The Jovians

 Hi All,

The Jovians are for all intents and purposes human, but ever since 1999, they and their Earth brothers are forever split on their attitude toward the crystal and genetic engineering. Whereas Earthers have chips inserted into their brains to allow for solar internet access and the ability to process massive amounts of data, the Jovians used Jupiter crystals. Found in the mid region of gas giants these crystals are natural data storage devices, but with a side effect of giving the user telepathic and mild telekinesis abilities. When the leader of the Jovians died, he reappeared revealing that he had a cloned body of himself and had inserted the crystal into the brain of this clone, thus allowing him to live on after death, revealing that during death he had a divine revelation and a new society to be created, which apparently the people of Jupiter confirmed by their telepathic link.  

The rest is history, the Jovians and quickly joined together in creating this new society and free from the 'shackles' of Earth's ethics committees began intensive genetic upgrades, but also into foetus's. Back on Earth, this enraged the religious who claimed that all of this stopped the divine judgment and God's role in the resurrection of the dead or that it interfered with reincarnation and Kama. The world's atheist leaders also dismissed this as 'another cult' and took the view that all you'd be speaking to was the equivalent of a tape being repeated rather than an actual human being. More universal  objections were questions around the clone's status as a human being and what had happened to that clone's personality and secondly the slippery slope argument around genetic engineering. 

There was one catch for Jovians is that the crystal can only be used 12 times, it isn't understood why. The temporary solution was to build a complex AI computer, made up of the largest of this crystals to download the personality once the crystal had lost its ability, a cyberspace heaven. The long term solution was eventually discovered: there are coloured Ruby (found in hot Jupiter gas giants ) , Emerald (Uranus)  and Sapphire (Neptune)  crystals. Each of these can extend usage considerably with Sapphire crystals being the best: alas these crystals are extremely rare and there is a waiting list on the JHS (Jovian Health Service), even though half of these crystals are imported. The cost price per ounce is well over £1 trillion.

While Earth and Jupiter still trade (Jupiter controls the He3 trade, fuel for starships)  there is little love left between them. While Jovians themselves are a generally peaceful people, they do have their 'black sheep' , their understated euphemism for the tiny fraction of the population that rejects their society, which mostly leads them into super villain or criminal mastermind territory.