Karen Traviss at SWEndirect

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-16 11:20pm

Karen Traviss seems a bit like me, honestly. The 3 million number is probably a mistake- like most people, she probably can't even comprehend large numbers in a practical sense. (The difference between 1 Quintillion and 1 Quadrillion Battledroids is completely lost on me except in an abstract sense, for instance, despite the fact that one quote gives the CIS a thousand times more soldiers than the other.).

The problem is when you're told that your idea is so ridiculous and, like me, you shout that you are not wrong and make up reasons, all so that you can win without having to be wrong at all.

Interestingly, George W. Bush shares this flaw. Suddenly, "Talifan" appears rather ironic.

Eframepilot · Post by **Eframepilot** » 2006-03-16 11:35pm

To a large extent, the writers of the Star Wars EU don't get how large the Star Wars galaxy is. In their minds, Geonosis was a huge battle, Coruscant was a huge space battle, and there were a few dozen or, at most, couple hundred similar battles fought in the entire Clone Wars. Single battles the size of the Geonosis one decided the fates of entire planets or even sectors. This minimalistic war could conceivably been fought largely with armies of "merely" millions. The problem is that the figure of 3 million is still way too small for the Republic forces, especially when compared to the maximalistic figures given for the Separatist droid armies. Quadrillions of droids? The Separatists would need billions of (large) ships to make proper use of them, which raises the paradox of the Separatists having more capital ships than the larger Republic has soldiers.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-16 11:38pm

EU Star Wars has *always* been minimalist, and there's always been militant EU fans who hold their shit novels above the movies. We've all seen DS2 minimalism, Executor minimalism, etc. Since I figure EU authors grew up with this shit, it's not surprising they want to perpertrate their own view of the SW universe. As DW says, it's not going to change until the current 'do what you want we'll fix it later' system is replaced by a more robust 'this is how it is' system.

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-03-16 11:57pm

The reason Traviss hasn't and/or won't be reigned in is that she's incredibly popular with the online community, more so than probably an other author. This is in part because of her interaction with the fans on TF.N last year and her continued interaction with them on sw.com. Many people are ecstatic to communicate with an author on a regular basis, and seem to factor this into their opinion of her work.

Fortunately, her apparent obsession with Mandalorians is creating a backlash among many fans on TF.N-- most were sick of them even before the book came out, due to the handful of obnoxious "fandalorians" over there.

Plus, only a couple TF.N folks defended the 3 million number. Although it seems like it's much more popular at sw.com.

We'll see how it plays out, I guess.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-17 12:03am

Huh? How can an author of derivate EU novels be a subject of admiration? It's not like she's the Frank Miller of the EU, revolutionising and reinvigorating a stagnant form. She's just another typewriter troll, trotting out the same lame bullshit.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-03-17 12:07am

Stark wrote:Huh? How can an author of derivate EU novels be a subject of admiration? It's not like she's the Frank Miller of the EU, revolutionising and reinvigorating a stagnant form. She's just another typewriter troll, trotting out the same lame bullshit.

Again, this is the odd thing; for all of her other activities, her novels are still quite good, distinct from even the better CW EU. Following average foot soldiers rather than the grandious adventures of Jedi was actually rather innovative for the field, and she did it rather well. I'm not saying she deserves the following she has, but I guess I can understand it.

Of course, trying to argue the virtues of the EU with you at all is largely pointless.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-17 12:09am

Noble Ire wrote:Again, this is the odd thing; for all of her other activities, her novels are still quite good, distinct from even the better CW EU. Following average foot soldiers rather than the grandious adventures of Jedi was actually rather innovative for the field, and she did it rather well. I'm not saying she deserves the following she has, but I guess I can understand it.

But it ISN'T, because regardless of her ability as an author, the premise is inherently flawed due to her bizarre ideas about the scale of the war.

Noble Ire wrote:Of course, trying to argue the virtues of the EU with you at all is largely pointless.

I have a new avatar: I'm a new man! :p

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-03-17 12:29am

Have you read Triple Zero, Ire? Look beyond the impressive prose, and it's a pretty shitty novel. Hard Contact though was great.

Stark, I'm not going to try explaining it to you. I already know your view of the EU.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-03-17 12:36am

Have you read Triple Zero, Ire? Look beyond the impressive prose, and it's a pretty shitty novel. Hard Contact though was great.

I'm in the process (school does tend to slow my leisure reading). I suppose I'll withhold further judgement until I finish it.

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-03-17 12:50am

Ah, sorry. I don't want to color your opinion ahead of time.

Let us know what you think in the TZ thread.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-03-17 01:11am

The worst thing is that her vision of the scale of war isn't even self-consistent. To say in one breath that it was a small-scale conflict with only a few million clones and a handful of scattered surgical special-ops skirmishes and then to turn around and say there were "quadrillions" of battle droids on the other side is just inexcusably stupid. What the fuck were all those battle droids doing? Sitting around masturbating with machine oil?

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-17 01:13am

Darth Wong wrote:The worst thing is that her vision of the scale of war isn't even self-consistent. To say in one breath that it was a small-scale conflict with only a few million clones and a handful of scattered surgical special-ops skirmishes and then to turn around and say there were "quadrillions" of battle droids on the other side is just inexcusably stupid. What the fuck were all those battle droids doing? Sitting around masturbating with machine oil?

Even worse is the latest idiocy of "ZOMG PALPANTINE CHESS"

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-03-17 01:16am

Heh. Mike, you ought to read Triple Zero. It'll blow your mind.

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2006-03-17 02:07am

Darth Wong wrote:The worst thing is that her vision of the scale of war isn't even self-consistent. To say in one breath that it was a small-scale conflict with only a few million clones and a handful of scattered surgical special-ops skirmishes and then to turn around and say there were "quadrillions" of battle droids on the other side is just inexcusably stupid. What the fuck were all those battle droids doing? Sitting around masturbating with machine oil?

"Quintillions" of droids actually. IIRC, the answer that has been given was that most of the droids never was deployed.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-17 02:15am

Mange the Swede wrote: "Quintillions" of droids actually. IIRC, the answer that has been given was that most of the droids never was deployed.

Actually, this might have been possible.

Since the Republic had Space Superiority, even if the CIS had the number of ships to deploy them, they probably couldn't have sent many out at all.

This meshes nicely with the Outer Rim Sieges idea, where the CIS had so many troops on the ground + factories to make new ones but couldn't leave. So nicely, in fact, that it probably has already been thought of. I'm probably just repeating what everybody knows and/or what's already been said, but you never know when you stumble on an idea that nobody else has so I might as well mention it.

The problem is that it was a Siege, not a Quarantine, so the Republic must have had some way of eventually taking the planets.

Thus, although the 3 million number is patently ridiculous by huge proportions, all the Droids may not have been deployed (if by deployed meaning "left the planet of their origin").

That could be useful for canon rationalization if LFM does something stupid and accepts Travis' ideas later.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-03-17 04:11am

Mange the Swede wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:The worst thing is that her vision of the scale of war isn't even self-consistent. To say in one breath that it was a small-scale conflict with only a few million clones and a handful of scattered surgical special-ops skirmishes and then to turn around and say there were "quadrillions" of battle droids on the other side is just inexcusably stupid. What the fuck were all those battle droids doing? Sitting around masturbating with machine oil?
"Quintillions" of droids actually. IIRC, the answer that has been given was that most of the droids never was deployed.

Even if they only deployed 1% of those quintillions of battledroids, you would still have tens of quadrillions of battledroids. Just how absurd are these numbers going to get? And how can they explain making such a huge number of battledroids that simply warehousing them would cost a fortune, if they can't possibly use them?

More to the point, how can they explain the danger to the Republic if the war never progressed beyond a few local skirmishes? In the beginning of the ROTS novelization it is clear that the citizens of the Republic feel that the Republic is in real danger of losing; how the hell would that happen if the war never got beyond the relative scale of Grenada to the US?

Eframepilot · Post by **Eframepilot** » 2006-03-17 04:20am

Darth Wong wrote: More to the point, how can they explain the danger to the Republic if the war never progressed beyond a few local skirmishes? In the beginning of the ROTS novelization it is clear that the citizens of the Republic feel that the Republic is in real danger of losing; how the hell would that happen if the war never got beyond the relative scale of Grenada to the US?

This is easy enough to explain. The Republic didn't have any real military at all before the Clone Wars, so the relatively puny force they cobbled together out of clones, Jedi and newly commisioned warships was almost fully committed to the few local skirmishes. To extend your analogy, it was like Grenada only with the U.S. as a formerly pacifistic power that just managed to assemble a military the size of Luxembourg's, and Washington got bombed and the President was kidnapped.

I make no defense of the obvious absurdities in the above; it just makes an amusing contrast with the massive resources available to the Separatists that went into the Great Weapon and quintillions of battledroids of which only 0.00001% were ever used.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-03-17 04:49am

I can picture this already.

"Sir, we now have ten times more battledroids than we can deploy. Should we divert more resources to shipbuilding?"

"No."

"Sir, we now have a thousand times more battledroids than we can deploy. Should we divert more resources to shipbuilding?"

"No."

"Sir, we now have a hundred thousand times more battledroids than we can deploy. Should we divert more resources to shipbuilding?"

"No."

"Sir, we now have ten million times more battledroids than we can deploy. Should we divert more resources to shipbuilding?"

"No."

"Sir, we now have a billion times more battledroids than we can deploy. Should we divert more resources to shipbuilding?"

"No."

"With all due respect sir, why not?"

"It's all a game of chess. Trust me, it all made sense when Sidious explained it to me."

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2006-03-17 04:57am

Mange the Swede wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:The worst thing is that her vision of the scale of war isn't even self-consistent. To say in one breath that it was a small-scale conflict with only a few million clones and a handful of scattered surgical special-ops skirmishes and then to turn around and say there were "quadrillions" of battle droids on the other side is just inexcusably stupid. What the fuck were all those battle droids doing? Sitting around masturbating with machine oil?
"Quintillions" of droids actually. IIRC, the answer that has been given was that most of the droids never was deployed.

Darth Wong wrote:Even if they only deployed 1% of those quintillions of battledroids, you would still have tens of quadrillions of battledroids. Just how absurd are these numbers going to get? And how can they explain making such a huge number of battledroids that simply warehousing them would cost a fortune, if they can't possibly use them?

Exactly (the ROTS novelization also hints at Gunray's "economical awareness" so to speak).

Darth Wong wrote:More to the point, how can they explain the danger to the Republic if the war never progressed beyond a few local skirmishes? In the beginning of the ROTS novelization it is clear that the citizens of the Republic feel that the Republic is in real danger of losing; how the hell would that happen if the war never got beyond the relative scale of Grenada to the US?

I can't confirm it, but I've heard that Traviss in Triple Zero implies that the general population didn't care about the war. This is refuted by other EU novels (such as LoE) and the ROTS novelization (and not to forget, the ROTS opening scroll. If the population doesn't care, then there's no room for heroes).

EDIT: I read it in this thread over at the TFN forums: +http://boards.theforce.net/literature/b ... 3143219/p6

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2006-03-17 09:02am

I'd like to remind everyone that, whatever the source for the idea, the Republic's "space superiority" is blown out of the water.. if we go by Traviss' three million idiocy.

It's been made clear to us that the crews of Republic capital ships are clones, save for the command staff. We also know the relative fighting strength of Separatist and Republic capital ships. Lastly, if there were only three million clones, and only a minority of those were ship crews, then we can conclude the Republic fleet must have been massively outnumbered and outgunned on every front.

There must have been thousands, or hundreds (at least tens, but even that's pushing it) of billions of clones to have clone-crewed ships and clone infantry that can fight and hold planets in a war that spans a million inhabited worlds.

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-03-17 09:31am

Abel Pena's Grievous article indicates that the CIS posesses billions of starfighter droids anyway, which entails millions of capships. No, the Republic didn't have space superiority, not by a long shot.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-17 09:36am

000 wrote:Abel Pena's Grievous article indicates that the CIS posesses billions of starfighter droids anyway, which entails millions of capships. No, the Republic didn't have space superiority, not by a long shot.

Are there two wings in the Lucasarts team? One wing pushing a massive engagement with hordes of droids and clones battling across a million worlds. Another wing psuhing for this asstardic chess game idea of small engagements with a few million troops on each side? That's the only thing that makes sense when one sees these contradictions coming up constantly.

Everyone knew about the Clone Wars - even Luke in his backwards out of the way world knows about the Clone Wars. Even more telling is the large number of clone war veterans found in the Empire as of OT. It was most certainly not a low intensity conflict by any means. Chess game my ass. I can't believe she's spouting this with a straight face.

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-03-17 10:09am

I'd like to see how this "chess game" theory of hers explains the clone ship crews numbering in the billions and clone armies with vast losses.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2006-03-17 01:03pm

It doesn't get any better in the Bug War (current end of the NJO), where a Killik strike force of forty thousand is supposed to be some uber force of doom. Apparently, fifteen vessels the size of an Executor, a single captured and damaged Mon Mothma Star Destroyer, and 40,000 troops can plunge the entire galaxy into eternal warfare

.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-17 01:13pm

The Dark wrote:It doesn't get any better in the Bug War (current end of the NJO), where a Killik strike force of forty thousand is supposed to be some uber force of doom. Apparently, fifteen vessels the size of an Executor, a single captured and damaged Mon Mothma Star Destroyer, and 40,000 troops can plunge the entire galaxy into eternal warfare .

Things like that I just blame on authors trying to emulate what they've seen in the films in particular the OT where scale is not well represented. Think about it - Battle of Yavin a major turning point in the galactic civil war is fought by 30 rebel fighters, no capships and a massive battle station that doesn't launch fighters. The Battle of Hoth by a dozen AT ATs and 5-6 stardestroyers, Battle of Endor THE space battle that wins the war (we're talking movie only here) by on screen MAYBE 15 stardestroyers and same amount of rebel ships.

And throughout the series the threat of a single battlestation means Game Over for the galaxy in terms of resistance

And the Prequels are only slightly better in terms of scope. Battle of Naboo - one single battleship vs. maybe 30 fighters (Yavin v. 1.1) and a land army maybe in the low thousands battling for the fate of an entire planet? Battle of Geonosis is the place where we see real numbers and scope and even then it is implied that the force we see on Geonosis is the entirety of the Grand Army of the Republic. ROTS shows us snippets of one space battle where we never see more than a dozen or so capships in battle and that's it.

So when an author is thinking back to the movies he sees dozens on screen and thinks that those kind of numbers are major and so be it. Everytime people complain about how authors are getting the scope wrong I have to point to the films to ask where do they get it right?