Clone Degeneration

""You know how when you make a copy of a copy, it's not as sharp as, well, the original?""

- Doug Kinney #3, Multiplicity

""Like a bad photocopy, each one is a little darker than the last.""

- Batman, referring to the Everywhere Man, The Batman

When dealing with fiction that clones things, the assumption is often made that clones must, after time, decay. That is, with each copy you make whatever Applied Phlebotinum you are using to create the clones will either decrease in effectiveness, or the clones themselves become less coherent since eventually everything is just a copy of a copy. This goes double for dead clones, who tend to dissolve because they're "less than human" rather than leave a proper corpse.

When dealing with a character who has the ability to create clones apparently out of thin air, this weakness is usually the only thing holding them back from whatever it is they're trying to do.

Uses very similar logic to Super Prototype and Conservation of Ninjutsu. The Super Prototype, when it is a one-of-a-kind machine, is awesome and unstoppable. Clones, likewise, seem really great at first-- but the more of them you get, the more common and boring the idea of a clone is in the first place. As a result, they inevitably lose effectiveness because several copies of the same thing just wouldn't be all that interesting.

In some instances it may be a Justified Trope: the creator may "program" a shortened lifespan into the clone to protect their property from getting away. Relatedly, the degeneration may be because the process used to make the clone resulted in a Flawed Prototype, making all the clones a form of Keystone Army that will croak on some future date or circumstance. If the hero has qualms about killing clones, their degeneration lays them to rest. Whether out of being a Mercy Kill or making them seem less real varies.

See also Power Degeneration, which also applies to clones designed with powers.

Note that this trope does have some grounding in Real Life: Cloning isn't a fully documented science yet, and genetic kinks in the cloning process, such as shortened telomeres and genomic imprinting, remain factors that may lead to clones having shorter life expectancies than their originals. Clones of clones tend to be even worse off.

Note, this is not the same as a Degenerate Clone.

Anime and Manga
"Dying Mamo clone: The transfer of the chromosomal data is never accomplished with complete fidelity. There are anomalies, infectiously small in each case, with accumulative effect of such chaotic pollution, can be observed after only a dozen or so generations and what you see before you is a 130th generation facsimile. I am but a faint, distorted echo of myself.
 * In Ah My Goddess:
 * In the "Adeventures of the Mini-Goddesses'' manga, one of the goddesses is able to make a duplicate of herself, which can make a duplicate of herself, etc, each of which is a bit shorter and squishier than its parent. In the main series, goddesses and demons can also divide themselves into avatars -- smaller, less powerful versions of themselves. Before leaving, Hild splits off a 1/1000 avatar of herself in the form of a child to keep track of things on Earth. In chapter 248, her 1/1000 avatar then splits off a 1/1000 avatar which takes the form of a small crystal.
 * The main manga and series feature a clone of Urd. The Urd clone can use all the same magic as Urd, but her inferior body can't handle the stress.
 * Clones in Gundam Seed tend to have physical or mental problems. Case in Point:.
 * Another example would be Prayer Reverie in the Astray mangas, who was okay in the head, but was basically an Ill Girl for most of the Astray X series,
 * This is the reason why of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was considered an imperfect Artificial Mage. He got the memories, abilities, and personality of the original, but his body was suffering from severe health problems.
 * Averted with, who appears completely healthy over a decade and a half after her creation, as well as , who has been alive for at least a decade as of Force.
 * is an interesting example. Although she has none of the issues seen in this trope, she isn't a perfect clone, either. Changes in personality, eye color, and other small details mark her as a distinctly unique individual, which led to her ultimate classification as 'failed clone' despite the fact that her incredible raw magical aptitude perhaps make her even better than the original.
 * In Fate Stay Night, will eventually die young because of her nature as a
 * In her last few scenes, Rei Ayanami's limbs had a tendency to ... fall off. Her body, being a isn't capable to holding together without Rei's AT field to counter the effects of imperfect cloning. After expending so much of her energy to counter Kaworu the previous day, she can't hold herself together.
 * The Sisters in To Aru Majutsu no Index have to go through body adjustments specifically to prevent this. Justified because they were only made so that.
 * In the Ghost in The Shell universe, it is possible for people to 'clone' their ghosts (what amounts to their souls) by copying the memory data of their cyberbrains, however this process leads to the eventual corruption of both the original and the copies created, and ultimately leads to the death of the original. As a result, the process, known as "ghost dubbing," is highly illegal, punishable by life in prison or brain-wipe.
 * In the fifth Kara no Kyoukai movie,.
 * Negi employs several paper doll clones of himself in chapter 36, without knowing exactly how it works. This trope ensues...
 * This trope may be the reason of Quartum's and Quintum's Curb Stomping.
 * Naruto can create up to a couple thousand copies of himself, but they dispel whenever they take a direct hit. He also doesn't trust them enough to let them out of his sight, which suggests that they're not as smart as the original. Which is saying something, considering who we're dealing with.
 * Given how they can fight against each other, they're probably capable of independent thought and, given Naruto's natural rebelliousness, prone to disobeying.
 * By the time of manga chapter 550 his clones have received a sizeable upgrade, becoming capable of taking out Kage-level opponents on their own without the original present.
 * Lupin III: The Secret of Mamo plays this straight, when Mamo reveals towards the end that even his methods of cloning to reach immortality come with their limits.

Lupin: But you are always distorted by your obsession.

Dying Mamo clone: But is it not... everyone's obsession?"

Comics

 * This is how Bizarro is often depicted in the DCU.
 * Spider-Man: Every clone created by the Jackal was subject to this. Some of them were almost identical to the originals but aged / disfigured, while others would last so long and then spontaneously collapse into a pile of mush - Jackal triggered this in his "mini-me", Jack, as punishment for giving Ben Reilly information. It even drove one, Kaine, insane. Ben Reilly succumbed to it when he died. (And in Spider-Girl, passed it onto his kid.)
 * Slo-Bo from Young Justice admitted to suffering from this near the end of the series. He would have died soon anyway had
 * In a crossover of Simpsons Comics and Bartman, Celebrity Troy McClure gained the radiation explosion created identity of "The Sequelizer". His sequel-generating powers allowed him to create duplicates of himself, but each copy was only half as strong as the previous one.

Film

 * The Nexus 6 generation of replicants in Blade Runner, though potentially physically and mentally superior to humans, have four year life expectancies thanks to kill switches designed into their genes. Their creator describes it as a "light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very brightly". The androids of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, upon which the movie was loosely based, have a similar life expectancy, but this is due to technological limitations.
 * This is probably why Boba Fett is an effective bounty hunter instead of a simple stormtrooper- as the first clone of Jango Fett, having been raised as a son, he maintained a unique spirit.
 * However, it was explicitly said that the clone troopers had been slightly modified, most notably to be more obedient and age twice as fast. Boba Fett was explicitly an unmodified clone of Jango.
 * However he still gets cancer because of this and even with the treatment he gets has at best five years.
 * Five years from his diagnosis with cancer, mind you, closer to sixty-five years after his production.
 * In the Star Wars Expanded Universe comic series Dark Empire, The Emperor died with the second Death Star, but had clones stashed away somewhere, and about ten years later he reemerged as head of The Empire. Since he was skilled with the Dark Side and all, he could Body Surf through the clones, taking up from where he left off. However, his stored genes had been sabotaged, making it so that none of the clone bodies could last very long. And it got worse for him when some traitorous Mooks killed most of the stored clones.
 * The Michael Keaton film Multiplicity, about a man who has himself cloned, has one of the clones cloned, and he came out rather... special.
 * "GEFs", clone bodies used for hazardous occupations in the movie XChange, have a life span of only three days, after which they begin rapidly decomposing. Naturally, the protagonist gets stuck in one that's already been alive for two days.
 * Same with the clones in the original novel Mindswap by Robert Sheckley, on which the movie is very loosely based.
 * Moon (2009).
 * Word of God for Primer states that doubles created via Time Travel are imperfect copies. This is the reason for Aaron and Abe's earbleeds and the degradation of their handwriting when they begin altering their past.

Literature

 * In David Brin's novel, Kiln People, humans are able to create duplicates of themselves that are fashioned from a type of clay. The duplicates, called golems or "dittoes", possess the memories of their original from the time of their creation, but degrade after a day. Before this happens, golems are able to reintegrate their accumulated memories with their original using a special device.
 * Invoked in F.M. Busby's Rissa Kerguelen series. The Hulzein clan learns through painful experience that they have to alternate cloned generations with ones produced the normal way, or else they wind up with mentally unstable kids--which, given the resources and intelligence levels that all the Hulzeins possess, is just a bad idea for everyone.
 * In William Sleator's The Duplicate, the duplicates are less sane the farther they are from the original. They also get black markings on their hands shortly before they die, but they tend to go crazy and get themselves killed before that step occurs.
 * In Suzanne Weyn's The Bar Code Rebellion, several clones are made of a single woman, each one with more and more bird DNA added to them. The first few are somewhat normal, though with notable strange behaviors and abilities. Once we reach the fifth clone, KM-5, it's become quite clear that the more bird DNA they possess, the crazier they are. The final clone, KM-6, is extremely weak, thin, and pale, and speaks only in bursts of birdlike noise.
 * Though technically not because of being a clone, (and not actually being a "clone" in the strictest sense) Bean of the Ender's Shadow series is this because of  in him, which makes him smarter because his  at the cost of becoming
 * Who Censored Roger Rabbit? (Literature): Toons can make duplicates of themselves for doing stunts, but the duplicates are very short-lived.
 * The novel Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang centers around this, in a way. A post-apocalyptic society rendered sterile by disease discovers that, though clones do display Clone Degeneration in the form of sterility after a few generations, they actually reverse the trend after a few more. The society uses this to attempt to set up a sustaining population of fertile humans.
 * The clones display a form of Clone Degeneration in another way, as well. After deciding that cloning is superior to sexual reproduction and building a society based around the health of the group and the destruction of the individual, they find that the younger clone generations lose the ability for abstract thought, to the point where the youngest generations are incapable of drawing maps or devising solutions for problems.
 * The Styx Drones from Colony are this. Each batch suffers from further deterioration of intelligence, leaving the present batch Too Dumb to Live.

Live Action TV

 * In Star Trek the Next Generation, this is what will inevitably doom one planet. The founders, reduced to five in number because of a spacecraft accident, had to resort to cloning themselves in order to have a sustainable population. When they try to "solve" (ultimately, just delay) the problem by getting clones of Riker and Doctor Pulaski, the Starfleet officers are not particularly happy with it. (Episode: "Up the Long Ladder")
 * Stargate SG 1 and Stargate Atlantis love this trope. The Asgard, O'Neills clone, Beckett's clone, take whatever you want.
 * Though Beckett's cellular degeneration issues.
 * Also note that in the case of O'Neill's clone, the degeneration is a case of having You Have Outlived Your Usefulness literally encoded in his genes. In fact, he's overcome with pain within minutes of being recovered by Loki.
 * Kull Warriors are created in nonliving form and animated via Ancient technology They live for several days or weeks, though they're extremely hard to kill before their time.
 * There is a bit of Fridge Logic there, as the Asgard should've anticipated that their clones would degrade after millennia of copying copies. Apparently, in a case of No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup, they did not keep an original DNA somewhere. This is actually a plot point in a later episode, where they recover an original Asgard and try to gain his DNA.
 * The single-clone degeneration is addressed but ultimately averted in Farscape. When Crichton is "twinned" during season three, the Mad Scientist Kaarvok claims that the resulting duplicates are "equal and original," with no defects or imperfections. However, in a later episode, one of the two Crichtons experiences spontaneous bleeding and blackouts, leading him to believe that Clone Degeneration is at work: fortunately, it's just the Villain of the Week causing chaos across Moya. As  it can be assumed that Kaarvok was correct. However, the multiple-clone degeneration is used in the episode Kaarvok was introduced in, specifically in the form of the feral, degenerate remains of the crew of the ship he'd been imprisoned aboard. Apparently after "twinning" the twin of a twin and so on a certain amount of error did emerge.
 * In an episode of the Honey I Shrunk the Kids TV series that seems to have been losely based on Multiplicity, Wayne creates a molecular duplication machine that has the side effect of making the target's molecules unstable, causing them to create more duplicates whenever they are bumped hard against something or jolted. This results in a good number of extra Waynes, nearly all of which are a bit dense. "Why are my clones such dorks?"

Tabletop Games

 * The fetches of Changeling: the Lost are always missing something of the personality they were meant to replace. It could be a negative trait (quickness to anger) or a positive trait (dedication to a task), but there's always going to be something missing.
 * Paranoia XP has this as a mechanic in order to convince characters to try not to get killed quite as much (if the GM is letting the PCs buy clones rather than simply going through a 6-pack and then handing out new sheets.) After the first seven or so, things start to go south in a hurry, with extra fingers, hideous deformity, and (worst of all in Alpha Complex) colour blindness. Luckily, BLUE-clearance PCs can pay to have the template cleaned up. Others have to depend upon secret societies and underhanded business that may well result in termination for treason.
 * The reason that bit about colour blindness isn't potholed to Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking? In Alpha Complexing, social rank is Colour-Coded for Your Convenience. Social rank is also taken very seriously - if you're Red clearance and step into an Orange-rank area, that's treason.

Video Games
"Scorch: Maybe 38's a copy of a copy of a copy..."
 * This is the reason you don't make copies of AIs in the Halo universe. In the First Strike novel, Cortana used alien technology to create new (slightly flawed) instances of herself in a Covenant warship so she could be in two places at once. The copies made copies. The copies of the copies made copies. The quickly-growing swarm of AIs started forking off copies for specialized tasks, having those copies be overwhelmed by Covvie AIs, and spinning off more copies. Eventually the alien ship filled its computers to the roof with Cortana clones, segfaulted, and blew up. It was pretty awesome.
 * Though the "blowing up" part was entirely deliberate. Even as flawed as the copies were, they still managed to complete their mission.
 * This also applies to human clones. Individual organs can be cloned and used for transplants without a problem, it's when you clone the whole body do things go south. The flash clones (which are the only method of cloning seen in the Halo universe) is where the clones are aged up to the person who supplied the DNA. The clone will have the mind of an infant, given that it has zero memories, and the body will deteriorate and quickly die within a couple months. Apparently the cloned body's metabolism just can't stabilize itself correctly. The procedure is highly illegal.
 * Clones are used to cover up the Spartan II project. ONI took the children, and gave the parents flash clones. As far as any of the parents could guess, their children inexplicably went into a vegetative state and died from an unknown disease.
 * Flash-cloned brains are the only way of making "smart" AIs. Cortana, for example, was created by scanning the cloned brain of Dr. Halsey, the creator of the Spartans. This gets a little weird in one novel when Cortana mentions to Halsey that she thinks John-117 (Master Chief) is cute. Halsey knows that this must be what she thinks as well, even though she is the Spartans' mother figure. Of course, since he never takes off his helmet, we'll never know.
 * Don't forget that Cortana got the copy program off of a heavily degraded yet "somehow familiar" Covenant AI. Along with the presence of a time-manipulation device, its insinuated that she got the program from one of her own (completely insane) time-lost copies.
 * Solid, Liquid, and Solidus Snake from Metal Gear Solid are clones of Big Boss. Liquid and Solidus got killed off prior to degeneration, but by Metal Gear Solid 4, Solid Snake's aging has accelerated to the point where characters who were adults in the 1960s look younger than he does. Compounding this, he goes through a truly horrific gauntlet throughout the game. And yet, he still gets the job done.
 * Unlike some other cases, this degeneration was deliberate. The clones were made with genetic flaws designed to limit their lifespan in hopes of keeping them under The Patriots' control.
 * Tales of the Abyss features this, along with everything else from the Cloning Blues vat. But since this is a Tales game, it plays around with the trope too:.
 * This is the premise of Destroy All Humans. The Blisk had mutated Furon DNA so that they can't propagate due to lack of genitalia. Fortunately, they perfected the art of cloning, rendering them virtually immortal. Unfortunately, each new clone has degraded Furon DNA, making the results more unpredictable and eventually leading to the extinction of the Furon race. Fortunately, this could be fixed via infusion of uncorrupted DNA, and a Furon mothership happened upon another planet eons earlier and frolicked with the planets' inhabitants, giving the their descendants Furon DNA. Unfortunately for us but fortunately for them, that planet is Earth.
 * Not necessarily clones, but close enough: In the Legacy of Kain series, Kain used parts of his soul to resurrect a group of long-dead Sarafan warrior priests as his lieutenants, each receiving a smaller part of his soul than the last, which would directly affect their evolution in vampiric unlife: Raziel received the most of his soul and evolved the quickest, while Melchiah received the smallest part, making his body vulnerable to decay.
 * This may explain why Taokaka from Blaz Blue is so very odd. Though the rest of the Kaka clan, also clones of seem more put together.
 * The God of The Neverhood eventually ended up creating the whole world's population this way. He was trying to duplicate himself, but the duplicate just assumed that he was really God, and went through the whole process all over again. This continued until eventually a duplicate was created that was not alive.
 * That was just one God of one world that was not the Neverhood. The Neverhood itself was created by someone who took the opposite approach and personally crafted each thing to be completely unique and everlasting.
 * Fallout 3 gives us Vault 108, which contains nothing but very aggressive clones. Notes left throughout the vault state that the first clone was fine, but copies made after that became more violent the farther they were from the original.
 * Alluded to in Republic Commando whenever the player performs some suicidally dumb action.
 * Alluded to in Republic Commando whenever the player performs some suicidally dumb action.


 * Justified in the usual manner in Dystopia, where clones are given a maximum life span of about 20 minutes, and their bodies decay very rapidly. This prevents enemies from finding any of the technology hidden in their bodies or any information hidden in their brains. In addition, combat clones are hastily assembled from cheap materials in about 15 seconds; and normal clones can take a few weeks to build but are intended for use by soldiers after they shed their combat clone bodies. At least, that's what they're promised by their employers.
 * Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core is a prequel, giving us background on stuff like why Sephiroth went crazy and destroyed Cloud's hometown. A huge part of it turns out to be the emotional blows he suffered when losing his two closest friends to Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal against Shinra; the primary mistreatment in this case being that Shinra had created them via genetic hacking and then, at some point in their thirties, their bodies started to break down. And that was when they found out they weren't just naturally talented best friends from Banora, where the scientist running the project apparently retired after Hojo got all the funding in order to make Sephiroth.
 * Genesis, the one who actually went Ax Crazy, may have minded that Sephiroth was perfect and the project that wasn't abandoned as much as the dying part. Never mind that Project G being mostly-canceled meant he got a childhood; he had a Green-Eyed Monster problem.
 * The degeneration condition is like this, but Angeal and Genesis aren't actually clones, as such. Angeal may even be his mother's natural son, she just messed with her own body so much to get the cells to make Genesis that he came out weird. Or not. (Incidentally, this means Angeal and Genesis are at least 1/3 brothers, which is not a fraction that's possible in nature and which also makes the fact that they're a popular ship a lot squickier.)

Webcomics

 * Meta example: any sufficiently popular webcomic will inevitably spawn imitators, which are generally not as good as the original. The more popular ones in turn will eventually spawn their own imitators, which are even worse.
 * Lampshaded in this strip from The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, where Molly's clone Galatea insists on using Molly's tissues for an experiment rather than her own.
 * In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
 * In Kevin and Kell, Corrie's clone, Dolly, begins aging rapidly as a result of being a clone. Dolly becomes concerned about how her adoptive parents, the Canids, will feel about this so Corrie (who had originally been adopted before Dolly took her place) switches with Dolly, who poses as her birth mother. An accident with a time machine results in Dolly being de-aged to a baby, which gives her a fresh start on life even if her rapid aging resumes (which is somewhat unlikely to happen, given the nature of how time progresses in the strip).
 * Subverted in El Goonish Shive, when Elliot accidentally creates a female version of himself, dubbed Ellen. Ellen realizes that the effect that led to her creation was only intended to last a month, and decides to become Elliot's greatest rival and villain. Shortly after this completely fails, she learns that she won't die after a month, and is offered a life as Elliot's twin sister, which she gladly accepts. She's been a part of the main cast ever since.

Web Animation

 * In The Demented Cartoon Movie, this problem plagues Evil Blah's Auto-Damsel-Maker, ultimately resulting in a damsel who's a little... weird.

Western Animation

 * One Treehouse of Horror special in The Simpsons has Homer with a cloning mechanism which results in him creating duplicates who are progressively dumber than he is. Eventually they get to be so stupid that one of them is Peter Griffin.
 * This seemed to be inherent to present-day cloning in 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003''. In the fourth season of the show, it was revealed that Agent Bishop's body was slowly degenerating, and therefore needed to transfer his mind to a new one, which eventually happened, dissolving skin and all. Later on, Baxter Stockman cloned himself a new body to replace the one he had systematically lost during the course of the series, only to find it decaying as well.
 * In Exo Squad, Neosapiens ran a risk of contracting a disease where their bodies decompose, seeing as it's entire species is a clone race, it made a bit of a gamble.
 * The Ring of the Nine Dragons from Xiaolin Showdown can divide one person into at most nine, but their intelligence is also divided, so in the end, you have nine people with only a ninth of your intelligence... and getting them back together is really hard.
 * In the rather bizarre miniseries House Of Cosbys, the Bill Cosby clones get increasingly bizarre defects, however the main character keeps making them as every tenth Cosby has superpowers. Unfortunately, Cosby #100 happens to be pure evil.
 * In an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Frylock reveals that he's been cloning televisions every time the other Aqua Teens destroy one. Eventually the latest television they make turns evil. Later in the episode the Aqua Teens clone a dollar bill and eventually end up making George Washington out of dollar bills.
 * Men in Black the Animated Series has Quick Clones. Each clone was indistinguishable from the original, but after time, the clone would begin speaking nonsensically before melting into a pile of goo. The time until melting varied based on stress and physical exertion. Alternatively, any clone could be terminated by pushing a button located behind the ear.
 * In The Jetsons, George had a clone made in one episode, only to find it could do stuff far better than him. He wanted to leave his life to the clone but it turned out that the clone has a very limited lifespan.
 * Danny Phantom's Opposite Sex Clone Danni Phantom melts whenever she uses her superpowers.
 * An experiment in Lilo and Stitch The Series has this when Stitch get hit by it duplicating ray making extra copies of himself. His creator, Jumba, explains that the more duplicates there are the more their strength is divided between them. Lilo uses this later against Gantu when he get a hold of the experiment and tries to create an army with the experiments hes captured. But they're all pathetically weak that the heroes easily waltz right through em.
 * Drakken tried this in Kim Possible making "clones" (the show admits it isn't really cloning but called that for simplicity) of Kim, Ron, Rufus and Bonnie and modifying them to be mindless attack drones. It works till its revealed they're weak against soda, dissolving into green puddles when its sprayed on them.
 * In The Flintstones, Fred was cloned by an alien in one episode. The clones were very much like real people, and are never seen physically degenerating, but were little more than mindless mooks, incapable of anything other than following their creator's orders, causing trouble and saying Fred's catchphrase in a very monotonous fashion.
 * A very Squicky version happens in Family Guy. Stewie has decided to clone himself, creating Eldritch Abomination "Bitch Stewie," a hideously deformed, moronic servant to the original. Later, Stewie makes one of Brian, which is arguably more messed up. Eventually, both clones melt into a pile of disgusting, fleshy goo, made even worse when Brian says he's not proud of it, but he has to lick up the mess.
 * Later, Stewie makes a perfect clone of himself- but this one is immensely more evil than him- complete with Slasher Smile.

Real Life

 * Truth in Television: Some speculate that this occurred with the cloned sheep Dolly, that she died early due to being born with a genetic age of six. The Roslin Institute disagrees, however.
 * Most parthenogenetic species in nature do retain the capacity for sexual reproduction, often resorting to this method of breeding when conditions become harsh. It's thought that species which lose this ability usually get wiped out by infectious diseases that can easily spread among genetically-identical hosts, or by changes in their environment they'd otherwise lack the diversity to cope with: thus, while individual clones may thrive, all-clone species decline over time.