Karen Traviss at SWEndirect

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2006-03-17 01:45pm

The Clone Wars cartoons were very accurate, IMO.

It showed millions of Clones and Droids fighting, huge fleets that encircled whole worlds, billions of Droids invading a planet, huge artillery bombardments.

Really the CW microseries is the perfect rebuttal against the minimalist stance. It shows, quite conclusively, that both armies numbered at least in the millions on single planets, let alone the whole war.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-03-17 01:49pm

It's not a "perfect rebuttal," because CW also contains somewhat minimalist Samurai Jack-esque wankage all around.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-17 01:51pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:It's not a "perfect rebuttal," because CW also contains somewhat minimalist Samurai Jack-esque wankage all around.

How can we forget the jousting droids of doom that turned back an entire Republic army? Yeah CW was pretty bad when it stunk.

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-03-17 01:55pm

How can we forget the jousting droids of doom that turned back an entire Republic army?

They only went through a small section of the front lines and sabotaged a part of the artillery, hardly an "entire army", if you ask me. ;)

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2006-03-17 01:56pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:It's not a "perfect rebuttal," because CW also contains somewhat minimalist Samurai Jack-esque wankage all around.

Which doesnt matter against the claim "There are only three million clones."

I also dont see how the actions of elite troops and Jedi can be seen as minimalist, when they arent representitive of the normal troops.

People say we never see the Jedi do this or that in universe, here we do, and people refuse to accept it. I think mainly its because they resent that a cartoon did a better job of showing the scale than most of the movies.

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-03-17 01:59pm

I've mentioned this before, but I can't hurt to reiterate:

What little we see of the Battle of Mygeeto has explosions and blaster fire going all the way to the horizon. And then the camera pans down onto a set of bridges crossing a HUGE chasm, adding to the overall size of the area! So this, and the Battle of Geonosis do help, but I agree it could have been better.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2006-03-17 02:01pm

Stravo wrote:
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:It's not a "perfect rebuttal," because CW also contains somewhat minimalist Samurai Jack-esque wankage all around.
How can we forget the jousting droids of doom that turned back an entire Republic army? Yeah CW was pretty bad when it stunk.

Except they didnt, they merely attacked the artillery which couldnt fire back at small fast ground targets. And they destroyed some walkers, one or two, and killed some infantry. Hardly the entire army.

In fact the Lancer Droids numbered probably a fraction of the entire Clone army. They defeated, maybe, one artillery batallion.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-17 02:02pm

18-Till-I-Die wrote:
Stravo wrote:
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:It's not a "perfect rebuttal," because CW also contains somewhat minimalist Samurai Jack-esque wankage all around.
How can we forget the jousting droids of doom that turned back an entire Republic army? Yeah CW was pretty bad when it stunk.
Except they didnt, they merely attacked the artillery which couldnt fire back at small fast ground targets. And they destroyed some walkers, one or two, and killed some infantry. Hardly the entire army.

In fact the Lancer Droids numbered probably a fraction of the entire Clone army. They defeated, maybe, one artillery batallion.

You think droids whose main form of attack is a joust is any way shape or form remotely reasonable or even cool??

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2006-03-17 02:08pm

Stravo wrote:
18-Till-I-Die wrote:
Stravo wrote: How can we forget the jousting droids of doom that turned back an entire Republic army? Yeah CW was pretty bad when it stunk.
Except they didnt, they merely attacked the artillery which couldnt fire back at small fast ground targets. And they destroyed some walkers, one or two, and killed some infantry. Hardly the entire army.

In fact the Lancer Droids numbered probably a fraction of the entire Clone army. They defeated, maybe, one artillery batallion.
You think droids whose main form of attack is a joust is any way shape or form remotely reasonable or even cool??

Its not relevent what we think is reasonable or cool. Though yeah i think its cool.

But that is irrelevent. What is relevent is that they did not halt the Clone Army, nor did they cause much damage, aside from surprising a lightly defended artillery base. They did kill some 'tanks' and artillery and kill infantry but thats it.

So when you say they defeated the entire clone army, youre wrong, they did no such thing or even came close. They counter attacked a weak point in the lines and were destroyed thats it.

If you dont like them, or think their silly, i can understand. But that doesnt change that they did NOT cause nearly as much damage as your were implying and EVEN IF THEY DID it means nothing to the overal validity of the series. Its as valid as any other EU series, just as valid as Hard Target or Triple Zeros.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2006-03-17 02:10pm

And dont try and say i'm 'defending' the Lancer droids.

Thats not so, i'm defending the validity of Clone Wars against the minimalist movement, which it refutes.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-17 02:36pm

I thought this entry proved illuminating on Wikipedia. Looks like someone is beating the drums to support the chess playing AND 3 million clone army figure on Wikipedia:

By the time of the Battle of Geonosis, about 1.2 million clones were ready for duty. When the Republic took the ready batches from the complimentary Kaminoan clone stations of Baran Wu and Su Des, that army swelled to 3 million - still woefully inadequate to fight a galactic war against an industrial enemy with the ability to mass-produce large armies in very short amounts of time.

Clone efficiency was far superior to that of their average droid enemy, however; the average clone trooper managed 20 kills during his operational life. This superior performance, when combined with the highly-effective combat actions of the specialized clone units such as the Republic Commandos, ARC Troopers, and Clone Intelligence units, allowed the clone army to slowly but surely force the Confederacy of Independent Systems to retreat to the Outer Rim over the three year period of the Clone Wars. However, this was partly due to influence by Darth Sidious, as the Droid Army numbered in the quadrillions, and half of the clone army ( before and during the war, Kamino produced some 3 million clones) was dead by the end of the war. If it had not been for Sidious, the droid army would have overwhelmed the clones with ease.

From the History section under "Clone Trooper"

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-17 02:42pm

18-Till-I-Die wrote:And dont try and say i'm 'defending' the Lancer droids.

Thats not so, i'm defending the validity of Clone Wars against the minimalist movement, which it refutes.

Shitiness and silliness of the jousitng droids aside though I have to add that It required a Jedi Knight to lead a similar charge of jousting clones to defeat the jousting droids instead of calling for air support but I digress in my disgust at that development in the series.

I just don't think its that strong a refutement of minimalism as you think. Battle of Mon Calamari showed IIRC 6 Acclamators in the battle landing on the water. A single super weapon nearly turned the tide there.

We see a major engagment over the banking guild planet encompass lots of fighters but few capships. This is one of the founders of the CIS and that's the best they could do?

Yes, it did a far better job of showing large numbers but I don't think its such a nail in the coffin so to speak.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2006-03-17 02:43pm

It's all hand-waving until someone shows *how* Sidious' machinations stopped the entire galaxy from realizing what a pathetic little force the "Grand Army" would have been.

I know! He released AotC: ITW, the Clone Wars cartoon series, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith as propaganda!

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2006-03-17 03:50pm

Stravo wrote:
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:It's not a "perfect rebuttal," because CW also contains somewhat minimalist Samurai Jack-esque wankage all around.
How can we forget the jousting droids of doom that turned back an entire Republic army? Yeah CW was pretty bad when it stunk.

I loved the jousting droids.

Edit: And again, it doesnt matter how big an army of clones you have, because a clone army still sucks compared to a droid army, at least in the manner the Republic tried doing it.

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-03-17 04:20pm

I see Stravo forgot the CW showing the early part of the battle of Coruscant. Tens of thousands of Venators duking it out right there.

And you can not "force your enemy away" with a ridiculously inferior force.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2006-03-17 05:21pm

Stravo wrote:You think droids whose main form of attack is a joust is any way shape or form remotely reasonable or even cool??

The CIS droid army outnumbered the clones a billion to one. They can do whatever they like.

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2006-03-17 06:17pm

Which is exactly why three million is too small.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-03-17 06:46pm

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?

He view is actually very consistent. She has stated that she would like to retcon the droid numbers down to something more "reasonable"

God dammit, I'm gonna have to go through and polish up, update, and flesh out my old Clone army essay. Nex/Wayne, when I get around to finishing it, would one of you be interested in having a guest blog?

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2006-03-17 07:02pm

I would be honored to host an essay of yours Ender.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2006-03-18 12:11am

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 .

Apparnetly you didn't read all the books. IIRC later on when they actually get into a ground war with the chiss, they're using a fuckload of bugs (The Chiss IIRC had at LEAST 100,000 troopers on the planet, and the Killiks had far far more.)

And the Executor-sized vessels were really just mobile asteroids, remember (although that implies vessels of similar scale-mass.)

There was also the sixteen-engine flagship in the third novel, which might be an Executor-sized starship (it certainly had a big-ass hangar bay)

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-03-18 04:03am

She has stated that she would like to retcon the droid numbers down to something more "reasonable"

Which will of course be contradicted by the DK line of books as well as the large amount of droids in stories we've already seen and will see in the future.

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2006-03-18 06:39am

VT-16 wrote:
She has stated that she would like to retcon the droid numbers down to something more "reasonable"
Which will of course be contradicted by the DK line of books as well as the large amount of droids in stories we've already seen and will see in the future.

I haven't heard that she's interested in "retconning" the number of droids... However, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and see what kind of retcon regarding the GAR that'll presented in Odds.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-03-18 06:45am

Well, the very name implies something. It'll probably be some laughably implausible workaround.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2006-03-18 01:17pm

Maybe Saxton should have scribbled another one liner one of his ICS/ITW series - busting that hope.

The "quintillions" number comes from the RotS: ICS

Essentially, there is an in-house "canon war" going on it seems, with Traviss trying to "retcon" both Saxton and the evidence from the movies themselves.

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2006-03-18 01:27pm

Anguirus wrote:
Maybe Saxton should have scribbled another one liner one of his ICS/ITW series - busting that hope.
The "quintillions" number comes from the RotS: ICS

Essentially, there is an in-house "canon war" going on it seems, with Traviss trying to "retcon" both Saxton and the evidence from the movies themselves.

Abel G Peña repeated the "quintillions of droids" in an article, so I'd say that is quite well established. If Miss Traviss truly wants to "retcon" the number of droids... I'm not too crazy about how she's treated the clones (it's just me perhaps, but I'm not too crazy about the Kling... sorry Mando'a thing) although I like her writing, she's trying too hard.