Lit A question about clone madness in the books

I have been seeking what information we have about cloning in the EU, and there is a bit that I think is left unclear.

They say that clones who grow too fast (less than a year) suffer from clone madness. They also say that using memory flash to download all the memories of the original into a clone's brain will make it go mad too.

But all the examples I have found of clones going mad were grown in less than a year. I can't find a single example of a clon being grown during a year or more, receiving a memory download and going mad because of it.

Can you remember any example of a clone grown for more than a year going mad because of the use of memory flash?

Thank you.

 

I thought the memory flash was an integral part of the Spaarti cylinder, and didn't cause clone madness.

 

All Spaarti clones receive Flash Training, which gives them skills, from how to speak to how to use a spoon and fork to how to walk. Some receive Memory Flash, which downloads the whole personality and memories of the donor into his brains. A clon that benefited from Flash Training only is usually a crappy soldier, but one that benefited from Memory Flash is just as good as the donor.

The Wookieepedia claims that Memory Flash can provoke Clone Madness due to Force Shenanigans, but all the examples of crazy clones I have found were grown in less of a year, which would provoke Clone Madness anyways, even without Memory Flash.

 

It's possible that the implication at the time of publication was that Joruus was a clone that went mad due to memory flash, however Outbound Flight shows that the clone was not grown until after the original's death and the original guy was just nuts.

My understanding was that the Force Shenanigans were due to there being two identical people in close proximity. Even Luuke caused Luke to feel a buzzing in his head through the Force. If a bunch of clones of the same template are grown in close proximity, this is probably much much worse while they're growing.

 

Mmmh, clone madness... this thread suddenly makes me realise how much I'd enjoy that being the sequel plot, with the remains of the old empire crumbling-- not just militarily, but psychologically, all its old followers descending into real madness.

There'd be something strangely poetic in that...

 

My favorite insane clone is GC1000 aka Klick.

 

There are various ways of growing clones, some more prone to problems.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/GeNode
Are one of the major sources of problems.
Cloneing force sensitive in general also tends to mess up badly.

As well of course several of the Kamino Clones that went various stages of insane like Spar, a few from TCW, from the Traviss books and the Comics.

 

I recall that in Imperial Commando - Spar pokes fun at the whole "Spar's insane" thing: "Ooo- I'm hearing voices."

 

Everyone in that book was insane though.

 

Blowing Own Horn Department: The Essential Guide to Warfare has an overview of cloning that includes clone madness.

 

And a very good thing that was. It always bugged me that there were so little references to clone madness in the later EU despite how important it sounded in the Thrawn Trilogy.

 

In the Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook (old news, I know ) it says that growing too many clones close to each other causes some sort of interference via the Force, and that Thrawn used ysalamiri to block out the Force & counter the effect. So the way it's presented there (IIRC) it's spatial proximity that's the problem, not temporal acceleration.

 

So we have three possible sources of clone madness:

1.-Growing too close to each other.
2.-Growing in less than a year.
3.-Memory Flash.

I would say the GeNode clones were made to avoid the flaws of Memory Flash. Download a whole personality, but alter the memories enough that they don't think they are the donor. Condition them so they don't realize they are clones and don't obsess over it.

Of course, when they do realize that they are clones, it blows worse than ever.

 

Jaden Korr was successfully cloned with memories transferred through mindspear technology. Galen Marek also had a somewhat successful clone. Two of them, even. One of them being successful in the normal way while the other being what Vader wanted as results. Also wasn't the drawback to the age acceleration fixed by Boba Fett and Kaminoans or something? I don't remember some of the early Fett sub-plots in the LOTF as I didn't pay that much attention to them, but I'm pretty sure that all issues with the cloning process were eventually fixed, with Jaden and Starkiller being prime examples that you can clone Force Users without any issues. The big issue with Palpatine, I imagine, is that he had Voldemort-type madness at that point. You can tell from the way the Empire operated, it was a full on dark side magocracy.

 

Quite possible that everything only happened in Spar's head. Hey, maybe that's the reboot they would have hit when writing Imp Com 2...

 

If they would have really given them to Stover that would have been perfect, since he has enough self-irony in his writing style to actually pull it off.