You can ﬁnd almost as many opinions about uplifts as there are people in the solar system. There is prejudice and indifference, of course, but there are also those who consider uplifts interesting as a tool to exploit or because the very idea of uplift ﬁres their imagination. You will ﬁnd the latter evenly distributed among the various organizations that have a hand in bringing uplifts into existence. To some, uplifts are a product or resource; to others, uplifts are a scientific wonder and living treasure to be cherished.
=Hypercorps= 
It was the hypercorps that drove the research that ﬁrst brought uplifted creatures into the universe. Many uplifts look upon the hypercorps as dangerous and self-centered parents. They are not well loved, but oh, how hard it is to break those family ties. A majority of uplifts still work for hypercorps in conditions that range from privileged employment all the way to de facto slavery. The precise relationship between hypercorps and uplifts is as complex and varied as the uplifts themselves.
It is important to consider that for the hypercorps, uplift is a business. They engage in it in search of proﬁt. Some see it as a testing ground for procedures that may be marketable to transhumans seeking cognitive upgrades; much of what is learned in enhancing animal minds is applicable to humans, or may be in the future, and it is considered more ethical to reﬁne the practices on non-humans ﬁrst. Others consider themselves manufacturers of biological products to sell to consumers, whether they are making smart rats or cloning morphs. Most hypercorps that actually birth, raise, and socialize uplifts see their work as self-supporting, as they are growing an indentured work force that will pay back their costs in labor for decades to come. Others view their efforts as a sound investment, building a new consumer base to which they can sell tailored products, from specialized consumer goods to genetic service packs or morphological and cognitive upgrades.
In standard hypercapitalist style, there are thousands of hypercorps engaged in some aspect of uplift work, from small three-person mostly virtual outﬁts to monolithic near-megacorp size businesses like Somatek. The vast majority are small and specialized, focusing on speciﬁc aspects of the uplift process—cognitive research, transgenic splicing, in vitro fertilization, child-rearing, socialization software, aptitude testing, etc.—and working with other small hypercorps and partnerships as part of a larger gestalt process. They each draw from a massive pool of freelancers who sell their skills to individual projects. Certain genehackers, neuroscientists, and zoological psych specialists with good reps are in high demand for their contracted services.
Among the hypercorps and consortiums that actually grow new uplifts or work with existing uplifts to reproduce, the majority saddle their progeny with some sort of debt for the privilege. The terms vary, but frequently require a period of indentured service once the uplift reaches sexual maturity. They may treat the uplifts as property, as contracted workers, or if the uplifts are lucky, as valued citizen-employees. Some uplifts have the option to buy out if they can ﬁnd the money or a sponsor, but most are contractually obligated to work. Uplifts raised in sovereign hypercorp habitats have no recourse to laws or rights; they are at the hypercorp’s mercy. Within the Consortium, indenture debts are considered perfectly legal, though they have faced challenges in some habitats and in other jurisdictions. A major part of the justification for this practice is that uplift procedures and genetics are considered intellectual property. Patents are levied against almost every modified base pair in nearly every uplift that ever drew a breath. The hypercorps point to the trillions they have invested in uplift technologies and claim the debt bonds are justified to recoup their investment. The argument that patents must bow to the public interest holds little weight among the Consortium and Lunar-Lagrange courts.
Talk to the CEO of any of the hypercorps that employ contract uplifts in their workforce (which is to say all of them), and they’ll give you compelling reasons why what they’re doing isn’t slavery, but opportunity. After all, without corporate capital uplift research would be decades behind where it is today. Many of the uplifts currently alive would never have been born. Uplift advocates, mercurial activists, and autonomists claim that lives are at stake and point out the immorality of treating the body of a sapient being as intellectual property, but in hypercorp jurisdictions these arguments fall secondary to commercial interests.
Though many of the major uplift hypercorps are easy to identify—Provolve, Cephala, MindUp, to name just a few—some deserve special mention.
* [[Somatek]]
* [[New Day]]
* [[Darwin's Children, Incorporated]]
* [[Feral Robot]]
* [[Cognite]]
=Non-Hypercorp Specialists= 
Not all of the uplift research in the solar system is in hypercorp hands, of course. There are numerous autonomist collectives pursuing their own studies and projects, not to mention a few put together entirely by mercurials. These projects are usually less exploitive than hypercorp affairs, though there are some exceptions in brinker enclaves.
==Fortean== 
The exomoon of Fortean, accessed through the Fissure gate controlled by the Love and Rage Collective, has proven itself to be a true friend to uplifts and our interests. Several of the new biomorph and pod sleeves specifically designed for uplifts were ﬁrst fabricated on Fortean. Many of these designs are neogenetic, pushing the limits of what can be done with our current genehacking capabilities. Fortean has been one of the few places to address the issue of utility when it comes to morphs. The simple fact of the matter is that if you are human you have dozens of potential morphs and shells to choose from, depending on where you live and what you do. For the vast majority of uplifts, the choice is between a morph very much like the one you were uplifted in or one of the human-form morphs which many of us ﬁnd less than satisfactory. Fortean has attempted to rectify this situation by designing several special-use uplift morphs for our people.
==The Kisilev Open Source Uplift Genetic Library== 
Located on [[Ceres]], this institution works to untangle the complex web of uplift genetics. Sponsored by the argonauts, it is a ﬁne example of the belief in open source information and technoprogressivism. The ultimate goal of the library is to return control of uplift biology to the uplifts themselves. The library accepts small resource payments to cover its operating needs, but all of the information in its data banks—physiology, reproductive biology, genetic coding errors, psychology, brain scans, more—is available to all for free. The library does ask uplifts who use its resources to contribute any data they might have—meaning personal data, stripped of identifying factors. Even the most destitute uplift often has a lifelog, aptitude test scores, and possibly personal health records and genomic data at their disposal. Every uplift’s experiences and medical problems adds another data point to the wealth of knowledge already accumulated by the library. Almost all of the autonomist uplift concerns make heavy use of the library and contribute their own data.
Though the library operates according to local jurisdiction laws, in areas that do not prohibit it they also offer a wealth of pirated proprietary genetic data. This factor remains a sore point in the library’s dealings with inner-system hypercorps.
Though they don’t speak of it directly, the Kisilev library also sponsors a unique grants program through some trusted intermediaries that rewards enterprising individuals and groups who are able to acquire sequences or samples off their “most wanted” list. And I hear they’re not too particular about whether the results come out of a lab or are obtained through less scientifically rigorous means.

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