Mt. Tantiss Clones and Growth Acceleration

I got to thinking earlier today about Thrawn's Spaarti clones, and how they were grown so fast, and then I began trying to mesh this with the Kamino clones' growth acceleration, and how the growth acceleration may have affected the Mt. Tantiss clones. Did Thrawn have access to similar information to Ko Sai's, and were they able to slow the acceleration? Or were the clones considered disposable anyways, and die rather quickly on the front lines?

I know there isn't a canon answer, but I just wanted to see what everyone else thought.

 

Better question: did the Kaminoans know about the Force? IIRC it was the yssalmari that made Thrawn able to mproduce clones so quickly

 

The faster you grow a clone, the less mentally stable they are. Physically, it's possible to grow a clone in two weeks, and to "flash-print" their mind with memories and skills; but we've been told since the Thrawn trilogy that their minds will normally come apart if you do this, especially under combat stress.

Kaminoans, in contrast, were very thorough. They trained their clones for ten years, paying as much attention to their psychology as their biology. Taun We was a behavioural psychologist, not a biologist.

But the real point of the GAR wasn't an "instant army" - considering the population of the Republic, a small, highly-trained army of volunteers could have been created from the ground up in much less than ten years.

What the Republic (or, rather, the Empire) got from Kamino was something quite different: an army that was created in secret, ready to be deployed when required; bred totally for war, with no genuine attachment to the "wider world" of Galactic civilization.

Even then, some of the clones were, frankly, borderline insane anyway.

It would certainly make sense if faster cloning was attempted during the Clone Wars, however. Zahn's "Hero of Cartao" deals with this, and indicates that the Republic were planning to accelerate the production time to a matter of months, using Core Worlds technology which the Kaminoans had ignored; the problem was that it was hard to achieve rapid production of large numbers of cloning tanks. I think it's also outright mentioned in the Thrawn trilogy that some Clone Wars clones were grown very fast.

That said, I don't think we've ever explicitly seen any fast-grown Republic clones, although the Morgukai warrior-clones of the Seperatist "Shadow Army" were probably grown in a matter of months. They didn't seem entirely stable, but then again, their prime clone was a crazed Nikto warrior.

In the Thrawn trilogy, Zahn presents the problem with fast-grown clones as being due to a Force "resonance" with their prime and their other duplicates; the use of ysalamiri cocoons the growing clones, enabling them to be grown to stable maturity in just two weeks. In the long term, Grodin Tierce was no more insane than many perfectly normal Imperials, while the Devist brothers seem to have been absolutely fine.

However, I'll observe that objectively, we don't actually know if this is correct in detail - it's just what the characters think happens. We do know from implicit evidence in the Thrawn trlogy that ysalamiri don't actually cut off the Force completely - vornskrs can hunt Jedi on Myrkr - so I wonder if their effect is actually nothing to do with cutting off a maddening "Force resonance"; perhaps they actually create an active soothing effect that stabilizes and calms the clones....



- The Imperial Ewok

 

It's a shame that Palpatine and his Empire never had access to the same kind of Cloning technology that the Dominion had in STDS9, They could clone the Vorta in about one day and the Jem Haddar maybe a couple of days, imagine Stormtroopers being made by the thousands in only a week, or thousands of elite tie fighter pilots being cloned in a week, with no DNA flaws unless they were programmed to have flaws like how the Vorta had poor eyesight and other probelms on purpose to prevent them from being rebellious or a threat to the Founders, the Empire would have totally controlled the Outer Rim and even Wild Space and the Unknown Regions if they could mass produce potentially millions of clones a month like that.

 

I think they have done a nice job of trying to fit this into the "canon" of Star Wars. Honestly, I think Zahn could not know of Lucas's future plans when writing Heir to the Empire in the late eighties. Lucas didn't even know his plans then. The short story mentioned earlier helped and they've kept it mysterious enough to keep it in "canon'.

 

That's the problem with so many retcon's these days, they're so mysterious....

 

A shame?

 

I think everyone's missed the main point of the question, which is: since clone growth was accelerated so much by Thrawn, why didn't his clones have lifespans shortened accordingly? The Kaminoans only accelerated the clone growth enough to halve the maturation process, and yet this was still supposedly enough to shorten a mature clone's lifespan. The mystery is: why wasn't this the case for Thrawn's clones?

TC

 

honestly, I think it has something to do with the tanks.

In the case of the Kamino Clones, the clones are essentially "birthed" children. They are infants when they are removed from the gestation tanks. Growth acceleration is handled genetically and in the real environment.

Now with Thrawn's clones, they stay in the tanks until everything is essentially complete,,,this provides a static, adjustable environment in which, I would believe, it would be easier to manually accelerate or control bodily function, including maturation...even providing for a "slow down" to the process before the clone emerges from the tank.

There is no basis for this, but given similar cloning stories from other fiction, it would be most sensible.

 

I always assumed the Kamino clones had accelerated aging as part of their genetics, while Spaarti clones used artificial growth hormones that were purged from their bodies when they reached the desired age.

- lazy


EDIT: Er, what Jedimarine said.

 

Simple answer: the Kaminoans deliberately built in the clones' shorter lifespans. They could have normalized them, but they didn't.

Traviss has made this much explicit.

With the right scientific knowledge, it was possible to totally negate the changes to their biology. Jaing Skirata was grown to adulthood in a decade like every other Kaminoan clone, but after torturning Ko Sai for long enough, he was able to adjust his own ageing process, so that in Sacrifice he appears no older than Boba, when he actually hit biological maturity at double-speed; even if he'd normalized his ageing, he should still be a decade older, so he's probably slowed it down.

So, we know the Kaminoans did this to the clones deliberately.

Why? That's the question, I gues....

Out of interest, where did the double-speed ageing after they reached maturity come from? Was that Traviss, or was that already established somewhere else?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Someone should ask Karen Traviss.

However, I think it'd be cool if it was something utterly and completely venal rather than a Dark Plot by Darth SidiousTM. Instead, I'd like it to be the Kaminoans built it into their clones so that in twenty years, they'd be forced to buy New Clones. Like building cars to last only 5 years.

 

It might be a failsafe just in case the original GAR became to attached to their Jedi friends.

And how is the GeNode process different from Spaarti cylinders?

 

And since I seem to have missed the point completely, how long does a clone live? After being fully grown.

 

They age 2 years for every 1. So presumably, they'd live about 50 years at best.

 

I took "he looked no older than Boba Fett" to just mean "he didn't look 160" rather than exactly the same age.

70 or 80... it's all the same compared to 160.

Probably Traviss.

I always assumed it was just to explain the lack of clones during the OT though, so I guess it's arguable whether it was actually Traviss's intention or something LFL asked her to explain for them.

 

Or we can just look in pre-Traviss canon material for the answer...?

It certainly gives weight to that Lama Su/Palpatine discussion in Odds....

It might well be - certainly, the group-psychology of the GAR will be affected by this, and that may be quite deliberate, although we don't know exactly what ways the Kaminoans were pushing them.

It could simply be designed to prevent the development of a dangerous veteran class within the Army; or it may be to actively make the clones feel expendable, denying them any long future to live for and making them focus on their military role...

Not very different at all, probably.

The "Spaarti cylinders" are made by Spaarti Creations on Cartao, but the design simply uses existing Core Worlds tech.

It's not clear whether the design used was an existing one (GeNode, Arkanian, etc.), or if the Republic created a modified design of its own. The second option would allow "Spaarti cylinders" to refer more generally to a new design of cloning cylinder introduced for fast-grown clones during the Clone Wars, justifying the reputation and recognizability of the name in the Thrawn trilogy, and Mara's implicit opinion that there were once multiple sets of Spaarti cylinders.

Alternatively, those POVs could be retconned as rumour and inaccurate media-created opinions.

As Charlemagne19 said, clones age at approximately double speed, although in Republic Commando: Hard Contact, Traviss created a quotation from a veteran clone as a chapter introduction, and his precise equivalent biological age is there given as slightly above twice his real age.

Not entirely. Gotab (the old Mando who may be Bardan) is about 80, and acts it.

But, point vaguely taken.

Well, it seems pretty clearly-established now that a significant part of the Stormtrooper Corps are clones. Triv Pothman and Colonel Cronus, for example, can both be retconned as Jango clones. Mara in Survivor's Quest thinks of them as having always been predominantly clones.

It was already suggested as a possibility in old WEG material, and stated outright in this piece of 1981 backstory, which appears to be official material from the same people that did the Official Poster Magazines at the time of the original movies.

Note the emphasis on dehumanization and indoctrination, rather than speed of production.

So? Why the distinction?

Easy: it's just classified.

Ideally, there shouldn't have been the open mixing of clone and non-clone troops that we see with Tank Sunber in The Wrong Side of the War, because it complicates Pellaeon's POV in the Thrawn trilogy that there have been no clones since the Clone Wars; but the problem's not insurmountable.

The on

 

That's possible. For all we know the accelerated ageing was a characteristic of only Kaminoan clones. We've only seen Spaartis aside from Kamino clones, and whatever species Dorsk 81 was.

I didn't think it was Traviss, but everyone else seems to disagree. From what I understood AotC established that all the clones aged twice as fast. Or am I misunderstanding the question?

That seems to fit in pretty well with how the Kaminoans are shown to regard the clones. Trying to exterminate the Nulls, and terminating batches without slightly below-par eyesight. To the Kaminoans, they're a product, nothing more.

What source are the GeNodes from? I've heard them mentioned a few times, but I can't remember a source being mentioned. What exactly are they, too?

Like McEwok said, there are clones in the OT, possibly even Jango clones. They're just not especially well-known. I think the ratio of clones to normal stormtroopers was 60-40 or something like that, and normal stormtroopers that excelled were often cloned for new batches.

I remember hearing somewhere, too, that the Empire nationalized cloning facilities some time during it's rise. Star Wars Galaxies, I think.

That is a pretty good question. I've never really thought about it. Maybe in a struggle to control the cloning facilities, they were destroyed by warlords. Or maybe the Empire simply didn't have the resources to run them anymore, and did away with them.

Oh, and what about that Empire issue where Luke runs into a Clone Wars-era clone? Sixty is the new forty, eh?

 

My Retcon-idea about that one would be, the facilities were secret. And the secret either lost (with the many high-profiles on board the 2nd DS) or not shared by the keeper with the Warlords (becasue he feared his master´s retribution, possibly knowing as the "clone-master" some Palps clones waited somewhewre out there.

 

How'd whoever these fans are figure that that guy is Bardan Jusik? I didn't see no mention of Kiffar looks or characteristics in the RC books. Likewise Gotab doesn't talk like Bardan does. What gives?

 

That's a retcon to explain how us players, well ex-player in my case, could come back from the dead & has nothing to do with Stormtroopers. The Empire banned military clones I think, but in SWG it was the way for the players to come back to life & have all their stuff on them at the various cloning centers thruout the galaxy. I suppose that if you RP'd as a Stormtrooper, like me, then yeah it was all good.

 

Thats right. I know it was in there for gameplay reasons, I used to play SWG for a bit, but I meant that could be tied in with the Empire's use of clones post-RotS.

 

>What source are the GeNodes from? I've heard them mentioned a few times, but I can't remember a source being mentioned. What exactly are they, too?<

They're from the short story Pax Imperica, from the Galactic Battleground strategy guide. These clones are programmed to believe that they are not, in fact, clones at all, to the point where one clone can express his relief at not being a clone while sitting at a table full of copies of himself.

TC

 

Now that's creepy.

But what is the purpose of creating clones who think they're regular people? Kaminoan and Spaarti clones knew what they were, and that caused no problems(well, mostly )

 

No, not at all: we know the Kaminoan clones age twice as fast up to physical maturity (ie, they take ten years to acquire the body of a twenty-year-old); the question is why at that point, the Kaminoans don't do something to stop the accelerated ageing.

The answer seems to be a subplot in the Republic Commando novels: what's clear already is that they COULD HAVE DONE SO, but chose not to.

I've done a little digging, and I've been told (at third-hand!) that the accelerated ageing also appears in Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary, released more than two years ahead of Hard Contact. Anyone able to confirm this?

Anyone got a canon source for that 60:40 ratio?

I think it's also covered in somewhere like GttGAR, isn't it?

He's in fighting shape at the age of thirty-two, real-time, which isn't bad for a clone, actually - especially considering that he's gone two decades without any medical support...

It's a pretty good idea. The one place that we do know there are cloning facilities is Byss, where Palpatine has his own personal clones. We can also infer access on Byss to other clones, since Palpatine gives Luke a pair of Imperial Sentinels to shape, and we know that these are clones as well...

In Survivor's Quest, Mara's POV is that the cloning tanks were "tracked down and destroyed" over the years - she doesn't say who by, but the implication is that it would be the forces of peace and justice (and, now that I look at that line again, it's a subtle Zahn echo on Ben Kenobi's description of the fate of the Jedi)....

He doesn't talk like Bardan did sixty years earlier, you're right.

However, he's not described in any way as looking like a Kiffar, either. He claims to be a Kiffar, and seems to have some Force-sensitivity. That's all.

Also, his physical description matches Bardan's, and his age corresponds as well. We also know that he's connected in some way with Jaing Skirata, and even more closely with Venku/"Kad'ika", a clone trooper's son who himself seems closely connected with Jaing, and whose surname Karen has thus far withheld from us.

In short: he's a Force-sensitive of Bardan Jusik's approximate age and appearance, who's connected with the Skirata boys, and more closely linked to someone who's widely speculated to be Etain and Darman's kid.

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