There’s such a thing as a perfect clone. A perfect quantum duplicate that is physically, mentally, and spiritually identical to the original to the extent that it essentially is the original. Just an original that somehow exists at a different position and time from the actual original. There are many ways to create such a clone, but they’re all very fiddly, and difficult.
There were only a few benefits to this technique, the main one that each clone has basically little to no “actual” difference in strength compared to the whole, because, they’re all the actual whole. Meanwhile, the actual-actual whole gets even stronger, because assuming you can pull this technique off successfully, without tearing yourself apart, it's a technique that basically makes you a whole level stronger with each additional perfect clone. That’s why another name for this technique was called “the infinite sea in the infinite rain” Each drop of “rain” was a sea, but the true “sea” was made up of all the drops.
In our family, Kal was the one that was best at this technique. She could create several hundred-quintillion perfect clones for each planet, of each universe, of 2300 multiverses under our control. I guessed it had something to do with the swarm mindset that came innately to her. After all, her true-form was that of a multitude of hers, to begin with. I was the close second in the family, at several hundred-quadrillion perfect clones per each planet, per each universe, of our Empty-Society’s 2300 multiverses.
Jack was really salty about that one. Since she could only make around a billion perfect clones per each planet, of each universe, of our 2300 multiverses. Though honestly, I felt she was already doing pretty good with her ever-expanding fadeling army. There were enough of them, that by this point she was pretty much leading the military efforts of our Empty-Society all on her own. I think that wife of mine just really hated losing.
Yuval was a bit more chill about things even though she could only make a few hundred million perfect clones per planet. According to her, it wasn’t about the number, it was about how you used those numbers. I could believe it. My Demonlord wife had all the hells of the multiverses that we’d taken over, in her iron grip, and it helped out quite a bunch, because it meant that a lot of the biggest would-be trouble makers were toeing the line.
Kian wasn’t really interested in the Perfect Clone technique. She might be shy, but she was still very much a dragon, with a “dragon’s dignity”. True-Dragons were very individualistic creatures. They prided themselves on their unique and outstanding natures. Those beliefs and the cosmos metaphysical reaction to those beliefs, made it a bit too hard for them to use a technique like the perfect clone technique, which required a mindset of accepting that one was just one amongst many.
Hong Mirae found the technique interesting though. She wasn’t particularly interested in having countless duplicates of herself running around, but the utility of using the technique to forcefully increase and hone her own power and understanding of herself, greatly appealed to her. Thus my lovely war-ogress had advanced enough to create a few hundreds of millions of perfect clones per planet, as well.
Ellison was another holdout, but only because she wasn’t really that great with power-intensive techniques, she was more a finesse caster, if anything. Florence Moody, the angelic soul that shared a body with her, as well as the shared status as wife 6…(6.5?), on the other hand, could create up to a trillion clones per planet. Though she wasn’t really serious about the technique. According to her, there were more than enough angels in the cosmos, to begin with. Which sounds a bit like she’s somehow down on angels, but on the contrary, it was a literal fact that there were countless angels in the cosmos. Enough to watch over, everything thing, and every being…There’s a reason that most of the smarter immortal factions didn’t make war with the Angelic Hosts. They had power “and” numbers.
*************************************************************************************************************
As a side note, having the ability to make all these clones definitely had some very interesting possibilities. One of Jack and Yuval’s favorite bits, were to fake argue until someone said, “oh, go fuck yourself”. Upon which the other one would give the other a saucy wink, and say “I might just do that”, grabbing one of their duplicates and one of my duplicates. Which was fun and silly, and a great bit of exercise for my lower-body and tongue. To be clear, the bit got old quite quickly, but the sex and the ability to tag myself out and keep going when “I” finally got tired, made up for the tired humor.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Other less sexy possibilities for having all these clones around, were that it made it super hard for us to die. I mean we were all already pretty damn indestructible and unkillable as it was, but each clone was us. It wasn’t just a clone of us, it was us. So long as a perfect clone existed, we existed, and we could not be slain until each and every instance of us was slain. There were definitely ways around this, and my wives and I had figured out a few so we could more easily deal with foes who might be using similar techniques. However, I’d also been able to figure out counter-countermeasures to increase the durability, and survival, and utility of the perfect clones.
Another use for the perfect clone was in spying and observation. Kal and I were basically everywhere, and while Kal seemed to mostly be limited to forms that largely resembled her, either as a woman, or as an arthropod, my nothingness could transform into pretty much anything, I had perfect clones out there, pretending to be moons, stars, rocks, trees, and all sorts of wild objects and creatures. There were very few places where some instance of me wasn’t, and since they were all me, they all had a similar range in perception, so there was very, very little, I didn’t hear, or see. It almost got a bit overwhelming sometimes.
My wives, myself, and our fellows in the Empty-Society, mostly toured the 2300 multiverses as a precaution. Make a net and the fish and eels will find a way to swim out of it, or swim clear of it. Thus we still had to patrol our territory in case our enemies, and naughtier subjects, figured out a way to get around the dragnet of perfect clones, to get up to some mischief.
*************************************************************************************************************
There was one other thing we used our clones for, was killing time. I mean, it probably should be obvious right. I mean, we spent between tens to tens of thousands of years, at a time, just working. Doing a job that was always either frustrating, tedious, boring, or tense. Naturally, we’d need ways to kill time and let out a bit of steam.
Getting together to mess around in our private realm was one way to do that, but that always felt a bit like a fake-vacation. A “fakation”, the kind where you’re supposed to be on the beach, enjoying a nice cold drink, but you end up having to borrow the hotel’s fax machine while sending a whole bunch of emails, and trying not to yell at your co-workers for ruining your one week of time off after five years relentless work.
Thus, we generally, only briefly stopped over at home, and for the most part, we’d leave returning home to periods where our real-selves, or at least most of our real-selves could be focused on being at home. Which, of course, came with the added wrinkle of trying to coordinate our schedules so that we could be together. But hey, even for nigh-omnipotent, nigh-omniscient, eldritch beings like us, some things just couldn’t be helped. I figure this was just one of the prices of being your own boss. Which explains, but doesn’t excuse, why certain crappy employers try that whole “your name’s not on the sign-board, and your contract says I can fire you at any time, but let’s pretend we’re all in this together”-schtick to get extra work from their employees.
My main way, for killing time and relaxing in between the quieter moments at work, was focusing on a particular one of my many perfect clones. Focusing my attention on a single clone was a bit like playing a game, when the camera would zoom in on your avatar from above. I know that I have an actual game world that I could be visiting and messing around with, but that’s a game world I created and maintained, thus more work. Why on earth would I go there if I wanted to relax? I’d probably end up noticing something off about the meta-data and fiddling around with the process settings the whole time.
Instead, there was a certain little “actual” world that I often visited. A world that reminded me of the Shattered World that I used to know back when I was mortal. The actual Shattered World wasn’t really suitable for that, because culturally, and technologically, the Empty-Dream had made it into a much different, much more modernistic, place. This other world was still wild, primitive, and untamed, and extremely unstable compared to other worlds in our territory, and being there made me feel all sorts of nostalgic. So, I got a mountain myself, and in the quieter moments, I live on that mountain as a hermit.