Humanity of the Clones

[biostem]

Um-we see clones chatting in TCW all the damn time.

I'm sorry, I was basing my conclusions off the "core" six movies only. I only saw TCW movie, and didn't care for it, (thus haven't followed the rest of it).

[Darth Klingon]

Didn't the Kaminoan leader state that at least part of the genetic engineering that the clones were subjected to made them more obedient?

And there is no doubt in my mind that the clones were slaves - they just weren't privvy to the necessary knowledge that they had any choice, and they were trained and conditioned to not question orders, (and I expand that to not asking questions about why they have to fight). Their exposure to free people, (besides the Jedi), was extremely limited, and it seems that communication with civilians, (like Padme), was similarly taught to only be combat-relevant.

If nothing else, it would be very hard to break this conditioning, but I'm assuming the longer a clone was out in the field, (especially if it was in a distant post where they did have contact w/ free sentients), the more likely they'd start to question their place in the world.

Another aspect would be how strict their conditioning would have been. I imagine that certain "castes" of clones, like the commanders or special ops ones, would need more free will and ability to adapt and improvise, in order to be effective in their roles. The rank-and-file troopers, OTOH, would probably be extremely regimented in both their training and the degree to which they would be permitted to socialize.

I mean, we saw clones sitting and eating in a very mechanical manner, so conversing w/ fellow clones was probably prohibited, (unless it was campaign-specific stuff).

That's true. I don't think the genetic engineering made them mindless like a machine and beyond hope, (although I may be wrong), but like anybody who is indoctrinated and brainwashed, it's a very hard process to get out of.

[Darth Klingon]

Actually at least going by the Clone Wars cartoons, they had independence aplenty. Not only were they completely capable of deserting and going native, they have-shall we say creatively interpreted their orders?
Plus, there's programming, and there's programming, and you don't want the Clones to be too rigidly set in their responses because you can't anticipate any possible situation. Some things the Clone Masters may have hardwired in something fierce (Order 66 probably one of them), but the Clones definitely had a fair smidgen of free will. Brainwashed, definitely, but a far cry from robots.
Or maybe not so far a cry afterall, as it is apparently far from unheard of for droids to go 'the hell what Master told me, I'll do what I think is best'

There's some evidence that the clones were mindless robots with no free will. Order 66.

Order 66 wasn't just any ordinary military order that a soldier would obey, it was basically "programmed" into the clones, kind of like how you program codes and commands into a computer, which will mindlessly obey them. It seems to me like the Clones had no conscious idea about Order 66, they just obeyed it without even being aware what it was, just like how a computer does the same thing.

[Batman]

Bzzt. Wrong. That's, at best, evidence they had no choice about following Order 66 (which was why I mentioned that particular one being hardwired if you had paid attention). There's a fuckton of evidence that they have minds on their own throughout TCW. They may have had no choice about following Order 66, but other than that, that had a goodly amount of free will. At least one of them actually deserted for Valen's sake.

[Stark]

Is there any evidence of this? It looked like soldiers just obeyed legal orders from commanders to me.

[Darth Klingon]

Bzzt. Wrong. That's, at best, evidence they had no choice about following Order 66 (which was why I mentioned that particular one being hardwired if you had paid attention). There's a fuckton of evidence that they have minds on their own throughout TCW. They may have had no choice about following Order 66, but other than that, that had a goodly amount of free will. At least one of them actually deserted for Valen's sake.

Yep. In TCW, it was implied that deserters were punished, which gives strong evidence that the Clone Army was nothing more than a slave army.

Some of the clones did disobey Order 66, but that was because those ones were genetically engineering to have more free will. Most of the clones were mindless. Some evidence that they were mindless was that they had no conscious awareness of what Order 66 meant before Palpatine ordered it. As I said before, just like how a computer is programmed to do a certain task without being aware of it beforehand, the clones killed the Jedi out of an order which triggered an old program to do a specific thing.

[Stark]

Or yknow, they were flash taught as shown in AOTC and the order was legal. Turns out using maladjusted slaves means they don't pick the ethical pros and cons of urgent orders?

Seriously quote some evidence.

[Darth Klingon]

Is there any evidence of this? It looked like soldiers just obeyed legal orders from commanders to me.

There's no evidence that the Clones knew what Order 66 meant, before Palpatine talked to them over the hologram, which triggered them to kill the Jedi. I'm not that computer savvy, but I know that when a program is put into a computer, the function lays dormant until you trigger it somehow.

Being that the Clones were genetically engineered, it's possible that you could put hidden memories into them, and then they remember them and carry out your commands when you remind them of it. Order 66 proves that most Clones had no free will, with the exception of a few clones that weren't engineered as strongly. An order was "programmed" into them.

Also, I agree with Batman that the Clone Army was slavery.

[Stark]

Are you trolling? You should prove your claim. You clearly have a preferred solution and are trying to prove it rather than disprove it.

To make it easy for you, why does obeying order 66 require the clones to have no free will, and do you have any actual evidence for this?

Ps lol guess who used the word slave first in this thread

[Batman]

Dude, virtually every army punishes deserters. That has jack all to do with whether or not they were slaves, it merely means the were soldiers. What made them slaves was that they a) were born into it and b) at least to my knowledge had no way out of it other than desertion (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I sort of gave up on the EU halfway through NJO and didn't really know beans beyond the novels even before that).
And a single command being hardwired into them does NOT make them mindless. Before Order 66, the clones behaved pretty much like ordinary human beings. They wouldn't disobey a direct order, but that was about it. They offered their own opinions, they piped up if something was, in their opinion, a bad idea, they'd use initiative in situations simply not covered by their orders.
Mindless my ass.

[Darth Klingon]

Dude, virtually every army punishes deserters. That has jack all to do with whether or not they were slaves, it merely means the were soldiers. What made them slaves was that they a) were born into it and b) at least to my knowledge had no way out of it other than desertion (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I sort of gave up on the EU halfway through NJO and didn't really know beans beyond the novels even before that).
And a single command being hardwired into them does NOT make them mindless. Before Order 66, the clones behaved pretty much like ordinary human beings. They wouldn't disobey a direct order, but that was about it. They offered their own opinions, they piped up if something was, in their opinion, a bad idea, they'd use initiative in situations simply not covered by their orders.
Mindless my ass.

Yeah, the Clones were slaves, because, unlike drafted soldiers, they had no life besides the military. Drafted soldiers had lives before they joined the military, and afterwards too.

What I mean by mindless is that the Clones that obeyed Order 66 was genetically engineered differently than the clones that disobeyed. But the Clones still had personalities and intelligence, as shown in TCW. Evidence that they weren't mindless is everywhere, they added their own creativity to orders. That showed that they had not only intelligence, but free will.

I used the wrong word by "mindless". They weren't totally mindless. A better word would be brainwashed.

[Stark]

It's like you didn't even read the first page or something. This was obvious from AOTC. Your reasoning is still deeply flawed.

[Darth Klingon]

How much free will they really have is an interesting question and these passages seem to suggest they have little. However there are accounts of Clones failing to comply with the order(the novel Dark Lord). However the clones in that story are commandos who had less genetic engineering over their level of conformity compared to the standard. Regarding the idea that it was merely a lawful order the likely conclusion here is that it was, but also that the reason that it wasn't questioned was due to the reduced independence levels that were engineered by the Kaminoans. The clones that ignored it were obviously more independent and in their current position felt those orders didn't make any sense.

The Clones definitely weren't mindless, I agree with you Stark. TCW proves that. Order 66 was just a military order; it wasn't secretly engineering into their minds, I forgot about what happened in AOTC.

However, I believe, as AdamSkywalker007 said, that genetic engineering tampered some aspects of their humanity-their ability to question what they were told. Their free will was diminished because of that. Even the Clones that obeyed Order 66 weren't mindless, their mental capacity to make decisions regarding obedience wasn't strong, due to the way they were made.

[Batman]

I don't see what AOTC has got to do with Order 66, regardless of whether they were genetically engineered/brainwashed into following it. The Order hadn't been given at the time.

[Darth Klingon]

I don't see what AOTC has got to do with Order 66, regardless of whether they were genetically engineered/brainwashed into following it. The Order hadn't been given at the time.

Stark told me that the Clones were given orders just like an ordinary soldier. He used AOTC an example of how the Clones were given orders.

Order 66 was just a military command, it wasn't implanted into their minds by genetic engineering. Just like the other military commands, Palpatine told them about Order 66, he didn't implant it into their minds. I found that out by doing research. Palpatine told them that if the Jedi betrayed the Republic, they were to be shot. They were told what Order 66 meant.

[Batman]

Still don't see the connection between Order 66 and AOTC?

[Darth Klingon]

Still don't see the connection between Order 66 and AOTC?

I didn't say there was a connection. I just said that Order 66 explained how the Clones were given orders; meaning that my theory that Order 66 was implanted into the Clone's minds is false.

[Stark]

AOTC shows them being conditioned from birth, dumbass. When you've been conditioned from birth to obey leaders, and have no life that would be considered 'normal', I doesn't require a stretch of the imagination that the clones simply obeyed a legal order. I don't see the need for magic or SECRET PROGRAMMED MACHINE CONTROL or lack of malice or anything like that.

Why is anything else needed for this situation? Super loyal soldiers obey orders, even when they are given by evil wizards.

[RogueIce]

Is there any evidence of this? It looked like soldiers just obeyed legal orders from commanders to me.

The previews for one of the two final arcs of TCW had a clone who was killing Jedi, possibly because Order 66 had somehow been "triggered" for him, though he was very woozy/confused/distraught so until the episode actually airs we won't know the full context of what happened to him and why he shot down that Jedi.

So there might be upcoming evidence that Order 66 was somehow 'programmed' into them, depending on how that arc plays out.

[Batman]

Still don't see the connection between Order 66 and AOTC?

I didn't say there was a connection. I just said that Order 66 explained how the Clones were given orders; meaning that my theory that Order 66 was implanted into the Clone's minds is false.

This makes absolutely no sense? While Stark is absolutely correct that there's no need for the 'Follow Order 66' to be hardwired into their genetics OR their thought processes, 'soldiers following orders' is a completely sufficient explanation, that doesn't mean they weren't, either (until Stark provides the evidence that undeniably shows that Um yes they weren't and makes me look like a complete fool, saving me some time).

[Darth Klingon]

AOTC shows them being conditioned from birth, dumbass. When you've been conditioned from birth to obey leaders, and have no life that would be considered 'normal', I doesn't require a stretch of the imagination that the clones simply obeyed a legal order. I don't see the need for magic or SECRET PROGRAMMED MACHINE CONTROL or lack of malice or anything like that.

Why is anything else needed for this situation? Super loyal soldiers obey orders, even when they are given by evil wizards.

Yes, the clones were conditioned to obey orders, just like any other slave or soldier. It's not surprising that they would be blindly obedient to Palpatine, even believing such extreme claims that the Jedi were rebelling.

I was referring to how the clones knew about Order 66 (or what it entailed), when Palpatine said, "the time has come".

As Rogue Ice stated below, it's possible that the order was programmed into them. I'm not saying that would be necessary, I'm just saying that it's a possibility, giving how powerful the genetic engineering is, but also because we're never told when Palpatine gave them contingency orders.

Still don't see the connection between Order 66 and AOTC?

I didn't say there was a connection. I just said that Order 66 explained how the Clones were given orders; meaning that my theory that Order 66 was implanted into the Clone's minds is false.

This makes absolutely no sense? While Stark is absolutely correct that there's no need for the 'Follow Order 66' to be hardwired into their genetics OR their thought processes, 'soldiers following orders' is a completely sufficient explanation, that doesn't mean they weren't, either (until Stark provides the evidence that undeniably shows that Um yes they weren't and makes me look like a complete fool, saving me some time).

That's exactly what I'm saying. There's no need for Order 66 to be programmed into their minds, it could've just been a military command, however, it's a possibility that Order 66 was hardwired, or "programmed" into the Clones. Nothing in the story stated what happened either way, so it's a possibility.

[Stark]

Dude they were conditioned by flash learning. Their minds are probably full of hundreds of orders they don't even think about until they're given, because they're not philosophers.

[Darksider]

Just an aside, has any source in the EU ever explained exactly how "flash learning" works? Is it possible that the order was encoded with their regular training and the Clones were not fully cognizant of it until it was given?

Because that's sort of the impression I got from the TCW clip. Obviously I could just be taking something out of context and it will play out differently when the episode airs, assuming it ever does.

[Darth Klingon]

Just an aside, has any source in the EU ever explained exactly how "flash learning" works? Is it possible that the order was encoded with their regular training and the Clones were not fully cognizant of it until it was given?

Because that's sort of the impression I got from the TCW clip. Obviously I could just be taking something out of context and it will play out differently when the episode airs, assuming it ever does.

I don't know how flash learning works, but unfortunately, TCW is cancelled, so it won't tell us anything about it.

Another interesting thing is how Palpatine trained them about who to obey in case he died.

[Stark]

Flash learning is a relatively real thing; what we see is the kids being presented with heaps of information and being trained to retain it. Like full retention it doesn't necessarily mean that they actually know they know it. I used flash learning to increase my mandarin vocabulary, but it still took use to consciously be able to select those symbols and connect them with meanings. That they start so young may mean they can fill the clones with knowledge in this way.