What are Stormtroopers

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2003-12-31 02:49pm

Clones? Genetically altered people? Indoctrinated poor saps? Recruits? Or like a bunch of all of them?

Well, in the Fanfic forum, we were on the verge of a debate on this issue, so I just decided to bring it here. I'm barely versed in Star Wars stuff, so I'll ask you guys.

From my view, Stormies are mostly recruits.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2003-12-31 03:04pm

Okay, here goes. While AOTC made it pretty obvious that the Imperial Stormtroopers were derived from the Clone Army of the Republic there is an absolute mountain of EU evidence against modern clone stormtroopers. How big was the Republic's army? It numbered in the millions. While a modern Earth nation can't possibly hope to produce an army that large and still that well equiped, on a galactic scale that is infinitesimally small. During its decades long reign the Empire always maintained a decent garrison on every worthwhile planet or moon within its territory, while at the same time keeping large detachments of soldiers aboard their Navy ships. Using clones for such a large scale pacification force like the stormtroopers just isn't practical because they take YEARS to produce. (Yes, I know the Spaarti method is faster than the Kaminoan method but the former has other problems) On the other hand, it takes just a few months to train/indoctrinate/brainwash a recruit. Stormtroopers weren't just brought in off the street either. They were drawn from other branches like Army Infantry, Navy Security and the ISB.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2003-12-31 03:07pm

You're poll makes no sense. They were heavily indoctrinated, but regular humans. So it's 2 answers.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2003-12-31 03:08pm

I think by "indoctrination" he mains trained from birth, like Universal Soldier or something to that effect.

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2003-12-31 03:12pm

Well, much of the EU makes vague hints and notions to 'indoctrination from youth'. When Allston was talking about Piggy in Iron Fist, Piggy says that "But I feel no special loyalty to the Emperor. I recieved nothing like the brainwashing Stormtroopers are given from their youth." Or something to that effect, I don't have the books with me. It doesn't say whether or not they're clones, but it does indicate that Joe off the street doesn't become a Stormie.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-12-31 03:18pm

It seems most likely to me that the Clonetroopers were the beginnings of the Stormtrooper corps, but a great many normal humans had to be recruited to make up for the tiny numbers of clones.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2003-12-31 03:22pm

There's a passage that states that stormtroopers were brought up to be fanatically loyal to the Emperor. And there is evidence that stormtroopers are "recruited" at a young age, so they are indocrinated.

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2003-12-31 03:24pm

StormTrooperTR889 wrote:There's a passage that states that stormtroopers were brought up to be fanatically loyal to the Emperor. And there is evidence that stormtroopers are "recruited" at a young age, so they are indocrinated.

If they were indoctrinated, I would not believe they would care for a piece of technology like how cool the XP-38 IIRC is.

~Jason

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2003-12-31 03:35pm

Lazy Raptor wrote:I think by "indoctrination" he mains trained from birth, like Universal Soldier or something to that effect.

Yeah. I meant like cooped up in education centers and trained and turned into ruthless killing machines with absolute no remorse and being forced to recite "I LOVE PALPATINE" for days on end.

By the way, can anyone tell me whatever happened after episode 10 of the Klawn Warz cartoons? CN overhere in the Philippines stopped airing after episode 10, cheap bitches.....

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2003-12-31 05:03pm

Episode 10 of Clones Wars was the end of the first season. New season sometime in the 1st quarter of 2004.

My take is that the stormtroopers are a mixed corp, with both clones and recruits.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2003-12-31 05:19pm

How do games and comic books rank in the evidence department?
There are a few instances of stormtroopers having rather rich personal histories.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2003-12-31 06:33pm

Games are at the bottom of the tier. Comics books, I believe, are on the level of novels, unless it's a graphic novelisation of an existing book.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2003-12-31 06:49pm

It was a big deal in the Thrawn Trilogy when they discovered that some stormies were clones. I took that to mean that clones were almost unheard of.

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2003-12-31 07:42pm

Cloning is considered immoral in Star Wars, correct (or is that just Stravo's fanfic, getting mixed up). If so, then there's no reason the Empire would make public the fact that they use clones.

EDIT: Spelling

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2003-12-31 08:09pm

I'm sure some of the stigma behind cloning stems from Jedi philosopy. I don't remember the details but a lot of the problem with the Spaarti method was "clone madness" that set in due to conflicts between the clone and the host within the Force. Thrawn's forces were able to counter this by keeping ysalamiri in proximity of the cylinders. The Kaminoans minimalized the problem by just growing their clowns more slowly. As for the Clone Army, their true nature was public knowledge wasn't it? It would be hard to hold a Senate vote on it if it wasn't.

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2003-12-31 08:19pm

Lazy Raptor wrote:As for the Clone Army, their true nature was public knowledge wasn't it? It would be hard to hold a Senate vote on it if it wasn't.

Not true. Governments don't need to reveal all facets of their dealings to the people, much less in a time of war. The people would likely know that war was afoot, but not that it was going to be an army formed of Clones.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2003-12-31 08:36pm

It must have been public knowledge if people felt so strongly about it to hit senators important to the debate. Imagine the outrage if the government was tight-lipped about how it planned to defend itself from threats by the CIS. Granted no one expected the Confederacy to come up with a droid army that quickly...

[Edit] Botched quote. Oops...

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2003-12-31 08:42pm

It must have been public knowledge if people felt so strongly about it to hit senators important to the debate.

There are plenty of reasons why someone would want to assasinate a Senator. Zam Wessel was hired by Palpatine or one of Palpatine's cronies, IIRC, meaning that not everyone would have had to know about the clones, only Palpy.

Imagine the outrage if the government was tight-lipped about how it planned to defend itself from threats by the CIS.

The government is tight-lipped about specific plans to defend against the enemy, otherwise the enemy can analyse and exploit them. They can easily say they plan to mobilise a huge army without accounting for every individual soldier's background.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2004-01-01 12:09am

Offhand I cannot dig up the oft-used quote of Illuminatus Primus's from Pax Empirica: The Wookiee Anihilation due to my inability to use the archive board search (my username is "locked" on there for reasons unknown). Still, if my memory serves me the gist of it is this:

60% of Imperial stormtroopers are recruited and trained on worlds like Carida, while the other 40% are aquired through the "usual manner". Which would be cloning.

I suspect that there were many, many different avatars used so that the Rebels never caught on that the Empire was using clones, thus validating everyones shock in Dark Force Rising when they uncovered Thrawn's clone troops.

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2004-01-01 04:23am

There was a guidebook that came out before the novelisation, that stated that there were rumours that the Emperor had used immoral cloning chambers to clone stormtroopers.

So, its most likely a mixture of the two. Clonetroopers as well as regular joes, heavily indoctrinated.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-01-01 05:02am

PainRack wrote:There was a guidebook that came out before the novelisation, that stated that there were rumours that the Emperor had used immoral cloning chambers to clone stormtroopers.

So, its most likely a mixture of the two. Clonetroopers as well as regular joes, heavily indoctrinated.

I agree with you. Stormtroopers are likely a mix both normal recruits and clone soldiers.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2004-01-01 05:03am

Then why is it such a big deal when they figure out they're using clones?

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-01-01 06:28am

StormTrooperTR889 wrote:Then why is it such a big deal when they figure out they're using clones?

Cloning was illegal in The Empire, so wouldn't it come as a bit of a shock to people that the Empire used it to replenish the ranks of its armies?

As for my opinion - the Stormtrooper Corps can impossibly be enittirely made up of clones. Canon evidence towards it (in ANH, we clearly see that Stormtroopers have different height), and there's also the fact that cloning the troops and raising them from birth is much more expensive than recruiting them at a mature age.

However - it's entirely possible that the Empire orders cloned Stormtrooper regiments just to ensure the loyalty of planets whose entire economies are devoted to biotechnology. (To be honest, I'm not sure whether there are other planets than Kamino which practically don't have other products than clones)

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2004-01-01 09:20am

Well, there is several canon evidence, that Stormtroopers can't be clones. At least not a signicifant portion.
-All Stormtroopers got individual hight. The clones as seen in AOTC all are the same hight.
-All Stomtroopers who actually speak have different voices, impossible if they were clones.
-Han and Luke diclothed two Stormtroopers in ANH. If they were clones, so looking the same, why aren't they as shocked as in the Thrawn trilogy? So they can't be clones.
-The commander in the Death Star prison wondered about the strange behaviour of the two troopers, but not seemed to get suspicious because of thier voices and Luke's hight. He would have sounded the alarms at once, if Stormtroopers would be clones, because Luke hight only would have told him, that this would be an imposter.
-The two Stormtroopers at the tractor beam control sounded bored because of "yet another drill" and began to talk about other things to kill time. Clones with progammed commands would never be so lax.
-Stormtrooper officers not always wear armor, like the officer with the pure golden rank plaque in ANH in the hangar. Would be suspicous if they all look the same....

I hink that should make it all clear, that Stormtroopers are totally normal soldiers.....

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-01-01 10:00am

Tribun wrote: -All Stormtroopers got individual hight. The clones as seen in AOTC all are the same hight.

Clones can be from several different original humans.

-All Stomtroopers who actually speak have different voices, impossible if they were clones.

Ditto.

-Han and Luke diclothed two Stormtroopers in ANH. If they were clones, so looking the same, why aren't they as shocked as in the Thrawn trilogy? So they can't be clones.

They each could've been from different templates.

-The commander in the Death Star prison wondered about the strange behaviour of the two troopers, but not seemed to get suspicious because of thier voices and Luke's hight. He would have sounded the alarms at once, if Stormtroopers would be clones, because Luke hight only would have told him, that this would be an imposter.

He was already suspicious, and was about to clear it when all hell broke loose- but again, templates.

-The two Stormtroopers at the tractor beam control sounded bored because of "yet another drill" and began to talk about other things to kill time. Clones with progammed commands would never be so lax.

Who says clones have "programmed commands"?

-Stormtrooper officers not always wear armor, like the officer with the pure golden rank plaque in ANH in the hangar. Would be suspicous if they all look the same....

Eh?

I hink that should make it all clear, that Stormtroopers are totally normal soldiers.....

Well, the only thing I can say is that George Lucas says no- I'm playing devil's advocate here, I have yet to form an opinion.