Please Explain the Multiple Cleon Replacements

I know this is being discussed in the Hari's uploaded consciousness thread, but I thought I'd separate it out....

I can't make any sense of the replacement Cleons pointed out by Brother Dawn. Exactly how does this work? So, they grow Cleons that are each a certain year old from, what? Age 1 to Age 90? and freeze dry each of those 90 Cleons? So that, just in case a Cleon accidentally dies or proves to be a failure they can replace him, no matter the age?

Am I understanding that's how this works?

If I've got it right, then there's this warehouse of Cleons and they can just implant the right memories and mind into the one they need. SO, Problem with Brother Dawn? No problem. Erase damaged Brother Dawn, Roll out Brother Dawn age 17, download the saved mind into him and he's ready to go. No interruption in service.

Now, someone said that these can't be as good as the "grown from birth" types...but that makes no sense. If you're going to replace Brother Dawn with freeze-dried Brother Dawn then he has to be AS GOOD as one grown from birth. OTHERWISE you're going to end up with an inferior Brother Day on the throne and running the Empire! 😱 I presume that whoever created this wacky plan made darn sure that this freeze-dried replacement would be as good as the grown-from-birth sort. I mean, you already got rid of the "grown from birth" Brother Dawn because he wasn't satisfactory. You don't want a problem with the him once he becomes all-powerful Brother Day and is giving orders to, say, firebomb planets.

Which brings us to the question...Why in the world are are the Cleons bothering to bring up future emperors from birth? You could skip all those years of raising a kid, and risking that he'll go wrong or die in an accident, and just bring out the freeze-dried one. Age, whatever, ready to be and do whatever Brother Dawn does when he's of an age to share rulership (does he do anything?).

I mean, if the aim is to have the exact same Cleons over and over again, as close to the original as possible, why risk variants? Just use the freeze-dried ones.

Can anyone explain why they need to do the whole life cycle thing with the baby and the nanny and the life lessons all that when they've got at least 90 Cleons waiting to be used in the Imperial Warehouse?

11 comments

11 Comments

D. Thorn

Nov 20, 2021

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And there we have it. At the very end there Brother Dusk says (more or less) "I want a new Brother Dawn decanted and brought up to speed by tomorrow" indicating that Brother Dusk, at least, thinks that the bottled Cleons can be taken out and used in place of the born ones with no interruption and no inferiority in service.

So, the bottled Cleons clearly are not considered inferior to the born ones--Brother Dusk pretty much says that.

Which, once again, seems to make the whole idea of raising the from birth kinda pointless.

Of course, now there's that wrinkle which says that born or bottled, none of them are exact replicas and none of them can be depended on.

Which in itself undermines the whole premise of the problem with clone emperors that are exact replicas. Would Cleon the First's scheme have worked if no one had interfered with the DNA for however long it's been interfered with?

Maria White

Nov 13, 2021

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I don't see a massive problem with different Cleons of different ages having different tolerance to risk. People change as they age and with different life experiences.

I don't think Brother Dawn intended to kill himself. Once we learned that he's colorblind, it makes more sense. I think he was trying to see the garden design but he couldn't because he's colorblind, and that upset him, and then he fell by accident.

Strictly speaking, we are told that the replacements would be good enough to be Empire, not that they are as good as one raised from birth.

Brother Dawn is a mutant, and clearly his mutations go beyond being colorblind, he mentions several differences and he makes it clear that he finds it hard to be like his brothers. He must think that his DNA, at least in the parts that affect his brain functioning, is quite different from his brothers, and his replacement is free from mutations. So, by replacing him, they'd have a Brother Dawn that is an identical clone, with the memories of the previous Brother Dawn. He clearly thinks that having the correct DNA is more important than having the right memories in order to be Empire. We don't know yet what his brothers think.

I think it's unlikely this Brother Dawn is the Mule because the Mule should be happening later in the future. I suppose it could be a future mutant Brother Dawn, though I'd find it disappointing too. He was a more impressive character in the books by coming from nowhere. Having inside knowledge on how the Empire works would make him less impressive. But I gather that teen villains are a fashionable concept these days.

The point about Halima is off-topic for this thread, I'll write my answer on the Laws of Robotics thread.

D. Thorn

Nov 16, 2021

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Replying to

I didn't say Brother Dawn WAS or WOULD BECOME the Mule. I said--or meant--that his mutations were going to lead to the Mule. That the Mule will be one of his descendants. That's a wild guess on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised i it goes that way.

You state "Strictly speaking, we are told that the replacements would be good enough to be Empire, not that they are as good as one raised from birth."

Strictly speaking we aren't EVER told that a replacement IS NOT good enough as one raised from birth. And given that any replacement for Brother Dawn or Day WILL sit on the throne and run the Empire, that replacement HAS to be good enough. Otherwise there's no point to them. So, I think we have to assume that yes, they *are* as good as one raised from birth.

And if Freeze Dried Brother Dawn has the identical personality/memories, etc of the one born but defective, then he would REMEMBER that he used to be color blind, in love with a gardener, tried to kill himself, etc. In what way would that erase the defect? Is it really his DNA that makes him a better hunter or the way he thinks? I have a hard time believing that Freeze Dried Brother Dawn would be free of "defects" if he had the same memories, thoughts, personality, etc. of the born-but-defective-one and was only different in regards to not having any DNA mutations.

Now, if the Freezed Dried Brother Dawn is given the memories of a former, successful Brother Dawn, then I'll buy the replacement as being "defect" free...but in that case, I still don't see the need to raise any of these Cleon's from birth.