This is actually the kind of answer I was looking for. Thanks!
I was going to ask why it's immutable, but after thinking about it, it makes sense that the relationship is immutable just like an sql table row is immutable to the table it is in.
I think the reason I thought it wasn't like that is because the data storage of the indices doesn't use the index name, just all the random folder names. So I was thinking of the index name as basically an alias to some randomized real name.
Er, clone doesn't work when you don't have enough disk space for it. Reindex only sorta worked because i didn't end up saving all the data. I let a lot of it just get deleted.