Cloning/Legends



"Clones can think creatively. You will find that they are immensely superior to droids."

- Lama Su

Cloning was the process of creating a genetically identical or purposefully and specifically modified copy of an original organism.

Overview
"With the same genetic structure plus a flash-learning pattern taken directly from the template, a clone should theoretically be completely identical to the original person. But despite that, they're never exactly the same. Maybe some of the mental subtleties get blurred over in transition, or maybe there's something else unique inside us that a flash-learning reader isn't able to pick up."

- Luke Skywalker, to Mara Jade

In order to create a clone, a sample of a subject's cells were taken and its genetic code was duplicated. This in turn was implanted into a cell where it was allowed to grow and develop into an exact duplicate of the cell donor. An important aspect of this process was the use of vats for the clone to gestate which was artificial wombs that were filled with nutrients as well as organic catalysts. One of the reasons for this was to prevent any external influence from interfering in the growth of the developing clone. It was possible to alter the attributes of a clone's physical appearance by varying the intake of the nutrients into the vat and by altering the catalyst solution. This equally allowed for individuals to accelerate the cloning process by many times the normal rate. At its peak, this allowed for a fully formed adult clone body being produced in a matter of weeks. However, one of the problems with this forced acceleration was the fact that these clones were often mentally unstable. Many theories were postulated as to why this was the case with some believing that the cloning process interfered with the normal natural life forces. There were some methods used to prevent this clone madness from occurring during mass cloning processes. The genetic material was required from an organic subject and were typically referred to as a Prime clone. Through this template, it was possible through a number of different techniques to create an exact physical replica of the subject. The process was capable of being used to create only a single copy or multiple ones. Furthermore, genetic engineering was capable of further altering the subject to either improve different traits. Though mass cloning was useful, another noted problem with this technique on a larger scale was the fact that the individual clones lacked the personality of the original. As such, they often needed to be taught from scratch as environment proved to be an important factor in an individual's development. This meant that while clones were genetically similar to their donor, they were capable of diverging from their personality and even developing distinct identities of their own. A long standing argument in regards to cloning in addition to flash memory was whether the clone retained the thoughts, memories and thinking of its prime clone. Some believed, that in theory, the clone was identical to the original while others argued that experiences as well as perceptions differed amongst the clones.

Aside from these forms of cloning, other methods were used across the galaxy. Some cultures fully embraced the possibilities of cloning, most notably the natives of Khomm, who engineered a clone society, entirely eliminating natural reproduction. Khommite clones from the Dorsk lineage were active in the New Jedi Order.

Notable races that made use of cloning technology include:
 * Kaminoans
 * Polis Massans
 * Khommites
 * Ithorians
 * Lurrians
 * Verpine
 * Columi
 * Yuuzhan Vong
 * Arkanian Micro

Early development
"What can you teach a clone in a few months that a man takes a lifetime to learn?"

- Emperor Palpatine to Darth Vader



The art of cloning technology was developed by a number of civilizations in the galaxy. Some noted species that possessed the technology included the inhabitants of the worlds of Khomm, Lur, Ithor, Columus, as well as Arkania. One of the more infamous species to possess a great deal of knowledge of cloning were the cloners of the planet Kamino who were renowned for their skill in the field. The Kaminoans later taught their skill in cloning to the inhabitants of Polis Massa who used it to help develop an advanced medical and genetic research station on their homeworld. The insectoid Verpines of the Roche asteroid field also made use of cloning to propagate their worker castes.

One of the largest acts of cloning was conducted by the Kaminoans, the race of clone experts that was responsible for the creation of several billion clone troopers from the DNA of bounty hunter Jango Fett that comprised the Grand Army of the Republic, prior to and during the Clone Wars. Maintaining a vast facility within Tipoca City, the soldiers were grown within cloning chambers and trained at the city's Military Complex. The first attempt to replicate Jango Fett resulted in twelve prototype clones, known as the Null-class Advanced Recon Commandos, and were the subject of the Kaminoans' attempts to enhance Fett's genome. While the clones would possess photographic memory and perfect recall, and substantially bulkier frames as adults, half of the twelve did not survive the gestation period and the six who did were deemed uncontrollable by their creators. But at the behest of Cuy'val Dar sergeant Kal Skirata, the clones were ultimately spared from being reconditioned—a fate which in this case would mean death. Noting their perceived failure, the Kaminoans would go on to create one hundred Alpha-class Advanced Recon Commandos who possessed the exact same genetic makeup as Fett without any modifications except age acceleration. In addition, they also took DNA samples from Jedi Knight Falon Grey which they used to create twin Force-sensitive clones called X1 and X2.

The standard troopers, though, were genetically altered to be more docile and susceptible to obeying orders than their genetic template, supplemented by rigorous behavior modifications to instill absolute loyalty to the Galactic Republic. In order to grow fully matured clones in half of the time it takes ordinary Humans, the Kaminoans modified the clones by implementing "age acceleration" into their development, thus allowing the clones to reach adulthood in ten years instead of two decades. Although the exact rate at which clones aged is unknown, it appears to be nearly twice as fast a natural-born Human and it is theorized that this rate increased as clones grew older&mdash;especially under stress, thus leading to a dramatic shortening of the clones' life expectancy. Despite these modifications, the clone troopers could still think and act creatively and possessed a level of individuality that their Kaminoan creators did not anticipate.

By the second year of the Clone Wars, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine had established a secondary cloning facility in secret on Coruscant's moon, Centax-2. Under the supervision of an unknown clonemaster, the facility was operated by Arkanian Microtechnologies and used Spaarti cloning cylinders to produce fully matured clones within a year. Hence, the clones from Kamino were supplemented by billions of clones that were roughly a year old and instructed through flash training. But with only a year to grow the clones and prepare them for war, the fighting ability of Spaarti-grown clones was noticeably lower than their counterparts from Kamino. Thus, the overall result of Spaarti technology led to clones with underdeveloped combat and marksmanship skills, including a heavily diminished sense of individuality and self-preservation.

Aside from Jango Fett's considerable price to become the clone template, Fett also requested an unaltered clone for himself. Jango regarded the clone as his son and legacy, thus naming him Boba Fett. As per Jango's terms, Boba's genetic structure was not tampered with age acceleration or increased docility programming, essentially making him an exact physical duplicate of his father. Despite receiving none of the modifications that his clone "brothers" possessed, Boba would still experience the degradation of his DNA later in life due to the fact that he was a clone. At some point during the Clone Wars, Zeltron bounty hunter Vianna D'Pow followed Jango's example and commissioned the Kaminoans to create a single clone of herself.

Although the Clone Army was evidently a significant advantage to the Republic, which had lacked a proper military force for over a millennium, it was also recognized that clone soldiers could be one of the greatest threats to the Republic if they were not created strictly under Republic supervision. Hence, the Galactic Senate issued Decree E49D139.41 near the end of the Clone Wars, thus confining all military-purpose cloning to specifically licensed Republic facilities and banning all non-military cloning of sentients with the exception of the medical cloning on Khomm, Lur, Columus, and Arkania, although even they required a license and a case-by-case evaluation. The ban also prohibited the sale of cloning equipment, the hiring of cloning or genetic engineers with the intention of cloning, and the purchase of any cloned sentients.

The Separatists also attempted to create their own army of clone soldiers to counter the Grand Army of the Republic, to which they selected the Nikto Morgukai known as Bok as a clone template. Thus, the Morgukai Shadow Army was created on the Outer Rim world of Saleucami, presumably grown from Spaarti cylinders, trained by Anzati assassins, and programmed with unconditional loyalty to the Confederacy of Independent Systems. They would never make it off-planet, however, as the facility was destroyed following the Siege of Saleucami.

Reign of the Empire
With the rise of the Galactic Empire, there were strict laws placed on cloning technology which led to attempts at seizing the technology from civilizations. This included an attempt to confiscate agricultural as well as cloning technology from the Ithorians which led to an Imperial attack. Later, Momaw Nadon used his knowledge of cloning to create a clone of Captain Alima after the Imperial Prefect was killed and Nadon decided to obey the Ithorian Law of Life where he created a clone replica of the Imperial officer.

The newly rechristened Imperial Army particularly the Stormtrooper Corps began to have clones made from several other genetic templates following a revolt on Kamino in which they unleashed a secret army of Fett clones trained to combat the Empire. However, Emperor Palpatine felt that genetically identical soldiers were too susceptible to corruption and thus the army became more rapidly diverse. Among the new additions were clones of Emperor's Hand Sa Cuis, General Maximilian Veers, and later Baron Soontir Fel. By 9 BBY, the Stormtrooper Corps ceased using exclusively clone stormtroopers and they were joined in service by birth-born recruits and conscripts. Spaarti cylinders would remain the preferred method of cloning for the Empire even after Palpatine's death.

Following the death of Galen Marek, Darth Vader endeavored to recreate his former Sith apprentice via cloning technology. To that end, Marek's body was brought to Timira City on Kamino to be the genetic template for a single clone that would take Marek's place as Vader's disciple. In order for Vader to avoid taking the time required to train a new Starkiller all over again, the cloning process included certain modifications that would allow him to mentor the clone in considerably less time than it took to train the original. These modifications included age acceleration, so that the clone would reach Marek's age at the time of his death in less than a year, and memory flashes of Marek's experiences in order to pass on the original apprentice's fighting skills and Force powers to his duplicate.

But the accelerated cloning process was initially imperfect and began as a "crash and burn" procedure. The first wave of clones were aberrant replicas, both physically deformed and mentally deranged. The process eventually became more stable, but each version of Marek was constantly haunted by memories of a life they never lived and thus failed to meet Vader's expectations. After many errors, one clone was able to endure Vader's training program long enough for the Sith Lord to hope that this version would be the final result of the entire project. But like his clone "brothers", this version was also confused by visions of a past that was not his, which Vader dismissed as a dead man's memories and a side effect of the cloning procedure. But the clone was ultimately unable to free himself from Marek's memories, especially his emotions and affection for the woman who was largely responsible for Marek's rejection of the dark side before his death. He then left Vader and escaped from Kamino in order to find her.

Around this time, however, Vader perfected the cloning process by creating a clone that surpassed all of the other failed replicas that came before him. Although he was also disturbed by the same memories of Marek's life and his feelings for Juno Eclipse, this clone was determined to succeed where the others had failed. As his training progressed, the clone was began to compartmentalize Marek's memories and was able to hold them as separate from his own experiences. By freeing himself from Marek's memories and having come to despise his progenitor as a "broken man" brought down by his own weaknesses, the clone was granted access to the dead body that served as his template. By viewing the original Starkiller, the clone had come to realize that the cloning process had ended with him; he was the only perfect clone of Starkiller who Vader sought to have as his Sith apprentice.

In 1 ABY, cloning technology was discovered in the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. Similar to Spaarti cylinders in that they produced mature clones in a very short period of time, the cloning tanks were tended to completely by droids. The facility appeared to indiscriminately clone any being who entered it, collecting genetic material and even scanning the minds of those beings so that the clones could be implanted with memories. As a result, the clones were completely under the illusion that they were the individuals that they had been cloned from. The exact purpose behind this facility was not discovered. Darth Vader himself came to believe the technology found was what remained of research done by the ancient Jedi into cloning, however, it is unknown if there is any truth to this.

Palpatine also made several clones of himself that his spirit possessed after he was killed on the second Death Star. Before that, his clones were ravaged by the dark side and not the nurturing power of the Force. Each clone would age and die more quickly than the last. It wasn't until his plunge into the Death Star core that he enters energy state and emerged into another body. Four years later, during Operation Shadow Hand, Luke made attempts to destroy Palpatine's clones, but only one remained until destroyed at Pinnacle Base. But there was an auxiliary facility, which dark side adepts attempted to kill, again, leaving only one.

Post Endor Period
The last Grand Admiral Thrawn rediscovered stockpiles of Imperial cloning technology at Mount Tantiss on Wayland that consisted of Spaarti cloning cylinders and used them as part of his campaign against the fledgling New Republic. This led to the Thrawn campaign where he used the technology to create armies of soldiers to fight the Republic. In addition to this, the Chiss Grand Admiral attempted creating potent soldiers for his forces which initially led to the creation of a clone of Grodin Tierce in order to merge an excellent physical specimen with Thrawn's own tactical brilliance. However, the experiment was a failure leading to only the creation of a intelligent soldier. In addition, Thrawn also secreted a hidden clone of himself placed in a secure region in the Hand of Thrawn on Nirauan. He placed a timer on the mechanism to realize the clone in a ten year timeframe and placed a flash learning program designed to impart his own thoughts into the clone thus giving him the opportunity to be reborn in case he died in battle. During the Thrawn Crisis, Joruus C'baoth cloned Luke Skywalker using the hand Luke had lost on Cloud City. The clone was named Luuke Skywalker and was armed with Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber.

In addition to cloning Tierce and Skywalker, Thrawn also experimented with cloning several Force-users whose DNA was available to Palpatine's Empire. This group of clones were developed and raised by Empire of the Hand scientists on a Frozen moon in the Unknown Regions, and rebelled against their creators. They remained isolated until Jedi Knight Jaden Korr was drawn to the moon. Korr killed Alpha, a mentally unstable clone of Kam Solusar, but the remaining clones and their children escaped the moon. The escaped clones may have been cloned from Mara Jade, Lassin, Lumiya, or other force users known to the Galactic Empire.

Shortly after the crisis, the reborn Palpatine staged his return on the planet Byss where he attempted to destroy the New Republic. However, he faced problems as each of his clone bodies began to decay slowly after they were decanted. In addition, the Master Cloner was involved in an Imperial conspiracy orchestrated by Carnor Jax and his fellows to sabotage the cloning tanks used by the Emperor thus ending Palpatine's return. At the time of the Caamas Document Crisis, Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade discovered the hidden clone of Thrawn that was approaching maturation. However, the clone was killed during a flooding of the hidden chamber it was located in thus preventing his rebirth.

Ysanne Isard also produced a clone through unknown measures. She did this in order to be able to supervise the Lusankya prisoners herself and to be able to continue her leadership over Thyferra. The characteristic "pressure" caused by having a clone grown too rapidly may have contributed to her declining mental stability during the waning days of the Bacta War. Later, Grappa the Hutt along with the Black Sun created a clone of Feena D'Asta in order to influence the politics of the Imperial Ruling Council. During the long conflicts with the Empire, many of the Imperial cloning facilities were destroyed which brought about a slow extinction of the Stormtrooper Corp and nearly brought about an end to their reign in the galaxy.

Later, during the Yuuzhan Vong War, the extragalactic invaders created Jedi killer beasts known as Voxyn and mass produced the creatures through cloning. The production of the creatures was conducted on a Worldship in orbit around Myrkr but was destroyed by the Jedi Myrkr strike team thus destroying the prime clone and ending any attempts at propagating the beasts.

By the time of the Second Galactic Civil War, much of the Kaminoan information had dispersed by the defections of scientists such as Taun We who fled to Arkanian Microtechnologies where they continued research on cloning.

Appearances
{{Scroll box|


 * Star Wars: Battlefront
 * Star Wars: Republic Commando
 * Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
 * {{TCW|Senate Murders}} {{Flash}}
 * {{TCW|Clone Cadets}}
 * {{TCW|ARC Troopers}}
 * Star Wars: Battlefront II
 * Star Wars: Republic: The Siege of Saleucami
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * ''Republic Commando: Triple Zero
 * ''Republic Commando: True Colors
 * Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel
 * In His Image
 * {{InsiderCite|85|Two-Edged Sword}} {{Mo}}
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope {{Ret}} {{C|First mentioned}}
 * Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
 * {{SWG|An Empire Divided}}
 * Star Wars: Rebellion {{Mo}}
 * Galaxy of Fear: Clones
 * Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine {{Mo}}
 * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back {{Ret}}
 * Of Possible Futures: The Tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM {{Mo}}
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi {{Ret}}
 * X-wing: Rogue Squadron {{Mo}}
 * Heir to the Empire {{C|First appearance before being retconned}}
 * Dark Force Rising
 * The Last Command
 * Dark Empire
 * Dark Empire II
 * Empire's End
 * Specter of the Past
 * Vision of the Future
 * Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial {{Mo}}
 * Star by Star
 * Bloodlines

Non-canonical appearances
}}
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
 * LEGO Star Wars: Revenge of the Brick

Notes and references
Kloning Klon Clonación Klon Клонирование Kloonaus