Some Episode II Questions

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2007-05-16 09:06pm

3 million clonetroopers isn't even enough to make up an effective police force for a planet with trillions of people, like Courescant.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2007-05-16 11:54pm

(name here) wrote:The hard part would be fooling the shareholders or auditors. It may not be much, but in an environment where Kuat Shipyards would be competing with Geonosis, Fondor, Duro, Baktoid, Corellia, the Techno Union, and many others, the shareholders would notice the price tag of either starting Rothana Heavy Engineering or creating it for a legal remove and then funding it. If Kuat didn't mention it in the finance report auditors would notice. Of course, if Kuat shipyards is not publicly traded the point is moot.

Scale is still off. Building twelve aircraft carrier sized vessels for us is a big deal, building twelve extra Honda Civics from a plant that makes thousands, can be overlooked by most parties involved. Less than a rounding error.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-05-17 02:21am

I believe Kuat is family-owned, and not publicly traded. However, I don't think we know anything about the stock markets in the SW galaxy and who/what/how they report, if at all.

Cao Cao · Post by **Cao Cao** » 2007-05-17 06:36am

Kuat also has a vendetta against the Nemodians for assassinating their family members in the Trade Federation, according to the Ep II or Ep III ICS, I forget which.
So they'd do everything in their power to keep it secret if it meant getting back at the TF.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2007-05-17 10:04am

Stark wrote:I believe Kuat is family-owned, and not publicly traded. However, I don't think we know anything about the stock markets in the SW galaxy and who/what/how they report, if at all.

No, a single clan/"royal/noble" family legally inherits the CEO armchair, by primogeniture, probably. The company could still be publically traded, with some positions and offices advised/elected by the stockholders and others held in oligarchical trust and inheritance by particular Kuati families. Sounds like the corporate analogy to constitutional monarchy with an active monarch with power.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-05-17 10:13am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:No, a single clan/"royal/noble" family legally inherits the CEO armchair, by primogeniture, probably. The company could still be publically traded, with some positions and offices advised/elected by the stockholders and others held in oligarchical trust and inheritance by particular Kuati families. Sounds like the corporate analogy to constitutional monarchy with an active monarch with power.

I had no idea it was such a complicated situation. The only references I'd encounted referred to 'Kuat of Kuat' so I figured it was a family company.

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2007-05-17 05:31pm

Stark wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:No, a single clan/"royal/noble" family legally inherits the CEO armchair, by primogeniture, probably. The company could still be publically traded, with some positions and offices advised/elected by the stockholders and others held in oligarchical trust and inheritance by particular Kuati families. Sounds like the corporate analogy to constitutional monarchy with an active monarch with power.
I had no idea it was such a complicated situation. The only references I'd encounted referred to 'Kuat of Kuat' so I figured it was a family company.

There seems to only be one Kuat of Kuat at a time. The nobility of Kuat elect him/her from within their number, and he rules the system/CEO's the company. Then he/she disassociates themselves from their family; the company becomes their family, so to speak. Though of course the original family receives some major prestige boosts in the meantime. More details in Bounty Hunter Wars; apparently Kuat of Kuat can be voted out of office should enough families desire thusly.

Beyond Kuat of Kuat, the noble families seem to only receive income from the company as (AFAIK) there's no mention of them running it, besides Kuat of Kuat taking upon a Kuhvult female (forgot the name) as his security supervisor or some such. Presumably the majority of the company is run like most, with public shares and so forth, though the Kuati nobility almost certainly own a large proportion of those shares.

JGregory32 · Post by **JGregory32** » 2007-05-19 12:42am

The more I get to thinking about the scale of SW and the shipbuilding capacity therein the less sense it makes. I know the Old Republic is massive, I know that there are probably around a million systems in it. What I can't wrap my mind around is the human problem though.
Humans just arn't built to comprehend that kind of scale and barring any sort of weird education/genetic manipulation I don't see the SW humans really being that much different. The whole Force issue aside, most human characters in both the movies and the books seem downright well.. Human.

So manybe the numbers wern't signifficant in the galactic sense, but wouldn't somebody have started asking why they were building such a large force in secret? I sure someone would have checked to make sure it wasn't pirates or crimelords who were buying this stuff. That would have only been prudent don't you think?

And unless politicians cost as much as armies and fleets of starships I don't see slush funds being used to buy all this stuff. It would just make people wonder what the briber had to hide, and if there was even more money to be had through blackmail.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-05-19 01:19am

What are you FUCKING TALKING ABOUT. *I* can 'comphrehend that kind of scale'. You're just AN IDIOT. Saying 'lol it doesn't work because humans can't live their lives in a tiny insignificant corner of a larger organisation' is retarded - humans do that RIGHT NOW, IN YOUR TOWN.

You're saying that accountants (the only people who would know) would be interested in some tiny-compared-to-everything-else number, because it's big compared to the budget of a single country? Why? You know how you can embezzle literally millions of dollars from companies now, right? Multiply that by BILLIONS.

The fact that you can't understand that this ISN'T a 'large force' isn't our problem. Like DP says, 3 million soldiers wouldn't even make a decent police force. Like TPM shows, private companies have fucking giant armies of robots and fleets of ships. The whole damn point of the movies is that the Republic is disintegrating and various groups within the Republic hold more military power than the Republic itself - so how do you think that happened if people said 'wow Kuat built another starship and 400,000 soldiers, QUICK CALL THE POLICE'?

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2007-05-19 05:17am

I think the point he is trying to make is, that for a GRAND Army to have any impact on a galactic scale it has to be of such a size, that somebody WOULD have had to notice or wonder about it. And even if there are only millions of people involved - an insignificant number on a galactic scale - one would have been enough to make the entire operation public knowledge. Because we are not looking at "Kuat build another starship and 400,000 soldiers".

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-05-19 05:20am

What? They made a few million troops at first, in a secure location that's essentially cut off from the galaxy. It was contrived by Palpatine himself. So... who's going to say what? Everyone involved bar the Kaminioans is probably DEAD.

Are you saying a secret clone planet making clones is automatically front page news?

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2007-05-19 05:33am

Stark wrote:What? They made a few million troops at first, in a secure location that's essentially cut off from the galaxy. It was contrived by Palpatine himself. So... who's going to say what? Everyone involved bar the Kaminioans is probably DEAD.

Are you saying a secret clone planet making clones is automatically front page news?

What? Are you now in agreement with the "3 million-clones"-crowd? I don't claim, that the entire operation (cloning AND shipbuilding) couldn't have been kept secret, but considering that ONE disgruntled former worker could have caused the secrecy for the entire project to be blown it is a miracle, that nobody noticed over the course of ten years. In every case it would be interesting to have a novel covering those ten years.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-05-19 05:39am

So it couldn't possibly have been kept secret, eh? Shame then, that it was?

EDIT - to elaborate, why would there be millions of people who know about it? People can launder money without it instantly becoming news, and the Kaminoans were hardly going to tell anyone. They moved the materials for Death Stars without anyone noticing, so a few transports and rifles isn't going to be harder. But hey, I already pointed out there are probably only corpses and Palpatine directly involved (aside from the Kaminoans).

Further, the entire army for the entire clone wars wasn't made in one place beforehand. Even if the Kaminoans only made a few million, the rest of the galaxy would later make trillions more.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2007-05-19 05:49am

That is not what I said.

I said "I don't claim, that the entire project couldn't have been kept secret."

My point was, that it must have been one hell of a security-job.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-05-19 05:57am

Oh yes, I agree - Palps almost certainly offed everyone involved. But I don't think the initial deposit or resources would have posed a problem given the amount of both moving around the galaxy.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-05-19 01:07pm

JGregory32 wrote:Humans just arn't built to comprehend that kind of scale and barring any sort of weird education/genetic manipulation I don't see the SW humans really being that much different.

Humans intuitively comprehend the kind of scales associated villages and tribal wars; between hundreds and thousands. The average current human is comfortable thinking about budgets of maybe ten times their own salary, which is a 'lot of money'. Anything beyond that is difficult to comprehend for laymen. People who actually deal with large numbers on a daily basis (be they budgets in the billions, part counts in the trillions or potential casualties in the millions) don't have a problem with them. Your inability to comprehend large numbers says nothing about the ability of SW professionals to deal with them. I imagine they'd need more layers of management/government/military command, but that's it.

And unless politicians cost as much as armies and fleets of starships I don't see slush funds being used to buy all this stuff.

I don't see why not. Historically slush funds and top-end individual wealth in general are proportionate to the total amount of wealth in the total economy. Skimming 10% off a few defence contracts in the SW universe is enough to buy hundreds of ships.