Welcome to the club so I'm going to ask real quick:
Do you want to be with the main Group, or do you want to be in the Caravan that Jove is going to join with?
Also as for mutants, I'm going to explain them in the lore update I'll eventually get out. There's three main types of mutants:
Anthros (AKA: the ones you play as): Are basically another race of humans, met with the same kinda racism, hatred, or unconditional love like any other race in the world.
Ferals: Which are humans and animals that have formed and mutated beyond the point of being recognizable, they live to eat, breed, and die. Most, if not all of them are basically hostile.
Ascended: I'll go into more detail when you discover one, but think Lovecraftian Old Ones.