Species Codex Entry
Humans
The species that invented transcendence—and refused it
All Eras · 50,000 BC – Present"We accept our limitations as we accept our gifts. To speak with animals would make us something other than human, and we choose to remain what we are."
— Fellowship of the Untouched Genome Charter
The Essential
In the Lumen Universe, humanity is not one species—it's a question that split into two answers.
For nearly a hundred thousand years, humans clawed their way through ice ages, cataclysms, and wars that reshaped continents. They built civilizations that touched the stars. They uplifted six animal species to sapience—creating rivals, enemies, and eventually allies. And in 7800 AD, they engineered their own evolutionary transcendence: the Chrono-Biogenesis Project, which transformed 92% of the species into the bioluminescent, long-lived Lumens.
But 8% refused the light.
These Human Holdouts chose to remain what they were—baseline biology, mortal timelines, and all. Some rejected transcendence for faith. Others for philosophy. Many simply didn't trust a transformation that erased the boundary between human and something else.
Thirteen thousand years later, both paths persist. Lumens dominate galactic civilization. Holdouts maintain scattered colonies across multiple galaxies, preserving languages, traditions, and a genetic continuity stretching back to pre-Cataclysm Earth.
The paradox defines them: the species brilliant enough to invent transcendence, stubborn enough to refuse it, and adaptable enough to survive either choice.
Species Data
In the Stories
The Great Gridlock captures humanity at its most vulnerable—the final days before the Cataclysms, when a cyberattack paralyzed global infrastructure and left billions to face geological apocalypse without warning. The survivors who emerged became the ancestors of everything that followed.
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Story File
The Great Gridlock — Coming Soon