What are opinions about cloning in your universe?

[Badger]

Basically the whole concept about cloning in your universe. I just am curious about things like the general opinions about from the population. If magic or ki or whatever similar in your universe. Is the clone incapable of using said magic. Do the clones have souls. Are clones considered human or are they some kind of lower class. How is it regulated? Can anybody just be allowed to clone or be cloned? How is it generally applied (particularly does the military use as an alternative to the draft). How rampant are anti-cloning organizations. Does a clone age faster? Or are they matured in the lab to a certain age?

 

Cant think of anymore question right now? If I do I'll mention

[proditor]

Re: What are opinions about cloning in your universe?

 

Good questions, and ones not really touched in my current setting. I play a clone actually, my Ultra-boy homage, Omni-Man was created by Telios during a new period of black outs. No one knows he's a clone, so it's more of something to come out later for character developement. Right now he thinks he's been sent from the future to save the past after being imbued with the powers of the League of Super Teens during a freak janitorial incident.

[Lightray]

There is magic in my universe -- that's where everyone's powers come from, and that's how the clones that exist came about in the first place. All the PCs know is that the process was created by an alchemist (homunculi, essentially) and a black magician.

 

The clones seem to have all the supernatural powers of the original. That may in fact have been the point of why the two created the process. Their cloning process can also give the clone the memories of the original, or only some of the memories, or completely false memories. The clones don't age faster (at least, not so far...), and the question of souls has not come up yet.

 

The number of clones is small. There's a few that were created as "test subjects" in the Monster Labs run by that black magician. Some had complete memories, some had no memories. Not all have actually shown up yet.

 

The remaining clones were created by the alchemist and black magician using themselves as the template. The alchemist made an edited-memory version of herself to cover up her betrayal of the "good guys" and defection to the "bad guys". The black magician made several clones of himself, apparently to keep up his own secret identity(s) while he's busy elsewhere -- and they may or may not have edited-memories.

 

Since there are such a small number of them, a lot of social issues haven't come up yet. But, the organization that produced them -- the Monster Labs -- is being "legitimized" and mainstreamed (by one of the black magician's clones who may not know he's a clone). Since the legitimate organization has started using its weird science processes to produce medical cures and such, cloning will probably resurface as a plot point.

[caris]

Re: What are opinions about cloning in your universe?

 

Cloning is not a common factor in my campaign. Adonis is a genetic construct, and Telios is out and about. Even so the number of people with a perfected cloning technique is very small, and the number with an effective means of aging a clone to adulthood is extremely small. In general most people don't think much about cloning, it is more of the "wack stuff that happens now that we have supers running around." Most of the high edge tech that exists in my campaign world, and not in the real world is like super powers not everyone has them, and most people can not make the tech work. Religion and the law where the issue has come up are pretty much in agreement that clones are fulfledge humans independent of their biological origins. They have all the legal rights of a human being, and are considered to have souls. Now the actual process of creating a clone is just as thorny of an issue in my campaign world as it is in the real world.

[Blue]

Re: What are opinions about cloning in your universe?

 

I think this will vary from storyline to storyline in my world.

 

Artifical life forms sustained by technology (such as androids) would not show souls if someone used a "detect soul". They live by their programming and design. But clones will depend on the means of creation.

 

Example: In WW II, the Nazis managed to clone Uncle Slam. In order to make him a sinister, sadistic, twisted opposite of Uncle Slam, he was infused with a sliver of Der Furer's (sp?) soul. (Actually, it's said in the stoyline it's written as "a fraction of his unique essance", which can be interpreted as his soul.) The powers were near duplicates of each other, except that through extrapolation the Nazis could study their duplicate and create for him weapons that could defeat Uncle Slam. If it weren't for WWII's other (arguably greater) hero, Paragon, Uncle Slam might not have been able to send the duplicate to his watery grave.

 

But I think unless steps are taken with scientific duplication, the soul would not carry over; now magical means are another matter entirely. And I think that a body copied by magical means unless special steps were taken, would likely attract a new resident soul from realms beyond.

 

Powers generally carry over to duplicates unless there's a reasson not to. But there's only one KNOWN duplicate in the game history (Slam), but there is indeed a second villainous duplicate working behind the scenes.

 

[EDIT]Doh! How can I forget the best player set up pending incident of all? I have a Player whose character is right now cloning a supervillain. He's asking for trouble and he knows it! But that's the nature of that particular PC.

[Zeropoint]

Re: What are opinions about cloning in your universe?

 

I rule that anytime a computing system capable of supporting sapience comes on line, it is issued a soul. That goes for organic brains, neural-net computer cores, pure software AI, freak current fluctuations in a stellar envelope, whatever. If it's a person, it has a soul.

 

From a legal standpoint, any sapient being is considered a person with the same rights and responsibilites under the law. It's a lot easier for humans or humanoid organic beings to be recognized as sapeint, though.

 

Cloning of humans and genetic engineering of humans is illegal in my campaign, and the actions of supervillains who violate these laws demonstrate why this needs to be so.

 

Clones could certainly use magic, but what lets one person use magic while another person can't is poorly understood, and there is no guarantee that a clone of a magic-user will be able to use magic, although it is likely.

 

Only a handfull of people (including Telios, obviously) have the ability to produce a physcially adult clone in a short time.

 

 

Well, that's my take in a nutshell.

 

Zeropoint

[Arkham]

Re: What are opinions about cloning in your universe?

 

The subject of souls has not come up yet, although there is

a great deal going on with clones. I don't use the CU, but

I have a villianous organization called FATE ( Final Act of

Terran Evolution ) that uses clones as most of its troops.

 

The subject has come up amongst the PCs whether they need to

be gentle on the clones, whether or not they are actually

'people'. Society has not yet decided, although the law, not

being able to distinguish a created person from a real one,

considers them people just like any other.

 

In my world, human cloning is not yet in the hands of normal

people. It is so far the realm of pretty much supervillians

only, the most notable being Dr. Bend and Dr. Kali of FATE.

( Dr. Bend is a Plastic-man like stretchy guy, and Dr. Kali

has extra arms and is phenomenally skilled with a blade. Both

of them, of course, have messloads of clones available for

dirty work )