The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

[Balabanto]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Maybe' date=' but you can't blame the clones for this.[/quote']

 

See, there's your problem. It's not about assigning blame. It's about undermining the very framework of human society. Human society should evolve naturally, not build it's own replacements.

[Balabanto]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

For one thing a twin was not forced on to somebody. If you take somebody's DNA and made clones with it without consent...that is that not a crime? Sure if the clone is sentinent being and not just a copy of the orginal...it can prove this and have full rights...but that is not always the case with evil clone plots 101.

 

Now again in Balabento's game a clone can prove his/her personhood if you will...but they are required to do so by the law. Just like in his world...mutant sentinet animals....aliens...AIs robots etc...because it is easy to make a clone appear sentinent...but actualy not be.

 

It's also harder. For one thing, you have a lot of outraged and angry people who don't like being cloned and happen to be superheroes with a considerable amount of influence. For another, again, all of this is very leftist. It assumes the existence of prima facie rights for all beings, regardless of whether or not they're considered sentients. The assumption of true sentience for clones is flawed. At any time, a preprogrammed message could turn a clone into a veritable engine of destruction. Is the clone responsible for it's own actions then? Or is the cloner responsible once again?

 

This is an insane principle, to hold the cloner responsible for everything. If Atomic Man is a clone, and then he turns into Nuclear Destruction boy, and blows up Sacremento, who's responsible? The government is now responsible under this paradigm, because all clones start with rights in the logic of most of these folks. You can't predict this stuff, and that's why clones have no rights. Because there are too many grey areas that can result in death and destruction, the undermining of the entire government, or the subtle replacement of vast swaths of the natural human population. To decide this on a case by case basis WOULD be madness.

 

Look at the original Spider-Man clone saga with the Jackal (I think it was #145-149) This got so confusing and stupid they created a second clone saga, which was one of the worst Spidey stories of all time, even worse than One More Day. (And while what Quesada did was jerky, nothing beats never knowing if you're EVER going to read about the same character again. Really. It doesn't)

 

Look at the Project Cadmus stuff with the Newsboy Legion, where all the clones were controlled by Dubbilex

 

Look at any comic book where a superhero is copied.

 

These purposes are always nefarious and always screw people.

 

Clonus's hypotheticals are useless. Superman would NEVER allow himself to be cloned, precisely because he already knows the consequences of being cloned. (See Project Cadmus, above.)

[megaplayboy]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

If a clone isn't capable of free will, I don't know that I'd refer to it as a "clone", since clone implies an exact copy of a human being(including brain/free will). If what you have instead are physical replicas which are mentally "pre-programmed"(and essentially unable to overcome this programming), then a different term, like, e.g., "replicant", is probably better, in order to make the distinction clearer. If a clone has free will and the ability to make moral choices, then I have a really hard time seeing an argument for denying them civil rights. If they don't, then essentially what you have is an organic android/biological robot(of the non-sentient variety), and you're on somewhat more solid turf in arguing they shouldn't have civil rights.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

No it was not directed at you...your post just made a point that I wanted to build on and gave me a lead in.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I was hoping that's what you were doing, I just wasn't sure.

[Balabanto]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

If a clone isn't capable of free will' date=' I don't know that I'd refer to it as a "clone", since clone implies an exact copy of a human being(including brain/free will). If what you have instead are physical replicas which are mentally "pre-programmed"(and essentially unable to overcome this programming), then a different term, like, e.g., "replicant", is probably better, in order to make the distinction clearer. If a clone has free will and the ability to make moral choices, then I have a really hard time seeing an argument for denying them civil rights. If they don't, then essentially what you have is an organic android/biological robot(of the non-sentient variety), and you're on somewhat more solid turf in arguing they shouldn't have civil rights.[/quote']

 

The thing is, you can tell if someone is a clone. You can't truly measure free will. Even passing the test is really a straw man. A clone could make moral choices for years, and then all of a sudden, the programming kicks in and the clone becomes a hundred foot tall beast bent on destruction, a murderous serial killer, or half-insane because the cloning process is imperfect and deteriorates over time.

 

The only reason that passing the test is available as an option is because every so often, you get an extremely grey area. But usually, clones don't pass the test. And when they do, there's usually a lot of angry people.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

This is an insane principle' date=' to hold the cloner responsible for everything. If Atomic Man is a clone, and then he turns into Nuclear Destruction boy, and blows up Sacremento, who's responsible? The government is now responsible under this paradigm, because all clones start with rights in your logic. You can't predict this stuff, and that's why clones have no rights. Because there are too many grey areas that can result in death and destruction, the undermining of the entire government, or the subtle replacement of vast swaths of the natural human population. To decide this on a case by case basis WOULD be madness.[/quote']

 

If a clone has no rights, then can the clone actually be (legally) responsible for his/her actions? I mean, minors have limited rights, and are similarly limited in their legal responsibilities. (Hence why it's such a big deal for a teen or pre-teen to be "tried as an adult" for a crime.) It seems to me that, if clones have no rights, they also can't be held legally responsible for their actions. They have no rights --> they're not people --> they're just "things."

 

And if this is the case, then either (1) the cloner or (2) the government becomes responsible. It seems to me that (1) is the logical conclusion.

 

In truth, all of this stuff makes my head hurt, so I don't go that into depth in my game world's legal system. Cloning is a genre trope, as is mind control and other potential legal land mines. My players have yet to call me on any of my campaign's legal issues, and that's just fine with me. I suppose it might be more of an issue if I ran more detailed courtroom scenes or if Stronghold didn't have a revolving-door reputation in my world -- but those are completely different issues.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

All right' date=' Mr. Nielson. I’m glad to see that your usual tendencies are in force, so I’m going to respond and turn all of your points one at a time in the manner to which you are accustomed.[/font']

 

Yes, temporary insanity does not exist in many legal systems, but for the most part, most superhero games I run take place in the United States of America, where it is a legal defense in all fifty states. Outside the United States, the rules may be different. (See previous posts.) The thing is, you can use temporary insanity as a defense instead of Mind Control until the telepath/psychic/mage is brought in. Extracting a confession still works. Clearly if Bob confesses on the stand that he took control of Doctor Hero’s mind in order to bend it to his will, and that’s why he did those things that are clearly not things he will usually do, that will more than likely stick.

 

As someone else points out upthread, this seems very different from "mind control is not a legal defense". It seems rather to say that the courts have extrapolated the Temporary Insanity defense to include Mind Control, on the basis that both indicate the individual committing the crime did not do so of their own volition. To me, that means Mind Control is a defense - simply one which falls under the ambit of an existing legal precedent.

 

From wiki,

Media coverage in the United States tends to dictate how situations are perceived by the public. A case using the insanity defense usually receives a lot more media attention because it is considered unusual or dramatic. This increased coverage gives the impression that the defense is widely used but this is not the case. According to an eight-state study the insanity defense is used in less than 1% of all court cases and' date=' when used, has only a 26% success rate. Of those cases that were successful, 90% of the defendants had been previously diagnosed with mental illness. [12'] The cases of Lee Boyd Malvo and Andrea Yates are examples of high-profile use of the insanity defense; both are characterized by their dramatic circumstances.

 

This refers to the insanity defense overall, not just the temporary insanity subset, which must therefore be even less frequent in practice. I doubt "I was mind controlled" would become any more a universal get out of jail free card.

 

Hugh' date=' that logic is ridiculous. There is no legal system in the first world where you are guilty until proven innocent except Italy, and the Italian courts are a joke to begin with. Mind explaining what your actual problem is here?[/quote']

 

Your assertion was that allowing Mind Control as a defense would mean the guilty could never be convicted. Requiring the accused to prove his innocence would also make it much more difficult for the guilty to walk away. Highly publicized trials in the real world where the accused is found not guilty often have a backlash reaction where the public seems to feel the individual should not have been "let off".

 

Let's also remember that torturing a person to extract a confession, or beating a confession out of a suspect, haven't been removed from the legal system for all that many years either, in states which followed the English common law conventions which included the presumption of innocence. The law is not static - it grows to cover new issues. Actually, I think your extrapolation of "Temporary Insanity" to include Mind Control is a very reasonable and plausible approach. If we accept that Mind Control exists, then a victim of Mind Control could not have been guilty of a crime, as he did not control his own actions. But he will have to persuade the Court that he was, indeed, prevented from controlling his own actions.

 

As far as your majority is concerned' date=' the problem has nothing to do with the GM and everything to do with the way lawyers would seize upon this as a means of getting their clients off. Between this and double jeopardy, you might ask, how do any supervillains wind up in jail at all?[/quote']

 

Or you might ask how anyone ends up in jail at all. They should all just plead temporary insanity, right? I'll just stand up in court and talk about the Voices in my Head, and I get off scot free, right? I don't see the justice system merely accepting "Oh well, I was Mind Controlled to do it" any more readily than they accept "It was temporary insanity, Your Honor, but I'm feeling much better now!" The statistics, discussed in greater detail below, tend to bear that theory out.

 

By the way, where you refer to lawyers "seizing upon this as a means of getting their clients off", others might refer to lawyers ensuring that their clients receive the fair trial, and the competent defense, that the legal system entitles them to - their right as a human being. You place a lot of stock in the presumption of innocence in your other comments, but you disparage the accused's right to defend himself pretty strongly here. The principals of the legal system always seem much more important when they favour our desired outcome than when they rebut it. The presumption of innocence is commonly phrased with the adage "better a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted". This would suggest it is better that 100 villains are found not guilty by by virtue of the Mind Control defense than a single person forced to commit a crime by Mind Control be convicted, would it not?

 

Well' date=' there’s this process called inevitable discovery in the law, and in my game, judges are a little more liberal with it assuming the rights of the defendant haven’t been violated. If Doctor Lava is planning to build a giant volcano out of Yellowstone National Park, and the heroes capture Doctor Lava before he can succeed, the prosecution will usually argue that inevitably, Doctor Lava’s crime would have been discovered because there would have been a giant volcano where Yellowstone National Park used to be. That’s how you get a telepath arrested and thrown in prison, by stopping his plan, not by attacking his powers.[/quote']

 

So if we catch him with a gun and he was driving in Washington, was it inevitable he would have been discovered to have been trying to assassinate the president? We're now getting into trying the accused for a crime he has not yet committed. Now, if he has committed other crimes, the discovery of his secret base may well have lead to discovery of evidence of those crimes.

 

And I doubt many telepaths get caught because there would have been a giant volcano where Yellowstone used to be. Not if they're subtle telepaths, anyway. A lot depends on the nature of the crime, though. It seems like a telepath could be convicted for selling state secrets, for example. It hardly matters how he got the state secrets to prove that crime.

 

The problem is that if you allow for the specificity of a mind control defense instead of simply using temporary insanity' date=' you run into a number of problems specific to the existence of telepathy. Normally, the way this is handled (If a character without a criminal record does a bunch of things against his will) is to try and find documentation of everything that was done, why it was done and who it benefited, the same way other investigations work. Usually, this trail doesn’t travel back to the hero. If it does, well…that’s a plot for PC’s to work to solve.[/quote']

 

As in most things, Mind Control works better when it works with, rather than against, the target's inclinations. MC him into killing someone who is his known enemy, ideally someone he's had a verbal altercation with in public fairly recently, and that should be a lot harder to defend against. But any number of similar frameups could be imagined without needing mind control to pull it off. How do you prove that was really a super villain with similar powers disguised as Mr. Magnificent while he was tied up in a staff meeting in his secret ID? In a good game, there will be some means of proving his innocence. In a poor game? Well, that will teach the player not to question the edicts of the GM next time, won't it?

 

As for super-scientific advancement' date=' cloning occupies a special place in the world’s logic. Extraterrestrials and dimensional aliens do face extensive screening. For many years, governments of the world gave them cover identities. They were unwilling to admit the existence of aliens to the general public. But the screening system is already in place, most of the time.[/quote']

 

So acceptance of aliens, but not of clones. Funny how the world can adapt to one, but not the other.

 

As for scrutiny of super powers in general' date=' super powers have become a part of global culture, due to their appearance around World War II. Superhero comics aren’t popular. There are other forms of comics that are, but for the most part, if you’re a fan of superheroes, you read the newspaper, link up to C-News on the internet or whatever, and find out what superheroes have been doing and what their adventures are like. Superhero novels do exist. For the most part, people don’t see a difference between a mutant and a non-mutant. They do see people who do the same things without any powers of their own, such as pure martial artists with no mutations and powered armor characters as slightly braver, but no more or less heroic/or villainous.[/quote']

 

Too bad we didn't clone some soldiers in WW II, then. I guess they'd be accepted much better if they had been around for longer, and were wrapped in Star Spangled Patriotism. Weren't there any Nazi Supers to cast a shadow over super powers?

 

But…caveat' date=' this makes cloning all the more heinous a crime. In a world where humanity aspires to greatness, making better humans to replace human aspirations and dreams can (And does) seem particularly threatening.[/quote']

 

What about other genetic manipulation? We can't clone Mighty Man, but if we SuperSteroid scrawny Roger Stevens up and drape him in an American flag, that makes him Super Soldier, idol of millions. Isn't that another means of making better humans who achieve greatness through artificial means, rather than pursuing their noble aspirations and dreams?

 

Your argument about word substitution is leftist nonsense' date=' and that’s coming from someone who pretty much sits on the left on most social issues. This is nothing but a straw man argument that assumes that there’s no difference between a normal human or superbeing and his or her clone. Any number of modifications can be made to the clone that the original did not possess. The original person’s rights have clearly been violated. What recourse does he have if he doesn’t want his genetic material running around?[/quote']

 

Anyone with siblings, parents or, as noted upthread, has their genetic material running around. What if I hate my identical twin because he makes me feel less unique? Is it OK to kill him? After all, he's running around using my genetic material without my permission. It seems far more reasonable to assert that the criminal is the person who used my genetic material without my consent than to blame the product of that use of my genetic material.

 

According to you' date=' the answer is none. You’ve been cloned. Suck it up. This being is now a person with their own rights, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it or put a stop to it, and you have to live with all the consequences of being cloned forever.[/quote']

 

Life is not fair. Your counter solution is to take the life of a sentient being because I resent its existence. Let's slap a different comic book trope on it. No one is cloned. The precisely identical duplicate is my counterpart from Earth-27, an exactly identical "me" with the only difference between Earth-27 and our own world being that its version of me got sucked into our world, so our Earth now has two of me and theirs has none. Do we execute him because I feel less unique now? He's running around with my genetic material, my memories and all of my life experiences to date - that's even more a violation of my unique existence than a vat-grown clone with no experiences of its own, isn't it?

 

Make no mistake. This is no different from rape. And that’s why the laws regarding it are so strict' date=' because THAT’s the crime cloning most closely mirrors in the real world. Not identity theft. Rape. Does a rape victim have the right to abort her fetus? Of course she does. It’s the same. It’s the laws governing identity theft that seize the day for all of you. But it doesn’t do it for me.[/quote']

 

The victim has the right to abort the fetus because carrying it to term imposes obligations and risks on her. That vat-grown clone is already a living person, and the victim did not have to carry it to term or raise it. The violation of the individual's rights rests at the feet of the person who grew the clone, not the clone itself. Captain Obvious addresses this in more detail.

 

A rape victim can't abort the fetus after it's been born and is on its way to becoming a functioning member of society. An identical twin doesn't have the option to have his clone (yes' date=' identical twins are clones) terminated either. Once the clone is out of its spawning tank, despite the fact that it has an identical genetic structure as someone else, it should be afforded the rights of any other human, although certain privileges might be curtailed, based on actual age as opposed to apparent age in the case of accelerated maturation. If the clone has committed any crimes, then that should be a separate issue.[/quote']

 

The victim's rights are unacceptably abrogated if the victim is forced to carry a child to term (and, depending on how far one wishes to take the example, to then raise the child). Merely allowing the clone to live is a vastly lesser imposition on the rights of the person supplying the genetic material.

 

I'm sure some explanation of the background of a given campaign might shed enough light on the specifics of that world to show how another system might be reasonable' date=' or [b']at least politically expedient[/b]. The explanation of mind control/temporary insanity makes sense, as an example. Many people (myself included) got hung up on the phrase "Mind Control is not a valid defense" which makes it sound like a person is 100% liable for anything, no matter how out of character, that is done under Mind Control. Pointing out that the temporary insanity defense can be applied makes a world of difference, though.

 

To me, if Mind Control can be considered under Temporary Insanity, then it is as valid a defense as Temporary Insanity.

 

To me, this seems susceptible to a fairly straightforward test?

1. Are the clones fully human, physically and neurologically speaking?

2. Do they have free will, and/or the capacity for free will?

 

If the answer is yes to both questions, then legally speaking they should have all the rights attendant to being a person. Otherwise you are creating a distinction between legal persons and "non-persons" just as arbitrary and discriminatory as basing it on skin color or gender.

 

Or species (aliens).

 

Are we far enough into NGD territory? Legal rights, presumption of innocence, civil rights of the cloned - the Super world would get to deal with a lot more issues than we have in our little universe!

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

For one thing a twin was not forced on to somebody.

 

No? I don't thinjk many of us decided how many siblings our parents should grace us with, much less whether we should have a womb mate for our nine months of development.

 

If you take somebody's DNA and made clones with it without consent...that is that not a crime? Sure if the clone is sentinent being and not just a copy of the orginal...it can prove this and have full rights...but that is not always the case with evil clone plots 101.

 

I don't think anyone is arguing it is not a crime, but they are arguing who the criminal is. To my mind, it's not the clone(s), but the person who made the clone(s).

 

Now again in Balabento's game a clone can prove his/her personhood if you will...but they are required to do so by the law. Just like in his world...mutant sentinet animals....aliens...AIs robots etc...because it is easy to make a clone appear sentinent...but actualy not be.

 

It's also harder. For one thing' date=' you have a lot of outraged and angry people who don't like being cloned and happen to be superheroes with a considerable amount of influence.[/quote']

 

I accept that political expediency as a reason such a system could develop. That does not make it right, only plausible, and places the clones in the position of an oppressed minority. Having no rights, it would seem equally plausible that major corporations might seize on use of clones for dangerous occupations - hey, they're only clones so who cares how many die if the mine shaft caves in?

 

For another' date=' again, all of this is very leftist. It assumes the existence of prima facie rights for all beings, regardless of whether or not they're considered sentients. The assumption of true sentience for clones is flawed. At any time, a preprogrammed message could turn a clone into a veritable engine of destruction. Is the clone responsible for it's own actions then? Or is the cloner responsible once again? [/quote']

 

In superhero worlds, a preprogrammed message can also turn non-clones into a veritable engine of destruction. It happens a lot to DNPC's, so maybe we should kill off anyone known to be close to a Super. And let's not start on aliens!

 

This is an insane principle' date=' to hold the cloner responsible for everything.[/quote']

 

More insane than holding the clone responsible for anything that might or might not happen, so just kill him as soon as he's identified?

 

If Atomic Man is a clone' date=' and then he turns into Nuclear Destruction boy, and blows up Sacremento, who's responsible? The government is now responsible under this paradigm, because all clones start with rights in the logic of most of these folks. You can't predict this stuff, and that's why clones have no rights. Because there are too many grey areas that can result in death and destruction, the undermining of the entire government, or the subtle replacement of vast swaths of the natural human population. To decide this on a case by case basis WOULD be madness.[/quote']

 

So how does the fact Atomic Man is NOT a clone prevent him from turning into Nuclear Destruction boy, and blowing up Sacremento? Maybe no superbeing should have rights, and they should all be enslaved or executed. After all there is a risk any of them could go bad, or further mutate, resulting in death and destruction, the undermining of the entire government, or the subtle replacement of vast swaths of the natural human population. To decide this on a case by case basis WOULD be madness. Destroy all Supers! Oh please, won't SOMEONE think about the children?

 

Look at the original Spider-Man clone saga with the Jackal (I think it was #145-149) This got so confusing and stupid they created a second clone saga' date=' which was one of the worst Spidey stories of all time, even worse than One More Day. (And while what Quesada did was jerky, nothing beats never knowing if you're EVER going to read about the same character again. Really. It doesn't) [/quote']

 

I see - stories with clones suck. And you've run a number of storylines with clones, based on your comments upthread. What does that mean? And how does the fact that the Clone Saga was a bad story (assuming, for the purposes of discussion, we all agree to classify it as the worst atrocity ever perpetrated upon the reading public) lead to the conclusion that clones should have no rights and should all be executed? I guess, since it was more than one writer who perpetrated this atrocity, that's ironclad proof that all writers of superhero fiction in any form (this includes scenarios for super hero games, right) should be executed, or at least banned from ever putting pen to paper again, right?

 

Look at the Project Cadmus stuff with the Newsboy Legion, where all the clones were controlled by Dubbilex

 

Look at any comic book where a superhero is copied.

 

These purposes are always nefarious and always screw people.

 

Funny - Superboy is generally considered a hero, and he's a clone. MVP was a tri-clone in a recent book, and was a hero (three heros?). I suspect if you check any background in the comics (altered human, mutant, alien, whatever) you'll find a lot more villains than heroes.

 

The thing is, you can tell if someone is a clone. You can't truly measure free will. Even passing the test is really a straw man. A clone could make moral choices for years, and then all of a sudden, the programming kicks in and the clone becomes a hundred foot tall beast bent on destruction, a murderous serial killer, or half-insane because the cloning process is imperfect and deteriorates over time.

 

The only reason that passing the test is available as an option is because every so often, you get an extremely grey area. But usually, clones don't pass the test. And when they do, there's usually a lot of angry people.

 

So what is this "test"? And should people have to pass a test to have kids. Sometimes, normal human beings make moral choices for years, then perpetrate a heinous act. Give them superpowers, and the hundred foot tall beast bent on destruction becomes a plausible outcome. Really, we should trace Hitler back to Ancestor 1 and execute anyone descended from that stock, just in case, right?

 

If a clone has no rights' date=' then can the clone actually be (legally) responsible for his/her actions? I mean, minors have limited rights, and are similarly limited in their legal responsibilities. (Hence why it's such a big deal for a teen or pre-teen to be "tried as an adult" for a crime.) It seems to me that, if clones have no rights, they also can't be held legally responsible for their actions. They have no rights --> they're not people --> they're just "things."[/quote']

 

An interesting point.

 

In truth' date=' all of this stuff makes my head hurt, so I don't go that into depth in my game world's legal system. Cloning is a genre trope, as is mind control and other potential legal land mines. My players have yet to call me on any of my campaign's legal issues, and that's just fine with me. I suppose it might be more of an issue if I ran more detailed courtroom scenes or if Stronghold didn't have a revolving-door reputation in my world -- but those are completely different issues.[/quote']

 

We gloss over a lot of these issues in most genre fiction. Often, some of the worst storylines come out of trying to address these fictional tropes in a real world context. I mean, really, would we put that much trust in a guy flying around in brightly coloured long johns?

[megaplayboy]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

The thing is, you can tell if someone is a clone. You can't truly measure free will. Even passing the test is really a straw man. A clone could make moral choices for years, and then all of a sudden, the programming kicks in and the clone becomes a hundred foot tall beast bent on destruction, a murderous serial killer, or half-insane because the cloning process is imperfect and deteriorates over time.

 

The only reason that passing the test is available as an option is because every so often, you get an extremely grey area. But usually, clones don't pass the test. And when they do, there's usually a lot of angry people.

 

Actually, in a world with aliens and artificial intelligence, you would have to come up with a test for free will. My campaign, which is filled with programmed replicants and androids(aka "drones" and "droids") who occasionally manifest real sapience and free will, uses what I call the T.E.A.M. assessment scale. The first part is a standard Turing test, to see if the being can converse convincingly enough to persuade that they're a person. The second is an Emotive assessment, subjecting the subject to a variety of stimuli to test the appropriateness and sincerity of their emotional responses to it. The third tests the subject's Autonomy, to see how capable they are of operating independently and without direction. The last test centers on Motivation, essentially measuring the subject's ability to set their own goals and objectives. Each part of the test uses a 100 point scale, and whoever achieves a composite score higher than the threshold number is legally considered a person. It's not a perfect system, and has its critics, but at least gives artificial and created beings a chance to prove they're free-willed and deserving of rights.

[Clonus]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

It's also harder. For one thing' date=' you have a lot of outraged and angry people who don't like being cloned and happen to be superheroes with a considerable amount of influence. For another, again, all of this is very leftist. It assumes the existence of prima facie rights for all beings, regardless of whether or not they're considered sentients. The assumption of true sentience for clones is flawed. At any time, a preprogrammed message could turn a clone into a veritable engine of destruction[/quote'].

 

One notes that almost any superhuman could destabilize and become an engine of destruction. Anyone who got their powers from an accident could find that the accident had long term consequences. Anyone who got their powers from an experiment could find out that their experiment included a method for controlling the result. Superman could encounter the wrong kind of kryptonite. Xavier and Sentry could just plain lose it...again.

 

 

 

Is the clone responsible for it's own actions then? Or is the cloner responsible once again?

 

This is an insane principle, to hold the cloner responsible for everything. If Atomic Man is a clone, and then he turns into Nuclear Destruction boy, and blows up Sacremento, who's responsible?

 

Who is responsible if Atomic Man _isn't_ a clone and does the same thing?

 

 

Clonus's hypotheticals are useless. Superman would NEVER allow himself to be cloned, precisely because he already knows the consequences of being cloned. (See Project Cadmus, above.)

 

 

Of course the world changing possibility of a flood of superpowered clones tends to be handled in one of two ways. Either it just doesn't happen because it's too expensive, unreliable or whatever, or the clones, particularly mass-produced clones have inception dates and will conveniently self-destruct as soon as their purpose, for their maker or the narrative, is fulfilled.

[Christopher]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Actually, every super is in danger to become a monster:

Power corrupts. Super power, super corrupt.

 

Tony Stark could turn into a villian. Each member of the JLA or X-Men could turn into a villian. Cadmus was there because they supected that all the time.

The Justice Lords are proof that they could. And even Superman admitted "he felt the same urges" as is Mirror Universe Counterpart.

 

What if the clones of someone are genetically and psychically more stable than their original?

What if someone clones a dozen hitlers, and it turns out their DNA makes them really nice people? That hitler just got some infection/psychical problems in his youth that made him to only mad guy ever comming from that strand of DNA even if cloned a million more times?

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

One notes that almost any superhuman could destabilize and become an engine of destruction. Anyone who got their powers from an accident could find that the accident had long term consequences. Anyone who got their powers from an experiment could find out that their experiment included a method for controlling the result. Superman could encounter the wrong kind of kryptonite. Xavier and Sentry could just plain lose it...again.

 

Who is responsible if Atomic Man _isn't_ a clone and does the same thing?

 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that someone named Clonus would be pro-clone...

 

(And just to be perfectly clear, I am completely joking here.)

[Old Man]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

.

 

One notes that almost any superhuman could destabilize and become an engine of destruction.

 

Perfectly ordinary people destabilize in real life already. Does the cloning process make this more likely, or less? I've already mentioned upthread that cloning could actually fix genetic damage and overall wear and tear, depending on the process. Maybe your clone won't develop Parkinson's because it wasn't exposed to pesticides. Maybe it won't develop schizophrenia. It certainly won't have your bad back or bum knee.

 

Perhaps the clones should band together to get rid of the "beta versions" and outlaw haphazard sexual reproduction.

[caris]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Perhaps the clones should band together to get rid of the "beta versions" and outlaw haphazard sexual reproduction.

 

Which I beleive is one of the public fears in Balbanto's campaign world.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

At any time' date=' a preprogrammed message could turn a clone into a veritable engine of destruction. Is the clone responsible for it's own actions then? Or is the cloner responsible once again? [/quote']

 

They should both be responsible, but...

 

If Atomic Man is a clone, and then he turns into Nuclear Destruction boy, and blows up Sacremento, who's responsible? The government is now responsible under this paradigm, because all clones start with rights in the logic of most of these folks. You can't predict this stuff, and that's why clones have no rights. Because there are too many grey areas that can result in death and destruction, the undermining of the entire government, or the subtle replacement of vast swaths of the natural human population. To decide this on a case by case basis WOULD be madness.

 

Replace every "clone" with "superhero" in this paragraph and it's just as valid. If people are so paranoid that all clones are potential terror attacks, why are they not paranoid about supers in general? I mean, you can't tell who might be a clone until you examine them at a cellular level, if I recall your world parameters correctly. So any time any superhero shows up somewhere, unless you have trusted medical personnel on scene to verify their non-clone status, it's a potential terror attack. And even if, in the middle of an emergency, some geneticist is able to verify that every Justice Team member who has responded is not a clone, who's to say that none of them have been brainwashed or ensorcelled into a Manchurian Candidate?

 

At any rate, not all clones are super-powered. Suppose Viper decides its recruits have not been up to snuff lately, and decides an army of clones would work out better. They're probably not going to throw in all the bells and whistles needed to turn them into all-out supers. Smart enough to follow orders and strong enough to pull a trigger is good enough. Now granted, none of these guys is likely to be a model citizen, and will probably end up in Gitmo based on their own actions, but is it moral to treat what is genetically human like a rabid animal if he hasn't done anything wrong?

 

Going further, say the first batch of clones didn't work out as well as hoped. Smart enough to follow orders only takes you so far...they want some minions with a little initiative. So the next batch of clones is made significantly smarter, say 12 as opposed to 7. Now say one of the clones, in the course of their brutal training regimen, finds some philosophy/political book in a broom closet, left behind by a recruit from years gone by, and decides that this terrorist stuff is BS. He escapes the training camp and, after digging up enough phony documents to fake a past, joins a police force, where his insider knowledge of how Viper works allows an otherwise unremarkable small-town police department to put a major hurting on an international terrorist operation. In one of his heroic exploits, he's fairly seriously wounded, and it comes out that he's a clone. Is it moral to put him down, on the grounds that he might turn on society, after having proven himself over and over?

 

Granted, since you're clearly talking above about super-powered clones, they are obviously a lot more volatile than a regular human level clone. But as I brought up earlier, in that case, it's the super-powers causing at least 90% of the problem, not the "clone" part.

[Prestige]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

If a clone isn't capable of free will' date=' I don't know that I'd refer to it as a "clone", since clone implies an exact copy of a human being(including brain/free will). If what you have instead are physical replicas which are mentally "pre-programmed"(and essentially unable to overcome this programming), then a different term, like, e.g., "replicant", is probably better, in order to make the distinction clearer. If a clone has free will and the ability to make moral choices, then I have a really hard time seeing an argument for denying them civil rights. If they don't, then essentially what you have is an organic android/biological robot(of the non-sentient variety), and you're on somewhat more solid turf in arguing they shouldn't have civil rights.[/quote']

 

Actualy I have the term clones used in many contexts. From the perfect DNA copy to just cloned organs. Maybe that is the issue here. Babentos game a clone can mean more things than just one thing.

 

As I said I play a clone in his game. The character would be what you consider a clone...but how can the goverment just know I am a free willed clone? The character would be dangerous if the villians that made her can use a signal and turn her into a neo-nazi. Heck the characters have fears that this can happen...she knows she is a clone. One day this will get out...and people will have to make a morale choice. IE it is called RPing.

 

So Balabentos game has more morale grey areas...and questions. OMG we should hang him up high and beat him with sticks for actualy have depth in his games and grey areas.

 

Sure you guys are right...logicaly this would not happen...but I have never known the human race to have being accused by a overabundence of logic.

[Old Man]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Which I beleive is one of the public fears in Balbanto's campaign world.

 

Obsolescence sucks.

[SKJAM!]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Hmm... now that I've had time to think about it, one reason to force-grow clones to early maturity and then let them season normally for a few years in my theoretical world...the mad scientist is a gray-area (dark gray) who wants to study treatments for degenerative diseases and needs guinea pigs.

 

Balabanto's world: Imagine the plight of poor Mrs. Clone when she discovers that her husband of fifteen years, deacon at his church, vice-president of the Rotary Club, beloved by all in their small town and father of her three children, is in fact a clone. His many years of service to the community matter not a whit. He's a clone and has no human rights, and can be put down like a dog. Obviously, her marriage is invalidated (can't legally marry a non-human), any contracts with his signature on them are null and void (there goes the house and car), and her kids...well, they're the offspring of a clone and therefore are not human themselves as far as the government is concerned.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

As I said I play a clone in his game. The character would be what you consider a clone...but how can the goverment just know I am a free willed clone? The character would be dangerous if the villians that made her can use a signal and turn her into a neo-nazi. Heck the characters have fears that this can happen...she knows she is a clone. One day this will get out...and people will have to make a morale choice. IE it is called RPing.

 

Why does the government accept other Supers, but not clones? How do they know that the Super Alien is really an orphan from a doomed world, rather than an advance scout for an invasion force? How is it more likely a clone is able to be readily controlled by the villains than any other altered human or mutant or even highly trained normal? Are clones, as a rule, significantly more susceptible to brainwashing?

 

Again, to me, this seems very similar to the common criticism of the Marvel Universe's mutant prejudice - how are mutants obvious (ie how do I know Storm is a mutant, but Thor and Electro are something else)? Why are they somehow viewed as more dangerous than other superhumans?

 

Sure you guys are right...logicaly this would not happen...but I have never known the human race to have being accused by a overabundence of logic.

 

Actually, I can definitely see it happening, with exactly the same backstory Balabanto describes. But having it be accepted as moral and ethical across the board? That seems far less likely. Having fears like this irrationally restricted to clones? Sure, I could see this being a factor in the game, and perhaps a team of clone Supers, or a single character, whose mega-story is changing the world's prejudices. Grimjack explored that theme for a while.

 

But I'm not hearing "this is a theme in my game world", I'm hearing "this is the moral, ethical right answer - clones are bad!". Even the acknowledgement of the occasional Clone hero sounds a lot like "Well, I have _______ friends" or "That Super Clone is a credit to his creation methodology". People don't have homogenous hatreds and prejudices in the real world - why would they in a fictional world?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Why should all the clones be twisted and evil? How about a character who is a heroic clone of a major villain. There's a Reputation to need to disprove!

[Old Man]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Not to mention the phenomenal amount of Hunteds you get to take.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Well, I can definitely see how a few major super-clone-based attacks could cause a massive backlash against anything smacking of clones and/or genetic research. I'm not sure how that paranoia doesn't spread into McCarthy-esque levels of witch-hunting, leading into paranoia directed against all supers.

 

In the real world, the majority of terrorists directing attacks against the West have been of fairly obvious west Asia or south Asia extraction. The ones who haven't have been big followers of the Islamic fundamentalist tradition of growing a big, nasty beard. And in the real world, we're constantly bombarded with reminders that you can't always tell by appearances who the bad guys are, or even potential bad guys. Now take away even that slim straw most people cling to of knowing what a terrorist looks like, and throw in the idea that even people you know (or people who you may think are people you know) might harbor a terrorist agenda, and you crank the hysteria to 11. After all, anyone who was obviously above average in anything might be a super-powered clone. I'd be surprised if mobs didn't string up doctors for performing an amniocentesis (OMG! DNA testing!!!!), or even an ultrasound after a while. We'd be lucky if it didn't end in a Luddite apocalypse.

[Lucius]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

double jeopardy

 

You have used this phrase before in another thread. There is a well known American legal principle by that name, but it turned out that time that you were referring to some rule for your setting's legal system that had no relation to the real world legal principle of the same name. So for the sake of clarity, can you explain what you mean by this?

 

According to you, the answer is none. You've been cloned. Suck it up. This being is now a person with their own rights, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it or put a stop to it, and you have to live with all the consequences of being cloned forever.

 

Just like anyone else born an identical twin.

 

Really? And how do you propose to keep that clone from suing the original for everything he has?

 

Not to presume to speak for Captain Obvious, but for myself, the same way I propose to keep you from suing me for everything I have.

 

Your argument is tinged with the idea that the clone IS a person' date=' and that you've already made that moral judgement. Since you've already accepted that a clone is a person, your argument is essentially a fait accompli that has no value, because you've shoehorned the clone into the position of having rights by making a moral judgement when the law may or may not make that distinction.[/quote']

 

We get it Balabanto – you want to run a setting in which clones are not legally considered persons and in which clones have no rights, much as Goblins have no rights in a classic D&D fantasy setting.

 

I don't even think that's what's bothering people. I suspect most of us have role played in fictional societies, or recreations of real societies, where it's considered okay to kill people and take their stuff if they have green skin and fangs and you don't, or where it's okay to buy and sell people because they or their ancestors were captured in a raid or because their skin's a different color. I certainly hope that having run such settings, played in such settings, and played characters that did not question their societies' mores, doesn't lead anyone to think I would advocate for such social paradigms.

 

What gets under my skin, and I suspect what's bothering a number of other people, is

 

1. You seem to be arguing that the way you've set up your setting is somehow logically inevitable. It's not.

2. You also seem to be implying that it's morally justifiable. It's not.

Edit before posting: let me add that when I say “It's not” I mean “not without making a huge pile of other assumptions, most of which have not yet been articulated clearly, and any or all of which could just as easily be made otherwise.”

 

For one thing a twin was not forced on to somebody.

 

Prestige, I don't know what world you live in, but in the one I live in, there is no such thing as a twin that wasn't forced on somebody.

 

I know a pair of twin sisters who hate each other and would probably take exception to the idea that they chose to be twins.

 

I also know a pair of twin brothers who dearly love each other, and I suspect they'd still laugh at the idea that they had a choice in the matter. They just think they were lucky.

 

For that matter, I'm sure that in many cases the fathers, and in some cases the mothers, feel that twins were forced on them – but the same goes for any child.

 

If you take somebody's DNA and made clones with it without consent...that is that not a crime?

 

As far as I've noticed, no one has claimed that it shouldn't be a crime to clone someone without their consent.

 

So if you take a claim that no one has made, and question it...is that not a straw man?

 

Sure if the clone is sentinent being and not just a copy of the orginal...

 

I do not understand this sentence. If the original is a sentient being, and the clone is a “perfect” copy, it will obviously have to also be a sentient being too. If the original is not a sentient being and the clone is a sentient being it's obviously an imperfect copy of the original. I am saying perfect and imperfect because a clone, in my understanding, is always a copy of some original...for that matter, it seems to me that the kind of clones usually being discussed in this thread would be “not just a copy” in that they have significant differences from the original. In the original post, for example, there's a reference to a cloned army serving some Nazi organization, when their original has broken with that organization and no longer serves it.

 

it can prove this and have full rights...but that is not always the case with evil clone plots 101.

 

Now again in Balabento's game a clone can prove his/her personhood if you will...but they are required to do so by the law. Just like in his world...mutant sentinet animals....aliens...AIs robots etc...because it is easy to make a clone appear sentinent...but actualy not be.

 

I find it strange that you are pointing this out, rather than Balabanto. You're certainly making more sense.

 

 

 

 

It's also harder. For one thing, you have a lot of outraged and angry people who don't like being cloned and happen to be superheroes with a considerable amount of influence. For another, again, all of this is very leftist. It assumes the existence of prima facie rights for all beings, regardless of whether or not they're considered sentients.

 

I don't know about anyone else, Balabanto, but I tend to assume the existence of primae facie rights for all sentient beings. I also tend to assume that anything that is biologically identical to any other homo sapiens – and you can't get much more biologically identical to a homo sapiens than a clone of one – is as sentient as any other homo sapiens.

 

Unless, of course, you're using the word “clone” to mean something else.

 

The assumption of true sentience for clones is flawed.

 

No, Balabanto, the assumption is not flawed. If you have decided that clones in your world are not sentient then the assumption is incorrect, in that specific instance, but there is nothing flawed about the assumption.

 

If someone ran a comic book style game featuring characters like, say, Batman and Superman, in which “mutants” were deformed freaks with little in the way of abilities that exceed those of the average, my assumption about mutants in comic book games would be wrong in that specific game, but I still say the assumption is not flawed.

 

As far as I can tell, every twin I have ever met personally was as sentient and free willed as anyone else I know.

 

At any time, a preprogrammed message could turn a clone into a veritable engine of destruction.

 

In your world, perhaps so. Only because you have decided that this is the case. Nothing in the nature of the concept of “clone” leads to that possibility.

 

Nor is that possibility unique to clones. If a person has been mind controlled even once, how can anyone tell if the intruding mentalist might have left deeply implanted suggestions that could turn that person into a veritable engine of destruction? You have already established that in your world, mind control is undetectable. Should everyone who has ever been a victim of mind control be regarded as nonsentient and stripped of legal rights?

 

You can't predict this stuff, and that's why clones have no rights.

 

Balabanto, you and I share a planet with billions of homo sapiens. I'm one myself, and the one time I met you, you struck me as being of the same species. They are extremely dangerous predators and frequently totally unpredictable. Frankly, I can't be certain you won't try to sue me for everything I have, although I consider it unlikely. I often despair of understanding their behavior, let alone predicting it, and sometimes think more than half of them are simply insane.

 

I suppose I find it hard to believe that clones of human beings are any more inherently dangerous than the originals, who are already dangerous enough to give me nightmares.

 

Look at (lots of references to specific comic book story arcs deleted)

 

These purposes are always nefarious and always screw people.

 

You know, if your problem is that you hate clone stories in comic books – and I wouldn't blame you, I don't think I'd want to read such stories either – you could just say “No clones of humans exist in my Champions game.” Or “No comic book style clones exist in my Champions game. A clone of a 20 year old person will always be 20 years younger than the original person, and even with identical genotype there will be subtle differences of phenotype, as with identical twins, who all have different fingerprints.”

 

Clonus's hypotheticals are useless. Superman would NEVER allow himself to be cloned, precisely because he already knows the consequences of being cloned. (See Project Cadmus, above.)

 

I think that was Christopher, not Clonus.

 

Balabanto, everything you say seems to be stated from atop a towering structure of hypotheticals.

 

If there's anything I do know about comic books, it's that it's quite possible for a writer or editor to decide that Superman will do exactly that. No doubt you'd jump up and down and scream that it's out of character. If there's anything I know about comics fans it's that they do a lot of jumping and screaming about what's been done to or with their favorite characters. I've seen quite a lot in these forums. I consider it a testament to the richness and power of super hero comics as an art form, that people care that much.

 

You may have just said “Superman would never do that” but I doubt even you believe it. Superman does have a reputation for being a dick, so I hear. This scenario has probably already been done, decades ago.

 

But okay, I'll play along. Superman would never do that.

 

So here's another hypothetical for you: a superpowerful character analogous to Superman consents to be cloned twenty times over to stop an immanent alien invasion.

 

In the aftermath, they scatter to twenty different planets who lacked heroes of such power and stature, including the home world of the invaders who have otherthrown the militaristic regime that led them into a disastrous war with Earth. Occasionally they band together for really big threats.

 

Sure, it's a hypothetical. So is “clones are inherently apocolyptically dangerous and should not be tolerated to exist!” I don't think Dolly the sheep perished in a nuclear explosion. I think I'd remember that.

 

The thing is, Balabanto, this statement

 

Really' date=' no good can come of cloning human beings.[/quote']

 

is absolutely 100% true – in your own world, and only because you've decided that.

 

Funny - Superboy is generally considered a hero, and he's a clone. MVP was a tri-clone in a recent book, and was a hero (three heros?).

 

Thank you! I was going to say that I doubted it was even true in comics, but I didn't know enough about comics to provide examples.

 

The thing is, you can tell if someone is a clone. You can't truly measure free will. Even passing the test is really a straw man. A clone could make moral choices for years, and then all of a sudden, the programming kicks in and the clone becomes a hundred foot tall beast bent on destruction, a murderous serial killer, or half-insane because the cloning process is imperfect and deteriorates over time.

 

Plenty of people who aren't clones make moral choices for years, or seem to, and then turn into, or turn out to be, beasts bent on destruction, murderous serial killers, half insane, or wholly insane. Also, the process by which they are created is imperfect and they too deteriorate over time, both physically and often mentally.

 

If you want to make an argument that clones should be treated differently from anyone else, it's not very convincing to list the ways in which they are like everyone else.

 

Actually I have the term clones used in many contexts. From the perfect DNA copy to just cloned organs. Maybe that is the issue here. Babentos game a clone can mean more things than just one thing.

 

I'm sure that confusion and disagreement on the meaning of the word “clone” is part of the issue.

 

As I said I play a clone in his game. The character would be what you consider a clone...

 

Maybe. Do you know what I consider a clone?

 

but how can the goverment just know I am a free willed clone?

 

I was going to say “same way they know it about anyone or anything else” but after all, this is Balabanto's world we're talking about, where apparently the presumption is that a “clone” (however that's defined) is a kind of automaton usually being controlled by someone for some nefarious purpose.

 

The character would be dangerous if the villians that made her can use a signal and turn her into a neo-nazi.

 

I would hazard a guess that every other player character in the game would be dangerous if some villain can use a signal to turn them into neo-nazis. So I don't see how this makes yours different.

 

I do question how a “clone” (again, whatever that means in context) could be turned into a neo nazi by a “signal?”

 

In fact, that right there tells me we're probably not talking about what I'd consider a clone. A robot possibly, if some kind of radio signal is meant. Or if it's a subliminal signal that activates deep mental programming, something like a Manchurian Candidate, that could happen to anyone else as easily as a clone, so while it could happen to a clone, it has nothing whatsoever to do with being a clone. Unless, again, by “clone” we mean something different than “an organism created using all and only the DNA of a single previously existing organism.” In which case, someone needs to define “clone” for us.

 

Heck the characters have fears that this can happen...she knows she is a clone. One day this will get out...and people will have to make a morale choice. IE it is called RPing.

 

So Balabentos game has more morale grey areas...and questions. OMG we should hang him up high and beat him with sticks for actualy have depth in his games and grey areas.

 

Sure you guys are right...logicaly this would not happen...but I have never known the human race to have being accused by a overabundence of logic.

 

I agree that in comics, games, and The World They Call (sometimes with a laugh) Real, humans often fail to show an abundance of logic – or even an adequate supply. So I don't necessarily have a problem with individuals, or the public collectively, in a fictional world, being irrational.

 

The thing is, Prestige, you're saying that Balabanto's world has “depth and grey areas.” But what Balabanto himself says doesn't give me the impression of a deep, credible world that would encourage enjoyable role playing.

 

Prestige, lots of people play X Men inspired games in which anti-mutant hysteria is a greater or lesser factor. I've played one myself, and talked about it here in these forums, and other people have discussed such and I've never seen the reaction Balabanto gets with this clone issue, because no one else talks about mutants the way Balabanto talks about clones. For example, I've never seen anyone called a “leftist” for suggesting that mutants are people too, do have moral rights, and ought to have legal rights.

 

Speaking of rights and left, Balabanto also says things out of left field, if you'll pardon the expression. I still have no idea where that line about a clone suing the original comes from – it's a complete non sequitor. I'm not even sure I want to know what he was thinking – trying to follow Balabanto's thinking can make my head hurt.

 

Prestige, no one wants to hang Balabanto up and beat him with sticks for having “depth” or “grey areas.” In a literal sense of course I don't think anyone wants to hang him up and beat him at all...

 

But we make him a rhetorical pinata because he basically volunteers as a target. He argues in non-sequitors or irrelevancies. He makes statements that are true in his game world but speaks as if these conclusions are somehow logically inevitable, and objectively applicable, rather than being merely decisions he's made about how things work in his world. And he presents legal rules and government policies that might actually be plausible as being practically and politically expedient, if he chose to present them that way, rather than as if they are absolutely righteous and self evidently morally justified. Also, he has a habit of creating problems for himself, sometimes twisting his reasoning into pretzel knots to do so, and then complaining about them. These are among the reasons we metaphorically string him up and beat him, if you want to view it that way.

 

Forgive my presumption in speaking for others on this thread. If any of you disagree, feel free to correct me.

 

Balabanto's world: Imagine the plight of poor Mrs. Clone …. and her kids...well, they're the offspring of a clone and therefore are not human themselves as far as the government is concerned.

 

There's a complication we haven't touched on yet. Either the children are a non-persons, which leads to some really icky consequences, or the children are persons who have only one legally human parent.....[sarcasm on]OMG doesn't that make them clones? Kill them with fire![/sarcasm off]

 

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Palindromedaries are all two faced! We can't trust them! Let's exterminate them all!

 

But backandforthtrians are okay.

[Balabanto]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Which I beleive is one of the public fears in Balbanto's campaign world.

 

Yes. Bingo. There you go. The most powerful supervillain in the world REALLY did this. And he threatened to drown the entire world by melting the ice caps in 24 hours if they didn't surrender. And this was with seventy percent of the world under his military control already!

[Balabanto]

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

 

Hmm... now that I've had time to think about it, one reason to force-grow clones to early maturity and then let them season normally for a few years in my theoretical world...the mad scientist is a gray-area (dark gray) who wants to study treatments for degenerative diseases and needs guinea pigs.

 

Balabanto's world: Imagine the plight of poor Mrs. Clone when she discovers that her husband of fifteen years, deacon at his church, vice-president of the Rotary Club, beloved by all in their small town and father of her three children, is in fact a clone. His many years of service to the community matter not a whit. He's a clone and has no human rights, and can be put down like a dog. Obviously, her marriage is invalidated (can't legally marry a non-human), any contracts with his signature on them are null and void (there goes the house and car), and her kids...well, they're the offspring of a clone and therefore are not human themselves as far as the government is concerned.

 

This is, in fact, the subject of an upcoming story arc. And the children of clones don't carry the genetic marker tag. Which is why the whole thing is seen as so threatening.