Lantus Rejivik ("Reject")

In the rare case that a Lantus suffers a genetic mutation their genes are simply rewritten. If they can’t be altered they are “discarded,” to one of the terrestrial biomes to live a life divorced from high technology. Children born to parents outside the Botanical Wombs have a 50% chance of suffering “grotesque” mutations, simply meaning they don’t meet the approval of the Regent’s beauty standards. These children, sometimes legitimately physically handicapped, are forever banished.

A Lantus child born to a Gene-Weaver must nurse from a female Jetsetti whose lactation has been activated by the Mother Flower in a bonding ritual. Through this act, the surrogate Jetsetti mother raises her adopted child as well as granting them the ecology that all Lantus uniquely develop. The child will receive grafts from its mother’s biome, take nourishment and memories from her milk, and eventually learn from her trade and way of life through those inherited skills.

Rejected Lantus infants don’t share this rite, not unless they are illegally hidden and taken care of without oversight. Rejects are instead sent to what are functionally the leper colonies of the Lantus, where terrestrially locked offspring are dropped off unceremoniously by spotlight in some remote jungle. If they are lucky a Warden will find them and reshape their genes – for the rest, they are doomed to be raised by their fellow raucous orphans and whatever denizens inhabit the garden worlds of the Lantus. More often than not those surrogate parents are Pirates or radicalized Lantus garden cults.

The other races have a hard time believing that there is such a thing as an “imperfect” Lantus. The face they put forward is universally flawless, disturbingly so. But about 1 in 1000 Lantus born are nonetheless Rejected, resulting in millions of people divorced from Lantus culture and technology. These people have Lantus facial features but none of the genetic modifications that begin at birth. They never transition from Brea to Jetsetti, never grow an exoskeleton, nor have their bodies grafted with plant life. To all outer appearances they are just another human – maybe a peculiarly blonde and pale Mexam, or a particularly flush Torlan. The only thing that betrays their Lantus origin are eyes with faint pupils ring by rather large and offputtingly colourful iris made of greens, reds, blues, or yellows.

Because Rejects are often dropped off on untamed, unpopulated worlds, they share the same disadvantages as any Frontier people. Social isolation, language barriers, a lack of technological advancement – it doesn’t help that a Reject can’t access Lantus ship technology, as their bodies are ill equipped to interface with terminals directly. Like a Confederate, they’ll need extensive and painful modifications to use ship tech. Worse – it’s possible their bodies carry lethal pathogenic plant-life called a Sparsum Vine. This parasite plant bores into the bloodstream, tapping Calorics, slowly killing the host.