30 Genetic Mods

Just a quick trip to the Cosmetologist...

1. Hair Treatment Mod

The Hair Treatment Genetic Mod is generally divided into two categories, addressing hair loss, and addressing hair color. The Cosmic Era has created the permanent cure for baldness, and it's a genetic 'patch' for faulty genetic software. The second category is much larger, and covers hair color. While the bulk of hair color treatments are sold to counter graying, there is a much more visible much more exciting market for extreme hair color changes, like neon colors, animal print patterns, and so forth. While the baldness cure affects the scalp alone, the hair color coding affects all body hair, so a lady with hot pink or leopard patterns is going to have those where ever she decides to not shave. ;)

2. Extreme Hair Mod

Sometimes hair color isn't enough of a change. The extreme hair mod alters the structure of the hair itself allowing for humans to grow feathers, feather like structures, and the like. The mod is uncommon, but high visibility, but its hard to hide a head full of brightly colored peacock feathers. People who have had the Angel BioModification also often opt to pick up feathers in their mane as well.

3. Pagan Fertility Icon

In Pagan iconography horns and antlers are signs of sexual energy and power. With the PFI, humans are genetically programmed with the ability to grow horns (permanent structure) or antlers (shed annually). The horns/antlers can be designed for shape and size, and to match a certain species, or match a cosmetic/fantasy ideal, ranging from majestic elk antlers to the glossy blue horns of Gel'Zad Space Elves. While cosmetic in nature, these are living body parts and can be broken, and breaking a horn hurts like breaking a bone, and having an antler knocked off prematurely is like losing a tooth. It hurts.

4. Reptile Skin Mod

Scales are much more durable than skin, and some people opt to have reptilian scales rather than soft supple mammalian flesh. The scale mod gives a slight natural armor effect and scalies are much less prone to scrapes and scratches, and scales can be wildly colored, and many scalies and reptile enthusiasts can be very brightly colored and patterned. The downside is that scales periodically have to be shed, and it is a week long itchy process. Damaged scales are also slow to grow back and can lead to long term scarring.

5. Pelt Mod

A variation of a hair mod, the Pelt Mod stimulates hair growth across the entire body giving the user a full body coat of hair like a dog or cat. The hair is colored and textured in a preprogrammed pattern, and like the above mods is highly variable, and can range from replicating existing animal coat patterns (zebra, cheetah, tiger) to imaginary or brightly colored animal patterns (pink zebra, green and gold space elf-leopard). The pelt mod has the drawbacks of shedding, altered dietary requirements, and using lots and lots of shampoo.

6. Optic Mod/Cosmetic

Changing eye color is a simple thing, one treatment can turn brown eyes to any shade of the rainbow, and it is pretty commonly done. With more extensive treatment there are color shifting iris pigments, and even 'Mood Ring' eyes that change color with emotional state and body chemistry.

7. Optic Mod/Enhanced

There are ways to change how someone sees and how they perceive light. There are mods that can be done to give enhanced vision in low light (like those found in geofronts, or underwater) the ability to see infrared and ultraviolet light, and even opening up new color receptors. Everything the human eye sees is composed of three color receptors in the eye. There are even more colors than we can imagine because there are ways of creating and activating color receptors in the eye. These mods are uncommon, and they are expensive, and altering how someone sees fundamentally alters how they see and deal with the world around them.

Can gain the ability Low Light Vision, Infrared/Thermal Vision, UV vision or Enhanced Vision

8. Skin Pigmentation Mod

Changing skin color is a relatively minor modification, and rather than spray tanning, most people undergo Melatonin Adjustment for that natural look. Other mods include changing general complex, so this ranges from deliberate almost albino, to moving away from a regional ethnic norm by adopting an exotic skin complexion. The standard skin pigmentation mod only works with what is normally available in the body, so this routine mod is only available in human skin tones.

9. Chromid Mod

That being said, the Chromid mod allows for exotic and drastic changes in skin tone, with a veritable rainbow of colors, patterns, and so forth available.

10. Breast Augmentation Mod

Everyone loves breasts, and breast augmentation is big business in the Cosmic Era, or the Cosmetic Era. The med stimulates a second puberty, causing the breast tissue to expand, and based on starting breast size and desired final breast size determines the type and amount of product used. Over the counter products offer limited guarantees and the best bet is to see a licensed genetic cosmetologist to ensure not just the desired size, but the proper shape, balance and even for a small surcharge the nipple and areola that represents the woman/person you are.

Oversized lady-parts can reduce Stamina and cause fatigue. Those things require support and can get heavy very quickly.

11. Penis Enlargement Mod

With the cure for baldness also came genetic cures for insecurity. Genetic treatment can and does effectively promote penile growth, creating an entire new market to open up for very well endowed men, ranging from designer pants that both cover and prominently display the sometimes excessive modifications to entertainment venues for MegaMen. The quality of this procedure is variable, and it is an arena where you get what you pay for, and a cheap augment can leave a man instead of having a glorious thunder rod of Zeus, a misshapen foot long lumpy cancer dangler.

Oversized man-bits can cause a decrease in the Stamina trait, and excessive oversized man-bits can impose negative modifiers to Stamina (how much blood does that thing need?) Dexterity (Running with 3 legs?) and can create an increased vulnerable zone. (double damage from crotch shots)

12. Fat Blaster

With food being of questionable quality, and designed to be profitable and desirable, rather than healthy and nutritious, there would be another obesity epidemic. But, instead, there are Fat Blasters, genetically active short lived pills that are the miracle cures that fat pills claim to be today. Fat Blasters are genetically powered fat metabolisers, and each pill can sweat/boil/poach a pound or more of fat off of a body. While this treatment could be made into a standard issue long term mod, the profit profile of such a job pales in comparison to selling one shot short term fat burning pills.

13. Pheromone Augmentation

Sometimes known as a skunkjob, pheromone augmentation involves a genetic treatment that increases overall pheromone production in the body. Beyond the basic Pheromone +, there are companies that design and tailor pheromone profiles that can be sold and attached to the augmentation treatment. While expensive, many women will spend the thousands of comparable Cosmic Era dollars to replace their normal sweaty musky smell with a designer fragrance from Chanel, Christian Dior, or so forth.

Depending on quality of augment, can improve initial reaction + 1 to +3, while a poor job (too much man, too much!) can cause an opposite -1 to -3 reaction. We call this the Avon Perfume Cloud or the Axe Effect.

14. Mighty Muscle Man Augmentation

A relatively simple augment, the M3 treatment encourages muscle development. While this treatment will not take a person above human normative ratings for strength and muscle mass, it is a popular alternative to working out in a gym, or fat burning pills. With regular doses, typically 2-3 a year, a man can maintain an action star physique with nothing more than a fatty protein rich diet. A body builder physique can also be had, but at higher cost and monthly treatments, and roughly a doubled food intake. There is a female specific version that augments the female body without diminishing the female sexual characteristics.

Can increase Strength attribute to normal maximum for system used.

15. Athletic Augmentation Series

Why train and work out to become an athlete when a series of treatments can improve your muscle tone, hone your reflexes, and raise your reaction time? The Major League treatment is not one specific treatment, but several rolled into a package, including muscle augmentation, nervous system improvement, and stamina building augments. The treatments don't raise anything above human average, but for a modest yearly upkeep any man or woman can maintain the body of a middle to upper tier professional athlete. Treatment provides no athletic skill or ability, just physical potential.

Provides a 1 to 2 step increase in physical attributes.

16. Neko Augmentation

Neko Augmentation is quite simply a series of genetic procedures that turn the patient into a cat person. The augmentation is popular among strippers, young delinquent women, and dilantettes of pop culture. There are more uncommon variations on the Neko theme, such as the rabbit version, the Lago Augmentation, the pixie version which creates whimsical children, and other animal crosses. The Neko augment is the most common of these animal hybrids.

17. Enhanced BioRegeneration

EBR treatments are expensive and time consuming, as they fundamentally reprogram the human metabolism and cellular systems to work differently, more effectively and efficiently. The end result of EBR is a greatly enhanced ability to recover from injury, rapid healing. Basic treatment cuts healing time in half, and cost wise in the most effective, the top level of this treatment allows for wounds to heal in 1/8th the amount of time, but at an increased metabolic cost, requiring regular doses of specific vitamins, along with routine mod maintenance. If high end EBR treatments aren't regularly maintained, the patient runs the risk of developing aggressive cancers and other genetic maladies as a result of their turbocharged cellular systems.

A common treatment among athletes, this cuts down the amount of time they would be out of work, and having an active EBR mod stacks bonuses with regeneration technology, such as LCL amniotic tanks. With the hardware supplying a steady dose of chemicals and nutrients directly to the body, along with other arcanotech, a shadowrunner with EBR, full body burns, and a healing tank could be fully recovered in a week instead of 8 to 12 months.

18. The Mr Universe Mod

Better known as the Claremont Light biomod, the Mr. Universe Mod picks up where the Mighty Muscle Man mod leaves off. Body mass is drastically increased, along with bone density, turning a normal human into 300+ pound beast. Where the Mighty Muscle Man is near the top of what is considered human normal ability, the Mr. Universe moves into the range of beyond human ability, and most of these mods are registered (though as most people double in weight, and gain on average a foot of height, this mod is really difficult to hide. There is another more experimental version of the Mr. Universe on the Black Market called the Titan Mod, which moves the patient out of the giant bodybuilder/comic book hero musculature range and into the grotesque giant range, with 500-600 lbs being normal and often reaching 9 feet tall.

19. Avian Wing Modification

With an Angel BioModification the patient gains a custom grown set of wings, and augmented biology to support them, and a limited variable ability to fly, or glide with style. The wing mod is popular among outdoorsy types, and if not for the difficulty of protecting said wings in space, would be much more common in low g and zero g habitats and space stations.

20. Genetic Rejuvenation (ReGen)

Age is merely a function of degrading telomeres and the long cycle of how many times a cell can divide before it begins to degenerate. The Genetic Rejuvenation treatment is a retarding of this cycle, rolling the clock back as it were. It is an expensive treatment, and once started, is a therapy that has to be maintained. There is a limit to how long ReGen treatments can be used, mostly in terms of diminishing returns. The upper limit of traditional ReGen treatments is around 130 years, after that, either more extensive treatments are required, or there has to be a transition to a new body, be it becoming a cyborg, a cloned body, or some other method.

ReGen treatments remove a certain number of years from the users physical age. While there is a trope of people who have ReGenned themselves into second childhoods, this is a myth, as the most extensive treatment regimens can only turn the biological clock back to the vicinity of physical maturity. A social effect of this treatment is many middle and upper income people having a second Middle Age, having the financial stability and economic opportunities to add another 25-30 years to their productive lifespans. This typically appears in the demographic in the mid 40s, with a rollback to a 25 year old vitality, which is sustained from the 40s to the late 60s, when normal aging is resumed due to the increased expense of ReGen treatments and lesser effectiveness moves this option from middle income into the wealthy class.

21. Gender Swap

Transexualism and transgendering has come a long way since the days of cross dressing and self mutilation. The Gender Swap Genetic Treatment is a series of treatments spread over a year that can turn a man into a woman or a woman into man. Along with several minor surgeries (to speed things along) a full gender change can be realized in 8 to 14 months, depending on the biology of the person.

22. Permateen Mod

A popular mod among celebrities, the PermaTeen Mod stalls puberty mid-stride, setting the body at a certain physical stage. this modification is strongly associated with females, as any teen pop starlet knows her career will fade when she moves out of the jailbait demographic. By using this mod, she stalls her biological maturity, and remains physically a teen. The mod doesn't prevent or retard cellular aging, and while outwardly, a PermaTeen might look young, their bodies are aging at a normal level internally.

The Mod, developed for the entertainment industry, and stolen by the porn industry, has long been used by the intelligence community. Through the use of this mod and the ReGen system, any intelligence department or agency can have an agent with the looks and physically appeal of a teenage boy, but with the knowledge, skills, and charisma of a 45 year old man. ShadowRunners and Hackers have also used this mod to ensure that people overlook them, or in the case of the age sensitive hacker profession, not be considered outdated or out of touch with technology.

23. Celebrity BioMod/Doppleganger

The versimillitude of genetic manipulation, and cosmetic treatments makes it possible for a person to radically change their appearance to look like a specific person, be it a celebrity, historical figure, or other person of interest, including fictional characters. The treatments mix site injections to spur changes in facial bone structure, and other minor treatments (skin pigment, ethnic modification, etc) to produce an appearance similar to said target. The most expensive biomods are celebrity endorsed, and use some of that celeb's DNA and biometric data to ensure accurate representation. Low end mods provoke 'hey you look like...' while the highest end mods can produce results that are almost carbon copy perfect. For legal reasons, these mods often have signals or tells that indicate that the person is a doppleganger and not the actual person they appear to be.

The most visible uses for these mods are celebrity look alikes and impersonators, but there are also social groups and venues based around impersonating historical figures, and SCA groups are very much different. The more insidious use of this is government and corp groups creating dopplegangers to replace people in sabotage and espionage operations. Many VIPs also will have dopplegangers as body stand ins, and often one of the skills of a top assassin is the art of telling a clone, droid, or stand in from the real target.

24. Phenometric Adjustment

In the long process of teaching machines how to recognize who someone was by looking at their face, the science of phenometrics was born. Phenometrics is simply the mathematical science of what is humanly attractive and what isn't. The phenometric adjustment procedure moves the recipient from their lumpy misshapen normal more towards an aesthetically pleasing appearance. This is adjustment of facial features, and things like facial symmetry, body symmetry, and similar biomechanical features.

The Phenometric Adjustment is a reasonable priced procedure, and it does improve general appearances, but it runs into a fundamental problem, determining what is and isn't attractive is a feature of biology and not mathematics. The upper end of this procedure produces an attractive, androgynous, but bland appearance. There is always a hint of strangeness, something out of proportion that makes average looking people glamorous. Increases the Appearance trait by small steps, but once the appearance trait reaches 80% of the trait maximum, the Bland Flaw comes into play, and it is obvious that the person has had work done.

25. NREM Mod

One of the biggest complaints in the Cosmic Era is that there just aren't enough hours in the day for an average person to do all of the things they want to do, and it is such a pain to spend so much time unconscious. The NREM mod is an expensive mod that alters brain chemistry and stimulates various glands to give humans the cetacean ability to enter a sort of half sleep. While this Near REM state is almost like sleeping, the mod recipient retains a minimal ability to interact and respond to outside stimuli. This is sufficient brain power to do passive activities such as watching non-immersive entertainment programming, skimming porn archives, and playing non-immersive video games. The full mod allows for a person to technically never have to enter a full sleep again, while lesser variants of the mod allow for partial reduction in sleep needs, with the most popular version reducing sleep requirements to just 2-3 hours in a 24 hour cycle.

The NREM mod allows for half sleep, which physical activity is at -90%, anything more strenuous than walking to the bathroom, or getting something premade from the kitchenette is beyond the NREM user's ability while in NREM state. Mental activities continue, but at a slower rate, and mental attributes are for all intents and purposes reduced 50%. This has opened a genre of NREM based entertainment that is slower paced, much more juvenile in nature, and rather than following convoluted plots, runs in more amorphic dream like patterns.

26. Mnemonic Stomach

Food and eating is a function of society that has atrophied in the Cosmic Era, withering in the face of mass produced, industrially extruded and vitamin reinforced processed food stuffs. The Mnemonic Stomach is a prototype mod that connects the stomach and other parts of the digestive tract to the emotional components of the brain. The end result is that there is a greater biochemical connection the food and the consumer. Most people however do not really want the emotional impact of mycoprotein and recycled biomass, so there are now tailor made mnemonic foods, and mnemonic food additives, that stimulate memories and emotional responses from being consumed. The only reason many of these additives are not considered drugs or other recreation stimulants is that unless the Mnemonic Stomach mod is present, the chemicals do nothing.

The mnemonic flavors are as variegated as the people who consume them, for every 'fresh fair trade natural organic' seasoning, there is a 'post coital the mess isn't even cold yet' seasoning. There are flavor sommeliers and gourmands who live in worlds where the flavorings mixed are more important than anything they are put on, such as last year's Taste of Texarkana winner, who concocted a flavor mixing that paired synthetic salmon with 'He Asked Me to Marry Him, Exquisite Greed, and a dash of 'I F****d His Brother This Morning' for that spoiled naughty glow.

27. Hibernation Gland

One of the problems still affecting space travel is that the planets themselves are still a long ways away from each other, even with continuous ion drives, solar sails and all the other sublight propulsion systems the Cosmic Era is chugging around with. (Despite the chrome and gleam, its more paced for steam locomotives and sailing ships than jet liners at this point) and long trips mean either carrying large amounts of food and supplies (and entertainment) for the humans on a ship, or investing in bulky, expensive and sometimes temperamental cryosleep or stasis pods. The Hibernation Gland is a biological answer, allowing the spacer or other person who has the gland to enter a drastically reduced metabolic state, consuming a fraction of the food and O2 they would normally consumer, and sleep.

The Hibernation Gland allows for a 90% reduction in caloric intake, along with a 70% reduction in respiration. This is a major deal on a space flight, as rather than feeding a non-essential crewman three meals a day, the same passenger in hibernation is going to sleep roughly 9 out of 10 days, and eat 3 meals during that time, rather than 30. Coming out of hibernation is much easier on the body, and fewer hibernators develop space sickness or deep space madness compared to those in cryostasis or computer induced comas.

28. Poison Bite/Gland

During the early years of special ops and genetic modification, there was a group that reverse engineered snake DNA and other organisms to create a poison bite for humans, allowing a completely disarmed agent to have the ability to kill with a single bite. It's the stuff of thriller holovids. It's also true, but the modification has been expanded and heavily modified from it's primitive poison injections. The modern Bite Gland can be tailored to create a variety of injectible chemicals, which is still popular among shadow ops (poison, sleep, etc) but also among sex workers (sleep, euphoria, aphrodisiacs, recreational pharmaceuticals etc) as well as spiritualists and others interested in inducing altered states of perception and awareness.

Poison and bite glands are very common mods on the black market, and they are heavily monitored and restricted by various government and corporate agencies. Given the size of the gland and the human body, it is very easy for a human to carry a lethal bite ability even with what are typically non-lethal chemicals, and if the entire contents of the gland are used, treat the bite subject as if overdosing on said chemical.

29. Bioluminescence

The subject of this mod gains the ability to emit light from their skin. Reverse engineered from jellyfish, this mod has a variety of modes, ranging from the bioreflexive 'mood lighting' mod, to a very specifically controlled mod that works in conjunction with a computer control implant.

30. Secretion Manipulation (savor the flavor)

Just as pheromones can be manipulated to produce everything from attraction to mimicking designer fragrances, the body's secretions, sweat, urine, etc, can be manipulated to have a specific taste/scent profile, such as fruit, flowers, spices, and so forth. This is popular among women, who can effectively have their gas smell like roses, strawberries, or whatever they find they like. This mod is dramatically cheaper than the tailored musk mods, so while rich people will have brand names, the more economically disadvantaged will have generic and natural scents.