This whole fast-growth/slow-growth thing is what gets me. It's thought of as a switch; you grow a clone body in 90 days, that body is what, the equivalent of 18 years old, ready for harvesting, right? Well, how the hell do they slow the cellular growth and aging process?!?
You need a cloned liver, you get a replacement in 90 days, but the problem is that the cloned liver is still agiing at an accelerated rate. If it grew to maturity in 90 days, in another 90 days it's now the equivalent of 36 years old. Another 90, now it's 54 -- almost decrepit from old age. And in another 90? 72. Quite old-aged. You get a cloned replacement that's from a fast-grown clone, within a year it's failed due to age.
Admittedly by that time you can get another replacement from a clone that's maybe a little less quickly grown. But if this is a problem in the world, you start seeing why using stolen organs -- the whole organlegging thing -- is still around. People don't want to get a replacement that will die from old age less than a year after implantation.
I'm sure someone's going to say that they fixed this problem -- but it solves other things about the world. Why are fast-grown clones vegetables? Because they're fast-grown. They're going to be DEAD in a year. They're useless except as stopgap replacements for damaged or missing parts.
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Another thing: brain transplants exist in the Shadowrun setting. So many technologies use the concept. So, what's keeping corporate honchos from growing eighteen year old clones of themselves when they turn, say, 60 -- and then at 78, having their brain and spinal cord transferred to a nice young 18 year old clone? Immortality, so long as the brain holds out. And since organ transplants cost no Essence, this is an immortality technique that works for the Awakened.
