Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-27082825-20150116155842/@comment-26023629-20150123063639

The genetic engineering thing is really a secondary debate to the main thing at hand; though, I do have an earlier example of cloning for you- Madara cloning Hashirama. There's no real established time for when Madara did that, but it was the only thing keeping him alive by the time of Obito's arrival, so it had likely been a while. Moreover, if Madara, who had no established background in genetics, nor any other individuals to aid him in his research, could clone Hashirama, I feel that all bets are off on the cloning thing.

Orochimaru I think probably had that stuff figured out pretty quick, but he didn't really care about cloning anyone. After all, he wasn't after an army, he wanted to make himself strong enough that he wouldn't need one.

That does raise the question of why he didn't clone Kimimaro, though it could be that Kimimaro's disease was genetic (possibly a reason there were so few shikotsumyaku users in the kaguya clan).

But, yeah, I agree that without genetic engineering involved Onoki would be too cautious to waste his resources trying to reproduce the project. My whole bit about the cloning thing is just that it seems unlikely to me that the Land of Earth had any in- depth knowledge of the genetics involved; if they did they'd have tried some other tricks.

I would also be interested to see other possible kekkei tota. Since dust release goes as far as molecular disintegration, I'd imagine they're all pretty cool.