Late in the Clone Wars, the planet Saleucami was the site of a Separatist project to breed a clone army of nikto, raised as Morgukai warriors and further trained by Anzat assassins [Republic #72 – 77]. The mastermind of the project was a weequay dark Jedi who claimed the identity of Sora Bulq. The clone template was a nikto Morgukai named Bok. The cloning was in progress and had yielded fighters at least as early as six months before the Battle of Coruscant [ROTS].
This project was created as a response to the war situation of the time: to counter the advantages of Loyalist clone troopers. The short timescale of the Saleucami effort proves that Separatists (and presumably other factions) were technologically capable of cloning sapient beings, raising the clones to adulthood and imprinting them with viable minds in less than a few months. Thus the Kaminoan preference for raising clones slowly over ten years is not a technical necessity. The employment of a small number of Anzati trainers midway through the programme probably means that the learned experiences of a few nikto could be massively dupicated in the brains of numerous clones.
The clones had four fingers and one thumb on each hand. Gestating embryos appear to have this number of digits, thus proving it to be the natural shape of the species' hands. This is important since the anatomy of nikto hands is seen to vary greatly in the galaxy at large. Like the Bok's clones, at least some of the Nikto guards in Jabba the Hutt's employ had 5-digit hands [ROTJ]. However many (but not all) of the nikto inhabitants of Mos Espa had fewer fingers [TPM], including: unremarkable members of the podrace crowds, pedestrians in the street and Sebulba's mechanics. One of Jabba's guards at the Boonta Eve podrace was a three-fingered nikto.
The anatomical difference is probably artificial. Could such a large part of the nikto population be victims of an accidental malformation? Perhaps natural nikto infants are deformed in the womb, under the effect of some common agent? Perhaps grown nikto submit to surgical alteration of their hands?
How can we explain those Nikto who had fewer digits on Tatooine [TPM podrace crowds]? Some of their fingers must have been either clipped surgically, or else they are all victims of a malformation. Is it a coincidence that the reduced hands have the same structure as those of Hutts, who hold the Nikto homeworld in thrall? Is the removal of fingers, granting a resemblance to Hutt hands, a mark of manumission in an ordinarily enslaved species? Could it be a mark of some other kind of affiliation or status?
Jedi Master Tholme studies nikto embryos growing in tunnels on the Separatist world of Saleucami, not long before the downfall of the Jedi during the Clone Wars.
Many of the nikto characters on the streets of Mos Espa and at the podraces have only three digits on each hand: two fingers and one thumb of approximately equal thickness. Sebulba's mechanics all have hands like this.
A minority of niktos in Mos Espa have hands with five digits: four fingers and a thumb.
