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✧— I'm happy to roll out any of the Dawn clones as desired, including Cleon XVIII. Hit me up if you have a particular one you want!
THE ABERRATION, CLEON XIV
An Imperial clone, the 14th iteration in a series of clones of Emperor Cleon I. Cleon answered the question of his succession over the Imperial Galactic Empire by having himself cloned in perpetuity. Thus, the Cleonic Dynasty was born: a triad of identical clone emperors—Dawn (an adolescent version and emperor in training), Day (an adult version and primary emperor), and Dusk (an elder version and former emperor mentoring his younger selves)—ruling together on the triple thrones for over four hundred years.
✧ APPEARANCE: Tall, neatly styled, still growing into some muscle and inches before reaching his final form as a Lee Pace-shaped unit. Being a test tube baby, he didn't have an umbilical cord and lacks a navel.
Despite the Cleons looking the same and meant to exhibit identical traits, habits, and idiosyncrasies to the Cleon whose DNA they're made from, if someone pays close attention, Cleon 14 doesn't always move as perfectly in sync with his clone brothers as he should. For one, he's left-handed over right (as all Cleons are) and has been hiding this difference along with others like it since childhood.
✧ DEMEANOUR: He's the pre-despot soft boy edition to a line of emperors described as "hollow men who hollow out their worlds," prone to selfishness and ruthlessness. It's not hard to see how a bunch of weird, sad, pampered purse dogs with no sense of normal human interaction get that way when their family are other thems, their children are other thems, their advisors are other thems, they live in what amounts to a glorified haunted house dedicated to their long dead progenitor (who was a piece of shit, actually). The closest thing to a companion or mother they have is their attendant, Demerzel—and unbeknownst to the public, a millennia-old robot whose prime directive is to maintaining the Empire and ensuring the clones serve their function as cogs in the machine (whether they like it or not). Being fucked up and dysfunctional doesn't cover the half of it. (And don't let Hober be the only one capitalizing on the pun potential for their naming scheme, either.)
An anomaly among Cleons, he lives in terror of his differences being clocked, which would most certainly end with his execution and tends to be withdrawn and introverted as a result, lacking the self-assuredness the others share. When observed, he puts a great deal of effort into acting "Cleon," leaning into haughtiness and activating the more traditional Cleonic snippy bitch gene, though this mimicking falls away given the chance. He's more shy, gentle, with a curious mind, and eager to make connections. Those big blue eyes are built for crying at the slightest emotional provocation, don't test him on it.
✧ DRESS: The most vibrantly pigmented colors are exclusively reserved for royal use on Trantor and the emperors color coordinate their
✧ VOICE: I | II.
history
Gifted mathematician Hari Seldon develops an advanced form of predictive math called psychohistory, which charts the galaxy's future across great expanses of time. He foresees the Galactic Empire, which has reigned for 12,000 years, will collapse within the next few centuries, with the galaxy itself is hurtling toward a dark age that will last millennia more unless course corrected. To soften the fall, he begins the Foundation project—an effort to direct humanity onto a path necessary for its survival.
Naturally, the Imperium takes these assertions as a clarion call for rebellion. Ruled for the last 400 years by the Cleonic Dynasty, the Empire has seen a revolving door of clone emperors for its duration. The first Cleon chose to ensure his legacy by installing a Genetic Dynasty of his clones instead of relying on a bloodline. A Dawn (a young Cleon), Day (an adult version), and Dusk (an older version) lead as a triumvirate of emperors, with back-up clones ready to replace them if ever needed. Their loyal servant Demerzel acts as their protector and advisor, following them via cloning through the ages. In actually, she is a nearly 20,000 year old intelligent robot, the last of her kind since the ancient robot wars. Uncovered by the first Cleon, he programmed her to serve him and uphold the Genetic Dynasty at all costs—even when, over decades and centuries, this hurts both the Empire with stagnating leadership and the clones themselves as they question their purpose filling a dead man's shoes.
Cleon 14 is born nearly two decades after an anti-Imperialist attack on the Imperial homeworld destroys Cleon I's most beloved architectural feat. The attack kills 100 million citizens, provoking the Empire to bomb the perpetrators' homeworlds in retaliation, devastating the Outer Reach region. Hari's predictions unrest such as this is a symptom of a greater problem come true to the letter. Cleon 12, the primary emperor ruling as Day, ostensibly allows the Foundation to work on a solution—but in exile in a corner of the Outer Reach. Too far to make trouble for the Imperium, but also too far for the Imperium to keep a close watch as the Foundation eventually fakes its own demise, slowly building in scope and power unnoticed. By the time Cleon 14 is a teenager as the current Dawn, crackdowns on rebel activity are increasingly severe.
Dawn himself is a threat to the status quo in a different way—although still physically identical to the Cleons, he's somehow the first born with genetic deviations, including different attributes, different skills, and different interests. Most damningly, he's born colorblind, an abnormality no other Cleon has ever had to conceal, marking him at risk of being disposed of and replaced with another genetically "pure" Dawn clone.
Over time, he ends up falling in love with a girl who works in the palace gardens and who sees him in a state of distress maintaining this illusion for so long. She plants the idea of helping him run away and escape the Imperium, where he can be free of the Cleon identity and have his own name, his own life.
However, Dusk grows suspicious after Dawn inadvertently gives himself away on a hunting trip. Dawn is able to kill more camouflaged game than past Cleons by not being distracted by the birds' colors. Dusk then tricks him into exposing his colorblindness, prompting him to flee the palace. He experiences his own home planet as it is without royal trappings for the first time, but too late discovers his escape attempt was all designed as part of a rebel plot. The girl he was too meet was a rebel spy who purposely lured him away in order to switch him out with another Dawn clone, one born and bred among the resistance from stolen Cleon DNA. This was a plan in the works for decades, the rebels being responsible for tweaking Imperial Dawn's DNA as baby in the first place. By installing their own Cleon, an exact match to Cleon I's genetic profile, inside the Imperial family, they could take it down from the inside.
Genetic aberrations now exposed, Day and Dusk debate what to do with their Dawn. Having himself been the young Dawn at the time of the attack on Trantor's Star Bridge, and haunted by Hari Seldon's prophecies lack of change is stagnating the Empire, Day decides to let Dawn live. However, Demerzel executes him anyway, citing her function to serve and preserve the sanctity of the Genetic Dynasty, not merely the emperors themselves. She can eliminate even them if they become a threat to the Empire.
Only then do they discover his death was ultimately for nothing: the rebels had not just managed to modify Cleon 14, but sabotaged the original Cleon's source DNA by introducing (arguably much-needed) genetic diversity. Cleon 14, even possibly Cleon 13, and any subsequent clones and back-ups created are destined to have genetic variance, no longer exact replicas of Cleon I.
permissions
✧ BACKTAGGING: Love it!
✧ THREADJACKING: Just check in with everyone involved first if it's something other than your usual free-for-all stuff.
✧ FOURTHWALLING: Open to discussion.
✧ OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS: None for me. He comes with warnings for imperialism, war, (also war crimes r us), themes of self-harm (he jumps out of his window knowing his aura will save him), slavery, child death, mental mindfuckery, and some consensual grey areas and questionable coercive sexual dynamics going on with his killer android nanny (because sometimes you can never be totally sure if you have a genetic memory of being in love with her, loving her because she's your mother, or it's just a lifetime of grooming to keep you from trusting anyone outside the Empire—Freud would have a field day with the Cleon household.) Drop a line if there's anything you'd like to discuss or to avoid threading with this character for any reason, no sweat. My inbox is always open!
✧ PHYSICAL AFFECTION: Y. Protocol dictates he has a shielding device on most of the time which repels contact, so skin-to-skin contact is a thrilling security threat! His kink is taking his off for touch and soft affection.
✧ ROMANCE/FLIRTING: M/F, M/M, M/*, all good. He's used to sterilized and highly transactional relationships, i.e. he's at the age where he can pick courtesans for company but 1) their encounters are recorded, and 2) usually bedmates have their memories (contractually) wiped afterwards. The Cleonic echo chamber doesn't really work if they're allowed to go off their script and have normal interactions with people, as proven by Dawn who would kick aside his throne for his love interest in about 0.2 seconds if left unsupervised. He's interested in forming connections that... you know, everyone remembers.
✧ VIOLENCE/FIGHTING/INJURIES: Go for it. In-universe it's fair to want to punch him in the face given his face, though he's comically new to dealing with any sort of real injury to his person. For severe injuries, let's talk.
✧ KILLING: Open to it with plotting.
✧ MEDICAL INFORMATION: He has a form of colorblindness that makes him unable to see reds and greens. He also has nanobots in his bloodstream that repair injuries when he's hurt and double as a tracking device, as well as acting as his Imperial identification. And the clone thing, of course, his genome being basically (or almost) identical to a centuries-old corpse on display in his house.
✧ TELEPATHY/MIND READING ABILITIES: Go nuts. If someone is in his head, they might be able to tell his memories have been tampered with, whether put behind a block or wiped from his consciousness, in the name of keeping the clones from gaining too much individuation and independence.