The Return of Cloning

[Butterrobber202]

Cloning has seen lore modification since it was last present on the Aurora's Map, and accessible to crew. I believe with the ongoing transition into NBT, it is a good time to brooch the topic of cloning again before everything is finalized. I'm going to give my basic idea on how cloning would return, and why it makes sense for it to do so.

Why add it back?

Before I jump into reasons for, let's go over why cloning was removed in the first place. The main issue was game impact, an antagonist could kill five security members and have those same members chasing them down in a matter of twenty minutes. It removed any emotional, mechanical, or lore impact death could have on any round, be it another antag round or a heart breaking accident on extended. Cloning's removal for those reasons was completely justified. 

Now, why bring it back? For the very same reason, impact. This time, specifically lore impact this go around. In NBT, our Ship will be removed from the support systems that exist for a stationary installation such as the NSS Aurora. The Ship must be far more self-reliant for extended periods of time to continue it's operations without interruption. One of the vital resources of our ship will be the personnel that staff it. An empty ship is a derelict junk heap. But, we must consider that cloning is uber expensive and time consuming. Not to mention, Zeng-Hu owns an effective monopoly on it.  Meaning, we can't bring every Joe Smo who dies back to life.

Our ship is the result of a collaborative effort on part of the members of the SCC, just as surely as Zavodskoi Weapons mount the exterior of our ship, so will Zeng-Hu Technology form the backbone of the medical bay. With this in mind, it makes sense that Zeng-Hu would choose to equip the Aurora-Ship with a Cloning Bay. It also make sense that only critical personnel that are too valuable to lose receive the privilege of being cloned. Namely, Command Members or other VIPs. This would effectively serve as Zeng-Hu's biggest contribution to the cause, allowing even other Megacorp's Command this benefit. 

How do we add it back?

With all that in mind, allow me to get down and dirty on how this would work.

Prerequisite to being Cloned:

1.) Command Member
2.) VIPs (Liaison, Consular (if they still exist after NBT idk), etc.) 

Why?

Because due to the cloning updates within the Lore, cloning takes a few appointments before dying to get the scan right, so we can't really just "scan and go" as we once did. Not to mention, even this appointments are stupid expensive, so unless you want to exhaust your life savings for it, just move on to the afterlife you little poor, exploited worker. Additionally, the crew will obviously find out and know that command gets a "get out of jail free" card, and thus, will lean into the themes of income equality in the Auroraverse and push us ever further into a class war.
 

Getting Cloned:

1.) You're alive!

2.)* You suffer from near permanent 0 stamina. (Muscle Atrophy) 

3.)* You can't hold large items. (More Muscle Atrophy)
4.)* Random Short-Term Memory loss, similar to how brain damage will give you "Where am I..?" messages. (Mental Damage)

5.) Recovery takes a few weeks in lore, but for the sake of gameplay, I'm sure Zeng-Hu can come out with a top-of-the-line rehabilitator that only takes a few days or a week. Additionally, recovery really only factors in on extended or canon rounds.

* Means that these effects persist until round end

Why?

The side effects allow a character to continue existing in a round, but unable to preform their job in a normal capacity, thus providing impact on how they choose to continue roleplaying within the round. In shorter terms, punished for dying, still get to RP. 

--

and there comes the end of my suggestion, give me additional ideas, feedback, and bitcoin to bribe a dev with to code it.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Butterrobber202
can't use words right

[Desven]

I have a cloned Captain, but I believe cloning should be removed from lore altogether.

[Butterrobber202]

5 minutes ago, Desven said:

I have a cloned Captain, but I believe cloning should be removed from lore altogether.

can you expand on your reasoning as to why? Just so we have good reason to vote against it in the the thread.

[MattAtlas]

Voting for dismissal.

Sorry, but cloning and the lore issues/plot holes it causes (e.g why aren't important political figures just scanned? it'd make assassinations completely worthless) and the effort it takes to fix them isn't worth the trouble. Yes, technically we could make cloning run a person's brain into the ground, metaphorically speaking, but then the question becomes why have this at all. I don't want to cheapen the aspect of death on the server and I already think that the cloning lore we have right now should've been removed straight up.

2 hours ago, Butterrobber202 said:

The main issue was game impact, an antagonist could kill five security members and have those same members chasing them down in a matter of twenty minutes. It removed any emotional, mechanical, or lore impact death could have on any round, be it another antag round or a heart breaking accident on extended. Cloning's removal for those reasons was completely justified. 

You're wrong: I removed cloning because with the new medical system it would've been far too overpowered to keep in in any sort of capacity. This isn't changing, and if you want to make it so bad to use in round that the gameplay issues are addressed, then you run into the earlier point of "the plot holes this causes aren't worth it".

[Butterrobber202]

35 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

(e.g why aren't important political figures just scanned? it'd make assassinations completely worthless)

this is a very good point that hadn't crossed my mind. There are a few ways around this, but I'll leave it for later in the post. 

36 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

You're wrong: I removed cloning because with the new medical system it would've been far too overpowered to keep in in any sort of capacity. This isn't changing, and if you want to make it so bad to use in round that the gameplay issues are addressed, then you run into the earlier point of "the plot holes this causes aren't worth it".

I did not know this, I received the info I present in the post from random discord convos, and those are not terribly reliable. I do suddenly feel the need to agree that mayhaps cloning isn't a very good idea for at-large usage. Kyres chatted with me on how completely retconning Cloning is impossible due to present clone characters, but a more interesting solution would be to make cloning illegal suddenly. My own idea was to do something similar to all those "you don't know what cigarettes will do to you in 5-10 years!!!!" logic and say clones suddenly begin horrifyingly disintegrating. Completely unexpected, completely unfortunate, but cloning suddenly becomes a very bad idea.  

It would be nice if we could wrangle a response out of the Loremasters instead of leaving the question of cloning in the air.

[MattAtlas]

25 minutes ago, Butterrobber202 said:

It would be nice if we could wrangle a response out of the Loremasters instead of leaving the question of cloning in the air.

I remember telling the lore team back when I PR'd cloning removal that retconning it completely was the best long term solution. At the time however some middle of the road compromise was chosen which meant that we ended up with current cloning lore. In my opinion we should rip the bandaid and just kill it off completely. Honestly I don't care about the 2 characters total that use cloning as part of their backstory.

[Lupo]

19 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

In my opinion we should rip the bandaid and just kill it off completely.

I agree with this, but it should be done in a way that makes the methods of cloning infeasible through a sort of morality movement, or tragic accident, that outlaws it completely— current clones can deal with a stigma or negative connotation of being a clone, but someone illegally cloned after the fact would not, say, be afforded the opportunity to “pick up” where the original left off— their existence would be a crime itself and they would either be borgified or worse, depending on where the act was done. 

IE: You are an illegal clone that works on the Aurora, first-time. No one is privy to it unless it gets dragged into the light.

IE: You were “grandfathered” in and are essentially, if known to be a clone, somewhat vilified and untrusted to an extent.

In terms of legality, I would wager that all current “legal” clones maintain their rights as “originals,” and the buck stops there.

19 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

Honestly I don't care about the 2 characters total that use cloning as part of their backstory.

Voting for dismissal of this comment (I jest): there are absolutely more than two characters at present that have been cloned or using cloning in their backstory. It’s a pivotal point of development for a character, whether they want it to be or not. 
 

To address the main topic: Having cloning facilities present on station kinda returns us to: “Why go through all the steps of brain-med if we can just clone them?”

and with the current idea of implementation, we’d have the ISD running around in wheelchairs with energy rifles on their lap post-cloning. 

[Marlon P.]

It would be pretty chad to bring back cloning. If the primary issues were lore (which can be solved by just picking up the ball and running with it; a setting where assassinations are untenable could be used to show the dystopic forever-ness of the ruling bodies and also encourages alternate means to topple them)

And the secondary issue is antags being messed up by cloned security officers then having antags pop clones out as well back at base seems like it would keep everyone going in round until they choose to stop participating, allowing greater player freedom and retention!

[Lupo]

2 minutes ago, Marlon P. said:

It would be pretty chad to bring back cloning. If the primary issues were lore (which can be solved by just picking up the ball and running with it; a setting where assassinations are untenable could be used to show the dystopic forever-ness of the ruling bodies and also encourages alternate means to topple them)

And the secondary issue is antags being messed up by cloned security officers then having antags pop clones out as well back at base seems like it would keep everyone going in round until they choose to stop participating, allowing greater player freedom and retention!

The problem is circumventing the current medical system in lieu of “Ding Clones Are Done!”

I don’t think a perpetual firefight is something good for heavy role play.

[Marlon P.]

Is the problem of firefights overtaking RP a problem of cloning or a problem of how player crew are encouraged to tackle antags and how antags are encouraged to tackle crew? 

[CrimsonFig]

55 minutes ago, Marlon P. said:

It would be pretty chad to bring back cloning. If the primary issues were lore (which can be solved by just picking up the ball and running with it; a setting where assassinations are untenable could be used to show the dystopic forever-ness of the ruling bodies and also encourages alternate means to topple them)

And the secondary issue is antags being messed up by cloned security officers then having antags pop clones out as well back at base seems like it would keep everyone going in round until they choose to stop participating, allowing greater player freedom and retention!

first thought i had was basically this too. i really, truly cannot see cloning being something to retcon nor being a major cause of plot holes unless someone is just that bad at story telling and lacks decent creativity for world building. for example, to build upon the idea of this -

2 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

Sorry, but cloning and the lore issues/plot holes it causes (e.g why aren't important political figures just scanned? it'd make assassinations completely worthless) and the effort it takes to fix them isn't worth the trouble.

- can be for the fact that this is ripe opportunity for world building about stigmas, morally objections, scientific novelty (data for cloning could suffer from degradation over time), or political subterfuge, for example we could say that the technology for cloning individuals cannot feasibly be duplicated into backups - you can only have one copy of a scan ever and so with that, while most scans are secure, they are not unhackable and could be targets of being sabotaged or manipulated so that the clone comes back as a sleeper agent. then all major political figures or people end up generally either barred from returning to their former work life or heavily distrusted (or trusted and then the clone actually betrays everyone) and end up typically counted as 'not really the original'. there is so much world building that it can bring in how various factions could abuse it (given restrictions on how cloning could work) to make a dictator that seemingly is unremovable when confronted with 'just kill the bastard' and thus forces more creative solutions or causing revolts to usurp the individual, or that cloning is potentially looked down on or stigmatized heavily against and what that means for the cloned person.

Edited August 27, 2021 by CrimsonFig
quoting wonky

[Marlon P.]

I know in the old days cloning was only available to the wealthy. Im not sure when that changed; a lot of VIPs died from then to now with no mention of cloning so i imagined it was retconned already.

[Carver]

Much as I like that you paid mind to the balancing aspect of it, I really dislike cloning as a revival concept entirely. It's not the same person, it's a copy, and it's never made sense in lore or game why people are so open to the idea of having a copy of them - without their mind, soul or even thoughts - replacing them so readily.

If a revival method of any sort is sought, I'd rather it be something that preserves the original brain in some form (encouraging people to take good care of the dead and not waste time), akin to cyborgification without the lobotomy. But that's a subject for another time.

[greenjoe]

1 hour ago, Carver said:

If a revival method of any sort is sought, I'd rather it be something that preserves the original brain in some form (encouraging people to take good care of the dead and not waste time), akin to cyborgification without the lobotomy. 

the issue with that, is it's basically FBPs, which aren't a thing wanted here either.

[Carver]

53 minutes ago, greenjoe said:

the issue with that, is it's basically FBPs, which aren't a thing wanted here either.

More sensible than cloning given it implies actual character consequence instead of 'copy+paste', but as I said, that's a subject for another time.

[Doxxmedearly]

Echoing Matt's thoughts here. Personally I think the lore for it should just be ripped out, and should have been from the moment it was removed mechanically. Re-adding it just re-adds all the old problems we had and cheapens deaths (Not only for characters, but for important figures, as Matt stated). This really just complicates it for no reason in my opinion; we've been better off without it present on-station. Voting for dismissal.

[greenjoe]

2 hours ago, Doxxmedearly said:

Personally I think the lore for it should just be ripped out,

so something like saying cloning has been completely retconned out of existence, if your character was cloned before, now they will not have been?
that would be much easier then trying to do something like write cloning out of being a possible thing at all

[Kintsugi]

Also going to echo Matt here. We gain nothing from cloning's continued existence in-lore, and cloning was also obnoxious ingame. I feel quite strongly that it should be retconned completely and in totality.

[Butterrobber202]

@Mofo1995 @Caelphon with 2 dismissals, the suggestion is dead in the water. But I'd like to hear if the lore team is going to retconn it properly or leave it a vestigial part of the lore.

[furrycactus]

Honestly, cloning's potential removal from lore entirely kind of majorly screws over characters who have made use of it in backstories or who have had it happen on-server to them in the past. As already stated, there's lots of ways to get creative with circumventing cloning from a writing perspective, and it provides interesting avenues and character concepts. The complete disregard for the characters and developments that have occurred from it is disappointing to see, and personally I think it's a very bad idea to axe it from lore.

Mechanically though, I also echo what's been said previously - it comes with a slew of problems for gameplay balance and shouldn't make a return.

[Carver]

Wouldn't be the first big thing axed from lore. Yet, it stands one of the cleanest for people to rewrite character-wise via other options such as a medical coma or amnesia. Sure, perhaps those two are a bit overdone in storytelling, but they generally serve a very similar place in a character's background as cloning often will.

[Haydizzle]

It is not really worth the hassle of retconning fully being that many characters have implemented cloning into their backstories or have been utilized via in round events. I am strongly against a total retcon and believe there are better ways of fixing how cloning works in the lore.

[greenjoe]

4 hours ago, Haydizzle said:

I am strongly against a total retcon and believe there are better ways of fixing how cloning works in the lore.

Maybe another discussion Then, is how to fix cloning lore while keeping it off the station/NBT ship

[Mofo1995]

Generally speaking, I want to avoid major retcons. Especially in a sense where they may affect large amounts of the player base. At least I want to avoid them unless it's necessary. I'm fairly ambivalent about cloning. One of my oldie characters (now retired from play) was cloned a few times and it was a fairly novel and fun experience to roleplay out the scenario of questioning if he was still himself or an imposter, and helped me wrangle with my own sense of imposter syndrome. I thought that was powerful and dynamic interplay between lore and roleplay. But at the same time, it really does cheapen death and the experience of it, and leaves every single major death to have to answer the fundamental "why weren't they cloned?" question. It is fairly stressful to have to write around that hurdle 100% of the time for the sake of more compelling writing, and obviously majority (speculatively, on my part, maybe not as much as I feel like) of the time the consideration is eschewed entirely to pretend that cloning wasn't even an option or doesn't exist. If a very large vocal population demanded its complete removal doggedly over a decent amount of time, I'd probably give in eventually. Though for now, I think I want to maintain status quo.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Mofo1995

[Caelphon]

Echoing Mofo. Unless necessary, I do not see a reason for a full retcon.