I wonder about vatgrown and age

[tommytom]

Do vatgrown soldiers have a biological age of 23 and are 23 chronological, or can they be, say, biological 23 and chronological 1. Also, using "biological" is a bit problematic as they are biologically accelerated, so that age would just be there intended age, not their "living" age.

I had assumed it was how long they were awake/living/aged, but I suppose it's their "absolute" age, as in their body condition.

[REMworlder]

For vatgrowns, I think it's more a reference to gestation. Eg, they were born out of some test tube equivalent. The time alive (eg, not in-utero) is still the same as any other person's, just they weren't traditionally birthed and probably had some crazy genetic experimentation to boot. They may have had an accelerated maturation too, but that still doesn't affect overall time alive used to measure age.

[tommytom]

True. I think I am probably reading into it that vatgrown are accelerated growth variant. As you said, probably just genetically altered, "conceived" in a tube/tub and grew normally.

Still, it would make some nice story/flavor text to see a biological 23yo with 1 chronological age. lol.

[wolfman1911]

Who knows, maybe they were vatgrown to maximize the chance of getting certain favorable traits, and then went through two decades or so of training in whatever they were to do.