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Karen Traviss participated in a telephone interview in the SW fan radio show Star Wars En Direct #78 about Triple Zero.

http://www.swendirect.com/archives.htm

At 02:02:57, the three million figure is brought up and Traviss responds with the inane chess analogy (that it's not a two sides war, but a one person war alone ).

Perhaps I should've made a transcript, but the audio is really poor.

Oh brother.

Because you know, you can make a convincing chess match to the public, the Separatist leaders, countless individual Separatist commanders, etc, by having the equivalent of one pawn versus a full board

A question I've wanted to ask because of this horrific example is what do we do in terms of canon policy and SOD when you have something that is clearly wrong? I mean 3 million clones is patently absurd yet the figure keeps popping up in the canon and supported by various sources in Lucas' company so must we accept that figure?

Stravo wrote:A question I've wanted to ask because of this horrific example is what do we do in terms of canon policy and SOD when you have something that is clearly wrong? I mean 3 million clones is patently absurd yet the figure keeps popping up in the canon and supported by various sources in Lucas' company so must we accept that figure?

I believe the general train is to use the 3 Million as a Clone Trooper or better still ARC Trooper number, and note that the Grand Army was not all clones.

Traviss and a good deal of them have this hard on for this number, never seeing that Earth in total has a larger army. I swear it's a point of pride and ignorance all wrapped up into one.

I put it in the same category as the 8km Executor. It'll be years before this bollocks is expunged, if ever.

Anyone read Triple Zero? The clones were only deployed to a few hundred planets. Apparently the Clone War was much smaller than we're led to believe.

To be fair, I get the impression that she's by now realized how tiny the number is, and is making up the best explanation she can to rationalize it. She draws a parallell about the 10,000 Republic Commandos with the SAS to show how "incredibly small" that number is. Note that the moron interviewing her thought it was much too many.

I think she got the 3 million number from Chee, who gave her what's already been published without explaining the whole picture. But that's just conjecture on my part. Don't expect her to admit making an error in the first place, though.

EDIT: RCs, not ARC troopers.

I thought the original three million number in SW:Insider was completely non-canon anyway?

Though I hear that Triple-Zero uses it, which would be a problem.

AOTC only said "units" not "clones", the ITW: AOTC and CLOSW says "a million divisions at the start of the war, with millions more undergoing evaluation". That's all anyone should ever care about, imho.

Don't expect Traviss to ever re-evaluate that ridiculous number. Ever. She's gone off the deep end a long time ago, judging by the original debate that went on after Insider 84.

Traviss has issues with criticism-- I saw it long before the infamous article ever came out. It seems like even constructive criticism just makes here stubborn.

It's a shame, because she was a very promising author back when HC came out. Now... well, I hope another RC novel never gets greenlighted. And I'm concerned about her contributions to LotF.

000 wrote:Anyone read Triple Zero? The clones were only deployed to a few hundred planets. Apparently the Clone War was much smaller than we're led to believe.

Clearly the opening crawl to RotS is wrong. Damn those silly movie writers.

This is the opening crawl, btw.

Return of the Sith wrote:War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.

In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capital and kidnaped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.

As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor....

Stravo wrote:A question I've wanted to ask because of this horrific example is what do we do in terms of canon policy and SOD when you have something that is clearly wrong? I mean 3 million clones is patently absurd yet the figure keeps popping up in the canon and supported by various sources in Lucas' company so must we accept that figure?

The official literature is only quasi-canon, and is subject to argument if it can be shown to contradict the films or itself. But if we must accept the figure, then it implies that the Clone Army is like the modern-day Delta Force: a very small special-ops unit in a vastly larger regular army. Unfortunately, that contradicts the style of their deployment and the fact that they seem to be present at every hotspot in the conflict, unless we surmise that they are used as a sort of "bodyguard unit" for Jedi generals.

Ultimately, it really is just pride. Karen Traviss is just acting like a petulant child and arguing a point she knows is easily defeated because she doesn't want to admit error or back down from people that she has attacked publicly. I see this kind of behaviour all the time ... between my two pre-adolescent sons.

The figure not only contradicts the movies but the EU as well. We see some huge battles in the movies: we have the opening battle at Geonosis in AOTC and perhaps the largest battle in the movie canon, Mygeeto in ROTS (together with the glimpses of the other battles). If we look at the EU, then we have battles with large number of deployed clones/heavy clone casualties at Muunilinst, Dac (Calamari), Dantooine and Nadiem to name a few. How can an army without any reserves (as I think it's implied) function? How can such an army perform any operations? Not only that, the same army would then have to consolidate the New Order. It doesn't make any sense at all.

And then there's the "near-all clone crews" on the Republic warships (Acclamators, Venators, Victorys etc.)

The opening battle above Coruscant in ROTS would require millions alone!

As far as I know, there still is no canon number on the GAR's actual size. Karen herself admitted as much during the Insider debate. Even Triple Zero's statement is vague enough to not really pull the number down.

I've really tried to stick up for Traviss, if only because I overall think she's one of the better EU authors today, and because her odd views don't really show up that much in her canon works, but its getting more and more difficult every time she does an interview.

Noble Ire wrote:As far as I know, there still is no canon number on the GAR's actual size. Karen herself admitted as much during the Insider debate. Even Triple Zero's statement is vague enough to not really pull the number down.

I've really tried to stick up for Traviss, if only because I overall think she's one of the better EU authors today, and because her odd views don't really show up that much in her canon works, but its getting more and more difficult every time she does an interview.

I also think that she's a good writer, but I'm tired of her use of the word "talifans" to describe people that seems to disagree (or, as she defines it, "Talifan: rabid and negative fan"). I must say that I was very surprised the first time I saw the word being thrown out (over at the OS forums).

I am curious as to why a Systems Army is larger than a Sector Army in the GAR.

Is anybody else baffled by this?

Archon wrote:I am curious as to why a Systems Army is larger than a Sector Army in the GAR.

Is anybody else baffled by this?

Wookieepedia is your friend

Mange the Swede wrote:

Archon wrote:I am curious as to why a Systems Army is larger than a Sector Army in the GAR.

Is anybody else baffled by this?

Wookieepedia is your friend

Thanks. That answers many questions.

Archon wrote:

Mange the Swede wrote:

Archon wrote:I am curious as to why a Systems Army is larger than a Sector Army in the GAR.

Is anybody else baffled by this?

Wookieepedia is your friend

Thanks. That answers many questions.

No, it doesn't. A sector has thousands of systems in it, thus a Sector army will always be bigger then a system army because it is made up of them.

Mange the Swede wrote:I also think that she's a good writer, but I'm tired of her use of the word "talifans" to describe people that seems to disagree (or, as she defines it, "Talifan: rabid and negative fan"). I must say that I was very surprised the first time I saw the word being thrown out (over at the OS forums).

Does she realize that she is the Talifan? The Taliban was a group that was in power and exerted ruthless dictatorial control over the people, suppressing their right to dissent. And what makes her so angry that she takes every opportunity to abuse her position for the pursuance of personal vendettas? Oh yes, ordinary citizen fans dissenting with her. And who's the one in a position of authority here, abusing it? Yes, Karen herself. We certainly aren't in any position of authority; we are the critics of the regime, not the regime itself.

Sorry Karen, YOU are the Talifan.

IP said it best - She wasn't to be the Tom Clancy of SW, but is too lazy and stupid to do it right.

Why not let her have her clone-wanking anyhow? Its not like the clone-army idea was the best way to have fought that war to begin with and how they were used.

I'd think it would divert her from fucking up a more proper "regular" army like the Empire evolved (one with a larger number of non-clone recruits.)

Edit: Besides, the 3 million figure isn't absolute, given that the ROTS novelization implies many tims that number (upwards of billions) of clones simply devoted to the task of escorting the various moffs and such Palpy had begun setting up.

See, if they had any sense they'd be talking about force projection here.

Three Million might seem like a tiny number of troops for an organisation the size of the Galactic Republic, but remember that they can deploy almost that full strength anywhere in the galaxy at a maximum of maybe 48 hours notice, and can carry it's entire combined arms force with it, without the need for forward bases or fortified positions, because the Acclamators and Venators provide all that.

And later on, with the increased power of the Imperator class, there's even less need for large numbers, because you're never less than a few hours away from a ship than can reduce an entire planet to cinders.

We've become used to the idea that the Empire should have a fucking huge army, just because it has the industrial capacity to do so, without considering whether it actually needs it.