Clone Empire.

[SOCL]

Amazing how far this debate has come. I believe that Jahled has the upper-hand, but Steller made a good point when he said that clone production on Kamino could in no way keep up with the production of droids in the Seperatist Army. Even so, Jahled has made a rebuttle by pointing out that cloning would logically have happened on other planets and not just Kamino (Wayland may, for example, be one of those facilities, though it seems to be more of a storehouse than a true cloning facility). Steller, one thing, though, is that the clone battalions may not have been conventional sized. Most military units in times of emergency are, in fact, are twice as large, so battalions may have grown to be anywhere from standard battalion size to brigade size, which would supplement against the ever-increasing droid army. Additionally, the mere fact that droids in the Seperatist Army out number the humans in the Republic really isn't an issue since we find that humans can outsmart droids quite easily (TPM: "Wait, that does not compute...um...you're under arrest.")

 

Even so, it seems that I have found a BEAK padawan....

[Stellar_Magic]

Actually I did double it in the upper estimate. (I based that number on a russian regiment, which is twice the size of other conventional army's.) Still if it took the Kaminan's ten years to start production of the clone army, it would have taken a large amount of time to get other facilities geared to do the same. For the sake of security production at those facilities could not have started until after the battle of Geonosis. Considering it appears that growth enhancements can only go so far in the films it would take perhaps as long as two to three years for those facilities to produce combat ready troops.

 

What does this mean?

 

It means that the Republic would only have perhaps as many as four to five divisions worth of troops (40,000 - 100,000) to defend thousands of star systems against a droid army that could double in size within two weeks and number in the trillions after the first year of the war. While additional clones would continue to come online, they would not be able to even come close to keep pace with the droid army.

 

After the first year of the war I'd estimate that without recruitment the number of droids to clonetroopers would be on the order of 1 verses 100,000. It's quite easy to see that the Republic would have been on the defensive trying to use the clone army as a fire brigade against the enormous onslaught of the CIS. The only sane option for the Republic would be to draft and train troops to supplament the clones.

 

SOCL: Does it matter if a stupid man has a machine gun and a smart guy has a bb gun, who is going to win? There is no way that a clonetrooper could be as effective as having 100,000 war droids. The clonetroopers would be completely overwhelmed just as the Jedi in the Geonosian Arena were. I'd estimate casualty exchange rates on an equal playing field would favor the clonetrooper probably around 50 to 1, still against the shere size of the droid army that isn't enough. As the russians often proved quantity has a quality all its own.

[mawshiye]

Everyone has been making points and countering others. Here's how I think it's broken down:

 

All officers and commanders would have to be recruits. The clones are bred to follow orders and it wouldn't do to have a brainless clone trying to organise a battle.

 

By the time of ANH, there would still have been many thousands, maybe even millions of clone troopers. The ones we see in the movies (especially the ones on Tatooine) were probably just recruits. I mean, why would you have your elite troops guarding TATOOINE!! The fact that they wear stormtrooper armor doesn't mean that they're actual stormtroopers. If the stormtroopers wear top of the line armor that can be produced in only a few hours, why not outfit your whole fighting force with it?

 

I think that the "real" stormtroopers would only be used to invade and defend important installations like the Death Star and Coruscant. The general troops would just be recruits with maybe one or two clones to provide the skill and examples to live up to.

 

And of course, I have to agree with the fact that just because the stormtroopers miss all the time doesn't mean that they're not clones. I have to agree with Jahled. The stormtroopers are probably just as good as the clone troops from episode II. Remember, in IV, V, and VI, they were the bad guys and the bad guys never win and in II, they were the good guys, so obviously they are going seem better. I think the one thing that many people are forgetting is that they are MOVIES. They exaggerate. It just looks better if 50 clones take on a thousand droids and win. We can't take everything that we see in the movies as "real".

 

Clones were used in ANH, and probably the other 2 originals as well. We will never know for sure unless GL comes here personally and TELLS us.(like that's gonna happen... )

 

 

Wow, I never thought I could type so much about a fictional story

[Jahled]

Everyone has been making points and countering others. Here's how I think it's broken down:

 

All officers and commanders would have to be recruits. The clones are bred to follow orders and it wouldn't do to have a brainless clone trying to organise a battle.

 

By the time of ANH, there would still have been many thousands, maybe even millions of clone troopers. The ones we see in the movies (especially the ones on Tatooine) were probably just recruits. I mean, why would you have your elite troops guarding TATOOINE!!

 

Err... if you watched Star Wars A New Hope, you would realize they were not 'guarding Tattooine!' They were searching and trying to secure some droids with the battle plans for the Empire's marvelous new Death Star. Obviously, raw recruits are the most logical military move in such a situation; after all the Empire has just made the most far reaching economic investment the galaxy has ever seen building the Death Star, so of course won't be interested in securing any weakness with proven elite troopers...

 

Forgive the sarcasm! I think three Star Destroyers were present at Tattooine during ANH! Slight overkill on a shape of a civil defense is it? The troopers involved in ANH on Tattooine were obviously despatched from these Star Destroyers, as stated in the film's dialoge.

 

I'll give you one final point to consume. Iraq. The British and North American governments have to pay war-level wages to their soldiers serving there.

 

Clones on constant military 'conquest.'

 

Makes economic sense doesn't it?

[Jahled]

Wow, I never thought I could type so much about a fictional story

 

Forgot to quote this! I wonder about this frequently; usually when i'm staring at my ceiling at the end of an evening!

[Mad78]

Even though the soldiers dispatched were from the Devastator Tatooine did have a Garrison composed must likely from recruits. The most important planets must be the ones defended by clones.

[SOCL]

SOCL: Does it matter if a stupid man has a machine gun and a smart guy has a bb gun, who is going to win? There is no way that a clonetrooper could be as effective as having 100,000 war droids. The clonetroopers would be completely overwhelmed just as the Jedi in the Geonosian Arena were. I'd estimate casualty exchange rates on an equal playing field would favor the clonetrooper probably around 50 to 1, still against the shere size of the droid army that isn't enough. As the russians often proved quantity has a quality all its own.

Yes, I realize, but what you have stated (BB-gun versus machine gun) is a tad exagerated when compared to the Battle of Geonosis or any other battle of the Clone Wars. I don't mean to say you don't have a point, but we clearly saw the Republic troops winning out against the Seperatist droids, so doesn't this render it rather moot? Yes, casualties were probably pretty high, but the Republic had less troops and the advantage of brains (not processors).

 

Even though the soldiers dispatched were from the Devastator Tatooine did have a Garrison composed must likely from recruits. The most important planets must be the ones defended by clones.

Tatooine had a garrison? I do not recall it being mentioned in the movies.

 

And Jahled has a point, economically, clone troopers are the best way to go. Additionally, it seems obvious by now that Kamino was not the only planet in the galaxy with cloning facilities. Additionally, who is to say that all the clones at the Battle of Geonosis were all the clones produced on Kamino. The army assembled at Geonosis could have very well been only a fraction of the clones on Kamino. After all, do you think that the clones we saw with Obi-Wan were actually all the clones on Kamino? Additionally, do you actually think that Kamino only has 1 clone production facility?

[Mad78]

It is clear that the Kamino people do not only live on that city we saw in the movie. And that the other cities surely lived also from cloning.

 

Of course Tatooine has a garrison since it is officaly an empire controled planet. And were do you think those big lizards came from? I am sure the Devastator does not go around with a hole zoo on board.

 

PS The new Palpsi wars episode is online

[SOCL]

Of course Tatooine has a garrison since it is officaly an empire controled planet. And were do you think those big lizards came from? I am sure the Devastator does not go around with a hole zoo on board.

Just because the planet is controlled by the Empire does not mean there is a garrison there additionally. Additionally, they could very well have borrowed the Dewbaks from locals, but simply stating that the Devastator didn't have a "zoo" aboard it doesn't mean a thing since we know that Star Destroyers carried everything required for their on-ship garrison to conduct a ground assault (this, of course, does not mean they always carry Dewbaks, so you could have a point). The other point is, who is to say the Stormtroopers we saw on the ground were all from the Devastator? By what I saw in the movie, it seems that once the Tantive IV has been captured, the Devastator takes off. We do know that at least two-four other Star Destroyers were in orbit at the time Luke and the others escaped the planet, so it's quite possible that any of those other Star Destroyers was carrying Dewbaks aboard it.

 

Additionally, if Tatooine had a garrison, wouldn't they have picked up on a certain X-Wing fighter and a certain freighter (i.e. the Millenium Falcon) coming into the system? After all, wouldn't it look rather strange for a Rebel star fighter to land on an Empire-controlled and garrisoned planet? Additionally, we know the Empire had the signature and was searching for the Falcon, so how on Earth would they have succeeded in not only landing but also leaving with a garrison on-planet?

[Trejiuvanat]

Tatooine had a garrison? I do not recall it being mentioned in the movies.

 

Vader said something about the governor complaining, IIRC. And knowing the Empire whereever there were governors there were stormies, but those searching for the dorids must have been dispatched by Devastator.

 

The dewbacks could have been brought by Uncle Vader's little petting zoo? Yah, they probably could be from Tatooine.

 

Valid points, especially the last one. We only saw the clones prduced on Tipoca city, what about all the other cities on that planet.

[Lord_La_forge]

Stormies must be clones!

Listen. They wear all "l" sized trooper armor. What do you think they would do with a fat non-clone stormie dude with size xxxl?? How would they stand before the emperor? There is only armor for one size!

 

Think!

 

If they are individuals and wearing the same armor type, they have to be very-very humanoid like. Probably humans only! That means billions of human males! Half of the galaxy! They would have trained women too!

 

Think!

 

Individual minds would be totally out of control time-to-time! They would even do things for "fun". That's not acceptable.

 

Think!

 

Not to mention the ego! As Jahled wrote regarding to the movies, individuals would be somekind of heroic troopers with own thoughts! They couldn't be killed so easily! They would be heroes too!

 

Think!

 

 

NO WAY!!!

[Lord_La_forge]

NO WAY!!!

[the_mask]

You have some very ... ahh... refined repoints, Laforge 1.

 

And I'll toast to that female trooper's armour

That's what I call disarming.

[Mad78]

You don't get it Mask. Imagine the difficulty for the rebel troopers to keep their aim staedy when they have to shoot at that

[the_mask]

* cough *

 

That's what I call disarming.

[Jahled]

A brilliant example of an academic post comming to rescue this increasingly very interesting topic LF! Your last one is going on my wall.

 

Brilliant!

[Trejiuvanat]

Post of the Day!!!

 

 

That's the best I've seen in a long time...

[Mad78]

I would have to agree with trej

[Skynxnex]

I find it hard to believe that the Empire is purely built on clones.

 

In the Thrawn Trilogy (Zahn's best work in my opinion) it is made quite clear that clones were considered a rare thing...remember Han and Luke's surprise regarding the idea of Thrawn using clones to crew his ships?

 

Granted, what we see in the movies overrides the novels according to Lucas policy on what is considered canon and whatnot but still. In a galaxy like SW where you have city worlds like Coruscant which easily has trillions of people on it I find it hard to believe that clones ended up constituting a huge part of the Imperial warmachine. Kamino showed us it took 10 yrs to grow those clones with a quote of 200,000 units ready to go and another million or something. Thats a very small number when you compare it to the rest of the SW galaxy.

[Mad78]

One sec. What makes you think all the clones were used on Geonosis. t would be very stupid to put ALL your troops for one single battle.

[Paul]

Mad buddy he did not claim all were used on Geonosis. He merely stated the production numbers quoted in the movies. I stand by my earlier evidence that both various models of clones as well as human recruits were used in building up the Stormtrooper ranks. Mostly clones but also selected humans - only humans because of the Empires anti-alien policies.-GM Conway

[Mad78]

sorry got carried away.

I guess the armors were only made for humans.

[Skynxnex]

Grand Moff Conway, I agree. I think originally the stormtroopers were in fact comprised of clones...as we see in the movies...but obviously clone production is slow. I think later on Palpatine initiated a conscription program in order to fill the ranks of the army and the stormtroopers.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

I agree with Paul and the rest, but I do have one question. The supports of the the Clone EMpire theory say that the work presented in the EU really can't be trusted because it's not what was in the movies, as well as the fact that Lucas and his cronies tend to override anything EU they don't like.

Why, then, are the Zahn books givn credence simply because he is a better writer? Why do we think of Thrawn as any more "real" in the SW universe than the events in other novels? What of Daala, Zsinj, the basics of Corellia and it's culture?

As far as I can tell, Coruscant wasn't mentioned until the EU, an idea George latched onto and included in the prequels. You cannot pick and choose which aspects of the EU you would like to include or exclude (not that anyone has done so as yet, but if you include the prequels in your argument, you almost have to include the EU because of the intermeshing facts), it must be taken as a whole.

I agree that there were some poorly written books in the EU, but the events therein are still legitamate.

[Stellar_Magic]

With the exception of the Yevetha Crisis because those are full of errors...

 

I still say that the empire wasd built on the backs of trillions of conscripted human beings.