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Mature Content

"Are... are you sure this will work?" asked the shik -corporate clone produced by Kasparov CIA- nervous to her friend -a clone like herself-. Actually, as both where clones of the same model, they looked exactly the same.

"Of course it will work!" her friend said, with a camera in her hand. "You are a lovely, beautiful girl!"

"I don't know... there are hundreds of us!!"

"And way more lonely there in space, waiting for a little cute wife! Go for it!"

She walked into the camera.

"H-Hi!" she said, blushing to the camera. "My name is Bianka Kanadina, KNK-1372. I'm a Civilian Jako clone, and a Hydroponics Horticulturalist. I was working in the CONMI C.S.F Ventura, a deep space miner, but as my cloning contract is to finish soon, I wasn't re-embarked and I'm working planetside in Bunnya.

I like fluffy things, flowers, reading and gardening... and I'm looking for a husband!

Preferably, a biological human one!

So I'm eager to meet you!"

Her friend frowned. "I think you talked too much of work!! We should do this again!"

"Really? why?"

"Talk of yourself! be interesting! Cute! Stand out from other shiks looking for a husband!" her friend said. "You can simply write down in your profile all that other boring stuff!!"

Bianka sighed. "Oh, we can do that again other time... it's such a wonderful day! Why don't we enjoy ourselves?"

her friend put down the camera. "it's a good idea!"

---

Back in her house -provided by CONMI-, she uploaded her video in the dating and marriage sites. She prefeered to upload them in more than one page, and hope for the better.

She have heard, often in these sites where full of creeps -and MarryHotShiksXXX.Kas didn't sounded respectable AT ALL!-, but she thought, it was one of her better chances to find a husband!! -a biological born one, that's it!-, otherwise, when her contract ends her options would narrow to remain in Bunnya -and there seemed to be much more women than men! Would she be able to lure a tourist?-, or to try to re-sign with the CONMI, but for a planet-side operation rather than a Deep Space Miner spaceship -but then surely she will get marrying with a rude clone miner in a lost rock... and she was bored of rocks and space!!-, and lastly, she could try to sign up for a new colony recruiting colonists... But a new world was as well a sure way to end up living only among clones!! 

She could try to buy a spaceship ticket to herself to one of the core worlds -there were all the biological humans, after all!- but she feared that it would eat all her savings... and what would she arrive to do in the core worlds?

She had heard, overpopulated, they didn't liked much clones there taking jobs from biological humans...

So she decided to take the bet of the marriage sites -that she hoped where better that GetYourOwnClone.ks... Klein Shine sites, always so creepy: it looked like guys were buying a wife!!-: that way when entering in contact with Mr. Right One, he could buy half of the spaceship passage -she would pay the other half-, arriving at a new planet with already something going on! -maybe even looking for a work before arriving!-

She smiled, imagining a husband, a little house with a beautiful garden, and her many children. 

"Still looking for husband?" her friend said, as she entered the room -she was bathing in the pool in the common area-.

"Yes!" Bianka said. Her friend, Rose, while of the same cloning batch and series as her, and same conditioning -except in some hobbies and such, as always-, she didn't wanted a family life at all, always saying that she was over that maturation-chamber-conditioning sort of things: she instead was taking this down time planetside as vacations, and then she planned to emigrate to one of the Shik Republics, these nations that had been formed by free clones after the Rebellion of the Clones: there, she wanted "to Help the Cause".

She never quite understood the cause.

She smiled at her friend, again daydreaming of the little family life she pictured in her future.

---

More often than not, I'm asked about the concept of the Shiks: for persons who hadn't browsed much of my gallery -that it's maybe tooo big, around 5685 deviations and scraps by now- , they ask me first: what are they?

A Shik is in the sci-fi setting of the Nebula of Ots an artificial human, a clone, produced by the megacorporations: a corporative clone. They are called "artificial humans", because they are artificially done by clonation, but are ultimately, humans, and so are their emotions. They can (or not) be genetically modified. (More often than not, that's the case.

The name shik was originally meant only for the clones produced by the megacorporation Kasparov CIA, first to produce corporative clones, but later will become a generic term to design any non-guvernamental produced clone, or corporative clone.

Once is clear what are the shiks, often come the question: what are they for? What is their role?

This question come even more clearly, as in many pics are shown the shiks fighting, serving corporative private armies and failing in doing so, giving the impression they are exclusively minions of villanous corporations, and quite bad at that and at fighting.

That's largelly because in the Nebula of Ots, being corporative clones, they are mostly done to work in private business, and so, the bulk of shiks are of civilian classes, not meant for combat: However, in case of emergency they acan be conscripted. As well, should be noted, there EXIST military class shiks, meant for combat.

Other common question would be (but not formulated with these words): Are the shiks slaves?

Shiks are produced by Megacorporations, but aren't a slave workforce: There exists a sort of property over them by the corporations, but it isn't as far as a slavery: it is however, a kind of indentured work, where the shiks will work since their creation a number of years -depending of the contract, how long- for the company that created them or that bought them. While they are to fullfil the contract, at the end of it they are free to renew it or not, and they have individual freedoms -but reduced.- 

This wasn't always the case, and in some shady areas there is a neoslavery of artificial humans, but this is an illegal practice after the Convention of Torhanna, being the exception, not the rule.

Corporative clones earn an income, largelly due the capitalistic drive of the corporations who seek populations to be markets, rather than slaves. However, often their wages are significatively smaller than of a "biological" human -a human naturally born, or conceived in traditional artificial ways, such as conception in vitro-.

This mean, they have personal -yet limited- freedoms.

This status of non-slaves workers with wages, often lead to other question: Then: for what you need clones?

The Nebulosa of Ots it's compressed of about 800 stars, with about 200 star systems explored by humanity -the ones nearest to the core of the Nebulosa, and only about 150 star systems have some sort of known population or settlement by humans, in some 341 planets.

Humanity sprawls in planets and colonies over 150 star systems: However, the bulk of the population lives in the called Capital Worlds, often comfortable Aiers (Earth) type of worlds or terraformed for it, with a population of over 1,000,000,000 inhabitants: worlds where the life is safest -aside from the wars-, and provides services, works and all the luxury -or basic needs- needed by humans.

Because of these services, comforts and safety, the tendency of the population of the capital worlds is to continue to expand and concentrate in these worlds: It have both a significative natural growth, and as well, inmigration: 

And meanwhile, as the borders of humanity expand, colonies are to be set -planetside or in the space-, and space is to be explored, is where shiks enter in game: 

With many worlds to exploit, land isn't a problem -and neither, avaibility of raw resources-, but workforce to exploit these resources. 

There are always some biological humans who will go to deep space, as adventurers. There will be colonists, but often, they where either on the seek for the creation of their own utopia -statal, societal, religious, etc-: in both cases, neither where the more wanted or needed workforce for the rivaling Megacorporations, with contracts from the great powers to do prospections and explotations of planets, star systems or sectors of space:

And to get Biological Humans to abandone the Capital Worlds and main colonies, they needed large, large wages: Without the Data Zones, avaible around most of the Capitol Worlds, despise the use of the Münzenmayer-Anuch Engines, the size of the Nebulosa was too big, and traveling, too slow: and a long permanence in space was proved to be dangerous and detrimental to biological humans.

That's why corporative clones are so important for the Nebulosa of Ots:

Not too common in the Capital Worlds, where there is a large workforce of Biological Humans, but instead in Deep Space and in the Outer Core colonies and in the borders of humanity:

Crewing spaceships in deep space, setting space colonies and ports, creating planetside colonies, mining uncommon resources as the appreciated Stornkoldio, fundamental for the spaceship building industry of Ots -and for the Münzenmayer-Anuch engines, be in asteroids or planets, terraforming worlds to set them for (biological) human colonization: That's where Artificial Humans play a role: To conquer the ultimate frontier, the endless borders of space.

Other question that several times have been made: Are there only female shiks? Can they reproduce?

One of the main motives why in the Nebula of Ots are prefereed clones rather than droids or robots it's because the statal entities -and corporations- seek population growth. This is why the clones of Ots are a fertile population, as is seeked a quick population growth. 

There are female and male shiks, but the ratio males : females depend of each Corporation, state or colony, in some cases being a evident disproportion from one gender or other -often done such disproportion to try to equilibrate the male:female ratio of the biological human population, or to maximize the population growth.-

HOWEVER, even if is largelly seeked population growth, there exist genderless clones, called Arsvani, that are infertile.

Then: The children of an artificial human, are artificial human as well?

No. While genetically they can have both parents as clones, the status of biological human or artificial human is related to how the person is born -however, this isn't a closed discussion in Ots-. Therefore, the biological human is mostly a legal distintion, rather than genetical:

It was done largelly due an electoral fraud done in the Republic of Neue Münzen: all the clones produced during the previous years and during the political campaign where conditioned during their maturation to vote for the candidate of the rulying party: After this, was banned in Neue Münzen and many other nations electoral rights to Artificial Humans in fear of the use of their maturation conditioning for political goals. After the Declaration of Torhanna, was decided that Artificial Humans could vote only 5 to 7 years -depending of the country- after they left the clonation chambers, as it was considered it was enough time and life experience for them to form their own political identity beyond conditioning from maturation chambers.

Other question I have faced often is: I almost never see older shiks: what happens with them?

There are older shiks: However, the human population of the Nebulosa of Ots, largelly expanding -importantly, thanks to Clonation- is in general a very young population, with the largest segment of population being under 25 old (biological years) old.

As well, the sight of older shiks isn't as common as of younger shiks, because of the already mentioned contract: When a clone is mature and left the clonation chambers, they have a contract with the megacorporation that created them (or that bought them) from an amount of years. This depends of the company, but was regulated by the Torhanna convention. 

Normally, a shik leave the Maturation chambers with a biological age of 18 years, and in Kasparov CIA  this contract is up to when they reach the age of 25 biological years old. At this moment, they can renew their contract -more often than not, is done-, but in these ocasions often the shik with a renewed contract (or not renewed) is given a possibility to begin their own families and settle down -normally the ones who renew their contracts settle down in new colonies, while the ones that didn't, may prefeer to migrate to capital worlds.- Because of this, older shiks are simply less visible in the instalations in deep space and spaceships, settling down in colonies.

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Any more questions about shiks? Ask here!