There were ten thousand people with the same genome as her in this galaxy, at least to start. The bioreactor techs never got stillborns near the rate of natural birth. The orphanages ground the number down too; institutions are not warm loving families, and even the most dysfunctional family would find it hard to match an orphanage, where newborns die from loneliness for not being held enough by negligent nurses. Bullying was far worse in the orphanages than out; some clones died of starvation because their tormentors didn't let them eat. Some killed themselves to escape. Some died trying to escape. Others were beaten to death by adults, or gangs of their own clones. Clones are more likely than the general population to share the donor’s personality, but they can have completely different personalities than the donor, even the opposite. The sensitive did not survive; neither did the odd, nor the strange, nor the different, unless they were capable of great violence. The orphanages churned out a shocking number of psychopaths. The Deteis do not like to admit the program ended because it failed. Between the technical overhead, orphanage staff, dead babies, dead kids, dead teens, psychopathic adults, and the broken and homeless adults, it just didn't make economic sense to the State to run the cloning vats. The end of the Gallente Wars allowed leadership to save face with an excuse to wind down the program. It had improved toward the end - after a century of one pile of skulls after another - but the clones’ high rate of personality disorders and low rate of academic achievement never got anywhere near the general Caldari population. The tube children were made to be the State's cannon fodder, manufactured like so many missiles, the whole point to expend them.

But this one escaped. This one has a story to tell. They found the strength to blossom like a weed between the cracks in the sidewalk. And they found that strength from walking with death and despair and madness and mobs and monsters when they were just a child. On the surface they look like every other super-competent Caldari citizen that scrambled their way up the corporate ladder to make capsuleer. But that is all just a persona held together by an enormous effort of willpower; deep down, she's still that unwanted, unloved little girl having a civilized afternoon tea with demons.

There were ten thousand people with the same genome as her in this galaxy. Now there are 6.