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Stargate Information Archive _ Season 7 Spoilers _ Episode 703 "Fragile Balance"

Posted by: Arcady Mar 21st 2003, 11:08 AM

FRAGILE BALANCE

Story line: Jack O'Neill disappears from his bedroom - and in his place is Young Jack, a teenage boy who claims to be the real Colonel O'Neill, only 30 years younger.

[Young Jack] A cute teenage boy, 18 to play 14 to 18, there's something familiar about him; he closely resembles a teenage version of Colonel Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson). Gruff, irritable, sardonic, and testy, a young man with a big attitude. Young Jack claims that in fact he is Colonel O'Neill - that he woke up this morning looking thiry years younger and expects Stargate's team to do something about it. Profoundly annoyed to be treated dismissively simply because he looks like a kid. Young Jack has the DNA of Jack O'Neill and the irritating assertiveness to go with it. Intent on reclaiming his status as a veteran warrior, Young Jack succeeds largely in amusing the Stargate team - until they learn that he is dying. In fact, Young Jack is a clone of the real O'Neill, who has been abducted by aliens from Asgard. With O'Neill's memories downloaded into his mind, Young Jack has been born ready to kick butt and take names - if he can live long enough for his zits to clear up ... LEAD (2)

#thanks to 'kat' for that info

***********************************************************************
New information:

Apparently a teenage boy turns up at the SGC, in Jack's clothes, claiming to be Jack O'Neill. Nobody of course recognizes him, not even the once-again human Daniel (who doesn't remember everything). Also, the SGC team interviews alien abductees (the kind Mulder was always running across in X-Files). Jack Jr is his usual sarcastic self. And it seems that Jack Jr's lifespan is limited (as stated above).

#thanks to 'ferret' for the additional info.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sg1_spoilme

Posted by: OdinisThor'sDad Mar 22nd 2003, 1:08 AM

Either Thor has developed a sense of humor or this is where we meet Loki

Posted by: Johnny_Park Mar 22nd 2003, 3:51 PM

will someone please explain the whole loki deal to me?

i thought it was just something along the lines of the asguard wanting to clone humans (and obviously still working on it) in order to help themselves with the replicators in the future. Maybe they're getting abit embaressed about constantly running to get some help from little chimp people whole the look down on cause the seem to like killing each other.

Posted by: vidar Mar 22nd 2003, 5:54 PM

QUOTE (Johnny_Park @ Mar 22 2003, 08:51 PM)

will someone please explain the whole Loki deal to me?

in norse mythology loki was the son of Farbauti and Laufey two giants and so was not realy one of the gods but he did live with them in asguard he was a trickster and shape shifter and made the blind god Hodr kill his brother Balder when Odin had made him invincable to all bar mistletoe and Loki gave hodr mistltoe to throw so as no to feal left out and when Hodr (blind) threw it he killed Balder and the gods did'nt hated him after that so they tied him to a rock of all time. in other words the asguard stuck him on a palnet with out and tec

what i want to know is could the Serpant son of Loki Jormuingand who encircled the earth be a gould i mean loki was the evil norse god so maybe

Posted by: LadyLuna Mar 22nd 2003, 6:41 PM

In Norse Mythology Loki wasn't an evil god - he was the god of mischif who turned bad.

"He is a son of the giant Farbauti ("cruel striker") and the giantess Laufey. He is regarded as one of Aesir, but is on occasion their enemy. He is connected with fire and magic, and can assume many different shapes (horse, falcon, fly). He is crafty and malicious, but is also heroic: in that aspect he can be compared with the trickster from North American myths. The ambivalent god grows progressively more unpleasent, and is directly responsible for the death of Balder, the god of light.

Loki's mistress is the giantess Angrboda, and with her he is the father of three monsters. His wife is Sigyn, who stayed loyal to him, even when the gods punished him for the death of Balder. He was chained to three large boulders; one under his shoulders, one under his loins (that's gotta hurt) and one under his knees. A poisonous snake was placed above his head. (Think snakehead here...) The dripping venom that lands on him is caught by Sigyn in a bowl. But every now and then, when the bowl is filled to the brim, she has to leave him to empty it. Then the poison that falls on Loki's face makes him twist in pain, causing earthquakes.

On the day of Ragnarok, Loki's chains will break and he will lead the giants into battle against the gods. Loki is often called the Sly One, the Trickster, the Shape Changer, and the Sky Traveler."

So my guess is that he's been controlled by a Gou'ald, got free (remember they were able to remove Klorell from Ska'ra) and is intent upon leading an army of clones against the replicators.... or the remaining asgard.... who knows.

Posted by: mithwriter Mar 22nd 2003, 10:56 PM

Interesting element that the clone has a limited life span...I remember reading in the early days of cloning animals that if you cloned, say, a five year old sheep, then that's what you got when it reached maturity... a sheep with the insides of a five year old....you literally got an exact replica of the original....

Posted by: Johnny_Park Mar 23rd 2003, 12:04 PM

actually the cloned thing is to do with the telomere on the end of the chromosome... this an extra bit of a repeat DNA sequence at the end of the chromosome which to all intensive purposes is completely useless. It's there because as a cell replicates and DNA is copied, the end of the chromosome has a tendancy to be lost a few bases at a time, so eventually after many many years you get to the end of this region and start losing bases from the actual genes... and things start going wrong.

What happens in cloning is if you clone a 3 year old sheep which can live up to 9 years, your clone will already have lost 3 years worth of nucleotide bases, so when it gets to 6 years old its effectively 9 years old... so it will suffer premature aging.

Posted by: doesitsaycolonel Mar 23rd 2003, 3:05 PM

Well case in point is Dolly the sheep who had to be put down recently cos of advanced arthritis I think? I bet young Jack's knees are going to be a bit dodgy.

Posted by: OdinisThor'sDad Mar 24th 2003, 11:45 AM

Here is the whole Loki thing.

I just like to bring it up to annoy people.

Annubis was originally thought to be Loki............

When ever something unexplained happened I would blame it on Loki.....a practical Joker who is a god ( or in this case a theoretical renegade Asgard) hard to catch.

Posted by: Chirp Mar 27th 2003, 1:49 AM

Will Carter finally get to give Jack a little kiss and hug? I can just amagine what line Jack will say for Cater to believe him. (Remember on PYX### when you and I did )He will have to say to Daniel when Baal had him, but then Daniel can't remember.Teal'c he will have to say something back in 1969 I would think, but there are so many things that Jack and Teal'c did, anyone will do.This one will be very interesting.

Posted by: ccl28 Mar 28th 2003, 9:04 PM

Could this have something to do with those nanobots that prematurely aged O'neill in the first season (brief candle I think)???

Posted by: teknobug5 Apr 9th 2003, 9:13 AM

I read an article about Michael's return and he said he was really enjoy to be on sg-1 team again. He said about "fragile balance" that it was funny to see Jack beeing caricatured by a youngest Jack. Once you are beggining to be carricatured, it's because it's big. The show, the person, it's all big.
Again about MIke, he found it was strange to have less of Jack, he find that something was missing. But at least, the characters will have more interactions and stories about them. I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by: ColonelJackO'NeillRocks Apr 19th 2003, 10:43 AM

Wow....Tom Hanks' "Big" meets Sci-Fi.... interesting indeed.

Oh yea, I can see Anubis' face now....

"This is O'Neill, the one who slain Ra, Apophis, Kronos, etc. He isn't old enough to even carry a larve."

Yep, way to help defend the Earth, Thor. I thought the asgard were trying to clone cows (I.e. crop circles, and Roswell). I guess they got a little ambitious. Where's that damn hammer when you need it...so I can WHOMP you on you big HONKIN' head!!!!

Maybe now Carter will give Jack some play....one can dream can't they?

Posted by: Mike Apr 23rd 2003, 11:23 PM

QUOTE (ColonielJackO'NeillRocks @ Apr 19 2003, 10:43 AM)

Maybe now Carter will give Jack some play....one can dream can't they?

They say men reach their sexual peak at around age 18 and to get it on with an older woman is one of those "must have" experiences in one's lifetime. Hehehehe.

Ok, back to topic.

Posted by: Arcady May 8th 2003, 2:16 AM

Gateworld has some more info and has added some photos for this episode on http://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s7/703.shtml.

However, I tend to think that this shot is not actually from the episode...
user posted image

Posted by: unrhue May 8th 2003, 2:39 AM

Yuk Yuk....Doing the Charlies Angels Thang...

Posted by: Behenna May 8th 2003, 6:18 AM

lol, thats good but is it me or does daniel look lost in that pic!, kidda like saying who r these weird people and what am i doing here!

Posted by: Mike May 8th 2003, 9:57 AM

Nice to see Amanda Tapping grow that hair out a bit. That "In Between Hair" thing is just not happening.

Posted by: unrhue May 8th 2003, 1:39 PM

QUOTE (Behenna @ May 8 2003, 06:18 AM)

lol, thats good but is it me or does daniel look lost in that pic!, kidda like saying who r these weird people and what am i doing here!

He more looks like..."Don't get near the Lady." kind of thing. I find that he does that squinty eye expression in alot of eppy's.

Posted by: Dafmeister May 8th 2003, 2:12 PM

QUOTE (LadyLuna @ Mar 22 2003, 06:41 PM)

On the day of Ragnarok, Loki's chains will break and he will lead the giants into battle against the gods. Loki is often called the Sly One, the Trickster, the Shape Changer, and the Sky Traveler."

So my guess is that he's been controlled by a Gou'ald, got free (remember they were able to remove Klorell from Ska'ra) and is intent upon leading an army of clones against the replicators.... or the remaining asgard.... who knows.

Is it possible for a Goa'uld to take an Asgard as a host???

I reckon that if Loki really is an Asgard he's got to be a goa'uld host (or does the fact they are clones stop them from being taken)

Posted by: ColonelJackO'NeillRocks May 8th 2003, 10:11 PM

QUOTE (Arcady @ May 8 2003, 02:16 AM)

Gateworld has some more info and has added some photos for this episode on http://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s7/703.shtml.

However, I tend to think that this shot is not actually from the episode...

sometimes i think they have TOO much fun shooting this series.....

Posted by: BigBlueBuddha May 13th 2003, 2:26 AM

Flipped through the pics on the site.. can't wait... looks like everyone has been eating good since season 6, lol... our heroes are showing signs of old age but I still love 'em hands down..

Posted by: Johnny_Park May 13th 2003, 4:40 PM

yes, carter and teal'c do look as if they're enjoying the traditional american food jonus was talking about in nightwalkers/crawlers (whichever it is) abit too much.

Posted by: Tanwen O'Neill May 27th 2003, 12:33 PM

They do look like their having fun. The asguard set looks wicked, gotta luv them lil' grey dudes!
It must have been really hard trying to find an actor to play Young Jack because of all of us obsessed peeps!

Posted by: Bonzai May 27th 2003, 1:58 PM

well is Eps should be bad one because of young jack wow they could do better than is

Posted by: SG1nut May 27th 2003, 4:17 PM

Doesn't Daniel look constipated in that "Charlie's Angel's" pose? I mean Christopher Judge and Amanda Tapping look real professional and (dareIsayit) "glamorous"? (Sorry if I'm insulting any macho CJ fans out there)- I actually like Daniel's pose the best- even if he is constipated...

So does that make RDA "Charlie" or does Thor suit that role better?

I got it. RDA can be "Bosley" and Thor- with that "sexy" voice can be "Charlie"!!! *SPIN-OFF SERIES moment.*

Posted by: Blue Base Jun 2nd 2003, 2:13 PM

I haven't seen this episode yet - in Canada and stuck with basic cable - but I think it would be a lot of fun to have an episode where all the SG-1 members are kids. Can you imagine Teal'c as a kid???

Posted by: Behenna Jun 2nd 2003, 5:24 PM

noones seen this ep yet! they ant started 2 show season 7 anywhere yet!

Posted by: Tanwen O'Neill Jun 4th 2003, 7:02 AM

QUOTE (Blue Base @ Jun 2 2003, 02:13 PM)

Can you imagine Teal'c as a kid???

[QUOTE]
No. he was born then he grew up quick ala 'brief candle' and then he stopped. simple

Posted by: mithwriter Jun 4th 2003, 1:49 PM

QUOTE (Tanwen O'Neill @ May 27 2003, 12:33 PM)

The new issue of SciFi magazine just came out here, and there is a picture of the "young" O'Neill in it...he looks about 15 or 16 in the picture. Should be fun to watch...

Posted by: The Moody Goa'uld Jun 4th 2003, 2:10 PM

Hey, from the looks of the photos at gateworld it looks like this episode will show those asgard in all their human abducting glory. hmmmm. I wonder if Heimdall is in this one?

Posted by: Tanwen O'Neill Jun 11th 2003, 10:49 AM

There's a clip of this on one of the trailers somewhere.
"I woke up this moringing, I havent had a coffee, let alone a pee in 7days and then I found out you stole my ass and made a mini me"

Im wondering slightly about the 'stole my ass' thingy, is it just jack being jack, or is it a bit ore literal?!?!?!

Posted by: BlackWidower Jun 15th 2003, 7:36 PM

I have a theory that Loki was the first Gould to infect an Asgard, I will even apply this in my Stargate Fic where a member of SG-1 get's infected by Loki. SG-1 is bigger.

Posted by: SrAPennington Jun 18th 2003, 6:51 PM

Rock on... Nice to see that the Asgaurd are in the mix of things.

http://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s7/graphics/703_29.shtml

Posted by: cruordeinfidelis Jun 18th 2003, 8:36 PM

Personnally i can't wait for this next episode. Every Asgard ep is sweet, i just love those little grey men. The last time Thor appeared (Season Six's Disclosure) i got a a warm feeling inside.

Senator Kinsey: "Listen Commander"
Thor: *points* "Supreme Commander"

Woot Woot go Thor, you tell that moronic government offical. And as far as Loki being a Goa'uld inside an Asgard, I really wanna know what that voice would sound like, because the Goa'uld sounded different with the Unas. Both the Goa'uld and Asgard have sweet sounding voices i wanna see what weird combination of the two is come up with.

Posted by: BigBlueBuddha Jun 21st 2003, 7:57 AM

Episode was an instant favorite for me.. right up there with "window of opportunity". My hat goes off to Odinisthor'sdad, for calling out Loki as the new Asgard we were going to meet in this ep the minute he caught the first tidbits on what this episodes plot would contain.. the man knows his mythology. On another note, the asgard are starting to look to much alike... Thor should have a hat, lol.. what ever happened to those cool 60's style gold rope chains they were sporting in ep. Red Sky, lol..

Posted by: LadyLuna Jun 22nd 2003, 9:45 AM

I loved the scene with Thor and Loki it was kinda like....

"What did you do now Loki?"
"But Mom....."

Posted by: SG1nut Jun 22nd 2003, 7:20 PM

I enjoyed it too. I was amazed by how good "duplicate" O'Neill was in portraying the "bigger" O'Neill- especially that whole, "Hot chocolate? Are you kidding?"
I kinda wished that they would stay in contact though. Wouldn't duplicate O'Neill miss hanging with his team-mates and finding out about the progress in the fight against the Gouald?
I also loved that whole,
"Are you conducting some sort of scientific experiment O'Neill"
from Teal'c... Hella funny!

Posted by: BigBlueBuddha Jun 23rd 2003, 7:59 AM

QUOTE (SG1nut @ Jun 22 2003, 08:20 PM)

I enjoyed it too. I was amazed by how good "duplicate" O'Neill was in portraying the "bigger" O'Neill- especially that whole, "Hot chocolate? Are you kidding?"

I kinda wished that they would stay in contact though. Wouldn't duplicate O'Neill miss hanging with his team-mates and finding out about the progress in the fight against the Gouald?

I also loved that whole,
"Are you conducting some sort of scientific experiment O'Neill"
from Teal'c... Hella funny!

I agree... they should at least keep in contact via email, lol.. remember the seperation anxiety the replica SG-1 had when they found out they were not real either.. they took it ok at first but then lost thier minds... and subsequently thier heads later, lol..

Posted by: SG1nut Jun 23rd 2003, 9:57 AM

Oh, and another thing. I was just watching it again... (As ya do, when its a good ep,) and I suddenly came to the conclusion that perhaps the missing link that the asgard were looking for was not Jack O'Neill- but Jonas Quinn?

After all Nirrti did inform him that his evolution was far more advanced than any normal human being in "Metamorphosis"... So perhaps their paths will cross in the future and the asgard will realise that he is "the one."

Jus an idea of course.

Posted by: OdinisThor'sDad Jun 23rd 2003, 10:03 AM

QUOTE (BigBlueBuddha @ Jun 21 2003, 09:57 PM)

My hat goes off to Odinisthor'sdad, for calling out Loki as the new Asgard we were going to meet in this ep the minute he caught the first tidbits on what this episodes plot would contain.. the man knows his mythology.

Thank man...I'm glad you remembered so I can brag a bit.

I knew that guy was going to show up at some time......but just so you don't think my head is to big.....I also thought Annubis was Loki the first time I saw him, remember.

But they totally impictured Loki wrong...totally wrong. If I was a scientist and someone called me the god of trickery I would say "Screw you Jackson"

He must of played a really funny joke if that has stuck with him for 1000s of years

Posted by: BigBlueBuddha Jun 24th 2003, 11:04 AM

QUOTE (OdinisThor'sDad @ Jun 23 2003, 11:03 AM)

QUOTE (BigBlueBuddha @ Jun 21 2003, 09:57 PM)

No doubt dude.. it stuck with me because when you said it, I read up on i a tad and it made sense, and you were on point

Posted by: OdinisThor'sDad Jun 25th 2003, 3:32 AM

So can I brag now?

Posted by: The Gatatran Jun 25th 2003, 10:09 AM

Later after after seen this EP I told my girl "I hope they dont bring the young jack back in the spinoff" Oh god i hope not! Im sorry but the point of a spinoff is to start a new story with new people. Dont get me wrong Jack is cool but a kid acting like him. hhhmmm i dont think so. Dont mind me im just thinking type out. lol

Posted by: The Moody Goa'uld Jun 25th 2003, 6:31 PM

I think you are right Gataran. Its alright when you have O'neill acting that way, because he is older. But when it comes from a kid clone it seemed to go too far sometimes.

Posted by: spacemonster Jun 26th 2003, 2:48 AM

Did anyone notice the magazine that little jack was reading before Loki beamed him up? He must have got it from Jack's collection, makes you wonder what Jack does on his time off.

Posted by: ColonelJackO'NeillRocks Jun 26th 2003, 8:55 AM

QUOTE (BigBlueBuddha @ Jun 23 2003, 08:59 AM)

QUOTE (SG1nut @ Jun 22 2003, 08:20 PM)

I enjoyed it too. I was amazed by how good "duplicate" O'Neill was in portraying the "bigger" O'Neill- especially that whole, "Hot chocolate? Are you kidding?"

I kinda wished that they would stay in contact though. Wouldn't duplicate O'Neill miss hanging with his team-mates and finding out about the progress in the fight against the Gouald?

I also loved that whole,
"Are you conducting some sort of scientific experiment O'Neill"
from Teal'c... Hella funny!

Maybe another ep with him in it?

MAYBE......MAYBE the duplicate O'Neill leads SG:Atlantis?!?!?!

Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants???!?!??!

Rocks out.

Posted by: Khaki Oct 6th 2003, 3:52 AM

QUOTE (mithwriter @ Mar 22 2003, 10:56 PM)

Actually thats not true- clones don't give you exact matured copies of whatever you cloned. All cloning does is give you the DNA code of whatever it is you cloned, so say you cloned a 5 year old sheep, you'd get an offspring looking like would, in 5 years, resemble that same sheep, unless it caught a diesease or was horribly maimed or something.

By the same token you can't expect to clone a Maurice Green and expect the offspring to become exactly like him in a few years time. Maurice had undergone years and years of training and unless his clone undertakes the same training, they'll turn out to be 2 very different people

DNA in living creatures stays exactly the same from the time that they're concieved up until the time they die. Thats all there is to it.

Posted by: princessgater Oct 13th 2003, 12:59 PM

I so can wait till this in on...I only have another hour and 4 mintues till Fragile balance is on sky one.
OH I can't wait.
I don't know what i would do if i didn't have sky cause channel 4 is so far behind its just not funny.
Only one hour and 2 mintues to go.

go asgard, go asgard

Posted by: Aesir Oct 13th 2003, 3:18 PM

Just watched this episode and it was really quite good... more for the humour of the situation and Young Jack though as I thought the story wasn't as great as some have been.

My favourite bit was when he zatted Loki... I think that's the first time we've seen an Asgard be shot right? ... and the look on Loki's face when they mentioned contacting Thor - priceless. I just love it when their big black eyes widen

A couple of things I noticed that might be wrong, but they stood out for me were:

i) Was it me or were those things holding down Loki common cable ties? I take it they found them on the Asgard ship but they really did look like cable ties.
ii) When Daniel was talking about Loki in the third person one time he really seemed to emphasize the 'As' part of Asgard making it sound more like Assgard... I wonder if this was intentional so as to convey Daniel's annoyance or if it was just something I'm imagining.

Posted by: princessgater Oct 13th 2003, 3:34 PM

I've just finshed watching it on sky and some of the bits were so funny...I'd have to agree with what was said earlier the asgard look so funny when they are shot. The whole scenes with the two jacks were so funny.

The scenes with all the pilots were funny aswell what with Sam trying to keep control and the fight outside the rom...when jack came in and just took over.

The fact that mini-Jack kept trying to buy beer was so funny, and when Sam took a beer of him his face was just classic.

Maybe they took cable ties with them to try the asgaurd up when they got there.

Oh I just remembered this the way mini-jack had to keep pullling up his trousers was so Awwww.

Attached image(s)

Posted by: Commander-Thor Oct 13th 2003, 4:13 PM

I really liked this episode. Always nice to meet a new Asgard I always say.

One thing that I'm wondering about is how many more Asgard that there might be out there - Odin. Forseti, Njord, Skadi, Baldr, Tyr, Bragi, Hel ?

And I think it would be nice if Thor, during some idol conversation, could thank the people of Earth for naming a day after him. It would be the courteous thing to do wouldn't it?

Posted by: Jacks Girl Oct 13th 2003, 4:41 PM

Yip I loved this ep - best so far!! That kid was brilliant at playing Jack, like I mentioned in another thread - it definitely made up for the lack of Jack in this episode. that kid deserves a mini oscar

heee hee - yeah the pulling up his trousers scene was well funny GREAT PIC - how cute!

Posted by: Aesir Oct 14th 2003, 4:14 AM

QUOTE (Commander-Thor @ Oct 13 2003, 10:13 PM)

We saw quite a few Asgard that were part of the Asgard High Council in 'Fail Safe' (I think it was this episode). I assume that Odin is their leader, while Thor leads the Asgard military.

That I can remember, so far we've seen or heard of Thor, Freyr, Heimdall and Loki.

While Thursday may be named after Thor and Friday after Frigg, his mother, I don't really think it's something Thor need thank us for. After all, it's not like anyone in the SGC (or indeed anyone still alive) was responsible for this. He would be quite used to seeing things relating to the Asgard in the beliefs and every day lives of people on other planets anyway.

Posted by: Catherine Nov 4th 2003, 6:39 AM

sorry if im wrong but
ok going on a limb here but since when did jack move house cos that certainatly the one maybourne and danny visit him in and if for sure aint his cabin.

Posted by: Veneficus Jan 4th 2004, 12:38 AM

QUOTE (Khaki @ Oct 6 2003, 03:52 AM)

DNA in living creatures stays exactly the same from the time that they're concieved up until the time they die. Thats all there is to it.

err, no.

~ Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a chain, with links. ATCG are it's links. Telomeres are the sequences of repetitive DNA at the end of our chromosomes. & are found in studies to break down as a we age.

~ The current understanding of aging is far more advanced today then it was a few years ago. We know that the chains in gene sequences break down over time, damaged by the stress of cellular mitosis. The entire process of cell division including division of the nucleus and the cytoplasm. Basically DNA tears like a zipper, forming new chains with corresponding links floating around matching up. It's also noted that the process of using oxygen as an energy source generates a cellular waist byproduct noted as free radicals, witch further damages DNA, amongst other environmental constraints cosmic rays, etc... All Causing DNA to engender damage throughout the life span of a living organism.

~ Evolution gave us an answer, aging. Then death.

Bummer huh. The Cells have an internal clock that tells it when to stop reproducing, (Mitosis.), a combination of damage, & natural mechanisms that stipulate that the chain is no longer viable to take another zipper rip before detrimental damage causes mutation. (Mutation is bad, the cell stops doing it's job, Cancer, Inappropriate cellular growth, etc...)

~ At any rate this is the prime variable in the aging process, The cells over time become to damaged to function/repair themselves. & no longer are able to replicate, (by increasing the odds of survivability by mass quantity they/we have a thriving chance.)

~ All right now, onto cloning. When you culture a DNA sample from a mature specimen, The DNA is indeed aged. The biological clock has ticked, in that the zipper has already incurred damage to it's links in the life span of it's donor. Rapid cellular degradation fallows in the cloned specimen, Most attempts to clone a viable specimen are aborted because of damage caused by mutation. There are quite a few failures that came before Dolly. Breaking the normal value of the Cell's Clock causes it to attempt to use DNA for growth that may already be damaged.

~ It's also an assurance that a cloned specimen will indeed most likely have a shorter life span then an adult specimen would normally have.

~ Evolution wins out where man's attempts to clone fail. Reproduction recombines DNA from two Donor's increasing the odds and making up for flaws, mutations, etc. That my be present in one of the donors reproductive applications. The reproductive system attempts to combine two DNA structures filling broken links from one parent, with good links from the other,. (Sometimes even this process fails, children born with mutations, pregnancies that don't take, etc...

~ Thus the problem with cloning is identifying viable DNA, (for witch the odds are against) within a donor that will attribute to a true clone.