EVE Fiction

The point on capsuleers being on capsules is that:
1. You can command your ship way more fficiently thanks to being integrated with the hardware itself.
2. If you die, your consciousness is automatically sent to the new clone in a safe station.

While DUST soldiers would be (in theory) able to command a ship, they would not be neraly as good as a capsuleer pilot (we are talking about advancements in commanding capabilities that make 'mortal' captains shiver in fear).
Also, while a killed DUST captain would be able to transfer his consciousness to a new clone, there's a big problem in your scheme: Capsules are prepared to send the information upon destruction, not to recive it and implant it in the body they are holding. Only stations with enough infrastructure can do that.

Devs have stated that DUST cloning implants are incompatible with capsule "flash cloning" technology. In theory a capsuleer might be able to abandon their capsuleer career and swap over entirely to DUST implants, but this would be a lengthy and difficult process, not something you could dynamically swap between in the midst of an ongoing fight.

Okay, incompatible how? Keep in mind only the bridge clone would have the implants. So in the case of consecutive death, it would be two completely different cloning techniques. This is all assuming of course the mind of the capsuleer could do this without turning into jelly..

I completely understand why you wouldnt be able to put a dust merc in a pod, However this isnt like that. The only thing that the clones would have in common would be the consciousness of the pilot, which both should handle just fine. So, the only thing that could be "incompatible" would be the actual transfer from bridge to pod. But it seems to me like it isnt something that couldnt be worked around..

Maybe im just kicking a dead horse here, but essentially "No, Becuase you can't" wasnt really what i was going for.
Perhaps I should have gone with "under what possible circumstances would this work?" as my OP..

Really? Interesting, can I get links? I figured that's how they would solve the WiS mortality issue...

I believe In the book Empyrian Age, one of the Character's was able to get out of his Pod while in space.
If my memory serves me, the ship had a modified Pod Gantry built into the ship so he could get out and perform experiments.

Correct. He was the only crew of his ship, thou.

To cut a long story short, this wouldn't be feasable.

If we break cloning down it basically fits into three separate, distinct categories :

Standard cloning :

Anyone with the money to afford it can do this, and have a replica grown and a neural backup of themselves stored. A lot of famous people, people with insane wealth, political figures and suchlike do this, effectively like life insurance. Some Capsuleers also do this as a fail safe in case of capsule hardware failure or death out of pod.

Regardless, this has the disadvantage of amnesia that reaches from the point of death back as far as the last memory imprint stores up to, so fairly regular neural scanning to keep the records up to date is required. The soft scanning process is also far more lengthy, lasting up to an hour and way more inefficient in terms of time commitment.

Capsuleer cloning :

The cloning we're all familiar with. Automated neural burning, then the injection of a nanotoxin to effectively euthanize the pilot on breach of the capsule's hull. The technology only went into full scale commercial use in 104-105YC after decades of testing and the final success of merging the capsule and the clone.

Before then, Capsuleers used to fly ships the same, via neural control with all the benefits of reaction time, but no neural burning equipment, effectively still leaving them "mortal".

The technique in use today involves basically the same process as standard cloning above in terms of mind scanning, but the scan takes a nanosecond and records the state of every neuron in the brain. The process is destructive, and causes damage to brain tissue, thus the nanotoxin is used to effectively kill the pilot.

From here the data is uploaded via burst transmission to the pilot's registered cloning facility, then parsed to the memory of the new clone where the pilot awake with his memory right up to the point of death, probably annoyed with himself, other people, and with a considerable dent in his bank balance.

DUST Cloning :

This uses a "Fifth lobe" cerebral implant that allows the instant transfer of consciousness at the moment of death, and is a vastly different technology to that used by capsuleers. The implant is not naturally grown, it's harvested from... other means... and is implanted into the subject to be cloned. In short, like becoming a capsuleer, the success margin for this is VERY small, and you have to be very lucky and genetically sound to be able to survive the process.

Right now, we can't talk much about the backstory as a lot of it is still under wraps.


In the same respect, there are CONCORD laws that are enforced very vigorously regarding the activation of more than one clone of an individual at the same time to prevent "Clonejacking". Only one person has ever been successful at this, The Broker, who subsequently developed all kinds of physical and mental issues due to it.

There are several chronicles that detail the cloning process, clonejacking, and the laws surrounding it. You should check them out on the EVE Wiki

If you want to get technical we retconned out the official references to that on the wiki articles.

It was also used (or at least, the use of such was very heavily implied) by Hilen Tukoss during the Arek'jalaan arc.