Is Data and Lore's creator a clone of Arik Soong, or did he manage to father children and subsequent generations, one of which happened to look exactly like him?
I gather that there are more options in the future than were predicted in the recent past. Noonien could be a bona fide offspring of Arik plus some irrelevant woman, only with minor precautions taken to ensure "like father, like son". Perhaps illegally, if the taboo on genetics goes that deep/shallow. Perhaps legally, if what Arik did would not have the potential to produce further Khans (and the authorities would not realize that producing further Soongs was even worse, genetic manipulation or not!). Timo Saloniemi
That has kind of been my thought. He knew he had a possibly centuries long task ahead of him, and being the narcissist he was, and not having time to dating or caring much about silly Federation ethics, he just kept cloning. He may have added a few modifications each time, but his experience with the augments and running afoul of the Fed's treatment of new augments, he would have been very cautious.
Maybe Noonien Soong's parents were big fans of Arik Soong, and they had legal rights to his genes from being his relatives, so they cloned him.
Noonien lived and pretty much worked outside of the Federation's purview. It would make sense, based on everything we've seen, for him to a genetically enhanced, perfect clone of Arik, who wouldn't be allowed to participate within the Federation proper because of his genetic heritage. Heck, it's possible that Arik never had children, and that Noonien could be a simple clone of Arik produced by some group based on his continued work (thanks Jon) over 100 years after he died, and named for Soong and his greatest idol.
Arik was arrogant enough to presume that mixing another person's genes with his own would only dilute the quality of the product. I could easily see him in his twilight years producing a clone, perhaps becoming Noonian's father.
No, but I feel that, as seen with Bashir, there would be a certain level of stigma from the population that would push Noonien to the fringes. If only to protect his parentage or whomever was actually involved in the illicit genetic activity. Professional aloofness and unspoken discrimination at his contributions might also have kept him away.
The Federation discriminates against those genetically made superior, in order to promote an egalitarian agenda. Cloning itself is not discriminated against in the episodes so far - rather, it's pretty much a capital offense with immediate on-the-spot capital punishment: clones can be killed in disgust whenever encountered, either by the victim of the cloning, or by her associates who happen to be suitably armed ("Up the Long Ladder"), or just generally kicked in the groin for existing ("Second Chances"). Soong's clones should consider themselves lucky if they get just the latter. Something seems different in "A Man Alone", though. But it's probably just the difference between UFP law and mores, and Bajoran law and mores... Timo Saloniemi
It is a common conceit in TV productions that distant ancestors or descendants are played by the same actor, like it's the case with T'Pol's foremother. In-universe, cloning Arik seems a bit crass when we could easily assume that in the Trek universe looks can pass on between the generations. See A. I. Soong.
After finally seeing Picard and the introduction of Altan, I'm even more convinced that every Soong after Arik is a clone.
T'Pol's second foremother probably didn't look like T'Pol. That was just the story being told to us, or perhaps Archer or Trip's visualization of that story, and the real T'Mir may have looked completely different, or maybe vaguely like T'Pol if T'Pol said something like "she looked similar to me" at one point. Shannon O'Donnel is the big example of the "ancestor looks like me rule". We see a photograph of her as being Kate Mulgrew in old age makeup, confirming the story being told to us that may have been loose in the details. Is Janeway a clone? Maybe that would be cool, but you'd think she would know more about her biological gene-source than she apparently does in 11:59 (although she knows quite a bit, fascinated quite oddly in this one mediocre figure from 370 years before she was talking... I don't have family stories about any of my 1650s ancestors...). But... probably not. I like to see actors (and ships! but that's another topic) as approximations of what the characters look like. Anson Mount and Jeffrey Hunter don't look like each other, anymore than Ethan Peck and Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto or Robin Curtis and Kirstie Alley or the three Toras Ziyal (which Ira Behr specifically enjoyed recasting in a James Bond-like way). Perhaps Arik and Altan and Noonien all look the exact same, and that would be a heavy sign of cloning. Or perhaps they are all just vaguely similar in appearance due to strong (enhanced?) Soong genes that pass on over four or five generations, and this is told to us by using the same actor.
I haven't watched the 'Picard' series so I won't let it affect TNG in any way. Even if I had watched 'Picard' I might just ignore it.