Daughter, Sister, Mother
"Well, I can make clones, I just prefer not to, they tend to get pissed off at me. Though it would help if I didn't throw them into such . . . amusing situations." – Lilith Hewley.
THE MECHANICS OF CREATING CLONES by Lilith Hewley
Those Gaeans who know what clones are mistakenly think a 'clone' is a person who has had the genetics and memories of another entity imprinted on them. Others believe that a clone is a copy of another being. Both are somewhat correct. A clone is an entity which was modified with the intent of creating something identical or similar to the original.
During the Meteor War, Jenova created 'replicas' of Sephiroth from portions of her own body. These replicas were capable of speech and memory, but their skills and life-span were limited. Once enough damage was dealt, the energy in the Cells used would be depleted, rendering the genetic material useless.
The Remnants: Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo, were created via a similar process, their forms and minds were pieced together by Jenova from the lingering consciousness of dead humans. These humans were failed attempts by Hojo at replicating the process that created Sephiroth.
However, Jenova was not a stable entity. Jenova was composed of two warring minds: that of the Cetra, and that of the infectious Calamity. As such, Jenova was unable to use her abilities to their full potential. Had she full control of her abilities, it is doubtful she would have been defeated in the way she was.
The definition of Clones as I see it is thus: a Clone is a partial copy of a pre-existing entity. There is no such thing as a Perfect Copy. The Original has experiences and memories that the Clone will never have, just as the Clone will create memories and have experiences that will differ from the Original.
An Example would be my Sisters. While nine of them share an identical past with myself. We each differ after a certain point, we began the same, but we made different choices, we acquired different names. Thus why we refer to each other as sisters rather than Copies. The other four are no question, each of them had different experiences to the ten of us, each were transplanted at a different age, and had completely different experiences. Amelia married Sephiroth. Ana liberated Genesis. Abigail entered SOLDIER. Naeda mated Sparda.
Their abilities differed from us ten as well . . . . Amelia had her Spirit-Fire . . . Ana was a demonic guardian . . . Abigail had mako and the ability to cast spells without a foci . . . Naeda . . . well, Naeda was special. Naeda was the one who triggered Minerva's Choice. She wrote that Minerva would choose us. She knows all of us better than we could ever know ourselves.
All 14 of us are different, we are sisters, not replicas, our experiences have shaped us into what we are. A Clone is no different. Out of those of us capable of creating Clones, I am the only one who has put any lengthy effort into investigating the process.
At first I created only the temporary Echoes as a method of attending to things unnoticed, entities that were similar to the Ghosts used in the ShinRa VR rooms. The Echoes are capable of limited interaction with others, but require pre-programming to perform their assigned tasks and once their energy runs low, they must be reabsorbed. As Echoes are useless in combat, I usually use them to memorize information.
A few times, however, I have tried to Create using the Cloning. The first few occasions failed, the Clones experiencing mental or physical degradation within a short period of time. My first success in this process was the creation of Luna, who was 'born' as an infant with only the most basic of memories. She is a beautiful child, with my son's hair and Genesis' lovely blue eyes. She is now several years old and looking at how the two fathers interact with their miracle child, I cannot help but feel accomplished. Luna retains a mental tie with me, and calls me Gramma.
I have had a few other successes. . . . the shapeshifting Mjolnir adopted as a pet by Amelia's Cloud; Lily, Vongola Cloud Guardian; Iola of Camelot . . . and most recently: Annabeth of Sylvarant.
Mjolnir, like Luna, was created without any true memories as a newborn. Once he was old enough, the equivalent of a few-month-old kitten, I left him where Cloud could find him, as a gift. Mjolnir developed quickly at first before slowing, aging at a rate more akin to humans once he transformed for the first time.
Lily was created using a great deal of my memories as a base, though she lacked much of my power. The most powerful of my clones, she required an Axiom shard to handle her abilities. Though she tried for normal at first, the luck that follows all my sisters forced her to take a primary role in the Mafia world. I am quite pleased with her success, and cannot wait until the little ones are born.
Iola was another attempt at a fully grown Clone, but rather than bind her with my memories, I only gave her 'ghost memories' so that she could find a place for herself, these memories were mostly only procedural, but given proper circumstances, she could tap into the magic and Earth-memories that I left to her. I did not expect her to find a place in the Court of Camelot, but somehow I am not truly surprised.
Annabeth was a more involved creation . . . I went through such effort with her . . . she was created as a young child, granted only my earliest of memories, I checked in on her every few years to see how she was doing . . . and on one of these visits I found her all-but-dead. I admit I am not sure who I was more furious with, myself for not checking on her more often, or her for getting into such trouble.
As it was, I took her broken form and reshaped it, changing some things so that she would be better able to protect herself from the issues that ran rampant across Sylvarant. I was not about to let the girl I named after my own mother die simply because of my own shortcomings . . .
I can only hope she treats her second chance with the respect it deserves.
And that she isn't too pissed at me the next time I visit.