In the year 2145 the first robotic terraformers were sent to Mars. They carried with them the parts for an experimental Matter Transferral Unit, or MTU. The MTU technology allowed materials to be moved from one point in space to another by 'folding' the fabric of the universe, concertina style, and then breaking a hole through at fabric through which the materials could be pushed, effectively reducing the distance traveled in the same was that by folding a piece of paper you can push a pin through it once and create two holes inches apart when the paper is unfolded once again.
In the eight years between the launch of the terraforming units and the assembly of the MTU on Mars, the first colonists were made ready. They had been born sixteen years earlier, the final result of the UN's China-based top-secret Genehack program. Eight genetically engineered children altered to be better adapted to Mars' longer days and lighter gravity. The genehack for Mars was relatively easy. Already, however, the program had been started to prepare a second group with a much farther destination in mind…
The Mars expedition was a success, as was the Jupiter expedition that followed. By 2260 Earth had colonies on Venus, Mars, three of Jupiter's moons, a station orbiting Neptune and even a binary facility based on Pluto and Charon, linked by miniaturized MTUs.
No-one knows exactly when the secret to the colonies' success was outed to the world, but shortly after the success of the Jupiter mission the world found out about the Genehack project. The colonists, previously thought of as brave heroes, were revealed to be the children of criminals and political prisoners. The resulting shift of social opinion shattered the Chinese stranglehold on Martian colonisation rights, and the Negro stock used as the base for the radiation-resistant Jovian hacks was suddenly returned to its' 20th century status as a suppressed minority society everywhere except its native Africa.
Genehacked people were suddenly relegated to the bottom rung of society. The people demanded that the subhumans be treated as such and almost overnight the Genehacked were rounded up and put into concentration camps as the frightened pure-human movements overruled the governments and shattered the PRC formed by the descendants of the original Genehacked colonists. The PRC, or Planetary Ruling Council, had been a UN-sanctioned governing body. Without it, the colonies devolved to an almost feudal system where the rich landowners ruled over their poorer tenants like nobles and serfs.
It was decided that since the Genehacked weren't human, they were less than that and should be treated as such. Slavery became wide-spread, and even more so when the Genehack project leaders saw an opportunity to make more money than they ever had as Government lackeys. They sold their skills to the highest bidder, and it became the fashion to have Genehacked bodyguards, maids, menials - everything that could benefit from Genehacking benefited, and the employers, now slave owners, most of all. No industry went untouched, and with the advent of recombinant DNA technology the hacks started to be used for appearance as well.
So the Demihumans were born. Genehacked humans with animal features designed for aesthetics as much as practicality. The first Demihuman Harem was bought by a Maharajah of India, and the fashion spread.
By 2290 the only bastion of free Genehacked were the Jovian colonies. Very few humans had ever moved to the colonies there, and with the large naval shipyards located there Jupiter became a military power that the new, pure-human PRC decided was not worth the effort.
It was from Jupiter that the Genehack Freedom Movement spread, slowly at first, and then more virulently. A terrorist organisation in its purest form, the Movement slowly pressured regional governments to outlaw slavery of Genehacks and grant them the citizenship they had lost. The Supplementary Justice Agency was formed in 2345 to reinforce the failing police in holding back the terrorist movement, but the Agency - colloquially called the SJA or Bounty Hunter's Guild - was as unsuccessful as the police. In 2350, Mars was the only remaining bastion of Genehacked slavery in the solar system.
Incursion put a stop to that. In 2353 a mining team extracting precious metals from the Martian North Pole encountered a strange metal they'd never seen before. The metallurgists could not identify the metal either, but it was found to have excellent tensile strength, flexibility and conductivity. It weighed almost nothing, and was almost totally chemically inert, making it the new super-metal that could be used for anything from spaceship fuselages to geothermal power generator turbines. The metal was extensively mined, and other traces searched for across Mars.
The metal turned out to be a Pandora's box, however, and was named for that ancient woman - Pandorum. Eventually, the seam ran dry, and when it did all hell broke loose. Literally. All contact was lost with the mining station. A force of SJA specialists including both Genehacked and Human agents guarded the next supply train. When they arrived, the found the facility abandoned. Then the strangeness started happening. Walls bled crimson life, dismembered bodies twitched and moaned where before there had been nothing… and then disappeared again. The oddities occurred in waves, called Events at first but later redubbed Incursions. The severity defended on the innocence of the people present - and there always were. The pure could act as a buffer, while the corrupt or tortured practically invited it.
Hell has a way of eroding purity, however, and no one survived his or her third encounter. All but one of the original SJA team - Rav Sunkite, Aki Twilight, Enver Kahn and Michele Bryce - died within three years of the first Incursion. Thirty years later, even Rav is frightened. He has survived seven Incursions. He fears what will happen if he encounters an eighth…
