The devastation of the Clone Wars

Now I remember Leia mentioning off hand that countless worlds were ruined by the Clone Wars. And we're just starting to see it happen. We've had the Dihexon attack on civilians in Jedi Starfighter, a planet in the latest Holonet news reduced to cinders, the gas attack on the Gungans, Jabimm and the planet in Shak Ti look trashed too. If you were to guess, how many more planets will be torn apart by this war? And will it be equal or greater than the number of wasted planets in the NJO? It reminds me of total annihalation in some parts, two armies with endlessly renewable soldiers who rip the galaxy to shreds.

 

i think the devastation caused by the yuuzhan vong invasion is far more severe than the clones wars.

 

I second that. After reading the New Jedi Order for so long and seeing all the war and bloodshed that's been going on for years in the galaxy and after losing main characters that we've learned to love, the Clone Wars don't seem all that devastating, or even all that interesting. The Clone Wars books that come out better have some ****ed up war stories that can beat the Vong invasion.

 

Hey! Need I remind you that that one Zabrak guy died on Geonosis! And, that other guy too! You know... him.

 

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Now I remember Leia mentioning off hand that countless worlds were ruined by the Clone Wars. And we're just starting to see it happen. We've had the Dihexon attack on civilians in Jedi Starfighter, a planet in the latest Holonet news reduced to cinders, the gas attack on the Gungans, Jabimm and the planet in Shak Ti look trashed too. If you were to guess, how many more planets will be torn apart by this war? And will it be equal or greater than the number of wasted planets in the NJO? It reminds me of total annihalation in some parts, two armies with endlessly renewable soldiers who rip the galaxy to shreds.[/b][hr][/blockquote]One thing to keep in mind here is that we've only seen roughly [b][i]the first year[/i][/b] of the wars...there are three more yet to go, and as in real life, the worst devastation of all comes often near the tail-end of a conflict.

[b][blockquote][hr]I second that. After reading the New Jedi Order for so long and seeing all the war and bloodshed that's been going on for years in the galaxy and after losing main characters that we've learned to love, the Clone Wars don't seem all that devastating, or even all that interesting. The Clone Wars books that come out better have some ****ed up war stories that can beat the Vong invasion.[/b][hr][/blockquote]Oh, *CRONK*....

I don't really think for one second that it's ever going to equal the destruction that the NJO series has borne witness to; this is one of the more mundane reasons that's kept me away from reading the books at any great length. To be sure, Princess Leia (and George Lucas, by implication in the films) [b][i]did[/b][/i] imply that the Clone Wars were a messy, messy, nasty set of affairs, and I'm also rather confident that we *will* end up seeing massive devastation on a galactic scale...but at the same time, to simply wish for superfluous mayhem for the sole reason of one-upping another series' overabundance of the same is about as grottulously as fanboyish a reason for pulping my corneas into jelly as I've heard lately.

(...Not that I'm necessarily downgrading the NJO here, mind you, but I've heard gasps of mildly-restrained consternation from all over the four corners of fandom over its perceived wantonness. Even from the "die-hards.")

If anyone is interested in checking out some of the Clone Wars stories done to date, I'd handily point them in the direction of anything John Ostrander's written thus far -- he's a mature and talented writer whose stories are well worth reading, and also a Fine Human Being.

Also look up the novel [i]Shatterpoint[/i], by Matthew Stover -- it's a book that has somewhat redefined the place of the [i]Star Wars[/i] novel amidst the techno-sci-fantasy [i]oeuvre[/i]. (And, of course, you generally can't go wrong with whatever Timothy Zahn's put out...his three-part opus in the pages of the [i]SW Insider[/i] looks promising.)

 

i agree shatter point has taken star wars to a new level

 

We have barely seen six months of the war to date.

Yes the upcoming Battle of Jabiim occurs at year 1.5 AG (After Geonosis), but that isn't out. Doubtless the DR novels and JEDI will fill the gaps.

In the tales thus far several planets have been severly hit: Kamino attacked, a moon of Gungans wiped out ongoing battle at Munnilist & Murgoshir, the battle of Raxus Prime (and logically Thule). Plus a few I've probably missed out ...

AND the CW are yet to get going, right now everyone is holding back and playing it careful. The CIS expected to launch a surprise blitzkrieg, the OR & Jedi did not expect a war. THe CIS has the numerical advantage but the Or is fighting a holding action, uying time for its own war machine to grind into operation. A machine we'll be seeing in action at Jabiim.

Compared to the NJO's stop-start war, the CW promise to be total and enduring. In the first six months of NJO we had the battles of Dubrillion, Helska, Dantooine, Ithor, Obroa-Skai & Ord Mantell. In the first six months of CW there have been at least that number of engagements.

The thing is though NJO had Vong quick hit (VP), invasion proper (DT), sort of continuing (AOC-never really clear what happened between DT-AOC), BP - Vong take Duro and halt hostilties. EOV sees covert Vong actions before the war flares up in SBS, EE focuses on Borleias and then from DW onwards the Vong Invasion has hit its zenith in sheer death and destruction. Point is the Vong Invasion fluctuates, it isn't a straight line of ever-increasing destruction, the Clone Wars are likely to be so, so the CW get the edge for me.

JB

 

i dont think any battle in the clone wars will rival the destruction of coruscant, the most important planet in the galaxy.

 

what if the separatists devastate coruscant? somebody's gotta wonder where the senate building went, and why the emperor built his palace atop of it.. makes sense if it looks like the separatists destroy the senate, and maybe the jedi temple too.

coruscant has gone through many devastations and reconstructions, and has gotten by through just building on top of the ruins. i'll guess that there is a clone wars related set of ruins on that planet as well.

at any rate, it is tough to compare the devastation caused by the clone wars to the devastation of the vong invasion, simply because they are different goals in each.. the vong want to make the galaxy in their own image, which means wiping clean the previous occupants' ways (technology and culture). the separatists simply want to be free of the republic's corruption in order to pursue their own domination (and secretly have the sith control the galaxy in an empire). neither side in the clone wars wants to empty out the opponent and rebuild from scratch, rather they want to the power to rule over their opponent's capabilities.

 

At the rate this war is going through Jedi, it's hard to see how these wars aren't more devastating than the Vong invasion. And I doubt the Speratists are done using biochem warfare yet.

 

And there's also Obi-Wan's recent comment in the latest SW: Republic issue (#55) concerning the fact that "there are only a few thousand [Jedi] remaining now" (paraphrased)...and this is only 15 months or so into the war.

 

Not all wars take a mather of months or less. Most of those studied in school are measured in years. The hardcovers of the NJO are supposed to represent the beginning of a new year, with VP starting 25 ABY. DW kicks off 28 ABY. So the NJO will be fairly normal. But I think the Clone Wars will last an even shorter time and they will be as destructive as the Vong War. But because the destruction will be in a smaller timeframe, the Clone Wars will be proportinally worse.

 

But how many is a "few thousand" anyway? The Jedi only had ten thousand during TPM, and a large number could very well have been Padawans and younglings. Also, Obi-Wans comment could have only included knights and masters, in which case they probably have been decreasing in number since the OR began to decline.

I can't imagine the Clone Wars ever getting to the point of being nearly as destructive as the Vong invasion. The CW-devestated planets had the possibility of removing their citizens before the battles became truly hairy, and I can't remember too many instances in the Clone Wars of planets being completely annihilated from space.

There is a fairly decent-sized paragraph in FHIII where Luke lists the planets which have seen battles that he had a personal hand in. Most of those planets have been completely wiped out, too. The devestation of Coruscant itself caused well over a couple hundred Billion deaths, and adding that to the sheer number of millions of combatants plus the billions of civilians and refugees, and the number of planets (and many major planets, not just backwater worlds) which have been sterilized is staggering.

The damage caused by the Clone Wars is for the most part, able to be patched up, covered up, or repaired. The scars of the Vong invasion will be around for thousands of years. Within the first months of the war, we already know of a handful of planets which have been destroyed. By Balance Point, news of ruined planets is so common that it almost is an afterthought for characters, which Leia reflects upon momentarily. While the destruction between BP and SBS is minimal, Star By Star easily makes up for that in the planets which were completely ravages and ruined, and many of these were Core worlds, so they had a much greater population than the outer rim worlds.

It really doesn't seem that important for the Clone Wars to have remained in an escalated level of engagement for a longer period of time than the Vong Invasion, because the Clone Wars only involved a relatively small percentage of the entire galactic population and because the technology to wipe out planets within an hour or so didn't exist. The Vong Invasion was much more intense when there was fighting taking place, and it involved nearly every area of the galaxy and involved more destruction than any character could keep track of. It seems that every rivalry and every grudge was taken advantage of at some point in the NJO, resulting in countless bloody civil wars (we already know for certain that the Yevetha and the Firrerroans were destroyed in these civil wars, and there were hints that many other races could have been devestated or wiped out.)

Anyway, I'm rambling. The point is, the Vong Invasion was much more intense and involved much bloodier and destructive battles throughout its entire course than the Clone Wars could have hoped to achieve at any point in their course.

In my mind, the Clone Wars are more similar to the Spanish-American War or the Franco-Prussian War, while the Galactic Civil War is on the scale of WWI, and the Vong Invasion is like WWII replayed several times over.

 

As Jedi are dropping like Louis the Flies every which way, I wonder how many have died since Geonosis? Must be a few dozen by now . . .

Have there been any threads cataloguing this?

 

Have there been any threads cataloguing this?

Make Quest do it.

 

There was almost a year unofficial truce between Balance Point and Star By Star. There were skirmishes but nothing major. Now it seems there are more skirmishes between Destiny's Way and the Final Prophecy, more intense, but still not the intensity we saw eariler in Destiny's Way. The Clone Wars on the other hand, just keep building momentum and I think by the end, they'll be tearing planets apart. I mean, look at the comics. First, one or two Jedi die. Next, four legendary Jedi. Now whole planets are getting torn up and at least several thousand Jedi have died. When will it end? The war seems to be spiraling out of control, and that's good for us readers.

 

The former New Republic may be temporarily sitting the war out, but the Empire isn't.

Ooh-friggin' rah.

 

I didn't mean that exactly, the Galactic Alliance is gearing up for another big push, as are the Vong. When the GA last met the Vong, they destroyed thousands of ships, raided the Vong everywhere, blew trooper after trooper to smitherens and generally beat the living hell out of the Vong. Now they're pausing to regroup and do it again. The Empire is keeping the momentum going in the meanwhile. I just ment to show that the Vong war has highs and lows, while the Clone Wars are just getting worse and worse with every new peice of literature or EU material.

 

Another thing people are forgetting about the clone wars.

It actually caused the government to contract. At the 'end' of it many star systems have been abandoned by the overall government. I don't think many of you can understand what that really means, but imagine if in the cours eof and resultign froma war the US government lost contact with huge swathes of area.

Imagine the chaosand destruction required to make that happen.

the Vong are an overblown threat that unquestionably have caused far more death and destruction then is being shown. However for sheer devestation nothing can compare to the single war that turned the Republic into the Empire.

 

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But how many is a "few thousand" anyway? The Jedi only had ten thousand during TPM, and a large number could very well have been Padawans and younglings. Also, Obi-Wans comment could have only included knights and masters, in which case they probably have been decreasing in number since the OR began to decline.[/b][hr][/blockquote]I know, which kind of had me wondering the same thing. It's pretty interesting to note that, during the [i]Tales of the Jedi[/i] era, the Jedi numbered somwhere in the *hundreds* of thousands, but somewhere between there and the prequels (likely due to Ruusan and the new padawan rules, in fact), that number dropped to the figure that we have at the beginning of TPM.


[b][blockquote][hr]I can't imagine the Clone Wars ever getting to the point of being nearly as destructive as the Vong invasion. The CW-devestated planets had the possibility of removing their citizens before the battles became truly hairy, and I can't remember too many instances in the Clone Wars of planets being completely annihilated from space.

There is a fairly decent-sized paragraph in FHIII where Luke lists the planets which have seen battles that he had a personal hand in. Most of those planets have been completely wiped out, too. The devestation of Coruscant itself caused well over a couple hundred Billion deaths, and adding that to the sheer number of millions of combatants plus the billions of civilians and refugees, and the number of planets (and many major planets, not just backwater worlds) which have been sterilized is staggering.[/b][hr][/blockquote]But also keep in mind that we've only seen roughly the first fifteen or so months of the Clone Wars, which are slated to last some four years. As in real life, much of the major devastation in warfare comes towards the very [i]end[/i] of the conflict, rather than near the beginning.

Also, the implication from all of the Lucasfilm sources over the decades is that exactly what you described about the Yuzuhan Vong planetary sterilizations and mass-slaughter of billions is still to come; many books (some from the 1970s) make reference to entire planets being destroyed outright, and to many populations simply ceasing to exist during this era.


[b][blockquote][hr]The damage caused by the Clone Wars is for the most part, able to be patched up, covered up, or repaired. The scars of the Vong invasion will be around for thousands of years. Within the first months of the war, we already know of a handful of planets which have been destroyed. By Balance Point, news of ruined planets is so common that it almost is an afterthought for characters, which Leia reflects upon momentarily. While the destruction between BP and SBS is minimal, Star By Star easily makes up for that in the planets which were completely ravages and ruined, and many of these were Core worlds, so they had a much greater population than the outer rim worlds.[/b][hr][/blockquote]Here, you might be correct, in that the Clone Wars seemed to have had a much bigger impact upon the Middle- and Outer-Rim worlds than the Core itself, but as for the damage itself, from reading books like the first Timothy Zahn trilogy and the [i]Essential Chronology[/i], it seems as if it was actually more like the *psychological* damage that got covered up and Band-Aided over, rather than the physical destruction...bear in mind that Palpatine's machinery was quite good at its job, and more or less succeeded in suppressing peoples' raw emotions concerning the wars; they simply sucked it all in, and attempted to rebuild their material lives as best they could. There are numerous inferences to this state of affairs existing amidst the rubble and the devastation -- Bail Organa's own words in the NPR radio drama seem to support this.

(Even Luke Skywalker, living all the way out on his Tatooine sandpile, gasped in awe when he heard mention made of the Clone Wars; pointing to a much wider-reaching scope than even what we can see right now.)


[b][blockquote][hr]It really doesn't seem that important for the