Aaaaand of COURSE the Atlasian Gene Crime Accord was in response to a failed project funded by white supremacists.  Who else?

To Theo, he felt the self-described “failure”of this project was clearly in the eye of the beholder.

Almost three hundred years ago, The Atlas Foundation had bought a majority stake in the failed mining settlement RZ-49, away from the  eye of the Earth Conglomeration, and immediately began experimenting to create a White Superman. A generation later, subjects were averaging four inches taller, thirty pounds lighter, and so pale they were sunburned when they went out in the daytime.  Also, almost all subjects, males and females, suffered from pattern baldness that started at eight years old.

Theo found that hilarious.

There was a purging after that. Less funny.

A breakaway group of scientists had found a way to sequence genes that made traits of size and strength dominant, and they had success.  Extraordinary success.  But they found that the more they emphasized “purity” in the genes, the less successful they were.

The guys running the project only found out about it a decade later, when the males we're starting to average two meters.  Many were furious. A few decided to work on the Superman now, and the White later.

A hundred years after that, there was a completely diverse, genetically mixed population of differing sexual orientations and identities where adult males were maxing out at an average of over two and a half meters and women averaged just over two meters on the renamed planet Atlasia. Likewise, the scientists on the project had become more and more diverse as they found smaller obstacles that required precise expertise to solve.

That was when the sanctions started. There were a lot of ties between the organizations of that era, and the white supremacists organizations who had started the whole thing a century before. Some of the people involved claimed they had come to understand the evils of genetic engineering.  Detractors were pretty sure they just didn't like the wild mix of genes that were becoming the “supermen” they had asked for.

Out in the rim, there were still a great deal of imports required, terraforming machinery, soil purification. So the money for the genetic engineering dried up quickly.

There was not a lot of resistance, because two hundred years of genetic engineering had borne significant fruit.  Atlasian subjects were the biggest, strongest by weight, and most physically resistant to injury, defects or disease of all known

human variants. There didn't appear to be much more to gain from continuing the “failed project” because growth of the males had tailed off. The gene selection process was already programmed into the genes, and had already maxed out on male size and strength.

But as time would tell, that was not the case for Atlasian females.

The Atlasian Gene Crime Accord removed sanctions but created a unique quarantine that declared their genetic material as akin to a virus.

Theo thought that was a bit harsh.

Having read up that far, he was curious enough to ask a few questions, but it did seem to be a touchy subject. In all honesty, he had figured out by now how easy it was for Camille to go from inviting to intimidating.

No way around it.  A twenty six hundred pound woman who moved like lightning was just scary. If he wasn't going to push through the question, he probably should let it lie.