Post by Insano-Man on Sept 18, 2018 19:27:42 GMT -5
This topic is a child of the Cloneston article directory.
PEDRO'S REVENGE
Throughout the city, there are police officers of varied disciplines. Beat cops, investigators, armed response teams, and bomb defusal squads. Few of them are human. Most are clones, flash-grown from modified genetic stock and cybernetically modified to be mindless automatons with limited intelligence. What is most alarming about the city's faceless police force is that they outnumber the civilian population by at least ten to one in most areas. It is from this endless supply of vat-grown policemen that Cloneston derives its name - and many of its core problems.
Thanks much to their lack of sentience, most of Cloneston's clones are no more than gunhands. At least nine tenths of the city's clone population is made up of combat teams meant to contain violent offenders or marauding monsters. In the end, they wear the skin of a man only to convey a false sense of humanity. Very few are anything more than lobotomized combat drones with preprogrammed behavior routines. The few that are bred with sentience are often no better than children. Only a handful are ever fully aware of themselves - and, often, only because they were needed as such.
Those few self-aware clones are often regarded as valued assets by the major powers of the city. They are the perfect inside men; faceless, unassuming members of a blind and deaf mass. They can move where they need to, when they need to, and act as they need to. They can imitate other clones and present as key combatants in an otherwise-mundane shootout. They can disguise themselves as ordinary humans and roam freely across the city to serve as spies. They can leverage the assets of the immeasurably-powerful police force with no more than a few keystrokes from a hacker.
Despite the immense quantity of combat teams, many of them arrive on the scene of anything from jaywalking to traffic accidents. Most AIs obliviously dispatch the city's ubiquitous clones on a proportionate basis; for each crime, a percentage of the available responders. At a time in the past, this approach may have been efficient and appropriate. Today, when the clones arrive, it is a massed swarm of armed, armored, and aggressive clones literally looking for a fight. Only a few emergency teams ever arrive - and are rarely able to navigate the horde of police.
For all their excessive behavior, the clones are readily exploited. Their lack of intelligence, heavy dependence on cybernetics, and limited behavior patterns make them ripe targets for hackers. Many are diverted as pawns in the secret war carried out by Cloneston's prime intelligences. Many are hijacked by criminals in need of reliable henchmen. Many more are tied up by petty offenders drawing attention away from major criminal operations. For the streetwise and savvy, Cloneston's clones are no more than a resource to be exploited.
Further still, the AI-driven justice system behind them is an ineffectual monument to bloat and mismanagement, both bureaucratic and electronic. Offenders often exit immediately or pay for an acquittal via hackers. The remainder typically stay for inordinate lengths of time - and are regularly forced back into freedom by AI failures or incompetence. Many simply never see a court, either gunned down by clones or tied up in judicial purgatory for decades.
For all their incompetence, the clones maintain an impressive arsenal. There are at least two hundred million clones in Cloneston - and quite likely many more. The vast majority are provided with resilient combat armor, high-quality weapons, and endless stocks of ammunition. Their cybernetics make them daunting, durable foes, able to overpower and outlast most human opponents. Gunships, armored vans, and even tanks patrol the air and land of Cloneston, sometimes drowning out all other traffic. Genuine combat drones often accompany them throughout the city.
Moreover, their supplies are virtually endless. Massive vaults of cloning facilities and cybernetics plants sprawl underneath Cloneston. Automated mining operations haul resources up from an ever-expanding underground. Manufacturing plants are common foundations for the city's skyscrapers. Long-lost AI cores are often reclaimed as communications hubs for the clones' expansive tactical network. Were any one power able to seize control of Cloneston's armies, there would be little that could stand in their way.
It is unknown when the first clone in Cloneston took his breath. It is unknown who that clone was or if he is still alive today. It is common knowledge, however, who provided the core genetic stock for the clone armies to be. While his name remains undiscovered, his appearance is ever-present. He was a man of mixed caucasian and hispanic descent, possibly aged to his late thirties or early forties based on clone appearances. He was a muscular man with no known genetic defects and a height of exactly 6ft (1.8m) tall. Most know him - and every single one of his clones - as Pedro Smith. Self-aware clones often give themselves a variation on the name, such as Pedro Fives, Sixtysix Smith, or Pedro Sevensmithy.
PEDRO'S REVENGE
Throughout the city, there are police officers of varied disciplines. Beat cops, investigators, armed response teams, and bomb defusal squads. Few of them are human. Most are clones, flash-grown from modified genetic stock and cybernetically modified to be mindless automatons with limited intelligence. What is most alarming about the city's faceless police force is that they outnumber the civilian population by at least ten to one in most areas. It is from this endless supply of vat-grown policemen that Cloneston derives its name - and many of its core problems.
Thanks much to their lack of sentience, most of Cloneston's clones are no more than gunhands. At least nine tenths of the city's clone population is made up of combat teams meant to contain violent offenders or marauding monsters. In the end, they wear the skin of a man only to convey a false sense of humanity. Very few are anything more than lobotomized combat drones with preprogrammed behavior routines. The few that are bred with sentience are often no better than children. Only a handful are ever fully aware of themselves - and, often, only because they were needed as such.
Those few self-aware clones are often regarded as valued assets by the major powers of the city. They are the perfect inside men; faceless, unassuming members of a blind and deaf mass. They can move where they need to, when they need to, and act as they need to. They can imitate other clones and present as key combatants in an otherwise-mundane shootout. They can disguise themselves as ordinary humans and roam freely across the city to serve as spies. They can leverage the assets of the immeasurably-powerful police force with no more than a few keystrokes from a hacker.
Despite the immense quantity of combat teams, many of them arrive on the scene of anything from jaywalking to traffic accidents. Most AIs obliviously dispatch the city's ubiquitous clones on a proportionate basis; for each crime, a percentage of the available responders. At a time in the past, this approach may have been efficient and appropriate. Today, when the clones arrive, it is a massed swarm of armed, armored, and aggressive clones literally looking for a fight. Only a few emergency teams ever arrive - and are rarely able to navigate the horde of police.
For all their excessive behavior, the clones are readily exploited. Their lack of intelligence, heavy dependence on cybernetics, and limited behavior patterns make them ripe targets for hackers. Many are diverted as pawns in the secret war carried out by Cloneston's prime intelligences. Many are hijacked by criminals in need of reliable henchmen. Many more are tied up by petty offenders drawing attention away from major criminal operations. For the streetwise and savvy, Cloneston's clones are no more than a resource to be exploited.
Further still, the AI-driven justice system behind them is an ineffectual monument to bloat and mismanagement, both bureaucratic and electronic. Offenders often exit immediately or pay for an acquittal via hackers. The remainder typically stay for inordinate lengths of time - and are regularly forced back into freedom by AI failures or incompetence. Many simply never see a court, either gunned down by clones or tied up in judicial purgatory for decades.
For all their incompetence, the clones maintain an impressive arsenal. There are at least two hundred million clones in Cloneston - and quite likely many more. The vast majority are provided with resilient combat armor, high-quality weapons, and endless stocks of ammunition. Their cybernetics make them daunting, durable foes, able to overpower and outlast most human opponents. Gunships, armored vans, and even tanks patrol the air and land of Cloneston, sometimes drowning out all other traffic. Genuine combat drones often accompany them throughout the city.
Moreover, their supplies are virtually endless. Massive vaults of cloning facilities and cybernetics plants sprawl underneath Cloneston. Automated mining operations haul resources up from an ever-expanding underground. Manufacturing plants are common foundations for the city's skyscrapers. Long-lost AI cores are often reclaimed as communications hubs for the clones' expansive tactical network. Were any one power able to seize control of Cloneston's armies, there would be little that could stand in their way.
It is unknown when the first clone in Cloneston took his breath. It is unknown who that clone was or if he is still alive today. It is common knowledge, however, who provided the core genetic stock for the clone armies to be. While his name remains undiscovered, his appearance is ever-present. He was a man of mixed caucasian and hispanic descent, possibly aged to his late thirties or early forties based on clone appearances. He was a muscular man with no known genetic defects and a height of exactly 6ft (1.8m) tall. Most know him - and every single one of his clones - as Pedro Smith. Self-aware clones often give themselves a variation on the name, such as Pedro Fives, Sixtysix Smith, or Pedro Sevensmithy.
