Unfortunately the Scatter Object internally uses Render instances and, apparently, can't be used as a source for a cloner...
Let me ask around to see if someone knows of a workaround, and in the meantime please report this as a bug/idea from inside Cinema 4D.
Here are a few suggestions.
To create colorful traces you don't need splines. You can use this technique:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0LfxbzmYnk
Use a Fracture Object on the Sweep and colorize each swept spline like you do with any mograph object
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/u9n3apgbydfnhc3t3qko8/SwirlStrokes-Noseman-Fracture.c4d?rlkey=n4fyy0f2tc5daiqldvoytgyuc&dl=0
The Alembic export has a huge (known) limitation. If the first frame is empty, nothing exports. To trick it, you need to add at least a single point. In this scene I added a polygon primitive with 0 size under the Connect Object. It's a very ugly workaround, but it works.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0fmlgj4fbjdb6yvqsakav/SwirlStrokes-for-Alembic.c4d?rlkey=u7v4vpb560w77mv2ohcpt3v9m&dl=0
here's a project:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6l3zq9ntf0bx1eeaxhm9e/object-surface-cloning.c4d?rlkey=s5kqmmxbaozl6q3pyc5ug095x&dl=0
Cloner in Object Mode. Drag the surface you want to clone onto in the "Object" link and that's it.
Please share a scene as this should be very straightforward.
You shouldn't have any problems that don't have some sort of workaround. Whenever you have a scene that has issues, simplify it and post a link here and I can take a look...
.. It doesn’t seem like a complex task...
I learned never to say that to a developer 
It's better if you report it as an idea.
@wing-bend
in the "Help" menu at the bottom -> "Report Bug/idea"
- Baking as a Alembic = If it's gracious enough to work at all, it explodes as soon as you change its hierarchy.
Do you have a sample of this?
Alembic should work as long as you put the Cloner under a Connect Object
...What I want is an object position pass that treats all the objects as one.
May I ask why? If you have a simplified example scene please share and let me know what you're trying to do with the "position pass"
@wing-bend
no option as far as I know, but you could save each object type as a preset with XYZ selected.
Here's how to do it:
From now on you can select any of the presets instead of the default objects.
You could also make your custom layout with your new objects instead of the default ones.
Is there truly no way to simply press a button and have the cloner turn into individual keyframed objects?
unfortunately not...
