lore question, spoilers

[J-12]

I don't understand what exactly the cloning means in this game. Which one is it?
1. Is our protagonist clone-clone, as if he was born and raised in a tube, a mindless body on it's own that had personality of Aiden imprinted on it.
2. The body of our protagonist used to belong to some other poor guy who had his personality scrubbed and then overwritten with Aiden's.

Considering the Combines care so little for humans i find it unrealistic that they'd fiddle with cloning technology rather than going for option #2, if they can do that.

[76561199190367678]

2, this way The Combine would spend less resources, as creating a body from scratch would probably consume more time and materials.

[VenomB]

The Combine's entire shtick is taking organics and fusing them with tech.

This, of course, would include total mind wipes for sentient creatures like humans.

[AllSeeingAI]

It's heavily implied to be #2, as the original or at least the previous clone marks on the chattiness of the new one.
He's certainly more memey, though that's a matter of taste.

[J-12]

Right, that's what i thought, especially since it's shown in the game that Combines can wipe, copy and imprint personalities. Just confusing someone would actually call body and personality theft to be "cloning".

Originally posted by TXZHunter:

2, this way The Combine would spend less resources, as creating a body from scratch would probably consume more time and materials.

Originally posted by AllSeeingAI:

It's heavily implied to be #2, as the original or at least the previous clone marks on the chattiness of the new one.
He's certainly more memey, though that's a matter of taste.

[Nathan]

I don't remember where exactly the devs talked about this, might have been in the Retrospective Stream they did a few months ago, but earlier drafts of EZ2 were going to feature elements about how the player as Aiden Walker, now a mind imprinted on a new host body, repurposed from some other poor person, now that mind would be "haunted" in a way by the host body, the remnants of the previous person's mind echoing inside the repurposed brain.

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I don't remember all exact places where "clone" were discussed inside the actual game - of course outside of the game there's plenty, colloquially we talk about and nickname "Clone Cop" as the other 3650 who was the other you sent previously to the Arbeit Facility, I remember Wilson saying "your, errr... ""clone"", said you'd end up here" which seems more like he's just using a term he heard thrown around and doesn't know what else to refer them as that Aiden would recognize in context to save time instead of delve into the exact details of who 3650 and the other Aiden are in some lofty philosophical sense.

Aiden isn't exactly sophisticated, probably doesn't understand all the details, he was a prison guard who is just single mindedly focused on his task to get his perks to find his daughter, so him tossing around terms like "clone" is understandable from his limited perspective.

If some other character in game uses the term "clone" without heavy scarequotes around them, a character that should know better, then that is an oversight I would think, but I don't think the devs meant it if that actually ever happens outside of Aiden talking in terms he understands.