More Traviss nonsense

[Sidewinder]

So what does this woman say when people bring up so-called "facts" like China having a standing military that's more than half that of the Grand Army of the Republic, or "statistics" like that shtick about the Eastern Front Duchess brought up?

She yells at them, makes accusations of misogyny inisisting no one would dare criticize her work if she was a man, calls them 'Talifans' and threatens to rip their tracheas out.

How can she be ignorant of the abuse heaped on Kevin J. Anderson for his shitty works? Or will criticism of Anderson and other male authors lead to the banning of a StarWars.com member?

[Ghost Rider]

So what does this woman say when people bring up so-called "facts" like China having a standing military that's more than half that of the Grand Army of the Republic, or "statistics" like that shtick about the Eastern Front Duchess brought up?

She yells at them, makes accusations of misogyny inisisting no one would dare criticize her work if she was a man, calls them 'Talifans' and threatens to rip their tracheas out.

How can she be ignorant of the abuse heaped on Kevin J. Anderson for his shitty works? Or will criticism of Anderson and other male authors lead to the banning of a StarWars.com member?

Read her posts. She is loved by multiple moderators and protected. She's a SW writer, thus in the eyes of some many of these fucking idiots, somehow above any jabs, barbs or criticisms, doesn't hurt these losers she's a female as well, thus needs protection.

[Jim Raynor]

Even for a SW writer, Traviss gets special treatment. It's common to bash KJA. The Crystal Star is routinely held up as one of the worst SW novels. EU fanwhores claim that Saxton "ruined" SW for them. But no one dares criticize Traviss, without retaliation from other users and the mods themselves.

It's because Traviss participates in the message boards and makes herself available to the fanboys. I've seen it in other fandoms with other writers. Fanboys are a pathetic lot, who are easily starstruck by anyone from the other side who gives them the slightest bit of attention.

[Ghost Rider]

Even for a SW writer, Traviss gets special treatment. It's common to bash KJA. The Crystal Star is routinely held up as one of the worst SW novels. EU fanwhores claim that Saxton "ruined" SW for them. But no one dares criticize Traviss, without retaliation from other users and the mods themselves.

It's because Traviss participates in the message boards and makes herself available to the fanboys. I've seen it in other fandoms with other writers. Fanboys are a pathetic lot, who are easily starstruck by anyone from the other side who gives them the slightest bit of attention.

That I do wholly agree with. It's because she interacts(disregard how much shit her interaction is) moderators and fanboys worship her. And because they keep buying the product in droves, the novel arm of Star Wars don't give a fuck what she does.

[General Soontir Fel]

How can she be ignorant of the abuse heaped on Kevin J. Anderson for his shitty works? Or will criticism of Anderson and other male authors lead to the banning of a StarWars.com member?

Forget KJA, has anyone ever been banned for criticizing George Lucas for the prequels?

[Ghost Rider]

How can she be ignorant of the abuse heaped on Kevin J. Anderson for his shitty works? Or will criticism of Anderson and other male authors lead to the banning of a StarWars.com member?

Forget KJA, has anyone ever been banned for criticizing George Lucas for the prequels?

For any good comparison, look at TFN for that. People constantly said shit about the prequels and original trilogy.

But because GL didn't grace the punks with their presence...it's not a bannable offense.

[Darth Servo]

How can she be ignorant of the abuse heaped on Kevin J. Anderson for his shitty works? Or will criticism of Anderson and other male authors lead to the banning of a StarWars.com member?

She ignores everything else in SW that she didn't personally write. Why should she pay any attention to that?

[Straha]

[\\

The numbers that she toutes and clings to so desperately become even more ludicrous when you look at the other EU books in this timeline outside from her own. Take for example, Jedi Trial, where a garrison of 20,000 clone troopers was dispatched to help liberate a vital communications center on Praestilyn. It is worth noting that the Republic wanted to allocate more to this force but they were all that was "immediately available." Wookiepedia link

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is 1/150th of the entire "Grand Army" by her numbers from a single garrison? Does she seriously believe that in a Galatic Republic of how many countles systems and planets, there can merely be only 150 forces worth of garrisons...not even counting active participants on the war fronts. It's mind boggling.

There are only 150 garrisons because the rest of the planets that are supposed to have garrisons don't thanks to the grand conspiracy between Palpatine and the Jedi. All the Jedi. Even Mace "I'm going to go coup Palpatine because I hate the motherfucker so much" Windu.

And, now, if you'll excuse me. I feel the urge to go throw up.

[Connor MacLeod]

It occured to me skimming around for my medstar books again (when Wayne was asking about them) that Traviss might have ignored another little bit of continuity simply for the purposes of her story. The (Earlier published, IIRC) Medstar novels covered the concept of doctoring to clones, and as I recall it wasn't particularily difficult to find replacement parts (Organ transplants IIRC were especially easy.) even for that ass-backwards end of the war (as portrayed.) THere might have been some prosthetics, but I didn't remember a great deal. and I certainly don't remember any clones being considered unable to fight because of it. Which seemed kind of odd given the Clone with prosthetics Traviss inserted into Triple Zero - how is it a clone got limb prosthetics that somehow prevented him from being combat effective?

Its actually kinda a minor point relative to alot of things, but I still think it shows her utter contempt for her fellow authors after the whole clone number calcs showed up.

[Connor MacLeod]

The numbers that she toutes and clings to so desperately become even more ludicrous when you look at the other EU books in this timeline outside from her own. Take for example, Jedi Trial, where a garrison of 20,000 clone troopers was dispatched to help liberate a vital communications center on Praestilyn. It is worth noting that the Republic wanted to allocate more to this force but they were all that was "immediately available." Wookiepedia link

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is 1/150th of the entire "Grand Army" by her numbers from a single garrison? Does she seriously believe that in a Galatic Republic of how many countles systems and planets, there can merely be only 150 forces worth of garrisons...not even counting active participants on the war fronts. It's mind boggling.

Edit: Missed a zero

That's not all. Those 20,000 troops were being deployed to aid the Freedom's Sons (and Daughter's) group which had around 50,000 troops as well IIRC. And there was a planetary defense force (though I think they got wiped out early) All of that vs 1 million or so battle droids. And, as noted, they were still considered outgunned (even the Freedom's Sons group.)

There's also the fact Traviss herself wrote into Hard Contact that the Clone forces on Geonosis took huge casualties (something like 50% dead) - even assuming we halve those figures in later battles, its unlikely that the Clones could sustain a war against the CIS for any real length of time with only a few million troops.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Frankly, the scale of the Galactic Republic is so great that using historical mobilization levels, a Grand Army of the Republic consisting of anything less than 3 million field armies, each of 3 million troops, is implausible anyway. This allows us to rationalization with Traviss is doing. We can simply say that her novels hyperfocus on a single field army of the Grand Army of the Republic. That allows the major Republic member worlds to each be assigned a full field army as a defensive garrison and yet provide for several trillion troops for offensive operations, necessary for engaging a major secessionist unit of a nation of 1 million major planets and 50 million minor colonies--the later of which include, indubitably, many planets with populations like that of modern-day Earth. The assignment of a single field army to a Front Sector makes a considerable degree of sense, and defensively could well explain the dispersal of that single field army across an area of 150 planets, i.e., about a division per minor colony.

In the end, when KT is gone, this is going to be the only way that we're going to be able to wedge her works into some semblence of order with the rest of the continuity.

[Connor MacLeod]

Alot of authors (and her defenders) seem to try to retcon the Clone numbers by saying that there were lots of "nonclone troops". Aside from the fact this is a tacit admission Traviss's numbers don't work, I think its rather a slipshod retcon because it divorces the war as depicted in the prequels and EU even FURTHER from the "Clone Wars" concept - we were already stuck with "Clone and droid war" which was problematic enough, but now we have to expand it to "Mostly droids and nonclones, but some clones in a minority" War. We didnt even see the Clones as being an "elite" forcee in the movies, nevermind the EU.

In any case, she evidently chooses to ignore that logic as well, preferring her "brush fire" and "reduced troop number" logic instead. As noted, Traviss doesn't seem to care what others think when it comes to SW and writes purely for herself. Indeed, as I recall she's brushed off the WW2 analogies as being "not applicable to modern militiaries" or some other nonsense (a vein of logic familiar to many 40Kers - White Rabbit calls them "Doctrine Wankers" - people who sneer on "WW1/WW2" style tactics and concepts in favor of "all modern" nonsense.)

Which as I've said is sad, because she ruined her works as a result - I still consider Hard Contact to be one of the better prequel novels.

[VT-16]

Can't remember where I saw it, but somebody mentioned non-clone volunteers being used as part of the clone army, trooper armor and all. Where was this stated?

[Batman]

Can't remember where I saw it, but somebody mentioned non-clone volunteers being used as part of the clone army, trooper armor and all. Where was this stated?

The moment they accept non-Clone volunteers, especially if they eventually make up the bulk of the army, it stops being a Clone army to begin with.

[QuentinGeorge]

The entirety of the non-clone force in the Judicials and sector forces was absorbed into the Grand Army...but I don't recall anything about them wearing clone armor. ROTS seems to imply that all those (many more than millions) of troops are still Jango clones.

[Connor MacLeod]

Wallace said the 3 million figure was too low (it was in some old thread back when Ender was involved, got banned after asking Wallce his opinion on the matter.) and mentioned "forced conscription" and "alternate Clone sources" being mentioned. He specifically mentioned the NEC (which means he probably put it in there deliberately, sincec IIRC that was his project.)

Wallace was IIRC also one of those who put the Separatist droid army as being built over ten years, and mentioned "hundreds of assault ships" landing on Muunilist (which reinforces the "dozens" we saw in the Clone Wars cartoon.)

Then again Wallace said the "quadrillions" of droids were too high too, so...

But as mentioned, once non-clones start becoming more prominent, the whole concept of a "Clone Wars" becomes even more strained than it already was.

[Connor MacLeod]

The entirety of the non-clone force in the Judicials and sector forces was absorbed into the Grand Army...but I don't recall anything about them wearing clone armor. ROTS seems to imply that all those (many more than millions) of troops are still Jango clones.

Praeistlyn in the aforementioned "JEdi Trial" had its own defense force/militia as I recall, and it was mentioned in "Shatterpoint" and "Hard Contact" that there were underground/gureilla forces being trained on occupied worlds.

Edit: As I recall from the AOTC:VD it was mentioned that only clones wore the full body armour (something about claustrophobia I think), though by the time of the Empire it seems like this was changed.

[VT-16]

I swear I saw this mentioned somewhere only a few weeks ago, in the context of proving the minimal numbers of clone troopers being even more bullshit by noting a book that mentioned clone troopers that weren't even clones, but regular biological humans. Now I can't remember the name nor the person who said it.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, even if there's an army of 9 trillion clone troopers (3 million x 3 million), you could still have 900 trillion droids facing them and they're outnumbered 100 to 1; for all that those numbers would be supplemented by local defence forces (useless except static combat) and a regular volunteer force with conscription in some important roles, the CIS probably also has its own local defensive units in addition to the offensive droid army (though seems unenthusiastic enough not to have a particularly large volunteer ground force, which is likely concentrated as effectively a Marine Corps). That is probably a suitable arrangement of forces without resorting to quadrillions.

[Surlethe]

Your Grace, these 3 million armies (you could even make it 30 or 300 million) of 3 million clones each is a good expansion of a retcon hinted at in the RotS: ICS, with an offhand mention of the Republic deploying its "Grand Armies" to fight the war.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Your Grace, these 3 million armies (you could even make it 30 or 300 million) of 3 million clones each is a good expansion of a retcon hinted at in the RotS: ICS, with an offhand mention of the Republic deploying its "Grand Armies" to fight the war.

Well, it's bloody correct, because every military organizes its army into sub-units which are frequently called armies. The German invasion of France in WW1 consisted of seven armies. Soviet Front-Armies in WW2 even reached appropriate sizes! Almost 900,000 men were in each of the three front-armies attacking Berlin in 1945.

I chose three million armies of three million each because of the symmetry, and because of the fact that Armies are the largest standing units in the world. There's nothing larger than an Army in regular use, and Army-level commands are the largest standing units. So the three million figure can indicate three million of the largest standing units in existence--that is, Armies. And 3 million troops is a perfectly plausible number for a single army, being within less than one order of magnitude of the size of the largest historical Armies, which with better command and control structure is perfectly reasonable.

There is no need for such a force to comprise the only striking army of the Republic, however. Remember, the Clone-troopers are the predecessors of the Imperial Stormtroopers, a distinct service from the Imperial Army. It would be safe to imagine that (knowing Palpatine's real intentions) the regular Army was never allowed to grow more than twice the size of the clone army, or the later Stormtrooper army (this figure is derived from the ratio of Citizen:Janissary troops in the Dominate of Draka). That means that we'd have 9 trillion clonetroopers, 18 trillion regular army personnel, and around another 8 - 9 trillion Marines (at minimum, as they are needed as FMF, Fleet Marine Forces, for the Republic's Navy).

Therefore I'd say that the whole of the Republic's strength in combat ground troops--emphasis on combat, because it's quite certain that most of the support tail for the Clone Troopers are regular personnel, is in a range of 35 - 40 trillions. In the modern US Army, only 14% of personnel employed by the Defense Department are combat personnel. At that rate, the total manpower mobilized for the conflict would be between 250 - 285 trillion, not counting naval personnel and naval support personnel. Because of the huge importance of starfighters and heavy capital ships to a war effort in space, where everything is basically island-hopping like in the Pacific Theatre in WW2, it is entirely possible that the Starfleet and Starfighter corps collectively equal or exceed all of the other forces combined in manpower. In short, 500 - 600 trillion fully mobilized personnel in all for the entire Republic's military.

Not counting local militia type static defence units, including the operators of planetary defence infrastructure as well as infantry and support.

And it must be added that these figures are a conservative scaling estimate to serve as a lower bound for the mobilization of the Republic.

[thejester]

There is no need for such a force to comprise the only striking army of the Republic, however. Remember, the Clone-troopers are the predecessors of the Imperial Stormtroopers, a distinct service from the Imperial Army. It would be safe to imagine that (knowing Palpatine's real intentions) the regular Army was never allowed to grow more than twice the size of the clone army, or the later Stormtrooper army (this figure is derived from the ratio of Citizen:Janissary troops in the Dominate of Draka). That means that we'd have 9 trillion clonetroopers, 18 trillion regular army personnel, and around another 8 - 9 trillion Marines (at minimum, as they are needed as FMF, Fleet Marine Forces, for the Republic's Navy).

Is there any evidence for a standing Army before the Empire? I would have thought, given the politically fluid/decentralised nature of the Republic, non-Clone forces would have evolved spasmodically based on the host planet/systems, ala the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th century or perhaps the ACW. You'd have local system governments raising militias for home defence and possibly 'foreign' service, and they could potentially match the Clone Armies for sophistication.

[Lord_Xerxes]

The numbers that she toutes and clings to so desperately become even more ludicrous when you look at the other EU books in this timeline outside from her own. Take for example, Jedi Trial, where a garrison of 20,000 clone troopers was dispatched to help liberate a vital communications center on Praestilyn. It is worth noting that the Republic wanted to allocate more to this force but they were all that was "immediately available." Wookiepedia link

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is 1/150th of the entire "Grand Army" by her numbers from a single garrison? Does she seriously believe that in a Galatic Republic of how many countles systems and planets, there can merely be only 150 forces worth of garrisons...not even counting active participants on the war fronts. It's mind boggling.

Edit: Missed a zero

That's not all. Those 20,000 troops were being deployed to aid the Freedom's Sons (and Daughter's) group which had around 50,000 troops as well IIRC. And there was a planetary defense force (though I think they got wiped out early) All of that vs 1 million or so battle droids. And, as noted, they were still considered outgunned (even the Freedom's Sons group.)

IIRC the CIS general tosses a good 500,000 droids in the first installments of that battle to break the planetary defense force and then follows up with aforementioned 1mil during the reinforcements by the Republic, and I'm not even sure if these figures counted the Supers that were fielded plus his fleet and crew.

It really shows how bad the minimalism she's done when the CIS fields half the entire grand army's forces by her numbers in a single battle that wasn't even a battle in the central movies. Also goes further to show how stupid and careless her immediate write off of quintillions as being in inaccurate figure for the CIS is.

We didnt even see the Clones as being an "elite" forcee in the movies, nevermind the EU.

In the self-same book, we have exactly the opposite being shown, as if I recall a squad of the "elite commando" clones was given a duty to cross into enemy lines and do some sort of manual targetting or some such, I think it was similar to the way Ghosts are used in Starcraft, but it's been a long time since I read it. Not only are these clones chewed alive by both defenders and crossfire, but only one such elite commando manages to penetrate the enemy lines and is so badly hurt that by the time he tries to carry out his mission, he realizes he lost his comlink and dies. OMGZ TEHY KILL @ 300 to 1 RATIOZ!!!111

Edit: Here's the passage I'm mentioning above:

At first Green Wizard felt no pain at all. he knew his leg had been severed, but he just tied off the artery with a length of cord and considered his options. He knew that soon there would be pain, followed by shock. He had to do something and quickly, because the intelligence he had was too important to die with him. If he had stayed where he was, he would be found and executed. He could call in his findings now and his mission would be over, successfully completed; but his orders were not to use the comlink except to signal that he was ready to come back in. He gave the signal and for a moment, but only for an instant, he felt a flash of something like anger that someone back at the command post had not followed the plan for the night. The barrage continued unabated.

So his only option now was to try to get back to his own lines. With one leg gone, that would be difficult, but not impossible. Clone commandos were at their best when faced with obstacles that would be insuperable to any ordinary being.

Slowly, carefully, he began to crawl. At some point the tourniquet on his leg came loose and he started losing blood. He succedded in making it as far as the dry riverbed, but that was where he finally realized he could go no further. He had to make his report before he was too weak to do it, orders or no orders. He reached for his comlink, but somewhere along the way he had lost it. He chided himself for that. He had let pain and physical exhaustion distract him. It would be good if he did die here. He didn't want anyone to know how incompentent he'd become. But Green Wizard also felt a terrible sense of frustration, not because he wad dying, but because he would die with information that was vital to the army he served. His last conscious thought was that he had done his best.

It is worth pointing out that the book mentions that this particular clone was the best reconn man on Praiestlynn and as such was given command of the reconn team. Not the Mando fapping awesomeness of Travesty, Rambo-killing 300 droids while both succeeding in his mission and winning the hearts of dubious ladies, but human and fallible, despite rigid training and skill.

[Master of Ossus]

A 300 parody with the clone numbers just writes itself. "Three million clones? This is blasphemy. This is madness!" "Madness? These are MANDOS!"

[Joe Momma]

OMGZ TEHY KILL @ 300 to 1 RATIOZ!!!111

Speaking of examples of clone/droid combat (and I realize that the following is a horribly simplistic example), if there's a 200+ to 1 kill ratio, why was I watching ROTS, seeing numerous clones getting gunned down in firefights, and somehow not seeing the mountains of hundreds of dead droids that should have been present?

Maybe the clone troopers in the movie got their quota during earlier battles?