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 Manchu wrote:
I think Joruus's clones were a completely different batch, however.

EDIT: Yep, those were Spaarti clones (one year to maturity; even less using ysalamiri) rather than Kaminoan clones (ten years to maturity). The Spaarti method was known to result in insane clones. So that might have been what Luke detected. The modifications Thrawn introduced, cloning under disconnection to the Force, may also have imprinted those clones such that they felt off to Luke.

Also, it appears the Empire filled out at least part of its storm trooper ranks with Spaarti-method Fett clones who were given next to no training compared with Kaminoan GAR Fett clones. So that helps to explain their mall copishness,

Spaarti clones vs. Kaminoan clones is one way of making them different. Sounds a little hand-wavy, though. It just seems odd that at no point the storm troopers in Episodes 4-6 were ever referred to as clones (Spaarti or Kaminoan), even by Han who went through training as an Imperial Officer.

It's just an attempt to explain inconsistencies in the EU caused by the prequel trilogy.

 Manchu wrote:
The IoM is certainly centralized. Everything that happens in the IoM is ultimately, if not practically, at the service of the Emperor and Holy Terra. The Galactic Empire is similarly centralized. But the IoM, unlike the Galactic Empire, actually does seem interested in governing as opposed to merely extorting resources.

I don't know about that. All the IoM cares about is their Tithe. As long as they get that they really don't care.

Anyway, I seem to remember in KOTOR the explained the Old Republic was merely a loose trade block that had agreed to use a common currency so ya, don't see the big deal about succeeding from that. Would be like Ireland leaving the EU.

@Kronk: As trexmeyer mentioned, all of this is ex post facto rationalization and re-rationalization. By ANH, the storm trooper legions were made up of Kaminoan clones, Spaarti clones, and regular humans. Kaminoan Clone War vets were generally the best soldiers. I recently read in one of the Saga edition source books that their accelerated aging continued throughout their lives, essentially bleeding them out of active service, but I think someone else posted here that this is contradicted elsewhere in the EU.

@KC: The IoM cares about more than the tithe; every Imperial world is a potential front in a daemonic incursion (among other problems) if it is not governed correctly.

Fair enough.

I might be remembering it wrong as I haven't done much in the EU in a long time. A quick look over at Wookiepedia doesn't have any references I can find to Republic era clones serving at the time of A New Hope. Boba is still alive but he was not modified like the others.

 LordofHats wrote:
A quick look over at Wookiepedia doesn't have any references I can find to Republic era clones serving at the time of A New Hope.

Ever heard of the 501st?

As to the other issues, my source is the aforementioned Saga edition source book (I cannot remember which: Force Unleashed? Galaxy At War?), which mentions Clone Wars vets serving during the Dark Times but rapidly aging out of service fitness.

 Manchu wrote:
Ever heard of the 501st?

Yeah. I know Vader kept them as Fett clones up until the fall of the Empire, but were there any who served in the Clone Wars?

 LordofHats wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Ever heard of the 501st?

Yeah. I know Vader kept them as Fett clones up until the fall of the Empire, but were there any who served in the Clone Wars?

In Battlefront 2 there was a Veteran that kept a journal of his actions from Geonosis to Hoth so we can assume that some did. Unless, of course, he died somewhere along the way and a new clone took up filling out the journal. I am not sure when they went out of active service but, at least this individual, seems to have retired after or shortly after the Battle of Hoth.

I completely forgot BFII had a campaign XD

Seriously? I loved the campaign. Mostly because of Temuela Morrison's awesomesauce narration of the whole thing. That man can make anything sound badass.

More on topic, maybe the reason the senate never raised an eyebrow initially at the Clone Wars is that Palpatine spread a metric gak ton of propaganda that made the Clone Wars sound like this big important thing that you should support right after Geonosis. Patriotic fervor can be one of hell of a drug. However... I have no evidence that he did this.

I spent all my time in that game playing the Conquest game mode and multi-player XD.

I always assumed the Clone Wars was a mix of corruption, fear, and a little stupidity. Palpatine manipulated everything. In the films we're just to assume he convinced everyone he was right. The EU expands on it better... Somewhat.

There is no satisfying answer. It is one of many plot holes and inconsistencies. The only decent aspect of the prequels was the lightsaber battles, and even those are pretty terrible if you try and look at them as dudemen actually trying to kill each other, rather than doing an elaborate dance.

They even screwed up the space battles, which is particularly unforgivable.

 Seaward wrote:
The only decent aspect of the prequels was the lightsaber battles, and even those are pretty terrible if you try and look at them as dudemen actually trying to kill each other, rather than doing an elaborate dance.

I'm glad you mentioned this. For all of their visual flair, I found the lightsaber duels in Ep 1 and 2 (I skipped 3 entirely) to be very boring. I can't even remember much about the duel in Ep 1 (Maul has a double-bladed saber, but that was in all the trailers... somebody gets kicked in the chest I think) due to sheer disinterest. I have an equally hard time remembering the saber fights in Ep 2, but that is due more to the blind, foaming rage that overtakes me whenever I think of Yoda fighting anyone (especially Count Dracula) with a lightsaber. Why is it that the technically unimpressive saber duels in the OT have so much more emotion and power behind them?

 Manchu wrote:
That's flat-out speculation

Yes, it is, just as your claim that there is nothing more than a diplomatic stand off in place is speculation. Because all we have to work with is speculation, because the actual machinations of the secession are almost entirely unknown (as Lucas preferred to spend screen time on stupidly long action sequences through Coruscant and some nonsense in a robot factory).

But my speculation is based on what actually happened in the film - the invasion happened, and no-one said this was an out of the blue escalation or illegal. And so without any evidence otherwise, the most sensible thing is to conclude that the unknown background somehow justified the events we saw on screen.

To clarify, the issue with the Clone War is not that it contradicts itself, but that so little of the important elements of its build up actually happened on screen, so we are simply left to guess.

Well, seeing as how we're talking about a sci fi movie rather than a palantir-like window into some alternative history, the burden of explaining what is going on in the story is on the story tellers. When it comes to why the Clone Wars is happening, the story tellers (not just George Lucas) fail miserably. Put another way, the absence of evidence regarding the purely speculative notion that secession from the Republic is illegal is really not like the absence of evidence regarding a central part of the story -- the cause and justification for the definitive conflict.

 Manchu wrote:
Put another way, the absence of evidence regarding the purely speculative notion that secession from the Republic is illegal is really not like the absence of evidence regarding a central part of the story -- the cause and justification for the definitive conflict.

They are the same, because they are flip sides of the same question. One is speculation that the actions of the CIS were illegal in some way that justified war, the other is speculation that the actions of the CIS were not illegal in some way that justified war. Both have loose evidence (the former can be deduced from the fact that no-one said the attack on Geonosis was illegal or acted in any way that assumed the war was illegal), while the latter can be deduced from the fact that prior to Geonosis no-one appeared to acting like there was anything like a state of war.


And both sides of that speculation are really just dancing around the actual problem - that a key part of the story is simply not told. We should not be left to speculate as to why one of the key events in the fall of the Republic happened.

squidhills wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
The only decent aspect of the prequels was the lightsaber battles, and even those are pretty terrible if you try and look at them as dudemen actually trying to kill each other, rather than doing an elaborate dance.

I'm glad you mentioned this. For all of their visual flair, I found the lightsaber duels in Ep 1 and 2 (I skipped 3 entirely) to be very boring. I can't even remember much about the duel in Ep 1 (Maul has a double-bladed saber, but that was in all the trailers... somebody gets kicked in the chest I think) due to sheer disinterest. I have an equally hard time remembering the saber fights in Ep 2, but that is due more to the blind, foaming rage that overtakes me whenever I think of Yoda fighting anyone (especially Count Dracula) with a lightsaber. Why is it that the technically unimpressive saber duels in the OT have so much more emotion and power behind them?

Because the one you think of best: (Vader vs. Luke in ESB) was directed by someone else, and its done like Luke is trying to cut Vader in half, or later, like he's trying not to die.

I will admit I liked the Darth Maul fight, up to Liam Neeson's death (then it becomes stupid). I'd make it #3 behind the above and then Vader / Alec Guinness. The SW duel is not actually very good, but the acting is excellent and the buildup, perfection. Plus the conversation in fight is bandido level macho.

 sebster wrote:
They are the same

Not at all. One of them, the explanation of why the war started, is necessary to the story. The other is just one of a thousand possible rationalizations for it. "Secession is illegal" is equivalent to "the senate is run by cyborg flamingos who don't ask questions."

I have this image of Manchu and Palpatine standing in front of Judge Wapner

"Your honor, my client, Geonosia was viciously aligned and assaulted by the Defendant. Yes your honor we have receipts for the cleaning bill"

I just have to hope Wapner is not a Jedi cuz da dark side cloudz everything lol.

Had a look at the title reel of Attack of the Clones to see if this issue became any clearer. If anything it just makes the Republic look bad and the Jedi like brutal enforcers.




I think we are meant to infer that the separatists are somehow violent or want to overthrow the Republic. Not really sure what the point would be as you pointed out that they don't really do anything. We do know that they have a Universal Monetary system so perhaps that has something to...

Oh feth it. The prequels are a disgrace and it just hurts thinking about them.

For anybody who hasn't seen these I recommend them.





No part three yet.

 Manchu wrote:

 sebster wrote:
They are the same

Not at all. One of them, the explanation of why the war started, is necessary to the story. The other is just one of a thousand possible rationalizations for it. "Secession is illegal" is equivalent to "the senate is run by cyborg flamingos who don't ask questions."

If you think 'the reason why the war happened' is distinct from 'the reason why characters we are supposed to believe are good went to war' then okay, you do that.

Of course there is a difference between why a war is declared and why the soldiers and officers who fight in it do so.

Why isn't succession itself not a good enough reason? Was good enough for Lincoln.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Why isn't succession itself not a good enough reason? Was good enough for Lincoln.

In the interest of fairness and accuracy, I feel I should point out that the South started the war. The Confederacy shelled a United States military base (Fort Sumpter). The response from Lincoln was war. Now, some may say that Lincoln wanted to go to war, and the South just handed him the excuse he needed to do it, but the fact remains. The South fired first.

Succession probably is a good enough reason. But it doesn't hurt when the other side is the initial aggressor.

If the South had not fired on the Fort, hostilities probably would have been staved off a little longer. There was a climate of negotiation in Congress prior to that event, but after it it was political suicide to suggest negotiating with the South.

Armed conflict was inevitable, but the timing of when it happened would have been different.

Don't want to get too sidetracked here with real history here but who shot first is faily irrelevant to my point. The point is the war was fought over succession.

Even setting aside the strange notion that faulty (or even accurate) conceptions of American history tell us anything about Star Wars, the movies provide no reason to believe that secession is a good enough reason to declare war. As mentioned earlier, the infrastructure of the Republic does not (necessarily) reach down to the system level. Put it another way, there is no evidence that the Republic is itself a sovereign polity or just a club for sovereigns. In fact, I'd argue that's potentially a significant point of tension surrounding the Military Creation Act.

 Manchu wrote:
Of course there is a difference between why a war is declared and why the soldiers and officers who fight in it do so.

Is there any suggestion that the main characters are following the path to war for any reasons other than the reasons for that war? No, in fact it is the main characters who initiate most of the actions that leads the Republic in to war. Trying to distinguish the reasons the Republic ended up in war from the reasons the Jedi ended up in war is not a thing.

All of which is just a pointless aside. You still think that you can see a series of events take place that led to war breaking out, observe that the film didn't spell out exactly why all that led to war, and conclude that therefore there shouldn't have been a war and think it's strange that there's no protest or complaint about that war.

But when it is suggested that given there was no protest or complaint, well then it is just as easy to conclude there must have been some background condition that justified that war and move on... you dismiss that as speculation.

What you continue to miss is that 'no reason is presented clearly therefore it was illegal' is just as speculative as 'no reason was presented clearly but there probably was one'. The problem of the prequels is not that we can speculate that the war was illegal... the actual problem is that we are left to speculate at all about the causes of the war. It is information that should have been presented clearly.