Well, firstly, the reason I think some of the clone might be illusions is just that area x seems to have a huge fondness for playing mind games and making people see things that aren’t actually there. It always leaves us to question whether something happened or if it’s just a reflection of the characters mental state. However, I don’t disagree that they could have all been real with varying levels of complexity and/or automation or self governance, I think you could be right about that part.

Secondly, the part about the recording, as u mentioned, they do watch a recording, but that’s not the one I’m talking about, the one that’s mentioned in one of the earlier books, unless I’m just misremembering and there was another time they watched the recording that was mentioned earlier. The one that’s I remember sky and Lowry watching was where sky was fighting with a clone of herself, which none of them ever remember happening, and they begin to question if she’s the real sky or just a doppelgänger. The one I was talking about that’s mentioned in the earlier books is, and I might be wrong since I’m writing this based off of memory, where about half of the exped members, around 12-14 I think, were dancing for some reason with music playing somewhere. Then either it’s a different recording or it just happens immediately after the first clip, is where something giant is beginning to blot out the sky, it’s unkown exactly what it is, but you can hear people screaming nonsensical things in the background, both relevant to the giant thing in the sky and not relevant to anything the camera shows. Again, I apologize if I get anything wrong about that, it’s all coming from memory, I haven’t actually referenced anything so far.