A clone is essentially your identical twin. You can differ quite a bit from your identical twin, especially the older you get. You will have had different experiences and people of importance in your lives.
A replicon and exactoid are much closer than a clone.
Replicons and exactoids have existed for a long time in science fiction. It’s just that I have named them in my book, Fabricated, and linked them together.
You could guess what a replicon is from its name alone. It is you, brought into existence by a replicator. Your replicon is exactly you at the moment of replication. You might start diverging as soon as you are replicated but you can be 30, 50 or 120 years old when this starts to happen. Obviously a replicon is closer than a clone.
Have you ever known of a time travel adventure where the character(s) end up at the same event a bunch of times? These near identical characters I call exactoids. They are exactly the same except the latest time traveler has a bit more of their brain filled up.
I’ve heard horror stories of would be science fiction writers making clones too much the same. Like the clone knows the original’s memories up to a point. Notice that with replicons and exactoids you can solve this problem. Although you’ve likely made replication and time travel a relatively easy thing to do in these stories. So maybe this won’t save these stories.
