Cloning

Cloning of genetic and organic material was a process humanity figured out many thousands of years ago, and was intregal to humanity's survival in the orion arm. Cloned live stock and lab grown protiens were used in the earliest colonies. Cloned organs allow for donorless medical procedures. This kind of cloning is rarely discussed and wildly considered the vitual norm in most systems. 
The first time a human was sucessfully cloned as a full sentient person was sometime during the age of exploration. It did not take long before humans were selling their genetic data to companies like Smith-Shimano Corpo. Clones were grown to colonize corporate worlds like Opal and Nal Redar. These corporations often grew "flash clones" from the data, which were clones meant to fully grow within the span of a year. These clones were highly unethical, with artificially shortened lifespans and a myriad of health complications to boot. Republican regulation eventually mandated that fully grown clones must be given a "full" lifespan and not given artificial age accelerants. Imperial laws were lax about this, and even went so far to turn most of the clones living in imperial space into wanderers.
These days flash cloning is highly frowned upon, but still practiced in some sectors of the galaxy. Many activists still point out that flash cloning is a regular practice in corporate and imperial space, and that the guilds participate in its practice but hide it. The Union is highly against cloning unless for familial purposes. 
It is rumored that imperial scientists under Nero Proxius in a blacksite on Grand Bastion  were able to fully clone a human's psyche and graft it onto a fully grown clone that was being kept in stasis. It is believed now only the covenant posesses this level and technology, utilized through their infamous clone armies.