Scarborough Fair Background: Morphs and Religion
Just something to show that I ain't dead yet. It's just been an "interesting" couple of years.
A short history of morphs and religion.
Or, why eight out of ten religious morphs join the Universal Church of the Pancreator.
The genetic breakthrough that created the morphs occurred near the end of the 100 year long human expansion that eventually became the Terran Hegemony. The exact motives of Professor Obed Rocke in developing the technology that created the morphs has been hotly debated ever since. He himself never gave any definitive answer when questioned, and his personal notes were lost when he disappeared.
What is known is that he pitched the project to the mega corps as a way to get a workforce with all of the capabilities of humans but none of the rights.
Corporations were among the first to take advantage of this, though others soon followed. Anyone who wanted a highly skilled yet expendable workforce was all in on the concept, and the use of morph labor quickly spread across human space.
For the next few decades after morph creation became economically feasible, morphs were mercilessly exploited, until a man named Mykyls came out with his treatise, “On the Nature of Humanity”, in which he argued that even though the morphs had been created by humans, they still had souls. And if they had souls, they were humans, not animals, and thus had all the rights of humans.
As at the time Mykyls was the Grand Patriarch of the Universal Church of the Pancreator, the largest and most influential religious institution in human space, his treatise had weight. Though it took a few decades to be fully accepted, (and to this day not everyone accepts it), eventually laws were passed legalizing their status.
Mykyls himself did not live long enough to see this happen, but the Grand Patriarchs and Grand Matriarchs that followed him tirelessly pursued his goal of giving morphs full human rights. They also welcomed morphs into the church, and helped the ones who felt a calling to join and advance through the ranks to higher offices. (With a Grand Matriarch or Grand Patriarch sponsoring them, their rise was rather quicker than usual.)
Their continuing efforts on behalf of the morphs earned them the gratitude of most morphs. Even the morphs who were not religious acknowledged the efforts of the church and joined in whenever possible, forging an alliance that still stands to this day.
Because of the goodwill engendered by these actions, most morphs of a religious bent join the Universal Church, finding an acceptance that is lacking in many other religious institutions.