OK, last post for a bit, then I better start some more packing!<br/><br/>If I understand how the pets would be restrained, it would be a great idea. Let me just make sure I'm not conjuring up the wrong imagine in my head for the legs binders. If I hold my leg out and push my foot so that the top face and toes point in the same direction as my leg, the metal plate would lock there and keep it in place? If I start to try and stand, I start to crush my toes as well as lose my balance, so I know that idea would work! In a way it's worse for the pets- only a few relatively simple devices keep them from acting and walking normally, increasing their frustration at being forced down to the ground.<br/><br/>You also mentioned earlier about a lobotomised pet? The only issue I see there would be how that pet would be played- you couldn't attach thoughts of feelings to them, and it could get quite boring to play. If they were a minor part in the game, it could work, also aiding as an additional threat the owners could threaten their thinking pets with- unless of course blissful ignorance of their humiliating situation was preferable to what they were suffering at the time.<br/><br/>Drugs to induce warmth sound ideal, although I think it'd fit better if it was through the modification of DNA, possibly with a section of DNA added to produce a specialised protein that breaks down exothermically to generate heat. Being naked all the time would help dispel most of this heat, and the extra food would be required to gain the energy required to continually synthesise the protein.<br/><br/>If the whole world had been impacted the idea could be tweaked slightly so that, instead of people purchasing different pet races, the richer people could order a certain boy or girl to be flown in from another country and modified to their specific needs. This would add the advantage of costing even more, as well as the foreign pet being possibly hundreds of miles away from their home, increasing their sense of isolation.<br/><br/>Location wise, I was thinking either somewhere in Northern Europe or Asia. I think the place chosen should be somewhere everyone is at least familiar with, so that things like architecture and local traditions are easier to describe and work around. I would suggest N. America, but somehow that location just doesn't seem to fit to me.