Able

''The ables were multi-purpose synthesised organisms with a very limited subset of sentient rights, intended for short-term fill-in work, menial labour and heavy lifting. They were named for semi-mythical AstroCorps figure Able Darko, who in turn had been named in the ancient maritime tradition of Able Seaman. The original Able was engineered, almost literally, for physical impressiveness, strength and resilience, as well as strong organ function and high donor compatibility, broad-spectrum immunities and universal blood type. He was also designed with large cranial and raw-brain capacity, as well as a pliable and easily-guided nature.''

This was perfect for the able fabrication and configuration program, since it allowed for a wide range of intensively technical and muscle-memory-ingrained skill-set types to be loaded onto the blank able template wetware, creating stable, if unimaginative substitute crewmembers.

''It was also the basis for several super-villain clone armies and a whole subset of campfire astromythology, but the risks in this regard were actually very minimal. Ables were severely limited, useful for emergency and skeleton crew starship operation and maintenance, but were no substitute for the real thing. Classically an able was fabricated, configured and assigned in the absence of a crew position only for the time required to secure a human replacement.''

- Eejit

Ables are cloned wetware designed to fill in for manual labourers at need, particularly in AstroCorps institutions and on board starships. Of all the Six Species, ables are fabricated exclusively from human stock.

Fabrication plant
Main article: Fabrication plant.

The machinery in which an able is designed, cloned, printed and configured. Also called an able printer or clone factory.

Fabrication process
The printing of ables is an offshoot of medical fabrication, for example, of replacement limbs and organs in case of accidents or illness. Rather than tailored fabrications of body-parts, however, able fabrication involves the printing of an entire human-based organism and its configuration with a required set of skills and response models.

The printing of an able's organic matter typically takes a standard fabrication plant twenty minutes, the bulk of the fabrication process being taken up with configuration.

Configuration process
The basic able configuration process typically takes a standard fabrication plant five hundred minutes.

Configuration errors
Able fabrication technology is vulnerable to various failures, most notable being errors in able configuration. These errors can result in the fabrication of eejits.

''These entries are stubs. To be continued. Hur hur hur, stubs.''