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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit A/V Clone Wars Continuity Discussion (Spoilers Allowed)

Discussion in 'Literature' started by sabarte, May 12, 2008.

  1. Trip

    Trip Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 7, 2003
    yeah the clones certainly weren't unthinking, unfeeling automatons-- but they were incapable of disobeying an order. Like, they didn't just have a tendency to follow orders, they were physiologically incapable of not following them. Which I know seems contradictory, but it's not, which is what makes clones so fascinating when written properly. It's late and I need to sleep so I'm not gonna dig up quotes right now but Stover in particular is fantastic at depicting what this dichotomy's like-- check out the end of Shatterpoint, the short story "Equipment," and the Klick parts of Shadows of Mindor in particular for how this works.

    CooperTFN - yeah, I guess I might be sort of giving the writers too much credit here. :p
     
  2. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    I wouldn't put that just up to the genetic tampering -- that's one thing that makes them more compliant and predisposed to follow orders -- the thing everyone forgets is the training. The clones were trained nonstop for ten years. Their entire world was an artificial construct designed to churn out exactly the kind of soldiers the Kaminoans wanted. They were drilled nonstop to follow orders. They shouldn't just be normal people, and I wish more stuff would acknowledge how weird and artificial their entire existence is. It's not that there's some switch flipped in their DNA that makes them go "Must . . . obey . . . orders," like some kind of zombie, it's that it's been relentlessly drilled into their head every minute of the day for their entire existence that they have to follow orders. It's not even an option to not follow them. The concept of not following orders should be, to them, like the concept of sticking your hand into a wood chipper (instinctively repulsive and completely, pointlessly undesirable), going on an eight-state child-murder spree (morally and socially abhorrent), or flapping your arms and flying (laughably outside the bounds of reality). Genes don't even need to come into it.

    This whole, "Yeah, clones are just normal people!" thing runs hard up against the fact that they were born on an assembly line and raised every moment of their entire lives by machines and emotionless aliens for the sole and exclusive purpose of turning them into obedient soldiers par excellence. They should not come out of that process normal people.
     
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  3. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    Exactly - and that's why even in the show, when they end up "like other people", it's a big deal. Witness the clone who decided he was going to be a farmer...
     
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  4. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    To me a large part of TCW take on the clones is simply that LFL & Hasbro couldn't market an oodle of clones who were all exactly the same as action figures. They all needed to be individuals to better sell toys, even if it was just a hair cut or mustache.

    It is easier to market to kids if everyones favorite clone, maybe the one with the blue stripe, or the one with a lizard monkey tattooed on his head, aren't shown to be flesh droids. It felt like nearly half the toyline was clones by the time it ended. Not only did we get the obvious named characters like Rex & Cody but also legends like Matchstick, Denal & Scythe. Pretty much every clone with a defining mark got thier own figure, nevermind all the generic(but different) clone troopers like the jetpack crew, flame thrower trooper, Scub Trooper, so on, so forth.

    I bet it worked well too from a financial perspective , but I do feel like it was a consideration in how they made the clones appear on the show.
     
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  5. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2010
    The thing that makes the entire ordeal messy is that Travis' depiction actually comes from Lucas himself, if I recall correctly. The wook said that Lucas himself delcared 66 a contingency order, while some early sources considered it brainwashing.

    We'll just have to see exactly how this all plays out.
     
  6. Dr. Steve Brule

    Dr. Steve Brule Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 2012
    That would be odd, seeing as the ROTS novel which Lucas supposedly line-edited states that the clones were programmed with Order 66.
     
  7. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    And yet, that they weren't was a key point in Luceno's Dark Lord...
     
  8. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    Bad example. The clones who disobeyed never got Order 66. They got an non-specific order to kill their Jedi. No one said a thing about Order 66 to them.

    And even in Stover's ROTS, you can easily interpret the text to mean Cody was programmed, as in rigorously drilled to follow such an executive order no matter what.
     
  9. LelalMekha

    LelalMekha Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2012
    Just to highlight your point, here's the relevant part of Stover's novelization:

     
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  10. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    "Word has reached me," Palpatine was saying, "that a group of clone troopers on Murkhana may have deliberately refused to comply with Order Sixty-Six."
    The following paragraphs also state explicitly - "[Vader] knew that Order Sixty-Six had not been hardwired into the clones..."
     
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  11. Grand Admiral Crumb

    Grand Admiral Crumb Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2013
    Just because it's not "hard-wired" into their psyche doesn't mean it is a legitimate contingency order that the senate or Jedi Order knew about. All evidence points that Order 66 is the only one that is actionable by the Chancellor himself, and does not allow for any reversal. Any logical being looking at contingency orders would realize that something fishy was up with this one. I suspect, like I said before, the only official orders went up to 65 and there may have been several secret orders that were only instructed to the clones during their upbringing on Kamino. This allows it to be something they were taught since birth, and allows for some clones to not comply with the order. Regardless of how similar they are (it is implied that some groups of clones were altered to make them better for their various jobs, commandos and likely higher ranking clones) as soon as they leave Kamino they will each undergo different experiences. Mass grown or not, they are still humans, which are ultimately a product of not only their genes but also their subsequent memes and scenes. Even twins, which are the closest to clones available to us, can grow up vastly different.
     
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  12. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    Can we at least wait until the episodes are out before we have this argument all over again?
     
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  13. Grand Admiral Crumb

    Grand Admiral Crumb Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2013
    People watch Clone Wars in here? What?
     
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  14. Esg

    Esg Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Nope because we already know from the preview enough to debate over
     
  15. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2005
    Is there any news on when they are coming out?
     
  16. JediAlly

    JediAlly Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2000
    I saw the preview clip on the SW site featuring Plo Koon. Granted, with the blizzard in the background, I couldn't really understand what the clones were saying. However, the fact that they included the background music from when Anakin's anger begins to burst forth after Shmi died in his arms definitely conveys an ominous feel.

    And I recall making a post earlier that I believe Ahsoka and Anakin will cross paths again. Some of you were saying that they would do that after ROTS. I meant that I think before TCW ends, those two will cross paths again. Will Ahsoka return? Will she survive ROTS and Order 66? I don't know, If she does survive Order 66, then I think it would be a good idea for Dark Horse to have a comic series focusing on her living in the galaxy post ROTS. There would be references to events that occur in the novels and comics post-ROTS, so that we would have an idea where in the timeline the comic issue takes place, but otherwise she would walk her own path. She would have no interaction with previously established characters.
     
  17. Barriss_Coffee

    Barriss_Coffee Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2003
    NO! THE STAR DESTROYER IS THREE MILLION HARDWIRED CLONES LONG AND DRIVEN BY A DUROS!

    I am a fan of this. She tends to be a plague among previously-established characters. Suddenly they all start to act loony and go off and kill themselves or do something else ridiculously stupid. Except for Plo Koon who is just continually siphoning off her Mary Sueism.
    This screams awkward busstop meeting.
     
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  18. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    This is where I wish I had the graphics skill to do an image with Darth Vader and Ahsoka standing by an interstellar busstop sign in space. :p
     
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  19. GGrievous

    GGrievous Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2005
  20. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    "You have annoyed me for the last time..."
     
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  21. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    Like the clones who shot at Obi-Wan in ROTS when Cody said, "Blast him!"

    Which would make sense, given that AOTC described the clones as having been modified and conditioned to be more receptive to orders in general, not implanted with specific orders.
     
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  22. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
  23. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    LOL, I smell a post-ROTJ series.
     
  24. Esg

    Esg Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
  25. GGrievous

    GGrievous Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2005
    Dave, you draw some ugly looking TIE fighters.