Finally watched Emesis Blue last night- [SPOILERS]

Wow. Good shit!

Got a small question tho...

To My understanding, the Gravel War utilized clones well before the Respawn program, and then began phasing them out/stopped producing them in favor of the Respawn Machine.

IF I'm understanding that correctly, when Jules brings up the ~~10~~ 9 who were "respawn compatible" were they-

\-9 compatible Clones?

\-Conveniently, the same 9 Mercs who were used for the cloning programs?

\-Or just 9 random Mercs with no relation to the war up until that point?

Assuming there's even a correct answer. Maybe I'm just curious to see how everyone else interpreted it.