Today In Pop Culture: Attack Of The Clones

By Jeffery X Martin

We’ve always wondered how the government would react when the invasion came. Would they tell us, so we could have a chance to hide or fight back? Would they simply allow it to happen, letting natural selection take its course? It’s a good question, one conspiracy theorists have pondered for years.

Here’s the funny thing.
It’s already happened.

The clone first arrived in 1996. We always thought they would come to America first. Such arrogance. We never thought Scotland would be the point of first contact. They didn’t even announce the clone’s existence until this date in 1997! The world should have known about the clone right away, I say.

Look, just because it was a sheep doesn’t make a bit of difference. The danger is real.

Her name was Dolly and she was indeed named after Dolly Parton. It seemed far less threatening than her original name, 6LL3. Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. She had three mommies (take that, Conservatives): one which provided the DNA, one that provided the egg, and one that acted as a surrogate mother, a host vessel for the coming invasion.

The media surrounding Dolly was amazing. Her story was all over the network news. She was written about in scientific journals. She was the event of the year. And why not? The clones were among us now.

Then, Dolly was allowed to breed. A Welsh mountain ram was brought in to create a invasionary force of half-sheep/half-cloned-sheep. Dolly bore six lambs, a set of twins, a set of triplets, and a one-off named Bonnie, also named after Dolly Parton. We had already learned to fear the sheep, but to learn the Welsh were in on it, too? Shocking.

But like an ending from an old science-fiction novel, humanity was saved from a wooly takeover by Earth’s most natural defense: disease. It was lung disease that proved to be Dolly’s undoing. Actually, it was a rare form of lung cancer caused by the JSRV retrovirus. And by “rare,” I mean that it’s pretty common for sheep to get that stuff. Other sheep in the same flock had died of the same cancer. In other words, Dolly was killed by natural causes, and not a moment too soon.

That doesn’t mean we’re safe for the cloning terror, though. Pigs have been cloned, as have deer, horses, and bulls. Scientists have even experimented with cloning extinct species of animals, such as an Pyrenean ibex, which I thought was a flightless bird but is in fact a kind of mountain goat! Can you imagine a world overrun by cloned mountain goats, hopping about willy-nilly, butting people in the butt? Well, I never. Maybe I should try it.

Dolly was the first, but there could be more cloned animals at any time! Maybe we’re too late! They’re already here! You could be next!