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{{trope}}
[[File:Misaka clones.jpg|thumb|300px|link=A Certain Magical Index|[[A Certain Magical Index|Misaka]] is beside herself. And in front of herself. And behind herself.]]
{{quote|''"I am a clone, I am not alone...
''If you had ever seen us you'd rejoice in your uniqueness
''And consider every weakness something special of your own"''
|'''Robert Calvert ([[Hawkwind]])'''|''Spirit of the Age''}}
In [[Speculative Fiction]], being a clone absolutely ''sucks''. It's enough to make a clone sing the blues.
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Though real [[Artificial Human|artificial clones]] have to start at conception and go through childhood all over again, and can even have phenotypes that vary from their parent, [[Speculative Fiction]] clones are like perfect meta-xerox copies of the cloned person. They are ''exactly'' like the target at the moment of cloning, (possibly excused by [[Younger Than They Look|age acceleration]]) with all their forebearers' [[Genetic Memory|memories]] [[Soul Fragment|and skills]], although their personalities can develop from there.
As a result, many clones brood about how they're [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|not "real,"]] just [[What Have I Become?|hollow imitations of the original]]. The clones tend to deal with this rather badly. Some make desperate attempts to act different. Others go mad and try to murder the original to take their place. (Emphasis on "try"
That's for the lucky clones who are created properly. In many shows, cloning is an imprecise science, so there is a high probability that any clone will turn out to be an [[Evil Twin]]
And that's for the clones who are just unlucky. The really unlucky clones have [[Evilutionary Biologist|malevolent creators]] who can make [[Designer Babies|custom clones]] [[Uterine Replicator|grown in a vat]], sometimes [[Send in
Because of all this (or possibly as a cause of all this), clones get very little respect. Heroes who hesitate at killing intelligent life might still kill their evil clone. In the question of [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]], most clones rank somewhere between the [[Big Creepy
This assumes the clone ever had a mind of its own, of course. Sometimes a clone is an [[Empty Shell]] without the original's [[Our Souls Are Different|Soul]], and exists only so that the creator can overwrite their mind and personality onto it in case of accident. In this case, it's more like coming [[Back
Some clones aren't biological clones at
Unrelated to [[Something Blues]]. See also [[Scale of Scientific Sins]] and [[Creating Life]]. Closely related to [[Expendable Clone]]. Contrast with [[Clones Are People, Too]], where they ''do'' get to live their own lives.
----
{{examples}}
* ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'': in the manga, a villain grows a Ryoko clone named Minagi who has a nearly opposite personality from the original, being very sweet and kind (though no less brave than Ryoko). Minagi suffers the requisite existential angst in the beginning, but gets over it and goes off to live her own life, reappearing in the manga occasionally as Ryoko's "sister." Her biggest problem is being a dead ringer for a notorious [[Space Pirates|Space Pirate.]]▼
▲== Anime & Manga ==
▲* ''[[Tenchi Muyo]]'': in the manga, a villain grows a Ryoko clone named Minagi who has a nearly opposite personality from the original, being very sweet and kind (though no less brave than Ryoko). Minagi suffers the requisite existential angst in the beginning, but gets over it and goes off to live her own life, reappearing in the manga occasionally as Ryoko's "sister." Her biggest problem is being a dead ringer for a notorious [[Space Pirates|Space Pirate.]]
* ''[[Gundam Seed]]'' had direct cloning be highly illegal, in contrast to simple genetic modification, though it didn't stop a powerful politician from cloning himself several times, believing the clones would be superior successors to his biological son. At least three have been seen, and of those one became a manipulative nihilist that attempted to wipe out the human race, and another became a pawn of the secret [[Big Bad]] of the sequel. All of them apparently suffer from birth defects that prematurely accelerate their aging and cause intense pain if not treated with medication.
* ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' and its sequels have Fate Testarossa. Near the end of the first season, she's a [[Tomato in
** In fact, Nanoha takes this trope to the extremes, as number of clones begin to outnumber the natural born characters. At least ten of the characters in the series are clones. In [[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': Rei Ayanami is a tragic cocktail. She's a [[Half-Human Hybrid]] with [[Easy Amnesia]]. Her isolated upbringing with Gendō Ikari left her with [[No Social Skills]]. Her Male Counterpart, Kaworu Nagisa is a mysterious cocktail of [[Dissonant Serenity]], [[Ambiguous Innocence]], and [[Half-Human Hybrid]]. Then again, everybody in that mess of a show a tragic cocktail of at least three different tropes, clone or no clone. And she hates it to boot. After being cloned (again) she is just pissed off and tired, wanting to die. But she isn't allowed to.
** The second ''[[Rebuild of Evangelion]]'' film even has a scene of Rei floating in an LCL tank, wearing a collar engraved with "REI-02".
* ''[[Pokémon:
* ''[[
* In a truly staggering example of the clone inferiority complex, after the villain of first season of ''[[Slayers]]'', Rezo the Red Priest, makes a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and dies on the apocalyptic magics of the protagonists to allow the destruction of the demon he was host to, the clone created by his spurned former lover becomes obsessed with convincing the same protagonists to use the exact same potentially world-ending spell on him so that, in the unlikely event of his survival, he can claim to have achieved something the original had not. The dubiousness of trying to one-up a self-sacrificing gesture by surviving your own is apparently lost on the mind of a megalomaniac.
* Turns up in ''[[
** Likewise in the companion series, ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'', where the {{spoiler|Syaoran we start out with is a clone of the Syaoran from the latter half of the series. The clone first sacrifices his life for the original and then is [[My Own Grampa|reincarnated back into the original's father]]}}.
* The contestants in ''[[Gantz]]'' were all clones created at the time of death of their originals, with all memories intact. Sometimes Gantz makes mistakes, and so sometimes the 'dead' originals get better.
* Ukiyo in ''[[Samurai
* Christmas in ''[[Kurau Phantom Memory]]'' is Kurau's "pair". As a Rynax, she is an [[Energy Beings|energy being]] and has to borrow Kurau's genetic material to form her human body, making her technically her clone. Kurau loves her immensely and will do anything to protect her "little sister", but Christmas still gets her share of grief when {{spoiler|Kurau loses her Rynax, causing Christmas to be terribly lonely for many years}}.
* The Zentradi of the ''[[Macross]]'' universe (and the Macross part of ''[[Robotech]]'') are initially all artificially-generated beings. Some cloning remains in practice, even if it's strongly hinted that many are reproducing biologically by the time of ''Macross Frontier''. They don't seem to suffer any angst about it, even the ones who are obvious clones of important characters from the original series.
** There's an apparent plot hole between the original ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'' and its sequels, particularly Macross 7. The official sources state that about one million people survived the Zentraedi planetary bombardment in 2010 AD. Macross 7 is set in 2045 AD, featuring the 37th immigration fleet, 7th (hence the title) to have a main colony vessel capable of carrying about one million people. Official source materials include a book with a more detailed timeline, mentioning the start of mass cloning of the surviving population and its end when mutations (due to the procedure's strain on DNA) started appearing. No mention of how many copies of each individual were made, but presumably they were loaded onto the immigration fleets to spread the seeds of humanity across the stars.
* In ''[[
** In another interesting development, the only ones who view them as less than human are the scientists who created them and the clones themselves, possibly linked to {{spoiler|identity crisis with shared memory/perceptions. Even the bad guy of that arc would ''always'' try to talk to them as individuals (unsuccessfully) before deciding to kill them.}}
* This comes up towards the end of ''[[
{{quote|
* In the second season of ''[[Darker
* The premise of ''[[Afterschool Charisma]]'' is a lot like ''[[Clone High]]'' if that was done seriously; that is, a school in the near future is populated by teenage clones of historical figures as a research/social experiment. And yes, [[You Cloned Hitler|they cloned Hitler]] (Who, surprisingly enough, is actually one of the most kind-hearted clones; go figure). There is enormous pressure on the clones to live up to their originals. Marie Curie, who wants to study music, [[Released to Elsewhere|transfers out]], while Mozart, who [[Fantastic Racism|embraces his fate and looks down on non-clones]] can't handle the pressure and {{spoiler|[[Driven to Suicide|attempts suicide]]}}.
* In ''[[Appleseed]] Ex Machina'' Briareos and Tereus, [[Artificial Human|a bioroid]] made from his genetic material are identical right down to birthmarks (though since Bri is a cyborg now, it's not immediately obvious to anyone who didn't know him before the fact), and share quirks and tendencies to a ridiculous degree. Genetics Do Not Work That Way! Naturally Tereus feels angsty about his lack of uniqueness, even though millions of other bioroids demonstrate no such issues, and are treated as fully equal to humans - to the point that the government mostly consists of bioroids!
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* In the DC Comics Vertigo title ''[[The Books of Magic]]'', Sir Timothy Hunter, {{spoiler|a possible future for main character Tim Hunter}}, was so amoral by the deeds done to become Sir Timothy that he used his magic to create clones of his lost love Molly despite being pretty well unrecognisable as ever having been Tim. It didn't go well for anyone involved.
* In Fred Perry's ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]]'', Brianna, the third Digger sister, is actually a clone/BiologicalMashUp of Gina and Brittany. After her accidental creation, she quickly goes nuts and tries to eliminate her "sisters" (due to a curse that was the reason for the process that created her), though they eventually manage to talk her down. Even then, for several issues afterward, Brianna has something of an identity crisis. By "several issues", about fifty or so, on and off. Oddly enough, it is practically ''never'' referenced that, technically speaking, she is Brittany and Gina's biological daughter.
** The character Array from ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]]'' avoids most of the usual clone problems; she's able to create new versions of herself, complete with suitable personalities, apparently at will and dismiss them later with the only side effect being that any new identity created is ''permanent''
* ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' has Jean Grey being copied by the Phoenix Force, and a direct clone with Madelyne Pryor, the latter of whom would [[Go Mad
** Stryfe is a clone of Cable, who's the son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor. As a baby, Cable got infected with a techno-organic virus and sent to the future to be cured. Well that turned out to be a lie. The future doctors didn't think he could be saved, so they cloned him. The clone was then kidnapped by [[X-Men (Comic Book)|Apocalypse.]] This classic villain wanted to raise the boy as his heir, then take over his body. When he found out Stryfe was a clone, he got discarded. Well...to make a long story slightly less long, Stryfe went nuts, traveled back in time to before he was even born, and began playing at being an ineffectual mutant terrorist, running an organization staffed with losers. Turned out the whole thing was a [[Xanatos Gambit]] to turn X-Men on each other, frame Cable for murder, and Mr. Sinister and Apocalypse as the masterminds behind it all, while he kidnapped his own mother and father, beat the snot out of the Big-A, and finally unveiled himself to the cast. The reason for all his Machiavellian manipulation and tomfoolery? To avenge himself on his parents, both physical (Cyclops & Phoenix) and spiritual (Sinister & Apocalypse). The kicker? It's technically subverted because Stryfe believed he was the ''original'' and that Cable was the clone who stole ''his'' life.
** X-23, a [[Tyke Bomb]] [[Opposite
* This trope is what the plot of the ''[[Spirou and Fantasio]]'' album {{spoiler|"Machine qui rêve"}} is revealed to be about at the end.
* {{spoiler|Marika Utika}} of ''[[Twin Spica]]''. Not only is human cloning illegal by international treaty, the whole [[Replacement Goldfish]] status doesn't help.
* The Mauler Twins of ''[[
** Things get a bit more insane from that point on. The Maulers have always been obsessed with not noticing any differences between them; the cloning process overloads the senses so it's never quite actually clear what is what or who is who or so on...
* In the classic Goodwin/Simonson ''Manhunter'' run, the bad guys have an army of brainwashed clones of the hero, providing them with useful cannon fodder and him with a desire to kill every last clone to reclaim his individuality. Somewhat creepily, after his death his friends attempt to hunt down and kill all the remaining
** It gets worse, since {{spoiler|at least two clones have since turned out alive and heroic - one in the mid-1970s ''Secret Society of Supervillains'' early issues, and the other one much more recently in Kurt Busiek´s ''Power Company''}}.
* In ''[[The Warlord]]'', Deimos creates a clone of Morgan's son Joshua, ages it to adulthood, and sends it to attack Morgan, leading Morgan to believe he has killed his own son.
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** And then there's the fact that the children of his clones are also considered clones of him. Jamie found that out the hard way when he accidentally absorbed the baby one of his clones had with Siryn, to her obvious horror.
* ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'' uses braindead clones for rather...[[I'm a Humanitarian|specific purposes.]]
* In ''[[
* Some versions of [[Superman]]'s enemy, Bizarro, are
* Also from the ''[[Superman]]'' mythos, Superboy (Kon-El/Conner Kent) is a clone made from half-Superman's DNA, and half Lex Luthor's DNA (before this was revealed, there were some...''complications''). That's right, ''Superman and Lex Luthor technically had a kid.'' This is the stuff ''[[Smallville]]'' shippers live for... Superman was dead at the time
** Superboy also has a clone called [[Evil Knockoff|Match]]. That's right, ''a clone of a clone''. He started out as a [[White-Haired Pretty Boy]], but suffered [[Clone Degeneration]] and now looks like a Bizarro version of Superboy who uses Bizarro speak and is falling apart.
** And in the ''One Million'' event, it is revealed that in the distant future (the 853d century) clones of Superboy are still being made. The latest one in the series, who strongly resembles classic cult future superhero OMAC, is also called OMAC, because in his case it stands for ''One Millionth Actual Clone''.
* In ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'', Calvin creates a bunch of clones of himself. Predictably, they grow disgruntled at his self-serving leadership and more or less rebel until he is able to transmogrify them into worms. But they aren't doing anything
** Calvin thinks he solves the problem by cloning only his good half. The "Good Calvin" promptly openly crushes on Susie and pursues her, but is rejected thinking it's another one of Calvin's tricks. The Good Calvin gets into a fight with regular Calvin, angry that his original is such a lowlife that Susie won't give him the time of day, and then disappears in a puff of logic when he realizes he had an evil thought.
* In ''[[Judge Dredd]]'', Dredd is a clone of Chief Judge Fargo, as is his [[Evil Twin]] Rico, and several other Judges, including another one called Rico. They were "artificially aged" to five, and from then aged normally (the latter Rico is therefore noticeably younger than Dredd, the oldest Judge on the force). While the assumption behind the cloning programme is that [[Lamarck Was Right|clones of great Judges make great Judges]], this does not appear to be the case (Dredd himself may be the ultimate Judge, but as well as the first Rico there's Judge Kraken, who was [[More Than Mind Control
** Dredd himself also has clones.
** The thinking behind this seems to be that if a clone doesn't work out as planned, they'll just put out another. Logical, really..
* The ''[[Star Fox (
** In the first 1992 ''[[Nintendo Power]]'' comic by Benimaru Itoh, Andross is killed when the Dodora he is controlling steps on his ship. His two assistants, one of whom is named Herbert, take a hair sample and revive his DNA, creating two copies of him. Trouble arises when one turns out to be a softy when it comes to Fox's mom (Vixy). The other wants to remain extra-ruthless.
** There was a short ''Star Fox 64'' manga, but with only one Andross.
** The Japanese-only ''Star Fox: Farewell Beloved Falco'' has Captain Shears trying to resurrect Andross on Titania. A successful clone is almost made, until {{spoiler|Slippy Toad stops the process right before it finalizes}}.
* [[Batman|Damian Wayne]] finds out that {{spoiler|his mother had actually created several clones of her son upon realizing that he has chosen Dick and Batman's ideals over hers. Then, [[Parental Abandonment|she kicks him out]] out of the House of Al Ghul.}}
* ''[[
** This thankfully won't ever happen {{spoiler|since Toby used his powers to make sure Tyler's parents would still love him. Unfortunately, thanks to the [[Equivalent Exchange]] nature of his powers, Toby had to sacrifice any chance of being friends with Cecil.}}
* At the end of Marvel's massive Avengers story arc, the "Kang War", an imprisoned Kang reflects on his imminent execution with oddly detached satisfaction: He will die, but his son Marcus will be a worthy successor. However, he is then freed by him...and Kang then kills him, because his son had betrayed him in a minor way during the story. He explains that such betrayal would have been acceptable if he had claimed the crown of Kang instead of freeing him...and then reveals to his dying son that the 22 identical Marcuses before him suffered similar flaws...and that he'll have to keep trying. He is not happy about it, however...not happy at all.
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* Namorita, Namor's cousin and member of [[The New Warriors]] became distressed when she discovered she was not the daughter of Namor's cousin Namora but her clone. Namora, being half Atlantean and half Human, could not conceive a child so she enlisted the aid of a banished scientist to help her give birth to her own clone.
** New Warriors also had two other members who were clones: Scarlet Spider aka Ben Reilly who at the time of his joining was under the mistaken assumption that he was the real Spider-Man and Darrion Grobe a future descendant of Speedball who created a clone of Speedball and placed his mind inside of it and sent back in time to replace the original only to be killed by Darrion's evil time traveller father Ardent. Oddly enough Speedball's cloning history is much less complicated than Nita and Ben's...
* In [[Alejandro Jodorowsky]]'s ''[[
* In the DCnu reboot [[Superboy]] has it even worse than he did before. According to [[Supergirl]], Kryptonian clones ''always'' become insane killers sooner or later. The name "Kon-El" is Kryptonian for "abomination of the house of El". And this is without considering the whole NOWHERE organization trying to manipulate him.
==
* In [http://www.demando.net/ Meredith Bronwen Mallory]'s rather disturbing little ''[[Star Wars]]'' fan fic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/913328/1/Deep_As_You_Go Deep As You Go]'', Darth Vader has utilized the cloning facilities at Kamino to clone his late wife Padmé. [[Wife Husbandry|This]] goes [[Replacement Goldfish|about as well]] as [[What Have I Become?|one would expect]].
{{quote|
''"I don't know," she says, and as soon as her voice sounds, she knows it is the wrong answer. The first time he asked, when she was five, she said she was whatever he wanted her to be. Her left arm had never mended right.'' }}
* [[The Virus|Kodachi Kuno]] of ''[[
* In ''[[Shinji and
== Films -- Live Action ==
* The Kubrick/Spielberg film ''[[
* Occurs in ''[[Alien (
* The five brothers in ''[[The City of Lost Children]]'', who can't figure out who is the original and who are clones.
* ''[[The Island]]'' starts off in an [[City in
** This entire premise is ripped off from the late '70s b-movie ''[[Parts the Clonus Horror]]''. [[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Species]] 2'', Eve, a clone made from the half-alien hybrid Sil, is kept in [[Lady Land|a female-only environment]] and studied for weaknesses so that if another incident occurs like it did in the first movie, the attacker can be destroyed efficiently. [[Hilarity Ensues|Things go badly for all concerned]].
* This is the central plot point of ''[[Star Trek
* Played with rather disturbingly in ''[[The Prestige]]'': {{spoiler|a magician has a machine built that creates an exact duplicate, memories and all, in order to perform an amazing "teleportation" trick. The duplicate, essentially being the same person, would go on to complete the show while the ''original'' falls through a secret trap door and ''drowns'', his corpse secretly disposed of every night. The magician essentially clones himself and then commits suicide for the sake of his magic/revenge.}} And actually, {{spoiler|since all of his memories are copied along with the body, the clone magician never feels like he commits suicide. The clone still beleives he've performed the same trick dozens of times and that the one who actually drown is the real clone.}} Little does he know!
* In ''[[The
** The woman in the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]], upon awakening after coming out of the clone tank, is pissed that she was obviously killed and has to get her ears pierced and hair coloured again.
* In ''[[
* The Clone Army in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' prequels is (uncharacteristically for the series) a rather dark version of this, essentially ''millions'' of men mass-produced and conscripted to fight and die for a war in which they have no stake and no choice as to whether they want to fight (and, thanks to accelerated aging, they're technically [[Child Soldiers]] as well). The general impression from the films (and more explicitly stated in various [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] materials such as ''[[Star Wars:
** Boba Fett was also part of that cloning project, but is a precise genetic copy of his "father" Jango, unlike the clone troopers who were intricately modified for various reasons. Thus, Boba ages at a normal rate but still contracts "clone degeneration" at the age of 71 in the novel ''Bloodlines'' (which has [
* The excellent (although visibly low, ''low'' budget) film ''Anna To The Infinite Power'' is about an emotionless [[Child Prodigy]] girl who discovers she was born as part of a cloning experiment by some ''very'' unpleasant people. Adapted from a novel of the same name. The haunting end theme is [[Crowning Music of Awesome]].
* ''[[Judge Dredd (
== Literature ==
* Matt, in Nancy Farmer's ''[[
* In the ''[[Deathstalker]]'' novels by Simon R. Green, we have {{spoiler|Evangeline Shreck (cloned before the series starts to replace the Evangeline who was killed by her father when she wouldn't let him rape her), and the clone of High Lord Dram}}. And the clones (and sometimes [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|esper clones]]) that the empire enslaves for labor.
* Clones in the ''[[Dune]]'' novels, called gholas, are realistic to an extent in that they are created as embryos, and must fully gestate and grow up at a normal rate. The similarity ends there,
** Gholas originally weren't strictly clones. Up until the third book in the series, gholas are the actual bodies of the deceased. They're just placed into axlotl tanks as quickly as possible, which essentially regrows the dead tissue and brain cells enough that the body is brought back to life. The body has no memories of its former life. But then, the Bene Tleilax engineered a [[Xanatos Gambit]] that resulted in the ghola having their psyche exposed to something their former life would vehemently oppose, which shocks their mind into reawakening. The later novels have gholas grown from simple cells, rather than the original body, so they are true
* The clones in [[William Sleator]]'s ''[[
** The protagonist cloned himself. Unfortunately, the clone believed ''he'' was the original and in turn cloned himself, and that clone ALSO thought he was the original. Unfortunately for them, clones tend to develop mental illnesses quickly. The second clone became clinically depressed; the first one was the original's [[Evil Twin]].
* In ''Xenocide'', one of the sequels to ''[[Ender's Game]]'', Ender enters a dimension that allows you to create anything that you can hold perfectly in your mind. Ender unintentionally creates copies of his siblings. The copies eventually deduce that they aren't clones of the original siblings per se, but manifestations from Ender's mind: the personification of Ender's innocence and kindness in his sister, and of his ambition and ruthlessness in his brother. This causes both copies to angst endlessly until {{spoiler|they are re-integrated by Ender's death and the copy-sister's loss of her body}}.
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** Thrawn's human based clones are treated vastly different, depending on characters. Some (Imperial die-hards) flat out hate them and are discriminatory. This was initially indicated as being a side-effect of the Imperial "humans first" doctrine, putting them in a second-class status to the "properly-generated" humans, but was then retconned with the Clone Wars. Which then created its own version, with the majority of the Imperial Army regarding the clones as mere tools. A Moff is absolutely horrified to find that the major he was working with is a clone.
** Luke and Mara both exhibit this opinion in the [[Hand of Thrawn]] duology, and takes this logic to its natural conclusion when Luke decides [[Honor Before Reason|to not kill]] a {{spoiler|not yet mature clone of [[Magnificent Bastard|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] because it hadn't done anything wrong. And then kills him anyway, more or less by accident but as a direct result of the [[What an Idiot!|stupid extremes]] he went to in avoiding overuse of his powers}}.
** Leia and Han encounter several clones of Soontir Fel, which were inserted as sleeper agents on an agrarian planet. They're both uneasy around them, but the clones just want to be left
{{quote|
** A species decided that they had reached the absolute peak of their species and so decided to freeze their entire civilization at this point of absolute perfection. Every member of that species has been cloned again and again and again, and they entered a static phase that lasted 5000 years. Also, they kept evidence by numbering the clones.
** Meanwhile, the Clone Wars novels make it clear just how much life sucks for the clone
** The ''[[X Wing Series]]'' had the clone of {{spoiler|Ysanne Isard}}, who believed herself to be the original and looked the same except for a nasty scar and no memory of how she got it. The real {{spoiler|Isard}}, in an [[Enemy Mine]]/prelude to betrayal, told the Rogues to go kill her; they had no objection to what amounted to assassination despite generally being shown as unwilling to kill outside of battle. This clone is subsequently called "the {{spoiler|Isard}} clone" ''by the narration'' and is taunted by the Rogues into realizing that she ''is'' a clone before they kill her.
* Kazuo Ishiguro's ''[[Never Let Me Go]]'' depicts the kids growing up in a special boarding school, carefully told and not told about the total lack of any real future and any choice in their life as they will all go on to be carers for donors and then donors themselves (they seem to be universal donors). Strangely, none of them ever try to run away or escape their fate.
** They do display a great deal of interest in finding their "possibles" (how they refer to their originals; the term "clone" is, interestingly, almost never used in the book), and seem to attach a lot of importance to who their models were. At one point Ruth horrifies the others by voicing what seems to be a universal, unspoken fear: that they're modeled on "trash", and if they want to look properly for their possibles, they should look "in the gutter".
* Speaking of clones who get it rough, hardly anyone could compare with ''[[Honor Harrington
* The replacement clones from Jackson's Whole in [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s [[Vorkosigan Saga]] series hardly have anything better; they are raised in crèches to be not just slaves, but also [[Walking Transplant|replacements]] for the aging bodies of the rich and powerful through brain transplants. Guess where their original brains go. Elsewhere in the Galaxy, cloning, while unpopular, is a somewhat tolerated and well-regulated practice, and clones enjoy all the basic rights.
** In ''Brothers in Arms'', we learn that a clone was made from {{spoiler|Miles Vorkosigan}} years ago, when the original was just six years old, in a long-running [[Xanatos Gambit]] to substitute the clone for the original once the clone was adult enough that the six-year age difference wouldn't matter. The clone goes through (relatively) normal growth and receives regular briefings on the original's activities so that his impersonation will be realistic. The original eventually defeats the plot by treating the clone as a real person with an identity (and a name) of his own, something the clone's creators never did; this triggers the clone's [[Heel Face Turn]], but takes about four books.
** The identity politics behind clones and cloning are discussed at length in ''Mirror Dance''. Since cloning is an accepted technology on Beta Colony, they have an extensive network of legal definitions and protections for clones. Cordelia, who is Betan, identifies herself to Mark as either his mother or his mother-once-removed, with legal obligations and rights approximately equivalent to a grandparent. And points out that regardless of his cloned status, his genes are half hers anyway, so she has as much biological interest in him as she does in his brother.
* In Alfred Slote's ''Clone Catcher,'' clones are walking organ banks for the rich (and since there's no magic aging, they have a good long time to know that). The guy who hunts them down if they run ''is the book's protagonist''. And it's a children's book. (Almost every character in the book comes to condemn these practices, but it's still an awfully creepy premise.)
* In ''[[The Goodness Gene]]'', the main protagonist discovers he is a {{spoiler|a clone of Hitler, created solely to lead a dictatorship in the Dominion of the Americas}};
* In the ''[[
* In [[Dean Koontz]]'s ''Frankenstein'' trilogy, Victor Helios, {{spoiler|alias Frankenstein, has created a "New Race" of genetically-engineered beings that are devoid of morality and feelings except for anger, envy, fear, and hate. They cannot disobey his commands, kill themselves, or kill others unless ordered to do so. Courtesy of direct-to-brain data downloading for the sake of knowledge, a great many of the New Race are replicants of people like politicians, police officers, and ministers. But the programming of many members of the New Race is breaking down, allowing them to act as they shouldn't in one way or another...}}
* In the novel ''[[Altered Carbon]]'', digital copies of human psyches can be replicated and transferred to other bodies. This happens two ways: the first is a form of remote storage used as emergency backup by the ultrarich to circumvent the "real death" usually caused by the destruction of the cortical stack. The plot is, initially, driven by an investigation commissioned by someone attempting to find out what occurred between their last back-up and the time of their death. The second involves the duplication of a single pysche into two bodies, a highly difficult and illegal process. It is said to be much loved of a notoriously paranoid assassin named "Dimi the Twin", who uses this technique to provide trustworthy backup for himself. {{spoiler|It is also used by the main character, Takeshi Kovacs, in the climactic events of the novel. While not provoking any existential angst in itself- both versions are, as digital copies, as "real" as the other -- it does require one copy to be destroyed to avoid unwanted attention from the authorities, provoking a difficult discussion about which version has gained more "worthy memories" since the duplication. The dilemma is eventually resolved by a game of rock, paper, scissors.}}
* The novel ''[[Brave New World (
** They technically ''were''
* The Ira Levin novel ''[[The Boys
** The Nazis who made the clones considered the nurture
* [[John Scalzi]]'s ''[[Old
* A series of sci-fi novels written by Steven L. Kent explores this trope. All enlisted men in the future armed forces (not officers or NCOs) are clones, and the main character is a special kind of clone. All the regular clones have no idea they're clones and are biologically programmed to die if they ever find out.
* The ''Regeneration'' book series by L. J. Singleton features five cloned teenagers who aged naturally. One of them {{spoiler|was cloned from a serial killer and struggles with his violent urges}}, and all of them have some form of {{spoiler|minor superpower}}.
* In the [[
* ''Anna to the Infinite Power'', a YA novel (and later movie), provides a thoughtful take on how the attempt to clone a single genius multiple times might be hampered by the distinctive personalities of her clones.
* A duology of novels, ''Farthest Star'' and ''Wall Around A Star'' by [[Frederik Pohl]] & Jack Williamson, feature a form of [[Teleporters and Transporters|teleportation]] that sends a copy of you elsewhere but leaves the original intact. The copy can be modified ''en route,'' since all you're transmitting is information. Interestingly, this is how most physicists figure real-life teleportation might work.
* ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'': ''The Finders Stone Trilogy'' by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb subverts that trope twice. When main heroine, Alias, {{spoiler|who is herself an artificial, magically created being,}} found out that she has many clones, she is originally angry at being "copied"; the actual clones are much calmer, have their own lives, and don't mope about their origin in the slightest. Even
** In Alias's defense regarding her views of her "sisters" she'd just learned that she was not, as she thought, a naturally born person (hence feeling like a "thing to be copied"), and had been given the impression that her sisters hadn't existed past the destruction of the last of the five entities involved in her own creation so when one of them popped up in front of her Alias had a bad moment - since said last entity had specifically labeled the others as being more puppets to his whim than free spirits like Alias. As for her sisters being calmer, non-mopy, etc: most of them don't seem to have the first clue about where they really come from. Of the three that have actual screen time in the books, only one knew the full story. The other two both thought themselves simply amnesiac, much like Alias herself when first introduced.
* Gilbert Gosseyn (pronounced 'go sane' - get it?) of A.E. van Vogt's books ''[[The World of Null-A]]'' and ''[[The Players of Null-A]]''. When he's killed, he 'wakes up' in a new cloned body with all his old memories right up to his death. And he has a superpower too.
* In ''[[Accelerando]]'' and ''Glasshouse'' by [[Charles Stross]], duplication of individuals is relatively common. Replicator-type devices are used, which results in perfect duplicates. Different "instances" of a person can be recombined in a process referred to as "merging deltas" (taken from real life software version control systems)
** In one particular inversion of this trope, one instance of a person returns to the solar system to find they have been made bankrupt by one instance of themselves, and are being sued by the children of another instance. The other clones are dead or missing, leaving them to take the rap...a person is explicitly "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their other selves.
** Another curious incident has someone obviously unfamiliar with "running" multiple instances of themselves failing to realise that what they thought was one of their clones was actually someone else entirely using a copy of their body.
** In a robotic version, the protagonist of ''Saturn's Children'' is a sexbot who describes how she, and other [[A Is]] similar to herself are created. AI's with human level intelligence take as long as a human would to develop, so no [[Instant AI, Just Add Water|instant AI]], with one loophole: an AI can be duplicated easily. The standard procedure for artificial beings like her was to raise one prototype as desired than clone the AI into identical bodies.
* The Beta clones get varying degrees of this in ''[[
* In Mary E. Pearson's ''[[The Adoration of Jenna Fox]]'', {{spoiler|the title character}} is a physical double of {{spoiler|the original Jenna Fox}} who is almost entirely constructed of a substance called BioGel. Her exterior
* In [[John Varley]]'s universe they have a law that only one person can own a genotype: all copies must be destroyed. So if you discover that you're an illegal clone, your only hope is to kill your progenitor and replace him/her. Cue several plots.
** Must be hell for identical twins.
* In ''[[Otherland]]'', the members of the Grail Brotherhood conspire to produce the perfect computer simulation, into which they can clone themselves via [[Brain Uploading]] and hence achieve [[Immortality]]. To avert this trope, they arrange for their "real" bodies to commit suicide in various ways upon activation of their virtual clones (never mind that this plan goes horribly wrong when [[Psycho for Hire]] Dread takes over the system).
** The trope is played straight in the case of {{spoiler|Paul Jonas}}, who spends most of the story wandering through various simulated worlds, unaware that he's a virtual copy and the original is still alive in an induced coma. When he finds out, he realizes that everything he's accomplished is meaningless from a personal perspective, as his real body will [[Relationship Reset Button|have none of the accumulated memories]] and his virtual self can't ever be considered a real person. This sends him across the [[Despair Event Horizon]] but gives him the resolve to perform a [[Heroic Sacrifice]].
* The main character in ''[[Blueprint (novel)|Blueprint]]'' by Charlotte Kerner suffers from depression ever since she's a child, seeing as how she's just a clone of her mother. Her mother was a famous piano-player who couldn't use her fingers anymore after a disease crippled
* Fabricants in the futuristic segment of ''[[Cloud Atlas]]'' are bred to perform all the unpleasant jobs humans no longer want to do (the ones we see the most of work in the fast-food industry, but there are mentions of others in even worse positions). They're bred and raised not to question their lot in life, and anyone who tries is faces intense opposition, the most obvious bit of [[Fantastic Racism]] being Sonmi's attempts to attend university lectures. {{spoiler|Oh, and once they finish their "careers", they get recycled into the "soap" that other fabricants eat.}}
* ''[[
* In Frank Herbert's ''WorShip'' series, clones are second-class citizens at best, disposable labor resources at worst. When there's a crisis or shortage, they always get the short end. They all have some identifiable mutation, adding [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?]].
* Wil
* In Jeff Long's ''Year Zero'', adult human clones are created using ancient DNA, then used as expendable guinea pigs for research to cure an unstoppable plague. Not only are these clones fully sentient, but they retain the memories of their entire lives, up to and including their deaths, and so assume they're being punished in the afterlife.
* ''[[The
* The title character of ''[[Joshua, Son of None]]'', a 1973 novel by Nancy Freedman, is Joshua Francis Kellogg, the apparent son of a rich and ambitious man who is actually the clone of a [[John F. Kennedy|coyly unidentified President]] who died in an assassination in Dallas, TX in the early 1960s. Joshua's "father" spends the money and influence necessary to recreate the critical events of JFK's life, so as to shape Joshua into the same kind of man as the President he was cloned from. Joshua eventually learns the truth, reveals it to the world, and becomes a politician whose career ''still'' has eerie echoes of his forebear's.
* The rebooted ''[[Battlestar Galactica
▲== Live Action TV ==
▲* The rebooted ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (TV)|Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' goes to town with this one with Cylon Number Eight (aka Sharon "Boomer" Valerii). While the other Eights are well-adjusted Cylons, Boomer is a sleeper agent and can't understand the crazy things that are happening to her, like waking up in a water tank with no idea of how she got there, or discovering multiple stolen explosives among her personal possessions. Interesting because all the identical Cylons are clones.
** Interestingly, the Cylons are never seen to make clones of existing human characters, rather they were based around certain archetypes of personality and appearance. All people revealed to be Cylons were that way from the beginning. They were either self-aware but passing for human or had fake memories. By the end, it is strongly implied that the Cylons would not even have known how to go about cloning an individual human; most of them didn't know how their own system of downloading functioned.
*** The Number Eight models were unique among Cylons in that they disagreed with each other. All other Cylons were, apparently, similar enough in personality that they could be counted on to have any member of the model vote for the entire model line in a representative system, even though some of them had different individual experiences that might have affected their personalities. Then again, Boomer is also the only model of which any copies worked as unconscious sleeper agents, so that might explain the difference.
** As seen in ''[[Caprica]]'', the first Cylons of the Twelve Colonies result from the controversial copying of human consciousness into robot bodies.
** At one point, even the apparently-revived Starbuck ponders whether or not she might be a clone with fake memories {{spoiler|she's not}}.
* ''[[
** Averted with {{spoiler|Jenny}} in {{spoiler|"The Doctor's Daughter"}}, a fraternal "clone" (the process doesn't produce an identical duplicate). She does get told she's "not real" by The Doctor and ''quickly'' calls him on it.
** Played straight with Slime!Martha in "The Sontaran Strategem."
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** {{spoiler|Auton!Rory}} has his normal personality, but gets overridden by the Nestene Consciousness, which is then overridden by [[The Power of Love]].
** The episodes "The Rebel Flesh" and "The Almost People" are ''made'' of this trope.
* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'': A sentient, mentally identical clone of Salem is casually destroyed magically by Hilda in the episode "Thin Ice"; in the much earlier episode "A Halloween Story" a magic spell creates a copy, but this double is essentially mindless and soon absorbed back into its creator.
* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', the clone of a [[Tonight Someone Dies|previously killed off character]] joins the team. He looks exactly like the old character and has the same personality and most of his memories. The catch? Without the regular injection of a special chemical, he'll eventually die because his cloned tissue can't regenerate fast enough to counter natural cell damage. Because of this, he was [[Put
** ''Stargate'' characters seem to have two default reactions to duplicates: (A) it's the same person in another body, or (B) it's a disposable fake. They never seem to consider (C) it's an identical twin sibling, which real clones are. "Disposable fake" is how the plot treats them - except in Carson's case, again proving the "so long as there's just one in the end" rule.
** Ba'al and his many clones on ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' have clones of both the host and the symbiote. They are completely indistinguishable, and they even set up a [[Xanatos Gambit]] by pretending that the clones are fighting against the "real" Ba'al, convincing SG-1 to capture every single one (with a string of puns). Then each one claims to be the real one.
** Also in ''Stargate SG-1'', the entire Asgard race is a race of clones portrayed fairly realistically. They don't have magical "clone memories"; those need to be transferred ''via'' computer from the original body. (Thor undergoes this procedure almost as often as Daniel dies.) Also, the Asgard have been cloning themselves for so long that they have suffered severe genetic degradation and are no longer capable of reproducing in any way other than by cloning themselves.
** {{spoiler|When a rogue Asgard genetic scientist leaves a botched (as in too young) clone of O'Neill in an attempt to study his genetic makeup to try and help his species sexually reproduce again, everyone's only worried about the original O'Neill back and doesn't care that the clone's pre-programmed to die. It's only when the original asks Thor to save his clone's life does anyone seem to care.}}
* ''[[
** Both the Jem'Hadar and the Vorta in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
** ''[[Star Trek:
** ''[[
** ''[[Star Trek:
*** In another case Worf convinces the noble Klingon empire to install a clone of Kahless some Klingon monks cooked up to the position of Emperor. This is stated to be a purely ceremonial, if potentially influential, position (equivalent to head of state), and not to be confused with the position of ''Chancellor'' (occupied at the time by Gowron), who is at the top of the Klingon Empire's ''actual'' government.
** In the ''[[Star Trek: Voyager
**** A later episode reveals that the clones quickly forgot their true identity, assumed the identities of the Voyager crew and tried to "get home" to Earth as well. A new technology causes their bodies to destabilize, which leads to their memories resurfacing and, obviously, lots of angst. {{spoiler|They die just after their time capsule destabilizes and their attempt to hail the real Voyager fails, so it is as if they never existed, maybe suggesting that the writers didn't want to admit that clones were worth being remembered.}}
** In the ''[[Star Trek
** In ''[[Star Trek
* An episode of ''[[
* Kyle and Jessie of ''[[Kyle XY]]'' are clones grown in a lab, but the cloning itself is realistic; they were grown at normal speed, not fast (spending a lifetime unconscious in tubes), and they don't have clone memories. The word "clone" is never used; but cloning is clearly described, and they look exactly like the originals from many years ago. (Now, the explanation of their intelligence and powers, on the other hand....) Strangely enough, the third season finale strongly suggests that neither are clones, but simply [[Identical Grandson|identical versions]] of their same-sex parents. It is even stated that an unseen character is Kyle's biological mother, who was never even hinted at before in the show.
* In ''[[
** An earlier ''[[
** The revival series episode ''Replica'' had a scientist create a perfect duplicate of his (apparently) terminally comatose wife; the duplicate is completely unaware she is a clone until the original wakes up and is presented as a sympathetic character. {{spoiler|In a subversion of this trope, she even gets one of the few unambiguously happy endings in the series; the scientist stays with his original wife, but clones ''himself'' so that the cloned wife can stay with 'him'.}}
* Some [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke|genetically engineered]] X5 [[Super Soldier|supersoldiers]] in ''[[Dark Angel]]'' have clones, who are treated (by the narrative) as identical twins with their own unique identities. But it still sucks to be them because Manticore (the [[Government Conspiracy|evil organization]] that made the X5s) punished them for the escape of their originals. Alec has had a particularly rough time, because he's a clone of the [[Serial Killer]] Ben.
** They also have younger, less human, X7 clones, who are [[Creepy Child
* In one story line arc of ''[[Soap]]'', Burt is kidnapped by aliens and a transformed alien duplicate sent down to his home in his place. The long-lived alien had gone 2,000 years without sex and was very much enjoying pizza, frozen snickers and Burt's wife Mary...not necessarily in that order...until Burt got the chance to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8laJD6yZS8w convince him to let Burt have his life back again.]
* The documentary series ''Animal Pharm'' skewers this trope by showing that not only are clones not just copies, they may not even look the same as the original.
* In [[Juukou B-Fighter]], Shadow/Black Beet suffers from this. Originally created to defeat the B Fighters by his master, he eventually starts to question his own existence and his loyalty starts to waver. Then, it is revealed that he is an actual clone of Takuya/Blue Beet and eventually become obsessed with killing Takuya in order to prove his own existence and in order to gain immortality as he is dying due to being a short-lived clone who was only created to serve his purpose in defeating the B Fighters. He eventually ditch his master to fight for himself.
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* "My Clone Sleeps Alone" by [[Pat Benatar]]. Her clone lives in [[Dystopia|a sterile sexless future]].
* The Leo Kottke/Mike Gordon song "Clone" (from the album of the same name) has fun with this idea.
* The parody song "I Think I'm a Clone Now" by [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] details a transition; for one of the clones, it starts with embarassment:
{{quote|
If only they knew that I was
Part of some geneticist's plan..." }}
* ...and ends with enjoyment.
{{quote|
== Tabletop Games ==
* The original ''[[
** Not too surprisingly, the original psycho-jealous-killer-clone rule still applies in the [[Ravenloft]] setting, even in the 3E products.
** In ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' Manshoon was an [[Evil Sorcerer]] and member of the Zhentarim who was so paranoid of his own death, he created dozens of ''clones'', possibly as many as 40<ref>The exact number varies depending on the source, but it was clearly a large number.</ref> Obviously, he intended for only one of them to come to life should he be killed, but when [[Properly Paranoid| he was indeed killed]] by his rivals Fzoul and Lord Orgauth, some sort of malfunction caused all of them to activate at once. These clones all went insane and turned on each other in what is now called the Manshoon Wars; most of them perished, until finally, only three remained. One of them is now trying to research a new version of ''clone'', hoping to correct the problem, another has abandoned that specific spell, preferring to use ''simulacrums'' as his [[Actually a Doombot| Doombots]], while the third - who is now known Orbahk - is now a powerful vampire, and has abandoned that strategy completely. Regardless, all three have the sense to avoid each other.
** Other ways of "cloning"—such as Simulacrum—don't have this problem.
**
* In ''[[Paranoia]]'', all PCs are clones, and on death are replaced with duplicate clones with the character's memories and personality. They have much reason to get the blues, as repeated cloning can lead to personality quirks and full-blown psychoses. Oh, and being a mutant is treason -- this leads to the situation of mutants executed by other clones for treason when discovered, but their replacement clone instantly arriving can't be executed again until it's proven to also be a mutant. Due to inherent problems with the cloning system, they may come back with a ''different'' mutation!▼
{{quote|In those days, the dwarven gods were each associated with a particular clan. The Spawn Wars saw the use of deepspawn to produce vast numbers of dwarven troops quickly which were then hurled into battle against each other. Eventually, the dwarven kingdoms abandoned their internecine strife and came together, although not all the deepspawn were destroyed. It should be noted that the Spawned (as they were called) were treated as second-class citizens at best and banned from breeding. However, a few did, and some suspect that a taint of weakness was introduced into the dwarven race in this fashion that now contributes to the declining birth rate.}}
▲* In ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'', all PCs are clones, and on death are replaced with duplicate clones with the character's memories and personality. They have much reason to get the blues, as repeated cloning can lead to personality quirks and full-blown psychoses. Oh, and being a mutant is
** Getting the Cloning Blue is Treason. (Unless you're Level Blue or higher.)
* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''
** In
** There also is the Death Corp of Krieg, who are more or less just like the [[Star Wars]] clones only its more than one template (what was left after their civil war) they hide this by wearing [[Gas Mask Mooks|Gas masks]] all the time. Maybe...
** Kabals of the Dark Eldar use vats to make sure they always have enough of high-quality cannon fodder and slaves, since with their way of life actual pregnancies are… not very affordable. Thus the "Half-Born" are the Kabalite rank-and-file warriors (if they prove capable enough), while the "Trueborn" are effectively nobles, more valued and better trained.
* In ''[[
** Another ''[[
== Video Games ==
* In the ''[[Advance Wars]]'' series, [[Big Bad|Black Hole]] has a tendency to enjoy making clones of your commanding officers and pitting them against you towards the endgame. The clones have all the same statistical points of their counterparts, but their personalities are seriously lacking; they regularly proclaim, in an almost morose and self-defeating way, that their only purpose is to take orders and fight. Afterwards they're invariably destroyed. {{spoiler|Except for the Andy Clone, who expresses that he hoped that he was true to his counterpart's personality.}}
** ''[[Days Of Ruin]]'' provides a different version, in which {{spoiler|[[Big Bad]] [[Mad Scientist]] Caulder/Stolos is a [[Truly Single Parent]] and views his [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|clone children]] as expendable minions and test subjects, as he can always replace them if they die. Isabella/Catleia turns out to be [[Tomato in
*** It gets better: {{spoiler|Even Caulder/Stolos is a clone of the original, and it seems highly likely that the side-effects of cloning are partly responsible for his insanity}}.
* The Riku replica in ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories]]'' lives a sad existence, constantly trying to live up to or replace "the real thing". There's a funny omake at the end of the manga that jokes about just how sad it is.
** Also, {{spoiler|Xion from ''358/2 Days''}}.
* ''[[
* It turns out in ''[[Overblood]]'' that {{spoiler|both Milly and Raz are clones. The labs had actually been cloning loads of Raz's as [[Super Soldiers]] and to look after her. Milly is actually the clone of the original Raz's wife, who died. Both of them argue with the real Raz that they aren't simply clones and can't be forced to do whatever their originals did/what Raz wants them to do.}}
* The ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' series ''loves'' clones. Liquid Snake feels inferior to his 'brother' Solid Snake because Solid was supposedly given all the dominant 'soldier genes' and Liquid got all of the recessive ones from their clone-source (they mean alleles, but hey: turns out it was the other way around, [[An Aesop|showing genes aren't the only thing that determine your fate]]). While MGS-verse clones still have to grow up from scratch, once they hit about thirty they start undergoing [[Plot
** Ac!d-verse Snake gets a [[Tomato in
* In ''[[Street Fighter]]'', depending on which plot twist you're in, BBEG M. Bison (known as Vega in Japan) has an army of clone soldiers, including Juni, Juli and Cammy. However, the term "clone" is used inconsistently and it's been stated that Juni and Juli are girls kidnapped from Germany.
** They're probably "clones" in the sense that Saddam Hussein had body doubles, of
** More appear in ''[[
* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' Original Generation 2 had Wodan Ymir, a W Number android, based both physically and mentally on Sanger Zonvolt who died in the Shadow Mirror universe. Outside the fourth wall, the character was created so that the game could use Sanger's incarnation in Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden incarnation as the 'Sword of Magus' without it feeling wrong based on his characterisation and development in the previous Original Generation game.
** Also, Wodan resolves his
** Ingram Plissken. There have been so many clones of him made by the Balmar empire in order to keep possessing over the Time Diver, that a lot of them have identity issues.
* ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'' has an analogue of cloning known as fomicry, which uses pure magic to create an identical copy of an original at the time of replication (dodging the aging issue) and without any memories. Most of the game's replicas use many of the pitfalls of this trope, including plenty of [[Wangst]] about not being real. In one case it's even two-sided between replica and original: {{spoiler|Luke's [[Tomato in
** It's also worth noting that replication {{spoiler|has a tendency of permanently weakening the person being cloned, as demonstrated by the cheagle original and clone.}} If that isn't a good reason to have being-replicated
** Aside from this, however, ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'' does take a serious look at the
* In ''[[Freedom Force]]'', the futuristic robot hero Microwave has the ability to generate weak clones of himself, and the mad villain Deja Vu can create clones of anyone, from civilians to himself to even the game's main hero Minuteman. The final boss {{spoiler|Timemaster generates "temporal twins" of himself to besiege the heroes}} as well. As this game is based on the carefree Silver Age of comics, nobody bats an eye at any of this and no serious moral issues come into play.
* In the ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' 'Hordes of the Underdark' it appears that the mad wizard Halaster has been taken captive by the drow. But after the player kills the drow keeping him captive, another Halaster teleports in, and informs you that you ruined his brilliant plan to trap the [[Big Bad]] using a clone. The two Halasters then begin to bicker about who is the original, and who is the clone - all the while [[Rhymes
** The funny part is that normally it's done via ''simulacrum'' and that in [[Canon]] Halaster used to have multiple semi-autonomous body replicas all over the Undermountain and control them more or less at will.
* [[Defrosting Ice Queen|Miranda Lawson]] of ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' is a heavily-modified clone of a ridiculously rich businessman with two duplicates of his X chromosome, and has some major confidence issues on the subject. She also has a genetic twin sister, who is (quite realistically, actually) sixteen years younger and an exact clone. She has fewer issues, primarily because she doesn't know that Miranda exists ({{spoiler|Unless you take the Paragon ending to her Loyalty Quest}}). Lair of the Shadow Broker adds more to this, as it turns out {{spoiler|she's infertile, most likely as a result of her genetic engineering.}}
** Shepard himself/herself was "resurrected" by the Lazarus Project in the beginning of [[
{{quote|
* [[My Hero Zero|Zero]], the star of two series in [[Capcom]]'s ''Mega Man'', is cloned twice, once in each series:
** Played straight in ''[[
{{quote|
** Subverted in ''[[
** ''[[
* ''[[Ever 17]]''. The character in question is referred to as a clone and views the 'original' as a parent. The two are immensely similar in personality and thought processes, but due to slight differences in how they were raised, their beliefs and behaviors are slightly different. The older of the two has grown since the time when they were nearly indistinguishable and become quite different. There is no social stigma (cloning is legal here), nor any angsting over being a copy. The clone ''does'' wonder what they mean to the original, though.
* ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]'' is centred around cloning, but clones are also used when Crypto dies during gameplay. Each clone has a number, with Crypto, starting at 137 because 136 was shot down near [[Area 51|Area 42]]. While each clone is made after the other dies, there is no personal difference between them besides their numbers and in the beginning of the game, after learning of 136's disappearance, 137 wants to go rescue himself and confuses the pronouns a lot. When he does find his remains, he laments his loss referring to 136 as himself and takes revenge on the humans for killing him.
* Astaroth from the ''[[Soul Series]]'' undergoes this during 3 and before 4, when he learns that his template was Rock he goes on a berserk rampage, destroying his creation place and eventually finding Rock and almost killing him.
* In the MMO ''[[Tabula Rasa]]'', all of a player's characters on one server are clones of each other to explain why they all have the last name and share a supposedly rare special ability. Despite that, clones don't share memories by default. Players must earn special credits to use the ubertech necessary to share experience and training from one character to a new clone; even then, there can be differences in how that knowledge is applied. Clones can also look different or even be a [[Opposite
** Prior to their introduction, it was stated that AFS scientists were working on the creation of [[Half-Human Hybrid|Half Human Hybrids]] using this technology. In [[Perpetual Beta|Deployment 9]] they were released, playing all the related tropes straight.
* It is suspected that the protagonist in the game ''[[Portal (
* In ''[[Fallout]] 3'', Vault 108 has lots of Garys. They're all violent, capable of only saying "Gary"
* ''[[Halo]]''. Master Chief and all the other Spartans were kidnapped as six year old children to begin their training. To prevent any questions from being asked, they were all flash-cloned; the parents got the clones. In the Halo universe, cloning single organs is simple, but cloning a full human isn't; they are born with no memory, are mindless vegetables and, after several months, die. So, as far as the Spartans' parents know, they all suddenly suffered major brain damage and died tragically. Only a handful of Spartan trainees ever found out about this, and half of them (count 2) ended up killing themselves after finding out the truth. ''Halo Legends''. The true tragedy of this is explored more thoroughly in the ''I Love Bees''.
* The [[Faceless Goons|Replica]] in ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.]]'' don't go through a whole lot of angst about their cloned nature because ATC deliberately designed them to have limited cognitive capabilities and independent thought processes. The Replica themselves are vat-grown, mass-produced, disfigured, inhuman-looking beings that spend most of their lives in stasis inside small pods until activated for combat; once activated, they show all the typical range of human emotions, including surprise, anger, and fear - albeit mixed in with a terrifying single-mindedness and absolute loyalty.
** Played for laughs in the trailer for the ''Reborn'' DLC for ''F.E.A.R. 2''. "I may be a clone now, but I sure ain't your brother! Yeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh!".
* ''Neo [[Contra]]'' has its moment when {{spoiler|Bill Rizer}} finds out that he was really just part of an experiment to replicate a legendary hero...''Sounds [[Metal Gear Solid|familiar]]''?
* ''[[Parasite Eve]]''. The {{spoiler|Eve/Aye clone}} is a little girl in a research facility where even her damned toys were designed to frustrate and antagonise
* In ''[[
* At the end of ''[[Gaia Online|zOMG!]]'', {{spoiler|[[Mad Scientist|Labtech]] [[Let X Be the Unknown|X]] reveals his plot to create an army of Animated [[Humongous Mecha]] and take over Gaia...and also his motivation: he's a clone of [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Johnny K. Gambino]], who abandoned him in favor of his naturally-born son Gino.}}
* In ''[[Star Wars]]: [[The Force Unleashed]] 2'' the protagonist is a clone of the original Starkiller from the first game. He's not particularly happy about this.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Tomb Raider]]: Underworld'', Croft Manor is destroyed by a seemingly sadistic clone of Lara, created by {{spoiler|Jacqueline Natla}}. Lara tangles with her doppelganger more than once, but finds later that she and the copy think a lot
* In ''[[
* Subverted in the ''[[Hitman]]'' series, where the protagonist uncovers at the end of the first game that he's the end-result of a dedicated cloning program. His origin is cause for significant strife later in his life, but he's never all that choked up over it - he just kills everyone.
* All the robot personalities aboard [[Starship Titanic]] are copies of real peoples personalities stuck in art deco robot bodies and placed on a doomed starship, after working their way up though speak your weight machines and on screen help.
* [[Hell MOO]] has almost all of the characters as clones; in fact, the majority of the population of Freedom City was alive before the nuclear apocalypse and have been unable to die because the cloning banks still work and just shuffle their consciousness into a fresh body every time they day. Even the suicide booth provided is useless because it only provides a few seconds of peace before being harshly thrown back into the world. As long as the cloning continues, the people of post-apocalypse Freedom City are trapped in their little slice of hell and unable to get out.
* Subverted/Averted depending on the server in the ''[[BYOND]]'' game ''[[
== Web Comics ==
* Subverted in ''[[
* In ''[[
** He's just the most extreme example. The entire webcomic is full of
* ''[[Its Walky]]'' initially played it straight, when the saintly, innocent girl Joyce gets a "reverse" clone, thanks to accidental exposure to [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]]. The clone is not so much evil as sluttish, but still manages to be a complete antithesis to Joyce, who then shoots her. In the head. The subversion comes in much later, when an Evil Lawyer catches wind of the
* Parodied in ''[[The Non
* Subverted in ''[[Final Blasphemy]]''; {{spoiler|Wily uses numerous robotic doubles of himself and one true biological clone just to make sure he's not targeted. These are pretty standard applications of the trope, and when Jeremy is captured, he finds out that he killed that biological clone of Wily rather than the genuine article; he's frustrated but relieved as he doesn't think that counts as murder. Unfortunately, the law ''does'' think that counts as murder. Cue [[Big No]].}}
* Molly's doppelganger Galatea in the "There But For the Grace" story arc in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]''. Raised in an unloving environment, she grew up to be paranoid with an [[Ubermensch]] complex {{spoiler|but now seems to have calmed down and gotten a reasonably happy ending?even if she has, for the moment at least, been [[Put
* ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'' actually includes a sheep clone named Dolly who eventually started aging quickly. But thanks to a certain sci-fi device, {{spoiler|she became a lamb again (albeit with her memories intact). It is not clear whether she still ages quickly}}.
* ''[[Narbonic]]'': The title character, Helen B. Narbon, is a clone of her mother. (The "B" stands for "Beta".) [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] when Helen gets an invitation to her high school reunion:
{{quote|
'''Helen:''' That doesn't mean I didn't have a childhood. You think I was decanted from the replicating pod full-grown? For heaven's sake, Dave, I went through all the normal developmental stages!
'''Dave:''' [[Alien|Egg, facehugger, chestburster, and queen?]] }}
** Considering Helen Alpha (a boxed-wine-swilling, antagonistic shrew of the most hilarious sort), there's more to this notion than just facetious antagonism. ''Narbonic'' actually offers a unique perspective on
* In ''[[
* ''[[
{{quote|
'''Ben Franklin (also a clone):''' You're one of the clones. Get in line.
'''McNinja:''' Aw... }}
** Played with once again [http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/17p63 here], where the villain apparently tries to create evil clones of the good Doctor.
{{quote|
'''Clone:''' I am '''far''' too busy coming to terms with the existential dread of being a clone. }}
** Played with even ''further'', when it turns out that the clones all remember what Franz did to their people. [[Turned Against Their Masters|But at least something is being played straight.]]
* Used, abused, subverted, and played straight in [https://web.archive.org/web/20190118100705/http://www.applevalleycomic.com/ Apple Valley]. An early accident causes secondary character Doyle to be able to split into "quantum doubles", which Dr Hubris (the resident evil scientist and Doyle's boss) takes extreme advantage of as an unexhaustable supply of expendable test subjects. Later it's mentioned that they dispose of the dead Doyles by blackmailing companies they claim contributed to Doyle's deaths. For his suffering, Doyle does manage to pick up a Doppleganger Attack later on, making him useful as something other than a meat dispenser.
* Zigzagged in ''[[League Of Super Redundant Heroes]]'' Given the vast number of superhumans in Shitopolis, the creation of unnatural duplicates seems to happen so often that [http://superredundant.com/?comic=737-formalities the DMV has a form for any who needs an ID], the first question being if they were created by "cloning, magic, or other".
== Web Original ==
* In ''[[
* Los Hermanos of the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' is able to create a near-infinite number of duplicates of himself, but they are all ''him'' when it comes to memory and knowledge (they share a mass-mind...talk to any of his duplicates, and you're talking to all of his duplicates). Imagine his shock and surprise when he encountered the [[Super Villain]] known as El Unico, and it turned out to be one of his duplicates, who had somehow separated from the mass mind but otherwise retained all of his powers.
** Later, when Los Hermanos encountered Aryan Nation (a controversial white supremacist ''superhero''...yes, you read that right...who shares Los Hermanos's powers), the similarity of Nation's powers nearly convinced the Global Guardian that Aryan Nation was yet another one of his dupes who managed to gain a separate consciousness. (He found out later this wasn't true.)
** Mob Rule, a South African super villain from the same setting, has a similar power. His copies, however, are independent individuals, and they occasionally get into ''very'' violent arguments.
** Colony, a British super villain, can create a dozen duplicates. Like Mob Rule, his copies are independent and sometimes aren't all that cooperative with each other.
* The idea of a stereotypical, perfect-copy clone is used in a fantastically original manner in the web-novel ''[[John Dies
* Cloning can be done fairly easily for people in the civilized regions of ''[[
** The notes on population suggests that if you count virtual clones, 90% of the population would consist of ''five people''.
* Belphoebe of the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' was a forced-aging clone of Jobe's perfect drow girl, with no memories. Then a fat, neurotic nerdboy tried to copy a girl's mind into Belphoebe so he'd have someone who'd like him and accidentally copied ''his own'' mind in. It takes Belpheobe a while to get her act together at that point.
* After [[The Spoony Experiment
* Aurora from [[Trinton Chronicles]] is technically {{spoiler|one of many failed clone of the mysterious Messianic figure known only as 'Jade'}}. It's also very strange as she has the power of [[Me's a Crowd]] on top of being a genetic copy.
== Western Animation ==
* The DNA Delivery clones employed by Bedlam in ''[[
* ''[[
** Later, Thailog and Demona work together to recover the other Manhattan Clan's DNA and then hand them over to Dr. Sevarius to make their own clones: Malibu (a clone of Brooklyn), Brentwood (clone of Lexington), Hollywood (clone of Broadway) and Burbank (clone of Hudson). They lack smarts, as they were programmed only to "obey Thailog". Without Demona's knowledge, Thailog also creates a clone from DNA merged between Demona and Elisa Maza named "Delilah" to act as his new partner to replace Demona; Demona is not happy when she finds this out. After Thailog and Demona are defeated, the clones join the Labyrinth Clan; but in the comics, they temporarily betray their clan to ally with Thailog. After Delilah helps them recover their senses, all but Brentwood return to the Labyrinth Clan (Brentwood prefers Thailog because "Thailog smart").
** In the ABC continuation, the clones turn to stone, apparently permanently, because of a malfunction in their cloned DNA. But, since this was the [[Canon
* ''[[The Fairly
{{quote|
'''Wanda:''' The ankles are filled with marshmallow!
'''Cosmo:''' Ah, oh, oh no! It broke!
'''Norm:''' And get ya out of school! ''([[Reality Warper|gongs]] a clone)'' Tada!
'''Timmy:''' A clone? Been there, done that. }}
* Used in one episode of The New [[Woody Woodpecker]] Show called "Two Woody".
* Scourge of ''[[Transformers]]'' has the [[Red Shirt|Sweeps]], physical clones who are supposedly his huntsmen. However, they all have different voices and different personalities. As wary as Scourge is, the Sweeps are even worse. He occasionally has to ask Cyclonus for help ordering them around.
** Cyclonus was also supposed to have a clone "armada". One clone shows up in the movie when he is first created, but it is never seen again. This is the subject of much fan discussion.
* ''[[
** "So, which part of me did you come from?" "Don't ask!"
* In ''[[Superman: The Animated Series
* This was parodied by ''[[The Simpsons (
* ''[[
** Also, in "Bender's Big Score," time travel clones have a high "doom factor" that causes them to be destroyed.
* In the second season ''[[WITCH (
** Nerissa later makes an Altermere of [[Mentors|Yan Lin]], who survives and is introduced to Yan Lin's family as her long-lost twin sister Mira.
** "[[Meaningful Name|Mirror]]?"
** In the original ''[[
* In the ''[[
** He'd originally wanted to clone Shego, but she had a no-cloning clause in her contract. When he kept pressing the issue, she [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|walked out on him]] for the rest of the episode.
* In ''[[Justice League (
* In the third season of ''[[
* In the ''[[Men in Black (animation)|Men in Black]]'' cartoon, the agents often create clones of themselves to act as decoys, which have a very limited lifespan, dissolving into goo after a few hours. They don't seem all-too upset about it.
* Parodied in the Season Two opener of ''[[
** Although it is implicitly played straight. If Orpheus' trip to the nether in an attempt to resurrect {{spoiler|the Venture Brothers}} is any indication, then Dr. Venture's cloning experiments rendered {{spoiler|the Venture Brothers soulless casks of themselves, since Orpheus is unable to find their spirits therein.}}
** {{spoiler|Their souls were located inside the learning machine; their souls just hadn't been transferred to their bodies yet.}}
* One episode of ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* In ''[[
* Many people may have forgotten, but the AndrAIa who appears in all episodes of ''[[
** There is also a clone of Enzo due to a system restore, and a clone of Bob due to {{spoiler|Megabyte stealing Bob's code}}. Surprisingly enough, the clone of Enzo doesn't have the "I am not real" complex most clones have. Everyone just treats him like the original Enzo's younger brother, which is fair thanks to the original's [[Time Skip]]. Original Bob on the other hand, starts to think ''he'' is the clone, until the clone is revealed to be {{spoiler|Megabyte}}.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Carl Squared]]'', C2 has a significantly different personality from Carl. C2 also 5% DNA from car's dog Rex, which causes him to catch frisbees in his mouth and scratch behind his ear with his foot.
* Jim Gaffigan and Conan O'Brian's animated short series ''Pale Force'' has an episode where NBC president Jeff Zucker attempts to clone Conan several times, with several unintended side effects. One clone is a human fly, one is hideously mutated, and one even has breasts. The supposedly "perfect" clone, called "Clonan O'Brian" has a desire for human flesh.
Line 387 ⟶ 393:
* The chief ability of ''[[Captain Scarlet]]'' villains The Mysterons was to kill and recreate people and objects so that the copies were under their control. However, a building collapse/[[Lightning Can Do Anything|electric shock]] plus some [[Heroic Willpower]] might just get you your man back.
* ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' had an episode where Jimmy makes several imperfect copies of himself thanks to his lackluster use of [[Mad Scientist|Heloise's]] machine. Near the end, Jimmy dumps them all in the ocean.
* ''[[Star Trek:
* BitchStewie and BitchBrian in ''[[
** And Stewie's evil clone.
* On ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
* [[Superboy]] in ''[[Young Justice (
** Interestingly, Superman currently uses this as a rationalization why he shouldn't mentor
** By the end of the first season, {{spoiler|Roy Harper/Red Arrow. The one we've been following throughout the show was revealed to be a clone from Cadmus, while the real Roy was put in stasis for three years. He does not take the news about his true nature, along with being an unwilling traitor, very well.}}
* On ''[[
* Both this and the [[Cloning Gambit]] are taken to [[Up to Eleven|their logical conclusions]] in ''[[Rick and Morty]]'' episode "Mortyplicity" - Rick even refers to the other Ricks' discovery of their decoy nature (including creating decoys of their own) as an "Asimov Cascade".
== Real Life ==
* A different kind of Cloning Blues occurs in [[Real Life]], with creatures that reproduce
* Most fruit bought in today's grocery stores are in fact clones, a practice much simpler than "cloning" depicted on TV and a practice that goes all the way back to ancient
** Some cultivars have had mutations in their
** This is a common practice with fruit trees as well. In the Yakima Valley in Washington State, USA, where most of the country's apples are grown, it would be difficult to find an orchard tree whose seeds had the same genetics as its root cells.
** [http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq5250.html Pygmy Sundews], a type of Carnivorous Plant, take this one stage further. They grow a special type of growth called a "gemmae"
** Seedless grapes and domestic bananas are in fact no longer able to reproduce sexually, having adapted to being cloned by humans instead. Going back to the original point that spawned all this talk of cloned plants, one strain of banana was made completely extinct about a century ago due to a parasite that evolved to only feed on that strain. The most common variety of banana nowadays is at risk of the same fate. There are no reports of wild bananas having this trouble.
** By default any seedless variety of fruit is a clone of the original mutation, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted past one generation
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Acting for Two]]▼
[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]
[[Category:Artistic License Biology]]▼
[[Category:Make My Index Live]]▼
[[Category:Our Clones Are Identical]]▼
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Our Clones Are Identical]]
▲[[Category:Make My Index Live]]
▲[[Category:Acting for Two]]
▲[[Category:Artistic License Biology]]
[[Category:You Hate What You Are]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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