Asgard degeneration over repeated cloning

[StargateMillennium]

To put it bluntly: any time you read about "gene X is for Y", it's usually a controller gene that turns on/off many other genes. The vast majority of genes encode chemicals which can undergo dozens of reactions with dozens of other chemicals, proving feedback, competing with others etc. You can't add a "gene for longer legs".

So while the Asgard can doubtlessly make new genes, a DNA treatment to fix one disease may react in such a way that it causes 20 other problems. You're dealing with a machine where, if you pull one lever, a dozen others change position.

Sounds like my programming. You encounter an error. You look for it and fix it in the program merely to find that your patch causes twenty other bloody errors.



Did the Asgard ever consider trying to clone other race bodies? I mean, the current Asgard bodies are deteriorated versions of their originals and their original bodies are supposed similar to human bodies. So, couldn't they clone a human body and upload an Asgard mind into that? Granted, it wouldn't have their genetic modifications but at least they aren't going to go extinct. Or, is there something that makes it impossible for a foreign mind to use a human body?

[thekillman]

Did the Asgard ever consider trying to clone other race bodies? I mean, the current Asgard bodies are deteriorated versions of their originals and their original bodies are supposed similar to human bodies. So, couldn't they clone a human body and upload an Asgard mind into that? Granted, it wouldn't have their genetic modifications but at least they aren't going to go extinct. Or, is there something that makes it impossible for a foreign mind to use a human body?

I think the second condition ruins this plan: the asgard mind is too big to be held by a normal brain. So something similar to O'neill in Lost City/Fifth Race would happen.

I think that this is an important condition often overlooked: something must've prevented the Asgard from just going back to an earlier model.