Are OT Stormtroopers Clones?

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-05-31 03:37pm

I didn't think they were, and I still don't given what I've read in the EU, but my friend takes the throwaway line "aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?" to mean all troopers are the same height and therefore clones.

The two we hear talking in ep IV have different voices, and in ROTJ we see military personnel with different faces.

Anyone got an opinion on this? Personally, I think cloning an army was more expensive than recruiting kids from a billion star systems.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-05-31 03:41pm

Clones don't have the same voices--they're not neccessarily the same height, either. They are not all clones of the same line, either. There are many templates.

Only some Stormtroopers are clones. Navy and Army enlisted and officer personnel are normal people.

Proof of Stormtrooper Clones

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-05-31 03:46pm

How do you explain Davin Felth, the Stormtrooper from Tales of the Empire? Or Kyp Durron's brother. Both conscripts/enlisted into the Imperial infantry.

Davin Felth was on one of eight enlistee transports that landed on Caridia at the same time.

BTW, where are your quotes from?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-05-31 03:50pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Only some Stormtroopers are clones.

As the Imperial Sourcebook put it: "Stormtrooper units will continue to be formed in the usual manner, but we are always looking for exceptional soldiers for Stormtrooper duty."

Quite simply, some of the Stormtroopers are exceptional volunteers. Most are clones.

And remember, the GeNodes don't realize they're clones.

The quotes are from the official short-story "Pax Emperica--The Wookie Annhiliation" from the Galactic Battleground strategy guide. It is a fully-sanctioned EU source.

white_rabbit · Post by **white_rabbit** » 2003-05-31 03:55pm

The SW.com entry on Stormtroopers implies that after Jangos death they stopped cloning from him IIRC.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-05-31 03:56pm

Wookiee Annihalation????

I don't like the sound of that! :

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-05-31 03:57pm

white_rabbit wrote:The SW.com entry on Stormtroopers implies that after Jangos death they stopped cloning from him IIRC.

Who said they were Jango clones?

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-05-31 04:19pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:I didn't think they were, and I still don't given what I've read in the EU, but my friend takes the throwaway line "aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?" to mean all troopers are the same height and therefore clones.

They weren't all cloned from the same template. In the EU, there were General Veers clones and Baron Fel clones, for example.

The two we hear talking in ep IV have different voices, and in ROTJ we see military personnel with different faces.

A accent is not hereditary, despite the ridiculousness of AOTC. Troops raised in different areas will have different sounding voices.

Military personnel a stormtrooper does not make. You do realize that the cloned stormies were not supposed to be manning turrets, operating control panels, and controlling air traffic, right? They were meant for war at first, but had a secondary function of being a policing force on Imperial worlds.

And officers are supposed to be leading the clones, kind of like Yoda in AOTC. Even though clones do have ranks, they are still subordinant to officers who are required to give them orders.

Anyone got an opinion on this? Personally, I think cloning an army was more expensive than recruiting kids from a billion star systems.

"Millions of kids from a billion star systems" would never be as powerful or well-trained as genetically altered soldiers from a soldier who has military expertise.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2003-05-31 05:03pm

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:[
Anyone got an opinion on this? Personally, I think cloning an army was more expensive than recruiting kids from a billion star systems.
"Millions of kids from a billion star systems" would never be as powerful or well-trained as genetically altered soldiers from a soldier who has military expertise.

yeah but a lot easier snd cheaper to hire and train

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-05-31 05:10pm

Crazedwraith wrote:yeah but a lot easier snd cheaper to hire and train

Wrong. You don't pay clones, they are the Empire's property. Volunteers or drafted individuals earn wages for their services.

What's easier to train, a soldier genetically altered for docility and the purpose of being a soldier, or some random citizen off the streets?

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2003-06-01 05:10am

According to the visuals and voices in the OT, no, they can't all be clones (or it stretches believability).

According to logic, no, they probably aren't all clones, even if they are clones of different people or modified from the ones seen in AOTC. It would be too time consuming and expensive (going by the figures in AOTC) to make a galactic army based on cloning. Of course maybe the techniques improve quickly enough and more cloners are used... who knows? But with the canon data, unlikely.

According to the EU, no. Nobody "knew" they were clones until AOTC, despite the 1980's article describing them as clones (which the EU authors pretty much ignored utterly).

According to GL (as quoted in the AOTC DVD audio commentary), yes, they are clones (and he always intended that, according to him). This flat out contradicts much of the EU. So unless he recants or the EU authors set to work patching the holes (as I'm sure they have already begun to do), this will remain...

Will he change his mind? Will he explain it further in Episode III? Will the EU authors make clever excuses and work-arounds to retcon the various problems? Will Lucas re-edit the original films again to make the Stormtroopers more clone-like?

We'll have to wait and see....

Truth be told it seems this is all GL's fault. He gave no indication in ANH that they were (and he could easily have made them the same height and have the same voice with the technology and budget of the time) so he must have changed his mind sometime after the first film (which would explain why the article that said they were clones came out in the 80's). He just didn't do a good enough job of informing the EU authors, hence they created their stories with the impression that the Stormtroopers were NOT clones, and in fact cloning was rare, secretive and taboo, hence the shock it created with the Cloned Emperor, Thrawn's cloned soldiers, and Joruus C'Baoth/Luuke, etc.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-06-01 05:16am

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:Volunteers or drafted individuals earn wages for their services.

What about my theory, which involved orphans being kidnapped at a very young age and brainwashed???

BTW, don't forget that cloners need wage too.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2003-06-01 05:18am

The Jedi can take force sensitive children from their homes and train them from an early age.

Why can't the Empire do the same with their soldiers as they see fit?
(granted the numbers for the Jedi would be much smaller... how the heck do they muster the manpower to nab all the force skilled kids in the first place if there are only 10,000 Jedi?).

And just recruit the officers from loyal or powerful families.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2003-06-01 06:02am

Kurgan wrote:The Jedi can take force sensitive children from their homes and train them from an early age.

Why can't the Empire do the same with their soldiers as they see fit?
(granted the numbers for the Jedi would be much smaller... how the heck do they muster the manpower to nab all the force skilled kids in the first place if there are only 10,000 Jedi?).

And just recruit the officers from loyal or powerful families.

I'm guessing that the Emperor used the Jedi Child snatching trick as progander so he could villifiy and exterminate them. So he couldn't be seen doing the same thing now could he?

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-06-01 08:46am

Simon H.Johansen wrote:What about my theory, which involved orphans being kidnapped at a very young age and brainwashed???

All evidence points to people volunteering to go to the Imperial Academy, like Luke in ANH. Davin Felth, Kyp Durron's brother, Piett, Ozzel, and Daala all joined the Imperial military under their own will.

The only people the Empire ever kidnapped was Force-sensitives.

BTW, don't forget that cloners need wage too.

And their troops are many times better for it. Plus, a galaxy-spanning empire like the GE has enough funds to throw around to where they can afford the best of the best.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-06-01 02:13pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Anyone got an opinion on this? Personally, I think cloning an army was more expensive than recruiting kids from a billion star systems.

You're right.

Stormtroopers-as-clones is economically, sociologically, and politically assinine.

But it isn't up to me.

Durron is a single example--and he wasn't by any standard a normal stormie.

It appears they nabbed him, brainwashed him, and destroyed his identity by forcing him to go through the training at Carida, than they slapped a set of armor on the guy, and made him patrol the Palace.

Seems like they just might have punished political prisioners by sending them or their family members through stormie regimen to erase their identity and life. Durron was never really assigned to anything like a real stormie though--it seems that these punished kids aren't trusted to be reliable and up to the stormie par--so they get stuck patrolling hallways in some palace somewhere.

All evidence points to a stormtrooper force of exceptional volunteers and clones.

Period.

une · Post by **une** » 2003-06-01 03:19pm

You know, there is an old article that was printed in a promotional magazine back when ESB was first released that says the Stormtroopers are clones.

Here's an excerpt.

The creation of an Imperial Stormtrooper. A clones man is one of a group of genetically identical himans, an asssemblyline product. He is a thinking, but he serces a specific purpose and no other. A clone has no mother; only his trainers, and he accetps his fate because he believes it is inevitable. A clone is, physically and emotionally, a nomral man. He simply has no human rights and no name. He is the property of the Emperor. Soldiers fully formed in the growth tanks quickly proved impractical. Scientists found the befuddles fathers of one hundred sixty pound blubbering idiots. A fetus is now removed from the hatchery after gestation peros of sixty weeks as is delivered immediately into hands of it's traners.

If anyone wants I can email a copyu of the article to you. It's a lot longer and gives details on training and such.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-06-01 03:35pm

Don't worry; we've seen it. Thanks though.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-06-01 05:09pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Anyone got an opinion on this? Personally, I think cloning an army was more expensive than recruiting kids from a billion star systems.

Thats why they got the Imperial Army

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-06-01 05:25pm

Why are we even discussing something that was debated to death months ago. CC go run a thread search.

white_rabbit · Post by **white_rabbit** » 2003-06-01 06:40pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:
white_rabbit wrote:The SW.com entry on Stormtroopers implies that after Jangos death they stopped cloning from him IIRC.

Who said they were Jango clones?

Thats what I meant, with Jango dead, then the differences in the Stormies is explained by clones of different people.

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