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December 7, 2001 Link to this post
The problem with flash-cloning
Fall of Reach details... Eric Trautmann drops an interesting tidbit into the Marathon's Story page forum - there's been some discussion, on and off, about the outrage felt towards Dr. Halsey, and her involvement in the 'recruitment' of children for the SPARTAN project. The moral offense of replacing a child with a flash-clone (so that the parents wouldn't know he or she was gone) seemed (to me, at least) to be less relevant in the 26th century... but Eric's explanation of the left-out backstory clarifies things a lot:
Though not explicitly stated -- and as such, this is completely "non-canon" -- my intention was to have the clones be defective in some way; mental retardation, previously "undiagnosed" illness (Parkinson's, most likely), or other such defect. That's why they use the original kids, not the second generation dubs. ;D
As I say, though, we didn't come right out and say that either in the game or the novel, so that notion may be revised to something a trifle less, uh, dark.
Had that been included, the moral outrage would have been COMPLETELY justified... one more example of how cutting-room floor material can make hard-to-understand plot points clearer. Thanks, Eric! (Louis Wu 14:19:37 UTC)
