The Size of the Droid Army "Retconned"

[Vympel]

You have to be a hyperspace member to post on a VIP blog.

[Master of Ossus]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I just read the comments of Karen's SW.com blog.

This is seriously groundbreaking stuff. This flows right along with Episode III being so eerily reminiscent of real life events.

It also alligns exactly with how Palpatine uses information from both ends. Uses it like a weapon. Uses it like a Sith would.

DM out

Do these dumbasses not realize that the CIS was being played, the whole time, too? It's one thing for Republic intelligence to massively overestimate the size of CIS forces, but how the fuck could CIS leaders not realize how crappy their military was?

[Darth Wong]

Arkady Hodge-alert!:

He's on the prowl again, filling up Wiki-articles with fanon once more. This time it's the clone trooper numbers. Standard Hodge-tactics, wait a few months, then proceed with another retarded stunt. I'd like a concentrated attack on these fanon-elements.

VT-16, our Ewok "friend" isn't Hodge anymore:

+http://boards.theforce.net/literature/b ... 3045369/p1 TF.net thread where McDumbshit was announced as a new staff member (ugh)

A few years ago, the McEwok identity was co-opted by a postmodernist "hive-mind" project shared among a group of fanboys, inspired in part by Luther Blisset. After a while, as all Dadaist things do, this naturally imploded in an amusing mess, and one of the results was that the McEwok who walked away wasn't the McEwok who'd walked in.

McEwok is actually a collective of retards, and the guy who's currently dominating the identity is somebody named Paul.

I'll try to help out at SW Wiki if I find some time, but I have a lot of things to do in the next few days.

You do know Arkady Hodge has a history of lying in order to break the association between his real-life name and the "McEwok" online username, don't you?

[Fire Fly]

What's with the Thermopylae analogy? That a small amount of troops can momentarily hold back superior numbers? The defenders were wiped out after the King realized he should've used his archers first, i.e. ranged weapons. The entire battle should have been reatively bloodless for the Persians if the King was intelligent in the first place.

[000]

Alright, I have to ask: what's with this Arkady Hodge stuff? Is that some sort of nickname?

I only ask out of curiosity-- I consider McEwok a friend of sorts, even if I often disagree with him and/or poke fun at him (to his 'face', of course).

[Lord Poe]

VT-16, our Ewok "friend" isn't Hodge anymore:

McEwok is actually a collective of retards, and the guy who's currently dominating the identity is somebody named Paul.

Nope, don't fall for it. McEwok is and always was Arkady Hodge.

The alleged "new" McEwok: "Paul Urquhart" is simply a pseudonym for Hodge. In this thread:

+http://boards.theforce.net/Fan_Fiction_ ... 7314942/p5

from 11/27/04, Hodge says:

Sincerely,
Paul Urquhart
(which is still a pseudonym, btw - just the one I write under...

Note that now, since Hodge has been made a moderator, the above quote has been edited out. However, Google's cache still has it:

Click here

Watch how you use the info, though. In this thread:

+http://boards.theforce.net/literature/b ... 3045369/p1

I dared question why Arkady Hodge is allowed to hide behind so many sock puppets. You see, Mr. Hodge is getting a bit of heat in real life for his internet antics, which could affect him professionally. So, he created this thread:

+http://boards.theforce.net/literature/b ... 2823769/p1

..while allegedly creating a new name: "Formbi_ODulok".

In the thread I was edited in, they were congratulating
"Paul Urquhart" as the "new" Thrawn McEwok, and a new moderator. I said, "Wait a minute, isn't Arkady Hodge Thrawn McEwok? And I included this link:

http://www.shavenwookie.com/orhp/chamber/cc02.html

His pals tried to laugh this off as an inside joke none of his "enemies" a privvy to. I then posted, "sorry if I stepped on anyone's tongues", and pointed to this thread:

+http://boards.theforce.net/Fan_Fiction_ ... 7314942/p5

where in 2004, McEwok says he uses "Paul Urquhart" as a pseudonym. This apparently ruffled the troll's feathers. You see, he and his buddies are busy vanalizing the star wars wiki pages, eliminating things like "Star Dreadnought" and the 19km size. He's very picky about being known as the McEwok character there as well:

+http://starwars.wikicities.com/index.ph ... cid=246887

[VT-16]

Wow, that bad intel must be really good for propaganda purposes! So good indeed, that even Grievous, the Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies ALSO believes he has control over QUINTILLIONS of battle droids!!!

(Curtesy of Abel G. Pena's online supplement to the "Unknown Soldier: The Story of General Grievous", from Insider 86.)

This is seriously groundbreaking stuff. This flows right along with Episode III being so eerily reminiscent of real life events.

It also alligns exactly with how Palpatine uses information from both ends. Uses it like a weapon. Uses it like a Sith would.

DM out

BWAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAH

I wonder how hard they have to fap before their dicks burst into flames...?

[Lord Poe]

Here's Traviss' spewing bullshit from the Galactic Senate forums:

I'm very well aware that this is your topic, because last time you had all the rote arguments instantly ready that I've seen so many times on TF.N. It's hard to keep TF.N out of GS, obviously, so here's some illumination that you can take back via the reverse route.

Please keep one thing in mind. Every word I write - short fiction and novels - is checked and explicitly approved by LFL. Period. So any suggestion that this is some agenda of mine slipped past LFL is frankly ludicrous. I mention that because someone e-mailed me to point out one person is saying exactly that. If the mighty multi-million LFL bends to my whim...maybe I need to ask for more money and free Hasbro stuff, because I seem to have influence I never knew I had.

For your information - because nobody outside the LFL circulation list will have access to an official Holocron CD database - there are no hard numbers for clone troops in the whole database except the movie figures in the AOTC screenplay and refs to it. (Of course, when the material that Ryan and I write is added to the CD, there will be.) And you'll just have to take that from me, because the NDA we all sign bars us from sharing the CD contents.

And here's a direct challenge: find me a numerical source in the NEC that supports your view, and don't be selective. "Groaning with troops" will not do, I'm afraid. That's hardly precise description, and all the number junkies say they like precision. (I'm a number junkie.) So let's be consistent about that. Because I have the NEC too, and I've been through the whole CW section, the only references to hard numbers are:

* that the army on Kamino was now “nearly one million strong”, and that the cloning centre could make millions more - not that it had. (And only millions - not billions, quintillions or any other figure.)

* Lama Su the Kaminoan PM says to Obi Wan: “...200,000 units, with a million more on the way.” On page 54, it cites the 1.2m number.

* And...there’s a clear mention on page 63 of clones training local militias on planets, “making it possible for a handful of clones to trigger a planetwide uprising”.

There’s a mention of millions - not billions - of Spaarti clones appearing towards the end of the war – which fully supports my retcon as in the Vader stories, where the clone production is expanded to meet Palps' push of occupation upon Ep III - not the war for the previous three years. (Although that "millions" is still a little low for my tastes for a galactic army of occupation - which is a very different task to fighting the orchestrated and controlled Clone Wars.) There are several mentions of small forces throughout the CW section in the NEC, and “hundreds of...troopers” each week arriving injured at the RMSUs. If your theory was correct, there'd be thousands - no, millions crowding into them each.

Another battle involved 20,000 clone troops (there are 170,000 foreign troops in Iraq now, for scale comparison) and another where “hundreds” of droids fell. That's not even WWII numbers. There is no other mention of any clone numbers, nor indication of the numerical scale of the war, except that it ultimately “cost trillions of lives” – civilians on worlds that got chewed up and spat out in the crossfire and aftermath of war, because they’re not in the clone battles.

That's all in the NEC.

I say again: find me hard data beyond the Saxton books. Find me any mention of numbers or scale in the EU books by Stover, Luceno and Barnes that go beyond thousands. Do some real counting in the CW cartoon. Listen to the soundtrack for numbers. Billions? Can you really count billions on screen? Please, just think about what you're saying there!

Your interpretation of "groaning" is what - millions? Billions? Quintillions? Groaning could just as easily be tens of thousands. Every argument I see that I - and Ryan, too - but it's obviously more rewarding to attack a woman) have the "wrong" figures seems to be to be based on emotional arguments and assumptions. We professionals have to go with hard data. We have no choice.

And I actually built a spreadsheet for clone and droid numbers in years 1, 2 and 3 of the war. Few people know this, but I'm actually a number cruncher - I even studied accountancy at college, and I ran big budgets in my various jobs. I'm an Excel gal. So when people start throwing numbers back at me, I eat 'em up. Of course, the hard numbers are thin on the ground.

I said at the time this nonsense started up that there was a really obvious retcon - several, in fact - that the numbers in the books and the movies were so out of apparent balance with the "quadrillions" and upwards estimates in some other sources. Nobody spotted it. I still can't believe that. Only one reader came even close. (Heads up, people! Look around you. It's staring you in the face.)

LFL allowed both sets of figures, and continue to do so.

My job is to explain that. LFL writers retcon all kinds of things.

I can tell you now that there will be frothing outrage from maybe three or four fans about Odds in the new Insider. That's unfortunate for them, but that was all cleared and expressly approved by LFL too. It's a blend of the real world they demand and real numbers, which they demand too. But somehow I don't expect any gracious apologies from them...

I have no personal agenda over numbers, and if anyone cares to think about it a little, they'll see what a feeble claim that is. I don't care what the numbers are, because I get paid if they're single figures or infinity. My only concern is to make the stuff I get handed - the numbers that were there before I joined the team - fit somehow. I do a good job of it, too, and I won't apologise for that.

So if you want to quote numbers at me, look at the ones that don't fit your personal belief as well as the ones that do, and ask yourself what a professional writer has to do to square that circle. I have to look at BOTH sets of numbers. If you have any further argument, address it to Lucasfilm. I didn't dream up either scale of numbers.

This final comment isn't directed at you, but is a general observation about the tone of the attacks on me since last September: they are highly emotional and gynophobic. The language used is not the language of numbers and logic. Yes, I'm a woman, and I've always done jobs that are largely the preserve of men. Calling me names based on my gender won't drive me out of any boys' club: it'll just make me dig in harder, and get more implacably logical.

I've spent way too much time addressing the aggressively-expressed obsessions of fewer than a dozen people. (I counted them at the time. Some have disappeared, I'm told, but I'll be generous with the estimate.) I think I've explained my position fully, and sourced it fully. And LFL are perfectly happy with it. I'm not going to waste any more time on it beyond a blog entry to accompany Odds, which is actually for the 100,000-plus Insider readers out there to help them examine the issues in SW and the real world.

All I'm hearing is emotional and largely fact-free outpourings about what a very few folks think the numbers "should" be. That's fine. Free country and all that.

But it's not my problem. All I have to do is to make a credible fiction bridge between the numbers from AOTC, the novels and so on and the guides/ cross sections/ features end of the scale. I'm not interested in orthodoxy or the One True Way. If it continues to consume folks, they should take it up with LFL, not me. I'm going to carry on making the pieces fit.

[VT-16]

Here's something I fixed after groaning through Hodge's previous edits:

GAR article

There has been some controversy surrounding the actual number of clones part of the Grand Army of the Republic. In dialogue in ''[[Attack of the Clones]]'', it is established that 200,000 "units" were ready for action at the outbreak of the Clone Wars, with a million more "well on the way". Although the movie does not elaborate on the meaning of "units", the novelization and some [[Expanded Universe]] sources have treated the term as though it referred to individual clones.

This means that, at the war's beginning, the Grand Army would have consisted of 200,000 clones, later raised to 1,200,000, a figure apparently attained by the time of ''[[Shatterpoint (novel)|Shatterpoint]]'' (written by [[Matthew Stover]]), set six months after the [[Battle of Geonosis]]. A figure of ~3 million clones was cited in the article ''[[Guide to the Grand Army of the Republic]]'' and the novel ''[[Republic Commando: Triple Zero]]'' (both written by [[Karen Traviss]], with [[Ryan Kaufman]] as co-author on the ''Guide...''), set a year after Geonosis.

In a later discussion on TheForce.net's literature boards, statements were made by Kaufman, denying that this was treated as a definitive figure for the total army:

::'''''"FYI, re: 3 million.'''''

::'''''LFL was very clear to us that no fixed number of total clones would or could be assigned.'''''

::'''''Therefore, the number 3 million (plus) does not represent the entire fighting force."'''''

Additionally, most stories made since AOTC have shown hundreds of battles, many of which with massive losses for the clones, thereby negating any argument that they represented a "small, elite, special operations force" compared with regular battle droids.

The largest figure given for the Grand Army so far, was a million clone ''[[division]]s'', which were being prepared at the start of the war, and with additional millions more undergoing evaluation. This information was stated in ''[[Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones]]'' (written by [[Simon Beecroft]] and [[Curtis Saxton]]), a book dealing directly with the worlds presented in the film.

Even with sources pointing out the larger amount of troops, and with the problem effectively resolved, focus still remains on the smaller figures, leading to some interesting findings:

*If the figure of three million clone troopers were to be taken as absolute, it would contrast with the sources that have the opposing Confederacy fielding quadrillions or quintillions of battle droids, both as ship-operators as well as ground troops.
*These 3 million troops would also be divided among ship-operators and ground troops, like the battle droids.
*Although the GAR is engaged in a Galaxy-spanning conflict, its stated size would make it significantly smaller than that of the national armies used in some major real-world conflicts. For example, close to 13,000,000 men served in the armed forces of the [[wikipedia:Third Reich|Third Reich]] between 1939 and 1945.

As to the disparity with the numbers of battledroids, the recent short story ''[[Odds]]'' (authored again by Karen Traviss), has suggested that the CIS only had hundreds of million battle droids, with the larger figures being propaganda.

With even the [[Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies]] believing he controlled quintillions of battle droids (stated in the online supplement to [[Abel G. Pena]]'s story ''[[Unknown Soldier: The Story of General Grievous|Unknown Soldier]]'' in ''[[Star Wars Insider 86|Insider 86]]''), this must have been quite a propaganda stunt.

It should also be borne in mind that a battledroid is not directly equivalent to a clone trooper: standard [[B-1 battle droid]]s were cheap, expendable units, often used for foot patrol in civilian areas, and typically deployed for combat in massed units that lacked the initiative and versatility of real soldiers, and relied instead on sheer numbers to overwhelm opposition. Despite this apparent disparity, clone troopers have often been shown as falling just as easily to enemy fire.

Another source that counteracts the 3 million clone-belief is the ''[[New Essential Chronology]]'' (by [[Daniel Wallace]] and [[Kevin J. Anderson]]), which had ~3.2 million clones participating in the [[Battle of Muunilinst]] alone.

The account of the Battle of Muunilinst in the ''New Essential Chronology'' says that the Republic landing involved "hundreds of assault ships, each one groaning from the weight of troopers and war machines"; the figure of 3.2 million is arrived at if this phrase is extrapolated to mean around two hundred [[Acclamator_I-class_assault_ship|''Acclamator''-class]] assault ships, each carrying its full capacity of 16,000 clones. While the term "assault ships" could indicate another, smaller type of vessel, no such ships have ever been referred to in [[Clone Wars multimedia project|Clone Wars literature]], and there is no reason to assume the assault ships were not ''Acclamator''s.

The statement that only a few dozen ships were seen on-screen in the ''[[Star Wars: Clone Wars]]'' cartoon bears little meaning, as many battles in SW are often fleshed out in different sources. The same series also showed hundreds of ''Providence''-class carrier/destroyers in the [[Second Battle of Coruscant (Clone Wars)|Second Battle of Coruscant]], yet some people treat this as unreliable. Treating the same series selectively is a fan's right, but belongs in fanon.

Although Traviss attempted to [[retcon]] the issue of clone numbers in her story ''Odds'', the fact that it simply restates her own three-million number while justifying it by contradicting previously-established sources on CIS forces leaves the issue even more disjointed than it was before.

[Master of Ossus]

Someone throw "Lord of War" in this bitch's face. Quintillions of droids; billions of fighters. Owned.

I also love how she accuses everyone of sexism--I don't go after Kaufman because he did a right decent thing for me in the past, and because he's stfu about her stupid number.

[Darth Wong]

She obviously must have allies in the magazine editing staff, because they figure that when there's a conflict between her and the rest of the Star Wars universe, the rest of the Star Wars universe should lose. Whether she's simply very good at playing politics, related to someone, or sucking someone's cock is not really my concern, but there's some pretty obvious personal favoritism going on there.

[Meest]

But but, she studied accountancy in college, how can her spreadsheet be wrong!? I guess since I took psychology 101 I can state anything she says as delusional. Everytime she's challenged she never explains clearly, she just tosses out some more crap to say my word is greater than yours so neh! If she's such a number cruncher why doesn't she post a nice galactic map with troop estimates for various sectors Ms. numbers or that spreadsheet.

[Master of Ossus]

I'm very well aware that this is your topic, because last time you had all the rote arguments instantly ready that I've seen so many times on TF.N. It's hard to keep TF.N out of GS, obviously, so here's some illumination that you can take back via the reverse route.

Please keep one thing in mind. Every word I write - short fiction and novels - is checked and explicitly approved by LFL. Period. So any suggestion that this is some agenda of mine slipped past LFL is frankly ludicrous. I mention that because someone e-mailed me to point out one person is saying exactly that. If the mighty multi-million LFL bends to my whim...maybe I need to ask for more money and free Hasbro stuff, because I seem to have influence I never knew I had.

No one disputes the fact that your figures are official: what we are saying is that they are wrong. Just like the 8km figure for the Executor was official, but wrong.

For your information - because nobody outside the LFL circulation list will have access to an official Holocron CD database - there are no hard numbers for clone troops in the whole database except the movie figures in the AOTC screenplay and refs to it. (Of course, when the material that Ryan and I write is added to the CD, there will be.) And you'll just have to take that from me, because the NDA we all sign bars us from sharing the CD contents.

Are you trying to plead ignorance?

And here's a direct challenge: find me a numerical source in the NEC that supports your view, and don't be selective. "Groaning with troops" will not do, I'm afraid. That's hardly precise description, and all the number junkies say they like precision. (I'm a number junkie.) So let's be consistent about that. Because I have the NEC too, and I've been through the whole CW section, the only references to hard numbers are:

* that the army on Kamino was now “nearly one million strong”, and that the cloning centre could make millions more - not that it had. (And only millions - not billions, quintillions or any other figure.)

* Lama Su the Kaminoan PM says to Obi Wan: “...200,000 units, with a million more on the way.” On page 54, it cites the 1.2m number.

* And...there’s a clear mention on page 63 of clones training local militias on planets, “making it possible for a handful of clones to trigger a planetwide uprising”.

There’s a mention of millions - not billions - of Spaarti clones appearing towards the end of the war – which fully supports my retcon as in the Vader stories, where the clone production is expanded to meet Palps' push of occupation upon Ep III - not the war for the previous three years. (Although that "millions" is still a little low for my tastes for a galactic army of occupation - which is a very different task to fighting the orchestrated and controlled Clone Wars.) There are several mentions of small forces throughout the CW section in the NEC, and “hundreds of...troopers” each week arriving injured at the RMSUs. If your theory was correct, there'd be thousands - no, millions crowding into them each.

If that was the only method of treatment. As for your challenge, the "groaning decks" indicates that the troop-ships were filled to close to capacity. The assault ships are clearly Acclamators (which are colloquially referred to as "Republic Assault Ships"), and hundreds of them were used. This provides a lower limit of 200*~16000 troops, with the troop number taken from ICS. That's 3.2 million troops, Karen, and that doesn't count the simultaneous engagements at Hypori, Mon Calamari, and Dantooine, not to mention the dozens of other battles that were probably going on concurrently.

Another battle involved 20,000 clone troops (there are 170,000 foreign troops in Iraq now, for scale comparison) and another where “hundreds” of droids fell. That's not even WWII numbers. There is no other mention of any clone numbers, nor indication of the numerical scale of the war, except that it ultimately “cost trillions of lives” – civilians on worlds that got chewed up and spat out in the crossfire and aftermath of war, because they’re not in the clone battles.

You're talking about Jabiim, a backwater planet, in which Separatist militias (those forces you always ignore when claiming that non-clones soldiers for the Republic would balance out any discrepency) did most of the fighting.

That's all in the NEC.

That's true. And?

I say again: find me hard data beyond the Saxton books. Find me any mention of numbers or scale in the EU books by Stover, Luceno and Barnes that go beyond thousands. Do some real counting in the CW cartoon. Listen to the soundtrack for numbers. Billions? Can you really count billions on screen? Please, just think about what you're saying there!

You cannot count billions on screen. Your fallacy is the assumption that we have seen all of the Clone Wars, when any reasonable person will look at all of the present material and conclude we have seen only a tiny fraction of the battles.

"Lord of War" explicitly states "quintillions" of droids, and "billions" of fighters alone.

Your interpretation of "groaning" is what - millions? Billions?

Fully loaded.

Quintillions? Groaning could just as easily be tens of thousands.

That's true, but we also have a lower-limit of the number of ships involved, and we know that they were Acclamators.

Every argument I see that I - and Ryan, too - but it's obviously more rewarding to attack a woman) have the "wrong" figures seems to be to be based on emotional arguments and assumptions. We professionals have to go with hard data. We have no choice.

Ah, yes, an accusation of sexism. For the record, I don't attack Ryan for several reasons:

1. He did a decent thing for me, once, and I respect him for that. I have ZERO respect for you.
2. He backed off. You're the one who keeps plugging this figure. I don't see Ryan running around blogging, now, about how his fans are stupid for criticising him. I don't see Ryan running around now claiming that another author's work is invalid for the purposes of examining his own. Ryan isn't like you--he's not making excuses.

The fact that he happens to be a man is irrelevant.

As for going with hard data, you've also ignored statements from the ICS--the most objective and definitive source of numbers in the SW universe--apparently because you don't like them.

And I actually built a spreadsheet for clone and droid numbers in years 1, 2 and 3 of the war. Few people know this, but I'm actually a number cruncher - I even studied accountancy at college, and I ran big budgets in my various jobs. I'm an Excel gal. So when people start throwing numbers back at me, I eat 'em up. Of course, the hard numbers are thin on the ground.

Is this why you tossed out the ICS completely, as well as quotes from Lord of War? Is this why you whined that numbers don't matter and chastised "Talifans" for complaining?

I said at the time this nonsense started up that there was a really obvious retcon - several, in fact - that the numbers in the books and the movies were so out of apparent balance with the "quadrillions" and upwards estimates in some other sources. Nobody spotted it. I still can't believe that. Only one reader came even close. (Heads up, people! Look around you. It's staring you in the face.)

LOTS of retcons existed--all you had to do was state that "unit"=/=soldier. But you didn't. You totally blew off the fanbase.

LFL allowed both sets of figures, and continue to do so.

My job is to explain that. LFL writers retcon all kinds of things.

That is true, and the rest of them come up with ones that explain things. How could the "shoddy intelligence" have convinced GRIEVOUS that he commanded quintillions of droids (Lord of War)?

I can tell you now that there will be frothing outrage from maybe three or four fans about Odds in the new Insider. That's unfortunate for them, but that was all cleared and expressly approved by LFL too. It's a blend of the real world they demand and real numbers, which they demand too. But somehow I don't expect any gracious apologies from them...

You'll get none--you're an incompetent and spectacularly stubborn woman who apparently refuses to admit error under any circumstances.

I have no personal agenda over numbers, and if anyone cares to think about it a little, they'll see what a feeble claim that is. I don't care what the numbers are, because I get paid if they're single figures or infinity. My only concern is to make the stuff I get handed - the numbers that were there before I joined the team - fit somehow. I do a good job of it, too, and I won't apologise for that.

You do a piss poor job of it, and dozens of fans could've done vastly better.

So if you want to quote numbers at me, look at the ones that don't fit your personal belief as well as the ones that do, and ask yourself what a professional writer has to do to square that circle. I have to look at BOTH sets of numbers. If you have any further argument, address it to Lucasfilm. I didn't dream up either scale of numbers.

But you're the moron who tried to reconcile two things that are irreconcilable, even though you knew or you should have known about the 12.8 kilometer debacle and how it solved nothing.

This final comment isn't directed at you, but is a general observation about the tone of the attacks on me since last September: they are highly emotional and gynophobic. The language used is not the language of numbers and logic.

Yet another allegation of sexism. For someone who doesn't care what other people say about her, you sure do spend a lot of time running away from your critics. And if you had bothered to respond to the early critics, who addressed you in "the language of numbers and logic" at, say, TFN (which you fled from at the barest hint of criticism while also disabling feedback and blocking civil fans' e-mails because they disagreed with you) then you wouldn't be in this mess.

Yes, I'm a woman, and I've always done jobs that are largely the preserve of men. Calling me names based on my gender won't drive me out of any boys' club: it'll just make me dig in harder, and get more implacably logical.

Is that what it's done so far? Would you describe dismissing critics as "Talifans" logical or classify it as name-calling? Would you describe this as being a logical response to critics--telling them that their complaints don't matter?

I've spent way too much time addressing the aggressively-expressed obsessions of fewer than a dozen people. (I counted them at the time. Some have disappeared, I'm told, but I'll be generous with the estimate.) I think I've explained my position fully, and sourced it fully. And LFL are perfectly happy with it. I'm not going to waste any more time on it beyond a blog entry to accompany Odds, which is actually for the 100,000-plus Insider readers out there to help them examine the issues in SW and the real world.

How many fando retards did you used to role-play with, you immature brat? Maybe a dozen? And don't let the door hit you on your way out of the numbers stuff.

All I'm hearing is emotional and largely fact-free outpourings about what a very few folks think the numbers "should" be. That's fine. Free country and all that.

But it's not my problem. All I have to do is to make a credible fiction bridge between the numbers from AOTC, the novels and so on and the guides/ cross sections/ features end of the scale. I'm not interested in orthodoxy or the One True Way. If it continues to consume folks, they should take it up with LFL, not me. I'm going to carry on making the pieces fit.

[/quote]

Clearly it is your problem if you're trying to come up with "credible fiction." Your work is, apparently, only credible to you. And if you had bothered to go to any message boards that weren't carefully monitored to suppress criticism then you'd realize you have far more than "a dozen" detractors, some of which have apparently disappeared.

[Vympel]

So, has anyone posted a response? A comprehensive one would refer to the RotS novelization (clones all over the galaxy, hundreds of thousands of dead per day) Lord of War, the General Grievous web thing, etc etc

I'd join up, but really, I can't be stuffed just to respond to a single post.

[Mange]

So, has anyone posted a response? A comprehensive one would refer to the RotS novelization (clones all over the galaxy, hundreds of thousands of dead per day) Lord of War, the General Grievous web thing, etc etc

I'd join up, but really, I can't be stuffed just to respond to a single post.

Write up something, then perhaps I can repost it there as a "guest editorial" or something.

[loomer]

Hell, I'm a published writer. Wouldn't that mean that my statements would have some kind of authority by her logic? I'm about as anoobtastic about the EU as you can get, but even I'm aware that her numbers are complete and utter bullshit.

[VT-16]

there are no hard numbers for clone troops in the whole database except the movie figures in the AOTC screenplay and refs to it.

Actually, millions of divisions from ITW:AOTC seem like pretty hard numbers to me.

Instead of the continuous insults, why can't anyone just state in plain English, that everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) about this issue would have been solved automatically if she stopped referencing units = troops? Just say that to her online face!

And here's a direct challenge: find me a numerical source in the NEC that supports your view

Find me a numerical source in AOTC - the film that supports your view. How about that?!

[Vympel]

Write up something, then perhaps I can repost it there as a "guest editorial" or something.

Looks like MoO already did, though I doubt it'd get allowed on the Galactic Senate

(unless MoO is posting there?)

[VT-16]

And here's a direct challenge: find me a numerical source in the NEC that supports your view, and don't be selective. "Groaning with troops" will not do, I'm afraid. That's hardly precise description, and all the number junkies say they like precision. (I'm a number junkie.)

Fuck you. Stop moving goalposts.

If an Acclamator is "groaning with troops", it's got a full load of 16 000. Or MORE.

So let's be consistent about that. Because I have the NEC too, and I've been through the whole CW section, the only references to hard numbers are:

* that the army on Kamino was now “nearly one million strong”

One million of what, exactly? Ain't no "troops" there.

[Mange]

Write up something, then perhaps I can repost it there as a "guest editorial" or something.

Looks like MoO already did, though I doubt it'd get allowed on the Galactic Senate

(unless MoO is posting there?)

No, I don't think so (I only know of Wayne), but as long as the content is within "don't be disrespectful of the VIPs", I'll be glad to repost it. I'd be glad to prove her wrong that "there will be frothing outrage from maybe three or four fans about Odds in the new Insider."

[Vympel]

I'd simply get MoO's reply and edit it, in that case (with his permission of course)- he's said pretty much what needs to be said.

You can also refer to the RotS novelization- garrisonning all the Republic systems with clone troopers (who arrive with the governors)- but for all I know you've already mentioned that?

[Mange]

I'd simply get MoO's reply and edit it, in that case (with his permission of course)- he's said pretty much what needs to be said.

Yeah, let's wait and see what MoO thinks about it.

You can also refer to the RotS novelization- garrisonning all the Republic systems with clone troopers (who arrive with the governors)- but for all I know you've already mentioned that?

Yeah, I did refer to it, no reaction though.

[Stark]

Just a EU noob question: what's the 'Insider', and why do we have to care what's written in it? What I see from a quick scan of the interweb sortof suggests it's your standard rubbish fan-mag. Do we have to care if they're trying to relate SW events to 'real world' events?

[Mange]

Just a EU noob question: what's the 'Insider', and why do we have to care what's written in it? What I see from a quick scan of the interweb sortof suggests it's your standard rubbish fan-mag. Do we have to care if they're trying to relate SW events to 'real world' events?

Yeah, it's the official Star Wars fan club magazine. The short-stories etc. that appears are canon, which, by using the Traviss' short-story Odds as an example, can "retconn" a bunch of other authors' works.

[PayBack]

You have to be a hyperspace member to post on a VIP blog.

Yeah I know.. hence my saying I'd signed up. First is said to sign in to post, which I did, then it said to verify my email address.. which I did, but the update my email option didn't go away... perhaps they knew what I wanted to say.