Earth is only a distant memory, a self automated factory, and the planets, space travel and the science of machines have been lost to the distant past, leaving mankind stuck inside the large, artificial worlds of the space station. Partly organic and living, the space stations themselves grow to the whims of a plan made centuries past, and guided by half unseen forces.
The colonies spread through space, and each slowly developed it's own cultures, linguistics and religous beliefs, with a number of analogous developments occuring in each. Animal reverence and popularity, from fashion to religon, became highly popular as animals were made mythical by their near total extinction (some animal life, and most plantlife, was preserved withing the colonies). Over hundreds of years the colonies grew until they connected, causing serious culture shock beteween the different colonists suddenly thrust into being neighbors.
Another common feature amongst the colonists was a general lack of technical knowledge. As computer technology became exceedingly easy to use, and the space stations were self growing and repairing very few technicians were needed. Most scientists became severely hindred when connection to the research facilities on Mars and Luna were suddenly cut of, and litereary and social sciences became highly favored over more technical knowlege.
Women advanced rapidly as scientist in this new era, and most prominent doctors and acadameans were woman. Men, on the other hand, were becoming more and more concerned with regulating society within the confines of the stations, and later with waging both war and diplomacy with the other space station colonies as they grew into one another.
A cross-breeding happened when two of the colonies connected, resulting in the sudden viloent spread of a plague like disease. This disease turned it's victims into mechanized, nearly robotic entities whose minds were completely alien to the rest of humanity, but who were allowed to live because of their amazing and incomprehensible power to manipuate the space station, but since the disease was very wide spread and sexually transmitted, with female carriers passing on the disease to male partners, a neccessary split occured between the male and female populations, who evolved into a sort of sexual neutrality.
The etiquette that arose from the lack of sexual contact and the dilleniation between male and female roles in the colonies created to very powerful gender-based nations, that, though they lived in close contact, and often worked together, were governed by different rules and regulations.
The female half society became more and more guarded in it's secret knowledge of the few remaining sciences, and most prominent female leaders, in the early yearsof the split, pushed hard to dissolve any remaining vestiges of natural, procreational sexuality. Female secrecy and the seperation of living space had gone far to stop inter-breeding, but not until the Cult imerged was the line finally severed.
Bionics, the pseudo-science of radical cosmetic surgery was built into the space station long ago, and ports at various locations allowed for anyone to change much about their appearence and outward biology. The Cult took advantage of this, hoarding the remaining Bionics terminals and using them to introduce a new move that was primarilly one of fashion, and, originally, only slightly religious.
Animal reverence and the appeal of animals as mythic creatures was still rampant in the colonies, and some colonies believed heavily in animal worship. Bionics would be the thing that allowed the women of the Cult to resemble the animals that they adored.
Early changes were moderate and fairly in consequential, but the vast and often brutal social divide that arose between those with and without animal features made the Cult grow immense, and pushed the genetic alterations ever further, until most women were completly masked under snouts, beaks, feathers, fur, tails and tufted ears.
Those women that remained were ostracized more and more from the mainstay of female society, and though they were highly prized by males, the omni-present disease prevented them from making any serious head-way into male society, or even into a criminal, unaccepted ring of prostitutes.
Men, on the otherhand, handled the confinement, lack of sex and culture shock much worse than their female counterparts, and though sexism and classism forced people apart, it could not keep enough distance to prevent the mass amount of rape, disease and war that exploded throughout the space stations.
Cultural ties from the days when the space stations retained a distinct seperation were the only things that kept even a semblance of order, and early leaders jump on this.
The one agreement that cuold be made between nearly all the colonies was that each man must be responsible for himself, and that everywhere, honor was a vital part of their way of life.
This of course did nothing to stop battles, but it did do something to curb them. Independent and semi-independent scouts and messengers appeared as a distinct class of individuals within male society, and these individuals were largely used as spies, spies that kept track of credit and credibility, and watched that formal alliances were being kept. These individuals were often very fierce about their duties, and the timeless tendency to kill the messenger (or at least to ostrcize him) gave this free roming class a sense of comrodery, though early messenger-spies amongst various groups had little in common.
The cultural trade of war though made these men continueing seperate and distinct in their roles, and created commonalities between the rest of the male population that furthered soften the edge of war, and gave these messengers an even more distinct role.
