[Mustang19]

Apart from very specific points on a human (such as the jugular) most major veins (arteries) are deep inside the body out of harms way [...]

As will they be on a spaceship. Animal skin is "dead"; we don't have living cells that need to be supplied with blood all over the surface of our bodies. In the same way, an organic spaceship would be surrounded by a crystalline structure of dead organic cells, forming armor. Or even better, inorganic armor and an organic interior.

An interesting question that never comes up is power generation. Does an organic ship carry the standard SciFi fusion/fission reactor, or something else? Also, how would an organic ship propel itself?

Someone else touched on this earlier. Standard biological metabolism methods won't generate nearly enough power for beamz and engines.

[Snail]

What my theory was is that the Shivans just have different means of construction with different metals/alloys. So the technology made (like weapons or sensor arrays) is easy to reverse engineer though it cannot be built the same way as the Shivans make it. So it's like hand-making a substance as opposed to being made by a factory. Same things come out but they're made different ways at different speeds.

[Woolie Wool]

Handmade items are still made with the same materials and principles, it's only a matter of getting a machine to do the exact same things.

[Asuko]

Not necessarily. You could condense, simplify, and otherwise alter steps that a machine would have to take to build something.

[Snail]

Handmade items are still made with the same materials and principles, it's only a matter of getting a machine to do the exact same things.

So... Humans can make liquid oxygen with knitting needles, then?

[Aardwolf]

Edit: Hahaha nice analogy.