Humanity of the Clones

[Darth Klingon]

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.

Regardless of how the clones obeyed orders, I think their free will was very limited; most had no free will. Just because they had intelligence and personalities, as shown in TCW, if they couldn't decide to disobey an order, then it's pretty obvious that they don't have free will. And it's more than just being a slave, living a life of obeying your leaders. I'll explain why now.

AdamSkywalker007 said that the clones that had the free will to disobey Order 66 weren't genetically engineered as strongly as most of the other clones. The obedience of the clones wasn't just a trait they developed from a life of being a slave, it was genetically programmed into them. Their free will was limited by their programmed genetics.

[Batman]

All the Clones in TCW displayed an abundance of free will, up to one of them actually deserting (for the I'm sorry, did anybody keep count?) time.
And what, exactly, is your evidence that 'follow order 66' was genetically programmed into them?

[Darth Klingon]

All the Clones in TCW displayed an abundance of free will, up to one of them actually deserting (for the I'm sorry, did anybody keep count?) time.
And what, exactly, is your evidence that 'follow order 66' was genetically programmed into them?

I had the wrong information. As Stark informed me before, the clones learned orders through flash training. The reason that thought that Order 66 was genetically programmed into them was because I can't find any information about a scene where Palpatine instructed the clonetroopers in explicit detail about Order 66 and to kill the Jedi. It was just an incorrect theory that I had.

Now, I mentioned the Clones being genetically programmed, because of what AdamSkywalker007 said. He implied that the Clone's free will was determined by genetic engineering. He said that some of the clones had free will because their genetic engineering didn't restrict their free will, as what happened with most of the other clones.

I agree with you that the Clones had intelligence and a degree of free will in TCW.

[biostem]

Let's say, hypothetically, that the Kaminoan cloners managed to find the genetic marker for having an eidetic memory. They program said trait into the clones, and condition them from birth to obey orders, with one of those being to sit at the training station and devote all their attention to what was being presented. These young clones are flooded with info, but don't yet have the maturity or free will to comprehend what their minds are being stuffed with.

Now, some time later, say, a clone is handed a rifle and has an encyclopedic knowledge of how to break it down and service the weapon. Additionally, they train to develop the muscle memory to go along with the "book knowledge" the possess of said weapon. The same goes for Order 66 - they do know what the order means, but it's hidden in with all the other memories that lie dormant until something triggers them.

For instance, I wonder if Order 66 is merely a short-term command - like "kill the Jedi that's leading you" or "kill any Jedi in the immediate viscinity", and I would be very surprised if a Clone Trooper could just as easily return to base, encounter another Jedi, and converse with them like nothing had happened, (assuming they weren't still under orders to kill Jedi).

Either way, the Clones are not "mindless" in the sense of being unthinking machines - they are simply conditioned to accept and obey orders without question. However, like any sort of brainwashing, it may be incomplete or wear off the longer a clone doesn't get said mental conditioning upkept...

[Joe Momma]

For instance, I wonder if Order 66 is merely a short-term command - like "kill the Jedi that's leading you" or "kill any Jedi in the immediate viscinity", and I would be very surprised if a Clone Trooper could just as easily return to base, encounter another Jedi, and converse with them like nothing had happened, (assuming they weren't still under orders to kill Jedi).

According to various EU sources, Order 66 was one of 150 contingency orders that provided instructions for the troops of the Grand Army of the Republic in the case of various events. Most of the known codes have to do specifically with steps to be taken in cases where the leadership of the Republic is compromised in some matter, such as the Supreme Chancellor being incapacitated or declared unfit to issue orders.

Order 66 reads: "In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the Republic, and after receiving specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (Chancellor), GAR commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) until a new command structure is established."

AFAICT, these are just a specific variation of the sorts of General Orders troops are routinely given in training.

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.

The Star Wars version of it can be much comprehensive. The clonetroopers only got basic training from it but Thrawn used it on his clones to imprint full memories from the clones' templates at times. All of the Fel clones in the Hand of Thrawn duology had Fel's memories and personality imprinted through flash training in addition to their skills.

Regardless of how the clones obeyed orders, I think their free will was very limited; most had no free will.

It's a bit of a leap to go from arguing that the standard clonetroopers had diminished capacity for free will due to genetic engineering and lifelong indoctrination to asserting that they had no free will. If they had no capacity for independent though they wouldn't be taking any actions whatsoever when not under orders, which is clearly not the case. Even the basic line troops are shown taking actions on their own initiative, developing distinct personalities, giving themselves names, and so on in a number of different EU sources besides TCW.

All of the sources that mention the behavioral adjustments through genetic engineering only note that certain traits were emphasized or de-emphasized. None of them go so far as to suggest that any of the clones are bereft of free will, and there's a great deal of evidence to suggest that even the most heavily genetically-altered and indoctrinated troops had some capacity for independent thinking.

[Arawn Fenn]

Some things the Clone Masters may have hardwired in something fierce (Order 66 probably one of them)

He knew that Order Sixty-Six had not been hardwired into the clones by the Kaminoans who had grown them. Rather, the troopers - the commanders, especially - had been programmed to demonstrate unfailing loyalty to the Supreme Chancellor, in his role as Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic. - Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader

[Replicant]

Unless this was changed greatly by the EU I have always wondered what the Kaminoes thought of the Clone Army.

According to the book a Jedi Master came along with a shit ton of money and paid them to create a Clone Army. At some point early on he died so there was no real oversight of the project and the Kaminoes never bothered to contact the Jedi Council about their order for the clone army.

Then another Jedi comes along (Tyrannus I guess) who supplied the Bounty Hunter who would be the base for the clones, which makes me think Sideous found out almost immediately about the the Clone Army and had the Jedi Master behind it killed.

Then comes the really odd part.

None of the Kaminoes bother to contact the Jedi Council when a "jedi" gives them instructions for programming the clones that includes a order to murder every single Jedi. Huh? Not a single Kamino cloner thought it was odd that a customer was including a line in his order that if used might completely destroy the order?

Also at what point were the Cloners going to turn over the army? The dart was way too small a clue to be intentional. So it was blind fucking luck that Obiwan showed up just days before the first portion of the order was ready for deployment.

How was this supposed to work and are the Cloners really that fucking dense?

Okay, just read the very last post having to do with the Darth Vader novel. So the argument is that it was just an order along with a ton of others given to them that their super loyalty guaranteed would be followed. But it still is odd that the Cloners didn't question the "Jedi" handing Clones a set of orders that included their own execution.

[Havok]

Why do people freak the fuck out about Order 66. It was a contingency plan in case the Jedi carry out a coup. You don't think governments around our world have contingency plans like that.

[RogueIce]

I do believe it was Karen Traviss who wrote in a segment that they also had an order to take out the Supreme Chancellor, so yeah I doubt they saw anything out of place there. For all we know the Jedi knew every one of those Orders existed, they just never thought anyone would issue that order.

But then I suppose we'll have to wait and see what happens with that "misfiring" clone arc that'll be released for TCW...eventually. That'll give us a hell of a lot more information on the matter. Or not, depending on what the actual plot is (could be Order 66 is a complete red herring, playing off audience knowledge and the real cause could be something else entirely).

[Purple]

I wonder how things would have turned out if Yoda had the brain wave to try that one out before sending his friend to try and arrest a sith lord on his own.

[Adam Reynolds]

Why do people freak the fuck out about Order 66. It was a contingency plan in case the Jedi carry out a coup. You don't think governments around our world have contingency plans like that.

And its not as if there weren't rogue Jedi during the Clone Wars. Besides the obvious of Dooku being a former Jedi, there was Depa Billaba during the novel Shatterpoint as well as General Krell during the Clone Wars series. Though this wouldn't explain its use against the entire Order however. Given that Order 66 was given individually it would make a degree of sense for the above scenarios as it could be given to the individual commanders who would carry it out against their potentially traitorous Jedi leaders even if the rest of the Jedi order was still loyal to the Republic. This fits with the text of the act "acting against the interests of the Republic" which would apply to the above scenarios. The idea of individual use also fits with the clones in Dark Lord ignoring it under the grounds that it didn't feel right given the scenario(though as stated earlier those clones were the more independent commandos).

For all we know the Jedi knew every one of those Orders existed, they just never thought anyone would issue that order.

Mace Windu himself gave a similar order to Clones on Harum Kel against Depa Billaba. As for the text of the order, while it does state that the sole authority lies with Chancellor Palpatine as Supreme Commander, he had only just been given direct control of the GAR during the events of ROTS* and the Jedi never really made the connection until after it had occurred. They also correctly saw themselves as working for the Republic and so failed to realize under those grounds as well.

*As mentioned in the scene in which the Jedi council realize that Grievous is on Utapau in the novelization. It is also mentioned in the movie briefly just after Obi-Wan discussed the outer rim sieges. Much of the additional content regarding those issues was cut in Padme's scenes involving the formation of the Rebel Alliance.

I wonder how things would have turned out if Yoda had the brain wave to try that one out before sending his friend to try and arrest a sith lord on his own.

The problem was that they didn't have time in their mind, the longer they waited, the closer Palpatine was getting to total control. Of course they failed to consider that they might loose in combat and fail politically as a result.

[Tiriol]

I wonder how things would have turned out if Yoda had the brain wave to try that one out before sending his friend to try and arrest a sith lord on his own.

Where did Yoda send anyone to arrest a Sith Lord? Mace Windu went into Supreme Chancellor's office not because Yoda had told him to do so; and when Kenobi and Yoda went their separate ways to confront Lords Sidious and Vader, I doubt they had arrest in mind (Obi-Wan, maybe, although I find even that unlikely).

[Purple]

I wonder how things would have turned out if Yoda had the brain wave to try that one out before sending his friend to try and arrest a sith lord on his own.

Where did Yoda send anyone to arrest a Sith Lord? Mace Windu went into Supreme Chancellor's office not because Yoda had told him to do so; and when Kenobi and Yoda went their separate ways to confront Lords Sidious and Vader, I doubt they had arrest in mind (Obi-Wan, maybe, although I find even that unlikely).

My point still stands. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the guy whose name I can't quite remember now hadn't gone off on his own to confront a sith lord and had instead confirmed with Yoda (via say a mobile phone equivalent) who than would have taken some other course of action (maybe).

[Adam Reynolds]

My point still stands. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the guy whose name I can't quite remember now hadn't gone off on his own to confront a sith lord and had instead confirmed with Yoda (via say a mobile phone equivalent) who than would have taken some other course of action (maybe).

I presume you are thinking of Mace Windu(played by Samuel L. Jackson). In the novelization they actually do communicate and jointly decide to make a move. They never recognized that Palpatine would have the ability to execute Order 66 against them.

One interesting idea would be getting a Midichlorian test against Palpatine to prove that he is Force Sensitive and therefore back up their claims that he is a Sith Lord. Growing up on Naboo, if he was Force sensitive to that degree, unless he was earlier found by someone else, he should have become a Jedi. This concept was actually suggested by a random Jedi during the Republic comics. Unfortunately this failed as that Jedi was friends with Palpatine and suggested it to him first. Palpatine then ordered him killed during the Clone Wars and the idea failed. However this concept is so straightforward that it seems somewhat foolish that the Jedi council never though of it.

[RogueIce]

Probably because they figured that Palpatine, having been (presumably) born on Naboo, was tested for Midichlorians and came up negative?

[Saxtonite]

I think the willingness of the Republic and even the Jedi to use the Clones as an army is an important indicator of how far the Republic has fallen as a civilization, of how far it has strayed from it's founding ideals and the past ages where Jedi were truly the protectors of the Peace.

Well, early-on in the the Republic the Jedi could not find a way to prevent the evocii from being fucked over by the Hutts. Arguably that was from the beginning, the Republic was -always- a pretty lose grouping - apparently it was always known as "Republic Authority" showing how toothless it nominally was (in practice it was stronger than that).

Part of the Tragedy aspect of the PT is that Palpatine's plan was only able to succeed because those principles were not followed even by those who were supposed to embody them the most. If the Jedi hadn't taken the easy path and accepted the Clones, and had expanded the Judical forces to fight the Separatists, like Stark said, the armies following them would have been made up of free-thinking men and women, as the Republic's armies had in ages past, Men and women who would've been able to realize that no, the Jedi are not traitors to the Republic and do not deserve to be exterminated.

There were Jedi who used non-clones to build up their army and in general they were saved. Also, I wonder what happened to Jedi who were commanding fleets and were surrounded by non-clone troops (Venators and Victory-class SDs used non-clone crew a lot).

Even though they were looking for another Sith Lord towards the end of the war, they were still too focused on Dooku and the threat he represented to see Palpatine poised to stab them in the back. Yoda has a sort of epiphany to this effect in the ROTS novelization when he's fighting Palpatine. The Jedi grew too stagnant, and became too willing to embrace questionable practices in the name of the greater good, and they paid the ultimate price for it.

Apparently they did not suspect Palpatine because "he already ran the galaxy" or the vast majority of it at least.

They used an evil weapon forged by evil people on the command of evil people, and in the end it betrayed them.

I thought Sifo-Dyas legitimtely thought he was protecting the Republic.

I know it's never happened in any of the EU or the movies, but I can just imagine in my mind a conversation between Yoda or Windu, or one of the more principled Jedi leaders and Palpatine going something like this:

<snip>

Palpatine simply smiles.

It's stated many non-clones were conscripted into the Republic military in general, or joined. Also see the local defense forces and fleets which were federalized.

IIRC, they didn't even conscript the various planetary defense fleets into the Republic navy until Palpatine was practically ready to declare the New Order. Palpatine probably brought up issues of factionalism within the Republic (I.E. why should a Kuati soldier die for Alderaan?) and logistics difficulties to enforce the idea that taking the morally correct path would give the Sith-led Separatists, I.E. THE ULTIMATE ENEMY, the advantage they needed to win the war and usher in a new age of darkness. He wanted his Clone Troopers in position to strike the final blow against the Jedi, and he perfectly manipulated the situation so that they were.

The planetary naval forces were federalized after the Rendili incident/attempted secession of Rendili (i.e. before the final 'push' of the Separatists into the Outer Rim Sieges). Even before that though, many worlds gave their militaries towards the Republic and the actions like the destruction of Humbarine strenghtened the impetus for federalization.

Btw do we really know if order 66 was a secret from the jedi, to me it would reasonble that the wording be something like "if a jedi betrays the republic, a Jedi higher in the chain of command, the senate or the supreme chancellor can order the traitors troops are eliminate him/her eliminate at all costs" with Palpatine using his authority to make it the order apply to all jedi everywhere.

It was a contigency order.

Order 66 could be found in the document entitled Contingency Orders for the Grand Army of the Republic: Order Initiation, Orders 1 through 150, GAR Document CO(CL) 56-95, a document containing a series of special contingency orders that covered any and all emergency situations, which the clones that comprised the GAR were prepared to execute, immediately and without question, and only in specific cases of extreme necessity. Some of these orders concerned contingencies any armed force could conceivably face. Many dealt with contingencies specifically involving the GAR Supreme Commander—in this case, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine—and the effect on the chain of command were he ever to become incapacitated or declared unfit to issue orders. In particular, Order 65 dealt with the detention and possible execution of the Supreme Chancellor by the Republic, further hiding the true intention of Order 66. Sufficiently buried among the other one hundred forty-nine orders so as to almost escape notice, Contingency Order 66 specifically dealt with the effect on the chain of command were issues to arise involving the Jedi.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Order_66

First obstacle is there doesn't seem to be any legal way for the republic to commandeer men and equipment in order to form any sort of army to fight under the banner of the senate. Assuming they have legal authority to do this or miracle vote one into existence it's a monumental task to organize a force like this and it's made nearly impossible if the governments forced to give up their ships and men are not feeling cooperative. If the governments do go along, you're stuck with a force of wildly varying capabilities and a supply nightmare of galactic proportions.

Didn't the Military Creation Act basically solve that problem?

All this has to be done extremely fast without any real previous framework to base it on and to top it off, you just gave more political ammunition to factions providing the bulk of the men and material to the new army of the senate and this is not what Palpatine would want because it could undermine his political influence in the senate once the real shooting starts.

Palpatine's policies during the Clone Wars were to fellate the racist tendencies of the human dominated Core Worlds, so he -already- pandered to the political factions of the dominant population/powers in the Republic, especially after the Separatists did some anti-human violence/atrocities against human populated core worlds.

The initial wave off assassinations was to damage the Jedi order to a degree it's command structure is fractured and Palpy can just sweep in and declare them all traitors. You can accomplish this by getting rid of relatively few individuals and in the short run the assassination doesn't need to succeed in killing them, it suffices you drive them into hiding and keep them there till you've established yourself and your rule. Then you go out and finish them off.

I suspect you will have somehing straight out of Ancient Rome/China with a few fleets "proclaiming" for the Jedi or the Jedi going warlord and going to Coruscant to fight against the "usurper tyrant of legitimate authority". Remember the Jedi have acted as chancellors to stabilize things before.

Another way that regular troops would've made a difference over conditioned clones, is that there is no way to guarantee that 100% of them would go along with the New Order. Someone who signs on to defend freedom and democracy might not necessarily turn into a Stormtrooper for the New Order just because the Senate voted it into being. I think that if they'd had Regular troops instead of brainwashed Clones, the Empire would have been on far shakier ground in it's formative stages. Remember that a significant portion of the non-clone Republic Officer corps went on to defect from the Empire and join the Rebellion. With a fully-regular army, there may have been organized military resistance to Palpatine's assumption of power rather than just a few scattered Separatist holdouts and Jedi-led rebels. On top of providing a method of wiping out the Jedi, the Clones and their conditioning provided a ready-made and completely loyal army to enforce the New Order.

Those same troops would have developed racist and humanocentric tendencies from stories of human worlds being wiped out by biological weapons among other things. Without the Jedi around to mediate the "kill them all" mentality among some soldiers I could see a lot more of the rank and file being loyal to the New Order out of a collective sense of shock and hatred from the war and seeing the New Order as a way to never see that happen again. Also I dont think as many officers defected as you think. In On eof the Wraith Squadron novels it is mentioned there was a certain dance conducted by old repubiic and imperial officers from the core worlds. Because few of those kinds of officers defected to the alliance/new republic, that tradition never took whole in the New Republic military.

Forming a cohesive army out of all the disparate planetary militias and Navies in a civilization as vast and outright disfunctional as the Republic would be a massive undertaking, wrought with factional politics and logistical nightmares. Just the sort of clusterfuck that would give the CIS a decisive advantage and possibly enable them to win the war.

It was done before, and the difference is that the CIS is not exactly overrunning many worlds during the beginning of the war, they were mainly fighting for independence so were more defensive. They did take over some border worlds though.

Then in their arrogance, the Jedi fell in to the role of generals that the Jedi of old had been, failing to realize that their current peacekeeping philosophy left them unequipped to handle that role.

The Jedi have ALWAYS done that though. And Windo mentions "We're keepers of the peace, not soldiers".

Of course the shit he said about "defective" clones disappearing is blatantly contradicted by TCW, where a Clone who came out completely fucked up is given a job as a janitor on Kamino.

The Jedi intervened? Apparently they did to prevent the needless killing of Clones.

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.

Palpatine used certain clones which were more 'loyal' or expected to do that more likely, according to Battlefront II when he sent parts of the 501st to fight alongside Jedi. I guess they were backup to make sure the orders were fulfilled.

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

The Senate, or a higher ranking Jedi apparently (see order 65 on removal, capture and possible execution of the chancellor)

Probably because they figured that Palpatine, having been (presumably) born on Naboo, was tested for Midichlorians and came up negative?

I don't think midichlorian tests or force-sensitivity tests are exactly common in the Star Wars Galaxy..

[Saxtonite]

I think the willingness of the Republic and even the Jedi to use the Clones as an army is an important indicator of how far the Republic has fallen as a civilization, of how far it has strayed from it's founding ideals and the past ages where Jedi were truly the protectors of the Peace.

Well, early-on in the the Republic the Jedi could not find a way to prevent the evocii from being fucked over by the Hutts. Arguably that was from the beginning, the Republic was -always- a pretty lose grouping - apparently it was always known as "Republic Authority" showing how toothless it nominally was (in practice it was stronger than that).

Part of the Tragedy aspect of the PT is that Palpatine's plan was only able to succeed because those principles were not followed even by those who were supposed to embody them the most. If the Jedi hadn't taken the easy path and accepted the Clones, and had expanded the Judical forces to fight the Separatists, like Stark said, the armies following them would have been made up of free-thinking men and women, as the Republic's armies had in ages past, Men and women who would've been able to realize that no, the Jedi are not traitors to the Republic and do not deserve to be exterminated.

There were Jedi who used non-clones to build up their army and in general they were saved. Also, I wonder what happened to Jedi who were commanding fleets and were surrounded by non-clone troops (Venators and Victory-class SDs used non-clone crew a lot).

Even though they were looking for another Sith Lord towards the end of the war, they were still too focused on Dooku and the threat he represented to see Palpatine poised to stab them in the back. Yoda has a sort of epiphany to this effect in the ROTS novelization when he's fighting Palpatine. The Jedi grew too stagnant, and became too willing to embrace questionable practices in the name of the greater good, and they paid the ultimate price for it.

Apparently they did not suspect Palpatine because "he already ran the galaxy" or the vast majority of it at least.

They used an evil weapon forged by evil people on the command of evil people, and in the end it betrayed them.

I thought Sifo-Dyas legitimtely thought he was protecting the Republic.

I know it's never happened in any of the EU or the movies, but I can just imagine in my mind a conversation between Yoda or Windu, or one of the more principled Jedi leaders and Palpatine going something like this:

<snip>

Palpatine simply smiles.

It's stated many non-clones were conscripted into the Republic military in general, or joined. Also see the local defense forces and fleets which were federalized.

IIRC, they didn't even conscript the various planetary defense fleets into the Republic navy until Palpatine was practically ready to declare the New Order. Palpatine probably brought up issues of factionalism within the Republic (I.E. why should a Kuati soldier die for Alderaan?) and logistics difficulties to enforce the idea that taking the morally correct path would give the Sith-led Separatists, I.E. THE ULTIMATE ENEMY, the advantage they needed to win the war and usher in a new age of darkness. He wanted his Clone Troopers in position to strike the final blow against the Jedi, and he perfectly manipulated the situation so that they were.

The planetary naval forces were federalized after the Rendili incident/attempted secession of Rendili (i.e. before the final 'push' of the Separatists into the Outer Rim Sieges). Even before that though, many worlds gave their militaries towards the Republic and the actions like the destruction of Humbarine strenghtened the impetus for federalization.

Btw do we really know if order 66 was a secret from the jedi, to me it would reasonble that the wording be something like "if a jedi betrays the republic, a Jedi higher in the chain of command, the senate or the supreme chancellor can order the traitors troops are eliminate him/her eliminate at all costs" with Palpatine using his authority to make it the order apply to all jedi everywhere.

It was a contigency order.

Order 66 could be found in the document entitled Contingency Orders for the Grand Army of the Republic: Order Initiation, Orders 1 through 150, GAR Document CO(CL) 56-95, a document containing a series of special contingency orders that covered any and all emergency situations, which the clones that comprised the GAR were prepared to execute, immediately and without question, and only in specific cases of extreme necessity. Some of these orders concerned contingencies any armed force could conceivably face. Many dealt with contingencies specifically involving the GAR Supreme Commander—in this case, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine—and the effect on the chain of command were he ever to become incapacitated or declared unfit to issue orders. In particular, Order 65 dealt with the detention and possible execution of the Supreme Chancellor by the Republic, further hiding the true intention of Order 66. Sufficiently buried among the other one hundred forty-nine orders so as to almost escape notice, Contingency Order 66 specifically dealt with the effect on the chain of command were issues to arise involving the Jedi.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Order_66

First obstacle is there doesn't seem to be any legal way for the republic to commandeer men and equipment in order to form any sort of army to fight under the banner of the senate. Assuming they have legal authority to do this or miracle vote one into existence it's a monumental task to organize a force like this and it's made nearly impossible if the governments forced to give up their ships and men are not feeling cooperative. If the governments do go along, you're stuck with a force of wildly varying capabilities and a supply nightmare of galactic proportions.

Didn't the Military Creation Act basically solve that problem?

All this has to be done extremely fast without any real previous framework to base it on and to top it off, you just gave more political ammunition to factions providing the bulk of the men and material to the new army of the senate and this is not what Palpatine would want because it could undermine his political influence in the senate once the real shooting starts.

Palpatine's policies during the Clone Wars were to fellate the racist tendencies of the human dominated Core Worlds, so he -already- pandered to the political factions of the dominant population/powers in the Republic, especially after the Separatists did some anti-human violence/atrocities against human populated core worlds.

The initial wave off assassinations was to damage the Jedi order to a degree it's command structure is fractured and Palpy can just sweep in and declare them all traitors. You can accomplish this by getting rid of relatively few individuals and in the short run the assassination doesn't need to succeed in killing them, it suffices you drive them into hiding and keep them there till you've established yourself and your rule. Then you go out and finish them off.

I suspect you will have somehing straight out of Ancient Rome/China with a few fleets "proclaiming" for the Jedi or the Jedi going warlord and going to Coruscant to fight against the "usurper tyrant of legitimate authority". Remember the Jedi have acted as chancellors to stabilize things before.

Another way that regular troops would've made a difference over conditioned clones, is that there is no way to guarantee that 100% of them would go along with the New Order. Someone who signs on to defend freedom and democracy might not necessarily turn into a Stormtrooper for the New Order just because the Senate voted it into being. I think that if they'd had Regular troops instead of brainwashed Clones, the Empire would have been on far shakier ground in it's formative stages. Remember that a significant portion of the non-clone Republic Officer corps went on to defect from the Empire and join the Rebellion. With a fully-regular army, there may have been organized military resistance to Palpatine's assumption of power rather than just a few scattered Separatist holdouts and Jedi-led rebels. On top of providing a method of wiping out the Jedi, the Clones and their conditioning provided a ready-made and completely loyal army to enforce the New Order.

Those same troops would have developed racist and humanocentric tendencies from stories of human worlds being wiped out by biological weapons among other things. Without the Jedi around to mediate the "kill them all" mentality among some soldiers I could see a lot more of the rank and file being loyal to the New Order out of a collective sense of shock and hatred from the war and seeing the New Order as a way to never see that happen again. Also I dont think as many officers defected as you think. In On eof the Wraith Squadron novels it is mentioned there was a certain dance conducted by old repubiic and imperial officers from the core worlds. Because few of those kinds of officers defected to the alliance/new republic, that tradition never took whole in the New Republic military.

Forming a cohesive army out of all the disparate planetary militias and Navies in a civilization as vast and outright disfunctional as the Republic would be a massive undertaking, wrought with factional politics and logistical nightmares. Just the sort of clusterfuck that would give the CIS a decisive advantage and possibly enable them to win the war.

It was done before, and the difference is that the CIS is not exactly overrunning many worlds during the beginning of the war, they were mainly fighting for independence so were more defensive. They did take over some border worlds though.

Then in their arrogance, the Jedi fell in to the role of generals that the Jedi of old had been, failing to realize that their current peacekeeping philosophy left them unequipped to handle that role.

The Jedi have ALWAYS done that though. And Windo mentions "We're keepers of the peace, not soldiers".

Of course the shit he said about "defective" clones disappearing is blatantly contradicted by TCW, where a Clone who came out completely fucked up is given a job as a janitor on Kamino.

The Jedi intervened? Apparently they did to prevent the needless killing of Clones.

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.

Palpatine used certain clones which were more 'loyal' or expected to do that more likely, according to Battlefront II when he sent parts of the 501st to fight alongside Jedi. I guess they were backup to make sure the orders were fulfilled.

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

The Senate, or a higher ranking Jedi apparently (see order 65 on removal, capture and possible execution of the chancellor)

Probably because they figured that Palpatine, having been (presumably) born on Naboo, was tested for Midichlorians and came up negative?

I don't think midichlorian tests or force-sensitivity tests are exactly common in the Star Wars Galaxy..

[RogueIce]

Also, I wonder what happened to Jedi who were commanding fleets and were surrounded by non-clone troops (Venators and Victory-class SDs used non-clone crew a lot).

Well The Clone Wars has largely clone crews being showed for the big ships, though how representative it was galaxy-wide is debatable I suppose.

Still, like the Galactic Empire and its ISDs with stormtroopers, I imagine they would have clone troopers as security if nothing else, so there's that.

Probably because they figured that Palpatine, having been (presumably) born on Naboo, was tested for Midichlorians and came up negative?

I don't think midichlorian tests or force-sensitivity tests are exactly common in the Star Wars Galaxy..

Well Qui Gon did say if Anakin was born in the Republic he would have been found in TPM, IIRC. Though granted he didn't explain how that would have happened. I think. Imperfect memory and all that.

Has the EU ever actually gone over this or is it largely speculation?

[StarSword]

Probably because they figured that Palpatine, having been (presumably) born on Naboo, was tested for Midichlorians and came up negative?

How Palpatine escaped early detection is the Death Star-sized plot hole that runs through the entire prequel trilogy.

I dunno if Karpyshyn's Darth Plagueis book went into it (I mostly stopped reading the EU after Legacy of the Force turned out to be worse than freaking Darksaber, though Coruscant Nights turned out to be pretty good) but I have a theory that Palps' master scooped him up early and kept him hidden until he could teach him to keep a lid on his powers when the Jedi were around, and paid or mind-tricked someone to doctor the books.

I frankly prefer the solution Darths & Droids came up with (Palps being a retired Jedi). It's really scary how the series makes more sense as an RPG campaign gone way the fuck off the rails.

I don't think midichlorian tests or force-sensitivity tests are exactly common in the Star Wars Galaxy..

They're apparently common enough that they can be done by the computer on a royal yacht from some random planet in the ass end of nowhere. Okay, I'm exaggerating on the "ass end of nowhere" bit, but the former is right out of TPM.

[Saxtonite]

Well The Clone Wars has largely clone crews being showed for the big ships, though how representative it was galaxy-wide is debatable I suppose.

Still, like the Galactic Empire and its ISDs with stormtroopers, I imagine they would have clone troopers as security if nothing else, so there's that.

It was only shown for the Venators. The Victory fleet wasnt stated to be crewed by clones, and their officers were from the rebuilt Republic Navy. Granted, Yularen etc was a naval liaison on the ships crewed by clones but it would be interesting to see what happened to a Jedi Knight on a Mandator-II in the Outer Rim sieges if he was able to detect 'weirdness' from the people around him or whatnot. This prolly won't be enough to get the Jedi to be able to commander the fleet and return to Coruscant to fight Palpatine, but it'd be interesting. Commander the fleet and retreat into the outer rim? give 'good day' to his soldiers as he leaves? etc.

I don't think midichlorian tests or force-sensitivity tests are exactly common in the Star Wars Galaxy..

Well Qui Gon did say if Anakin was born in the Republic he would have been found in TPM, IIRC. Though granted he didn't explain how that would have happened. I think. Imperfect memory and all that.

Has the EU ever actually gone over this or is it largely speculation?[/quote]

I dont know of any EU sources. Well Darth Plaguesis might have info on that, I never read it though. My best guess is that was a generalized test for people born on worlds who were members of the Republic. I suspect most people who give birth to force-sensitives do NOT give them up to the Jedi Order though

They're apparently common enough that they can be done by the computer on a royal yacht from some random planet in the ass end of nowhere. Okay, I'm exaggerating on the "ass end of nowhere" bit, but the former is right out of TPM.

Yeah that is true. Also you arent exxagerating, Tatooine IS the ass-end of nowhere, remember what Luke said in Ep 4?

[StarSword]

They're apparently common enough that they can be done by the computer on a royal yacht from some random planet in the ass end of nowhere. Okay, I'm exaggerating on the "ass end of nowhere" bit, but the former is right out of TPM.

Yeah that is true. Also you arent exxagerating, Tatooine IS the ass-end of nowhere, remember what Luke said in Ep 4?

Just a correction here: I was referring to Naboo, where the ship came from, not Tatooine where they performed the test. Naboo's in the Outer Rim, sure, but it's a member of the Republic and apparently reasonably well-off. What I meant was, why would they bother giving the ship's computer on a space yacht for the queen the capability to test for midi-chlorians if it wasn't a fairly straightforward and common test?

[Havok]

Also, Luke is an authority on jack and fucking shit. Whiny teenagers think everywhere sucks if their friends all left.

Take a look at his actual life, he has his own car, his own fucking JET AIRPLANE, he can go hunting and screwing around whenever he wants, oh except when he has to do his chores.

If you want to cite Tattooine being the armpit of the taint of the galaxy, use anything but Luke.

[Saxtonite]

Just a correction here: I was referring to Naboo, where the ship came from, not Tatooine where they performed the test. Naboo's in the Outer Rim, sure, but it's a member of the Republic and apparently reasonably well-off. What I meant was, why would they bother giving the ship's computer on a space yacht for the queen the capability to test for midi-chlorians if it wasn't a fairly straightforward and common test?

Ok.

Also, Luke is an authority on jack and fucking shit. Whiny teenagers think everywhere sucks if their friends all left.

Take a look at his actual life, he has his own car, his own fucking JET AIRPLANE, he can go hunting and screwing around whenever he wants, oh except when he has to do his chores.

If you want to cite Tattooine being the armpit of the taint of the galaxy, use anything but Luke.

Even if you are from a well-off family in a small town (for comparison), you still are in a small town and know that there are giant cities with millions of people there with all sorts of cool things, and in response you feel pretty restricted by the social life of being there when you think you can have much more.

Given Owen's reactions, apparently Luke was wanting to get out since -before- all his friends left. And remember, there still are people he knows on Tattooine there, only Biggs left.

[NecronLord]

Then in their arrogance, the Jedi fell in to the role of generals that the Jedi of old had been, failing to realize that their current peacekeeping philosophy left them unequipped to handle that role. And because they were ill-equipped for that role, the war demanded the entirety of their focus and effort, so much that they failed to look the Clone Army gift horse in the mouth. Maybe if the Jedi hadn't been so focused on fighting the enemy with the Clones, they would have realized they were using the Devil's tools, metaphorically speaking. They would have investigated the creation of the Clone Army, and realized that it was Dooku who paid for it.

I'd just like to point out there's nothing in the films to suggest the Jedi have any kind of qualm whatsoever about using the slave army. And why should they? The Jedi own slaves, kill them at will, force them into battle, and do every kind of depraved shit to them, and there is every indication the Jedi order has been doing this since the second it first rose.

Here a technician in the employ of the Jedi order lobotomizes a slave's brain so that a republic officer can ride his body around into battle. Luke Skywalker offers two of his slaves to Jabba the Hutt, as a gift, to open negotiations for Han Solo.

Not a Jedi, but Bail Organa actually executes Prequel-3P0; OT-3P0 is a different person (also a slave).

There's no reason in the canon to think the Jedi think of clones more like biologically bred beings than they think of them like 'droids. In the EU, certainly, there are some who do not hold with the 'droid army, but in the films, or the series, there's nothing suggesting the Jedi have any more concern for their clones than say, Whorm Loathsom, has for his droids. The Jedi do own sapient beings, and use them as they see fit, and I have not once seen them release one of their slaves.

[Havok]