Not clones anymore

[Ted C]

It just occurred to me that in Eps 4-6, we actually heard different voices coming from different Stormtroopers. If Empire-era Stormtroopers were all just clones of Jango Fett, they should all have exactly the same voice.

At the moment, then, the canon supports some kind of transition in the Empires forces between AotC and ANH; apparently it became a problem to maintain a clone army somewhere along the way, and the Empire turned to recruiting more conventional troops.

[neoolong]

It just occurred to me that in Eps 4-6, we actually heard different voices coming from different Stormtroopers. If Empire-era Stormtroopers were all just clones of Jango Fett, they should all have exactly the same voice.

At the moment, then, the canon supports some kind of transition in the Empires forces between AotC and ANH; apparently it became a problem to maintain a clone army somewhere along the way, and the Empire turned to recruiting more conventional troops.

Not necessarily. If they are raised in different places they would have different accents. There are many things that happen after birth that affects how the voice will turn out.

[Joe]

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

[Cpt_Frank]

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

[Spanky The Dolphin]

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

That's my stance on the issue. to me, it doesn't have to be an "either or" but can be a mix of both.

[Jason von Evil]

Which goes to show you, Lucas does care about continuity.

[Cpt_Frank]

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


That's my stance on the issue. to me, it doesn't have to be an "either or" but can be a mix of both.

Also, I guess the reason Palp wanted a clone army was that it could be build up secret without anyone noticing. However after the foundation of the Empire there's no reason for him to order more clones, which are much more expensive than regular soldiers.
On the other hand, you won't throw perfectly good clones away if you still have them left over, so a mixed army seems like the most logical thing to me.

[Peregrin Toker]

Well, the explanation could be that different cloning corporations use different people as templates for cloning.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I've felt that when the original stormtroopers were formed, they were simply made of veterans of the Clone Wars Republican Grand Army of Jango Kaminoan-made clones.

Palpatine eventually began recruiting well-selected and trained and screened and augmented men as stormtroopers, phasing out old model clones.

I figure that cloning was "officially" banned, but Palpatine kept some cloning online. Both "GeNode" cloning technology--which appears to be based on Spaarti cylinder technology--turning out fully grown stormies with somewhat diversified appearances and mentally incapable of betraying the Empire or of realizing they are stormtroopers.

I'd say that the elite assault armies of the stormtroopers--assigned to conquering fleets like Death Squadron and whatnot...expected to commit atrocities, whatever would be a mix between the cream of the recruits and GeNodes.

GeNode regiments specialized to not appear conspiciously cloned would be sprinkled throughout more average armies to ensure loyalty and efficiency.

I think Kaminoan or Spaarti-tech itself was probably used for mass-produced troops (overtly clones) for Thrawn's campiagn in the Unknown Regions and projects like the Death Star and Maw Installation. Troops ready-to-deploy with no identity and loyalty to only the Emperor.

It was probably rumor or a fact that was not confirmed by Alliance High Command for propoganda purposes that there were some clones among the Emperor's countless stormtrooper legions.

These clones were probably quite expensive and their production facilities hidden in the Deep Core with the rest of Palpatine's most useful toys. They'd still take a year plus to be made anyway, and would not be practical for Thrawn. It is clear why the advent of the week-made troopers was useful.

Furthermore, it is likely that the relatively sparse and elite GeNodes were probably at the forefront of the post-Endor in-fighting and were butchered like most of the Empire's most powerful and useful military resources, which allowed the New Republic to sweep into the Core within a few years without extreme difficulty; the Empire was already emasculated. By Thrawn's return rapidly mass-produced clone manpower would be a novel strategic tool, and it hardly subtracts from the evgents of the Thrawn Trilogy.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

I was thinking some elite Stormtroopers were clones, or perhaps veterans of the Clone wars. If the Empire needed more troops, they'd search for recruits, perhaps set up a draft. A galactic army would require trillions of soldiers, and I believe that would be too much for the cloning faclities.

I believe in the DS scene when Obi-Wan disables the tractor beam, two Stormtroopers of different height are conversing. I was thinking that there were other cloning facilities established, and possibly donors other than Jango Fett.

[Darth Yoshi]

Clones are probably used for black ops. No matter how good the Imperial indoctrination process is, stormtroopers do have some scruples. Genetically modified stormtroopers would not suffer from this drawback, and it'd be more efficient to use clones for those missions and cheaper to use conscripts for everything else.

[Crown]

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.


Don't shoot the messenger people!

[Robert Walper]

It just occurred to me that in Eps 4-6, we actually heard different voices coming from different Stormtroopers. If Empire-era Stormtroopers were all just clones of Jango Fett, they should all have exactly the same voice.

Would make sense.

At the moment, then, the canon supports some kind of transition in the Empires forces between AotC and ANH; apparently it became a problem to maintain a clone army somewhere along the way, and the Empire turned to recruiting more conventional troops.

Like others have suggested here, both recruits and clones may compose the Imperial troop supply. There's no reason to dismiss clones altogether, although their horriblely limited numbers and creation time may factor in why they were no longer practical when recruits became widely available during the transition between Republic and Empire.

[Admiral Piett]

Also, I guess the reason Palp wanted a clone army was that it could be build up secret without anyone noticing. However after the foundation of the Empire there's no reason for him to order more clones, which are much more expensive than regular soldiers.

What about perfectly loyal soldiers that will not betray you? That is certainly a good enough reason for an authoritarian dictatorship.Of course soldiers can be indoctrinated,especially with the techniques that would be available in the SW galaxy.But the advantage of having genetically enhanced troops with no links with the civilian world,expendable (in the sense that you do not have to worry about sending letters back at home) is more than an enough good reason. Considered the advantages cost is a secondary issue.

[Cpt_Frank]

Also, I guess the reason Palp wanted a clone army was that it could be build up secret without anyone noticing. However after the foundation of the Empire there's no reason for him to order more clones, which are much more expensive than regular soldiers.

What about perfectly loyal soldiers that will not betray you? That is certainly a good enough reason for an authoritarian dictatorship.Of course soldiers can be indoctrinated,especially with the techniques that would be available in the SW galaxy.But the advantage of having genetically enhanced troops with no links with the civilian world,expendable (in the sense that you do not have to worry about sending letters back at home) is more than an enough good reason. Considered the advantages cost is a secondary issue.

Cost is in real life not a secondary issue, so why should it be in the SW galaxy?
There's no reason why ordinary soldiers shouldn't be highly indoctrinated normal recruits since they suffice for normal tasks, you can still reserve the ultra-loyal clones for special task forces.

Lucas' vision of the stormies as clones renders virtually all of the EU meaningless including the Zahn books so we definetely need to find a solution there.

[Admiral Piett]

"Cost is in real life not a secondary issue, so why should it be in the SW galaxy?"

For an authoritarian dictatorship the loyalty of the military (or at least the part of it tasked with suppressing internal turmoil) is of paramount importance.This is precisely the last sector where any dictator with a bit of sense would make economy.This is also an empire which builds moon sized battlestations precisely for suppressing internal disorders.So yes,cost is a secondary issue.

"There's no reason why ordinary soldiers shouldn't be highly indoctrinated normal recruits since they suffice for normal tasks"

But if those soldiers were clones with no at all links with the population (no relatives etc),genetically enhanced to obey without questions,trained from the birth to be loyal soldiers would not it be better?

"Lucas' vision of the stormies as clones renders virtually all of the EU meaningless including the Zahn books so we definetely need to find a solution there."

What about dumping the EU in the garbage?
Sorry, I could not resist.

[Cpt_Frank]

For an authoritarian dictatorship the loyalty of the military (or at least the part of it tasked with suppressing internal turmoil) is of paramount importance.This is precisely the last sector where any dictator with a bit of sense would make economy.This is also an empire which builds moon sized battlestations precisely for suppressing internal disorders.So yes,cost is a secondary issue.

Is there any reason this level of loyality can not be acheived through indoctrination? There is nothing more loyal than loyal. Clones are an advantage for special commandos but there is no reason to deploy them as standard troopers. Going by your logic, every single soldier in the Empire should be a clone!

What about dumping the EU in the garbage?
Sorry, I could not resist.

[Admiral Piett]

"Is there any reason this level of loyality can not be acheived through indoctrination?"
It is precisely what it is normally done.See the iraqui republican guards
for example.However indoctrination does not guarantee the same level of loyalty that the way clones are breeded would.No indoctrination is 100% safe, soldiers are still human beings with fears,links to the society etc.Probably SW technology would be enough to solve this problem but I doubt that many would volounteer for putting their brain is some brainwashing machine in order to be tranformed into fanatically loyal drones.
Indoctrination is enough good for the our world,but we do not even have others options.In the SW galaxy they have them.

"There is nothing more loyal than loyal. Clones are an advantage for special commandos but there is no reason to deploy them as standard troopers. Going by your logic, every single soldier in the Empire should be a clone!"

That is not necessary.With all those stormies around,assuming that they are loyal to the emperor, any navy commander would think twice before staging a coup or whatever.So the purpose is performed.

[Acclamator]

As far as I see it, most Stormtroopers would be recruits, but there may still be some clones hanging around in their ranks.

The reason for recruiting stormtroopers is because they're more cost-effective and time effective.

The clone troopers in AOTC were fertilized, artificialy gestated and birthed, raised through childhood, adolecence, and adulthood, (which although accellerated, still took years). All this time they were tutored and trained. The clones had trained together all their lives, they would be their skills would be second to none, their soldierly bond second to none...

On the other hand, a stormtrooper is a grown man taken from civilian life, given maybe a few months training, then put in a suit of stormtrooper armor and sent out to sally forth doing the will of the Emperor.

It's pretty obvious, that on an individual level, a clonetrooper would be a far, far superior soldier to a stormtrooper. However, the time and money invested in the creation, raising and lifelong training of any single clone soldier would be far, far more - perhaps orders of magnitude so - than that spent on the short training of a grown man to be a stormtrooper. The savings in cost and time for sotrmtroopers, together with the much, much greater numbers who can be trained and ready in the same time, outweighs the advantages presented by the superiority of the clones as soldiers.

[Admiral Piett]

In effects the problem with the clonetroopers is that they are long lead-time items.However it is possible that during the Clone wars production was ramped up with the excuse of the war.Those clones would have not been ready in time to partecipate to the conflict but they would have been used to form the core of the postwar imperial army.Given the fact that their numbers would have not been sufficient to cover all the roles of the huge and probably expanding imperial armed forces(mainly for the delay between the order an the delivery),recruits were used to man the ships and for others tasks,while the clones were used only as shock troopers (and eventually to act as the pretorian guard of the regime).
This at least is how I rationalize the matter.
Of course in my opinion droids would be much better.

[DPDarkPrimus]

It's been seen time and again that droid army < organic army.

Droids just don't have the capability of improvisation and creativty to adjust to situations.

[Admiral Piett]

Droids just don't have the capability of improvisation and creativty to adjust to situations.

Like R2D2?
Or IG 88 ?
Sorry,SW droids can be as much as good at improvisation as humans are.
Besides all this need for creativity is a brain bug.Last time I checked armies want conformity,not creativity.Soldiers are trained to behave like machines,and what better machine of a machine?
Of course you may believe to what Lama Su said,but that would go under the "advertising our products".
Probably there is some political/legal/ consideration which prevents building too much sophisticated AIs in the droids (Frankestein's complex?).
But even so their inferiority as an army has not been really demonstrated.
In the attack of the clones they were caught by surprise and without air support,any army would have been smashed in the same situation.And a shielded droideka has demonstrated to be more than a nuisance for even a jedi knight.

[Knife]

First point, it seems that using droids and clones in armed forces is a statement on how comfortable the people of the SW universe are. Normal run of the mill people do not want to be soldiers. So what is cheaper, droids or another unique solution(clones).

Now when the Clone Wars ended and Palpatine declared himself Emperor he insituted a military buildup with conscripts to help brainwash the populace with the "new order". But conscripts loyalties can be in question, so he maintained his clone shocktroopers and renamed them Stormtroopers. Since Jango was dead and a copy of a copy might not be such a good idea, he started taking the best of the best of the conscripted army and had a limited series of clones taken from them, say maybe a thousand copies of each "donor". Since it takes 10 years for the production run to come of age and serve, chances are that the "donar" is already left the service and doesn't even know of his "contribution".

Still having a segment of loyal clone troops in the Army, gives Palpatine an edge in case his own commanders turn against him. Having multiple "donars" and therefore multiple clones gives diversity and flexibility to the Stormtroopers.

As for the cost, what are we looking at here? The initial cost of cloning someone is the cost of the weapon. The cost of training and/or maintaining the clones is no different then the training and/or maintaining regular troops. So what ever the cost of actualy cloning them is the extra cost, and whatever that is, is it worth having absolutely loyal and disposable troops that will obey any order? No one will miss and say "What happened to Johny?".

Having multiple clone donars solves the heigth and voice decripencies in the movies. As far as the EU, having multiple donars might mean that most people don't think that the Stormtroopers are clones. Having thousands of donars and therefore thousands of faces for the Stormtroopers might mean that when people see a couple of Stormtroopers actual faces, they would be different due that they came from different donars.

[Admiral Piett]

"Now when the Clone Wars ended and Palpatine declared himself Emperor he insituted a military buildup with conscripts"

Why bothering with conscripts? For his purposes it would be much better to use volounteers.Conscription would provide an obscene number of troops many of which would be politically unreliable.Not exactly the best thing for an authoritarian dictatorship with internal turmoil as the only problem and no (canon) external threats .

"Since Jango was dead and a copy of a copy might not be such a good idea"

Why would that be the case? They do not have to use the same cloning processes that we use today.They could probably record Jango's DNA on a computer and use that to synthetize the DNA or God only know what else.
As far as keeping Jango around they may keep him as a sort of consulent.After all they are not humans,if I was at their place I would want a human around to ask for informations should the need arise (they may have tons of book about human psychology but still...).

"he started taking the best of the best of the conscripted army and had a limited series of clones taken from them, say maybe a thousand copies of each "donor". Since it takes 10 years for the production run to come of age and serve, chances are that the "donar" is already left the service and doesn't even know of his "contribution".

Unnecessary complication.You might want to use 2-3 templates, just not to put all the eggs in the same basket.But having so many templates makes building optimized equipment (armor etc) impossible and probably it has others disadvantages.

"multiple clones gives diversity and flexibility to the Stormtroopers."

Flexibility?
Two or three types would give the little flexibility that might be needed.
Diversity? Mmmm...

"The initial cost of cloning someone is the cost of the weapon. The cost of training and/or maintaining the clones is no different then the training and/or maintaining regular troops."

Except that clones have to be fed and housed for ten year before becoming effective,while recruits need only few months of that (and droids roll off the production lines ready for battle).

"No one will miss and say "What happened to Johny?".

That is also my point.

[Knife]

"Now when the Clone Wars ended and Palpatine declared himself Emperor he insituted a military buildup with conscripts"

Why bothering with conscripts? For his purposes it would be much better to use volounteers.Conscription would provide an obscene number of troops many of which would be politically unreliable.Not exactly the best thing for an authoritarian dictatorship with internal turmoil as the only problem and no (canon) external threats .

"Since Jango was dead and a copy of a copy might not be such a good idea"

Why would that be the case? They do not have to use the same cloning processes that we use today.They could probably record Jango's DNA on a computer and use that to synthetize the DNA or God only know what else.
As far as keeping Jango around they may keep him as a sort of consulent.After all they are not humans,if I was at their place I would want a human around to ask for informations should the need arise (they may have tons of book about human psychology but still...).

"he started taking the best of the best of the conscripted army and had a limited series of clones taken from them, say maybe a thousand copies of each "donor". Since it takes 10 years for the production run to come of age and serve, chances are that the "donar" is already left the service and doesn't even know of his "contribution".

Unnecessary complication.You might want to use 2-3 templates, just not to put all the eggs in the same basket.But having so many templates makes building optimized equipment (armor etc) impossible and probably it has others disadvantages.

"multiple clones gives diversity and flexibility to the Stormtroopers."

Flexibility?
Two or three types would give the little flexibility that might be needed.
Diversity? Mmmm...

"The initial cost of cloning someone is the cost of the weapon. The cost of training and/or maintaining the clones is no different then the training and/or maintaining regular troops."

Except that clones have to be fed and housed for ten year before becoming effective,while recruits need only few months of that (and droids roll off the production lines ready for battle).

"No one will miss and say "What happened to Johny?".

That is also my point.

Conscripts at first because as I noted in the first point, it seems that most civilians don't want to be soldiers. Why would droid armies be used if you can just recruite your own populace. After the initial build up, then volenteers for regular army and navy would probably be perferable.

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).

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.

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.

And I liked your point about "Johny".