How was the creation of the Clone Army financed?

[Metahive]

This is something that has bugged already for quite some time, how did Dooku/Sidious manage to raise the necessary funds for the creation of the Clone Army, in secret no less? I presume an army/navy plus equipment worthy of fighting on a galactic scale would be horribly expensive and probably eat up a good portion of the budget of the million worlds+ Republic and I don't think either of the Sith could pay it out of their own pockets. At the time of its creation, Palpatine was just elected chancellor, did he embezzle the money out of the yearly budget without anyone noticing? Is it discussed in any of the novelizations?
Please help me out here, thank you.

[Metahive]

Ooooh, complete brainfart. Would a mod please move this to the appropriate forum? Thanks.

[Sarevok]

George W Bush used the pretext of Iraq invasion to funnel funds into the clone army ?

[Ghost Rider]

The AoTC novelization discussed that the Jedi had the ability to procure vast funds from the Senate from a discretionary fund and the Senate never really thought of anything of said purchase by said Jedi.

[Metahive]

The big question was: what exactly was the clone army? Was it just the troopers, or did that order include warships and other heavy equipment?

It isn't much of an army without either, is it? Someone had to pay for it either way.

With just troopers, the whole thing could have been done on credit.

The guy who ordered it was a Jedi master - he might have excellent credit. Moreover, the goods weren't turned over until some time later, so the cloners might have been ok with the credit extension anyway, since if they didn't pay the bill, they could simply keep the army for themselves and resell it to someone else to recoup the cost.

Giving credit when the senate itself hadn't yet decided on whether an army should be raised at all would have been rather foolhardy. Who could they sell that army to otherwise? The CIS doesn't need it and nobody else could possibly raise the necessary money. Also, what would Kamino alone need a galactic army for? Armies are massive money sinks when not used for their primary purpose.

Even if they did make up front or recurring payments, hiding it in some other budget works for me. Surely, the Republic's and Jedi Order's budgets were so big and confusing that something could be slipped in without drawing too much attention. Maintaining and training people doesn't need to be super expensive.

In my opinion, something that needs as many resources and involvement of so many people as an army fit for galactic warfare is just something you can't keep hidden so perfectly without severely straining SOD. I also can't imagine the Jedi (republican bureaucrats being another matter) being so oblivious as to not notice giant amounts of funds being deducted from their accounts for unknown purposes. Even if it was done in lots of small margins (organizing that would have been a nightmare without a mole within the order), someone should have been alerted that there's a giant budget deficit.

Also, why did no one notice outfits like KDY and SFS suddenly pumping out huge amounts of warships?

The AoTC novelization discussed that the Jedi had the ability to procure vast funds from the Senate from a discretionary fund and the Senate never really thought of anything of said purchase by said Jedi.

The fact alone that an organization with unclear connection to the republican government and rather questionable official oversight at best as the Jedi Order could secure such huge amounts of money without the people responsible giving it a second thought should have been enough to drive half the systems into secession.

[Metahive]

Well, it depends on what the Republic already had. The certainly had existing transports, at least. If they just wanted an army to occupy a place, they could share transports with other organizations.

Considering that all the personal on board the republican warships are clones too I somehow doubt they were drawing from existing stock in that regard at least. Also, that would make the circle of those who had to be in the know even bigger.

The galaxy is a big place. Alderaan and Naboo both operated their own militaries (security volunteers in Naboo's case, but Alderaan sure seemed well organized, given their contributions to the Rebel Alliance). There's private military companies throughout the EU as well.

Even then they would only acquire fractions of it...and I seriously doubt that individual planets juicing up their local armies like that would go over without controversy within the Republic.

edit: Why would the clone facilities exist there in the first place if there were no other buyers? /edit

It really depends on just how big the order was. I don't think the size of the clone army was ever given; perhaps it was just a small part of the overall army in the civil war, led personally by the jedi while many other fights were done by local planets' forces. (I know there's no solid evidence to support that, just throwing it out as a possibility. I think it silly that the galactic civil war would be fought entirely by clones from one planet anyway.)

A small clone force is a lot easier to finance and hide, however it was done.


But, I don't know though, I find it all pretty unbelievable too.

Size? 3.000.000 "units".

That aside, there are troops besides the clones shown in both the Clone War series and ROTS. It's only that those are always localized military. Twi'lek guerilla on Ryloth, Wookie warriors on Kashyyyk, Dug soldiers on Malastare etc. The only non-Jedi, non-clone, non-locale specific soldier so much shown with any regularity is Admiral "Token Minority" Yularen. That he's an admiral could mean there was some pre-existing force but then again, Jar-Jar, Luke, Lando and Han were made "generals" in such a short amount of time that this doesn't amount to much either.

[Adam Reynolds]

Size? 3.000.000 "units".

That aside, there are troops besides the clones shown in both the Clone War series and ROTS. It's only that those are always localized military. Twi'lek guerilla on Ryloth, Wookie warriors on Kashyyyk, Dug soldiers on Malastare etc. The only non-Jedi, non-clone, non-locale specific soldier so much shown with any regularity is Admiral "Token Minority" Yularen. That he's an admiral could mean there was some pre-existing force but then again, Jar-Jar, Luke, Lando and Han were made "generals" in such a short amount of time that this doesn't amount to much either.

Where did you get the number of 3 million units? The only number given was the 1.2 million units. The only was to use the 3 million number is to accept Travis's BS numbers.

Also you mentioned the presence of local forces, however these local forces are clearly not the majority of the fighting force in any of their battles.

Admiral Yularen was clearly an officer in the Republic Navy which did have non-clone forces in many depictions. Also in Jedi Trial we see a fairly large number of non-clone republic army forces. This was also seen in many other works in the original Clone Wars multimedia project.

[Riquende]

The AoTC novelization discussed that the Jedi had the ability to procure vast funds from the Senate from a discretionary fund and the Senate never really thought of anything of said purchase by said Jedi.

Off topic, but why? The Jedi are a monastic order than shun luxury & possessions, don't require capital ships (even a 'secret' meeting in TPM used a Republic transport), and I'm sure the entire Order doesn't have a personal starfighter (looking at you, Jocasta Nu). There had been no major wars for close to 1,000 years by this point, so why give the Jedi huge funding when they probably don't want or need it?

[Star Wars 888]

Did anyone else notice that the PT was basically like a fictional grand conspiracy theory?

A main problem with conspiracy theories (like the PT one) is that they often require a HUGE number of people to be in it (in this scenario to notice the huge money being spent and/or to give it to Sidious/Palpatine) and to somehow keep them quite. Keeping secrets between two people is hard enough, but hundreds, thousands or in Sidious's/Palpatine's case possibly billions or trillions of people? A virtual impossibility.

[Talhe]

I always figured that Sideous and Dooku helped fund the army. Dooku came from royalty and had money, and Sideous is a master of deception and scheming, as well as heir to the Sith legacy.

[Cykeisme]

I also can't imagine the Jedi (republican bureaucrats being another matter) being so oblivious as to not notice giant amounts of funds being deducted from their accounts for unknown purposes. Even if it was done in lots of small margins (organizing that would have been a nightmare without a mole within the order), someone should have been alerted that there's a giant budget deficit.

Meh, maybe the loan officer got hit by a Jedi mind trick, or just conventional lies convinced him.

Those are interesting points. How exactly does the timeline go? Does Count Dooku leave the Jedi Order some time before the Kaminoans are contracted, or does he leave after that? If he only left after setting up the deal, he could be the mole. Wasn't he a member of the Jedi High Council?
A lot of Force mind manipulation may have been involved; since he was actually a Sith Lord, he wouldn't have cared that he was being a dick.
Meanwhile, Palpatine's web of manipulation may have extended far beyond what we are actually shown in the movies and other fiction, and unlike implausible real-life conspiracies, a Sith Lord may well have the ability to ensure the silence of participants, or likewise, root out and eliminate leaks.

Besides, don't forget that even this incarnation of the Sith order has already existed for a thousand years by this point in time, preparing to take control of the galaxy all this time. Presumably that given an entire millenium, every one of them trained to use the dark side of the Force, they could have amassed an impressive fortune through both legitimate and illegitimate means.

Also, why did no one notice outfits like KDY and SFS suddenly pumping out huge amounts of warships?

This is a better question, actually.
When we consider the difficulty of hiding the budget allocation and actual growing/training of the clones themselves, it pales in comparison to the effort needed to conceal the cost and construction of the war fleet.
Even if there were hundreds of billions of individual clones, even trillions, they could have been grown in submerged high density facilities on Kamino, and trained either there, or on nearby uninhabited planets.

But how do you build a fleet of warships of a size unprecedented for the last thousand years? Did shipyards of sufficient capacity even exist, or did new shipyards have to be build beforehand?
Even with a high degree of confidentiality, wouldn't there have been a lot of laborers present to notice something odd was happening and spill the beans? Even with a lot of automation, I'd expect there to be more potential leaks on the warship construction side, compared to the clone soldier production.

[Star Wars 888]

I always figured that Sideous and Dooku helped fund the army. Dooku came from royalty and had money, and Sideous is a master of deception and scheming, as well as heir to the Sith legacy.

Not even royalty can afford to build a Galactic Navy without anybody noticing.

[Adam Reynolds]

Those are interesting points. How exactly does the timeline go? Does Count Dooku leave the Jedi Order some time before the Kaminoans are contracted, or does he leave after that? If he only left after setting up the deal, he could be the mole. Wasn't he a member of the Jedi High Council?

I'm not sure exactly whether or not he left the order before he made the initial order, but according to the video game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter and the comic Jango Fett: Open Seasons, he was a full Sith at the point at which he recruited Jango Fett as the template. Also in Labyrinth of Evil Yoda explains that while the Kaminoans believed Sifo-Dyas had made the original order while Tyranus supplied the source they later showed that they had never met either party. It was also shown that Tyranus made payments to the Kaminioans for the army.

Meanwhile, Palpatine's web of manipulation may have extended far beyond what we are actually shown in the movies and other fiction, and unlike implausible real-life conspiracies, a Sith Lord may well have the ability to ensure the silence of participants, or likewise, root out and eliminate leaks.

There is evidence for this theory in the comic Republic #64 Bloodlines. When a Jedi suggests to Palpatine a possible way to find the Sith Lord, he has him sent of to the front lines and left for dead. In Republic # 61 Dead Ends, he also attempted to eliminate Senator Bail Organa as well as succeeding in eliminating former Chancellor Valorumn when the two of them became too politically active against him.

Besides, don't forget that even this incarnation of the Sith order has already existed for a thousand years by this point in time, preparing to take control of the galaxy all this time. Presumably that given an entire millenium, every one of them trained to use the dark side of the Force, they could have amassed an impressive fortune through both legitimate and illegitimate means.

There is also the fact that Dooku himself was extremely wealthy, given his status as the Count of Serenno.

Even if there were hundreds of billions of individual clones, even trillions, they could have been grown in submerged high density facilities on Kamino, and trained either there, or on nearby uninhabited planets.

The Republic Commando game implied that the training was mostly done in holographic simulators. It is unknown what kind of training vehicle crews received however.

But how do you build a fleet of warships of a size unprecedented for the last thousand years? Did shipyards of sufficient capacity even exist, or did new shipyards have to be build beforehand?
Even with a high degree of confidentiality, wouldn't there have been a lot of laborers present to notice something odd was happening and spill the beans? Even with a lot of automation, I'd expect there to be more potential leaks on the warship construction side, compared to the clone soldier production.

There are several major factors at play here. One factor is that Kuat Drive Yards and the Trade Federation are in an economic war started by the events that took place at Eriadu in Cloak of Deception. Due to this, Kuat Drive Yards keeps an extremely tight grip on their sector due to concerns of corporate espionage. Also given how much quicker it is to build fleets of warships than it is to clone soldiers, it would seem likely that the Republic didn't step up warship production until after Geonosis when the full force of the Republic's economy could be brought to bear against the Separatists.

EDIT:made some minor grammatical changes and added a section I forgot the first time

[Adam Reynolds]

Not even royalty can afford to build a Galactic Navy without anybody noticing.

Not an entire navy, but perhaps the opening stages of one. Kuat Drive Yards, who had already set their allegiance with the Republic regardless of the magnitude of the crisis, could be convinced to build an extremely small fleet in the system and not sortie it until Geonosis, it would be possible to keep it concealed. Remember that systems such as Kuat Drive Yards have extremely large and powerful fleets available to defend their shipyards, mixing a few of the newly developed longer ranged ships into those fleets to conceal their presence would probably be possible.

[Metahive]

Where did you get the number of 3 million units? The only number given was the 1.2 million units. The only was to use the 3 million number is to accept Travis's BS numbers.

Hence the smiley.

Also you mentioned the presence of local forces, however these local forces are clearly not the majority of the fighting force in any of their battles.

Which I never claimed. That was just me mentioning that there is republican non-clone, non-Jedi military, it's just almost always locale-specific.

Admiral Yularen was clearly an officer in the Republic Navy which did have non-clone forces in many depictions. Also in Jedi Trial we see a fairly large number of non-clone republic army forces. This was also seen in many other works in the original Clone Wars multimedia project.

Well, not in the visual media aside from comic books and graphic novels maybe.

[Adam Reynolds]

Well, not in the visual media aside from comic books and graphic novels maybe.

I was referring to the original Clone Wars materials, those published before the release of ROTS. The novels Jedi Trial and Shatterpoint both featured non-clone regular units as a part of the overall Republic military.

[Thanas]

Guys, the Clone Army was not really that strange. In a galaxy where bankers can have militaries capable of planetary invasion and destroying whole sectors, I really doubt people will look that hard at a purchase order of a (comparatively very small) Army. Heck, the whole clone army was smaller than a single sector force in terms of personnal and equipment.

[Metahive]

Guys, the Clone Army was not really that strange. In a galaxy where bankers can have militaries capable of planetary invasion and destroying whole sectors, I really doubt people will look that hard at a purchase order of a (comparatively very small) Army. Heck, the whole clone army was smaller than a single sector force in terms of personnal and equipment.

And the Republic used that limited stock for costly frontal attacks? Against an enemy who could replace its losses much easier and quicker? It's a wonder the Clone Wars weren't over in a few months.

[Thanas]

Guys, the Clone Army was not really that strange. In a galaxy where bankers can have militaries capable of planetary invasion and destroying whole sectors, I really doubt people will look that hard at a purchase order of a (comparatively very small) Army. Heck, the whole clone army was smaller than a single sector force in terms of personnal and equipment.

And the Republic used that limited stock for costly frontal attacks? Against an enemy who could replace its losses much easier and quicker? It's a wonder the Clone Wars weren't over in a few months.

No, the Republic mobilized and got member states to help with the war, which is why the clone army got used as an elite force together with the jedi. And cloning was pretty fast once the other clone planets got involved and the Kaminoans branched out.

[Metahive]

No, the Republic mobilized and got member states to help with the war, which is why the clone army got used as an elite force together with the jedi. And cloning was pretty fast once the other clone planets got involved and the Kaminoans branched out.

It would be nice to actually see this portrayed in any of the series. I mean non-clone non-Jedi troops being deployed against CIS troops elsewhere than their homeworlds.
The Kamino clone process requires ten years to get a unit combat ready, so how would branching out help there? The Clone War didn't take that long. Even when they use the Spaarti clone process to churn out troops quicker, it would still be way slower than the assembly of any basic war droid. Isn't it that it takes roughly a year to generate a clone that way? The Spaarti process also generates clones of lesser value due to the inferior flash memory training as opposed to the rigorous live exercise their Kaminoan brethren get which would make their use as elite shock troops rather questionable.

[Thanas]

No, the Republic mobilized and got member states to help with the war, which is why the clone army got used as an elite force together with the jedi. And cloning was pretty fast once the other clone planets got involved and the Kaminoans branched out.

It would be nice to actually see this portrayed in any of the series. I mean non-clone non-Jedi troops being deployed against CIS troops elsewhere than their homeworlds.
The Kamino clone process requires ten years to get a unit combat ready, so how would branching out help there? The Clone War didn't take that long. Even when they use the Spaarti clone process to churn out troops quicker, it would still be way slower than the assembly of any basic war droid. Isn't it that it takes roughly a year to generate a clone that way?

The original order was 200.000 + at least one million due for completion a few months later. And of course it takes much less time to assemble a war droid and the Novel Shatterpoint even makes a point out of it. However, note that the member states remained largely loyal to the Republic, which had the greater manufacturing capability/population in the first rate, as it could count on the core worlds, who have a level of technology, population and industry on the order of several magnitudes higher than the fringe worlds, where the Seperatists seem to have gotten most of their support from.

Also, let us not forget that Palpatine wanted the CIS to fail, so I am pretty sure they were destined to lose from the start.



Also, apparently there was a second clone program breeding millions more going on, though I got my issues with that story.

The Spaarti process also generates clones of lesser value due to the inferior flash memory training as opposed to the rigorous live exercise their Kaminoan brethren get which would make their use as elite shock troops rather questionable.

This is not supported by any Spaarti clones actually in action. In fact, clones ordered by Thrawn were always outperforming regular stormtroopers and fighter pilots.

[Metahive]

This is not supported by any Spaarti clones actually in action. In fact, clones ordered by Thrawn were always outperforming regular stormtroopers and fighter pilots.

Thrawn used a special way to create Spaarti clones (in a fraction of the time needed for the standard way no less) by involving the Ysalamiri. The Spaarti clones used without that technique like the 14th Infantry brigade tended to be extremely poor in combat quality (see Order 66: A Republican Commando Novel).

[Ronsu]

Thrawn used a special way to create Spaarti clones (in a fraction of the time needed for the standard way no less) by involving the Ysalamiri. The Spaarti clones used without that technique like the 14th Infantry brigade tended to be extremely poor in combat quality (see Order 66: A Republican Commando Novel).

I can´t for the world imagine that book´s author having massive bias against any clones other than her übermenschdalorians. It´s downright unpossible.

No wonder Traviss got the boot if she couldn´t play nice even with what other authors had put down near two decades ago.

[Adam Reynolds]

I can´t for the world imagine that book´s author having massive bias against any clones other than her übermenschdalorians. It´s downright unpossible.

No wonder Traviss got the boot if she couldn´t play nice even with what other authors had put down near two decades ago.

Actually, even as bad as Traviss was, Zahn had said something similar. In his version, Spaarti clones suffered from clone madness if they were born in an extremely short period of time(less than a year). However, over a longer period of time, there would be no issue with Spaarti clones, making them superior overall to Kaminioan clones.

As a side note, she also did not get the boot. She left of her own accord when the current Clone Wars cartoon came on the air and she was forced to deal with the New Mandalorian pacifists which ruined her Klingon warrior culture.

[Thanas]

This is not supported by any Spaarti clones actually in action. In fact, clones ordered by Thrawn were always outperforming regular stormtroopers and fighter pilots.

Thrawn used a special way to create Spaarti clones (in a fraction of the time needed for the standard way no less) by involving the Ysalamiri. The Spaarti clones used without that technique like the 14th Infantry brigade tended to be extremely poor in combat quality (see Order 66: A Republican Commando Novel).

Again, contradicted by the evidence itself. Pellaeon mentions no deficiency in ordinary Spaarti clones when talking about them to Thrawn and this is before Thrawn even mentions the Ysalamiri tactic.

As a side note, anything written by Traviss can usually be discounted because said author directly contradicted established canon in nearly every single one of her books (like Jedi needing combat training by Fett to prevail against sith).