Vintage "Stormtroopers as Clones" article: retcon?

[Kurgan]

I know this was discussed back in the day but I don't think I'd ever read the real deal until now.

Found this in the web archive

Anyone know what official publication this was from and when it came out?


Thanks in advance!

[Mange]

I know this was discussed back in the day but I don't think I'd ever read the real deal until now.

Found this in the web archive

Anyone know what official publication this was from and when it came out?


Thanks in advance!

The article was originally published in the Star Wars Official Poster Monthly in 1978.

[Swindle1984]

I find the bit about Imperial Guards assassinating one another interesting.

[Bounty]

Imperial Guards are allowed liquor and women.

The armies of the Galactic Empire are made up of permavirgins?

[Kurgan]

I find the bit about Imperial Guards assassinating one another interesting.

I hope they fight each other with knives after heavy drinking... K'plah!

[Darth Raptor]

The armies of the Galactic Empire are made up of permavirgins?

Asexual. Around forty percent of the Marines, anyway. You expected something different? Stormies are supposed to be incorruptible, so it's probably been engineered/conditioned out of them. Unless this article is obsolete (and some of it is) they must be granted an interest in such things upon reaching the big time along with the means to satiate it.

[Kurgan]

So space viagra ration privileges too?

[VT-16]

Anyone know what official publication this was from and when it came out?

Star Wars Official Poster Monthly 4, released in January 1978.

[Swindle1984]

Imperial Guards are allowed liquor and women.

The armies of the Galactic Empire are made up of permavirgins?

And they still lead better lives than 90% of Trekkies.

[Mange]

Anyone know what official publication this was from and when it came out?

Star Wars Official Poster Monthly 4, released in January 1978.

Look a few posts above you.

This article also includes something that I believed was relatively new: The supposed anti-alien policy.

[VT-16]

Mine was more detailed. :P

I also like how a later issue dealt with Vader's injuries. It's the first ever mention of the duel that gave him injuries from lava (IIRC), but without any mentions of the planet, though. =/

[VT-16]

Thanks to that timetales link, I managed to uncover the name of those "big, Corellian ships" Han Solo mentioned in the film. Apparantly, unimaginative naming goes back further than rpg books, since this kind of ship is called Corellian-class Star Cruiser (or starcruiser, as they wrote it back then). At least it makes some sense in this early source, since "Corellian" could have been the actual class name to begin with and Han was simply referring to it in passing.

[Kurgan]

Haha, I want to read about the Imperial Slug-class starcruisers!

Mine was more detailed.

I also like how a later issue dealt with Vader's injuries. It's the first ever mention of the duel that gave him injuries from lava (IIRC), but without any mentions of the planet, though. =/

Got a reference for that? If it was before the novel, that's pretty cool.

[VT-16]

I think it was from 1977, the second poster monthly issue.

Includes the "Vader kills Luke's father" blurb.

[Kurgan]

Wow, so did they have the inside scoop or were they just making stuff up and got lucky?

[VT-16]

No idea.

[Mange]

Wow, so did they have the inside scoop or were they just making stuff up and got lucky?

It looks like a retelling of what Lucas told Hamill about Vader and Luke's father so it seems to come from inside LFL.

[Swindle1984]

I think it was from 1977, the second poster monthly issue.

Includes the "Vader kills Luke's father" blurb.

"Successive evil emperors"? That's an interesting line.

So was the line about the emperor being controlled by his advisors and flunkies, rather than being genuinely evil (and a master manipulator) in the foreword to the A New Hope novelization I have (1977 paperback, simply titled Star Wars.).

[Rogue 9]

I think it was from 1977, the second poster monthly issue.

Includes the "Vader kills Luke's father" blurb.

Goddammit, Vader was Force choking Admiral Motti, not General Tagge.

[Ghost Rider]

I think it was from 1977, the second poster monthly issue.

Includes the "Vader kills Luke's father" blurb.

"Successive evil emperors"? That's an interesting line.

So was the line about the emperor being controlled by his advisors and flunkies, rather than being genuinely evil (and a master manipulator) in the foreword to the A New Hope novelization I have (1977 paperback, simply titled Star Wars.).

It was. It's essentially laid out in the prologue that what brought down the Old Republic and the Jedi Knights were the bootlickers to President Palpatine, who did declare himself Emperor, who promised he would restore the Republic. Literally Emperor Palpatine was a pure figurehead, initially.

[Swindle1984]

I think it was from 1977, the second poster monthly issue.

Includes the "Vader kills Luke's father" blurb.

"Successive evil emperors"? That's an interesting line.

So was the line about the emperor being controlled by his advisors and flunkies, rather than being genuinely evil (and a master manipulator) in the foreword to the A New Hope novelization I have (1977 paperback, simply titled Star Wars.).

It was. It's essentially laid out in the prologue that what brought down the Old Republic and the Jedi Knights were the bootlickers to President Palpatine, who did declare himself Emperor, who promised he would restore the Republic. Literally Emperor Palpatine was a pure figurehead, initially.

At least as late as 1977. That obviously changed some time before Empire Strikes Back.

The line about successive evil emperors though is VERY interesting, assuming the author didn't just fuck up.

[Darth Raptor]

Since we know there was only Palpatine, the line is either obsolete or refers to prominent members of the Ruling Council, who were known informally as "the Emperors", plural.

[Publius]

The line in "Darth Vader Lives!" referring to "successive evil Emperors" is not the only such reference; the novelization Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (1976) has Obi-Wan Kenobi referring to Vader having used his powers "to help the later corrupt Emperors." This author's suggestion that this be interpreted as an informal reference to Palpatine's closest and most powerful advisors is merely offered as a way of salvaging the references: It is not canonical, and indeed one is well within one's rights to dismiss the faulty evidence out of hand.

An interesting aspect of this article is that the clone stormtroopers it describes cannot possibly be the same things as the GeNodes of "Pax Empirica -- The Wookiee Annihilation."

"Soldiers of the Empire!" describes a cloning process in which "a foetus is now removed from the hatchery after a gestation period of 60 weeks and is delivered immediately into the hands of its trainers" (it is noteworthy that, with this process, "soldiers fully formed in the growth tanks quickly proved impractical," as the scientists "found themselves the befuddled fathers of 12-stone blithering idiots"); these clones are raised in a controlled environment of constant indoctrination and training. A clone of this vintage is conditioned to think of himself as "property of the Emperor," with "no human rights and no name," and he "accepts his fate because he believes it is inevitable." Note that this is broadly comparable to the Kaminoan process that created the Grand Army of the Republic, except that the latter used "accelerated growth methods" that created clones that were "fully matured and ready for battle in just over a decade," according to Lama Su, Prime Minister of Kamino, in Attack of the Clones (i.e., like the S-type clones, K-type clones were not decanted fully grown, but instead spent an extended period after decanting undergoing continual training and indoctrination). Both S- and K-types know they are clones, but generally seem equanimous with this knowledge; one could probably identify the 'scientists' and 'trainers' of "Soldiers of the Emprie!" with the Kaminoan cloners of Attack of the Clones.

In contrast, the clones described in "Pax Empirica – The Wookiee Annihilation," commonly called GeNodes, were "genetically programmed to believe they were real people," and "invented their own personalities as soon as they came out of the tube"; unlike the S- and K-type clones, who were indoctrinated and conditioned, GeNodes were simply 'hard-wired' to have certain traits. They were incapable of realizing that they were clones – "Strander could sit at a table with five other Stranders, all identical in every way, and never notice that he was one of them" – and never left service ("Soldiers of the Empire!" mentions the Troopers' Rest camp on the holiday planet Sochi). GeNodes are too polite to discuss cloning with other clones of the same template, and invent elaborate histories for themselves, convincing themselves that they have families and that they can remember having enlisted and gone through basic training. "Pax Empirica – The Wookiee Annihilation" even implies the existence of a sort of failsafe 'Big Brother' mechanism, by which GeNodes are incapable of betraying the Imperial State, unlike other types of clones (graphically demonstrated by the Spaarti-grown clones of Soontir Fel in Vision of the Future). Unsurprisingly, the much faster and more reliable GeNode superceded the S- and K-type clones, and GeNodes accounted for not less than 40% of all stormtrooper forces (considering that this was only one template, and did not include the three others known to exist from "Pax Empirica – The Wookiee Annihilation," GeNodes probably account for far larger fraction of the Marines' total fighting force).

[Illuminatus Primus]

It bares repeating that in addition to Publius' illumination that the events of "Pax Empirica - The Wookiee Annihilation," that story takes place concurrently with the suppression of Kashyyyk depicted in Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, bare months if not weeks after the Declaration of a New Order and Palpatine's acclamation as Galactic Emperor as depicted in Revenge of the Sith. Therefore, it stands to reason that the GeNodes formed large proportions of the clone forces of the newly-minted Galactic Empire only weeks or a month after the official conclusion of the Clone War (which is still be mopped up in several theaters). Therefore the possibility clearly presents itself that the production gap presented by the essentially limited K-type process and the instability and unreliability of the S-type process (the consequences of which were described in passing by Captain Gilad Pelleaon in Heir to the Empire, and the use of which by the Republic at war documented by The New Essential Chronology) was filled with GeNodes. Hopefully this mechanism could account for the rapid expansion and pan-galactic deployment of the mature Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone War, and provide a counterpoint to unrealistically minimalistic proposals like the clone forces ORBAT proposed by Traviss.

[VT-16]

"Pax Empirica - The Wookiee Annihilation," that story takes place concurrently with the suppression of Kashyyyk depicted in Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, bare months if not weeks after the Declaration of a New Order and Palpatine's acclamation as Galactic Emperor as depicted in Revenge of the Sith.

What's the source for that time frame? I've heard it's only a few years before ANH, not right after ROTS.