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[Lyn Farel]

I suddenly got to think about soft clones. All we know is that hard clones imply that the brain patterns are instantly burned in live on the brain of the new clone when the body dies, and the new body awakens.

For soft clones, however, it seems more complicated.

Do people scan the brain of the subject preemptively when he shows up in the medbay to update his soft clone, and that procedure takes time since it's not supposed to kill the original body unlike the capsule brain scan ? And then do they keep the scans in some kind of dematerialized storage to be burned down to the new clone when the body dies ?

Or do they directly scan the original body (slowly again not to kill him like the capsule does) and directly burn it down to the future new clone(s) ?

The main difference between both is that in the first case, the brain scan is kept in a "dematerialized device", and then pasted down into the new clone brain, and that in the second case it is directly copy-pasted into the clone brain. Meaning that in the first case it implies that as soon as you burn it down into the new clone, the brain patterns are here and activate directly, thus why they can't do it before the original body is confirmed dead. And that in the second case, you can perfectly paste the saved brain patterns into the new clone directly, and waking it up totally independently whenever you like. Furthermore, it also implies that in the second case, the storage of the brain data are the actual clones kept in storage, and that in the first case, the storage is actually not located in the clones, but in something else.

The first solution has the advantage to comply with the hard cloning process, where as soon as the brain data is copied, the new clone awakes. The second solution has the advantage that we do not introduce some kind of artifact (a "device") in the process to store the brain data.

I am not sure if I am clear enough, but it bugs me.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

One Man Too Many suggests that you arrange for the clones the same way that we normally do, and then do a brain scan at the time you want to "transfer". Cold scanning is supposed to be slower than the burning scanner, but that chron implies that it's still fast enough to conveniently do at the time of your clone jump.

At the same time, there's enough support (both in canon and player fiction) to support the idea that you can keep copies of your scan to use in case of out-of-pod/baseliner death.

I don't recall anything from canon that says they're required to wait until you're dead before they imprint your new clone. The cloning article talks about some handwavy neural link stuff that happens after your scan is imprinted into the clone, after which your clone awakes. I've always taken that to mean that the actual process takes long enough that you never see the clone wake up while the (now vegetative) pilot still lives in their flaming, exploding pod.

You know, now that I've re-read One Man Too Many, I realize that it may provide some insight into the attempted assassination of Ava Starfire...

Whoever came up with that arc, please contact me. Shin wants to have your babies.

[Lyn Farel]

I wasn't speaking about jumpcloning, just when someone has done a soft clone at some point in the past and then gets killed (outside the pod or just being a super rich baseliner). When that happens, either your clones have already been imprinted and just await to be awaken, or either your clones are still in a blank state, and your medical staff is going to copy your brain scan (soft clone) into their brains.

They are only required to wait in both cases because of CONCORD regulations, not because of technical limitations (it's highly illegal to have several copies of oneself running around at the same time).

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

I don't remember anything about CONCORD regulations prohibiting activating a clone while another is still alive, but it does seem reasonable.

The sort of soft cloning described in One Man Too Many isn't capsuleer jump cloning, though. Ancru isn't a pod captain, he's jump cloning the way wealthy baseliners do it. It seems like the same technology could be applied to making and activating clone "backups". You take a scan and store it. Then, if you're killed, they flash a clone with your stored image and activate it.

I'd suspect that clone backups wouldn't be pre-flashed. It's expensive (you buy a million isk clone and pre-flash it. Next month you meet the man of your dreams, and want to make sure you remember him, so you update your scan. Your clone is already flashed, so you have to chuck it and buy a new one), and legally complex (you buy a million isk clone and pre-flash it. To ensure there's not two "you's" running around, you keep it in a coma. It's still you, though. It's just in a coma. If you can't pay your clone maintenance bills, or if you decide to get a new clone, what happens to it? It can't easily be disposed of, because it's you. Disposing of it would be murder, wouldn't it?). Storing a brain scan and flashing it into a clone when you're killed avoids all of these issues.

[Silas Vitalia]

CONCORD and DED don't allow two active clones of the same individual, ever.  It's super super mega illegal and they hunt you down and kill you asap.

Otherwise we'd have 30 copies of everyone running around simultaneously. Bad bad.



I think the RP convention is that the soft clone is only current to the last 'backup'.   So Say I go get a softclone, scan my current state, and then run off and eat a sandwhich and die.  Softclone activated, and only has memories up until the scan, no knowledge of said sandwhich or death.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

CONCORD and DED don't allow two active clones of the same individual, ever.  It's super super mega illegal and they hunt you down and kill you asap.

Otherwise we'd have 30 copies of everyone running around simultaneously. Bad bad.

Oh, I don't disagree that it's bad, but I don't recall seeing anything about CONCORD regulating it.

I think the RP convention is that the soft clone is only current to the last 'backup'.   So Say I go get a softclone, scan my current state, and then run off and eat a sandwhich and die.  Softclone activated, and only has memories up until the scan, no knowledge of said sandwhich or death.

Yeah, that's exactly what I think, too. The "backup" is your stored scan on some machine somewhere, and it's only flashed onto the clone when the clone is being activated.

[Silas Vitalia]

I have to find the reference but it's been brought up before. Otherwise we'd have a lot more PF and RP dealing with multiple copies of capsuleers running around

[Tatiana]

Right, so, let's start at the beginning(ish).

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/The_Elite_%28Chronicle%29
leads into
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Cloning

Relevant bits:
"a clone that receives the consciousness of the original at the moment of death, granting a new life." - remember that it's called a Neural Burner, not a Neural Happy-Fun-Copy-Time.

Which leads down the Wikihole to:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Capsuleer_Accidental_Death_and_Dismemberment_Insurance#Out-of-Pod

In stations and any other non-pod environment, capsuleers are vulnerable to the same type of accidents as non-capsuleers. Accidents can happen anywhere: from tripping over a chair leg in the local bar or failure of a lift door causing limb severance to more radical situations like fedo attacks during extreme intoxication or pirate assault on station property.

So this would imply several key items.
First, any sort of soft-copy would be A) expensive B) necessarily incomplete and out of date at all times after copy C) pretty problematic due to multiple activation possibility. Not good things.
Second, we go over to the 'Cloning' part of the Death entry on EVElopedia and find these notable parts:

Therefore, being cloned is a rather substantial risk that is not undertaken, even among the very wealthy, unless after some serious consideration.

Cloning outside of a capsule is also possible, although the associated risks remain pretty much the same: The brain is scanned - and thereby ruined - and its contents transferred to a receiving station that instantaneously awakens the consciousness in a new clone. This can be done only under laboratory conditions, although technology in the area is progressing quite rapidly. The possibility looms that cloning may at some point take place outside the strictures of a capsule or a similar machine, though it's considered unlikely that it will ever be anything other than instantaneous.

So-called "jump cloning" works in much the same manner. Once a jump contract has been agreed upon, the customer can enter any cloning facility at any station, whereupon they will be brain-scanned, their originating bodies effectively flatlined, and their consciousness transferred to a waiting jump clone at their requested destination. Any implants in the originating body are carefully picked out by machines and just as carefully inserted into a fresh clone waiting at the original jumping-off point. Once the owner finally jumps back, from their point of view, they are returning to the same body, with the same implants and all, when in actuality it is a new clone.

So it would seem to exclude the possibility of having a 'backup' prepared - but wait! As was pointed out, One Man Too Many would seem to contradict that.
Except for the possibility of face-swapping. Remember, that One Man Too Many did not run contrary to presented jumpclone canon - it only stated that from Pier Ancu's perspective he was returning to a previously limp body, and that he knew the body was brand new at the same time. (Wuhoh, Tatiana found the wrench in the works...) And I daresay that Mr. Ancru has more ISK than all of us combined, since he's still giving us a ship and a 1 Tritanium gratuity!
But it also doesn't exclude the possibility entirely. Just that it would be a massive hurdle at best, and outright impossible for many if not most capsuleers. Handwavium aside, I've not found any lore to date which does not explicitly reference the necessity of a Neural Burner and the tight restrictions on transfers due to possibilities of abuse and essentially destructive nature of the process in all situations. (Plus the 'you will go insane' factor.) Or mentioning that Todo Kirkinen's transfer did not go exactly to plan.

But yes, physics, lore and logic do dictate that even in a best case non-destructive scenario, any backup would only be current up to the point where the "backup" was taken (inclusive memories, skills, etcetera,) iterative or differential backups are not possible, and repeated backups from an original would cause permanent brain damage.

... and this post turned out way longer than I expected. 

[Lyn Farel]

Yeah, so PF is not very... inclined toward soft cloning considering those quotes. It's neural burner like in the capsule and that's all...

The sort of soft cloning described in One Man Too Many isn't capsuleer jump cloning, though. Ancru isn't a pod captain, he's jump cloning the way wealthy baseliners do it. It seems like the same technology could be applied to making and activating clone "backups". You take a scan and store it. Then, if you're killed, they flash a clone with your stored image and activate it.

I'd suspect that clone backups wouldn't be pre-flashed. It's expensive (you buy a million isk clone and pre-flash it. Next month you meet the man of your dreams, and want to make sure you remember him, so you update your scan. Your clone is already flashed, so you have to chuck it and buy a new one), and legally complex (you buy a million isk clone and pre-flash it. To ensure there's not two "you's" running around, you keep it in a coma. It's still you, though. It's just in a coma. If you can't pay your clone maintenance bills, or if you decide to get a new clone, what happens to it? It can't easily be disposed of, because it's you. Disposing of it would be murder, wouldn't it?). Storing a brain scan and flashing it into a clone when you're killed avoids all of these issues.

Good point.

So more solution 1 than 2 then. I would tend to agree considering how I view things too.

I have to admit that it was the Ava assassination event that suddenly made me think about it a lot, especially in Shere medical report stating that all her backup clones have been sabotaged. You understand that depending on how soft clones actually work, with solution 2 it's fine, clones are the recipient and are already flashed, but with solution 1 in mind, you can destroy the clones, it does not matter since the brain data patterns are not stored into them. So it would more be a sabotage of the storage itself.

[Mithfindel]

The easy way of having nonactive clones not being "you" would be that they indeed are not pre-flashed. The data is probably being stored somewhere near by, though, but should a clone activate prematurely, its brain is just the unburned gooey template, and therefore, prematurely activated clones are braindead. The mission "A Digital Soul" in the Sansha branch of the Amarr Epic Arc details that a mind scan can be stored (and possibly, studied).

As for Prime Fiction proof that non-destructive scanning is possible - well, there's little. Possible reference in Fait Accompli (chronicle), but it might as well be cloning for other reasons.

E: And finally, a can of worms: If you can find a lab to do it (I think this is illegal in fiction), while PF states that jump clones are brand new, I do not see a reason to not keep the old body in life support. Just make sure the brain and consciousness are dead, so possibly putting it to sleep with sedatives, flashing the brain for mind transfer (and making sure the entire brain is not just dead but all dead), and then switching in a plain template for burning in the new consciousness at next transfer would potentially allow to keep the grade A biomass that is already keyed to recipient DNA. Of course, as the whole body can be replicated from scratch, there is little reason to keep the old body when you could have a brand new one.

[Ché Biko]

For nearly a year, the following used to be part of the Death article on the EVE wiki. I've bolded the part about softcloning.

Two types of cloning are used throughout New Eden. In both cases, the clone is grown beforehand from biomass and sculpted to resemble the person to be cloned.[15] Gene therapy is done on the clone to ensure it matches the genetics of the original, in order to prevent immune responses.

By far the most well known and wide spread is capsule-aided cloning[..]

Because of the short time-period between death and awakening of the clone, this method is less controversial across the cluster, especially to many religions, who can more easily justify the transmigration of the “soul” from one body to another. However, many religious movements continue to insist that cloned individuals are mere copies, no more the original than a forgery of a work of art can be said to be.

The second, less common, and more controversial method of cloning is known by a variety of names, such as soft-cloning, backup-cloning, and regression cloning. In this method, the individual submits to a slow, non-damaging backup scan of their brains, which takes an extended period of time to complete. Should the person suffer death, the copied brain scan is imprinted on a prepared clone body, and the person “wakes up” at the point of their last backup scan. All memories and experiences between their most recent backup and their death are unmade, as if they never happened to that person.

Because of this, far more people consider these sorts of clones to be copies and not the original person, though the techniques involved in both methods are quite similar, being differentiated primarily by the speed of the neural scanner. This factor leads to backup-clones being far less widespread than capsuleer clones, even though they are available to a wider portion of the population.

Both methods of cloning remain extremely expensive and are typically limited to the very wealthy. Capsuleers, as a whole, tend to have the resources to maintain high-quality clones, both for when they are inside their pod and backups for when they are outside. Non-capsuleers with clones tend to be corporate CEOs and presidents, powerful governmental officials, wildly popular entertainers, or others with access to large bank accounts.

ISD Caleb Kang, currently CCP Eterne, wrote it, IIRC.

[Logan Fyreite]

and then run off and eat a sandwhich and die.  Softclone activated, and only has memories up until the scan, no knowledge of said sandwhich

Poor forgotten sandwich! I wonder how many forgotten sandwiches there are out there

Ché, That's the exact quote I was looking for and how I see "soft" cloning. Time-consuming and painful, but especially the bit where it says "Capsuleers, as a whole, tend to have the resources to maintain high-quality clones, both for when they are inside their pod and backups for when they are outside." Not just the super-rich capsuleers or special capsuleers.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

Yeah, exactly. I like the implication that it's simply a matter of having the money. i.e.: It's not just capsuleers who can clone/soft clone, it's anyone rich enough.

[Merdaneth]

Merdaneth has never seen any indication that soft clones work, and hardly ever hears someone talk about them. As far as he knows they are unsubstantiated rumors and soft clones don't exist.

[Louella Dougans]

There is one example of a clone being activated without a brain scan, in "The Empyrean Age". They had severe amnesia, to the point of not knowing their name, although they were otherwise a functioning person.

There is one example of a brain scan being stored, in the Amarr epic arc. This scan was created using the burning scanner, i.e. the invasive brain scan that the capsule uses. In this case, the storage facility was a psychiatric research facility, with legal authority granted to it, to do such things.

There is one example of a non-capsuleer being cloned from some form of backup, after the original person was killed in a laboratory explosion, in a mission chain "New Frontiers". They were cloned due to the value of their research.

I think, therefore, that it would be possible (but not common), for a person to create a backup thus:

1. Invasive brain scan, unconnected to new clone, connected to storage device.
2. Duplicate stored brain scan.
3. Use one copy to activate a new clone.
4. Other stored scan kept as "backup". ALL memories from that point onward are non-recoverable.

I'd consider it very,very rare, because of the legalities involved, and possibly also the expense.

It's also not "soft" cloning, since it uses the "hard" scanner.



As for how soft clones "work" in practice it goes like this:

The Summit > MOTD: People have the Right to Talk about things.
A > I'm going to connect a sansha's nation computer thing to my brain, it'll be great, and I'll learn lots!
Concerned onlookers > Don't do it, man! that's madness!
B > The wonders of science.
A > I'm connecting it now... Aaaaaargh!
B > he's dead, jim.
Concerned onlookers > Well, that was unfortunate and entirely unpredicted. What a shame. He was a good man, what a rotten way to die.
A > Howdy y'all
Concerned onlookers > Aren't you dead? what sorcery is this?
A > soft clone backup, yo
B > word.