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reggie11 November 21 2014, 07:43:25 UTC
I would also maybe try a search on race and culture from a historical anthropological standpoint. It might be a good way to find info on how various races/tribes etc have reacted with racial integration etc. Although not the same, it may highlight how people over the ages have reacted to those with different physical characteristics when forced to integrate.

Perhaps even searches on the ethical concerns of cloning and hybridization and ethical concerns of human genetic modification and transgenics.

Not sure is this will help but here is a white paper on the Ethics of Research Using Hybrids, Chimeras and Cytoplasmic Hybrids.

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beesandbrews November 21 2014, 13:51:25 UTC
People are people. They're going to react in fairly orthodox ways: fear what they don't understand, make mass generalisations, and then when confronted by an individual they will react and relate according to their own psychological makeup and either continue to act fearfully or become accepting and move on. I doubt a hundred years give or take will have much effect on the human psyche.

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marjun November 21 2014, 14:25:08 UTC
You might try to find the short story "Scanners Live in Vain" by Cordwainer Smith. It deals with a group of people who have been permanently altered to be able to navigate spaceships. Some of them underwent the process voluntarily, and are treated as heroes (with some degree of "otherness"). Some are criminals who have had it done as part of their sentence, and they are treated as such.

Now that I think about it, just about any of Cordwainer Smith's stories about "The Instrumentality of Mankind" might illuminate your problem. A recurring idea in them is the "Underpeople," or animals that have been bred/altered over thousands of years to look mostly human. They are treated as completely disposable, but over time, the weakest got weeded out, and in many ways, the Underpeople are actually superior to humanity.

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laurose8 November 21 2014, 16:51:56 UTC
I greatly admire Cordwainer Smith, but his humans treat the Underpeople so badly because they can say they're basically nonhuman.

In this particular social set up, the enhanced are giving important labour, (?)in a labour-short society. To judge from children's fiction, the important thing is if they can talk with basically human grammar. The fact that there is a range of strange, rather than the enhanced being all of one type, will probably also help. Also, unless their minds and instincts have been altered, they are fully human.

There might very well be unenhanced humans with phobias about these altered people; (indeed, enhanced humans with phobias about this, which might make an interesting plot.). But if they had to work together,that would be more like aileurophobes trying to work in a catty environment.

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tabaqui November 22 2014, 01:46:48 UTC
And don't forget rule 34 - it's a rule for a reason, and I don't see that changing....

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