These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE Fiction

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Question regarding Clones
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Takashi Rintarou
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2015-07-28 19:23:52 UTC
Alright, so obviously this couldn't happen in-game, but, presuming all the subtleties of the books. (To be specific, I thought of the idea when thinking of the Broker. I have not finished the books, so it's possible it explains exactly how and I don't know simply because I haven't read that part yet.)

What precisely distinguishes one person's clone from another's? That is, how is say, Anthony's clone separated from Joe's clone? Clearly when the pod is breached a certain data code would have to be sent from the pod as a last resort, we already know this. This data code includes all memories of the capsuleer, plus (presumably) an access code which the computer would reference to figure whose clone it was, and implant the memories in the correct new body.

Say that someone sabotaged this code and hacked their own pod to transmit this access code instead of their normal access code.
Anthony is a high-ranking official
Joe is an outlaw.

For the sake of argument, let's say Joe somehow got ahold of Anthony's access code and then proceeded to hack his pod to transmit that and podded himself. Would he wake up with his memories in Anthony's body? Or would the difference in genetics between them cause the mind and body not to "merge", so the transfer would either not go through, or drive him senile?

Obviously, you'd have to permanently kill or detain the real Anthony such that he doesn't speak up about this, but this goes beyond my question.

Likewise, would it be a bigger problem (that is regarding the mind and body "merging") if the two were of different genders? (As I recall, the Broker did this once, but I don't remember for sure)


If this is a stupid question with an answer that everyone and their dog already knows feel free to call me out on it, I'm still a noob in some parts of the lore.
Esna Pitoojee
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#2 - 2015-07-28 20:05:01 UTC
First off: The Broker, as depicted in the novels, is a unique case. To date, he remains the only instance of someone able to freely jump from body to body at speed with no repercussions. Other instances appear to have taken considerable amounts of preparation, possibly including modifying the 'host' body to receive a different mind.

Now, regarding your main question:

I would expect that attempting a straight transfer of a scan to an un-prepared body would result in the newly-cloned person being a drooling moron at best, more realistically utterly brain-dead (or possibly just dead). No two brains are exactly alike, and trying to shove one mind into another brain would be a classic case of square peg, round hole. Incidentally, this is roughly what used to happen with sub-grade clones - when you died without a proper grade clone prepared, you'd lose SP and, in lore terms, suffer some mental damage.

With a little more preparation, however, it is possible to transfer a consciousness into a body that superficially looks like someone else entirely, but is set up to accept another mind. This occurs in the chronicle "One Man Too Many", where an assassin tries to disguise himself with another man's clone.
Yockerbow
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2015-08-02 07:23:07 UTC
Esna Pitoojee wrote:
First off: The Broker, as depicted in the novels, is a unique case. To date, he remains the only instance of someone able to freely jump from body to body at speed with no repercussions. Other instances appear to have taken considerable amounts of preparation, possibly including modifying the 'host' body to receive a different mind.


I might be reading this too broadly - it seems to me that the Broker is the only one to jump between non-identical bodies at speed. This might be what you meant, but at first reading it looks like you mean any sort of jumping.

The Chronicle you linked specifically mentions the main character performing multiple clone jumps per day. In his case, though, the clones would presumably all be faithful replicas.
Esna Pitoojee
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#4 - 2015-08-02 14:27:27 UTC
Ah, yes - my apologies on the confusing language.

I did mean that the Broker is the only one to jump to and from different bodies without significant preparation. Additionally - from my admittedly hazy memory - Empyrean Age has him doing this without any significant equipment, which puts him apart from other cloning systems of the time (where the scanner requires bulky equipment).
Saede Riordan
Alexylva Paradox
#5 - 2015-08-02 17:00:17 UTC
I'm not sure if I'd call anything the broker does/did as 'lacking significant preparation' he's supposed to be this mastermind chessmaster character whose pulling all the strings behind the scenes. It would seem to me that he probably does have quite a lot of equipment.

Fear and Loathing in Internet Spaceships
Yockerbow
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2015-08-03 05:29:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Yockerbow
Esna Pitoojee wrote:
Ah, yes - my apologies on the confusing language.

I did mean that the Broker is the only one to jump to and from different bodies without significant preparation. Additionally - from my admittedly hazy memory - Empyrean Age has him doing this without any significant equipment, which puts him apart from other cloning systems of the time (where the scanner requires bulky equipment).


Actually, in retrospect, his transfer behavior was much more like that of the Templar soldiers than that of capsuleers. It's been years since I read Empyrian Age, but I also don't remember there ever being much of a body left behind from his various deaths - one would have been destroyed in the Nyx crash, one was destroyed by jumping into molten metal, and a third was found more or less liquefied when he couldn't get Vitoc.

Perhaps he was a Sleeper agent himself, or had gotten access to the same sort of tech through another group (SoCT maybe)? Their style of implant and transfer fits his behavior much better, and there wasn't any anatomy left to discover aberrant cerebral structure if it was present.

Actually that just spun off another idea in my head - Templar One ended with rogue drones finding the Broker's "headquarters", if I remember correctly. Combine that with the Chronicle Postnatal and maybe you've got a start on the origin of the Drifters?

If this has been covered elsewhere, sorry. I've been out of the loop on EVE lore for quite a while.
Esna Pitoojee
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#7 - 2015-08-03 16:10:05 UTC
Yeah, that's why I specified that it was apart from other cloning systems "of the time" - his shenanigans significantly predated the opening of the wormholes to sleeper space and the development of the Templar-type clones.
Jardok Akari
Sleep Deprivation Service
Sleep Reapers
#8 - 2015-08-06 11:08:26 UTC
From my understanding you need a clone of your own body to jump into, since it's your brain, and you're just transferring your consciousness at time of death. If you could shove your brain in another clone, I suppose it would work. Otherwise it's a case of mismatching pegs, as described earlier.

With regards to the broker, I was under the impression that he just used technology that simulated a different appearance (similar to what Aritzio Kor-Azor uses in the chronicle "The Part Where I Play the Devil") as opposed to an entirely different clone. Perhaps clones are used in the process, but not in the capsuleer sense.