Not clones anymore

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-12-14 05:16pm

Crown wrote:In the AotC DVD commentary, after Jango runs aboard Slave I, it is stated that they doctored him 'hitting his head on the door' just like the stormtrooper in ANH, 'cause it's a flaw in his DNA.

Not quite. Lucas mused on (IIRC) whether it would be amusing how if this was something that got copied into all the clones from Jango.

The idea that they'd just keep using Jango clones is in itself stupid. And while George mused on the ideosycracy, it doesn't make it gospel.

Like in Star Trek, to a degree some things are just basically accepted as general fact--and that there are stormtrooper recruits is one of them.

George Lucas has altered statements and changed views himself over time and participated in EU projects that he later ignored. George Lucas' "grand vision of SW" is mostly a myth. It should be quite clear to most people that he's making it up as he goes along and has changed his idea of SW significantly (thus raping Bob Brown's dreams).

It'd be a brain-bug and there's little to suggest that all of the stormies were all Jango clones. That's silly.

A grain of salt is needed here.

I think that invasion armies and black ops were clones. Run-of-the-mill stormies were recruits. Simple.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-12-14 05:18pm

Durran Korr wrote:I think that Lucas is considering re-dubbing the voices on the DVD releases of the original trilogy films to address this problem.

It'd be nice of any of the "new special edition" references had a quote or source with them.

Admiral Piett · Post by **Admiral Piett** » 2002-12-14 06:13pm

"Conscripts at first because as I noted in the first point, it seems that most civilians don't want to be soldiers."

It depends.I suspect that the republic would not lack of volounteers:"Join the imp...ehm,republican navy and free the galaxy".It should work for people like Luke.It should not be too difficult to find people willing to fight for the republic.Maybe the rate of volounteers among the population would be low compared to our standards, but hell,one million of clones should be nothing more than the commandos of the SW galaxy,instead they are considered an army.

"Why would droid armies be used if you can just recruite your own populace."

Why would you send your people to death when droids can do the same job without loss of life? It is pointless.At least on this point the separatists are clever.Remeber that they were planning to build a death star,so they must not be horribly short on cash.
They are also at least partially a bunch of corporations:would you enlist to fight for the Coca Cola? At the best they could get mercenaires.They instead go for droids,a rather wise choice I would say.This does not mean that some world on the side of the secessionists may be stupid enough to use recruits.

"As far as the ins and outs of cloning we don't know how they do it in the SW universe and all the side effects and possible problems with modern day cloning haven't been completely worked out yet. So they kept the original donar around for the clone troopers. Having limited production runs of on donar and then getting another might be a end round of any problems(my own little therory)."

The SW galaxy is pretty advanced from a technological point of view.
They do not use the same cloning procedures we do.They had for example
artificial wombs in that facility (while we still have to use animal/human hosts).
I am sure that they do not have to take the DNA from Jango's cells evert time.

"Having various templets would be usful in as far as having superiour templetes for such jobs as sniper, commander, blaster spong. Jango was a good mix of various skills but to diversify the troops so that better commanders would command and better shooters would shoot would make them more flexable. And one can always find better people that the ones you found last time."

They could probably engineer those capabilities in the basic 2-3 templates if they wished so.I would not throw away the advantage of standardized armor,body glove etc so easily.Of course if you need absolutely any explanation for the sake of continuity the one you are proposing may be a decent one,probably the best that could be imagined.Personally I would go for the "flush the EU down the toilet" option but that is strictly a personal opinion.

"And your right about the time lag between training and use, but just factor that into the costs and its not that high. Officer training plus colledge is 4-5 years and thats about half the time for a clonetrooper. Highly trained troops take about the same as above, 4 or so years and again its about half the time of a clonetrooper. So the time lag is'nt as bad as it first seems. Remember the Stormtroopers are suppost to be somewhat elite."

The problem is that clones will not be ready before a decade.Any clone ordered the first day of the clone war will not be ready to partecipate to the war,even if they sped up the process a bit.End of the history.Recruits (like it was done in both world wars) and droids can be trained/produced in time instead.Someone said "In wartime, good enough now always beats a perfect system of tomorrow".This without mentioning that clones would be inferior to well built droids,if the Trade federation morons decided to build them.

Admiral Piett · Post by **Admiral Piett** » 2002-12-14 06:26pm

"The idea that they'd just keep using Jango clones is in itself stupid"

Why? A "tried and true" template.But in effects it is possible that others templates might have been chosen in the following years.

"Like in Star Trek, to a degree some things are just basically accepted as general fact--and that there are stormtrooper recruits is one of them."

Are you speaking about the EU stormtroopers?

"I think that invasion armies and black ops were clones. Run-of-the-mill stormies were recruits. Simple."

Personally I prefer to think to the stormtrooper corp as clones faithful to the emperor and tasked with ensuring loyalty among the rest of the military,among the other things.Some stormies might be recruits but only a small minority of specially selected troops.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2002-12-14 07:58pm

Trying to make one therory connect with cannon and the EU is hard, but I think mine is acceptable in most cases. Flaws? Yes, but its close on most respects. A total clone corps of stormtroopers is possible even with the costs in the SW universe. The stormtrooper corps is small compared with Navy and Army units, so the cost of a couple million clones compared with millions and millions of troopers and sailors plus the infrastructure involved is not completely restrictive.

One can argue the small points but clones can be all of the Stormtroopers.

IMHO.

kheegster · Post by **kheegster** » 2002-12-15 02:25pm

Has anyone considered the scene in the tractor beam control room of the DS1 in ANH, where Obi-Wan was hiding from two stormies who were chatting about landspeeders? Doesn't seem like either clones or completely indoctrinated fanatics to me...

KG

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2002-12-15 02:32pm

kheegan wrote:Has anyone considered the scene in the tractor beam control room of the DS1 in ANH, where Obi-Wan was hiding from two stormies who were chatting about landspeeders? Doesn't seem like either clones or completely indoctrinated fanatics to me...

KG

Unless they use multiple templetes. Also they were disscussing a new piece of equipment IIRC.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-12-15 02:36pm

The super uber silent fanatic stormies thing comes originally from WEG descriptions. Oddly people who use those descriptions and not chatty DS stormies to justify their "all clones" theory disregard that their same sources also says stormies are recruits.

And check the uploads of Shep's sourcebook. Stormies may outnumber Army and Navy personnel according to it.

There are billions of stormies and Piett, I cannot see why you can't understand how the Empire is not some banana republic that has to worry about to a significant degree whether their troops are genetically capable of independent thought. There's no evidence for stormtroopers being just clones. Since we're compromising anyway, no one's provided a source for Lucas saying explicitly all of the Empire's stormies were clones, and no one has provided a source for the so-called "re-dubbing" rumor, why is it hard to combine the old 70's magazine article, the knowledge from EU including the Pax Emperica "GeNodes" and our knowledge and common sense that stormtroopers were not by-and-large clones.

Palpatine is not paranoid. I think that hand-picked recruits from pro-Imperial families isolated from any source of outside thought/input and brainwashed/indoctrinated are not going to suffer mass-muntinies. Clones would be sensical for Royal Guardsmen and troops on secret and highly secure installations or expected to commit atrocities or on black projects. Where 100% security and troops with no leave or respite are preferable. However...there's little to no reason that you'd waste huge amounts of hard currency using clones for the 10,000 stormies on some SD that circles Correllia doing nothing.

Admiral Piett · Post by **Admiral Piett** » 2002-12-15 05:05pm

"There are billions of stormies and Piett, I cannot see why you can't understand how the Empire is not some banana republic that has to worry about to a significant degree whether their troops are genetically capable of independent thought"

The empire is a dictatorship,mr Illuminatus Primus.It is filled by people driven by the lust for power,such as Tarkin and the regional governors.In these situations the loyalty of the army is always an important problem.

"Palpatine is not paranoid."

Mmmm

"I think that hand-picked recruits from pro-Imperial families isolated from any source of outside thought/input and brainwashed/indoctrinated are not going to suffer mass-muntinies."

The best written description of the Saddam's Special Republican Guard I have found so far.We will see if their loyalty is so strong...

"However...there's little to no reason that you'd waste huge amounts of hard currency using clones for the 10,000 stormies on some SD that circles Correllia doing nothing"

Maybe to ensure that the captain and the crew of the SD in question do not have strange ideas? As I said this is a serious problem in the majority of the dictatorships.I do not see why the empire should be the exception.
Besides the cost of the 10.000 stormies would be minimal compared to that of the SD itself.They are also the guys who build a scaled up death star for no plausible reason other than impressing the people (well if you can find a better explanation for the much larger size of the DS 2...).
Of course the stormies trained in the way you suggest would be enough good under the most of cases.But any dictator would go for the best available in this area.And the clones are the best as far as loyalty goes.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-12-15 06:23pm

Admiral Piett wrote:The empire is a dictatorship,mr Illuminatus Primus.It is filled by people driven by the lust for power,such as Tarkin and the regional governors.In these situations the loyalty of the army is always an important problem.

Where's the mass-mutinies of the Soviet Red Army? The populace was quite well pleased by the Empire in the Core. The Iraqi Republican Guard had issues due to the pressures on the regime. Enough pressures will alter almost any situation. We know that stormies are very loyal and uncorruptable. It is a leap of logic on your part to assume a prerequisite for those characteristics is just cloning. According to WEG, which listed all the untouchable characteristics of the stormies...they are recruits...so evidently the source which verifies the elite-ness of the stormtroopers feels such results are possible from brainwashed recruits.

Maybe to ensure that the captain and the crew of the SD in question do not have strange ideas? As I said this is a serious problem in the majority of the dictatorships.I do not see why the empire should be the exception. Besides the cost of the 10.000 stormies would be minimal compared to that of the SD itself.They are also the guys who build a scaled up death star for no plausible reason other than impressing the people (well if you can find a better explanation for the much larger size of the DS 2...).

The Empire isn't even a totalitarian dictatorship in the OT. Palpatine was manipulating everything but he delegated the manageral duties to his subordinates. The Empire had a Senate for a period. Et cetera. The idea that the Empire is a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by a paranoid on the model of the banana republic is simply ignorant of how the Empire operated.

The stormtrooper cost as clones is going to become enormous if they take ten years per unit to train and grow. The Empire is not going to waste money like that, and this sort of willful forcing of contradictions just so some musings of GL that weren't even definite statements or holistic perplexes me.

Moreover, we have stormtroopers murdering their superior officers, betraying the Emperor--thus precipitating his final death, participating in Grand Admiral Zaarin's coup, and defection to the Rebels. Obviously your genetic super-loyalty is lacking. I say again: leap of logic. I say these results compared to the average stormie support the indoctrinated recruits.

Moreover, the Empire comic series will soon detail another attempted coup on Palpatine. Clearly if vaunted genetic troops have such fewer extra loyalty benefits over indocted recruits, why bother?

The Second Death Star was bigger to make it more powerful. The superlaser could put out somewhere between twenty-four to twice as much power (firing rates raised into mere hours a opposed to whole day). The original DS is mostly superlaser and support thereof as well.

Of course the stormies trained in the way you suggest would be enough good under the most of cases.But any dictator would go for the best available in this area.And the clones are the best as far as loyalty goes.

Explained above. Palpatine isn't Stalin. Clones are not neccessary but might be desirable in aforementioned situations. Not all stormies are clones.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2002-12-15 11:47pm

Dark Empire said Boba Fett was a stormtrooper who murdered a superior officer, but that has nothing to do with what Im rambling about..

The Zahn books mention that if you clone too fast you get screwed up clones. I'm guessing that the Kamino cloners had no idea what would happen when they took their projects to such a wide scale. Eventually the clones begin to "malfunction" or degrade somehow and they need to be replaced with conscrpits.

Is it possible that the Clones are just one way to get the Repubic war machine going, then actual republican citizens begin signing up?

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-16 01:52am

Just because Stormtroopers are clones doens't mean they can't chat to each other.

Boba Fett · Post by **Boba Fett** » 2002-12-16 06:08am

Cpt_Frank wrote:Regardless of what George says, why shouldn't stormtrooper regiments be composed of both clones and regular recruits?

That's what I think also...

After the clone wars the spaarti cylinders were all destroyed, only Palpy kept one somewhere hidden for his own later clones...

Admiral Piett · Post by **Admiral Piett** » 2002-12-16 08:13am

Where's the mass-mutinies of the Soviet Red Army?

They enforced discipline with iron fist in WW2 (like in many WW1 era armies in anyway).Surrender to the germans was not a great option either.
During the cold war aircraft pilots deserted (not sure about the number however) and one of their destroyers attempted to desert.
It would not be nice if one star destroyer deserted to the rebellion,eh?

"The populace was quite well pleased by the Empire in the Core."

Those who were enjoying that big street party on Coruscant at the end of the ROTJ would probably disagree.

"It is a leap of logic on your part to assume a prerequisite for those characteristics is just cloning."

No.Cloning would simply make them more loyal,obedient etc.Why? Because
they would be engineered to be so,trained from the birth and would have no links with the society that might influence them.No families,no traces of
previous morality and so on.Sure,you could get the most of this from properly trained/brainwashed troops but you would not be able to reach the same levels that you would get with cloning.

"The Empire isn't even a totalitarian dictatorship in the OT"

No,it is an authoritarian dictatorship.

"The idea that the Empire is a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by a paranoid on the model of the banana republic is simply ignorant of how the Empire operated."

You are misusing the term totalitarian.Banana republics are authoritarian regimes.They also often retain representative bodies.Italy had a parliament and regular elections during the fascist regime.Needless to say they were domesticated and the power resided in Mussolini,much like in the empire.

"Moreover, we have stormtroopers murdering their superior officers, betraying the Emperor--thus precipitating his final death, participating in Grand Admiral Zaarin's coup, and defection to the Rebels. Obviously your genetic super-loyalty is lacking. I say again: leap of logic. I say these results compared to the average stormie support the indoctrinated recruits."

Maybe I should make it clear: I do not care about what happens in the EU.

"The stormtrooper cost as clones is going to become enormous if they take ten years per unit to train and grow. The Empire is not going to waste money like that, and this sort of willful forcing of contradictions just so some musings of GL that weren't even definite statements or holistic perplexes me.

The Second Death Star was bigger to make it more powerful. The superlaser could put out somewhere between twenty-four to twice as much power (firing rates raised into mere hours a opposed to whole day). The original DS is mostly superlaser and support thereof as well."

Interesting.You say that the emperor is not willing to spend extra cash to buy troops with extra loyalty,which is precisely what ANY dictator would want and is willing to spend scarce resources on to get it but then he is willing to pay for a DS which is twenty four times more powerful than one which was already an overkill for a planet equipped with a powerful deflector shield.Mmmm...
Apart from the fact that the idea of the DS storing the energy into capacitors is somewhat unlikely (where do you put all that energy? It is much more likely that they produce it bringing the reactor to the maximum), the whole thing does not make sense.
No, the empire is evidently so rich that can afford to build a scaled up DS for the sake of the size.They certainly must have the resources to spare for a cloned stormtrooper corp,with all the advantages (increased loyalty,expendability etc) that it brings.

Boba Fett · Post by **Boba Fett** » 2002-12-16 08:50am

I agree with most of your post but it's quite hard to convince approx. 40.000 people aboard a Star Destroyer to defect...

Admiral Piett · Post by **Admiral Piett** » 2002-12-16 01:34pm

I agree with most of your post but it's quite hard to convince approx. 40.000 people aboard a Star Destroyer to defect...

So it should have been for the sailors of the Storozhevoy.In effects if I recall correctly they were caught thanks to one of the sailors who was able to use a radio communicate with the base.
But admittely defecting to the rebellion is a unlikely possibility.
However warlordism and coups are a quite realistic possibility with the imperial system of government.The stormtrooper corp could contribute to prevent that.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-12-16 06:44pm

Darth Fanboy wrote:Dark Empire said Boba Fett was a stormtrooper who murdered a superior officer, but that has nothing to do with what Im rambling about..

I was talking about Davin Felth...the stormtrooper who made the "Look sir, droids!" line in ANH. He later killed his own superior officer.

Those who were enjoying that big street party on Coruscant at the end of the ROTJ would probably disagree.

30,000 people on a planet of trillions is like a few Nazi's in a street parade now.

No.Cloning would simply make them more loyal,obedient etc.Why? Because they would be engineered to be so,trained from the birth and would have no links with the society that might influence them.No families,no traces of previous morality and so on.Sure,you could get the most of this from properly trained/brainwashed troops but you would not be able to reach the same levels that you would get with cloning.

That's my point right there. How much better do you honestly expect? I wouldn't be suprised if the stormtroopers were selected from Hitler Youth-like groups as well, special families--the works. Still--if that's possible--and the majority will just serve police actions, or serve on SDs and basically not do anything....why wouldn't they be recruits? I think with SW level technology and knowledge and medicine some very potent soliders could be raised from hand-picked and screened volunteers. Imagine the possibilities with directly feeding information into the brain...biological boosters....gene therapy....all kinds of stuff...that doesn't require a needless ten year training/growth period which produces soldiers that have only half the shelf-life of normal ones because of their 2x aging.

The Clone troops of AOTC were not built because they were so vastly superior to volunteer armies or such. The clone army simply had to be nationalized by Palpatine with a stroke of a pen. The Senators need not grow ulcers over the costs of rapid militarization and volunteer/conscription programs....training...build-up...all the while the Seperatists can strike while the Republic prepares...the genius of the AOTC clones is they're politically free. They enable Palpatine to FAR more easily aggrivate war between the Republic and the Seperatists. The clones weren't built because they were that much more superior then volunteers.

Recruits do not have enormous defection and desertion rates like conscripts. Generally most of the types of people you'd be using to draw stormies from would be totally in love with the Empire and out of touch with the idea that anyone else wasn't.

You are misusing the term totalitarian.Banana republics are authoritarian regimes.They also often retain representative bodies.Italy had a parliament and regular elections during the fascist regime.Needless to say they were domesticated and the power resided in Mussolini,much like in the empire.

The average Core World joe doesn't have much of a problem with the Empire. They find things the way they should be and they are quite pleased. Generally the upper class of the Core (which is much of what the Empire only cares about) like Big Brother. The stormies would probably be drawn from the most preferable of special families.

Maybe I should make it clear: I do not care about what happens in the EU.

Then your opinion is irrelevent. I'm not going to play "argue with DarkStar" and selectively disregard information for your sake when the point of the debate is to work out a reasonable view of how things worked. The purpose of this is to nail down a fix of how things can work based on EU and all of canon and if possible all of GL's comments.

Since George Lucas never says "All of the stormtroopers are clones" I don't care. Probably some are. He changes his mind too much for his off-camera comments for me to go out of my way to accomadate SW as a whole to what he recently decided.

Interesting.You say that the emperor is not willing to spend extra cash to buy troops with extra loyalty,which is precisely what ANY dictator would want and is willing to spend scarce resources on to get it but then he is willing to pay for a DS which is twenty four times more powerful than one which was already an overkill for a planet equipped with a powerful deflector shield.Mmmm...

The only evidence you'll accept is movie canon...which means the debate is dead in the water.

There's no evidence to suggest that stormies are clones in just the movies.

No...you just want us to accept that stormies must have been conscripts. They're probably Big Brother-loving pro-Imperial family child-raised professional soldiers which basically live in the Empire with little to no external stimuli.

I just don't see why the Empire would build troops from scratch it could simply collect from pro-Imperial families.

For sensitive installations and such, I'd see why clones would be used. Hell, clones might be mixed into the overall population to encourage better discipline and loyalty.

Apart from the fact that the idea of the DS storing the energy into capacitors is somewhat unlikely (where do you put all that energy? It is much more likely that they produce it bringing the reactor to the maximum), the whole thing does not make sense.
No, the empire is evidently so rich that can afford to build a scaled up DS for the sake of the size.They certainly must have the resources to spare for a cloned stormtrooper corp,with all the advantages (increased loyalty,expendability etc) that it brings.

How are clones more expendable? Stormies are elite troops and worth years of training regardless of how you look at it. They're not throwaway troops.

Moreover, stormtroopers have shown ability to betray. Even Royal Guardsmen (Imperial Soveriegn Protector?) Carnor Jax precipitated his Master's final destruction and the annhiliation of his order.

Davin Felth murdered his superior officier and deserted and he was a stormtrooper assigned to Vader's own destroyer.

The majority of stormtroopers under the command of Grand Admiral Zaarin appeared to go-along with his attempted coup.

Stormtroopers continued to play-along as usual with the warlords who deserted the Empire.

Stormtrooper Major Tierce was meglomaniacal and tried to take over the Empire.

All the stormtroopers that fought against Imperial bretheren in the culling in the year or two after Endor.

The list goes on and on.

If these are the super-benefits of supposed clones...I think they're not all that superior to regime-loving recruits.

Point being...by trying to force a purist perception, you're not helping mend the issue at hand. If there was no EU, I'd say to hell with it...and all stormies are clones.

Clone Sergeant · Post by **Clone Sergeant** » 2002-12-17 01:10am

The method used to produce clones that was shown in AOTC is obviously expensive, but based on what we seen of the Empire in the OT and in EU materials, they have seem to have no major issues with cost. They could very well produce brainwashed soldiers. But, with clones they can manipulate every aspect of the soldier, not just the mind, from conception. That kind of omnipresent control sounds more in line with the kind of regime Palpatine seems to run. If the Empire can afford to build thousands of massive mile long war vessels, two planetoid sized battle stations, Cloning a portion of their armies shouldn't be that big of an issue.

As for the scene of the two stormtroopers talking about some new vehicle in ANH, We see certain clones standing around talking talking to each other in the scenes on Kamino where the troops are getting their helmets, as well as when they are marching up the stairs. We may not be able to hear what they are saying but their behavior in those scenes is quite casual, making it within possibly for clones to behave somewhat like regular people as the Stormtroopers do in ANH.

Admiral Piett · Post by **Admiral Piett** » 2002-12-17 07:13am

"30,000 people on a planet of trillions is like a few Nazi's in a street parade now."

Sure,they all collected themselves in a single spot and started to throw down Palpatine's statues and play with that stormtrooper without anyone bothering to send there an control riot squad.The empire is a dictatorship.
Such things are not allowed,period.Riots that took place in the soviet union during the 70's were stamped out quickly and ruthlessy.What happened on Coruscant could have happened only if the demonstration was so large to overwhelm the Coruscant police forces.Which means that if not planet wide, at least interested a large portion of it.

"That's my point right there. How much better do you honestly expect? I wouldn't be suprised if the stormtroopers were selected from Hitler Youth-like groups as well, special families--the works. Still--if that's possible--and the majority will just serve police actions, or serve on SDs and basically not do anything....why wouldn't they be recruits? I think with SW level technology and knowledge and medicine some very potent soliders could be raised from hand-picked and screened volunteers. Imagine the possibilities with directly feeding information into the brain...biological boosters....gene therapy....all kinds of stuff...that doesn't require a needless ten year training/growth period which produces soldiers that have only half the shelf-life of normal ones because of their 2x aging."

True,but how many would be willing to undergo such a process? The empire does not seem a totalitarian government like the nazi germany.How many even pro imperial families would accept their sons go under such a process? I mean,joining the navy is one thing, putting your head into a brainwashing machine is an other.The only problem with clones is that they are long lead time items.But ramping up clones production during the clone war and the fact that the empire has lasted for a couple of decades would make this a secondary issue.Recruits are used to man the ships etc,while the clones would be reserved for the stormtrooper copr and eventually few others tasks.And as far as their life goes we do not really know.Maybe their growth is accelerated but then they might have a normal biological cycle.They could also have a programmed death,so you do not have to worry about paying their retirement (since apparently for you the empire is so worried the cost of troops),which you would have to do with recruits.

"The Clone troops of AOTC were not built because they were so vastly superior to volunteer armies or such"

Certainly having a secret army was the main point.But if you really believe that the average guy trained for a few months would be as much as good as a genetically engineered clone trained for a decade

"Then your opinion is irrelevent. I'm not going to play "argue with DarkStar" and selectively disregard information for your sake when the point of the debate is to work out a reasonable view of how things worked. The purpose of this is to nail down a fix of how things can work based on EU and all of canon and if possible all of GL's comments."

Sorry,I usually keep the EU in low regard.I do not to fry my brain attempting to work out a way so that all the countless stories of the death star plans "fits nicely together".However if you are interested in that I can have some explanation and suggestions,like I had for the death star plans.

"How are clones more expendable? Stormies are elite troops and worth years of training regardless of how you look at it. They're not throwaway troops."

Expendable in the sense that you do not have to send letters back at home.Of course they are not cheap.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-17 07:51am

Admiral Piett wrote:
Sure,they all collected themselves in a single spot and started to throw down Palpatine's statues and play with that stormtrooper without anyone bothering to send there an control riot squad.The empire is a dictatorship.
Such things are not allowed,period.Riots that took place in the soviet union during the 70's were stamped out quickly and ruthlessy.What happened on Coruscant could have happened only if the demonstration was so large to overwhelm the Coruscant police forces.Which means that if not planet wide, at least interested a large portion of it.

Come now, we see that celebration for all of two seconds.

Sorry,I usually keep the EU in low regard.I do not to fry my brain attempting to work out a way so that all the countless stories of the death star plans "fits nicely together".However if you are interested in that I can have some explanation and suggestions,like I had for the death star plans.

I agree partially with Piett here. The EU is part of the continuity but I'd much rather prefer it wasn't all things considered. So much stupidity has been crammed into it it exasperates me to hear of some of the crap they come up with. I like to keep it pure canon as often as possible, especially when it's a Pure Star Wars debate.

In regards to the stormtrooper clones debate, it's interesting because as has been cited previously, there is an official 1981 Lucasfilm source that almost word for word details stormtroopers the way they are in AOTC- i.e. clones. So the official material isn't even self-consistent.

I personally don't understand why people have such a problem accepting that stormtroopers=clones. If you want to get technical about it, fine they're not clones yet because GL hasn't gone back to the OT to make it so, however why people are so fixated on stormtroopers=regular joes I don't understand. The very concept sprang from the ass of Kevin J Anderson for chrissakes- with his kids stolen as children and trained as stormtroopers on Carida NONSENSE.

Talking about how expensive clones are blah blah blah and how it takes a decade etc- look- why is it assumed that Kamino is the only planet that can produce them? In the 20+ years between Episode 2 and 4, you think they're not going to expand their production? We don't know how many batches were in the works following the 1,000,000 more well on the way, or how far along they were. And if you use some common sense, you'll know that a planet is more than capable of supporting more than a 1,000,000 men.

Admiral Piett · Post by **Admiral Piett** » 2002-12-17 09:07am

"Come now, we see that celebration for all of two seconds."

They could have not thrown down that statue or beaten that stormtrooper in "two seconds".In a normal situation a battalion of stormtroopers/Coruscant police would have been unloaded there in few minutes, blaster set to stun and ready to kick ass as soon as the mob collected.Or at least this is what any serious dictatorship would do.You cannot afford to leave a mob running unchecked on the capital world without reacting,especially in a moment of political weakness such as that.Evidently the situation was beyond control.I am not saying that everyone on Coruscant is an antimperial but that antimperial sentiments are evidently quite widespread,even in the capital world.

"The very concept sprang from the ass of Kevin J Anderson for chrissakes- with his kids stolen as children and trained as stormtroopers on Carida NONSENSE."

Thanks,for having remebered me why I was not able to read more than few pages of the EU (trying to suppress the urge to vomit).

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-17 10:18am

Admiral Piett wrote:"Come now, we see that celebration for all of two seconds."

They could have not thrown down that statue or beaten that stormtrooper in "two seconds".In a normal situation a battalion of stormtroopers/Coruscant police would have been unloaded there in few minutes, blaster set to stun and ready to kick ass as soon as the mob collected.Or at least this is what any serious dictatorship would do.You cannot afford to leave a mob running unchecked on the capital world without reacting,especially in a moment of political weakness such as that.Evidently the situation was beyond control.I am not saying that everyone on Coruscant is an antimperial but that antimperial sentiments are evidently quite widespread,even in the capital world.

Fair enough, though the EU says

that those people were gunned down by stormies moments later. I think a SNAFU can be excused considering the Emperor is dead and all.

Thanks,for having remebered me why I was not able to read more than few pages of the EU (trying to suppress the urge to vomit).

Indeed. Utter stupidity.

Admiral Piett · Post by **Admiral Piett** » 2002-12-17 02:47pm

To be fair I find the EU idea of the empire slowly degenerating into warlordism a bit more realistic than the Soviet Union style general collapse which is implied in the special edition of the ROTJ.
Of course one would need a trainload of informations about the imperial system of government,political situation,status of the military etc in order to guess the situation,but unless the empire was already in deep shit the EU scenario should be the more likely to happen.Considered that Palpatine had grown so overconfident is possible however that the empire WAS in neck deep shit after all.
With a series of conditions such as the political consensus close to zero, a strong and widespread rebellion capable of a coherent political strategy,a system of government heavily reliant over the person of Palpatine, a military and bureaucracy without strong pro imperial political agenda a system wide collapse might have happened.
But apart from this and few others points I prefer to avoid to take in consideration the EU.I mean, the Republic remains without a standing army
for a millennia and is left unmolested,then in the space of what?30 years? they get harrassed by waves after waves of moronic extragalactic (or from the "unknown regions",like if they leaved uncharted space after millennias of FTL travel) invaders ,a very original concept

, from the Ssi-ruuk morons to the Yuuzhan Vong cretins.Crap.
And of course scientifical research in a static society, force blocking pets and much more.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-12-18 02:57pm

Admiral Piett wrote:"30,000 people on a planet of trillions is like a few Nazi's in a street parade now."

Sure,they all collected themselves in a single spot and started to throw down Palpatine's statues and play with that stormtrooper without anyone bothering to send there an control riot squad.The empire is a dictatorship.
Such things are not allowed,period.Riots that took place in the soviet union during the 70's were stamped out quickly and ruthlessy.What happened on Coruscant could have happened only if the demonstration was so large to overwhelm the Coruscant police forces.Which means that if not planet wide, at least interested a large portion of it.

Isard did just that. That protest was in fact an isolated riot. Shortly thereafter Coruscant Guards put it down with full-auto E-11 and E-Web fire. The riot numbered in a couple tens of thousands.

True,but how many would be willing to undergo such a process? The empire does not seem a totalitarian government like the nazi germany.How many even pro imperial families would accept their sons go under such a process? I mean,joining the navy is one thing, putting your head into a brainwashing machine is an other.The only problem with clones is that they are long lead time items.But ramping up clones production during the clone war and the fact that the empire has lasted for a couple of decades would make this a secondary issue.Recruits are used to man the ships etc,while the clones would be reserved for the stormtrooper copr and eventually few others tasks.And as far as their life goes we do not really know.Maybe their growth is accelerated but then they might have a normal biological cycle.They could also have a programmed death,so you do not have to worry about paying their retirement (since apparently for you the empire is so worried the cost of troops),which you would have to do with recruits.

The Imperial populace doesn't have a problem with identityless hordes of troops. The Empire administers ideological testing and demands ideological loyalty to the Emperor. COMPNOR exists for that purpose. Tax protests are answered by landing large vessels on the protests. Pelleaon ran away to join the Republic/Imperial Navy. Davin Felth was a happy-go-lucky recruit even after he was thrown out of the officer corps of the Imperial Army and drafted as a stormie. General Madine's wife was hopelessly devoted to the Empire. Most of the Core population wasn’t that angry at the Empire.

Moreover, with such an enormous populace, you’ll always have more willing and able recruits then clones. Furthermore we know from the Spaarti memory-copying techniques they can mix and match mental patterns and introduce them into people’s minds. Look at Major Tierce—a clone with the skills and memories of a superbly skilled and highly trained Royal Guardsman, and the tactical genius of Thrawn.

Why wouldn’t the same technology be used to “suggest” extreme pro-Imperial thoughts in recruits? I’d be amazed if they didn’t do that.

My point is, they'd use clones for invasions, boarding actions, and any kind of police action where you have a probability of atrocities—but it’d be a waste of money to do that where the stormtrooper garrisons and SDs spent most of their time stopping smugglers and keeping pirates in check and handling crime and minor alien incursions on the galactic disk’s edge.

Sorry, I usually keep the EU in low regard. I do not to fry my brain attempting to work out a way so that all the countless stories of the death star plans "fits nicely together" .However if you are interested in that I can have some explanation and suggestions, like I had for the death star plans.

Well that’s fine, and talking pure canon I have no problem with the idea nearly all or all of the stormtroopers would be clones, but unless we’re just going to disregard the EU in our SW whole-view all the time, or play Bob Brown and rant and rave on the brain-bugs rather then trying to produce fixes and rationalizations, I’m suggesting that it isn’t necessary nor wrong that all the stormies weren’t clones.

And I don’t get the fuss about the Death Star plans. Geonosians contracted, never completed project because of war, Palpy later restarted it, Rebels managed to get schematics from multiple sources. I don’t know why that’s a brain-twister. Instead ask people why lightning has a good side derivative and all about the falsehood of the dark/light thing. I find the NJO much, much worse.

Expendable in the sense that you do not have to send letters back at home.Of course they are not cheap.

My point exactly: take the best recruits and give them a year or two of training and provide them with genetic, biological, and mental augmentation and modification. Insert false memories, suggest in their mental patterns super-loyalty and submission to authority. If I were Palpy I’d use clones for the rough jobs and such, but a lot of the time its just not needed.

Admiral Piett wrote:To be fair I find the EU idea of the empire slowly degenerating into warlordism a bit more realistic than the Soviet Union style general collapse which is implied in the

(snip rant)

Ugh. The idea is to make rationalizations and fixed, but thank you for the hyper-purist Bob Brown moment.

I realize the EU’s flaws, but unless we’re going to start treating SW continuity as if it is as flawed as ST continuity, we should attempt to rationalize.

One, its useless to ponder on the idea that Empire just folded. It didn’t happen unless you wholely discount the WHOLE EU, which is generally not done in the forum and we usually look at Official beyond the Canon.

Two, the Republic central government didn’t have an army—no, they had the Jedi and each sector and system maintained its own military…including armies and navies.

Three, there were wars, no galaxy-wide ones. The Stark Hyperspace War, for example. The reason for no wars was because at 1000 year before AOTC, the Republic’s previous incarnation got the shit kicked out of it in the last confrontation with the Sith (see TPM novel).

Four, if the SW civilization has FTL tech as evolved as it does, why wouldn’t they eventually encounter extragalactic species?

Five, the Yuuzhan Vong purposely chose that period because of its turmoil and destruction. They’d been sitting around for around a century waiting.

Six, the Republic before the Ruusan Reformation of 1000 years before AOTC, suffered much worse wars: the original Jedi Schism, several Dark Jedi insurrections, Great Hyperspace War.

Seven, the Unknown Regions, at least to me (though the theory’s credit and rationalization goes to Saxton), is generally accepted to just be diffuse stellar crap wafting around the galaxy that no one bothers with. Few stars here and there. It’s ignored, and there haven’t been any invasions from there. It’s easy to see why it is ignored: the Chiss are the greatest powerhouse and they’ve only heavily developed eight systems and have shitty hyperdrives and puny ships. The Ssi-ruuk had only a small cluster and couldn’t manage to sieze a backwater Imperial protectorate guarded by a Carrack Cruiser. Why does anyone think its ignored and disregarded?

Eight, why must the Force always be omnipotent or whatnot? Yeah Ysalamiri are contrived, but it always struck me as a sad excuse to whine about something the critic already disliked. I never thought they truly blocked the Force, more like they had somesort of natural Force interference that's stopped humanoids from manipulating the Force within a certain radius. The Force exists above the ability of a human-like creature's ability to control it always. At least there's an excuse for the ability: Force-Sensitive predators on the planet. (Personally I like to think that Ysalamiri and Vornskrs are the product of ancient Dark Jedi/Sith experminatation).

Nine, real military research atrophied for a millenia and a lot of the Republic had been applying technology in a Trek-like manner and hadn't been looking into new concepts. Most of the so-called research in SW is actually pseudoscience organizations that real SW scientists probably don't take seriously (like the ExGal Society) or just simply didn't yield anything--as a static society would expect. Lord Hethrir's research facility only ended up creating a sentient lump of flesh covered with scales and calling it "extradimensional" but considering him he was probably just an idiot. The other things just appear to be devices never practically considered or ignored--starbusting tech had been available to the Sith Empire, and some of the stuff at Maw Installation were just odd weapons that seemed to find ways around SW shields because such weapons were never quite used in the way they were (and it was a corvette vs. a planetoid's power supply--guess who will win).

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-12-18 03:00pm

In conclusion, I feel based on my view of SW and all things considered, stormtroopers are both clones and recruits.