History Main / CloneDegeneration

In some instances it may be a JustifiedTrope: the creator may "program" a shortened lifespan into the clone to protect their property from getting away or [[KillAndReplace trying to take his place]]. Relatedly, the degeneration may be because the process used to make the clone resulted in a FlawedPrototype, making all the clones a form of KeystoneArmy that will croak on some future date or circumstance. If the hero has [[ExpendableClone qualms about killing clones]], their degeneration lays them to rest. Whether out of being a MercyKill or making them seem ''less real'' varies.

See also PowerDegeneration, which also applies to clones designed with powers. Compare PossessionBurnout, when being possessed damages the host in a sometimes accelerated manner each time it's done.

** In the ''Adventures of the Mini-Goddesses'' manga, one of the goddesses is able to make a duplicate of herself, which can make a duplicate of herself, etc, each of which is a bit shorter and squishier than its parent. In the main series, goddesses and demons can also divide themselves into avatars -- smaller, less powerful versions of themselves. Before leaving, Hild splits off a 1/1000 avatar of herself in the form of a child to keep track of things on Earth. In chapter 248, her 1/1000 avatar then splits off a 1/1000 avatar which takes the form of a small crystal.

** Another example would be Prayer Reverie in the [[Manga/MobileSuitGundamSEEDAstray Astray mangas]], who was okay in the head, but was basically ailing for most of the Astray X series, [[spoiler: and was able to convincingly fake a death of "natural causes" at the apparent age of nine.]]

* The Nexus 6 generation of replicants in ''Film/BladeRunner'', though potentially physically and mentally superior to humans, have four year life expectancies thanks to kill switches designed into their genes. Their creator describes it as "[[PowerAtAPrice the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very brightly]]". The androids of ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'', upon which the movie was loosely based, have a similar life expectancy, but this is due to technological limitations.

* ''Literature/ThePrestige'': Averted. [[spoiler:Tesla's cloning machine is so perfect it's impossible to tell which is the original, even after years of cloning clones of clones. ]]

** Oni Lee's power allows him to instantly create a new clone of himself within eyesight, with the old body turning to ash after a few seconds. However this power can't perfectly copy his mind and over time his mind dulled, eventually leaving him little more than a machine following orders from Lung. And worst of all, he knew what was happening but couldn't think of a way to reverse it.

** O'Neill was kidnapped and replaced with a younger clone by the rogue Asgard scientist Loki. Loki's clones have accelerated growth so they resemble the missing person by the time they're discovered, but it fails with O'Neill, leding to a teenage clone.[[note]]This is due to the Asgard tampering with O'Neill ''specifically to prevent rogue experimentation'' when he visited them in "The Fifth Race."[[/note]] The degeneration is a case of having YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness literally encoded in the clone's genes. In fact, the O'Neill clone is overcome with pain within ''minutes'' of being recovered by Loki.
** Kull Warriors are created in nonliving form and animated via Ancient technology. They live for several days or weeks, though they're [[SuperSoldier extremely hard to kill]] before their time.

* There are two types of clone that Lex Luthor can make in ''Series/LoisAndClark'', the first type can live up to 70 years and the second only two weeks. Sadly the Lois clone is the latter type.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}} XP'' has this as a mechanic in order to convince characters to try not to get killed ''quite'' as much (if the GM is letting the [[PlayerCharacter PCs]] buy clones rather than simply going through a 6-pack and then handing out new sheets.) After the first seven or so, things start to go south in a hurry, with extra fingers, hideous deformities, and (worst of all in Alpha Complex) colour blindness. (''Everything'' in Alpha Complex has a [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience color-coded]] security clearance.) Luckily, BLUE-clearance [=PCs=] can pay extra to have the template cleaned up. Others have to depend upon secret societies and underhanded business that may well result in termination for treason.

* While it's not really cloning, ''per se'', the Texas Drones in ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' are nowhere near at the level of the original [[TheAce Texas]][[spoiler:/Allison/Beta]], who in no small way, kicked '''EVERYBODY'S''' ass. Carolina takes down several of them with the assistance of [[spoiler:Epsilon-Church]], and the Reds, Blues and Wash show up just in time to help take down the rest.

** Averted in their flagship series, Machinima/RedVsBlue, which is based on the Halo series. In season 6, Church is revealed to be Alpha, a smart AI created from the mind of Dr. Leonard Church, the director of Project Freelancer. Alpha was tortured by his creators until it went crazy, shedding parts of his mind into AI fragments, and using the Director's lingering memories to rebuild his mind. An exact timeline hasn't been given, but a line from Tucker in season 8 about the teams fighting each other for eight years, suggests that Alpha-Church was alive for longer the seven year life-span of smart AIs before it was erased by an {{EMP}}. The surviving fragment Epsilon, which has since assumed the Church identity, has existed even longer, and has been confirmed by WordOfGod to have become Metastable.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'', George had a clone made in one episode, only to find it could do stuff far better than him. He wanted to leave his life to the clone but it turned out that the clone has a very limited lifespan.

-->'''Brian''': I'm not proud of this, but, I have to lick that up.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' episode "Mandy the Merciless", a future is shown where Mandy has achieved immortality, became ruler of the world, and keeps clones of Billy around. When the newest clone is incapable of noticing that Mandy is now an enormous half-worm half-human hybrid, Grim comments that he swears the Billys get dumber with each cloning.

** Apparently, aged cells have shortened telomeres compared to new ones, which means that they won't be able to replicate as much as a "newborn" cell will over its lifetime. Besides that, DNA is unstable and only stays mostly intact when you're alive, so the extraction and freezing processes to preserve it actually damage it. Since the last Pyrenean Ibex died in 2000 and the clone wasn't made until 2009 (and even the first attempts were in 2003), there was little chance that the DNA would even be viable any more. For this same reason, many biologists doubt that long-extinct animals like the wooly mammoth will ever be successfully cloned.
* Most parthenogenetic species in nature do retain the capacity for sexual reproduction, often resorting to this method of breeding when conditions become harsh. It's thought that species which lose this ability usually get wiped out by infectious diseases that can easily spread among genetically-identical hosts, or by changes in their environment that they'd otherwise have the diversity to cope with: thus, while ''individual'' clones may thrive, all-clone species decline over time.

* In a non-genetic example, analog copying of any given object can never be perfect, and copies of those copies will be slightly different as well, which will result in ever more incorrect copies unless the original is referenced to correct mistakes. This becomes a problem when the copies need a high degree of precision and the original cannot be referenced. For example, after Parliament burned down, it damaged/destroyed the British standards for units (such as the physical representation of the inch and weights), leaving the government with slightly different copies of that original as a reference.

* In a crossover of ''[[Comicbook/TheSimpsons Simpsons]] Comics'' and ''Bartman'', Celebrity Troy [=McClure=] gained the [[ILoveNuclearPower radiation explosion]] created identity of "The Sequelizer". His sequel-generating powers allowed him to create duplicates of himself, but [[{{Sequelitis}} each copy was only half as strong as the previous one]].

* The second arc of ''Franchise/TheKingOfFighters'' starting from '''99'' up until ''2001'' focused on NESTS and their unethical cloning experiments. To see how that panned out, Kyo's clones are obsessed with one-upping the man they were sourced from, and while Zero himself is a NobleDemon who [[GracefulLoser graciously accepts defeat and goes down with his ship]], his clone is a complete psychopath willing to destroy a city with his KillSat for his own [[TheStarscream treasonous ambitions of power]]. It doesn't just extend to mental instability - clones are also more often than not [[PowerIncontinence unable to control their powers]]. Just ask Nameless, who reduced someone to ashes merely by tapping them on the shoulder.

* The second arc of ''Franchise/TheKingOfFighters'' starting from ''99'' up until ''2001'' focused on NESTS and their unethical cloning experiments. To see how that panned out, Kyo's clones are obsessed with one-upping the man they were sourced from, and while Zero himself is a NobleDemon who [[GracefulLoser graciously accepts defeat and goes down with his ship]], his clone is a complete psychopath willing to destroy a city with his KillSat for his own [[TheStarscream treasonous ambitions of power]].

* LostInTranslation could be thought of as a variant of this, as certain imperfections inevitably occur in even the best of translations; poor quality and/or machine translations can be even worse. Using a translation as the basis for another can be compound the issue, which is why translators should work from the original whenever possible.

** An earlier episode spoofs the trope with a physically mutated and clearly failed clone of Shake. Not only are the clone's attempts to pass himself off as the original [[PaperThinDisguise pathetically obvious,]] he also turns out to be much kinder and more rational than Shake, and Shake's friends actually like him ''better'' than the Jerkass original.

* Clones in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' tend to have physical or mental problems. Case in Point: [[spoiler:Rau Le Cruset]].
** Another example would be Prayer Reverie in the [[Manga/MobileSuitGundamSEEDAstray Astray mangas]], who was okay in the head, but was basically an IllGirl for most of the Astray X series, [[spoiler: and was able to convincingly fake a death of "natural causes" at the apparent age of nine]]

* In ''Series/RedDwarf'', this trope is [[PlayingWithATrope played with]] to an extent. There is a triplicator in the episode "Demons and Angels" which creates two versions of whatever is placed inside of it: one sublime and perfect, one disgusting and unpleasant. For example, Lister tries it out on a strawberry, making one that's delicious and one [[{{Squick}} full of maggots]]. The kicker is that these cloned objects last for very short amounts of time before being destroyed, which causes chaos when Lister accidentally triplicates [[UpToEleven the entire ship]].

* In David Brin's novel, ''Literature/KilnPeople'', humans are able to create duplicates of themselves that are fashioned from a type of clay. The duplicates, called golems or "dittoes", possess the memories of their original from the time of their creation, but degrade after a day. Before this happens, golems are able to reintegrate their accumulated memories with their original using a special device.

* ''VideoGame/HardspaceShipbreaker'''s LYNX Corporation has its ship disassembly crews cloned whenever they [[NoOSHACompliance inevitably]] die on the job and sends them back in like nothing. The technology was apparently imperfect some time ago, as [[MissionControl Weaver]] used to be a Cutter but some unknown cloning mishap took him off the field; since he sounds entirely normal otherwise, it's most likely something physical. And the technology still has imperfections; [[spoiler:Hal threatens all salvages on strike with forcing them into work so deadly they need twenty resurrections a day until "your DNA comes apart at the seams" and they return as a useless blob]].

* ''VideoGame/HardspaceShipbreaker'''s LYNX Corporation has its ship disassembly crews cloned whenever they [[NoOSHACompliance inevitably]] die on the job and sends them back in like nothing. The technology was apparently imperfect some time ago, as [[MissionControl Weaver]] used to be a Cutter but some unknown cloning mishap took him off the field; since he sounds entirely normal otherwise, it's most likely something physical.

** The Asgard are a benevolent race who once looked like six-foot humanoid elf folk. They've repeatedly transferred their consciousness into new clone bodies for tens of thousandds of years, with increasingly diminishing returns, so that in the present they're tiny, fragile aliens of TheGreys kind.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': In "[=CopyBob DittoPants=]", Plankton photocopies a bunch of [=SpongeBob=] clones to get the Krabby Patty formula. He used cheap toner to make them, so after a while, they all roll up and disappear from existence.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' has the Space Pirates capturing the only living Metroid in existence. Their initial attempts to clone it are a complete failure; the resulting creatures, dubbed "Mochtroids" and distinguishable by their single nucleus, are very slow, lack the Metroids' characteristic NighInvulnerability, and can't even latch on to their target properly.

** O'Neill was kidnapped and replaced with a younger clone by the rogue Asgard scientist Loki (Loki's clones have accelerated growth so they resemble the missing person by the time they're discovered, but it fails on O'Neill[[note]]thanks to the Asgard tampering with him ''specifically to prevent rogue experimentation'' when he visited them in "The Fifth Race"[[/note]]). The degeneration is a case of having YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness literally encoded in the clone's genes. In fact, he's overcome with pain within ''minutes'' of being recovered by Loki.

** The Asgard are a benevolent race who once looked like six-foot humanoid elf folk. They've repeatedly transferred their consciousness into new clone bodies with increasingly diminishing returns, so that in the present they're tiny, fragile aliens of TheGreys kind.

** It’s worth noting that Timothy Zahn wrote the Thrawn Trilogy before the prequels, at a time where George Lucas forbade authors from exploring the Clone Wars era. Even before Disney’s acquisition of the property and the Thrawn trilogy being rebranded under the ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' alternative continuity, Clone Degeneration really didn’t have any effect on the Clone Wars. Lesser quality clones that are grown more rapidly did exist, and were used by the new Empire in the weeks following ''Film/StarWarsEpisodeIIIRevengeOfTheSith'' however, with the final book in the ''Literature/RepublicCommandoSeries'' by Karen Traviss detailing interactions between the battle hardened Kamino clones, and a fresh clone created on Coruscant’s moon as members of the newly minted Squad 40. ''Imperial Commando: 501st'' presents these alternative cloning methods used after Order 66 as basically the reason the ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy exists.

* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': In "The Ricklantis Mixup", Citadel morning news is run by Rick D716, Rick D716-B, and Rick D716-C. D716 is normal, D716-B has a long scar on the right side of his face, and D716-C looks like he is seconds away from disintegrating.

** It is more likely that what will happen is that the genes that determine sex will simply move to somewhere in the human genome, causing humans to shift to a different sex-determination system. There is evidence that this has already happened to several animal species which are doing fine. Not all animals with two sexes use the XX female / XY male system after all.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': In the episode "[[Recap/ThePowerpuffGirlsS4EP6 Knock it Off]]", Dick Hardly, an old friend of the Professor's steals the Chemical X formula to make his own versions of the girls to market as superheroes. However, Hardly skimps on the materials and the more he makes, the more deformed and less like the originals they become, and it's said in the episode they only live a couple of hours.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' gives us Vault 108, which contains nothing but very aggressive clones of a dweller named Gary who can only say their own name as they attack. Notes left throughout the vault state that the first clone was fine, but copies made after that became more violent the farther they were from the original.

* The Grineer Empire in ''Videogame/{{Warframe}}'' collectively suffers from it, due to every single Grineer being a clone of a clone of "[[ANaziByAnyOtherName perfection]]" birthed in industrial quantities. Their degeneration is so bad that they have to use extensive cybernetics to survive; Grineer soldiers almost always have cybernetic feet, and the only thing left of the Grineer Councilor Vay Hek is his ([[BodyHorror visibly cracking and flaking]]) face and lungs.

* ''Videogame/HardspaceShipbreaker'''s LYNX Corporation has its ship disassembly crews cloned whenever they [[NoOSHACompliance inevitably]] die on the job and sends them back in like nothing. The technology was apparently imperfect some time ago, as [[MissionControl Weaver]] used to be a Cutter but some unknown cloning mishap took him off the field; since he sounds entirely normal otherwise, it's most likely something physical.
* ''Videogame/Wasteland3'' has a man who turns out to be a fourth-generation clone of a villain from the [[Videogame/{{Wasteland}} first game]]. He is actually friendly and an aspiring scientist with some skill, but he himself admits that his intelligence and ability is nowhere near his proginator because of this trope -- as is evident by his own attempts at cloning experiments (both on himself and on members of your squad if you ask) producing less than stellar results.

* The space arc version of the False Guenevere storyline in Webcomic/ArthurKingOfTimeAndSpace suffered this, paralleling the illness of the one in the fantasy arc.

* In ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'' Robotnik created a clone of Sonic that aged prematurely. He used this to his advantage by implanting a false memory into the clone, making him believe himself to be Sonic from the future. Use of his high speed aged his body faster, with the clone ultimately sacrificing himself to hold off Robotnik while the real Sonic saved his friends.

* In ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'' Robotnik created a clone of Sonic that aged prematurely. He used this to his advantage by getting the clone to pretend to be Sonic from the future.

* The "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS14E1TreehouseOfHorrorXIII Treehouse of Horror XIII]]" segment "Send in the Clones" on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has Homer with a cloning mechanism which results in him creating duplicates who are progressively dumber than he is. Eventually they get to be so stupid that one of them is [[TakeThat Peter]] [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Griffin]]. Special mention should be made that [[spoiler:the surviving Homer is ''a clone''. The original Homer, who knew of the plot to fly a fake giant donut over a cliff to have the clones runs after it and off the cliff, was the first one off the cliff.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/ExoSquad'', Neosapiens ran a risk of contracting a disease where their bodies decompose, seeing as it's entire species is a clone race, it made [[spoiler:coming BackFromTheDead via implanted memory recordings]] a bit of a gamble.

* Drakken tried this in ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' making "clones" (the show admits it isn't really cloning but called that for simplicity) of Kim, Ron, Rufus and Bonnie and modifying them to be [[EvilKnockoff mindless attack drones]]. It works until it's revealed they're [[WeaksauceWeakness weak against soda]], dissolving into green puddles when its sprayed on them. Later on, they get renamed "synthodrones", which becomes a major plot point of [[WesternAnimation/KimPossibleMovieSoTheDrama the movie]].

** The notable thing said ring is that it only does this to your average person while Jack Spicer's clones were at least able to operate like normal people except for one bad one and demons are apparently immune as Mala Mala Jong's clones didn't display any differing behavior from the original.

** In an episode, Frylock reveals that he's been cloning televisions every time the other Aqua Teens destroy one. Eventually the latest television they make turns evil because having to clone the same thing over and over again causes its molecular structure to start breaking down, leading to this trope. Later in the episode, the Aqua Teens clone dollar bills and eventually end up making George Washington out of dollar bills.

* There are two types of clone the Lex Luthor can make in ''Series/LoisAndClark'', the first type can live up to 70 years and the second only two weeks. Sadly the Lois clone is the latter type.