Eugenic vs. Species Modification

Whether added DNA sequences are human or not may be very important if society bans or stigmatizes parahumans. Also, species modifications are more likely to be coupled with nonhuman features. Those genetic traits that would require departing from the human genome have been labeled as requiring "species modifications." Human genetic engineering that involves species modifications also has a higher dollar cost.

A few traits are described as requiring "radical species modification." Such modifications significantly increase the dollar cost and the difficulty of a genetic engineering project; a template with radical modifications is very likely to have a number of unintended genetic defects, especially at the TL that trait first becomes available.