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Science fiction is more of an art form than a genre, stretched across every possible medium and expanded by the most creative minds in human history. One of the strangest things about the genre is the way in which multiple creators find themselves imagining the future and wind up agreeing on similar outcomes.

Cloning is an interesting sci-fi concept because it's essentially biological. Unlike many other tropes of the genre, it's based on the reproduction capabilities of real organisms. Sci-fi stories about cloning ask what would happen if science could allow humanity to replicate itself in much the same way as the marbled crayfish. These stories often feature a few interesting tropes that seem to reoccur across the decades.

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The Doppelgänger

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Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1846 novella The Double told the brief tale of a man who wakes up one morning to discover a man who looks just like him living his life much better than he can. That story isn't science fiction, there's no explanation for the duplicate, but it did set a tone for one of the big subgenres of clone sci-fi. The idea of a lab-grown facsimile of the main character replacing and perfecting their life is simultaneously horrific and life-affirming. What would a physically identical person need to do to fully replace a human being? Could they succeed where their muse has failed? If they can, what does it say about the nature of the soul?

"Be Right Back" is the second season premiere of Charlie Brooker's seminal anthology Black Mirror. Like most episodes, the story follows the personal impact of a single technological innovation, in this case, AI replicants of deceased loved ones. In that story, the clone is a coping mechanism, a sad replacement for a woman who is wracked with grief after the loss of her boyfriend. She finds the replacement to be perfect, but, its perfection unnerves her, so she locks it away. Conversely, Riley Stearns' 2022 film Dual sees a woman replaced by a clone after a terminal diagnosis. After her miraculous recovery, she must do battle with her perfect facsimile to claim her place in her own life. This idea is incredibly common but remains a fascinating way to attack themes of identity and self-actualization.

The Expendables

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The unfortunate fate of so many sci-fi clones is slavery. Mass cloning is rarely undertaken for positive reasons. Corporate oligopoly, authoritarian governments, or well-meaning leadership creates countless clones in vats for whatever dull repetitive task needs doing. Clones often serve as stand-ins for real-world social underclasses, illustrating their suffering in stark terms and proclaiming the future as only utopian for some. One of the first examples of this trope came in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in which all those beneath the top two social castes are scientifically cloned en masse. These cloned beings are rendered less mentally capable, prepping them for an unfulfilling life entirely dedicated to a menial task.

Clones are typically sapient beings, but the fact that they were made, rather than born, gives them a reduced value in the eyes of many. The moral question of their belonging is the primary theme of these narratives. Sometimes clones are vat-grown to serve as fodder in a military unit, such as the iconic Clone Army in the Star Wars franchise. Some clones are attempts to recapture or immortalize a legendary figure, such as the Metal Gear franchise's Les Enfants Terribles program that resulted in the birth of Solid Snake. In the most unsavory cases, clones are used as a living source of replacement organs for transplants, such as in Michael Bay's The Island or Parts: The Clonus Horror, the 1979 film Bay ripped off. This unpleasant cruelty demands the audience ask whether a clone is worth less than a traditional human being, often through the direst of circumstances.

Not Identical After All

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When one pictures a clone, the Platonic ideal has become the clone soldiers of the Star Wars franchise. The original 1977 film briefly mentions the Clone Wars, which have now been depicted as a full event. The Clone Army is an enormous military force composed entirely of lab-grown facsimiles of idolized super-soldier Jango Fett. While in their first few appearances, their identical nature makes them slightly disposable characters, The Clone Wars animated series makes the clones into individual characters. The most interesting clone stories make their clones into multiple unique characters, eschewing their identical circumstances to allow them to grow and change.

The central theme of the concept of cloning is identity. Could someone else occupy an identity they weren't born with? Could beings crafted with the express purpose of slaving away in the mines or dying on the battlefield have an identity of their own? The clone is a powerful storytelling device, while also being an interesting way to interrogate one of sci-fi's most moving central questions.

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