what they considered perfection was subjective, an expression of the founders of the Empire and their own view on what constituted the ultimate human. The definition they seemed to have arrived upon was a being which could dominate or charm those which were created for such roles, adhered to the standards of beauty that existed during their era, and would live long lives free from disease and senescence. In all of these things, they succeeded.

Had things not changed as they did, there is no doubt what humanity’s future would have been. All life would have been turned towards this imperial center. In time, the other castes would have more and more stripped from them, their humanity becoming vestigial until they were tools of meat, appendages of the system that curated their lineages. Little more than the nervous system of a far greater beast, the apparatus of the Solar Empire would have become a means by which its rulers would obtain an unending paradise for themselves, and this future was no doubt what had been planned. By eroding the wills of all potential competitors over thousands of years, their eternal success would have been assured.

Even to this day, the hi-caste know this, and that surely their descendants would not have been spared. Yet still, many keenly feel the absence of that missing part of themselves, which so desperately craves the rulership of the beings that designed them as servants. Perhaps that is why many still try to bring them back.