I'm creating a world and story, with your input

I want to create a world and a storyline. I'll expand the setting as I feel like it and add characters. But I need somewhere to start and that's where you come in.

Information

The world is Earth-like, futuristic, contains no magic or other such supernatural thing, it sticks to the plausibilities of technology being advanced further. As such I would want advice on how I can actually make characters endure throughout the storyline without giving them obvious plot armour as I intensely dislike that.

The technology will be advanced enough to make people immune to death by natural causes while staying as young adults forever and gene-modify species into new breeds etc, so for example there can be beings that you need very heavy weapons to hurt due to their genetically modified plating, biologically inbuilt weapons based on chemical reactions and so on. But it should still not be some kind of fantasy like ''this guy has an implant which lets him mind read people'', it should still be at least somewhat plausible. The aim is to make it feel like an alternative future of a world that resembles Earth (but obviously the continents and so on won't be the same).

I also intend to have several major factions in this world. They won't be like countries that have varying ideologies and such; each of these factions must clearly represent something which also makes them different from eachother. For example one faction could be based on 90% of the populace being an expendable, permanent underclass which is forcibly kept in control and mass-drugged into obedience of the upper class, with no space inbetween for a middle class - that faction would be based on the ideas of slavery and class schism. Another one could be based on fanaticism, another one a technocracy involving massed human experiment of the ''less desirable'' in a ruthless pursuit for knowledge and so on. I think you get my drift.

You may suggest as many factions as you can think up and please explain each as thoroughly as possible, I love hearing about other people's ideas and it's also necessary for me to evolve it in the proper direction. Every faction must have some compelling reason for maintaining an interventionist policy in the world. No faction is currently in danger of being wiped out for a variety of reasons.

You may also make up characters for these factions which can have any position within them you want. I'm personally going to base the characters I create on myself and my friends. Note that these characters need not be drones of their faction, people aren't stupid in this world; they may just happen to belong to something and go with it, like us real people are born into a country and most likely grow up in that same country. Really, you decide.

Thank you for your contributions

U should include androids

I once read a girly sci-fi novel based around telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, etc... It had an interesting sub culture present on one world in which many people genetically altered their appearance in exotic ways. One such female lover of the protagonist was a woman who had her skin changed to gold and hair to silver, others included reptile tongues, tails and horns.

It seems to me that this would make for a good faction in your universe - a hedonistic society: heavy into drug use, music and other forms of self indulgence with physical attributes altered to match their mindsets. The whole society should be largely stagnant, a dystopia under a veneer of lavish entertainment but wholy dependent on technology that isn't understood so much as known.

Anyway, good luck with your project and have fun!

Lol i said Androids and Roy Batty came
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."