--- Dana asked:

How does being cloned affect Cally (and other Auronar, of course)?

A lot would depend on how clones were viewed by Auron society and whether they were subject to prejudice. During a recent debate on cloning Richard Dawkins suggested that clones were no different to identical twins. Others felt that cloning human beings was a step too far and bandied around the name of Dr Frankenstein. Experience of being a clone would be different if the society one grew up in was on the Dawkins or Frankenstein end of the spectrum.

A rough analogy might be with the experience of being born outside wedlock which carried a massive stigma with it in Victorian times but would be less likely to be condemned today (or indeed in the Middle Ages where medieval magnates revelled in titles like 'The Bastard of Faulconberg'). There is no evidence of prejudice against clones in Children of Auron. Which doesn't of course mean that it didn't exist. Presumably there would be a degree of culture shock in moving from a society in which cloning is widespread to one in which it is not.

In Harvest of Kairos Cally sees "her mother and father" in the Sopron, although presumably she wouldn't have one. Are clones raised in "cheaper by the dozen" nuclear families or in collective care centers?

There are a number of possibilities (depending on the Auronar social services attitude to adoption). Growing up as twins in a nuclear family which appears to be Cally and Zelda's experience would be a different experience to growing up in an orphanage with ten cloned siblings. I would be inclined to think that the two are not either/ or possibilities but that both could exist.

And do Auronar think of Terran h-saps as the same species, a related species, a different species?

Culturally there are a number of marked differences in legends (DotG), isolationism (CoA), attitudes to restraining the mentally ill (Breakdown) as well as the biological difference of possessing telepathy. Cally obviously thinks of herself as being pretty human most of the time "I'm not that alien". However she does feel isolated from humans on other occasions, notably in Sarcophagus. I'd guess that Cally sees humans as related. What other Auronar think is a matter of conjecture. I would imagine that some (the isolationist faction) see themselves as superior.

Stephen.

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