Specialists (New Journeys Era)

Specialists are a race of gentically engineered clones designed for a wide range of work, mainly in service and labor-intensive fields. Their use is widespread on Sivad, with perhaps 60% of families owning at least one specialist, and 25% owning two or more. Large family estates may have specialist staffs in the hundreds.

The Specialist Process is costly and complex. Generally specialists range in price from a few thousand yojj-sterling for a base model designed and trained for simple domestic tasks to several million yojj-sterling for an elaborately trained, one of a kind specialist manufactured by a speciality firm such as A New Dawn. The largest maker of "stock" specialists is the Embryonix Corporation, though smaller firms such as Above Nature and A New Dawn have begun competing for elements of the market, especially for smaller, custom orders.

Specialists vary in physical appearance, and this is mainly dependant on their role. For example, specialists designed for heavy labor will be muscular and brawny, and of plain, if not ugly appearance, while those specialists designed for duties such as receptionists, masseuses, and pleasure specialists will have exceptionally beautiful features, generally as desired by their owner.

All specialists will have a barcode added by their manufacturer at birth which will include a lot and model number. This serves to identify the genetic material and training given to the specialists, and is also a sort of "expiration date." A silicon Killswitch is installed in the body of each specialist, allowing for easy deactivation in case of malfunctioning. Due to their rapid growth to full maturity in cloning tanks, specialists have a rapid metabolism which will cause their body to break down in a period of time, generally five years. This can be prevented through the use of expensive metabolic stiflers such as metazone which cost as much as 25,000 yojj-sterling a year. Daily use of a metabolic stifler will slow the aging process of a specialist and effectively double their normal lifespan.

Specialists are generally trained for a small number of specific roles to which they are, through genetic tinkering, made well suited. The genetic predisposition to a certain task is reinforced through a training regimin taking from a week to several months depending on the complexity of the tasks to be mastered. As a general matter, specialists are excellent at their area of "expertise", if somewhat lacking in originality. It is very difficult to "break the mold" and train a specialist for a new task, and generally considered far more cost effective to simply purchase a new, specially trained specialist.

Sivad has a wide variety of laws dealing with specialists. Chief among these are those statutes which make it a criminal offense to abuse a specialist, as well as those which make owners responsible for all acts of their specialists. Additionally, the law on Sivad prohibits the manumission (freeing) of specialists by their owners, though in some cases this law has been circumvented by selling a specialist to himself or herself.