Is Upwell Consortium experimenting with mass cloning devices?

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
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Right then, Upwell, what are you lot up to now ?

I’ve become informed that Upwell is experimenting with some form of cloning technology, rumours suggesting it involves mass cloning to provide a workforce for their facilities.

Leaving moral, ethical, theological, and philosophical objections aside, because it’s not like those have achieved anything in the past, I have but one question to Upwell.

Why are you fardling around trying to reinvent the wheel, when you could simply have asked me about my work in reverse-engineering the Takmahl Mass Cloning Device, which I have had operational for several years ?

Were you to have hired me as a consultant, I could have easily taken years off the time taken to produce a viable device. All for the low cost of something like, oh I don’t know, a custom white&gold Sanctity style dress and matching Mitra boots.

Instead you have chosen to expend untold billions of ISK on your reinvention of the wheel.

Which puts me in a rather awkward position, being in the possession of a working Takmahl Mass Cloning Device, and the schematics with which to build more.

You see, I could at a stroke, ruin the vast investment of ISK and effort you have made, by simply publishing the TMCD schematics for free onto somewhere on Gal-Net, thereby allowing all of your competitors to ruin your business utterly.

Now I have no intention of doing that, as it’d be rather rude in my opinion. However, as several people know, the information technology systems of the Church of the Crimson Saviour leak like a god damn sieve, so the schematics are probably going to find themselves leaked on Gal-Net at some point, if they haven’t already. Maybe my lectures on Takmahl technology at the University have given enough details away for someone to have done that.

So… what is Upwell doing with cloning tech ?

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I suppose the question must also be asked, exactly what is meant by ‘mass cloning,’ and how is it intended to be used, and how will that actually be helpful?

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Well, I am certainly not an expert in cloning, but I have a feeling that mass cloning means creation of clones by gallentean design. It is known they are usually overweight.

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What I mean by “mass cloning” is the production of multiple clones at a time from one stored template.
Hundreds, thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands per cycle of the machine.
The Takmahl device, which I am most familiar with, was used to produce the labour and military forces of the Takmahl Empire of 1500-2000 years ago, such that the Takmahl nobility were not concerned about the terrible living conditions of their slaves, or the wastefulness of their petty wars between noble houses. They could replace their losses in a comparatively trivial amount of time.

As I understand the Upwell thing, they wish to create a compliant, and expendable, workforce for their facilities. Which would be cheaper to train and employ, and more easily controlled (via a short lifespan that is extended by proprietary drugs) than a normal workforce.

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Ah. But, as I understand it, there is currently no technical limitation in regards to producing multiple clones at once from the same template, and it seems like a thing that would be commonly done? This is not exactly, and to my knowledge never has been, a limiting factor in cloning?

So I’m failing to see to see exactly what the point is here?

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The MCD is also, with additional hardware fitted, capable of producing People who are not Copies of Actually Existing people. Fabricated memories and Personalities, as well as Variable Appearance, such that they are not Identical.

I am not sure of the Theological Implications of widespread use of this Device, to create large populations ex nihilo.

The Device Makes Me Uneasy, and I do not Enjoy being in its Presence.

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Ah! That would in fact be quite significant, then. Thank you.

I can definitely see why such a thing might make one uneasy.

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I’m going to point out that the “additional hardware” that Synthia mentioned, is in fact not of Takmahl origin, but instead was created relatively recently by amateur archaeotechnologists working for the Blood Raider Covenant. These addons make the whole device much larger.

I don’t know why they developed the devices though. It doesn’t really serve any purpose that seems relevant to what I understand of the Covenant’s overall long-term goals.

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