The Size of the Droid Army "Retconned"

[Cao Cao]

Yeah, you can say alot about Lucas, but he always likes to make things look as big and spectacular as possible. CGI's a godsend in this regard.

A good example is Coruscant.
Lucas talked of the magnificent city-planet, capital of the Empire/Old Republic and EU writers would scoff at the notion and would try to downsize it by saying it had natural oceans, mountain ranges, that the city-planet thing was just Imperial propaganda.
Then Episode I comes out and what do we see? Coruscant, every inch of the surface totally covered in a dense city.

Lucas goes on to smack the downsizers down at every turn because he wants to show a big, vast, impressive as hell society to make people go wow.
But people like Travisty here still don't get it. And probably never will.

[VT-16]

Exactly. I'm still reeling at what might be blown up as one of the biggest travesties of SW EU history.

No-one, not even Lucas, who's been getting flak for so many other things in the PT, ever imagined the Clone Wars to be a series of spec ops, and somehow center stories around this belief.

200 Dreadnaught-class cruisers being a big fleet? Meh, Thrawn had alot of resources snatched away and he didn't really get that far anyway, imho.

3 million strong army of "super elite commando analoges" making any kind of decisive impact on a galaxy-spanning war and dominating it? Give me a fucking break.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well lets be fair, most of Lucas's "grand vision" comes from him probably not knowing exactly what kind of numbers he's putting up there. He wants all the GAR soldiers to be clones, wants the ships crews to be clones, the pilots, etc...thats hundreds of trillions right there. He wanted a big factory chase scene in AOTC he never considered it would show the production ability and speed of the CIS. He wants ships to vaporize asteroids, wants sweeping city planet vistas, and planet destroying battleships like the Death Star. He doesnt know what the numbers are, he just thinks it looks cool.

The advantage to this, is that it makes it SEEM sweeping and awesome, while not trying to go too deep into the numbers and accidentally screwing up. Lucas almost screwed up with the "units" in AOTC (which i'm relatively sure, he meant to mean "clones") but he left it vague enough that could be inferred differently.

That is the brilliance of George Lucas, he knows he has no idea what he's 'really' writing so he just tells the story, and lets those who know more about physics and science (like Saxton) handle the hard stuff.

But to be fair, he probably would just shrug and agree with Travis' numbers if he knew about them (he probably doesnt, as i get teh impression he gives a rats ass about what some EU writers does as long as he can make the movies, which is his passion) cause i doubt he really sat down and thought any of this out.

[VT-16]

he just thinks it looks cool

Then why can't some authors and fans run with this line of thinking?

You don't get the same kind of "wow" factor from six ISDs being engaged by some gunships and a group of fighters, you get it from thousands of ISDs engaging thousands of Mon Cal Star Cruisers, while fighters blanket the space between them.

It's insane, it'd require enormous amounts of man-power and resources in-universe, but so what? It's fiction, you can take something huge and run with it. Look at the aforementioned Dr. Who, with the Dalek's military strength. You'll get @__@ -eyed just from thinking about it, and I find that more cool than a dozen fighters taking down a random Star Destroyer.

[Cao Cao]

Lucas doesn't really care about the numbers so long as it's VAST!
Which is possibly a problem if he can't define strict lower limits to canon for his writers.
Which wouldn't matter of course with people like Dr. Saxton taking care of that kind of thing for him.. but the egotists refuse to listen to him, of course.

Edit:

It's insane, it'd require enormous amounts of man-power and resources in-universe, but so what? It's fiction, you can take something huge and run with it. Look at the aforementioned Dr. Who, with the Dalek's military strength. You'll get @__@ -eyed just from thinking about it, and I find that more cool than a dozen fighters taking down a random Star Destroyer.

You know I've often wondered if it's because Star Wars came to be considered "mainstream".
Doctor Who despite it's longevity has always managed to remain somewhat obscure and quirky so writers can just take it and go nuts and boy did they.
Star Wars on the other hand.. perhaps writers are simply intimidated. They have to make it small because they can't handle things on such a large scale - they're afraid it won't turn out as expected.

Which is stupid to us, but for a writer with deadlines and contracts.. who knows. Might also explain why they get so incredibly defensive about it.

[18-Till-I-Die]

he just thinks it looks cool

Then why can't some authors and fans run with this line of thinking?

Because...

He likes stuff to look cool and he knows how to write fantasy thats engaging and fun and entertaining for a variety of ages and people.

The EU authors...not so much.

Of course we prefer the movies, they are sweeping and epic, even if Lucas did it "by accident" as it were. I think the Clone Wars cartoons did this excellently as well.

I think this whole GAR problem would have been settled if they had just said the army was made of "countless" clones assembled into numerous Legions, then describe the Order of Battle for ONE Legion of Clones...3,000,000 strong.

Blam, two problems solved. Now we finally know what the Emperor meant when he said "my finest LEGION" in terms of size, and it leaves it open to how many Legions there are.

But sadly, no such luck.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Interestingly i dont get @_@ eyed when i read this stuff. It all makes perfect sense, for a civilization as vast and old as say, the GE or the daleks. These arent just tinpot dictators, even if thats how they act, they're immense, near-godlike from our perspective, civilizations that span entire galaxies, and beyond for the Daleks. So it fits.

Though i admit even i have limits. I'm sure we all do. But say, the Daleks or the Empire doesnt push my limits.

[nightmare]

Traviss even picked on Wookiepedia for what she considered "implied criticism" on wikis. While she spouts all over wikis in her own blog and elsewhere. Talk about being sensitive about criticism. At the same time she claims to have very thick skin on her SW blog. The more I look over this woman, the worse she comes out.

You know, I think I'm going to start call it the TAR - Tiny Army of the Republic.

[Anguirus]

Ha. What a bitchy thing to do. If you're an author who just doesn't care, like most of them, that's one thing, but why actively seek everyone on the Internet who doesn't like you and complain about them?

That's even funnier when you consider her typical attitude of "no one cares about you Talifans on the fringe."

And I would have used the word "bitchy" even if this was a guy we were talking about here.

[Jim Raynor]

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.

[Jim Raynor]

I for one am waiting for Traviss to just snap. It's quite obvious that she does care about what we say, even if she says she doesn't.

[Master of Ossus]

Karen's latest blog is an hilarious mixture of outright lies, self-contradictions, and distortions. This is my favorite part:

Back to the GFFA: Palps plied his spin in a galaxy that hadn't seen a war for centuries, let alone standing armies. They were absolutely ripe for swallowing lies, great big ones, because they had nothing to by which to judge the information they were hearing. Gazillions of droids sounded as plausible to them as any number you could pull out of the air. Not even the politicians had any previous experience of wars: and the only military they had when it kicked off was a clone army, designed to fit Palps' plans. Just like the Nazi spin doc Josef Goebbels said, if you tell a big lie often enough, it'll be believed, and Palpatine's illusion of the Separatist bogeyman was believed too.

Mace Windu didn't believe Grievous had enough droids to occupy Coruscant. (Labyrinth of Evil) Even Grievous only claimed he had thousands of droid troops (Revenge of the Sith.) Incredulity about Dooku's ability to procure thousands of droids (let alone quadrillions) was expressed in The Cestus Deception. But nobody else outside of this small circle seemed to question the real nature of the threat.

Just like the real world, in fact.

Hey, Karen, if no one is prepared for the War and is ready to buy into any propoganda--no matter how absurd--then what makes you think that character speculation is more accurate than objective statements made from an out-of-universe perspective?

[Ghost Rider]

Damn...pressing the nazi analogy a bit much?

So according to her Palps had such complete control of the media that any reports of war was what? Four guys in a bar fight?

Seriously at this rate, it'll be 1000 clone troopers is what was in Star Wars, and the fleet over Endor was the entire Imperial Armada.

[Cao Cao]

Even Grievous only claimed he had thousands of droid troops (Revenge of the Sith.)

Bzzzt.
Outright lie detected. Seeing as how it was the Utapaun leader who referred to "thousands of battle droids" and why the hell would he know better?

[Archon]

Just reading the Insider 87 thread on TFN:

That Ender_sai character is a real piece of work.

[Jim Raynor]

Just reading the Insider 87 thread on TFN:

That Ender_sai character is a real piece of work.

I had to put up with his idiocy first hand.

My favorite quote:

James - I can call you James, right? - can you please catalogue for us the works, scope, and if relevant, the qualifications of Ms Karen Traviss, and then compare and contrast them with your own. You are free to call upon the works of other reasonable normalists (I think you call them minimalists) like Messers Zahn or Kube-McDowell if it is your wish.

If you can demonstrate that Ms Traviss, or Messers Zahn or K-Mac for that matter (or any other normalists), have relative inexperience with galactic-wide stories (i.e. scale) and military affairs (such as tactics and strategy, two elements oft wanting in the maximalist camp) compared with your own prodigious and well respected output, then you're in a position to deride the works of others. Otherwise, you come across as an English major arguing economics, or a historian debating quantum mechanics, if you see what I mean?

Yes, he actually argued that Traviss is a published writer and I'm not, therefore she knows what she's talking about and I'm just some stupid armchair general.

You need to be able to overcome BILLIONS to one odds in order to show how l33t you are? Real elite forces can't do that, they'll have trouble with 10 to 1 odds. Do you think the US Army Rangers suck because individual soldiers can't take on the population of planets?

No, I think they suck because I put them next to the SAS/SASR.

I think it bares reflecting that Australian and British SAS units (regarded by most experts as amongst the best, if not the best, of the special forces - but you be sure to tell them that they're wrong and you're right, they'd absolutely love to hear from you I am certain!) were inserting far beyond the normal lines of battle in Afghanistan and Iraq, to assail key locations with little support against a more mobile, and numberically superior number.

ALL FEAR TEH UBER SPECIAL FORCEZ!!!!11!!1!

[18-Till-I-Die]

"Normalists" eh?

I'm telling you, i have got to find that smiley vomitting other smileys.

Can we get Uranium in here? Someone PM him.

[Cao Cao]

Oh yes, they're so uppity with credentials.
.. that is until you mention that one Dr. Curtis Saxton, PhD - "a noted authority on Star Wars" disagrees with them on many scale issues.
Suddenly backgrounds aren't important anymore! What does he know anyway!

[Archon]

Added my $0.02.

My username is Archon_SDN.

[Lord Poe]

One item of note:

I say again: find me hard data beyond the Saxton books.

Why must the hard data be from beyond the Saxyon books?

There doesn't have to be. She's a jealous cunt that thinks her crap should supercede the "Saxton books". Fuck her. From the way it looks to me, her "bad intel" about the clones and droid army is a direct swipe at Saxton.

[PayBack]

You need to be able to overcome BILLIONS to one odds in order to show how l33t you are? Real elite forces can't do that, they'll have trouble with 10 to 1 odds. Do you think the US Army Rangers suck because individual soldiers can't take on the population of planets?

No, I think they suck because I put them next to the SAS/SASR.

I think it bares reflecting that Australian and British SAS units (regarded by most experts as amongst the best, if not the best, of the special forces - but you be sure to tell them that they're wrong and you're right, they'd absolutely love to hear from you I am certain!) were inserting far beyond the normal lines of battle in Afghanistan and Iraq, to assail key locations with little support against a more mobile, and numberically superior number.

Considering IIRC the only times I've seen the GAR troops on screen has been in regular (non SAS type) combat, the Ranger analogy makes sense, the SAS one doesn't. Somehow I can't picture the SAS standing in skirmish lines going to toe to toe with the enemy on a flat battlefield.

[Vympel]

Her self justifications get more and more absurd. And we have tools like Dark Moose kissing her ass about how "ground breaking" this bad-intel nonsense is.

T-canon, folks. Ignore it.

[PayBack]

Oh.. and having just read her blog.. I believe she's just said that the Jedi are cowards and morons. Considering the number of droids was supposedly a lie started by Palp that no one dared question, it leads me to wonder why A) The generals (Jedi) leading the GAR were too dumb to realise the numbers were bogus, and B) Why the aforementioned Jedi were too scared to question the numbers.

Somewhat Ironic too is choosing Iraq as an analogy, considering it was a single country on a single planet, and had a bigger army than the Grand Army of a galaxy spanning republic.

[Stark]

Doesn't the droid factory in AOTC produce more droids than the whole T-CIS army per day?

[PayBack]

Dumb question time.. How do I reply to the blog.. I'm registered but it keeps saying to verify my email to post a reply, which I do, but it still keeps the verify link at the bottom.