@Grumplebee You could have a very pure team of recreants engineer synthetic versions of genes to make them the Übermensch.

More effective versions of certain human intelligence-granting genes.

Maybe a more effective allele of FOX2P than what even humans have.

I'm not gonna delete it.

As to the very pure thing here's what's going on with them.

They're really more of a cult than anything, and none of them have the sophistication to do that kind of thing. In the greater story human gene manipulation was kind of a dead end.

As mentioned they create their most sophisticated ones via genetic alteration in utero. Something they abducted the guy writing the chapter to help them with.

Because they are predominately male. They've taken to abducting women (for use in creation of third gen recreants) and children (to produce second gens). Their goal is to create a Fourth Generation recreants. The offspring of two thrid generations. Theoretically capable of producing more fourth gens if they can get at least one breeding pair.

But the closest they've gotten to that is the chacter that shows up at the very end. He's an exile from their society for obvious reasons. But he follows the camp for numerous reasons.

This whole story is based on three real life things: My childhood experience in the coast range of Oregon, specifically that story I was telling about my great aunt encountering some bad business in the middle of nowhere, Furries (obviously), and the Rajneeshpuram cult described in this video. https://youtu.be/Gwx9nqknu-c

@Grumplebee What doesn't make sense is the stirrups, an evil human invention.

Especially given that they actually make childbirth harder and more damaging for women, the healthy way is to squat.

Also, the deformities.

That does not look much like "genetic mixing" of different human-animal hybrids.

They are really bad at the whole evil human technology thing.

I don't know how even we would be able to produce such an creature.

It's a combination of the altered genetic strands of the parents combined with the human DNA trying to reassert itself.

They did not invent this tech. They merely co opted it.

They aren't a group of renegade scientists. They're a religious cult.

They're whole history is a comedic bunch of fail.

Oh forgot to mention, they are also based a bit on the Free Man on the Land Movement.

It's not that it sounds like it's written ABOUT people who know little about biology.

It sounds like it's written BY someone who knows little about biology.

Their founder (now deceased) tried to argue that he could not be arrested and prosceuted for a crime because his alterations meant he wasn't human.

Not the biggest expert on biology I've got to admit. So that is a fair cop. However, in my defense this was written in 2005 and our knowledge of how we'd even go about altering the human genome was a bit less.

"Not the biggest expert on biology"
Understatement of the decade.

Also, this:

"It's a combination of the altered genetic strands of the parents combined with the human DNA trying to reassert itself."

In genetics, we call that "nonsense".

Not a "nonsense mutation", just nonsense.

The idea was that similar to how we genetically modify things now it was introduced to the body piggybacked on a viral agent (which was my understanding of how that worked at the time). That works good for plants, but not as well on something as complex as a human.

Well, it works well when there are far fewer cells to get the genetic material in.

As in the case of embryos.

Due to an arbitrary tech roadblock I created you couldn't use these techniques to create new life from stratch. Only alter an already existing structure.

Right, that's why in the story they have essentially three variants basted on when the alterations were introduced.

Well, altering an extisting structure would be how any sensible person would do it anyway.

Yes, THAT bit I liked.

Then I got to the nonsensical malformations, and worse yet, your description of the mechanism that brought them about.

Well I can explain my line of reasoning, and you can tell me how I am wrong.

It's just a genome, it has no intelligence.

Well, yes. Of course.