Cloning & Personal Duplication
Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical or virtually identical DNA, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction. In the field of biotechnology, cloning is the process of creating cloned organisms (copies) of cells and of DNA fragments (molecular cloning). While rare, several Neohumans have also demonstrated the ability to replicate or generate clones of themselves through the use of type of Duplication manifestation. There are also some known, although extremely complex and rare, magical means of creating clones or duplicates.
While the science of cloning technologies is still limited to non-sapient animals and plants by law and social understanding, the development of Neohuman expressions that can generate identical clones has led to some changes in laws and regulations around personal identity, as well as various forms of security. Under international agreement, the genetic code of an individual defines them as unique and any actions taken by an individual that is indistinguishable by another individual, both individuals are considered legally the same and are responsible for any activities they take, even if there are multiple copies of "them" running around. It is fortunate that duplication or self-cloning is a rarity. Some of the most famous cloning Neohumans would be the sometimes hero in the US Ranken File and the French superhero Bourgeoisie.
There are some known magical means of creating simulacrums and humunculi that are superficially similar, if not identical, to the subject, however these kind of magical constructs are only able exist for a limited period of time. There have always been rumors of grand wizards or avatars of extradimensional entities that can magically clone themselves or others on a permanent basis, but if this is truly possible it is very closely held secret knowledge. There are known extradimensional powers, such as the Council of Order and Chaos Knight-Lords or other Greater Outer Occult Personas, that can produce permanent magical replicas of people, but the occurances of these are vanishingly rare and typically only occur during truly earth shattering events.
Access & Availability
Cloning of non-sapient pets is available to anyone as a commercial service, although the process is prohibatively expensive. The same process is also used for some factory farming applications, although the scale of such operations brings the cost down to something that is occasionally commercially viable. Plant cloning is a common and prolific practice among plant growers of all stripes.
Cloning of sapient individuals is prohibited by international law, with exceptions carved out for self-replication via Neohuman expression. Magical cloning, like most magic, is not legally forbidden due to the difficulty of being able to concretely pair the magical act to the potential outcome, but if fortunately rare enough that it has not been a major issue. Many legal experts believe that it would fall under the same legal structures for Neohuman self-cloning.
It is worth noting that those Exos who have been asked about it report that even in significantly more technologically advanced cultures, cloning is a rarity and has the same kind of legal complications and implications there as well. The most significant exception to this would be the Pendraxian Judicar Legion, whose interstellar law enforcement agency is staffed primarily by clones of Judicar Ultimax.
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