Star Wars Empire Volume One 'Betrayal'

[Jahled]

Ok, bored as I was today, and without jobs to deliver, I found myself in Forbidden Planet, a Sci-Fi comic book store in central London. Browsing, I found myself strangely drawn to the 'ST...' section of the comics section, and began casting my fingers through titles, until suddenly I found my fingers lifting 'Empire Volume One-Betrayal,' from the shelves.

 

WOOOO!!! IT IS AWESOME! The art is fantastic, after a number of questionable rescent titles, and the story suitably dark, concerning itself with the Empire just before A New Hope.'

 

Go and give LucasArts your hard earned bucks for this one, they will hopefully notice and give us more of the same.....

[Jahled]

..and I forgot to mention...it's the first place that LucasArts in any capacity have finaly allowed an official publication to state that Star Wars Stormtroopers are, as we guessed a while ago, clones....

 

Which is quite heavy, given that shags the Thrawn trilogy to some respects...

 

Emmm... We all ponder.

 

Now it's my assumption that anybody in an Imperial fully encased helmet is a clone; AT-AT drivers, TIE Pilots, Scout Troopers, perhaps even to Death Star Gunners; which is why 'our heros' didn't give a flying Woo when they laughed off casually the destruction of the Death Stars...

 

Just theories guys... But quite concrete now GL has firmly got underway with the conlcusion of our universe's final secrets...

[R2-Opus2]

I think with the Thrawn trilogy, it didn't interfere with what we know or anything. The fact that Thrawn's troopers were clones were for the purposes of that story so it wasn't like Zahn was running with a forbidden idea or concept in that respect. That story only had to do with the clones HE was coming up with for that crisis.

 

I think the fact now that we know the bulk of stormtroopers turn out to be clones, it makes the Thrawn thing dealing with them a happy little accident cause it still fits in my opinion.

[Trejiuvanat]

I, for one, don't know what to think. After I saw Ep II one of my first thoughts was that some stromtroopers from the original trilogy would be clones, a small percentage, considering that after Palpy became Emperor, there would be conscription, etc...

I don't really think that everybody in a helmet is a clone.

From what we know of clones (from the EU, nothing from AOTC) clones are seen by many as subhuman, so that it'd seem natural that bred clonesoldiers would remain soldiers until they died. (Considering the standard lifespan of stormtroopers, it's surprising they made it until ANH!).

It'd be a safe guess also that Palpy would have created a steady flow from clones from Wayland, throughout his reign.

As for the Thrawn trilogy, it doesn't affect it too much. After Palpatine's death, there wouldn't have been more clones from Wayland, and those clones, unlike Thrawn's would have needed at least one standard year to grow. Many of them would have died until Thrawn was able to restart the facility. This could even help to explain Palpy having a Clone factory in Wayland...

But I still don't think that clones would have been the bulk of the Imperial military at ANH, fifteen or ten years before ANH, they could have, but not just at the ANH timepoint.

[Jahled]

The more I ponder this concept of the bulk of the Empire's military being comprised of clones, the more it makes sense....

 

Think about Episode I and the advantage the Trade Federation had with their army of droids, and in Episode II with the Republic with their clone troopers over the Trade's droids. Drones in both respect, the latter superior in combat capability to the former! It took the unique powers of the Jedi to enhance events in either event/and film! The enire point GL made with the movies is basically faith can overcome firepower!

 

So much is made about the 'Officer Core' of the Empire in charge... of these clones Cool, the Navy is going to comprised of humans, but what twat is going to fly of into combat without shields or onboard life support other than a primed clone? The TIE fighter scenario borders on the stupid. Oh and BTW; you can't surrender or crash land because your fighter is that crap. Bravo! The loyalists will hop into them straight away, unconcerned that if their mother ship goes BOOM they will just end up floating in space counting out their dimminishing lifeupport supplies...

 

TIE-Pilots are clones.

[Paul]

Jahled not all TIE pilots need be clones. Humans who were pushed by propaganda or religious beliefs try suicidal things all through history. Given the way the Empire is military minded and with proper conditioning many able pilots could be convinced that dying for the Emperor was the way to go- literally. Soldiers tend to take orders and leave the thinking to their commanders.

Also not all stormtroopers are clones, remember that candidates to Carida came from all over the Empire by conscription and volunteers. I tend to believe that clones made up about half of the total of Imperial troops. Just some thoughts anyway.-Grand Moff Conway

[R2-Opus2]

I don't know if this is even remotely accurate, but I have the feeling that a good many of the recruits into the Empire didn't all just come from clones. I think stormtroopers are a special breed, in that, they comprise the bulk of the clone forces. But lemme get to my theory on the pilots...

 

I don't know again if I heard this from an EU source or some other fan brainstorm site, but I've tended to agree that pilots and other fleet personel (not necessarily officers here) were conscripts. One argument for this supposition at least in my view, is the fighter craft...No hyperdrives on them keeps the pilots' incentive to survive to fight another day. They have no other choice like you say if they fail to protect the cap ship that brought them. Their survival is directly linked to their dependency on those cap ships. Its also one way to enforce loyalty and I can easily understand Palpy using that angle. It makes it hard also for fighter pilots to defect individually.

 

If they were clones, the Emperor would've had no trouble having more hyperdrive capable fighter craft. As we know from ATOCs, it is possible to genetically make them fiercely loyal. By the same token it is long process to make those clones in the first place (presumably at least 10 years to get fully mature ones trained and ready if the gap between Phantom Menace and the last film is any way to measure). So on one hand you've got a huge expense in making clones, one to make "quality" starfighters, and yet one more for a quality fleet (all this before any superweapon construction expenses like the DS are taken into account).

 

Othewise Palpy could have saved a ton of dough on a huge fleet and had a better starfighter corp for instance. As demonstrated by the rebels, those are very ideal for hit and run missions. Also had he forgone any resources into megasuperweapons, he might have actually had clones for every branch of service that he needed, making loyalty to his New Order by his forces even more unquestioning than it was.

 

Course the other argument is that TIEs are cheap and presumably easy to produce and maintain. If this is so, then they can't possibly make enough clone pilots to keep up with the fast pace of fighter manufacturing...so they had to have conscripts. Assuming of course how clones are typically grown are much along the same lines as how the Kaminoans do it (whether or not they continued to make them for the Empire after the Republic fell, or some other race was doing them too...the recipe is prolly very similar).

 

One of the things I loved about how the events in ATOCs unfolds is that now the Emperor is poised to have soldiers on every key world he needs to under the guise of stopping the Separatists. In this respect, maybe a whole lot of clones isn't necessary...just enough to position them on such planets. From there he can begin conscription on those planets and branch out. Not just worlds with lots of shipyards, but also every key world the Separatists have established manufacturing bases. The split second he nationalizes everything, his reach is near limitless after those conquests.

 

But now I think he faces a new problem, as forced conscription gets underway, he has to have loyalists on his fleets to safeguard everything, so I think its reasonable to assume a good many of those clone troopers were tied up doing that, at least until his propaganda machine was fully underway, then I think that eases the mindsets of the Empire a little better. After all, some people did join it willingly, so I'm not at all sure to what extent forced conscription was used after the propaganda machine was beginning to sway opinions.

[Jahled]

Interesting points guys! I may have been a little over-bold in my clone statements.

[Guest Scathane]

Not so fast, Jahled! Our respected fellow members are overlooking quite a bit here! And that quite a bit can be put into one word as standardisation.

 

Point 1:

Following the reasoning that it takes a long time to produce clones, we have to account for the fact that this is a one-time only problem. Say, you want 1000 clones: this will take you ten years. If you want another 1000, it would take you only one year extra, assuming you started them right after the first thousand (i.e., you have batches of 1000 clones differing 1 year in age). I can allow for the argument that expanding production volumes could be quite an effort but considering production processes become cheaper when you repeat them (standardisation), I don't see this as a problem. Say that it would cost you 1 million Galactic credits to produce 1000 clones, then making another 1000 of them would only cost you a fraction of that because a lot of the initial cost goes into research, development and such.

 

Point 2:

You've got a huge expense in making clones... Maybe so. On the other hand you've got a huge cost advantage in standardising Stormtrooper armor and guns, TIE cockpit architecture, Star Destroyer architecture, etc. For instance, all Stormtrooper armor can be sized exactly the same, bunk space inside Star Destroyers can be set to exactly the right measurements instead of calculating an average based on average human size, TIE cockpits can be measured exactly in the same way. This doesn't only give you a cost advantage but an efficiency advantage as well (i.e., you can design a TIE tailor made to a pilot because all pilots are the same). Standardised mass production is cheap and efficient, it's that simple. Moreover, this would account for the lacking of a hyperdrive in a TIE: why invest in the extra cost of a hyperdrive if pilots and TIE's become dispensible?

 

Point 3:

Admittedly, the cost and time involved in the production of millions of clones is still considerable. However, considering that the Emperor didn't seem to have a problem with huge investments (Star Destroyers, Super Star Destroyers, AT-AT's, Death Stars, etc.), this insn't really an argument for him deciding not to produce clones, now is it?

 

I've said it once and I'll say it again: the Empire is the prime example of operational excellence!

[Jahled]

Scratching his head, Jahled begins wondering some more...

 

Has anybody thought about the concept of Imperial retirement homes for all these clones? Are thery capable of reproduction?

[Trejiuvanat]

The question should be if any clone made it to retirment... They are dispensable after all. And I don't think Palpy would care to create a retirement clone for his clones.

As for reproduction, I suppose they are capable, at least the Thrawn's WAyland clones were. But I don't think they were motivated to reproduce. They had to serve Palpy not reproduce.

I agree with Grand Moff Conway about the situation of clones within the Empire.

I would say that before ANH clones were about 50% percent of the Imperial warmachine, recruits, conscripts, about 45% nonhumans and women 5%.

During the Galactic Civil War, there must have been more clone losses than the production rate of clones, so Palpy needed more recruits and conscripts. From the EU we know that Palpy concripted soldiers from worlds. In TLC the Ukio representative talks to Thrawn about his fears of having the Empire conscript people from Ukio, in the X-Wing books, there if the reference that Garik Loran's acting in one of the Empire movies boosted Imperial recruiting about 5%. That'd be before ANH. And we know that there is a nonhuman branch and the women's service in the Imperial military. When Daala joined.

 

We know from Pellaeon in SOTP that the Empire once possessed 25000 Star Destroyer, if each Impstar is crewwed by 37000 people. The Empire would have needed 925 000 000 clones, not too mention aditional troops.

Wayland had the capacity for 20000 clones. At the point of its greatest glory Palpy had been sitting on the throne for about 20 years. Wayland could have produced at most 400 000 clones, not much... Palpy would have needed about 2300+ Wayland like facilities to produce enough clones to crew his Star Destroyer, that alone is exaggerated, so there must have been conscription and recruitment in the years of Imperial reign.

[R2-Opus2]

Interesting numbers Trej. Yep, I can definitely see how conscription percentages might out perform standard recruitment. Especially depending on the speed with which the Empire conquers worlds in those early years where the propoganda machine hadn't taken hold beforehand.

 

I think though the answer to the expected concentration of clone production could only be better guessed at if new facilities are revealed in the next film...or some sign there was more than one production facility being planned elsewhere.

 

I wonder though what the current capacity the Kaminoans have for producing X number of clones per year is. When Pan We or whatever-her-skinny-self said talking to Obi-Wan is anything do go on (she said some were ready now, another 1 mil+ were almost ready), I don't know. But I wonder if those numbers are anywhere near their top capacity for production. If Palpy felt he'd need more, he might have needed other production facilities duplicated on other worlds so that those production outputs could overlap one another.

 

I wouldn't have put it passed Palps to have made provisions to have other secret places besides Kamino to make his troops. I mean, this was only one world the Jedi found out about that they had done this without the Council's approval. And though we learn of Wayland later, I do not know if it was an early participant in clone production as Kamino was or strictly a dormant storehouse until Thrawn's days.

 

Still, when worlds willingly began to become part of the Empire, I doubt that he might have had to maintain a high level of clone production on a steady basis as seen in AOTC. Not if he could expect a high percentage of standard recruiting from fully swayed systems.

 

I mean, if all was taken into account was Kamino as the sole source of clones, he wouldn't have had enough of those to maintain his grip unless he had a similar initial order of 1-2 mil+ set to be ready each successive year after these were ready by the time of this film...then throughout his 20+ year reign (and further if his source of clones took longer and longer to disable as the GCW raged). Even then he might not have enough to maintain his grip, just speaking of clones here.

 

He'd have to have a standard army of normal willing recruits + conscripts + a steady flow of equipment all at the same time. Some made in secret (pre-fall of the Republic) and some produced publically. Part of this process partially hindered by the fact that they still had a Senate up until the DS was built, so many things more likely made in secret than public due to bureaucratic hassles with the Senate.

 

I guess my point if I have one is, right now I don't know that clones could have made up the bulk of his service folks, but perhaps, just perhaps, the majority of his troops as a whole, minus army or any other branch we see folks' faces.

[ElvisMiggell]

Bah, the question is, does it really matter?!? Either way, you've got people who are more than happy to die for their Emperor, same result. Interesting implications when you start looking at force sensitives though.

 

Luuke was force sensitive, as was Joruus. Dorsk 81 was, but the rest of his population pretty much wasn't.....

 

I'll leave that for the next person to discuss.

[Jahled]

Has anyone thought about the connection between the Old-Republic not having a 'standing army,' so to speak of (apart from the Jedi Knights in a sense) and the now fairly obvious fact that the bulk of the Empire was comprised of clones for their troopers?

 

Before anyone starts quoting from un-official sources, like Saxton for example; bear in mind this: all the official licences in merchandicing from GL have never shown a Stormtrooper's face,or even been allowed to delve to deeply into their status, and now in this comic book it's blatent that Stormtroopers are clones/drones.... to quote Vader...

 

Ok, now feel free to start quoting...

[ElvisMiggell]

Not sure what you're trying to say. Certainly in official sourcecs we never see Stormtroopers facecs. However, if you count the comics then we do. Are you saying that only Stormies and all their varients are clones then?

[Trejiuvanat]

The Republic did not have a standing army, but its members worlds did have their own armies. One would expect that after Palpy selfdeclarated himself Emperor, then all armies of the member worlds and the clone army of the Republic would be turned into a single huge Imperial Army.

WE know that Carida and other Academy Worlds functiones already before Palpy's rise.

As for Force-Sensitives... hm... I'll go and have braeakfast and then I'll answer that issue...

[ElvisMiggell]

Long breakfeast.

 

Yes, i see your point. But by ANH, i wonder how many 'normal' members of armies would be left? Hmmmmmmm

[Trejiuvanat]

A long and tasty breakfast...

 

I would think that Palpy would have kept the nonhuman armies, watching over their nonhuman conflicts. Diamal troops watching over Diamal interests, etc...

Human troops is another case entirely. We know from cases like Baron Fel, Tycho Celchu, Han Solo, Pash Cracken that they became part of the armies and came to have assignments everywhere.

If the recruited and conscripted soldiers came to serve in the same unit with clones is unknown , although Stackpole may have hinted at it. In one of the X-Wing books, Wedge's gamble, I think, Tycho says that he got to talk to his family on Alderaan on his birthday, an event celebrated for its rarity among TIE pilots... Although Stackpole could have simply meant that most TIE pilots didn't get to live long enough to celebrate their birthdays, we can also interpret that clones wouldn't have any need to celebrate their "birthdays"....

By the time of the Thrawn Crisis, clones were a rarity, they weren't as common. Not even in Imperial Circles. Mara Jade knows little of clones, for someone who has been in the upper echelons of the Imperial Court at its zenith, not knowing of clones, or cloning centers, suggests that they weren't manufactured that much at the time.

 

Clones and the Force:

An interesting topic.

We know of cases like Joruus C'Baoth, and Dorsk 81 or Palpy's clone(s), and Luuke.

We know also that Spaarti clones need to be cut off from the Force, to be grown rapidly (2 weeks) , that implies the use of Ysalamiri. Or they need about 1 year to be fully grown. Otherwise they'll get crazy.

The mental unstability is a result from a shared connection to the Force. Does that imply that clones are, on a subconscious level, aware of the Force?

We do not know much about how C'Baoth's clone came to be. How long his maturing period was, etc. We know that he was crazy and that he did not know he was a clone. He was Force-sensitive, but did not know that there was someone else with the same connection to Force as he, the original C'Baoth, we sadly do not know if both C'Baoths were alive at the same time.

We know that clones from Force-sensitives are Force-sensitives, and that with non-sensitives, there is at least an awareness, an existence within the Force that makes them mentally unstable if exposed to fast to the galaxy.

We know that Thrawn's Wayland clones felt "strange" in the Force, we got that comment from Luke on numerous occasions, that means that there is some paricularity in them as a result of A) being clones and their common presence in the Force, or B) that as a result of being cut off from the Force during their growth a loss of their "Force-connection", not in a Vong-style, but still not as strong as in other people.

 

I'll leave it for the next to continue discussing...

[the_mask]

I think that Stackpole simply meant, that the Tie pilots wouldn't get that old. I mean everytime I play XWA they are slaughtered by the dozens, because of their lack in shields.

 

I think that Palpy will get rid of the clones somehow in EP3. Maybe some will "mysteriously" become mad and then he can blame the Jedi for ordering their creation in the first place. Just a theory for EP3, mind you.

 

IIRC C'Baoth was killed, when the outbound flight project was intercepted by Thrawn and Joruus was spawned from samples taken earlier. If both were alive at the same time, that strange buzz-effect that Luke encountered with his fight against Luuke could've happened.

 

Well, everyone is connected to the force, although those not sensitive to it are just unaware of how to use it. Or they got a too low midi-chlorian count

[Trejiuvanat]

IIRC C'Baoth was killed, when the outbound flight project was intercepted by Thrawn and Joruus was spawned from samples taken earlier. If both were alive at the same time, that strange buzz-effect that Luke encountered with his fight against Luuke could've happened.

 

We don't know that. Perhaps Thrawn did destroy the OBF and had Doriana leave with C'Baoth back to Palpy...

 

Well, everyone is connected to the force, although those not sensitive to it are just unaware of how to use it. Or they got a too low midi-chlorian count

 

Aaargh! Those midi-chlorians again, I hate that stupid midicholorian theory, but I see your point. That's what I meant with my last point. Clones like one ones Thrawn' created in Wayland probabl have a weaker Force-presence, due to the use of ysalimiri. But again there seems to be an exception: Luuke. Although we never see him manipulating the Force it was highly likely that he was a Force-sensitive.

[R2-Opus2]

To address the Thrawn series a bit with these things. I would tend to reckon that the reason Luke senses these clones to be strange in the force (even though they were able to be grown fast, they still functioned well: there was no indication of life spans of those - either the types that could mature to be nuts, or the ones made using the yslamiri trick), is because of their short maturation period. Even though these, the ones that supposedly wouldn't go mad worked, there had to be a flaw in them somewhere that Luke could pick up on. Thrawn's must have had some other minute flaw about them, despite his ability to get around the "proper" maturation period.

 

Its either that, or the experience of sensing them in the Force is exactly the same as how Obi-Wan sensed the Republic Clones, (only that was never eluded to that he sensed them in the Force while at Kamino the exact same way).

 

I think that Palpy will get rid of the clones somehow in EP3. Maybe some will "mysteriously" become mad and then he can blame the Jedi for ordering their creation in the first place. Just a theory for EP3, mind you.

 

Actually, I think it would be more his style say, if he made enough to help him take key worlds, then use his political power to pass a law banning their use (maybe not their use in the case of the current ones...just future production of any, so no one can rival his) just prior to the Republic's fall (or maybe even after) right after the initial war.

 

By this same token, if banning further production of any clones...after he's made use of his (yet not ordering them destroyed cause that might seem indescreet, they are living beings, not droids after all ), this'll probably be about the same time they pass a law banning the production of war droids (even though the Empire builds their own later on down the line, this is more to abolish competition and threats to his immediate national security).

 

So basically from the stance of the scheming politician, I can easily see him doing something like this. I mean, he'll already have the clones and initial starfleet he'll need to to hold key sectors of space so in a way, he might not even have to make more clones after a while. He can still come off appearing appeasing to the masses like he said he would, by standing down his army, but he'll have to have something else convincing in play to persuade others (simple minds like Jar Jar), that it wouldn't be prudent at that time and that they recommend he hold the reigns indefinitely by not standing that army down, but keeping it to secure trade routes for instance.

 

So in the early days after the war, and including any arguments he might have suggested (or manipulated other senators to suggest for him) that he maintain a security presence indefinitely, he'd already have a solid recruitment base for soldiers and troops to pick up slack from the clones (pre-forced conscription policies).

 

Anyway, this isn't to say either that Palpy couldn't still blame the Jedi for ordering those clones as mask suggests...but the problem I have with it atm is that Palpy would have to really distance himself from the Jedi before he did it or he could just as likely be implicated (he did serve a 10 yr reign as Chancellor already by this point after all, and them clones take as long to make). No, I rather think that if does want to blame them though, he'll use some other outraged senator to implicate them for him without being overt about it himself...In exactly the same way he had positioned Jar Jar to pass that act of war thingymabob so he could stay in office longer.

 

By appearing like he's still a friend of the Jedi and appearing to stand for them when such a manipulated senator spoke out, Palpy's credibility with the Jedi wouldn't be threatened before he wanted it to be, and the Jedi at least, still wouldn't suspect him of any duplicity until it was too late...much too late...like after several dozens more died in accidents or something

[ElvisMiggell]

fine theories all. So what about Doesk 81?

[R2-Opus2]

So what about Doesk 81?

 

I'm not sure what you want to know. My thoughts on him though is that his culture is also one that embraces cloning just as Kaminoans do, but I don't know yet that its clear if Kaminoans themselves are clones, or if they are just in the business of making them for others. The distinction between the two cultures in my view is that Dorsk's races is a bonefied "cloning culture" as is the Kaminoans, however Dorsk's race does not do it for profit, but for bettering his race.

 

While I think they have divergent cloning technologies between the two, I would also guess that clone maturation periods are not entirely too dissimilar, but I'd have to refresh myself as to Dorsk's culture's processes a little in that respect.

 

As for Dorsk's force abiltiy being a clone, I would chalk that up to being more a case of random mutation, not unlike the odds of any other race, culture, or individual with the "potential" to make something of it or have it crop up. Whether Dorsk's culture through their entire cloning history has ever spawned a force sensitive clone before or not is unclear, but if this is a new phenomena starting with 81, then I'd tend to stand by the random mutation thing, and that, had they not been a "cloning culture", they might have had more force sensitives.

 

His particular cloning line though is interesting, because after he died, Dorsk 82 was created and he too, had Force potential. I'd be curious to wonder if from the line where this Force potential did crop up (starting from 81), if it would continue onward through that lineage past 82. From my memory, I think they say every subsequent clone in a family lineage is a direct copy of the clone immediately preceding it, so it may be quite posible every future "Dorsk clone" would be Force sensitive to one degree or other.

 

If the copy machine analogy applies here too, that a copy of a copy of a copy, would somehow loose some intergrity along the line, then I would probably agree that this Force ability in future Dorsk clones would be lessoned, not greater. Unless of course there's something inherent in how they process clones is different in regards to perserving said integrity of previous incarnations.

[ElvisMiggell]

Dorsks force ability was what i was asking about. And i pretty much agree. However, if the gene for the force is in there, it could in teory mutate to produce a more powerful one?!?

[R2-Opus2]

However, if the gene for the force is in there, it could in teory mutate to produce a more powerful one?!?

 

I would say that yes, if Dorsk's people were in fact in the business of making every successive clone in a given family line "better" each time, rather than "just running off another copy" when one dies. I tend to think this is the case. So in this respect, at least in Dorsk's family line post-82 has a shot at having greater potential if not at least the same as Dorsk 81's.

 

I'll add here too that whatever chances Dorsk's lineage had for obtaining Force potential "prior" to 81, is probably shared by the other non-force-using lineages. Basically, if it can crop up in his lineage, there must be some element of chance it could crop up in others. However I would argue that everyone's chances as a whole in that culture is lessoned more for this potential because they are a "clone culture", because they've long since let things not develop "naturally".