Sponge

Even in an era where cybernetic augmentation is worked with the mundanity of car maintenance, the average Evermornan generally eschews body augmentations more ostentatious than a few tattoos. After all, the cultural zeitgeist on Evermorn regards the emulation of nature as a high ideal when it comes to aesthetics; if a machine is indistinguishable from the flesh, the idea goes, then it must be truly advanced indeed in contrast to the baroque assemblages of servos and polymer from previous eras. The 'Sponge' subculture, on the other hand, is an explicit rejection of this traditional, 'minimalist' view towards body augmentation.
The Sponge subculture embraces surreal artistic expression, transhuman philosophy, and a hunger for sensory experience in all of its various forms. The question every Sponge seeks to answer on some level boils down to this: how much surface area can a single living person occupy, in physical, sensory, and information space, as a living being? The land-spanning root networks of trees and the globally unifying consciousness of the extranet both inspire the Sponge, who wishes to expand their consciousness as much as they wish to expand their bodies. This way of life, regarded even by the tech-forward culture of the Cobalt Protectorate as occupying the furthest of social extremes, pushes the boundaries of what is possible to achieve with the human form in the hands of the artistically inclined.

Culture

Common Dress code

Members of the Sponge subculture far enough along in their journey will eventually no longer be able to wear normal clothing as a result of the extreme nature of the bodily alterations. Instead, Sponges will have special lattices constructed throughout which their form is artistically integrated, with the largest of these requiring supplemental means of locomotion (i.e. wheels). Sponges who have planned their modifications far enough ahead may retain their overall silhouette, though their apparel will still often pass or be braided through the new voids in their flesh to emphasize their chosen aesthetic. Rarer still, special latticework may be constructed containing strength- or dexterity-enhancing synthetic musculature, acting in many ways like an integrated suit of powered armor, though members of the movement seldom use such augmentations for violent ends.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

To test the limits of the 'human span,' Sponges undergo a process of extreme body modification including skin stretching and the installation of gauges throughout these new expanses of flesh. The 'Sponge' nomenclature is apt for this subculture as, like the sea sponge, the volume of space occupied by a participant is sparse and, ultimately, more composed of void than material. Strains of Sponge practices have existed as far back as the founding of the Cobalt Protectorate in isolated regions of Evermorn, but it is only the developments of modern medicine which have allowed these practices to reach their current heights. This process should be distinguished from a desire to gain mass in other ways, such as overeating, as it requires an otherwise cardiovascularly healthy body to support such expansion. Eventually, there become extents of the body so far removed from the trunk and reachable only by such circuitous arrangements of arteries and capillaries that the unaugmented human circulatory system cannot support further expansion; while many Sponges choose to stop at this point, others push onward with questionably legal cybernetic augmentations. The bravest and most experienced of the Sponges are humanoid shapes only briefly glimsed amongst spherical or cuboid networks of living tissue strands, occupying entire rooms with their presence even if their total mass would not account for such a reach.
The desired expansion of the self among members of the Sponge subculture is of a mental and sensory, as well as physical, nature. Once the limits of an unaugmented nervous system have been reached, networking implants may be installed in an attempt to expand the mind's reach into more remote portions of the body, into spectrums of light and modes of sensation not naturally part of the human set, and across multiple digital spaces simultaneously. Brain-computer and brain-vehicle implants are common among Sponge aspirants, as is the "Seer" radiosensory array and similar devices. A Sponge wants to feel, see, and experience all.

Parent ethnicities

• Evermornan