Augment

Augments is the name given to a species that has been genetically altered to be superior to the base species.

One example of such a creation was the product of Project: Chrysalis which was designed to create a race of supermen. Unfortunately as was stated in the journals of one of the scientists of the project, 'superior engineering breeds superior ambition' which was said before he was murdered. The 'supermen' went mad for power and attempted to take over the world governments and installed themselves as leaders while unaltered humans were of a lower class. These augments were tyrants that devastated the world and united it against them. The last of the supermen was Khan Noonien Singh who managed to escape from Earth in a sublight transport.

After this, Earth banned development within this field of research and the remaining embryo's were locked up in cold storage, never to be seen again. Unfortunately, a scientist, Dr Soong, working at the deep space station where the embryo's were stored decided to continue the development of the program and managed to escape with several of the embryo's where he raised them as his children until he was captured by Starfleet. These children were spark the Augment Crisis that nearly brought a full-scale war between the Klingon Empire and the newly warp capable Starfleet. The Augments once again attempted to make a break for power and showed that they had no trouble with committing genocide on other worlds but ultimately they were all killed when they turned on their 'father' Dr Soong who was attempting to modify their genes to remove the aggressive characteristics. All the embryo's that were destroyed as well when the captured Bird-of-prey they were located on was destroyed.

The next attempt at augments was attempted by the Klingons who were both impressed as well as fearful of the potential of the Augments and attempted to create their own version. They managed to uncover the remains of several of the embryo's for their own project and though it was successful, it unfortunately mutated a virus that was killing the Klingon species. The Klingons, with the limited aid of a Starfleet doctor, Phlox, managed to reverse the problem but their goal of a augment ended and resulted in thousands of Klingons losing their ridges which would take many, many years to return as a dominant characteristic within the Klingon body.

During the era of the Federation, the ban on genetic augmentation continued however there were a few colonies that performed the necessary operation illegally. This included operations that did not bestow the full 'gifts' of augmentation but rather specific aspects such as increased intelligence or improved motor skills. Ethan Locken and Dr Julian Bashir were two such augments.