#But that would probably be phenotypically the same as turner syndrome

[steeb-stn]

My medically-trained self trying to figure out how omega, a girl, is a clone of Jango Fett

[sunnysam-my]

Is it possible for Danny to have a female clone as a male?

Short answer: Kinda. There are multiple options.

I'm not an expert by no means, but I'll try to simplify cloning for you. Also, reproductive cloning of humans is more of theoretical field than anything.

Let's start of with this: Dani probably isn't exactly a clone. A cloned embryo is essentially an identical twin of the original organism. She isn't that, because she isn't the same sex. Even if clones are genetically identical with one another, they will not be identical in physical or behavioral characteristics, because DNA is not the only determinant of these characteristics. That's why she is shorter, not as thin, behaves differently etc. Dani was made by reproductive cloning - the process of cloning an entire organism.

So, how to make Dani out of Danny?

To create a female clone from a man you could take his cells and turn off the Androgen receptor genes. The person will develop as female with XY chromosomes and will have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. This method creates genotypically male individual but phenotypically female, making them intersex. This would make a clone, but it wouldn't be "genetically" female.

Deleting the Y chromosome. This will create a female child with Turner's Syndrome. Most of the effects of which can be countered with hormone supplements at appropriate development stages.

Duplicate the male X chromosome - turning an XY into an XX. Though the resulting individual wouldn't be a perfect clone because the proportions of source DNA wouldn't be right, all the source material would come from the original male.

Bring in donor chromosomes from an unrelated female. All other genes will be identical to the "parent's" genome, and by controlling which X is active (only single X is active in a female). The 'clone' wouldn't be as identical as the other methods.

So yeah, either Danny is trans or Dani is intersex :D

Danny Phantom, Trans icon since 2004

[fromthedeskoftheminister]

Kaminoans are awful scientists and have horrible business sense, pass it on

Alternatively - It is possible for phenotypically and genetically female clones to have existed because Jango Fett was human and human DNA is weird enough already, the existence of the Force notwithstanding.

This is a rant about how the Kaminoans are horrible scientists, have really bad business sense, horrible ethics in general and a series of head canons about mutations in the clones.

I would like to preface this by saying that everything I know of the Kaminoans comes from both wookieepedia pages, and the rest of this is based on what I know of real world genetics, how science is actually done (trust me I’m a scientist), and a vague understanding of the Force

Known things about the Kaminoans

They’re cloners but before that they’re scientists

They have a caste system

They’re amoral scientists

They're xenophobic to the point of racism

They apparently have no issue with slavery as they clone slaves for spice mines occasionally

They're perfectionists

Before Jedi inspection (or whatever the hell you want to call Obi Wan rediscovering the facility) they culled most of the clones that did not meet standards (whatever the hell those were)

They had a fully mapped genome from Jango Fett, which means that no mutations should have occurred

They somehow managed to fix the issue of telomeres 

What This means

Ok, so I don’t actually know how much the internet knows about science but I'm going to assume nothing as I explain things.

So, as the cloning tubes were initially set up for a lot of different species’ requirements. Per the Republic order for the GAR those all had to be converted, reconfigured and cleaned from their initial species’ designation to human. The quickest way to get something of that size to happen is to get a lot of help, which in the Kaminoans case meant that it was probably reassigned to one of the lower castes. The Kaminoans also needed to have much larger quantities of whatever their substitute for amniotic fluid was. This was also something that was probably delegated to a different caste because mass producing amniotic fluid was probably not high on a scientists to do list.

Good science means that you have trials and replication. This is to ensure that any weird instances in the data are truly random occurrences and not part of a larger pattern.  Yes, you can technically argue that every clone was a replication and that every batch produced was a different trial, but that is not actually the case. The replicant thing sure, but for trials to be counted as separate trials, something in it or about it needs to be changed. The Kaminoans didn't do this. After experimenting with the Nulls and the Alpha ARC commandos they went straight into producing the rest of the CT series. Hell, they didn't even try for more than 2 trials when they were experimenting with what would make the perfect combination of genetics to create their super soldiers. That is not a good idea when faffing about with DNA, as human DNA likes to mutate. It does this randomly, and that’s normal, as most mutations are either corrected naturally or simply don’t change anything and thus are not problems.

Good science also has clear communication. The Kaminoans did not quite have that. There are two instances of this. The first is in their directive. The Kamonians had a simple directive of “Make an army of one man”. No one knows how this was determined. Was it just based on genetics? Or did the genetics not quite matter provided they all looked the same? Just because something is phenotypically (looks) the same does not mean that its genetically the same. Look into the insect (butterflies have great examples) and animal kingdoms (Dolly Varden and Bull trout are completely identical unless you look at DNA) for examples of this. Look at twins if you need an example in humanity. Twins can look exactly the same and be very different people. Twins can also look vastly different and effectively be the same person to the point of creepiness. The second instance of poor communication comes from the clones’ designations. When doing science, labels are important. They tend to designate several things from the trial number, the trial type, the actual sample number and occasionally the date depending on the experiment. For the clones this means that their designation should reflect the type of clone, their batch number and then their number within their batch. While this is done to some extent, as seen as the differences in the numbers of the ARCs, the CC clones and the CT clones it is not consistent and does not actually tell us anything about the clones nor the order they were decanted.

Good science also means that you don’t discard data. Outliers are noted and included in the final presentation of the data. They are included in a results section. More often than not the anomalies are not discussed unless the scientists potentially have an explanation for said anomaly. But my point is that they are still there and not swept under the rug. Instead they are studied. More often than not, an anomaly in the data is the lead for someone else’s project. In other words if you're basing your standards off of a genetic match, then anomalies would have been allowed to grow to completion as they were interesting but irrelevant. It also might have allowed the Kaminoans to identify any potential harmful mutations that could possibly appear in normal clones. Instead the Kaminoans chose to cull (kill) them because they didn't fit their standards.

The Kaminoans also have horrible horrible business sense. Do you know how much money it takes to clone a person? Its a lot of money. Right now, IRL it takes about $20,000 USD to clone a cow. In June of 2001 Forbes estimated that it would cost about $1.7 million USD to clone a person. Adjusting for inflation that would be over $2.3 million USD today. I know that we’re dealing with a fictional universe here but can you tell me that you think cloning would have gotten any less expensive over time? If thats how an entire species supports itself the answer is probably not. And so what do they do with defective clones? Canonically the Kaminoans kill them. Which makes no sense given how much money it theoretically takes to produce a clone. Even if the Kaminoans are only being payed for every “perfect” clone they produce, having a “defective” clone is still a waste of resources on their part. They could have simply trained the clones in administrative or maintenance work as they did once the Jedi “found” Kamino again. Hell, slavery is already a problem in the Star Wars verse, and the Kaminoans already cloned slaves, so for them selling defective clones would be a reasonable way to recoup some of their financial losses. 

What does this have to do with mutations in the clones and the ideas of genetically and phenotypically female clones? 

Everything. It was a well known fact among the cloners of the galaxy that cloning Force Sensitive beings was a bad idea. This was due to the fact that those particular type of clones ended up being highly unstable. Kaminoan society also disliked the idea of Force Sensitives. Their distaste was so severe that the one historically recorded member who was Force Sensitive was made outcast once she started displaying her Sensitivity despite her high caste birth. The Kaminoans also regularly killed off green eyed offspring due to the fear that they posed a threat to their well ordered society which suggests that green eyed Kaminoans may have been naturally Force Sensitive. This also means that they had no real idea of how the Force would have effected the cloning processes. The Jedi confirm that all of the clones were individuals within the Force. The Force also has a habit of messing with physical/genetic things (see Anakin’s entire existence), so it stands to reason that the Force caused some measure of mutation in the clones. 

Theres also the problem of human DNA being weird. As I mentioned earlier human DNA likes to mutate and mutate a lot. Most of the mutations are benign and are corrected by ones own DNA. Others simply don’t change anything and thus do not show up in physical characteristics at all. Which means a clone may not look like a mutant if the Kaminoans are just judging based on appearance, but is definitely a mutant based on genetics. Some physical traits in humans are controlled by multiple genes and we still dont quite know how to change them from one thing to another. This includes things like height, hair color, eye color, body type and numerous other traits. Depending on what standards the Kaminoans were attempting to meet, any of these benign mutations could have been enough to make the Kaminoans call them defective. 

Some other mutations are not quite so simple. There are random mutations at different stages that can cause mirrored organs or others that affect the sex chromosomes. Depending on when in development these mutations occur, you can occasionally end up with genetically male but phenotypically female clones through things like Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or Swyer Syndrome, or even genetically and phenotypically female clones through Turner syndrome or identical twins where one has Turner syndrome (effectively creating different sex identical twins).

Initially, the mutations were probably attributed to screw ups due with the mechanical systems as most of the scientist kamonians would have considered that work beneath them and reassigned it to one of the other castes.  Alternatively this would have also been attributed to mistakes made in the amniotic fluid. As mentioned earlier mass producing amniotic fluid could have been easily handled by another caste. Just hand them a recipe and hope that they do not screw up. Either way, the Scientist Kaminoans would have declared themselves to not be at fault because their science is perfect. Which its really really not. Either way once the Kaminoans realized that the mutations were not actually random and that there might have been a pattern, occasional “defective” clones were probably allowed to survive provided that they managed to meet the Cuy’vul Dar’s military standards, and remained available for further study upon reaching “adulthood”.

In conclusion the Kaminoans practiced horrible science, had really bad business sense and there were probably phenotypically female clones, if not phenotypically and genetically female clones, running around with the trans female clones and the rest of the vode during the Clone Wars.