"Cloning tech" appears in WH40K

[mr friendly guy]

First I just like to say my understanding of 40K comes mainly from reading threads here. So if I am incorrect in anything, please correct me.

Now I was wondering how tech which mass produces troops or "cloning related tech" will alter the balance of power in 40K. Examples of these tech include

1. the Kimonoans from Star Wars

2. The progenitor machine from the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's daughter". Just get a blood drop and it churns out a new soldier with memories of how to fight.

3. The immortality gate from Doctor Who "The end of time." Not a cloning device in the usual sense, but arguably more powerful.

4. edit - I am going to add the Founder's Jem'hadar manufacturing factory including ketracel white, from ST DS9 just to see if anyone can do something with them.

Assumptions

1. One of the 40 K factions find the device, which through an act of authorial fiat turns up in the 40 K universe. It can be any faction you like, but only one faction finds it.

2. Only one of the 3 devices appear, not all three. Or if you like, choose another cloning device from whatever universe you like and by authorial decree it turns up in the 40 K universe instead.

3. a) That faction learns how to use the device but fails to understand how to manufacture it (so there is only one in existance). Understand how to use it includes the finer points of programming, so the Eldar learns how to program the progenitor machine to download Eldar disciplines to protect against Slannesh.

or

b) That faction learns to manufacture the device as well as how to use it. Lets say they can't mass produce it like hotcakes, but can churn out say 1 -2 in a year.

3. Assume the faction doesn't find cloning repugnant. If they do please mention it, but by authorial fiat those in power are deposed by others who are keen to make use of the cloning device.

How does this affect the balance of power?

[Zor]

The Imperium has cloning Technology, two name what instances they are used...

1-Krieg uses cloning to produce large numbers of soldiers (the Technology is called Vitae Womb)
2-The Adeptus Mechanicus Vat Grows the organic components for most of its servitors
3-Some of the Imperium's greatest generals are cloned repeatedly, such as Sabbat.

Zor

[Lonestar]

Abaddon the Despoiler is(speculated) to be a clone of Horus. And it is known that the other Traitor Legions tried to clone Horus.

[Archaic`]

The Raven Guard apparently used cloning technology to replenish their numbers following the Heresey, though apparently it didn't work so well, and most of the clones ended up being inhuman abominations. Though, that didn't stop them from using them in battle against the Iron Warriors on at least one occasion.

Fabius Bile has successfully cloned Horus himself on at least one occasion, though that clone was destroyed by the Black Legion.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

"Da meks found a gizmo wot makes even more boyz! Dey callin' it da Klonin' Kontrapshun. Now whenever da ladz get blown into gibbets, da meks just make new ones wot are itchin' fer a fight! WAAAAAGH!"

Orks overrun galaxy. Bad End.

[Todeswind]

If memory serves the Schaffers Last Chancers references the creation of an ill fated Legion of IG cloned entirely from Solar Mecharius that had been whittled down to two or so.

[Lonestar]

Fabius Bile has successfully cloned Horus himself on at least one occasion, though that clone was destroyed by the Black Legion.

If memory serves the Schaffers Last Chancers references the creation of an ill fated Legion of IG cloned entirely from Solar Mecharius that had been whittled down to two or so.

It's amazing how the thread is only 6 posts in and there have already been essentially two repeats of posts made by other SDenziens.

[Sarevok]

Its 40k. Standard response is they already have it and due to grimdark scarcity nothing changes at all.

[PainRack]

Re the 13th Penal legion, they weren't clones since the two last survivors was an albino male and female.

They were instead genetically engineered soldiers using the genes from Solar Machinus.

Regarding cloning tech, the Eldar are the only faction which might find it useful as they're the ones with a manpower shortage.

One shudders to imagine how the Dr Who tech might impact them.

[Zor]

Regarding cloning tech, the Eldar are the only faction which might find it useful as they're the ones with a manpower shortage.

Mind you they have bottlenecks for population growth, namely soulstones.

The Tau could probably use it to rapidly expand their numbers to provide more workers and soldiers to serve the Greater Good.

Zor

[Vanas]

Slight spoilers for the HH book Nemesis here.
Spoiler

The Culexus use cloning tech to expand their numbers. Sensible given the rarity of the Pariah gene. Given that the Assassins 10,000 years later seem to be equivalently teched-up, I don't see a reason for them not to still be using it.

As for mass-producing troops with a cloning machine, the Imperium seems to have that covered easily enough, using much more low-tech methods. I don't think a mass cloning drive would go down very well there.
Eldar might use it, but being Eldar, they probably already have it. Presumably there's an issue with psychicness that would be the problem. Two bodies with one mind sort of thing, perhaps. I don't see that going well.
The Necrons look at the machine and shrug. Or possibly start with cloning Pariahs.
I'd have to agree that the Tau would probably use one of the devices, so long as they're big, shiny and have easily pushable buttons.

[PainRack]

Hmmm...........

What about Dark Eldar cloning slaves? A viable action under their philosophy?

[Zor]

Hmmm...........

What about Dark Eldar cloning slaves? A viable action under their philosophy?

Possibly for the pure nessesity of consuming souls. Then again they would still collect slaves for that whole "amoral sadistic bastards" thing that they have going, though possibly less often.

Zor

[lordofchange13]

The imperium already has cloning. but with several limiting factors: such as if you clone people rapidly they come out deformed and/or insane. Also the technology needed for cloning doesn't exist in most of imperial space.

[NecronLord]

Dark Eldar Codex Spoiler: Spoiler

Most Dark Eldar are clones. Natural born call themselves 'Trueborn' and consider themselves superior. Doubtless if they wanted to clone (non-dark-eldar?) slaves, they're already doing it, I don't know whether they do or not.

[Connor MacLeod]

As others have pointed out, 40K has cloning tech in some/most respects. WE dont know for sure how effective or how fast it is, beyond the ability to create servitors in a fairly short period of time (but possibly not faster than the "using convicts and heretics and failed persons in general" servitor approach, else why bother with it?) but we are given hints in the "accelerated gene-seed creation" process (most notably as already mentioned with the Raven Guard) as well as Fabius Bile being able to create armies via cloning in some months or something to that effect. Growth would seem roughly consistent with what SW could do then, clone wise, although quite possibly with the aforementoied drawbacks (Then again the same can be said for SW cloning too.)

As to why it isn't used already? Like with most of their neat tech there seems to be the usual tech-restrictive conservatism (Cloning is considered a 'Black Art' by some/many, and thus its uses seem tightly regulated.) I suppose if things got bad enough and the shit hit the fan they might start using cloning (EG the 'Nids.)

There's also the neat ability from "Dark Apostle" the AdMech shows where they can recycle dead bodies (Guard, servitor, civilian, etc.) and use mobile facilities to turn them into combat servitors.

[Serafina]

Um...there is a VERY good argument for using convicts to create servitors, no matter how fast the cloning process is:
Punishment.
That sole purpose justifies their conversion - especially since you already have a fully grown human if you use them, so it can't be that much slower than cloning (even if the cloning is instant).
So we can't really establish anything about the speed of cloning from this, since the reason they use convicts is entirely unrelated to economics.

Cloning in general is highly restricted tech for two reasons:
-It CAN create mutations and the like. The general rule seems to be "the better the template, the harder it is to recreate". The templates that are actually used for widespread cloning are probably used because they are easy to clone, not necessarily because they are based on powerful individuals.
-It is restricted for political reasons. I think Siege of Vraks (or some other source on the Death Korps) states that a planet with access to cloning technology would be incredibly hard to conquer, since it would have "near infinite manpower". This would obviously be a very bad thing if that planet revolts, and thus it's only allowed to very loyal planets and then closely monitored.

[mr friendly guy]

So if as per the OP, the taboo against cloning gets thrown out the window what would happen? Especially with the power of the immortality gate? Could the Eldar use the webway and convert entire worlds of Orks and Imperium worlds into Eldar templates? Could they gain enough Eldar this way (given that the Dark Eldar are clones as well) for their combine psychic power to kick Slannesh arse back to the warp, er I mean destroy him/her.

[Purple]

On the subject of cloning Space Marines the problem is not with the clone it self (the human part) but the gene seed. When you try to clone the marine specific organs and components bad things tend to happen. Especially since the organs require the human body to be in the exact right age and physical condition (puberty) for the implantation to succeed so the procedure of cloning a full Astartes from scratch would have to supplement for this somehow or be way to slow to be useful. And for all we know it could be this that is causing the problems.

[Todeswind]

Dark Eldar Codex Spoiler: Spoiler

Most Dark Eldar are clones. Natural born call themselves 'Trueborn' and consider themselves superior. Doubtless if they wanted to clone (non-dark-eldar?) slaves, they're already doing it, I don't know whether they do or not.

The Haemonculi do it for spare parts all the time. I'll go looking through old issues of White Dwarf to see if I can find the specific issue but I have vivid memories about a guardsman who is captured by the Dark Eldar and keeps getting tortured to death and cloned into a new body with all of his memories so his captor can start again.

Now that I think about If there is a race in 40k that is totally in possession of SW comparable tech or superior tech in 40k it's the Dark Eldar.

[Archaic`]

Cloning in general is highly restricted tech for two reasons:
-It CAN create mutations and the like. The general rule seems to be "the better the template, the harder it is to recreate". The templates that are actually used for widespread cloning are probably used because they are easy to clone, not necessarily because they are based on powerful individuals.

It seems like the practise is avoided by the IG not due to any difficulty with the process itself, but rather due to the simple lack of successes they've had with clones. While the IG had attempted to use clones extensively before with the "Afriel Strain", making whole regiments consisting only of clones of heroes such as Macharius, the practise was mostly discontinued after all such regiments exhibited supernaturally bad luck leading to the rapid destruction of the regiments. They simply weren't cost effective enough, basically.

[Todeswind]

It seems like the practise is avoided by the IG not due to any difficulty with the process itself, but rather due to the simple lack of successes they've had with clones. While the IG had attempted to use clones extensively before with the "Afriel Strain", making whole regiments consisting only of clones of heroes such as Macharius, the practise was mostly discontinued after all such regiments exhibited supernaturally bad luck leading to the rapid destruction of the regiments. They simply weren't cost effective enough, basically.

That specific legion was not continued but there are numerous other examples, the aforementioned Kriegsmen for example, where it has been used subsequently. When it comes to GW though I find that more often than not less thought is given to practicality and more to plot convenience and how cool it will look on the box art.

[xt828]

The general gist I've gotten is that Human cloning tends to end poorly, for whatever reason though usually ascribed to Chaos. Bearing in mind that in the 40kverse souls are realy, measurable things, and they exist in a realm also inhabited by malevolent beings who look on them as lollies, there's all sorts of potential for things to go wrong. OTOH, the Imperium has engaged in creative genetics on several occasions, and that's often gone wrong or not as expected as well.

The new Dark Eldar codex strongly implies that the Craftworld Eldar and Exodites aren't in possession of all the high-tech toys that the Eldar Empire of old had, while the DE are. That said, the impression I got of the non-Trueborn wasn't that they were clones, but that they were Iron Womb types - sperm and egg from donors, grown to maturation in a vat. The Trueborn are carried to term and born the traditional way. I remember the story Todeswind mentioned, and the idea that the DE clone lesser species makes sense to me, especially if it's for the purpose of extracting more pain and suffering.

[Imperial Overlord]

The non trueborn Dark Eldar are iron womb types, but the Dark Eldar do use cloning in their resurrection technology.

[Zor]

The general gist I've gotten is that Human cloning tends to end poorly, for whatever reason though usually ascribed to Chaos. Bearing in mind that in the 40kverse souls are realy, measurable things, and they exist in a realm also inhabited by malevolent beings who look on them as lollies, there's all sorts of potential for things to go wrong. OTOH, the Imperium has engaged in creative genetics on several occasions, and that's often gone wrong or not as expected as well.

That might be a valued point if it was not for the case that it does not nessisarly be the case. Krieg is the big point about it, the soldiers of Krieg are a bunch of Disciplined Fanatics and a lot of them are clones. Maybe its just a superstition that this might happen or if it was done by a sloppytechpriest mutation will result.

Zor