Grand Army of the Republic: A Star Wars Plan Quest
- Thread starter Oshha
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Oh, I'll optimize it immediately and as for not 5 dice in cloning, we are getting a little short on both facilities and logistics and do not want to overexert ourselves by expanding too fast.
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- United States
[X] Plan Are you sure those aren't Mandalorians?
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- California
Hmm, perhaps but I would like to see the clones with multiple viewpoints amoung their teachers.
Speaking of which, I hope, and look forward to, picking up people like the Cuy'vul Dar (Kal Skirata, Walon Vau, Rav Bralor, Wad'e Tay'haii, Mij Gilamar, etc) as supporting cast members. I really liked the Republic Commando novels, and hope to see elements from them in here.
(I also hated the brain chip retcon, and hope that didn't make the transition into the quest. It cheapens both the Clones and Jango as people.)
You could just put 1 Dice into finishing up the Cloning Operation since it is at 56/100 and it doesn't cost facilities, supplies or trainers while giving a steady increase for 5 resources per turn.
For anyone who voted on my plan I moved 1 dice from Cloning Operation to Expand Clone Production (Phase 1) since I missed that the overflow from our initial cloning actions went into Cloning Operations. With the average result being 61 per cloning dice we will only need to roll above 32 to finish that project. And it doesn't seem to be an overflow project. A little risky but Expand Clone Production finishing faster will compensate in case we fail this turn.
cryptoam
building an 1980s encrypted protocol
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- in lockdown waiting and bored...
What do you mean by this?
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
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[X] Plan Are you sure those aren't Mandalorians?
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
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- Midwestern U.S.
I mean that our Sith Support is now just 40 and there don't seem to be many ways to get it back easily.
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- Southampton, Great Britain
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Possible. I haven't read any of the Republic Commando novels so my only exposure to them is Wookiepedia and, funnily enough, your quest. I might include them, but I am hesitant to do so when I only know them from secondary sources.
While it can debated whether the form it took was a good idea, I do believe that some kind of retcon regarding why the clones carried Order Sixty-Six if the Clone Wars show was going to be canon. The original explanation of the clone troopers being a bunch of meat droids who just mindless obeyed every order they were given worked for the films, but it doesn't work for the clones we had in the show where the war is gone into with more detail and the clones are given actual personalities and shown to be human.
And I will be going with clones that are actual people and have personalities over clones that are meat droids who mindlessly obey orders because I enjoyed the Clone Wars series and like the clones being actual characters and not plot elements. Personally, I would have gone with no chip and most of the clones refusing to carry out Order 66 as they chose loyalty to the Jedi that care about them over some random and apparently nonsensical order from the Chancellor. That said, I do understand the prequel trilogy needed to have the Jedi be wiped out and the Republic replaced with the Empire and that the Clone Wars showed needed to have the war end with Order 66 being carried out as the clones all turned on their Jedi.
There will an opportunity to gain (or lose) Sith Support at the end of the year.
Funny. I absolutely HATE the RC-Novels written by Karen Traviss-ty and think the Chips were the best retcon Star Wars ever did.
Well, okay, not the best, but they make sense to me. After portraying the Relationship between Clones and Jedi in TCW, there was no way to make Order 66 work in a way that didn't turn the Clones into backstabbing assholes without introducing the mind-control aspect. And it's PERFECTLY in Character for Palpatine to pull this shit and makes the whole of Order 66, to me at least, ten times as tragic. TCW portrayed them as their own People who had their own hope and dreams for the future, as well as brotherhood and friendship. But of course, to Palps they were always just a tool to eradicate the Jedi. And if he had to mind-rape every single one of them to achieve his goal, of course he would do it.
To me, the Chips only ADD to the Tragedy of the Clones, not cheapening them.
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Easter
Laziest lazier
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- Bed
[X] Plan Are you sure those aren't Mandalorians?
I know I'm voting for this but are mandalorian's the best for training an army? Like sure they're famous for being great fighters but they haven't exactly had a good track record for militaries or paramilitaries after the Mandalorian Crusades from what I recall. There is after all alot more to being a soldier than just being a fighter.
I know I'm voting for this but are mandalorian's the best for training an army? Like sure they're famous for being great fighters but they haven't exactly had a good track record for militaries or paramilitaries after the Mandalorian Crusades from what I recall. There is after all alot more to being a soldier than just being a fighter.
I can't speak to the movies, as they are necessarily focused on the main characters and not the supporting cast, but the Legends novels make it clear that they are not just "meat droids". Those characters who do view them as such are never presented in a good light in the narrative; in fact, a consistent theme of Star Wars Legends novels is the consistent underestimating of clones, and the majority treatment of clones is one reason why I believe the Jedi had abandoned their mandate by using a slave army without any questions.
Again, Legends covered this pretty well, with some clones (a minority) actually refusing to follow the orders. The concept of contingency orders are there precisely for low-chance, worst-case scenario actions that few people believe will be necessary, but are included for the sake of completion. Order 65, for example, was for the forcible removal of the Chancellor, another involved the banks. But the clones following it of their own volition made a horrifying type of sense to me, especially in light of a plethora of RL-examples of people following orders to do terrible things on the basis of lawfully-designated authority, no brain control chip necessary. Most of the time, people just follow orders.
In my opinion, the chip retcon was established because the writers realized they had made a mistake, as it were: the clones had been presented as heroic characters for multiple seasons, and they needed a way to follow film canon without disillusioning the viewers as to their heroes. Their solution was to make them victims instead of flawed, which felt like an immature cop-out to me that just dodged the issue using space magic. They're also logistically flawed, as they assume they would go unnoticed and function as designed without being damaged by the inevitable flurry of energies on the typical SW-battlefield. How could any Jedi healer fail to notice them, and ask as to their purpose?
Heavily, heavily disagree, but I don't think a debate on the concept will be a beneficial one, especially in this format. Suffice to say that while I don't think they're perfect, I think they're great books and they heavily influenced my own quest.
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Which, again, was the right call in my Opinion. I VASTLY prefer that Story over the Legends Version.
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Again, that's your opinion, I have mine. I vastly prefer the Legends version over TCW, as it fits better with lore, characterization, and human nature. That was a major point in Order 66, btw; the clones were designed to be loyal to the Chancellor, not the Jedi. That the Jedi never thought to question that state of affairs until the last minute was entirely their failing.
Hard, HARD disagree. Also, I consider Karen Traviss to be a talentless hack. And fuck her for saying I'm a Neo Nazi who believes in a "Genetically Superior Master Race" just because I like the Jedi.
And I like my Heroes to not be brainless Morons, which is again why I prefer Canon.
But yeah, I think we're done now. I think you're dead wrong, but I can see where you're coming from, so let's agree to disagree.
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ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
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- Neverland
[X] Plan Are you sure those aren't Mandalorians?
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- Southampton, Great Britain
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I'm going with the idea that the Mandalorians or at least the big factions like the True Mandalorians and Death Watch are capable of running an actual professional army to at least some degree. Individual Mandalorians might be lean towards being more warrior than soldier, but the organised factions can muster up a proper army.
Also, the Mandalorians trainers are going to be competent and not, for example, a bunch of morons who think that things like life-fire exercises that get a good chunk of your special forces killed off in training is an excellent way to do things.
Maybe, but I haven't read those novels as my experience with Legends novels are pretty much all post-Endor with a couple of exceptions. My primary exposure to the Clone Wars is the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars show with its associated works so any works I do regarding the Clone Wars will take their cues from the tv series than the novels and comics that predate it. There are some exceptions however such as how I prefer the Legends take on Dathomir over the Disney take.
I like the clones we saw in the Clone Wars being heroic characters and I prefer for them to remain heroic characters who were victims to the Sith over being arbitrarily revealed to be secretly evil all. I also disagree that secretly being evil backstabbers is merely being flawed or at least I feel that is severely understating things. To me, it is a complete reversal of their character and I would rather that be explained away by something that makes in-universe than what is effectively arbitrary character assassination because the events of the show needs to aligned with the events of the films. From what we see in the show, the clones serving under the likes of Obi-Wan, Plo Koon and Yoda would not just turn on their Jedi just because the chancellor ordered it, but something needs to be introduced to explain that for the show to align with the films.
Maybe it is because my opinion on humanity is higher, but I find it completely implausible that anything more than a minority of the clones would just murder their commanding officers who had been fighting alongside them without any hesitation or second thoughts because some random order told them to. Especially since just as you can find examples of people doing terrible things just because they were ordered to, you can also find plenty of examples of people refusing to carry out orders because they believe them to be wrong.
I would also disagree that the writers introduced the chip because they felt they made a mistake. I think it was fully intentional on their part to flesh out the films by making it so that the clones were as much victims of the Sith as the Jedi they fought alongside were even if it changed how things were previously handled in the expanded universe. It is a different take to the previous take, but that doesn't make it a mistake to prefer to portray the clones as heroic and tragic victims over being secretly evil monsters all along. It just means that they went with a different way of fleshing out what we saw in the films.
In any case, the clones in this story will be the heroic figures of the Clone Wars show over the secretly evil plot elements of films. The chips or whatever method the Sith try to use to maintain/enforce control will be left up in the air deliberately to keep the voters in suspense just as I am keeping when the war will break out unknown so you cannot just plan around canon.
That's just it, though - they weren't secretly evil all along. The clones themselves are pretty neutral, morally speaking. They just follow orders given by their lawfully appointed commander. Again, and I can't emphasize this enough, Order 66 was lawful. A worst-case scenario contingency order, akin to Switzerland sabotaging critical infrastructure in the event of a Nazi invasion during WWII. Part of the genius of Sidious's plan was giving the Jedi enough rope with which to hang themselves - for all intents and purposes, they did try to perform a coup against a lawfully-appointed leader. Now, we as fans know that Sidious was evil, through and through - but remember this, nobody else did. Ask your average Republic citizen about the Sith, and most would have responded with "the what now?" He played the victim incredibly well, and utilized the Jedi's own natural reflexes where Sith are concerned against them.
Edit: After further thought on the characterization of 'heroic clones', I have to say that it feels like buying into the show a little too much. I believe that the truth about the Clone Wars is that the entire thing was a farce. The entire war was a Jedi trap - it was created to destroy the Jedi and ensure the triumph of the Sith, nothing more. Everything that was accomplished in the War, by either side, ended up not mattering in the slightest. Which is not to say that it was not personally satisfying, or that the relationships created therein were worthless, but the larger scope of the war was a lie. There were acts of heroism, but the war itself was not heroic in the slightest. It was never about saving the Republic, it was about establishing an Empire. It was never about winning, it was about maintaining pointless conflict until the right moment arrived for the Sith to spring the trap. By participating in the war in the first place, the Jedi ensured their destruction on every possible level. They showed that their loyalty to the Republic trumped their loyalty to the Force, they abandoned their mandate to life by agreeing to lead an army of slaves (and dress it up however you like, the clones were slaves, bred to fight and born to die.) The entire Clone Wars was an atrocity of the highest order - and both sides were fully complicit in it, Jedi, Clones, Separatists, and Droids alike.
Again, there was nothing heroic about it. It was the nadir of the Jedi, and the apex of the Sith. The best thing the Jedi could have done would be to have done nothing - or better yet, perform a repeat of their stance during the Pius Dea era and flee the Republic in its entirety. That would have utterly foiled Sidious's plans. But they were slaves to their nature, and considered serving the Republic to be the same thing as serving the Force. And in doing so, they confirmed their own destruction.
To quote Kar Vastor when speaking to Luke Skywalker: "You are better than the Jedi of old. Because unlike them, you are not afraid of the dark."
Insofar as the individual clones are concerned...well, are you familiar with the trope "villainous virtues"? The short version is that no villain is entirely evil, that they require some virtues if only to be successfully evil. Your average mad scientist may be proud, greedy, and wrathful, but nobody will accuse them of being slothful - because if they were, they could never accomplish their other goals. The clones aren't like that - they are proud to do what they do, and they genuinely believe that what they are doing is for a high cause and a good reason. They are almost insanely courageous, incredibly resourceful, efficient, loyal to their brothers and commanders, and work hard at being the best. But those are neutral virtues at best - what makes them good or bad is the service to which they are being applied. And given what I have said about the Clone Wars as a whole, it makes me wonder just how heroic they can be considered. Is it still heroic if it is in service to a cause that ultimately turns out to be a lie? It might have been done with good intentions, but as Alan Grant said, "Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions."
You are aware that the books are written from the perspective of Mandalorians who, for various reasons (some better than others) don't like the Jedi? They're intentionally a biased narrator, you aren't actually meant to take everything they say as the gospel truth. That was one of the great things about Legends, in my opinion - it had a wide crop of talented writers who approached Star Wars from a variety of directions, and played with the various elements/perspectives of the setting, letting us enjoy it from a wide variety of perspectives. You're welcome to not enjoy certain ones - Lord knows there are some I don't like - but it's not very generous of you to write off entire aspects of the fandom for enjoying the ones that you don't personally like.
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I mean, none of this is really negated by the new Canon, at least not to me. The Argument that the Jedi's best bet would have been to stay out of the War entirely still has merit, even if it's not an absolute truth anymore.
Could've fooled me, considering how much she worships these Guys.
Look, I really like the Mandos too, otherwise I would not have enjoyed your Quest over on SB so much. But Traviss, in my Opinion, took it way too far, to the Point that she was just wanking them while bashing the Jedi. Need I remind you that at one Point in her books, a young Padawan - a CHILD - is desperately defending himself against Clones currently executing Order 66, in his panic and fear causing some shots he deflects to go wild and endangering bystanders...and the Story frames HIM as evil, because how dare this Child defend his life?!
Yeah, no. When she wrote these books, she 100% meant for her beloved Mandalorian Viewpoint Chars, who can never do any wrong ever, to be totally in the right.
Also, she went on an Interview EXPLICITLY stating that People like me who like the Jedi are all Neo Nazis who want a "Genetically Superior Master Race" to rule. Is it any wonder that I hate her?
I don't write off parts of the Fandom at all. If they enjoy certain perspectives I don't, fine by me. But I am allowed to express my disdain for the perspectives themselves, because I think they are stupid.
But, again, you like these other Perspectives? Good for you. I'm glad you can see value in Stories and Ideas where I do not. As I said, let's agree to disagree.
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