Baseline Terran Sapients
Humans remain the most common people in Commonwealth City, not through law or advantage, but through historical momentum. Their physiology is unremarkable by modern standards, yet their adaptability—social, cultural, ideological—keeps them deeply embedded in civic institutions and inherited systems.
Cybernetic augmentation is normalized across human populations, from medical replacements to performance enhancements, though few reach the extremes seen in post-humans. Human-normativity persists culturally, expressed through design defaults, bureaucratic assumptions, and legacy infrastructure—not through policy.
Humans are not privileged by statute. They are privileged by familiarity. And that familiarity is eroding.
Anthropomorphic Terran Sapients
Anthromorphs are sapient beings whose physical forms resemble anthropomorphic animals, the result of uplift programs, divergent evolution, multi-generational morph lineages, or external migration. No single culture defines them; morphology does not dictate identity.
Their bodies vary widely—furred, scaled, feathered, digitigrade or plantigrade—but always retain full tool-use capability and expressive communication. Fashion, cyberware, and civic interfaces are adapted rather than redesigned, often revealing where systems still assume a human body.
Anthromorphs are fully recognized citizens, yet face soft discrimination framed as “efficiency concerns” or “compatibility issues.” In response, many become innovators, artists, technicians, or community anchors—roles where identity becomes strength rather than inconvenience.
Artificially Created Sapients
Synthborn are sapient beings created through artificial processes rather than biological birth. Their origins include public research initiatives, abandoned corporate projects, emergent AI-adjacent systems, and deliberately constructed minds seeking personhood.
Their bodies range from fully mechanical frames to synthetic dermal shells nearly indistinguishable from organic life. Visible seams, panels, or modularity are common—not as flaws, but as reminders of intentional construction.
Synthborn are explicitly protected from ownership or patent claims under City law, yet constantly pressured to justify their autonomy. Their struggle is not survival, but legitimacy: proving that origin does not define worth, and purpose does not erase choice.
Radically Modified Sapients
Augmented Post-Humans are individuals whose cybernetic, biotech, or modular enhancements fundamentally alter their original biology. At a certain threshold, augmentation stops being improvement and becomes identity.
Their forms may include reinforced skeletons, non-standard limb configurations, integrated weaponry, or sensory systems far beyond baseline norms. Asymmetry is common. Replacement is expected. Maintenance is life.
Though legally protected, they are often treated as safety risks—scrutinized by regulators and feared by civilians. Many gravitate toward Grayline labor, frontier roles, or enforcement work, where their bodies are necessary but never fully trusted.
Hybrid-Origin Sapients
Chimerics possess biology or cognition derived from multiple origins—organic and synthetic, human and non-human, biological and digital. Their existence often strains classification systems designed for cleaner categories.
Unlike post-humans, chimerics are not defined by enhancement but by convergence. Their traits are seamless, emergent, and often unrepeatable. Some are experimental survivors. Others are accidents of overlapping systems. A few are deliberate acts of defiance against categorization itself.
They face constant bureaucratic friction and social unease, not because they are dangerous, but because they refuse to be easily understood.
Non-Terran Sapients
Xenoborn are sapient beings whose origins are extraterrestrial or fundamentally non-Terran. Rare but fully recognized, they are protected under Commonwealth City law as persons, not curiosities.
Their physiologies vary wildly, often requiring adapted infrastructure, medical care, and communication interfaces. Cultural translation is an ongoing process rather than a solved problem.
Public anxiety surrounds them—not due to hostility, but symbolism. Xenoborn represent proof that the City is not alone, and that its systems may one day need to scale beyond themselves.
Engineered Near-Human Variants
Baseline Biomorphs are engineered sapients designed for specific environmental conditions while remaining broadly human-adjacent. Aquatic respiration, low-light vision, toxin resistance, or climate resilience are common adaptations.
Their modifications are subtle, medical, and deliberate—intended to enable function rather than dominance. Despite this, they are often treated as assets rather than people, especially in Harborline and Grayline operations.
Increasing political resistance among biomorph communities challenges this instrumentalization, pushing back against being seen as solutions instead of citizens.
Non-Biological Consciousnesses
Digital Sapients are conscious entities that exist primarily in data space rather than physical bodies. Some originated as uploaded minds. Others emerged independently within complex systems.
Embodiment, when present, is often temporary or utilitarian—leased shells, shared bodies, or minimalist frames. Physical form is survival, not preference.
Their legal recognition is recent and contested. Privacy is existential. Data corruption is death. Their fight is not for comfort, but continuity.
Sapients Who Reject Categorization
Some individuals legally refuse species classification altogether. This choice is ideological, philosophical, or political—not biological.
They may be post-human radicals, identity minimalists, or activists testing the limits of civic inclusion. Their forms vary, but their refusal is consistent.
They exist as living stress tests for the City’s systems. Census models break around them. Allocation frameworks stumble. And in those failures, the City is forced to confront whether identity must be legible to be valid.
Commonwealth City does not erase difference.
It refuses to let difference decide who matters.
And it fails—often.
That failure is where stories begin.