Stormtroopers of Despicability

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Just noticed- in the extras for Despicable Me, interview with the directors and actors ("happy fun land"), it is stated that when they were putting the world together, they hadn't really decided to make it that much of an American style comedy; they had started out intending it to be much more French, cool and ironic. The minions were, and I quote, "they were supposed to be stormtroopers."

Anybody who's seen the movie knows how well that worked. They're two foot high, international signal yellow, dungaree and eyeshield wearing gibbering maniacs, prone to extreme silliness and playing with explosives, mad science and cartoon physics. They are also genetically modified clones, so that's that problem sorted.

So how well does the exchange program go? What happens when a detachment of these idiots turns up on the Executor? Remember, they enjoy playing with heavy weapons and are almost pathetically eager to please- they may be much less well disciplined, but they probably shoot straighter.

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, I don't think Imperial disciplinary structure could handle them. The minions probably wind up retreating into the bowels of the ship and waging a benevolent guerilla war against for a chain of command that rejects everything they stand for- messiness, humor, bright primary colors.

It might be a little like a Motie Watchmaker infestation.

[PainRack]

Bananas don't exist in the Star Wars universe, right?

Although Gelato does..........

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

We have how many separate biospheres, six million of which maybe- wild ass guess, given how many seem able to use the same kind of worlds- five million use the same basic CHON chemistry? One of them must be able to produce something functionally similar to a banana. (a bananalogue?) Or an apple.

An infestation of motie watchmakers is a horrible thought. They're almost like grey goo, except they're individually large enough to have complex responses. Once resources become scarce, they tend to divide off into (family?) groups and start shooting at each other, and think nothing of cannibalising bits of the ship to gain lairs and weapons-

and that could be a good reason for keeping a few garbage squid about the place, now that I think about it. Large traceable semi- intelligent parasites to keep down the mindlessly, or stimulus response reflex, parasites.

If there's an octopoid analogy there, as much as I really do not dig the tentacle thing they do have impressive problem solving skills, but they are probably trapped by their reproductive cycle into miserably short lifespans that prevent them becoming fully sentient.

Dianoga don't have the same problem; they have lifespans around or past the century mark (and reproductive cycles that make me think they may be an ecosphere relative of the Hutts), and could easily be if not exactly Turing test material then at least trainable-

oh, dear. I wish I could sketch this, dianoga cavalry with minions riding on its' back hunting watchmakers through the bowels of a starship.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm.

There are some notable differences between a minion infestation and a watchmaker infestation. Minions don't breed like rabbits, and generally aren't willing to work at direct cross-purposes to the interests of the... master of their house, so to speak. They have (slightly) higher-order thought processes when it comes to non-technical subjects, too.

And they are (slightly) less likely to work at cross purposes than watchmakers, occasional friendly fire incidents with personal bazookas notwithstanding. So I really do think that the minions are likely to be forced out of crew areas into the engineering spaces, there to take up a war of benevolent guerrilla home improvement, tragically loyal to the stern, humorless masters of their new home.

If Wookieepedia is any guide, Executor has a crew of 280 thousand- only about seven times that of an ISD with between 0.1 and 0.2% the volume. She may have the same problem you've identified with ships from Warhammer 40k- no effective way to police and control the lower decks against infestations of small, clever creatures. There's nowhere near enough manpower, even a detachment of fifty thousand ratings cannot play ratcatcher effectively over a ship ten kilometers long.

And Imperial order is just inflexible and mad enough to refuse to use some kind of animal as a "ship's cat" to help with that task. The minions may be practically impossible to rout out once they become established- but at least they're less likely to destroy the ship by accident than watchmakers would be.

Somewhat less likely.