10 April 2023
I was thinking at work about random things, and then specifically about the genre of sci-fi. From there, I was thinking about dystopian stuff, specifically some of the stories I’ve read where clones both exist, and are either second-class citizens or not even considered human. Then I wondered, “What if twins were considered clones, since they have the same DNA, and theoretically have as much in common as a clone would?”
From there, I kept playing with the idea. The biggest hurdle was convincing myself that people, especially existing twins and families of them, would ever accept a law like that. (You could argue that people are capable of accepting some very terrible and obviously bad things depending on how and when they’re presented, but again, I had to convince myself first they would.) So I pulled in a galactic federation.
I have no idea what, if anything I’m going to do with this. But it was fun to write in a slightly morbid sort of way, and it has so much potential. We’ll see.
Tara remembered the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach when she heard about the “clone regulation laws” the Galactic Federation mandated if humanity was to join. Ordinarily, they shouldn’t have been a big deal; enough people still had moral and ethical issues with the idea of human cloning, so it hadn’t become a thing.
The problem was, apparently none of the alien races in the Federation had a concept like twins. Some quirk of their biology, she guessed? On top of that, all of the Federation’s citizenship and ID was tied to biometric scans involving DNA. Therefore, legally, only one person with the same genetic code would be considered a citizen. Anyone else–like their identical twin–would be considered a clone, no matter how they were born or created.
By rights, Tara was safe, and wouldn’t have to worry about it. She was the older twin, and therefore could legally be considered the “original”. But Jessie was married, and she and her husband had just given birth to their first kid. No way was Tara going to take that away from her.
“But! It’s not right!” Jessie protested. “You’re a person; they can’t just take away your rights because some snooty alien jerk said so!”
“Apparently, they can,” Tara said, resigned. “You remember the Seattle incident, don’t you?”
Jessie closed her mouth. The whole world knew about the Seattle incident. Protesters had gathered not long after the announcements had been made, trying to protect the families this law would tear apart; maybe even get the government to reconsider joining the Federation. They marched on the alien’s embassy there; the aliens had panicked, and called in an orbital strike that vaporized four city blocks around them.
During the ensuing “formal apologies”, Tara had the distinct impression that the pompous bastard that was the Galactic ambassador didn’t actually give a damn. They mostly used the incident as a way to say that now the federation knew about our planet, joining them and all their laws was not optional.
Several moments later, Jessie finally spoke again. “What if you went into hiding? Just dropped off the grid somewhere. Southern Missouri, maybe?”
Tara gave her a wan smile. “If I don’t hand myself in, sis, what’s to stop them from saying you’re the clone instead? It’s not worth the risk. Let me do this. For you guys. Little Danielle especially.”
Jessie’s lip quivered, and it wasn’t long before she pulled Tara into a hug and started sobbing. “You’ve always been there for me,” she whispered.
“Just like you’ve always been there for me.” Tara squeezed her back. Right as they let go there was a knock at the door; the authorities had arrived.