The lore on Karin Midular and on Voluval were recently edited to shed more light on Minmatar attitudes on cloning, presented here in a TL;DR copypaste manner for discussion. I’d be really interested in hearing how people plan to incorporate this into their own character stories myself if anyone can take the time to post.
The choices about cloning are a personal ethical issue for each Matari. You cannot talk about another person’s take on it, unless they volunteer it.
the topic of body- and mind-cloning is considered a matter of deep personal ethics within a traditional framework
it is considered unseemly, to the point of infringing social ethics, to talk of the private choices of another Matari in public, unless they themselves have openly spoken of it beforehand
Even though the fact of having a clone body prepared is unavoidably a matter of public record [for capsuleers], other related choices can be considered private unless openly shared.
These are also not really matters that Matari discuss freely in public.
Careless talk of private matters of this kind in front of non-Matari is considered a grave infringement of traditional ethics on a par with wearing an unearned ritual tattoo or tribal marking.
There is an influential (e.g. Karin Midular probably subscribed to it) philosophy against backup-clones, and many Minmatar also object to emergency clones.
philosophy of those who believe that only one living body and one living spirit, or mind, may exist at any one time
Within this tradition there exists a school of thought that believes it is acceptable to assist a spirit in crossing from a dying body to a new living body
The traditional, standard Voluval procedure does not work very well on clone bodies, as EVE clones are not really “clones” in the genetic/biological sense. Less traditional Voluval rituals exist that solve this problem for those who have not gone through the ritual in their original body.
The physical processes involved in the ritual of evoking a voluval mark have a different range of effects to those seen when a standard human goes through the ritual. The effects are as variable but any marks produced are frequently quite different and seen as uninterpretable in the framework of the voluval ceremony.
radical variants of the process and ceremony that can reliably produce a traditional mark on an active clone, though this is the stuff of rumor, conjecture and, perhaps, unorthodox shamanic practice.
When a capsuleer dies, the Voluval mark is usually copied to the new body (just like other tattoos, scars, birthmarks etc can be duplicated on the clone). Some people, however, think this is not legitimate.
When a Minmatar capsuleer’s birth body is terminated, any voluval marking they may have can be effectively reproduced on a cellular level when their prepared capsuleer clone is sculpted.
Opinions across Minmatar society vary on the legitimacy of reproducing voluval marks on capsuleer clones. The issue is necessarily a relatively recent one but certain strands of thought have emerged in the last century or so.
Most consider the reproduction of the voluval mark by cellular sculpting on a capsuleer clone to be essentially a matter of copying an outward sign of what was revealed by the evocation of the mark in an individual’s voluval ceremony.
typically for the more conservative in the relevant traditions, the reproduction of a voluval mark can be seen as an affront
(For courtesy, I will later put my own plans on how to incorporate this into Elsey in a separate post instead of mixing it up with this infodump.)
(Good places for hearing about these edits are Roleplay is Primary Discord (it’s an out-of-character chat server for all things related to EVE RP) or the Tweetfleet Slack lore and roleplay channels. CCP Delegate Zero and ISD Thalack Dalhar are also on both of those systems and DZ kindly posted this for our note on both (given their time is limited and there is like a couple of thousands of us, availability can be spotty at best, but still). Following ISD Thalack on Twitter is also a good idea for this kind of news.)
No change with Samira. She gets the voluval mark copied during cloning onto each of her clones and considers it true to her. To Samira, the much bigger issue is the clone itself and whether or not it counts as the same person. She is strongly (and publicly) against cloning and would not have clones at all if being a capsuleer didn’t legally require it. So whether or not the mark/voluval counts if it’s an “artificial duplicate” is a rather tertiary concern to her. If the clone counts as the same person then the voluval must likewise, and if it does not then it doesn’t really matter because the whole thing is a fake.
Of course, being raised Amarr and following Amarrian belief, her cultural appreciation for the voluval is rather less than a native-born Republic Minmatar.
It is, by extension, the primary reason she was never Named by her birth Family, and a secondary reason why she’s now a pariah in the Republic (disassociated from her adoptive Clan). Details are on the wiki page, and as Samira said, no changes planned.
The clan is as nomads are, pragmatic with recources so he doesn’t pariah someone out of loosing a voluval mark however a “bann from marriage and family founding” was handed out when facing the events of the self suicide in the RMS
She has to give all requests to the clan to her matriarch who won’t let her go into selfdome anymore. She has to follow orders given, no critic allowed.
By the simple clan members she is seen as spirited or ghosted away and her appearance is seen as a materialized fond memory of the Aergri that has been in the past.
More traditional Elements shun Aergri to this day like a ghost which means a matriarch or leader has to accompany her so that she may enter a Caravan or a camp, even most People won’t talk to her unless a matriarch, chief or shaman “translates” her word.
Family meetups are often Aergri listening to her Family speaking abouttheir live and she get’s to eat like being a “hungry spirit”. No hugs or touch between her and her family members and no exchange in words except a shaman or matriarch is present. Which happens at bigger festivals.
Personal change: Aergri started smoking because of this and drifted through clubs for a longer time. It needed a lot of Motivation and words by a officer of the RMS and a shaman for the matriarch to give her simple errants to run and climb in acceptance.
I am settling for going the “one body, one mind, one Mark” route which means emergency clones are fine, backups are kind of icky, and your Mark is what you initially receive in the Ritual no matter where your spirit is transferred. (You can have it tattooed on the new body or not, as you choose, but Else would think it’s still your Mark even if you do not, because it’s the same spirit in the new body.)
I am undecided about how to deal with jump clones in that context. I’d like to go for considering them extra bodies and hence Ohnesh in the “one body” context, but there’s too much established play where I’ve used them so I think I’ll just go for them (just like the emergency clone itself) not counting.
In Arrendis’ case, it’s not going to change much at all. It actually fits in well with her existing outlook, and she’d actually be one of those people who looks at it as an indication that the clone is not the original person, that the spirit doesn’t transfer (if she admitted to any belief in the spirit at all).
It even plays well into her ‘not really welcome at home’ facet, where a lot of her Clan doesn’t really want her around. Her mother’s an exception, but this adds a potential angle of ‘whatever you are is an abomination’ to the other members of the Clan.
Which, of course, screws things up for Anna, but… I’m about that one.
If I understood it correctly, doesn’t change a thing for Tein. She, her family and her clan believe in souls, and that during cloning, the soul travels through the Mother Ocean to the new body to animate it. How does the soul know it is the right body? Magic. And probably DNA and stuff. It’s bit of an untreaded path as Tein is so far the only capsuleer of her particular clan and belief systems.
It is thus not a source of controversy to reproduce her Voluval after cloning without the proper ceremony - she is not a different person and her destiny/soul has not changed. Also, her Voluval is a relatively common one that doesn’t hold great signifigance like a Ray of Matar does, so less people care about it as passionately.
First, a question: How does the work that Vuld Haupt did regarding sanctioning clones fit in here? I think I remember seeing that he came up with a way to explain it off and/or purify the clone? This was on the Backstage wiki, I think as part of his article. (I’d link it, but I’m not home.)
As for my characters, I think this supports some back-backstory that I had for Renelle, being that 1) the clan mistrusted her parents because their main goal was to put all four of their kids through capsuleer training, and 2) after becoming a capsuleer, Ren’s sister became disenchanted with the idea of transcending bodies, feeling that she was not in fact the same person as she was. Which is why she’s assumed dead now.
Clan opinions were kind of forced to change after Melisma became a capsuleer. She’s the only heir to Corovid, so (in case you haven’t noticed) she gets to do what she wants and everyone else’s opinions have to change around her. So the clan tolerates Mel and Ren both (and Shorai) and just kind of figures that, yeah, they’re the same.
The Voluval didn’t figure into my backstories very much, mostly due to the mild annoyance of there not being a list of Marks. The lore seems to say that there are only a set amount of Marks, so that makes it awkward to me that I have to come up with my own (or consign my characters to negative marks).
The two work together okay. If anything, this new lore provides extra context for Vuld Haupt, as it provides more information on the kinds of worries Minmatar might have about cloning. Vuld’s blessing of clones is an effort to provide comfort and support for those who may have spiritual concerns over the nature of cloning.
In the first place, this deals with the Midular article having and/or alluding to significant new information on the voluval and capsuleers that was not in the voluval article itself.
It also goes into this side of Minmatar views on cloning with special attention to the voluval at greater length than was practical or needed in the Karin Midular article. More clarity on the variety of viewpoints should be apparent.
A relevant paragraph in the Midular article has also been revised slightly for clarity:
The fact that Karin Midular was the last living Ray of Matar, and the first known for generations, has led some to believe that she chose to honor the tradition of one living body and spirit in part to avoid the paradox of a Midular clone body that would not have a Ray marking. While opinions differ on the legitimacy of reproducing voluval marks on clones, those of a conservative cast of mind within certain Matari traditions would see such a thing as an affront, as Midular the unifier would have known.
That’s the basics of this update. Will keep an eye out for feedback etc.
the traditional voluval often does not work properly on a capsuleer clone.
There are believed to be radical variants of the process and ceremony that can reliably produce a traditional mark on an active clone, though this is the stuff of rumor, conjecture and, perhaps, unorthodox shamanic practice.
Woah, woah, this opens up some fun play. (There’s multiple player characters who went through the ritual after becoming capsuleers, and at least some of them new enough to presumable having terminated once in the end of training. That’s now risky and/or shady.)
I’m not sure it really needs backpedaling, unless of course your character has people close to her that take a very strict traditionalist view about it.
It’s more Deitra somewhat being over sensitive on trying to be “more Matari” in her own over idealized mind. If she did do that, she would have broken a social construct she would have known and would not have otherwise had that info been made known earlier.
about that one.