Ousters

The Ousters are a group of humans who have chosen to physiologically adapt themselves to extrasolar and microgravity environments. Their lifestyle places them at ideological odds with the Hegemony of Man, and later the Pax.

Physiology

Having adapted to numerous different environments (both on- and off-world), the Ousters are very diverse and exist in a wide variety of forms. Some Ousters resemble baseline humans in appearance, with the exception of having developed elongated limbs and prehensile feet; others have adapted to their environment by developing furred coats, webbed fingers or other augmentations.

One subset of the Ousters, known to outsiders as "Angels," choose to live in microgravity environments such as orbital forest rings. They are some of the most radically-adapted Ousters, and have an array of bio-technological enhancements to allow them to survive in a vacuum. 

Despite their wildly divergent appearances, all Ousters are genetically human - that is, they do not differ sufficiently from baseline humans to be considered a separate species, and could theoretically reproduce with "normal" humans. However, it is likely that the Ousters' continued evolution will result in them diverging even farther from baseline human stock, to the point that they form an independent species entirely.

Technology

Having spent centuries living in open space, much of the Ousters' technology is designed to make optimum use of low-gravity conditions. Ouster soldiers frequently wear suits equipped with prosthetic tails that can serve as weapons or grasping limbs. Their boarding craft are likewise equipped with tentacle-like cable arms that grip the hulls of target vessels.

The Ousters have achieved several remarkable feats of astroengineering, including orbital tree-rings and the Startree Biosphere. Their home swarm itself is a marvel of megascale engineering, consisting of a number of asteroids that have been encapsulated in forcefields, terraformed and linked to one another by field tubes. To travel between habitats, streams of water run along some field tubes, allowing Ousters to ride ferries to their destination. The Hegemony is unaware of the true nature of the Ousters' "homeworld," and many perpetuate the belief that the Ousters live in spartan "can cities" or similar space station habitats.

The Ousters are strictly against the use of farcasters as a means of transportation, which means that they must travel at relativistic velocities between planets and star systems; this method of travel, though far more time and resource-consuming, nevertheless avoids disturbing or damaging the Void Which Binds, and the entities living within it.

History

Pre-Hegira

The Ousters' origins can be traced to the early period of human interstellar expansion and colonization. Numerous slower-than-light seedships were sent from Earth to distant star systems, with their occupants stored in cryogenic fugue to be awakened upon arrival. The passengers of these ships were augmented with internal nanotechnology, allowing them to rapidly evolve and adapt to foreign conditions of other worlds.

Hegemony-Era

As time went on, the relationship between the Ousters and Hegemony became increasingly uneasy.