Prologue

In the 24^th Century space was the new frontier. Miners had spread out to the asteroids and then further out — the discovery of the FTL drives helping to expand the search for viable planets for either colonisation or mining.

With the miners came a new problem — entertainment! Men, and women, needed some form of release and it had to be safe and clean.

The development of the Replicants was at first controversial but then the Company provided proof that the replicants were just machines in human form and so were considered as property, soon it wasn't unusual for every household — no matter how poor — had at least one replicant, if not in human form then as an animal.

As it's been mentioned Replicants are not restricted to the human form, and specialised models have been produced for various reasons, many are also interlaced within modern space ships to provide extra coverage — unknown to anyone is a program that ensures their continued support and loyalty to the Company.

The Replicants are made in groups depending on their destinations and were normally given identities reflecting on their year of manufacturing, main manufacturing plant and a number (between 1 and 9), although the last three digits were normally used.

Back to the miners, it was noticed that their sexual tastes were, while not unusual, not quite considered normal, the men seemed to prefer younger looking bodies to use and so the Company, now a major mover within the Galaxy, was producing replicants looking as young as eight for export to these frontier towns for use in the brothels there — it would never do to have these replicants in the home market as it would cause problems!

The other necessary need in space was transport! Without these it would be impossible for space travel to expand, and so along with cruisers for the elite to travel in, there were also the freighters and heavy transports, plying their trade along routes set up and monitored by the Space Army — where the normal space ships were classed as Navel vessels the armed forces were called the Army, the reasons behind this are now lost in the past.

The cargo ships were named after Earth cities to give a link to the home planet and many are new or re-conditioned ships provided by the Company to the various franchises on the outer planets (as the newly found planets were classed).

There were also Privateers, those involved in the theft of cargo where possible and the main bane of the Space Army, whose main preserve was the capture and elimination of such people; their ships were normally 'salvaged' damaged vessels which they augmented to include the cannons and laser ports with which they plied their trade.

With the growing threat to cargo and the boarding techniques that the Pirates used there was a problem with the weapons used, stun pistols were first tried but then with space suits these were negated, blaster and solid projectile weapons caused more damage to the ships than the Pirates did, they preferred to have their booty unspaced. This then led to the development of bladed weapons, short swords and knives became the weapon of choice, although the miners had developed an axe with an open flat blade on one side and a spike on the other — it didn't matter the end result was the same.

Religion — Although many space-faring peoples no longer believe in the old time faiths, there are always those who will keep the old style beliefs alive, although changed to reflect the expanding discoveries of space.

There were also the development of new religions, one is based on the Company's policy of working and is based on the handbook of the company — The rules and Regulations of Hargreaves Robots and Mechanical Men (est. 2145) — the Company's name was later changed to Replicants Ltd.

The Word of the Lord in his Human Form — was a new emerging faith which demanded that Man was created as the main form, anything else was a mockery of God and an affront to his teachings — they were opposed to the Company and involved in legal, and non-legal, actions against the Company and people who supported Replicants — The church sent out monks or brothers to preach the belief around the known universe.

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