Cloning lab.

The area with the bodies in tanks is called the cloning lab. There is a reason for this, the bodies in the tanks are clones. Which leads many, myself included, to believe that the tanks are cloning tanks.

The question becomes, "Why?" Why is JC’s tank there after 23 years? Why are there full-grown clones in the other tanks when JC grew up the old fashioned way? Did he really grow up the old fashioned way? Why is Alex there? (Or not there, as you’ll see later.)

First we have to do some research into the creation of JC. JC was born 23 years before the game started, we know this because of Morpheus. His childhood is further confirmed by an email sent by Page to Walton Simons:

From: BPage//UpNet.658.9044
To: WSimons//UpNet.039.4980
Subject: Secondary Unit

I've come to believe that should be brought up in a more supervised environment than his brother; I have serious doubts as to his brother's usefulness as our primary unit, and would rather that at least one of the secondary units was under our direct control.

Terminate the parents, but see that is not harmed.We'll move him to our school in Switzerland where we can oversee his development.  If it becomes necessary, his brother is expendable.

Page

This proves that JC was raised and did have parents. However from the tank we know that he was a clone, this can also be guessed by the twin like similarity with his brother Paul, Paul is eleven years older than JC yet almost exactly the same. The reason that JC is a clone and has parents not to mention a brother is explained in this email.

From: GOlivaw//UpNet.273.3947
To: MEverett//UpNet.3289.0912
Subject: RFD 5342A - Cloning Prospectus

Your request for discussion concerning the plausibility of creating genetically viable candidates for nano-augmentation through cloning has sparked considerable interest.  We believe that with sufficient research investment, the careful cultivation of acquired tissue samples from known H type epsilon negative individuals could yield an indefinite number of specimens with the immunity factors required to tolerate the injection of nano-organic material.  If you examine the attached studies, you will see that repeated cloning from the primary source material will result in only a 0.53% immunoglobin variance.

We would suggest utilizing the data acquired by the Illuminati during the smallpox vaccinations of the 1940s to genetically screen for those couples most likely to produce desirable offspring who could then be cloned and raised by the "parents" under carefully supervised conditions.  These cloned siblings would provide the necessary redundancy for further experimental trials.  In the future, this process could be streamlined through the application of accelerated growth and memory implantation.

We look forward to hearing any comments that you might have,
Dr. Olivaw

The second paragraph is the important one. Paul and JC are the cloned siblings, Paul is the naturally born desirable offspring, JC is the clone.

Something worth noticing is that JC’s base genetic sample did not read "Paul Denton" and Morpheus doesn’t list Paul Denton as an ancestor. Although Morpheus might not consider a genetic donor an ancestor I find it more likely that JC is engineered. Of course he is a near clone of Paul, based off of Paul’s DNA, however Paul is suffering from his killswitch on the same night as it is activated, JC shows no effects after 16 hours. To me this says there is something different, I think that JC was engineered to accept the nanites even better than Paul.

Because of the second email we also know why there are full-grown clones. MJ12 must have perfected growth acceleration and memory implantation. This also explains why the had such a big tank for JC when he was only in it while embryonic, the tanks were set up to carry clones to adult hood, the process simply hadn’t been implemented successfully at the time of JC.

As to why JC’s tank would be there after so long, I think it’s obvious. Cloning is obviously not the easiest thing, the continuity bible (which I don’t use here, it’s not cannon after all) says that the chemistry of the womb can effect the way the clone turns out. This is true, this is likely why JC was implanted into Paul’s real mother. But the start of the embryo also takes place in a womb, and for that they had JC’s tank. When JC turned out all right they must have decided to keep the tank as it was so that they could create more clones.

The name of the first clone made in a tank would seem to remain on it, this may be a sort of monument to the first success, or it may be like a class when speaking of ships (the first of a type of ship has the type of ship named after it.) Translating this to clones would mean that although there was only one JC Denton all clones made from the same genetic profile and tank would be "JC Denton" class clones.