Clone Empire.

[Jahled]

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.

 

Edit: I just remembered; Veers gets killed in the book of the Empire Strikes Back; which kinda completes the circle as far as EU quotation rubbish goes!

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

 

Grand Admiral Dude, my personnal question shouldn't have given the impression that the Thrawn stuff was consider more 'real' than other Eu stuff! If you think about it for a sec, it would contradict this thread's main point!

 

I made the suggestion we not use the EU because by and large it's so the efforts of so many, so beyond GL's mind; where do you draw the line! For every well thought out bit of EU SW mythos I can come back and batter you with absolute childish crap from 70's Marvel comics, or utter rubbish like my dreadful experiance with 'Darksaber,' whilst floating on a boat of the coast of Spain. Who desides what's in or simply ludicrous as far as as the SW mythos goes? Personnally I think it would be wise to draw the line at the movies; all of you lot have of course the right to utterly disagree with my spontanious decision to throw my copy into the mediterranean in disgust; if you considered it a good read then well cool.

 

There were obvious non-Stormtrooper Imperial soldiers in the movies; those otherwise rebel troopers if they weren't wearing black, unreferenced in the movies. But they were equiped with guns and stood on guard, so they must have been Imperial soldiers of sorts. Given we get to see so little of the larger galaxy in the movies maybe these are are mainstray Imperial soldiers other than Stormtroopers.

[Lord_La_forge]

OFF:

 

Now hold on for a minute! Veers gets killed in the original book from Lucas? In The Empire Strikes Back?

[Jahled]

OFF:

 

Now hold on for a minute! Veers gets killed in the original book from Lucas? In The Empire Strikes Back?

 

Yes.

 

A crashing airspeeder takes out the bridge of his AT-AT after he detroys the generator.

 

Where' my edit gone?

[Lord_La_forge]

OFF:

 

Ok. Sorry for the interruption. I've made a Veers card for Reloaded some weeks ago, but nobody from the team complained about it! Guess we need somebody else for that slot!!

[Skynxnex]

I agree with Grand Admiral Thrawn in that if we include the EU then it has to be all of it.

 

My only qualm with saying that all stormtroopers are clones is that realistically speaking, the numbers given in AOTC by the Kaminoans simply doesnt make sense. Those numbers are very small. The Geonosians for instance in that 10 yrs time could make hundreds of millions of battle droids.

 

As a result I think we need to look at some other ideas. If stormtroopers are nothing but clones then it means Palpatine has other cloning centers from which to get troopers from. There must also be some kind of new technology that accelerates the growth or something because 10 yrs to get a clone that is finally ready to fight is a very long time/investment. Its much easier to simply conscript someone and train them for 6 months.

 

Also, lets think about this for a second, the Empire has millions...millions of planets that are a member. You have to figure that in the Core there are more city worlds similar to Coruscant (albeit maybe not as urbanized). The Kamino clones only numbered what...in the million range right? Thats a very small VERY small army on the galactic scale. Earth standards that number would be high but for a galactic civilization that is as widespread and old as the SW galaxy that number we get in AOTC by the Kaminoans is way too small.

[Jahled]

OFF:

 

Ok. Sorry for the interruption. I've made a Veers card for Reloaded some weeks ago, but nobody from the team complained about it! Guess we need somebody else for that slot!!

 

Keep him! He didn't die in the film so we can ignore the fact he dies in the book. Anyway, it was Hobbie's airspeeder that killed him and unless Hobbie jumped clear at about 300 mph we're be shagged for another character... if we're using him..can't remember..

[Lord_La_forge]

So we prefer to use the movie as source instead of the books?

[Mad78]

Hobbie? This is getting confusing. If Hobbie died on Hoth how come he appears in lots of book series and enters Rogue Squadron?

[vakundok]

Because the novelisations are usually based on the shooting scripts and do not contain some later changes. (That is why the ANH novelisation is closer to the SE (in some aspects) rather than to the original movie.)

 

From the starwars.com database:

"In the original script of The Empire Strikes Back, Veers perished when his walker was rammed by a snowspeeder. The scene never made it into the final film, and as such, Veers' life was spared. He appeared in early draft scripts of Return of the Jedi, though his character does not return in that film. "

 

The EU tried to solve the thing with Hobbie's ejection and maybe with the loss of a leg for Veers? (I know basicly nothing about the EU.)

Note: In the novelisation Hobbie was lethally injured even before the crash ...

 

Just to LLF:

"De ha csak addig sikerülne kitartania, amíg visszaér a bázisra, talán talál egy orvosrobotot, és akkor ...

De nem, nem hihette komolyan, hogy akár addig is kihúzza. Haldoklott - ebben most már biztos volt"

"- De hiszen ez ... - kezdte az egyik pilóta.

Abban a szemvillanásban Hobbie égő gépe becsapódott a lépegető pilótafülkéjébe, akár egy kamikaze repülő, üzemanyaga azonnal felrobbant, láng- és törmeléktengerbe borítva a monstrumot. Egyetlen másodpercig még emberi sikolyok hallatszottak, azután szilánkok röpkdtek, végül az egész óriási gépezet a földre zuhant."

[vakundok]

BTW: I agree with throwing the EU out of the window, however, what is EU, exactly?

- The novelisations add things to the movies (like the Z-95 in TPM), but I do not know how close they are to Lucas.

- The radio dramatisations are only 'based on characters and screens created by George Lucas'.

- The Incredible Cross Section books are partially based on very old RPG statistics and tries to change even the movie elements(!) (watch the side of the hangar bay of the ISD in ANH and compare it to the ICS) to support that. They also try to use our current physical knowledge to completely describe a technology far beyond our.

- GL (or someone very close to him) receives a few page long story sinopsys and approves books/ series of books based on that.

So, what is the EU?

 

Other thing:

While I have no problem with all fully helmeted trooper being clone (well, except maybe the DS gunners), I have to say that if the stormtroopers at the tractor-beam switch were clones, the quality of the clones dropped significantly. The kaminoian clones would have been far more orderly to just chat while on guard.

EDIT: The novels added many things to the whole. However, for example:

- There was no Rogue (or Rouge?) Squadron! It was Rogue Group. (Likely a temporary formation created from two sqads of X-wing pilots.)

- Biggs did not die in Wedges's hands, he simply exploded.

[Stellar_Magic]

Yeah, I'd have to agree with the scale thing, but even then I think you're over estimating the size of Kamino's army too.

 

But with the scale of the star wars universe lets put something in perspective, in The Unifying Force (Yes it's EU, I know!!!) they quote a total casualty number for the whole war as being 365 Trillion... Now, guess what I'm going to say.

 

Thats the number of casualties on Coruscant alone, right?

 

The sheer size of the Galaxy makes the scale of the clone wars incalcuable, it would be impossible for the Empire/Republic fight the clone wars without using recruits, why because of the sheer magnitude of the threat, we're talking a droid army numbering in the trillions, perhaps hundreds of trillions, verses a clone army that if just from Kamino would number a measly say three hundred thousand to at most three to four million, (I give such a large range to satisfy those hey, it's a whole planet making clones people).

 

Correlation of Forces:

100,000,000,000,000 vs 4,000,000

 

Um, anyone say surrender?

 

Okay lets expand the number of systems with cloning facilities to lets say a hundred systems.

 

Correlation of Forces:

100,000,000,000,000 vs 500,000,000

 

How about a thousand systems?

 

Correlation of Forces:

100,000,000,000,000 vs 5,000,000,000

 

Okay, now lets run a quick little scenario.

 

Republic Best case scenario, clones only, first eighteen months of the clone wars. Clone growth time, I'll be really liberal with this and say six months. Starting systems with cloning facilities equals 10,000 each with one hundred thousand cloning cylinders. Starting size of the clone army will be 1 Billion clones. Starting size of the Droid army will be 500 Million droids. 1/10th of the total force will be engaged in combat operations in a month. Kill loss rate will be 15 droids to 1 clone or about as much as shone in AOTC or maybe even a little better then shown there.

 

So Month 1:

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 500,000,000

Casualties: 100,000,000

Ending Droids: 900,000,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones:1,000,000,000

Casualties: 3,000,000

Ending Clones: 997,000,000

 

 

Month 2:

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 900,000,000

Casualties: 99,700,000

Ending Droids: 1,703,000,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones:997,000,000

Casualties: 7,000,000

Ending Clones: 990,000,000

 

Month 3:

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 1,703,000,000

Casualties: 99,000,000

Ending Droids: 3,307,000,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones:990,000,000

Casualties: 11,000,000

Ending Clones: 979,000,000

 

 

Month 4:

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 3,307,000,000

Casualties: 97,900,000

Ending Droids: 5,976,100,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones:979,000,000

Casualties: 22,000,000

Ending Clones: 957,000,000

 

Month 5:

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 5,976,100,000

Casualties: 95,700,000

Ending Droids: 11,856,500,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones:957,000,000

Casualties: 40,000,000

Ending Clones: 917,000,000

 

Month 6: First new clonetroopers arrive.

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 11,856,500,000

Casualties: 91,700,000

Ending Droids: 23,621,300,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones:917,000,000

Casualties: 79,000,000

Ending Clones: 1,838,000,000

 

Month 7: The Republic Starts to be overwhelmed.

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 23,621,300,000

Casualties: 183,800,000

Ending Droids: 47,058,800,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones:1,838,000,000

Casualties: 157,400,000

Ending Clones: 1,680,600,000

 

Month 8:

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 47,058,800,000

Casualties: 168,000,000

Ending Droids: 93,949,600,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones:1,680,600,000

Casualties: 313,700,000

Ending Clones: 1,366,300,000

 

Month 9:

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 93,949,600,000

Casualties: 137,000,000

Ending Droids: 187,762,200,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones:1,366,300,000

Casualties: 626,300,000

Ending Clones: 740,000,000

 

Month 10: The Clone army ceases to exists.

 

CIS:

Starting Droids: 187,762,200,000

Casualties: 74,000,000

Ending Droids: 187,688,200,000

 

Republic:

Starting Clones: 740,000,000

Casualties: 740,000,000

Ending Clones: 0

 

Total Military Casualties

 

Droids: 1.1468 Billion

Clones: 2 Billion

 

Why are the droid casualties lower then the clone casualties?

 

The droid army gained a massive numerical advantage enabling them to kill clones faster then the clones could kill them. If 1/10th of their army was engaged in offensive operations and 1/10th of the clone Army was arrayed to defend against it that one tenth would be squashed. It still takes 15 droids to kill a clone but if you outnumber them 150 to 1 you murder those clones.

 

So once again I've got to say that the Republic must have used conscripts for its very survival.

[Mad78]

I find hard to contradict that foir the simple reason that i agree with it.

[Lord_La_forge]

Just to LLF:

"De ha csak addig sikerülne kitartania, amíg visszaér a bázisra, talán talál egy orvosrobotot, és akkor ...

De nem, nem hihette komolyan, hogy akár addig is kihúzza. Haldoklott - ebben most már biztos volt"

"- De hiszen ez ... - kezdte az egyik pilóta.

Abban a szemvillanásban Hobbie égő gépe becsapódott a lépegető pilótafülkéjébe, akár egy kamikaze repülő, üzemanyaga azonnal felrobbant, láng- és törmeléktengerbe borítva a monstrumot. Egyetlen másodpercig még emberi sikolyok hallatszottak, azután szilánkok röpkdtek, végül az egész óriási gépezet a földre zuhant."

 

(Köszi a segítséget. Asszem ki fogjuk hagyni a karkaterek közül. Bár Jahled szeretné a filmet a TC alapjául venni, tehát Veers akár még élhetne is. Majd kitaláljuk ...)

[vakundok]

Well, since in the novelisation Veers did not even have the time to fire to the generator, I recommend not to follow the novelisation that closely.

[Jahled]

Hobbie? This is getting confusing. If Hobbie died on Hoth how come he appears in lots of book series and enters Rogue Squadron?

 

This only goes to highlight the quick descent into chaos quoting from EU stuff, or in this case the official novals of the original films!

 

It's easier if we stick to what we get to see in the films in this instance I reckon.

 

EDIT: Stella dude: I brain has evaperated into numerical-meaningless! I need a cup of tea.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

But by sticking to the films, we ignore the original novels which were the basis for the films. Any variations between the two are the result of required editing, and not changes to the whole story.

 

I think that there is one thing we can agree on (hopefuly). The Imperial Army was founded on clones, those that were grown on Kamino. Why? Because they were already there, and it was the best way to get a fighting army to slow the droids.

 

Now, this is pretty much indesputable. After that point, it is probably safe to assume that the Republic would have had to introduce fresh blood into the ranks. Remember, Jango's clones were used for the army only, there was the need for naval officers and crewmen, but then that isn't at issue here.

 

We also aren't taking into accound the way the SW universe works economicaly. Clone production was not under the Republic's control, it was under the Kaminoeans (sp?). They were running a business, so we can there for assume that there was only one planet producing clones. Clones are essentially not people, there are equipment. Would KDY say "Hey, any one can build Star Destroyers, because it will be good for the Empire in the war". No, because they are companies and concerned only with profit.

 

So, could the Republic win the war strictly on the clone production from one planet, against a foe who is essentially another corperation with pre-established factories on hundreds of planets, and who can build and deploy thousands of droids each day?

 

Sure, the Empire would have clones in it's ranks, why fix something if it isn't broken, but by the time the Clone Wars ends, the Empire is established, and we get to the time of A New Hope, it is logical to assume that there is a great many more non-clones in the ranks of the Empire than there are clones, and that, supported with the evidence of veriances in the attributes of the stormtroopers in the movies, many of our white-clad friends are indeed real people.

 

"But why wouldn't the Empire just build more cloning facilities?" you may ask. Despite being an authoritarian government, we have seen (yes, through the EU, but then this sort of thing isn't in the movies) that the way business is run remained vey capitolistic during the time of the Empire.

 

So, to sum my little rant up: clones came from one planet, were supported by real recruits during the Clone War, were still around when the Empire came to power, were slowly replaced by real people. By the time we hit hte EU it seems that Stormtroopers were altogether rare, so we can guess that clones were depleated through attrition.

[mawshiye]

Another thing that I want to point out is that before the clones, the Old Republic didn't have an army. They merely had the jedi.

 

I think that the clones were merely a stepping stone toward the beginnings of a fullscale military machine. I think that the clones were merely used to hold off the droids and as shock troops. They were the elite warriors that were the backbone of the Old Republic army, but they weren't the only ones to do the fighting.

 

Maybe we'll get a better answer to these questions after ep. III comes out.

[Skynxnex]

The EU = Expanded Universe

 

Just so everyone knows, Lucasfilm has a policy regarding canon.

 

Films are at the top followed by novelizations and then the EU...the rest are comics and tech books etc..with games being at the very bottom.

 

Unless a film contradicts what we read in the EU, we can assume that whatever then is in the EU is in fact canon.

 

What do we see in the movies:

 

We know the clone army came from Kamino.

We know that something like 200,000 units are ready with a million or something to go. Now keep in mind its not clear what a 'unit' is. It could be a unit of regiments or battalions or whatever. Anyway I think the word unit could just mean 1 single trooper.

We see that the CIS has a TON of battledroids.

 

Now, just going off what is in the EU, we know the Empire at its height had over a million member worlds.

Its pretty clear that in the end the Empire has to either get fresh troopers from conscriptions or recruitments OR other worlds have to be producing clones. But even then, it would take a LOT of other worlds producing clones.

 

Now, in the Thrawn Trilogy, the Admiral was able to create fully grown clones in a matter of weeks. If something like that could be achieved then clones would be more economically viable.

[vakundok]

About the numbers.

If you follow the novelisation, there were thousand x thousands of systems in the Republic. We saw that even small and peacefull planets had a militia capable to fight. If we count 1000 of them per one million planet, it is one billion. (It is very low estimate and it was peacetime!) In my opinion, in the SW, only offensive forces are counted as army. For example, the Republic had no army prior to AOTC. What about the thousands (if not millions) of guards on Coruscant?

 

We saw that the clone army (numbering 200,000) was able to capture a droid production facility/HQ. Capturing something is far more complicated than simply destroying. Yes, the droid army was surprised, but the clone army was also not at full strenght. (It was supported by only twenty or so jedi, try to imagine how effective it would have been with hundreds of jedi (with their hardware).)

 

In a galactic war (ie: a war in which you cannot prevent your enemy from quickly deploying forces anywhere in your territory), numbers mean basicly nothing, since you simply cannot have enough forces to defend all of your planets. Example: You have 100 planets. So basicly you would need 100 times the attack force of your enemy just to hold yourself. And you don't have any attack force! (While it do not really count, whether it is 100 or 101.) In such a war, there are no front lines, which is huge difference! (Actually it is more like a spec force war- who can destroy the opponents (political and material) supplies first?)

 

And do not simply place numbers against each other! Battles are physical things. Let's imagine a little scenario: I have 10,000 clones, you have 1,000,000 battle droids. If you watch only the numbers it s a clear victory for the droids. However, a simple question: How do you place your forces? Even if the clones are completely encircled (which is the worst (and very unlikely) situation for them), the droids will loose a large part of their capability to turn the numerical advantage into firepower advantage. The droids will only bother each other. The clone formations are also much more mobile than the droids (since the droids have to move several times the units to reach the same capability), meaning that the clones can use any weak spot in the droid lines to cause more confusion.

 

Skynxnex: I did not asked about the canon policy. I only wanted to point out that even the sources which are considered higher than the EU expands the SW universe and we don't know how close these additions are to Lucas.

And 1 unit=1 trooper. Read the novelisation. (Obi 1's reaction to calling them units.) The one million world is not EU, it is from ANH (Tarkin). The EU added 50 million non- member worlds. And the clone center at the Tantiss mountain was (likely) not in use prior to Thrawn. Remember that part of it even needed to be repaired, and Mara who saw it in the height of the empire got the impression that the emperor just got it and placed in the base. Ohh, and it is mentioned in the novelisation and even in the movie (as I remember) that the kaminoians were not the only cloners, they were just the best. (Actually, the EU added that they were not even the best shortly after AOTC.)

Ohh, and the ICS technical books are the highest level of the EU (the lowest level fo the old definition canon - depending on your POW).

[vakundok]

GAT: Well, no offense, but I hate your posts because I cannot read them without highlighting.

As I know Lucas has said recently that the stormtroopers in the original trilogy are clones but come from different (genetic) sources.

A few points:

- It was not mentioned in the movie or the novelisation that who manned the transports! (And Jango was equally good pilot and foot soldier.)

- It was mentioned in the novelisation that working from the original (genetic) sample had better results. (The later the generation of the template, the worse the result.) (Also the Kaminoians did not store Jango's template, they needed him throughout the entire production.) So, because the original template was not available any more it is possible that after a while it was more economic to find an other template.

- Emm, as I wrote, Kamino was not the only clone production center at the time of AOTC.

And I think the empire can build Stardestroyers anywhere. This is what licensing is for. (The best (quality) F16s are for example produced in Turkey.)

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

Well, sorry about the difficulty reading my posts .

 

Quite true that Jango was a good pilot, but I was simply trying to point out that some recruitment had to take place at some point since the officers and crewers of Imperial ships were not clones.

 

If the original geneteic template was (well, is) no longer available, there would have to be a source. It would seem to me that the most logical chouce would be an existing soldier that was recruited. Sure you could just look for another warrior, but a warrior doesn't always make a good soldier. To save on genetic tampering (which would degrade the gene itself), it would make more sense to choose someone pre-trained and pre-disposed to war.

 

As for Kamino not being the only producer of clones, does this come from the novelization? (I haven't read the prequal books). From what we know of the way industry is run in the SW universe, private companies are just that, private. Since it was a government producing the clones (or at least that is the impression I got from the movie), it wouldn't make sense for another planet to be producing them. I doubt they would give up their monopoly on the clone market.

As for Star Destroyers, they were not built by the Empire, they were built by KDY who then sold them to the Empire. KDY did not license their ships to other companies, and as far as I am aware, the only shipyards KDY maintained were at Kuat itself.

[Skynxnex]

About the numbers.

If you follow the novelisation, there were thousand x thousands of systems in the Republic. We saw that even small and peacefull planets had a militia capable to fight. If we count 1000 of them per one million planet, it is one billion. (It is very low estimate and it was peacetime!) In my opinion, in the SW, only offensive forces are counted as army. For example, the Republic had no army prior to AOTC. What about the thousands (if not millions) of guards on Coruscant?

 

We saw that the clone army (numbering 200,000) was able to capture a droid production facility/HQ. Capturing something is far more complicated than simply destroying. Yes, the droid army was surprised, but the clone army was also not at full strenght. (It was supported by only twenty or so jedi, try to imagine how effective it would have been with hundreds of jedi (with their hardware).)

 

In a galactic war (ie: a war in which you cannot prevent your enemy from quickly deploying forces anywhere in your territory), numbers mean basicly nothing, since you simply cannot have enough forces to defend all of your planets. Example: You have 100 planets. So basicly you would need 100 times the attack force of your enemy just to hold yourself. And you don't have any attack force! (While it do not really count, whether it is 100 or 101.) In such a war, there are no front lines, which is huge difference! (Actually it is more like a spec force war- who can destroy the opponents (political and material) supplies first?)

 

And do not simply place numbers against each other! Battles are physical things. Let's imagine a little scenario: I have 10,000 clones, you have 1,000,000 battle droids. If you watch only the numbers it s a clear victory for the droids. However, a simple question: How do you place your forces? Even if the clones are completely encircled (which is the worst (and very unlikely) situation for them), the droids will loose a large part of their capability to turn the numerical advantage into firepower advantage. The droids will only bother each other. The clone formations are also much more mobile than the droids (since the droids have to move several times the units to reach the same capability), meaning that the clones can use any weak spot in the droid lines to cause more confusion.

 

Skynxnex: I did not asked about the canon policy. I only wanted to point out that even the sources which are considered higher than the EU expands the SW universe and we don't know how close these additions are to Lucas.

And 1 unit=1 trooper. Read the novelisation. (Obi 1's reaction to calling them units.) The one million world is not EU, it is from ANH (Tarkin). The EU added 50 million non- member worlds. And the clone center at the Tantiss mountain was (likely) not in use prior to Thrawn. Remember that part of it even needed to be repaired, and Mara who saw it in the height of the empire got the impression that the emperor just got it and placed in the base. Ohh, and it is mentioned in the novelisation and even in the movie (as I remember) that the kaminoians were not the only cloners, they were just the best. (Actually, the EU added that they were not even the best shortly after AOTC.)

Ohh, and the ICS technical books are the highest level of the EU (the lowest level fo the old definition canon - depending on your POW).

 

 

I know you didnt ask about the canon policy but I mentioned it because of a few things. First Lucas has only said that yes stormtroopers are clones. BUT he didnt say that ALL stormtroopers are clones. Since we dont see in the movies that specifically all stormtroopers are clones we are forced to use the EU, which makes it clear that stormtroopers are recruited from other member worlds.

 

I know that the Tantiss place wasnt in operation till Thrawn came along. I only mentioned it to show that in order to realistically compete against an army of battledroids that can be completed very quickly.

 

Numbers may not be a deciding factor but realistically an army of 10,000 clones will not beat an army of 1,000,000 battledroids. Not unless you have orbital support or some kind of outside help involved.

[vakundok]

GAT:

In the novelisation, Lama Su said that theirs were the best clones in the galaxy, which did not make sense if their clones were the only ones. I think.

About the recruitment: Sorry, I thought you were talking about stormtroopers.

Do you have any source to support that noone bought the license from KDY? (Actually selling the license makes only sense, if the facilities of KDY were overworked, however it also means that the total SD building capability is not reduced to that of KDY.)

Skynxnex:

I will try to find a quote to check what exactly has Lucas said.

Since it is a fan discussion, it is our decision what to use in it. We are not forced to use the EU since we do not want to create things or conclusions that would have to fit to the whole saga (in other words we do not want them to make their way to the official literature). However, as I know in the EU (if someone uses it) nearly all of the stormtroopers are clones (3 years before ANH - reference: Pax Empirica - The Wookie annihillation short story by Steven L. Kent, published in 2001.) To the level that 40% of 'all stormtroopers' belong to a single host wchich was the newest at that time, with older (unsuccesfull and discontinued line) 'models' and paralelly used modells from a different host (for example, the scouts came from completely separated template(s)) serving together.

But they’re not the only ones. Dower notices that he’s the only member of the platoon that isn’t a clone – a “GeNodeâ€

Edited November 30, 2004 by vakundok

[vakundok]

With the clones being assembled, the fodder of conversation turned to how exactly clone troopers and stormtroopers are related. By now, it's no surprise that the stormtroopers are indeed clones. But the nitpicky fan gripe that the troopers are of different heights and have different voices has not been lost on George Lucas. My cynical side points out that the only thing this descrepancy conclusively proves about the origins of the stormtroopers... is that these films were shot in the 70s.

 

"Well, they start to turn to different sources when they need it, that's why you get the differences," offers George as an explanation. "We get a model that isn't the Jango version, that doesn't bump his head on doors. But then we get versions that can't shoot straight," he laughs. "I can see the corruption in the Empire: someone says to the Emperor, my cousin would like to fight in the wars, but he doesn't want to do any of the actual fighting. Can you clone him? Well, can he shoot? Ah, yeah. Sure he can."

I have found this quote on the web from Hyperspace (if illegal, moderators feel free to delete the post).

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

There isn't a source that specifically says "KDY didn't license their ships to other companies", but there are some facts that lead credence to my statement. First, KDY is run by the ruling families of Kuat, though specifically by the Kuat family since it's members were found to be the most compitent. Because the ruling families are nothing but money-hungry aristocrats, they are obsessed with making money and keeping control of all of their creations. To do so, there is a line of code programmed into every KDY ship. That includes all ISDs. Kuat of Kuat was obsessed with keepking this a secret (for its coming to light would meen certain death, as well as the confiscation of the company by the Empire) and, when a plot to overthrow him was discovered, he rigged all of the facilities above Kuat (the planet) with explosives and was prepared to destroy all he had worked to maintain. He was, of course, stopped, but the explosive are still in place. So, if Kuat had this code in all of their ships but wanted to keep it a secret, there is no way they would hand over production rights to another company. Though it wasn't the best read, and some of the content has since been contradicted by the movies, all of this can be found in the Bounty Hunter Wars trillogy.

 

EDIT:I have found only one reference of a KDY ship being constructed outside of the Kuat system shipyards. The Executor and most of the other SSDs were constructed at Fondor. I suppose it is possible that the shipyards at Fondor were constructed and run by SKY, or that parts were shipped in from the main manufacturing plants at Kuat (very possible since KDY parts were also manufactured there).