the fate of the Clones

I hope this is the right forum.

Timothy Zahn refers to the Clone War as a war between the Republic and "some clonemasters" and and an army of insane clones and he gives a time period.

this is incorrect now of course, but apparently the date can be viewed as just inaccurate because it was a Noghri who can be said to have been using a Noghri dating system.

but what about the insane clones?
the idea of an army of insane clones was already familiar to me. I believe it was also mentioned in some older LFL material.
could this be what becomes of them?
will the Empire take control of Kamino and botch the cloning work by growing to many to quickly (which I believe Zahn says causes the insanity)?

as far as I am aware we have yet to learn why Palpatine replaced his Clone Army with human stormtroopers.

 

You might be better served by taking some of these questions over to the Literature Forum. Your question refers back to a lot of EU inconsistency generated by the prequel trilogy. The films really don't provide any definite answer to all of this.

In light of the prequels, I've always thought that stormtroopers are clones. With imperial re-organization, they became known as stormtroopers as opposed to clone troopers. But that is just my interpretation.

 

well I was wondering if clone madness would lead to their extermination and seeing as their fate will affect STAR WARS as a whole I thought this the best place.

however, seeing as there is no way any of us can figure out the answer anyway, my thread is ultimately pointless.

as to the stormtroopers, GL has already confirmed in the past that they are not clones.

 

Nothing in the Thrawn Trilogy about the clone wars is accurate information about the clone wars themselves; there's your answer. No clonemasters started the war, there were no mad clones beyond one.


I think it's official that Pellaeon's thoughts about clones are from a different war with clones involved, that happened between TPM & AOTC.

 

I thought the "official" story was that by the time of the OT the stormtroopers were a mix of clones from different templates and recruits.

 

Yeah, that's the official explanation-a mixture of clones and recruits.

Although honestly, with just the films considered and no EU, there's no particular reason the OT stormtroopers couldn't have been all clones.

 

I never heard tell that the Stormtroopers of the original trilogy _had been_ clones until I heard it in 1999 from TFN poster Chyren.

In defense of the naive interpretation that the Stormtroopers of SW77 were not clones, you have the Nearsighted stormtrooper.

Because of the intercom, the voices are not distinctive enough for a naive viewer to immediately recognize they share uncanny similarity. Some sites assert Jerry Walter was the single sole voiceover, and one site lists more - http://www.sf-worlds.com/star-wars/episode-4.html. (I can _tell_ myself to believe that all ANH ST voices are identical, but because of the intercom my ears cannot arrive at that conclusion on their own.)

In further defense of the naive interpretation that the Stoomtroopers of SW77, ESB or ROTJ were not clones - it undermines the parallel to Nazi Germany, where Hitler had the feat of corralling millions of unwashed unemployed to die for lebensraum. The Kaminoans' feat had to do with corralling chromosomes. The balance would tilt - from human powered fascism: "This too, can happen to your mind, and then your body" - to mass production powered fascism: "This too, can happen to your body, but your mind is safe". Not the same kind of thriller.

 

"naive interpretation"??

 

The stormtroopers ARE clones, 98% of them anyways. Lucas says so. Also if you go by just the movies there is absolutely no reason why the guys in white armor would suddenly change to random "different" guys in white armor just because we don't actually see them without there helmets on anymore. Part of the whole point of the backstory was to show/explain things like this. For example "why does the empire have such massive armies of totally expendable people and why are they 100% obedient to the ruler of the empire?" Because they are clones. Thats why. Hence "Clone Wars".

 

that is possible - but I'm pretty sure GL has already said they're not. as to "as massive expendable obedient armies" - check the history books, a conscript might not want to fight but somebody starts shooting at him he has to defend himself = as to "100%" its a job that puts food on the table - how many of them had nowhere else to go? how many even knew they were the bad guys? just ordinary men on the wrong side

don't get what you mean by this

 

This is a lie.

And this is also a lie. It doesn't make any sense at all.

 

LOL, oh really? Lucas DID say so right on the dvd commentary of ANH.

Lucas says in the dvd commentary of A New Hope that when the trooper bumps his head on the door it was because he couldnt see the door hanging there to duck. He said this was because that was a little trait about jango that got cloned into all the stormtroopers.

THAT IS WHY HE TOOK THE TIME TO MAKE JANGO BUMP HIS HEAD ON THE DOOR TO HIS SHIP THE SAME EXZACT WAY IN ATTACK OF THE CLONES. TO SHOW THIS.

THEN HE WENT BACK AND LET THE *CLUNK* SOUND OF THE TROOPER BUMPING HIS HEAD ON THE DOOR BE HEARD RATHER THAN TRYING TO HIDE IT.

Not only that but if you notice the head bump made THE SAME EXZACT sound as when jango bumped his head.

It was a blooper when the movie first came out in 1977 yes, but he made sense of it with this explanation. Watch the dvd if you really dont believe me.

There are indeed SOME humans in the army by the time of ANH because they train to become officers BUT its mostly clones. THE WHOLE REASON why much of attack of the clones was written was to explain the back story of the stormtroopers and how they came to be.

Even in the OT they ALL have the SAME voice. Not jango's voice but still the same voice.

Jango Fett lived there and trained them, that's where they got the accent. When he died, the accent was gone, because future generations of stormtroopers looked like Jango, but grew up around AND were trained by many outher vareious impereal personel.

Also...

As far back as 1994 there was blatant hints of the stormtroopers simply being clones. For example RIGHT on the back of every stormtrooper toy, on the box in the little character bio it said...

"Feared throughout the galaxy, stormtroopers are elite shock troops deployed in support of both ground forces and the Imperial fleet. Stormtroopers are unquestionably loyal to the Empire, and their unshakable military discipline has led to speculation that they may be the result of accelerated Imperial cloning experiments, although this has never been confirmed."

Proof: http://www.rebelscum.com/photo.asp?image=/toys/potfstormtrooperback00.jpg

It also says in the Star Wars Trilogy Visual Dictionary (released before the PT) that the "unquestionable loyalty and total obedience" as well as the apparent total lack of any human emotion shared by stormtroopers leads to strong hints of a history in cloneing.

Simply in the way that the movies are structured there is absolutely **no reason** to all of the sudden think that the clones are not who/what they are from one movie to the next just because the armor or voice changes slightly. Lucas has said that the reason why he changed the armor from AOTC to ROTS was to show the "evolution" of the armor from its early stages to its final form in the OT.

The idea that palpatine all of the sudden through out his awesome personal army of totally expendable,totally emotionless,100% obedient, mandalorian trained slaves that he can simply GROW as much as he wants of just to have to go and recruit thousands and thousands of random people from around the galaxy and train them in academies IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN A CREATION OF THE EU.

Not the movies, the EU. And the EU BEFORE the PT came out at that.

The ones who were imperial officers were humans (to govern over and lead the clones much like

 

It funny to think GL was sitting around thinking he had to make sense of some stupid blooper nobody cares about.


Going by just the movies.I always though in the OT they where normal guys recruited.They have different voices and there different heights plus when Jango was killed I though they lost there ability to clone him as they would run out of genetic material.

 

It even goes as far back as 1978-79. There was also a kind of hint in The Last Command in 1993.

 

Even if they ran out of genetic material (witch i don't even know if it works like that) all that means is no more jango clones. Thats perfectly fine. They can still clone from other templets, it doesn't *have to be* jango. Maybe they simply made clones of the already existing clones (with would also explain why they are such bad shots by the time of the OT) or maybe (and most likely) they just already have preserved samples of Jango's DNA and genetic material.

For example once jango gave them his DNA and genetic material 10 years before AOTC his job was done and he could have died right then and there and it wouldn't have mattered. The only reason he stayed was to give the clones actual training from him personally (witch is also why they talked like him at first). After watching the PT it all works itself out pretty smoothly.

 

I think an apology is warrented either way. no need for name calling.

obi-rob-kenobi,

you have some good points there. however you called the Clones "totally emotionless" - this is wrong. they do have emotions.

I remember GL talking about the head banging, but I thought Temura Morrison hit his head by accident and GL just left it in as an easter egg and that the reference to a "clone trait" wwas just a bit of tomfoolery.

 

Maybe i should have been clearer about what i meant when i said "totally emotionless". When i say "emotionless" i mean they are blank pallets taught what ever by whom ever. In the clone wars the jedi allowed them to have nicknames, encouraged them to have individuality and free thinking BUT when the empire was instated the stormtroopers were called by there actual numbers, hence the scene in ANH where the officer calls the trooper "TK-417".

If the empire raises the clones to be a single minded force of emotionless,heartless, brainwashed slaves without any sense of individuality or any of the other "nice" things the jedi taught the original clones than thats how they are going to be by the time they are old enough for battle.

In the Star Wars Trilogy Visual Dictionary (released in 1997)it says many times that stormtroopers show absolutely no emotion or even concern when there own fall in battle. They are not phased at all by how ever many die by there sides.

Also another point that should probably be made is that when the emperor died in ROTJ almost all of the stormtroopers were now lost and confused to an extent because as has been proven by ROTS they are all totally obedient to palpatine above all else and with him dead they have no direct commander and chief. Now couple that with all the other chaos and confusion going on amongst the imperial remanent and there you have a complete explanation of why the empire was destroyed after the defeat at Endor.

This is why you can see citizens rioting and throwing stormtroopers off balconies in the Coruscant celebration scene.

 

now that I understand what you meant by "emotionless", I can say there is now a very good arguement iin favour of them being clones.

let's see if anyone can argue for the other side.

 

Stormtroopers were referred to as being clones in 'Star Wars Official Poster Monthly #4' - published in January 1978.

Where this long-forgotten publication obtained this detail is unknown, but it's a pretty definite indication that the idea existed very early on, long before GL had even worked out the details of what the Clone Wars were.

As for Zahn's concepts - it's the EU, something GL has no qualms about contradicting whenever he feels like it. What's surprising is that LFL allowed such specific information about the no-go time zone to be included.

 

Leaving aside both the EU as well as the early LFL publications which hinted or stated that the stormtroopers were clones, I'll just cite Occam's Razor: all things being equal, the simplest explanation is the right one.

There would be no reason for the Emperor to NOT use clones during his reign. He'd used them in the Clone Wars, he used them to murder the Jedis, and he used them as his bodyguard in the immediate aftermath. What reason would he have to completely do away with such a useful tool? Why would he instead depend upon recruits who were not "totally obedient" and "docile", and who could therefore have seeds of rebellion and independence in them? Take, for instance, Biggs. There's a deleted scene from ANH where Biggs is telling Luke how he's leaving the Imperial Starfleet and he tries to recruit Luke to, ultimately, do the same. Would clones do this (please, no EU references)?

They dress the same as the clones, they serve the same oppressive and war-making purpose as the clones, and their boss is the same guy as the clones' boss. Why the heck would they not be clones?

It makes no sense whatsoever.

 

GL does not contradict the EU. GL decides what is canon, not the EU. the EU is just wrong.

 

Sure there is. The stormtroopers in the OT are all different heights and they don't speak with Temuera Morrison's voice. Hence, the ones we see and hear are not clones. I'm sure some of them could be Jango clones, but many aren't.

 

its quite possible that something happened to the Clones in the 20 years between III and IV.

 

They could be clones of multiple templates.