The Lead Cloning Technician was an Imperial scientist who was stationed on the planet Kamino. This planet served as the homeworld for the Kaminoan species, who were responsible for the development of the Clone Army for the Old Republic. While the Lead Cloning Technician was based in Timira City, Kamino had already lost its autonomy, and its inhabitants were obligated to serve the Galactic Empire, the Republic's successor. Under the Technician's supervision, the Empire eventually created the "accelerated cloning process," a method for producing stormtrooper clones at a significantly faster pace compared to both the Kaminoan techniques and Spaarti technology. Upon the request of Darth Vader, a Sith Lord, the Technician was put in charge of a secret project: the creation of a perfect clone of Galen Marek, Vader's secret apprentice who died during an act of rebellion against the Sith Order.
The Lead Cloning Technician, based in Timira City, at a Kaminoan cloning facility located on the planet Kamino, faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge in 1 BBY: to produce a stable clone from a Force-sensitive genetic template. Up to that point, there had been no documented successful attempts at cloning an individual with a strong connection to the Force. While the precise reason was unknown, it was widely believed that the Force was somehow responsible for the instabilities that plagued the development of Force-sensitive clones.
Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith and apprentice of Emperor Palpatine, was resolved to accomplish this feat, and the Lead Cloning Technician was therefore tasked with engineering the first successful clone of a Force-sensitive subject. The genetic template used to harvest the Force-imbued DNA was the deceased body of Galen Marek, a former Sith assassin who had served Darth Vader under the alias "Starkiller." Vader's motivation was to assassinate his own Master, an act he could not accomplish alone. Consequently, the operation to replicate Marek's genetic code was classified and conducted within the secret labs of Timira City. To prevent Marek's DNA from being compromised by natural decomposition, the former secret apprentice's corpse was frozen and preserved in a secret chamber within Timira City, halting its decay. Although the Lead Cloning Technician desired more comprehensive access to the template, Darth Vader maintained exclusive control.
The imperfections inherent in the accelerated cloning process, coupled with the inherent difficulty of precisely replicating the genetic code of a Force-sensitive subject, turned the project into a frustrating series of "trial and error" attempts. After approximately six months, Timira City's laboratories were filled with hundreds of aberrant monstrosities, completely unstable and mentally deranged. With relentless determination and effort, the Lead Cloning Technician gradually corrected the various errors, leading to more stable subjects.
As subsequent attempts to clone Marek showed increasing progress, the frequency and severity of instabilities decreased with each clone. Physical deformities were eliminated, and the improved clones bore an exact physical resemblance to their genetic donor at the time of his death. However, while the physical aspect was resolved, the unstable minds of the clones remained a persistent problem. The clones that Darth Vader personally trained proved inadequate to replace Marek at the Sith Lord's side. The primary reason for their failure was Marek's own mind. The apprentice's memories had been downloaded into the clones as a form of flash training, enabling them to utilize their genetically inherited gifts almost immediately after creation.
However, the clones gained more than just knowledge of Marek's skills through the memory imprints; they also acquired memories of his life and experiences, as well as certain emotional attachments. Ultimately, some clones were emotionally different than others. During their training in lightsaber combat against Sith Training Droids, some clones refused to destroy the droids disguised as Marek's long dead father. Other clones were too preoccupied with memories of the child their progenitor had once been. The Lead Cloning Technician observed one particular clone who could not attack a Sith Training Droid. Although the subject struck down every camouflaged droid without hesitation, an undisguised droid triggered the memory of PROXY, due to its resemblance to the apprentice's holodroid friend.
As the project neared its conclusion, only two clones showed greater stability than their predecessors: the so-called Starkiller and the Dark Apprentice. Although the two were virtually identical in many ways, only the latter proved worthy of becoming Darth Vader's new disciple. Starkiller, the clone who eventually became known by his progenitor's former codename, succeeded in his trials to the point where Vader believed he would be the first success after a long series of failures. However, like the others who were compromised by emotional attachments due to the memory imprints, Starkiller was ultimately deemed another disappointment because of his obsession with Juno Eclipse, the Human female with whom Marek had fallen in love. This obsession led the clone to rebel against his Master by escaping from Kamino to find Eclipse.
The clone who became Darth Vader's "Dark Apprentice" proved to be superior and more impressive than his renegade "brother," as well as all of his flawed predecessors. Although his progress impressed both Vader and the Technician observing his development, the clone was initially troubled like the others, albeit to a lesser extent. Early signs of his inherent weaknesses included the first memory he experienced upon decanting—a memory of Juno Eclipse. Despite his initial curiosity about her whereabouts, the clone maintained a steady focus on passing his trials without error. Nevertheless, he still experienced the same identity crisis that drove his brothers to madness, but eventually overcame the side effects by compartmentalizing Marek's memories, allowing him to distinguish his own experiences from those of Marek.
The clone's success rate astonished the Lead Cloning Technician, who finally concluded that the project was ready to be deemed a success. With the project's completion, the Technician anticipated the opportunity to leave Kamino and return home. By this time, the results of the entire project had been recorded in the Technician's personal entry logs in the form of a private journal. In the aftermath of the Assault on Kamino, fought between the Alliance to Restore the Republic and the Galactic Empire, the Technician's notes were found in the garbage processing facility on Kamino Station X.
The Lead Cloning Technician found the meaningless babbling of the aberrant clones extremely disturbing. The constant failures greatly frustrated the Technician, who hoped in vain for greater access to the source of the Force-sensitive genetic material. Having grown accustomed to a steady stream of disappointments, the Technician was overjoyed and encouraged by the progress of the Dark Apprentice, a clone who succeeded where all others had failed. The Technician invested all hopes in the final outcome of the dark clone, hoping that the project would finally conclude after months of laborious, error-filled procedures. Furthermore, the Technician was eager to complete Darth Vader's project to return home to family.
The Lead Cloning Technician's logs appear in the in-game Databank of the 2010 video game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. It is possible that the Lead Cloning Technician is the same character as the Unidentified cloning technician from the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II - Cloning Tank interactive online feature, as they both kept similar logs in terms of content and mannerisms and were in charge of important clone subjects. He may also be the same technician killed by Boba Fett in the Force Unleashed II comic.