TO BE CLEAR, the subspecies are not true subspecies but somewhere between that and a race or ethnicity, the actual differences are less severe than described and primarily come from the racialized attitudes of Elysians, things like skin colour only correlate to regions, hotter=darker, colder=whiter (though nobody is white like a western European, instead the whitest they get is something like the skin colour of a native American). Only the Jiu/giants are actually a genuine subspecies, the others are just heavily adapted humans. Race plays a role like it did in the Early Modern world, in fact even more of one, but it's not like Fantasy where each race gets its own empire, instead it's more like real history, where different regions have a majority of different racial groups, and that racial differences become exaggerated for the sake of whatever purpose another may have.
Very quickly in the course of 10,000 years of history, within the first 2000 years in-fact, the human survivors rapidly evolved to survive on different parts of the land, this evolution was accelerated by the strange "Aether" material present deep within the planet.
Due to the fact that the first ship to crash, the "Chángzhēng", was filled with thousands of colonists of Chinese descent, who primarily spoke Mandarin as a language, the common language of Elysians is simply a distant derivative of Mandarin.
The earliest people are still the most numerous on Elysium, though due to where their ship initially crashed, far into the Night side, their descendants are most concentrated in the West where it is cold. Initially they were able to use salvage from their ship to build their first few settlements, including some Fusion generators, water purifiers, Progblades, Ornithopters, Hailguns, Rayguns, etc., but within the first century of arrival, much of what they had fell into disrepair and so they had to quickly adapt, leaving the remaining old tech in the hands of small groups and wealthy families who would keep the secrets of the technology to themselves, essentially forming magical guilds who kept their arcane magic secret, and used them to bolster their rule.
These earliest arrivals on Elysium are the Wren, who are just normal people, they live all across the habitable band of Elysium, and - once again - are most concentrated in the valleys and grasslands to the West, their twins as first arrivals are the Jiu, who stayed nearer to the ship's crash site and very quickly became incredibly tall, over 12 feet on-average, this came with the downside of a need for high caloric intake, and a shrinking in proportional brain size, this means that they live far more like our extinct human cousins, the reason they are so intensely distinct is that they are the first divergent subspecies to split off on Elysium. (This is not to say no Wren live in the far West, but that once you go far enough West, Jiu start being more and more common).
The second arrivals were a series of generation, military, and research ships sent in the following few hundred years After-Arrival. These ships have had their names lost to time due to the dominance of Iuwenism, which is kind of like a Pan-Abrahamic religion, where the liturgical language is far distant Arabic, and much of the religious ideas come from Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (Arabic is the liturgical language because it's the most widely spoken liturgical language today, but since Christianity is a larger religion, it takes more after Christianity overall). Many of these ships, including the single ever military one, crashed in uninhabitable zones and wouldn't be able to have a serious impact on overall society (well the military one did, because of reasons). But a few landed close enough that some survivors made it, and that it could be salvaged to bring some more so-called magic into Elysian society.
Only three ships actually had survivors, one landed on the "Spinal Mountains" at the centre of the Band, and split into two distinct groups, the Shah, very short guys (below 5 foot on average) who chose to live by the ship, digging underground and keeping the surviving tech primarily to themselves, allowing their settlements to be extremely rich in various materials which are otherwise incredibly rare on a planet without tectonic plates like Elysium, they produce most gunpowder and metal for warfare, and are just the centre of global trade, but they lack the ability to actually expand due to their height being a major weakness, and that their incredible defenses gained from their salvaged and worshipped magics. The other group is the Lin, which decided to move beyond into the broader woodlands around the Spines. They lack the ability to properly develop technologically and largely survive through mercenary work and being nomadic, They are quite tall and thin (Over 6 foot on average), and are physically weak, relying heavily on shock and ambush warfare.
The other two ships landed right in the Eastern grasslands and the far Eastern canyons respectively, much of them integrated into the Wren, but they themselves as a majority live in the hotter regions and have evolved into the Huang, who are virtually identical to Wren, save for a slightly superhuman ability to withstand dryness and heat, are distinguished by their separate language, a descendant of Spanish and significantly different culture, though they mostly believe in the same religion, being only a sect with heavier influence from Islam.
The Wren and Huang of the Dawn side have an incredibly unique access to a single in-tact portion of their ship, the majority of it was carved apart due to severe damage, but that small portion provides self-preserving Fusion Power, meaning that they have the most ability to sustain old magic, which has given them a massive military advantage over the other humans on Elysium.
Early in the past they conquered almost all inhabited regions with their intact technology, forming the first Elysian Empire and Alkayyan Dynasty, but this fell apart in a few hundred years due to the massive economic stagnation of their slave-based economy, which provided a niche for the peoples of the Spine's access to advanced metals and stuff to quickly dominate through advanced technology like muskets. The lack of ability to expand of the peoples of the Spine meant that the subsequent societies of Elysium were heavily decentralized.
This itself, alongside the thing I hinted at, led to the development of an early Bourgeois society in the Western regions, this happened because the Western regions are a trade hub, but lack much of the necessary aspects for a Feudal or Tributary society due to them not being very adept with agriculture. This creates a clear divide between the Dusk and Dawn sides of the Band.
Anyways, the main contributor to this rise in a genuinely powerful bourgeois class was the first Moh plague, which spread from the distant, uninhabited Night, from the crash site of a military ship carrying an advanced bioweapon designed initially to exterminate the local populations for mining, but which quickly evolved into an advanced zombie-like disease, which first took over the crew and has been inching East ever since, it only began to spread in the Dusk regions around the ~7000s AA, it is a fungal infection with incredible durability in different temperatures, allowing it to rapidly spread. It initially started with people hunting further and further into the West for furs to sell, with them uncovering a Moh-infected which was dormant - possibly for decades - in the permafrost.
This first outbreak was considered a End-of-the-World calamity, which was basically only survived by chance, and the massive depopulation (~20% of Elysians) allowed the peasant and Bourgeois classes to petition for greater rights and stuff, which led to an early Capitalist society, which only could not industrialize due to the absence of any fossil fuels. This lack of industry allowed fuedal and tributary systems to far outlast what would normally be their lifespans.
The Dusk is highly depopulated, with the Jiu and far Western Wren being an endangered group, who in their increasing migrations East as smaller outbreaks continue due to further Moh outbreaks. The Jiu themselves have largely interbred back into Wren gene pools due to this and have formed a very new group called Jiuyi, who are still quite tall, but may only reach 10 feet at most. These migrating peoples are heavily discriminated against by the Eastern Wren, Huang, Lin, and Shah, as they are viewed as "wild" and "savage" (another incredibly discriminated group are the Huang, who were in-fact the first people to be enslaved in some of the earlier slave empires like the Alkayyan Dynasty, while the Shah and Lin have intense hatred towards one-another, they see themselves as closer to Eatern Wren "civilisation" than Huang people, though they themselves are viewed as inferior by Eastern Wren people in power.)
