The Official Republic Commando: True Colors Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Exactly and thus shows the extreme heavy-handedness of Traviss.

 

Obviously, you DON'T see the insult here, and that's pretty disturbing. You said, and it's quoted right there, that the clones were dumbed down so that readers recognize them as similar to the real-life military. You're stating here that the fictional characters have to be 'brought down' in level in order to make them the equal of the real military.

If you don't know how that's insulting, then I'm not the least bit amazed that you would have no problem with an army being treated as property and discarded when no longer useful.

As for the other point, PerfectCell made the same point I would have, and in a much clearer fashion, so I'll let that stand for my view, as well.

 

So let me get this straight....

1) Your perfectly fine with you insulting me.
2) Your not perfectly fine with someone have an alternate view of how fictional clones in a fictional universe should be viewed and thus must persecute them
3) You view that me stating off-handedly that they must be dumbed-down is an insult. *
4) You do realize that supposedly the clones are a good 20-50 times more intelligent than those of their universe, and the characters of said universe are shown to be of higher intelligence than ours (as would be per norm for a species over a billion years old)

-----Insert rest of my original post again--**



* I even debated throwing that word-hyphenated words- in there, and decided to. I now entirely regret it, as that is what you are deciding to base all conversation on rather than the entire rest of my post.
**Please go back, re-read my post. And ignore the one stated throw-away wordage that I decided to use last minute. Then please come back and debate my merits rather than persecute my philolegy.

 

I'm usually the first to accuse Traviss of being heavy handed as while I agree with her views on the Jedi I think she is very heavy handed in the way she portrays them in her writing. However I can't agree with you here, I don't think she's heavy handed with the Clones at all. She shows a humanity that is naturally there and allows you to connect the dots and make the natural conclusion for yourself based on your own morality.

 

Conclusions of what? That using a clone army is bad?
Thats the problem, there shouldn't be much more for us as readers to do with clones than to go (as far as morality goes), "Gee wiz, gee darn, poor Clone Trooper #3220202282".

But instead, we get constant, paragraph after paragraph, page after page, chapter after chapter, book after book after book (3 so far, 1 more to go) of the clones whining, complaining about their lot, others complaining about their lot, etc.

We know, we get it, their misused, abused, poor mistreated souls. We get it.


Her heavyhandedness is the main reason why their labeled as emo-clones now rather than characters 1-38484849384948.

 

Damn skippy.

 

So Droid armies must drive you absolutely bonkers then, right?

Fictional soldiers with sentience that really ARE no better than the weapons they carry...

 

The concept of a clone army is not original. Neither is the standard attributes of property vs people opinion storyline. And it's important to remember things that bother you are often done with deliberate intent: to make readers think and reflect on something they've read. It's a good author that can manage that.

And by the endless males of LOTR, Sansa Stark has done NOTHING in FOUR books!

 

Like I said I don't agree at all and the fact that there are still differing opinions on whether or not the Clones are slaves shows that she isn't being heavy handed like you are saying. She is simply portraying the characters as very human, which they are, and then from that leaving it up to the reader to correctly deduce what is wrong with their plight, or in the case of a lot of readers completely miss what is going on and ignore the facts of the situation.

 

Okay, let me ask you this question:

What is the difference between C-3P0 saying "We seem to be made to suffer. That's our lot in life." and Dar saying the same thing?

 

I know the question wasn't directed at me, but I'm going to give my two credits anyway.

The difference is that C-3PO is using hyperbole. He was not made to suffer. He really wasn't made to even feel or know suffering except in the abstract and in so much as it facilitates his original purpose as a protocol droid and relating to humans that do suffer. C-3PO eventually exceeds his programming, I will agree, to perhaps become closer to experiencing the true definitions of the human condition, but he exceeds his design specifications in doing so, and the intent of his previous creator to Anakin Skywalker's salvaging of his parts.

When Darman says something like this, it is the literal truth. He was created to wage war. He was created to suffer in others' places. The Kaminoan scientists did not remove the clones' capacity to experience pain and suffering because it would have made them uncontrollable and affected their motivations to perform their primary functions.

Darman was made to suffer. C-3PO was not.

 

Nope. C-3P0 was a product who will be treated as property his entire existance and subject to care solely at his owner's discretion, complete erasure of his personality if he gets out of line and has no real rights in society at large.

Darman is exactly the same.

Droids are sentient. Clones are sentient. I ask again: what is the difference? Or are people fixating on protecting things that look like us more than things that don't again?

 

Just reading this from an outsiders perspective...
This is honestly getting rather pathetic to read.
I'm hoping a Mod steps in and locks this.

 

Why, perchance?

Easy enough to throw anonymous stones without offering anything of value in any given post...

 

You've openly bashed the author and are now generally engaging in what reads as pointless bickering.
You dont like her work? Dont read it.
You dont like her characters? Find a different story to read...there are plenty out there.
You dont agree with each others viewpoints...agree to disagree and move on.

It looks bad. Bad on you. Bad on the Board. Bad because its public

 

Sentient. "Responsive to or conscious of sense impressions." - Mirriam-Webster Online.

Droids are not fully sentient to the extent that a human is sentient. They do not, with the notable exception of HRDs, possess the full spectrum of human senses, and in this I am speaking beyond the classical five physical senses.

Droids, with the exception of HRDs, are not designed to be self-aware beyond perhaps what self-awareness the typical pet possesses.

A wide swath of droids are not designed to have sapience, the ability to make independent judgments based on experience, not programming or instinct.

There are several notable droids in the SW universe that have exceeded their programming and design. They are the exception, not the rule.

Clones are decanted with the full spectrum of sentience, self-awareness, and sapience. They are designed and meant to be that way, and it's not an excession of their 'programming' to exibit these traits. It is the norm, not an exception, for clones.

The argument really can't be made that droids and clones are in the same place on the sentience spectrum because droids like C-3PO and R2-D2 are exceptions to the rule and not norms. Droids can achieve something very close to the full spectrum in a couple of exceptions and perhaps should have full rights accorded to them when they do and be removed from 'property' status. Clones are 'born' with all this already intact and should never have had a 'property' designation in the first place.

 

That is certainly your opinion but, much like Dennis Miller, you may be wrong. There's quite a bit of difference between author bashing and critique of the work.

Except we've seen COUNTLESS species in the GFFA that do not correspond to your definition of sentience and lack 1 to 5 of the "classical" senses. And, in fact, you are incorrect on Droids -- ALL droids have the capability to exceed their programming, however -- since they are property -- they are mind-wiped as a matter of course and not given the option to. See that? Same thing. A droid who is "uppity" is wiped, destroying it. A clone who is "uppity" is killed, destroying it.

A droid is constructed of parts and designed for a specific function. A clone is constructed of parts and designed for a specific function. They are not offspring, they are not anything other than a product which is modified from the original human template to be... something else. They are human in form and function but not entirely. Humans, for example, are not born with accelerated aging, or born with a chemical/genetic alteration to make them more docile.

This isn't to say that it's not wrong -- but the difference between droids and clones is not quite what you would like it to be. And, honestly, I think that's part of the point being made in the books...

 

If its gotten to the point where you're reading on other SW boards about how poorly this forum is treating the author...I might be right.

 

You've got it backwards. If clones are as sentient as droids, that doesn't make clones not completely human. It puts droids on a level with humans. And the "humans are not born with" angle is just ridiculous. Some humans are born with accelerated aging. Some are born with chemical/genetic alterations that change their personalities from the baseline. Are they not "entirely" human?

You see, that's why this entire line of thinking is colossally screwed up.

 

No, I don't have it backwards.

*I* am not the one arguing that droids are not the same as clones. The people in this thread that are jumping on Twilek and Wampa feel that, for some reason, it's okay to say "Clones bad, droids good" in the service of an army without choice.

My argument is that they are the same.

It seems as if there's a fundamental undertone of "if it doesn't look like us, then it's okay to use" which is worse, n'est ce pas?

And, Havac, the clones are products in the exact same way as droids are. Regardless of whether humans can possibly be born with those features, the fact that they are customizable like car options in a clone would indicate they could have made them mindless automotons if they wanted to. Would that have salved peoples' thinking about the clones?

 

I think it is pretty clear that the droids don't have anywhere near the level of sentience that the clones do. Well, soldier droids anyway. Outside of that all droid emotions and the like are all facsimiles meant to emulate human emotions, where as the clones have real ones. I really don't think you are on solid ground with this.

 

See, I could easily say now the same thing about you that people are accusing Twilek and PadmeA of. Droids are sentient. Period.

the have exactly the same capability for free thinking and rational thought as the average clone does after they are decanted. Droids, however, are subject to complete mind-wipes to erase any individuality -- clones are merely shot and killed if they stray too far from norm.

It is canonical that droids are sentient beings in the GFFA. They just don't exist in the Force. None of this is new information.

 

I'm not really accusing anyone of anything. I think an argument that certain droids are sentient can be made, but I also think that a vast majority are not. 3PO and R2 I think are exceptions that people tend to think prove the rule. In the end the combat droids are well below sentient and are not comparable to the clones.

 

But... that's where you're wrong, is what I'm telling you. It's not an argument to be made, it's canonical fact. Even the basic Battle Droids with artificial brains (not the ones with command-ship overrides only) CAN achieve the exact same amount of sentience as any other droid in the universe, including R2 and 3P0. The reason they do NOT is because they are mind-wiped. The exact same thing that would happen to R2 or 3P0 if THEY were mind-wiped.

 

Well, that doesn't really follow. The fact that they can be produced with certain genetic alterations doesn't mean they can be made as mindless automatons any more than the fact that humans can survive without arms suggests that they can survive without heads as well. There's no logical backing for that at all. Moreover, even theorizing that clones could be so made, these ones weren't. So how does "well, they maybe could be less than human but weren't" make them less than human?

They're human beings with human DNA. That's not goat DNA they've got. It's not Ranat DNA. It's human DNA. From that human DNA is produced a human being. They're not lobotomized robots. As proven through the Force, they have souls, they have humanity (and no, Traviss didn't establish that). So just what about that suggests they're inhuman flesh droids with no free will? What part of that suggests they should be? Why should we support the dehumanization of beings just because they came from a test tube -- which, I point out again, in vitro babies do as well? What part of that makes any logical, any ethical, any philosophical sense? What part of that makes it a wholesome story of good vs evil?