text: The quasi-generationship Rabelais was launched from Jupiter by the remnants of the Gengineer Republic in 791 AT, many years after the Goddess of Earth had receded into isolation after launching the last of her Arks, and in the deepest, darkest phase of the so-called Interplanetary Dark Age.
  Swinging close to Saturn (to take advantage of the Oberth Effect) this ship proceeded at 0.07c towards its destination. The journey took 820 years, during which time a small population of caretakers crewed the ship. Although these individuals were relatively long-lived, seven generations of caretakers lived and died in the confines of this vessel, growing their food in vats and tiny farms, and carefully protecting the vast reserves of genetic information entrusted to them by the New Shoot faction known as the Erotic Ascension. Forty caretakers were on board when the Rabelais left Solsys, and the population at one point swelled to two hundred; but when the ship arrived at Iota Horologii there were no more than seventeen left.
  Meanwhile, in Solsys the remnants of the Genetekkers had joined the new First Federation and become important players on an interplanetary and interstellar scale. The Genen (as they were now known) were monitoring the progress of the Rabelais, as far as was possible; they had incomplete records of the launch and knew the destination. In 1140 a small fleet of automated Genen bioships were sent to assess the Iota system and its worlds and resources, and prepare them for the arrival of the Genetekker ark. These ships, much faster than the Rablelais, arrived a hundred years before that vessel, and made contact with the ancient Genetekker ship as they sped past.
  The helpful and solicitous explorer craft assisted the Genetekkers to set up a small colony on Thoth, a Callisto-like moon of the outer gas giant. The crew named the planets and major moons of this system after Egyptian gods and goddesses, so many of which were therianthopic in nature, like certain of the Genetekkers themselves.
  Despite accepting assistance from the First Fed ship minds, the New Shoot colonists declined to formally join the First Federation, but instead set to work attempting to construct their idealised version of the old Jovian culture, based around radical genetic experimentation. The genetic information they had brought with them allowed them to instantiate a wide range of species and clades for the new colony, and quite quickly they began to produce forms that had never been seen before.
  The large supergaian Heket was seen as a good prospect for terraformation, despite its high gravity and thick atmosphere; the thick atmosphere ensured a fairly even temperature, which could be regulated using genetically-engineered skyplankton that would act as self-regulating Weather Machines. New, robust human clades were developed to live on the surface of this world, which had several large seas and low mountain ranges, forming a number of natural geographic divisions which were soon claimed by different groupings of colonists.
  Heket culture is based around relatedness, and the shared genetic legacy that each citizen inherits from eir ancestors. A new genotype which is sufficiently distinct to merit the status becomes the basis for a new Family, which is the basic unit of political culture on this world. Each Family represents an independent political power-base, which may be authoritarian or unconditionally supportive, or might alternate between these states according to circumstance. Many, but by no means all, Families protect their integrity by measures to prevent genetic theft, such as the use of Keymale fertilisation and other encryption methods. Family members are expected to respect one another and be concerned for each other's welfare, while also respecting each other's differences. The senior members of a Family are chosen by previous senior members, or sometimes elected, and they have ultimate control over the fortunes of their clan. Sometimes the Head of a Family will be deposed by other members of that family for incompetence, or by other Families which are sufficiently close in genetic composition to be regarded as close kin; but the deposed head is traditionally cared for as a respected kinsperson (unless e rejects that status and leaves the system altogether.
  At length, hampered by the large distances involved and the lack of wormhole communication in this era, the colonists at Iota Horologi made contact with the Genen back in the Federation worlds, and the Heket system became part of that organisation. An increasing number of Genen colony ships arrived over the next few centuries, spanning the distances between the worlds at increasing velocities thanks to rapidly improving technology. Gradually Heket and Thoth became the most important Genen-majority colonies in the Inner Sphere, as the ex-Genetekker populations in other systems (such as Penglai and Pacifica) were becoming increasingly integrated with other local clades or diminishing in number. By establishing a system that could represent a heartland and meetingplace, the widely-spread Genen began to flourish as a House.
  Much of Genen technology is biological or semibiological in nature, from their vast biocomputer brains housed in the cooling ice of Thoth and the seas of Heket, to the radically engineered crops that are grown on the planets surface and in agricultural stations in space. These crops often become food, fuel or structural materials, but a large proportion of these crops are more exotic, consisting of biodata molecule complexes or viruses that the biobrains use for information, communication, diversion and mental nourishment.
  The space habitats used by the Genen are biologically grown, consisting of a thick layer of shell-like or bone-like material, often reinforced by biologically produced buckyfibres or diamondoid biolith plates. Surface transport on these worlds and habitats is generally biological in nature, with great living seavessels on the oceans of Heket, great serpentine land-trains that wind their way across the land surface, and riding animals of many sizes that carry travellers shorter distances.
  Large, subsapient dirigible animals provide living aircraft on this world, but heavier-than-air craft are rare on Heket due to the gravity (1.46 standard gees). On the other hand on many of the habitats and in the vast caverns of Thoth there are dragon-like flying craft. Most transportation animals are presapient or barely sophont, but an increasing number are fully sophont and are respected members of Genen society.
  The oldest Heket Families were derived from the original Erotic Ascension colonists who had arrived in the Rabelais, a fairly radical faction of the old Mutationists, who believed that there should be few or no restrictions on genetic engineering, so that many of their members were barely recognisable as human. The EA held New Shoot sympathies, including a willingness to adopt a wide range of bizarre modifications to achieve their ends. But one of the old Genemorpher clans that had been long rejected by the Federation Genen found acceptance among the radical EA, the so-called Fighting Body genotype who were conventionally humanoid in appearance but capable of ferocious combat if the occasion arose. The Fighting Body family was accepted by the EA at an early stage in the history of Heket, and they were further modified by EA drytech to become a bioborg-like police-force.
  Since each Family was politically independent of each other, the Enforcer Family were only able to act at the invitation of the Heads of other clans, except when dealing with their own internal affairs. Most of the old EA family heads were prepared to accept Enforcer assistance when they needed help to deal with internal disputes or criminal acts; but some of the incomers from other systems, especially Solsys, were suspicious of these compact-but deadly operatives. After the fall of the First Federation the Iota Horologii system became largely isolated for several hundred years, and tensions began to rise between the EA old Families and their Enforcers, and the Federation Genen who were unwilling to let the Enforcers into their territories. Enforcer Family members were expelled from Thoth in 2170 AT, largely at the insistence of a faction of Atavists who feared a repeat of certain conflicts with the Fighting Body clan that dated back to the pre-Technocalypse era.