How should the Clone Wars have been Done?

[Darth Yan]

Note: I don't hate the Clone Wars media or how it was portrayed in the prequels (though the cartoons and old EU did a better job fleshing it out.) But I can't help but notice it doesn't exactly jibe with the OT. Mainly, the description is WARS involving multiple wars. Yet we get a single big war that lasts three years. That's kinda misleading don't ya think?

[LadyTevar]

Note: I don't hate the Clone Wars media or how it was portrayed in the prequels (though the cartoons and old EU did a better job fleshing it out.) But I can't help but notice it doesn't exactly jibe with the OT. Mainly, the description is WARS involving multiple wars. Yet we get a single big war that lasts three years. That's kinda misleading don't ya think?

We're shown that there's multiple planets that became month-long battlegrounds. It'd be easy to call each Planetary Campaign a "war" in and of itself, since a Galaxy Wide War is a lot to process for the average Citizen.

[Gandalf]

It's feasible for a name like the Clone Wars to apply to the whole fight, in a similar way to how one might break WW2 into a bunch of wars.

But for a quick "how I would have done it," maybe make the clones the villains, as a step up from the Trade Federation's battle droids.

[KraytKing]

I actually just took on this question myself in some detail, since I've always been vaguely bothered by how that period is portrayed but didn't have a specific version I preferred. Thanks for asking, because I would love to talk about it.

The main problems I identified with the Clone Wars are as follows. One, the Jedi were not portrayed as I thought they should be in relation to the clone troopers. Space monks, even space warrior monks, should not immediately mesh well with consummate professional soldiers. Two, three years of galactic war did not seem sufficient to completely undermine democracy. Three, the clones are the BAD GUYS. The culmination of this problem is the brain chip thing. The clones became sympathetic, we forgot they are literally space Nazis, and so we removed the entire human aspect of the story that might have had a valuable lesson and instead made them robots. Problem three and a half, robots are boring ass enemies to fight.

I have a version with specifics, but here are the broad strokes. The First Clone War is fought similarly to the one we see on screen: wealthy industrialists have a droid army, they try to secede, clones come and try to stop them. The Jedi and the clones get along very poorly. Drop the "bred for obedience" bullshit, because humans are ALREADY obedient, and if you wanted cannon fodder you would go out and recruit them from the uncountable numbers of beings in the Republic. The clones aren't the only military force, for now they're augmented by a recruit army that includes aliens. However, they are brutal. They can be sympathetic, but they continually do things that go completely against what the Jedi believe to be moral, which is what leads the Jedi to take over overall command from the clone generals.

The second clone war is where things start to get grey. The first war, the Separatists were the clear bad guys: soulless droids used to conquer worlds for the enrichment of the oligarchy? Definitely need to fight that. That was just to kick off a war, however, and Palpatine never planned for it to be the sole threat. The droids are overcome in only a couple of years, but then a new war erupts and pits the clones and the Jedi against people. Not droids, humans and aliens who kind of look like the Rebels we see on Endor and Hoth. The battles get more grim. Jedi start falling to the dark side, some of them deciding that maybe the clones have it right with their various war crimes. Some Jedi go through harrowing experiences with their men and bond closely with the survivors. The rest are hated by the clones for their idealism that gets clones killed. The Republic grows steadily more totalitarian: more and more emergency powers are heaped on the Chancellor, governor-generals are appointed to unify the civilian command structure, the Republican Security Bureau is established to maintain loyalty within the ranks.

Then we get the Imperialization of the galaxy. The Galactic Empire is declared, now nearly a decade after the first shots were fired. The Jedi Purge begins, kicking off the Third Clone War. Most Jedi are killed immediately, some are killed in the fighting after the Empire is victorious, and the rest fall to the dark side. We see the evil of the clone troopers, now stormtroopers, unleashed. Whereas before they might have been agreeable, "whatever it takes to kill the terrorists" types, now we are shown the full horror of what that means. They are the SS, they are killers without conscience, and they are perfectly trained and equipped. Perhaps a scene in a TV show takes place from the point of view of a suspected Separatist sympathizer, perhaps harboring a fugitive Jedi. The defenders realize there are vehicles gathering outside, then comes a knock on the door. One of them, the patriarch of the family, answers the door and is killed immediately. A single clone then storms through the house, killing defenders trying to grab weapons and cowering family members alike.

That pretty much covers my alternate overarching story, but there was another, smaller fix that could have been done with just the TV show, not changing the entire structure of all of it. All the battles we see are fucking boring! Now, I haven't watched most of the Clone Wars since I was a child, so please do point it out to me if there are some good ones I'm forgetting, but to me all the setpiece battles we saw looked basically the same. Droids and clones run at each other on an open field with maybe some cool terrain in the background, the Jedi do their thing, battle over. Think of the possibilities! You, as showrunner, have at your fingertips a GALACTIC WAR. Think of all the ridiculous battlefields that never were on just our own planet, and dial it up to eleven. In a galaxy of a million worlds, essentially every battlefield under any set of conditions has had a fight in it. Imagine a two month campaign fought entirely in the Andes, except this is mountain world so the peaks are twice as steep and high. AT-TEs and spider droids climb on the bare rock while infantry duel, and maybe throw in that its raining acid rain. Or a jungle world, the undergrowth far more vicious than the worst imaginings of any Vietnam veteran. A war fought entirely in an industrial sector, neither side ever seeing a plant. Like, come on. There were so many possibilities better than "this is a darkness world, it's cool because its dark and fog."

[Solauren]

Movie -
Phantom Menace
Make the Jedi order bigger. I've read there were about 10,000 Jedi at the start of the Clone Wars (not counting Agricorps and pre-Padawans).
Increase that number to close to 1 million or more. The Jedi are allowed to have families, and usually end up with other Jedi.

This would seem like an invincible military force.




Movie -
Attack of the Clones

Not a military creation act, a military REACTIVATION act.
When we learn the Republic's army is actually 'on ice' in some sort of status. Mostly clones, with some droids.
ALong with entire fleets that are in deep space drydocks, maintained in near perfect working order.
The Republic occasionally activates small groups to deal with regional problems like pirates, so they get an idea of why needs to be upgraded or replaced.



The Confederacy reveal would have them using Battle droids from the First movie, plus the new 'Super Battle Droids', plus their own breeds of clones which include Cyborgs



The actual Clone Wars -
The Confederacy has more advanced weapons technology then the Republic, causing worlds to be lost quickly.
Confederacy droids are superior to Republic droids, but their clones are inferior to the Republics.

Numerous other factions that were previously part of the Republic break off and declare independence, or alligance to the few factions not part of the republic.
i.e Mandalore and it's old colonies break off. Numerous worlds seek Hutt protection.

The Chancellor and his advisors put forth an idea for the defense of a important planet that the senate votes down, but the miltiary does it anyway.
The result is a Confederacy loss so severe, the Republic military is able to launch an immediate counter attack (also outlined by the Chancellor and his advisors), and retake several Republic planets.
Intelligence determines that the Senators that lead the attempt to muzzle the Chancellor are actually in the pocket of the Confederacy, and are removed.

As a result of this, and in response to massive public preasure, the senate starts giving the Supreme Chancellor more and more power, including reactivating several old acts, and allowing for a massive upswing in military production, which brings in alot of jobs.
The Confederacy starts losing ground again, before managing to find a new supply of clones to hold back the Republic.

After about 6 months of fighting, the Confederacy clones start going insane as a result of being grown to fast. The Clone Wars becomes a multi-sided war at this point, as the various break away factions start fighting as well.

The Republic
The Confederacy
The Mandalorians (which breaks into it's own civil war, as the idea of declaring independence was to stay out of the war, with their intention of rejoining the republic if it was victorious)
The Hutts (who nominally support the Republic due to a very old treaty neither side as ever broken)
A few others (I'd have to dig through old EU stuff)

Several Republic Admirals and Generals voice concerns that the Confederacy clone problem might also be something with their own clones. This results in the installation of biochips in the Republic clones. In case the clones go rogue, there is an override. Those cost of that override is a lose of some skill and independent thinking.
No one considers that a problem, as the idea of the override is to have the clones finish the fight and then get rotated out for eval and hopefully 'repairs'.

Over the course of the next few years, the Republic continues a massive military build-up, corrupt senators are exposed and replaced, etc.

Over the course of the war, Jedi fall to the Dark side and are killed, die fighting, or cut themselves off from the Force. Jedi falling to the Darkside results in civilian deaths, and starts to turn public opinion against the Jedi.
Numerous swindlers take advantage of this to pretend to be Jedi, and are caught using "simple tricks", and technology.

THe end of the war.....

Revenge of the Sith
Change's I'd make to it

After the rescue of the Chancellor, Anakin is made a Jedi Master, and Padme is revealed to be 3 months pregnant. He starts having visions of her death in childbirth almost immediately afterwards.
Anakin is shown scouring the Jedi Archieves and knowledge looking for a way to affect the vision, or understand it. Anything to save Padme. This could be done with a 'montage' of shorts.
As a result of this, Anakin becomes very skilled in Jedi healing arts. Another montage shows the Republic pushing back the Seperatists, and the Seperatists fracturing without Dooku, but Grevious murdering anyone that tries to break away or rebel.
He also becomes the Jedi liason with Palpatine, and the Senate/Chancellor liason to the Jedi. Anakin has everything he ever dreamed. The only problem is - he has to spy on Palpatine to try to find Sidious.
It could even include a run-down on the investigation into the Sith Lord.

But Anakin can't stop the visions. Then 5 weeks before Padme is due, the Confederacy loses a major space battle, and the Republic begins tracking Grevious and the Seperate leadership.

Palpatine reveals his concerns to Anakin about the Jedi, and then dangles the carrot of Darth Plageious in front of him (and mentions Plageious's master, Tenebrious). The visions then change - the Light can't help Padme, but the Dark Side has the knowledge that can.
Anakin discovers that the Jedi have a holocron made by Darth Tenebrious, and consults it, and starts experimenting with the basis for midiclorian control, hoping to find a way to do it using the Light.
His attempt at it to heal an injured clone fails, horribly. Anakin is wracked with guilt, and takes leave from the Jedi to coup with it. He still has to attend council meetings, but he's off active duty.

The Republic has located Grevious, and send Obiwan to deal with him.

Palpatine comes by the hospital when Anakin is visting the clone, and then heals the clone, and reveals he was Darth Plageious apprentice.

Anakin reports Palpatine to the council, and the council go to deal with him. Anakin still intervenes, and turns.

During his 'promotion'; Palpatine announcing 'in response to the Jedi Rebellion, I have activated the failsafe order for our forces. Order 66, and issued orders to detain or terminate the Jedi as needed'.
It wasn't a secret order, it was one everyone knew about and approved, that is just being 'misused'.

Vader goes to Mustafar, Padme comes, etc.


Added twist, however - the clone that was healed, is shown going to active duty, and then suddenly breaking down and dying, looking worse then when ANakin tried to fix him. It was a lie......

[KraytKing]

Are you married to the idea of a multi-polar war? I think that's a tough sell for Star Wars, which is by its very definition black and white. This is a prequel, and it has to deal with a difficult concept for black and white (how a whole galaxy collectively turns on the good guys and democracy), but I think the fracturing of the Confederacy and whatnot unnecessarily muddies the waters. If that is just background, sprinkled in to justify the sudden success of militarist proto-Imperials, then it can work.

I think the Jedi can be a powerful military force, but I think its important that they don't have families. Star Wars is supposed to be a parable, applicable to our real world in broad lessons, if not specifics. If the Jedi are JUST the good guys, then how did the galaxy turn on them? They need a flaw. I think a good flaw is to have them be the culmination of thousands of years of head-up-ass. They are so convinced of their holiness that while they usually are on the side of the angels, they won't listen when they aren't. They act with compassion, but they've gotten a little TOO strict and so ban families, and while they do fight, they don't fight like soldiers. Essentially, they exemplify the New York buddhist types who condemn the suffering for "karma."

I don't think there's much of a difference between military creation and reactivation, except:
1) all the equipment should probably look antiquated if it's reactivated
2) being able to secretly create a galactic military with only a handful of planets is kind of stupid. Implies that certain worlds are literally millions of times as valuable as others

I think the ideal would be to reactivate a military like you said, but then as the war goes on, more and more of the galactic economy is militarized. By the end of the wars and the declaration of the New Order, they look like the clones we all know. All the old equipment has been phased out or destroyed by then.

[Darth Yan]

I actually just took on this question myself in some detail, since I've always been vaguely bothered by how that period is portrayed but didn't have a specific version I preferred. Thanks for asking, because I would love to talk about it.

The main problems I identified with the Clone Wars are as follows. One, the Jedi were not portrayed as I thought they should be in relation to the clone troopers. Space monks, even space warrior monks, should not immediately mesh well with consummate professional soldiers. Two, three years of galactic war did not seem sufficient to completely undermine democracy. Three, the clones are the BAD GUYS. The culmination of this problem is the brain chip thing. The clones became sympathetic, we forgot they are literally space Nazis, and so we removed the entire human aspect of the story that might have had a valuable lesson and instead made them robots. Problem three and a half, robots are boring ass enemies to fight.

I have a version with specifics, but here are the broad strokes. The First Clone War is fought similarly to the one we see on screen: wealthy industrialists have a droid army, they try to secede, clones come and try to stop them. The Jedi and the clones get along very poorly. Drop the "bred for obedience" bullshit, because humans are ALREADY obedient, and if you wanted cannon fodder you would go out and recruit them from the uncountable numbers of beings in the Republic. The clones aren't the only military force, for now they're augmented by a recruit army that includes aliens. However, they are brutal. They can be sympathetic, but they continually do things that go completely against what the Jedi believe to be moral, which is what leads the Jedi to take over overall command from the clone generals.

The second clone war is where things start to get grey. The first war, the Separatists were the clear bad guys: soulless droids used to conquer worlds for the enrichment of the oligarchy? Definitely need to fight that. That was just to kick off a war, however, and Palpatine never planned for it to be the sole threat. The droids are overcome in only a couple of years, but then a new war erupts and pits the clones and the Jedi against people. Not droids, humans and aliens who kind of look like the Rebels we see on Endor and Hoth. The battles get more grim. Jedi start falling to the dark side, some of them deciding that maybe the clones have it right with their various war crimes. Some Jedi go through harrowing experiences with their men and bond closely with the survivors. The rest are hated by the clones for their idealism that gets clones killed. The Republic grows steadily more totalitarian: more and more emergency powers are heaped on the Chancellor, governor-generals are appointed to unify the civilian command structure, the Republican Security Bureau is established to maintain loyalty within the ranks.

Then we get the Imperialization of the galaxy. The Galactic Empire is declared, now nearly a decade after the first shots were fired. The Jedi Purge begins, kicking off the Third Clone War. Most Jedi are killed immediately, some are killed in the fighting after the Empire is victorious, and the rest fall to the dark side. We see the evil of the clone troopers, now stormtroopers, unleashed. Whereas before they might have been agreeable, "whatever it takes to kill the terrorists" types, now we are shown the full horror of what that means. They are the SS, they are killers without conscience, and they are perfectly trained and equipped. Perhaps a scene in a TV show takes place from the point of view of a suspected Separatist sympathizer, perhaps harboring a fugitive Jedi. The defenders realize there are vehicles gathering outside, then comes a knock on the door. One of them, the patriarch of the family, answers the door and is killed immediately. A single clone then storms through the house, killing defenders trying to grab weapons and cowering family members alike.

That pretty much covers my alternate overarching story, but there was another, smaller fix that could have been done with just the TV show, not changing the entire structure of all of it. All the battles we see are fucking boring! Now, I haven't watched most of the Clone Wars since I was a child, so please do point it out to me if there are some good ones I'm forgetting, but to me all the setpiece battles we saw looked basically the same. Droids and clones run at each other on an open field with maybe some cool terrain in the background, the Jedi do their thing, battle over. Think of the possibilities! You, as showrunner, have at your fingertips a GALACTIC WAR. Think of all the ridiculous battlefields that never were on just our own planet, and dial it up to eleven. In a galaxy of a million worlds, essentially every battlefield under any set of conditions has had a fight in it. Imagine a two month campaign fought entirely in the Andes, except this is mountain world so the peaks are twice as steep and high. AT-TEs and spider droids climb on the bare rock while infantry duel, and maybe throw in that its raining acid rain. Or a jungle world, the undergrowth far more vicious than the worst imaginings of any Vietnam veteran. A war fought entirely in an industrial sector, neither side ever seeing a plant. Like, come on. There were so many possibilities better than "this is a darkness world, it's cool because its dark and fog."

The clones being pawns adds the tragedy and the chips explain why there weren't more people who disagreed. In the old EU Roan Shryne survives because the clones under his command flat out refuse to carry out the order. There would have been more of those if there weren't chips

[Gandalf]

The clones being pawns adds the tragedy and the chips explain why there weren't more people who disagreed. In the old EU Roan Shryne survives because the clones under his command flat out refuse to carry out the order. There would have been more of those if there weren't chips

How does it add to the tragedy?

But now that you mention it, having more clones say no would be pretty cool. There could have even been infighting among the clones who perhaps didn't want to go through with the order. So the Jedi who took time to build rapport and attachment with their clones had a better shot at surviving, while more doctrinaire Jedi who eschewed attachment got plugged. It also becomes a neat way of showing that the Jedi were not wholly fit for purpose in that role.

[MKSheppard]

I can't really involve myself in the Filoniverse for a crucial point -- the fucking biochips. Filoni, I don't think, really thought through the implications of that; beyond it being a clever way to have a children's series with Order 66 and having to explain to kids how their heroes were really secretly villains.

I remember nearly twenty years ago, leaving Attack of the Clones with my dad and brother and arguing with them over why the hell the Empire needed clones? If you needed manpower, just institute a draft and spend six months training them.

It took until Revenge of the Sith for that apparent plot hole to be fixed, and fixed it was in a beautiful way:

"Execute Order 66"



The entire schtick of Order 66 required clones for it to work, in order to sidestep Jedi precognition.

If you need to have biochips in everyone's heads to get them to do Order 66, why do you need clones when you can just implant the biochips into your mass army of recruits under the guise of active vaccination (i.e. the bio chip can synthesize and release vaccines on the fly with space magic tech) to deal with the millions of diseases likely to be walking around a galactic civilization from pirates and smugglers travelling all over the galaxy?

A better explanation for how some clones didn't execute Order 66 would be...the Force. Some clones would have been touched by the Force (like Captain Rex) and would be able to resist their indoctrination.

[Ralin]

If you need to have biochips in everyone's heads to get them to do Order 66, why do you need clones when you can just implant the biochips into your mass army of recruits under the guise of active vaccination (i.e. the bio chip can synthesize and release vaccines on the fly with space magic tech) to deal with the millions of diseases likely to be walking around a galactic civilization from pirates and smugglers travelling all over the galaxy?

Probably a lot easier to design a biochip that can control soldiers minds if all of those soldiers have identical brains or the next best thing.

[bilateralrope]

If you need to have biochips in everyone's heads to get them to do Order 66, why do you need clones when you can just implant the biochips into your mass army of recruits under the guise of active vaccination (i.e. the bio chip can synthesize and release vaccines on the fly with space magic tech) to deal with the millions of diseases likely to be walking around a galactic civilization from pirates and smugglers travelling all over the galaxy?

Probably a lot easier to design a biochip that can control soldiers minds if all of those soldiers have identical brains or the next best thing.

That is exactly the case. Just look at Bad Batch, which features a group of clones that came out of the vats with undesired but useful mutations, and one clone that has received major cybernetic modifications. The biochips didn't work on most of them.

[KraytKing]

The clones being pawns adds the tragedy and the chips explain why there weren't more people who disagreed. In the old EU Roan Shryne survives because the clones under his command flat out refuse to carry out the order. There would have been more of those if there weren't chips

The chips makes it irrelevant morally. Footsoldiers of the Reich didn't have chips or obedience-breeding to make them commit horrors, and that's a tough thing to grapple with for most people. The idea that odds are, if you were put in that scenario, you would just follow orders too. The chips thing, and the line about being "bred for obedience" before it, makes it so that us regular humans can take pride in not doing those things, even though we totally would. The tragedy is that clones who are sympathetic characters, like Rex, would knowingly choose to commit horrific crimes in the name of following orders.

For the scenarios where the clones apparently fell in love with their Jedi, I have a hard time believing that. If you took a MACV-SOG group, blew them up to number in the millions, gave them their whole command infrastructure of their peers, and then put them under command of a bunch of semi-pacifist monks, would you really expect anyone to be happy? The Jedi are gonna be total cunts about their wisdom and how the clones are literal children who have much to learn, and the clones are gonna chafe under a command style that is completely against everything they have ever learned and experienced. The surprising thing is that they didn't kill off the Jedi on their own volition, two months after meeting them.

The only times the clones choose not to kill their Jedi is when the Jedi have adapted to the horrors of war to be more like the clones, and those Jedi will clearly be dark siders by then, like Anakin. Mission accomplished.

Maybe you have a handful of clones who become more like the Jedi, but that would be very difficult. If each Jedi is leading thousands or tens of thousands of men, not many of them are going to have the chance to bond. The way I figure, the only Jedi who survive the first wave of executions are the ones who left the Order already in protest, or at least refused to lead men in battle and retired to the Jedi Temple.

While I'm at it, the Jedi Temple could have been a much cooler ordeal in one of the spin off books. That place is massive; what if it took Vader and the 501st a two-week siege to clear it out? It would help reinforce the scale of everything: in Star Wars, cities cover whole planets and single buildings may be measured in square mileage, not footage.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

I can think of one specific reason for the clone army.

We're talking about a galaxy that has known at least centuries of relative peace; where much of it has largely forgotten the art of war. In James Luceno's Tarkin, Tarkin scorns Dooku's warnings of a coming war, arguing that the war would involve the 'volunteer security forces' of the Confederacy against the Judicials and Jedi. The galaxy just doesn't have much military capability to offer, so Palpatine will need to create one for himself.

In this case, what the clone army offers is secrecy. Palpatine could just as easily have raised a conventional army, but that would involve recruiting actual people (one way or another), and actual people tend to leave trails. All it takes is one desperate relative to turn up at the Jedi Temple begging for help in finding their missing loved one, and the whole plan risks being blown open. Kamino, in that respect, was the perfect venue; skilled cloners, in a location not well-known, and jealous of their privacy. Obi-Wan only found out because of that one saber-dart, and only then because Dexter Jettster was able to identify it for him. All things considered, Palpatine did a pretty good job of keeping the clone army secret.

That said, I agree with the objection that the clone army was too small. It should have been the hard striking arm, while the 'Republic army' troopers (later the Imperial army) would provide the mass element. The clones could then be replaced with stormtroopers.

[Darth Yan]

The clones being pawns adds the tragedy and the chips explain why there weren't more people who disagreed. In the old EU Roan Shryne survives because the clones under his command flat out refuse to carry out the order. There would have been more of those if there weren't chips

The chips makes it irrelevant morally. Footsoldiers of the Reich didn't have chips or obedience-breeding to make them commit horrors, and that's a tough thing to grapple with for most people. The idea that odds are, if you were put in that scenario, you would just follow orders too. The chips thing, and the line about being "bred for obedience" before it, makes it so that us regular humans can take pride in not doing those things, even though we totally would. The tragedy is that clones who are sympathetic characters, like Rex, would knowingly choose to commit horrific crimes in the name of following orders.

For the scenarios where the clones apparently fell in love with their Jedi, I have a hard time believing that. If you took a MACV-SOG group, blew them up to number in the millions, gave them their whole command infrastructure of their peers, and then put them under command of a bunch of semi-pacifist monks, would you really expect anyone to be happy? The Jedi are gonna be total cunts about their wisdom and how the clones are literal children who have much to learn, and the clones are gonna chafe under a command style that is completely against everything they have ever learned and experienced. The surprising thing is that they didn't kill off the Jedi on their own volition, two months after meeting them.

The only times the clones choose not to kill their Jedi is when the Jedi have adapted to the horrors of war to be more like the clones, and those Jedi will clearly be dark siders by then, like Anakin. Mission accomplished.

Maybe you have a handful of clones who become more like the Jedi, but that would be very difficult. If each Jedi is leading thousands or tens of thousands of men, not many of them are going to have the chance to bond. The way I figure, the only Jedi who survive the first wave of executions are the ones who left the Order already in protest, or at least refused to lead men in battle and retired to the Jedi Temple.

While I'm at it, the Jedi Temple could have been a much cooler ordeal in one of the spin off books. That place is massive; what if it took Vader and the 501st a two-week siege to clear it out? It would help reinforce the scale of everything: in Star Wars, cities cover whole planets and single buildings may be measured in square mileage, not footage.

1.) Except that's not really true. Most Jedi (Yoda, Obi Wan, Plo Koon) are genuinely benevolent with the clones and try to treat them as humanely as possible (encouraging them to develop their own personalities). For the most part they avert the Neidermeyer tendency and at least try to help the clones.

2.) It also shows just how much Palpatine used everyone. The clones did their job, killed the only people who actually cared for them and treated them with decency in the process....and then he threw them aside like an empty beer can. So now the clones have to live with knowing that they betrayed the only people who actually gave a damn about them.

3.) Palpatine wouldn't want to take chances. I mentioned in Dark Lord how Roan Shryne and his pals escape the initial purge because some of the troopers refuse to carry out the order and turn on the ones who DO want to carry out the order. The situation is described as so shocking that Vader himself is dispatched to deal with it.

While there probably WOULD have been plenty who just obeyed orders, there would also have been a fair amount who just said "no. Fuck off" if they had a choice. It wouldn't just be a single unit refusing.

In short, Palpatine wouldn't want to take chances. He'd want 100% compliance and the chips are the only way to guarantee that.

[KraytKing]

It doesn't fucking MATTER what the in-universe reasons are for Palpatine to want the brain chips, someone in our universe wrote in the idea that brain chips were a thing and that was fucking stupid. The problem with them is that it devalues the entire story, NOT that it makes no sense from an in-universe perspective.

Point 1 doesn't make much sense. If Obi-Wan does stupid shit like in the Ryloth invasion episode, taking in a small landing force that gets totally destroyed to save twenty hostages, then the men are going to hate him. It doesn't matter if he says he values all life, because the clones don't. They value success and their own lives, no one else's, so people like the Jedi could not be loved unless they stop being like Jedi.

Point 2 is great, but for some reason you think it would be better if the clones were just mind controlled robots? This is the human aspect, the lesson: they weren't right. They did choose to kill the Jedi and follow orders, and establish the Empire. They chose order over freedom at some point, and obviously that is the wrong choice. So they regret it, like the fascists did. What you lose when you make them mind controlled is the very real reasoning that makes very real people do horrible things. WHICH IS THE FUCKING IMPORTANT PART OF THE STORY.

[Darth Yan]

In universe reasons make sense and it’s less of a plot Hile. To me that’s what matters. The other option makes less sense so no.

1.) There are many other incidents when Kenobi Koon and the others do a much better job with their clones and treat them with respect. That’s not going to go away no matter how much you want to pretend.

2.) Again Palpatine isn’t going to want to take chances. It holds up better internally

[MKSheppard]

The chips makes it irrelevant morally. Footsoldiers of the Reich didn't have chips or obedience-breeding to make them commit horrors, and that's a tough thing to grapple with for most people. The idea that odds are, if you were put in that scenario, you would just follow orders too. The chips thing, and the line about being "bred for obedience" before it, makes it so that us regular humans can take pride in not doing those things, even though we totally would.

Oh man, I totally missed that point. Really, the only reason to go with clones is for the Jedi betrayal with Order 66. Everything else is doable with mass conscript forces and enough conditioning.

By that, I mean you can order a regular unit to commit massacres on a regular schedule if you play your cards right, just look at the German Order Police Battalions raised out of uniformed policemen who went off to Russia to kill people.

[Batman]

Yeah. There was totally nothing in what would eventually become ANH about something called the Clone Wars

[Gandalf]

The chips makes it irrelevant morally. Footsoldiers of the Reich didn't have chips or obedience-breeding to make them commit horrors, and that's a tough thing to grapple with for most people. The idea that odds are, if you were put in that scenario, you would just follow orders too. The chips thing, and the line about being "bred for obedience" before it, makes it so that us regular humans can take pride in not doing those things, even though we totally would.

Oh man, I totally missed that point. Really, the only reason to go with clones is for the Jedi betrayal with Order 66. Everything else is doable with mass conscript forces and enough conditioning.

By that, I mean you can order a regular unit to commit massacres on a regular schedule if you play your cards right, just look at the German Order Police Battalions raised out of uniformed policemen who went off to Russia to kill people.

It also dovetails amazingly with the end of AOTC, with the Riefenstahl style shots of the fancy new army. It shows that we can be taken in by this army and its shiny new everything, but we also know that these the first form of Stormtroopers.

[KraytKing]

In universe reasons make sense and it’s less of a plot Hile. To me that’s what matters. The other option makes less sense so no.

1.) There are many other incidents when Kenobi Koon and the others do a much better job with their clones and treat them with respect. That’s not going to go away no matter how much you want to pretend.

The lesson throughout is that the Jedi don't do whatever it takes to achieve victory. They say that point blank countless times. That is a product of the training of the Jedi, and of course the clones are going to have the exact opposite conclusion because of their training, which again, is mentioned numerous times throughout the show. Occasionally, we DO see the Jedi make tactically smart decisions, except they are Dark Side as hell. That doesn't get touched on because Dave Filoni is an idiot that everyone loves for some reason. The instance that comes to mind is when Plo Koon blows up the base of the slavers after all the slaves are rescued, shooting off the supports and letting them fall into a volcano I think? That's how you show the corruption of the Jedi, and why they were unable to detect Palpatine: so many of them had gotten so dark, they couldn't tell anymore.

2.) Again Palpatine isn’t going to want to take chances. It holds up better internally

If you're going to insist we only use in universe reasoning, I have to wonder what you meant with this thread. Are you asking us for better in-universe strategies? Because it sure sounds like you asked our thoughts on the STORY, and obviously there is no in-universe reasoning for that.

It's weird that you even addressed my point 2 rebuttal, because it relies ENTIRELY on out-of-universe reasoning.

[KraytKing]

The chips makes it irrelevant morally. Footsoldiers of the Reich didn't have chips or obedience-breeding to make them commit horrors, and that's a tough thing to grapple with for most people. The idea that odds are, if you were put in that scenario, you would just follow orders too. The chips thing, and the line about being "bred for obedience" before it, makes it so that us regular humans can take pride in not doing those things, even though we totally would.

Oh man, I totally missed that point. Really, the only reason to go with clones is for the Jedi betrayal with Order 66. Everything else is doable with mass conscript forces and enough conditioning.

By that, I mean you can order a regular unit to commit massacres on a regular schedule if you play your cards right, just look at the German Order Police Battalions raised out of uniformed policemen who went off to Russia to kill people.

Specifically, you need the clones because only the best can kill the Jedi. Conscript armies would follow orders and commit the Jedi Holocaust, but without years of training they would be slaughtered. And without years of drill, they might hesitate and give it away. In my opinion, clones should be able to take on Jedi if not one on one, then two or three on one. They're the best.

The other reason for the clones is to show that it was only a minority of people. Yes, the fascists took over the country, and regular people sought out and shot the Jews. But it was always a minority that held power, and a minority that took power. The clones, and Darth Sidious the single mastermind, represent the Party turning regular people into monsters despite never being overwhelmingly popular.

[Darth Yan]

What bugged me was that we only get one galaxy wide war. WARS implies multiple conflicts.

And internal logic matters more than themes for the most part.

[Solauren]

What bugged me was that we only get one galaxy wide war. WARS implies multiple conflicts.

And internal logic matters more than themes for the most part.

That's why I had it break down into multiple parts in my idea.
The Republic/Confederacy, aka Seperatist Cricis, would be Clone War 1
Mando Civil War would be 2
Any other Civil War would just add to the number, but be part of the larger 'Seperatist Crisis'

[KraytKing]

What bugged me was that we only get one galaxy wide war. WARS implies multiple conflicts.

And internal logic matters more than themes for the most part.

Saying "well Palpatine would want the assurance that they couldn't fail" only makes sense internally if you suppose that such a thing as inhibitor chips exist. I could say that the big mistake was that Palpatine didn't just call on the power of the Chaos Gods to stamp out all of the Jedi once and for all, so as not to need a servant like Vader who could betray him. You want us to rewrite the canon when it comes to one mistake, war vs wars, but you expect us to follow it to the letter regarding what might be the single biggest mistake.

You know, I was being facetious, but it does make me wonder. If he had inhibitor chips, why wouldn't he put one in Darth Vader and all the other top Imperials?

What bugged me was that we only get one galaxy wide war. WARS implies multiple conflicts.

And internal logic matters more than themes for the most part.

That's why I had it break down into multiple parts in my idea.
The Republic/Confederacy, aka Seperatist Cricis, would be Clone War 1
Mando Civil War would be 2
Any other Civil War would just add to the number, but be part of the larger 'Seperatist Crisis'

Yeah, my version had distinct wars as well. My problem with civil wars, is they don't seem galactic in scale. It seems mismatched with the Separatist Crisis, not worthy of being titled "the Second Clone War."

In my version, the first Clone War is a small number of clones and hastily retrained policemen vs droids fielded by wealthy industrialists. Right around the end of this war, the rapid expansion of the Judicials and the cruelty of the clones finally becomes a problem, and the Judicials betray the Republic and form the Separatist Alliance. The Jedi drag their feet and keep this war from being won--there is a cease fire lasting a few years, in which time the Empire is declared and the Jedi purged. The surviving Jedi, mostly those who had long since abandoned the Order, go over and join the Confederacy of Independent Systems, which restarts its war with the Empire. They are destroyed totally by large numbers of clone troopers, now called stormtroopers, massive fleets, a well trained army, essentially the might of a heavily militarized galaxy. Thus, three Clone Wars, followed by four or five decades of "peace" while the Empire stamps out all memory of the Jedi.

[Darth Yan]

What bugged me was that we only get one galaxy wide war. WARS implies multiple conflicts.

And internal logic matters more than themes for the most part.

Saying "well Palpatine would want the assurance that they couldn't fail" only makes sense internally if you suppose that such a thing as inhibitor chips exist. I could say that the big mistake was that Palpatine didn't just call on the power of the Chaos Gods to stamp out all of the Jedi once and for all, so as not to need a servant like Vader who could betray him. You want us to rewrite the canon when it comes to one mistake, war vs wars, but you expect us to follow it to the letter regarding what might be the single biggest mistake.

You know, I was being facetious, but it does make me wonder. If he had inhibitor chips, why wouldn't he put one in Darth Vader and all the other top Imperials?

What bugged me was that we only get one galaxy wide war. WARS implies multiple conflicts.

And internal logic matters more than themes for the most part.

That's why I had it break down into multiple parts in my idea.
The Republic/Confederacy, aka Seperatist Cricis, would be Clone War 1
Mando Civil War would be 2
Any other Civil War would just add to the number, but be part of the larger 'Seperatist Crisis'

Yeah, my version had distinct wars as well. My problem with civil wars, is they don't seem galactic in scale. It seems mismatched with the Separatist Crisis, not worthy of being titled "the Second Clone War."

In my version, the first Clone War is a small number of clones and hastily retrained policemen vs droids fielded by wealthy industrialists. Right around the end of this war, the rapid expansion of the Judicials and the cruelty of the clones finally becomes a problem, and the Judicials betray the Republic and form the Separatist Alliance. The Jedi drag their feet and keep this war from being won--there is a cease fire lasting a few years, in which time the Empire is declared and the Jedi purged. The surviving Jedi, mostly those who had long since abandoned the Order, go over and join the Confederacy of Independent Systems, which restarts its war with the Empire. They are destroyed totally by large numbers of clone troopers, now called stormtroopers, massive fleets, a well trained army, essentially the might of a heavily militarized galaxy. Thus, three Clone Wars, followed by four or five decades of "peace" while the Empire stamps out all memory of the Jedi.

It's not "the single biggest mistake". Logically there would have been more clones who defied the order and refused to plug their commanders and the chips addresses that plot hole. The Chips were put in during the cloning process and it's far easier to put chips into clones being grown in secret.

Also the Jedi DO value the lives of the clones and for the most part (Pong Krell excluded) try to avoid throwing them into the meat grinder. That's going to earn some respect from the clones.

Essentially there would have been more clones refusing to just shoot the Jedi unless something like the chip existed.

Also it depends on how large the Jedi were. Going by the prequels there were 10,000 Jedi in a galaxy of billions. Most people would never have met a Jedi, and Palpatine would have spread a misinformation campaign to erase their memory.