Clone Wars: Arc Troopers

[Aotrs Commander]

I never understood why the Republic was so gung ho on using Jango Fett's DNA for the clones until the end. They already said they were running low on viable samples from him, and honestly he has questionable loyalties, dodgy ethics and got his ass kicked by Mace Windu pretty easily. Nothing about that suggests "perfect soldier" to me. As soon as the war started and Jango died they should have begun a galaxy-wide search for a replacement to provide new DNA samples.

You know I have such a low opinion of the Jedi that it wouldn't surprise if, without a hint of self awareness, they logiced it out as "but if we have multiple clone models that might introduce a caste system to the clone army, and we can't have that."

I mean we know that on the political side Palpatine has already put a lot of eggs into this basket.

Sounds about right.

I mean, it would take some kind of brilliant, tactical and strategic genius to go "hold on, why don't we clone from our own guys who are already the best at one job for that job?"

Let alone the Jedi going, "wait, hang on a sec, can't we just donate some of our own DNA (so we, y'know, don't have to pay for it) and, have, like, and army of Mace Windus or Obi-Wans or (best of all) Ahsokas[1]) or something?"

Granted, Our Hero Palpatine would have had to scramble a bit fast to stop them, but it appeared they didn't even think about it...


[1]Even the Jedi wouldn't be QUITE daft enough to want an army of Anakins, regardless of how successful that would be.

Yes, Ahsoka is Best Jedi - as evidence by being the one smart enough to actually, y'know, leave. Fight me!

[BlackoutCreature2]

I could see why they wouldn't want to use Jedi as templates for the Clones. Having that many potential Force users floating around the Galaxy would only cause more problems then it solves.

But there had to be other options beyond Jango Fett. Even before the "Grand Army of the Republic" was a thing, the Republic had to have some kind of standing military force. I mean, where did all those obviously non-Clone ship officers we see come from? Surely there was a stand out from those ranks they could have used instead of a random bounty hunter recruited under suspicious circumstances.

[GandALF]

Even before the "Grand Army of the Republic" was a thing, the Republic had to have some kind of standing military force. I mean, where did all those obviously non-Clone ship officers we see come from? Surely there was a stand out from those ranks they could have used instead of a random bounty hunter recruited under suspicious circumstances.

The officers are from local planetary armies, the Republic is too big to have one unified military, its mentioned a few episodes later that parts of Coruscant have to go without power to pay for the war.

The whole point of a Death Star is that you can intimidate planets into towing the line rather than paying for a gargantuan military to enforce order.

[SuccubusYuri]

I could see why they wouldn't want to use Jedi as templates for the Clones. Having that many potential Force users floating around the Galaxy would only cause more problems then it solves.

But there had to be other options beyond Jango Fett. Even before the "Grand Army of the Republic" was a thing, the Republic had to have some kind of standing military force. I mean, where did all those obviously non-Clone ship officers we see come from? Surely there was a stand out from those ranks they could have used instead of a random bounty hunter recruited under suspicious circumstances.

I mean, Star Wars logic and all the grains of salt that entails, but they did refer to it in Ep2 as "the Military Creation Act", which would imply that in the recent history, there is no grand army.

I suppose it is true, now that the war is on, there might be exploratory feelers out for those stand out officers. At the same time, the qualities you would breed the run-and-gun grunts are different than the ones selected for officer duties. And again, we know how much Palpatine is banking on THIS specific design, what with the Jedi kill switch, and he surely won't allow anyone to fuck with that. The Senate might insist on observing new clone creation much more closely than the already-standardized model the Kaminoans have been dealing in for years.

From the creative standpoint, of course, there really isn't much to the story beyond the potentialities involved. We know that, at best speed, the Clone War needs to be eight to ten years on before any new DNA saw action, which is far longer than the actual duration of the war. (you know theoretically) So I think the decision was ultimately made not to address it, because it can never be relevant xD It just raises more confusion than it delivers interesting storytelling about embryos.

[Robovski]

If all the troopers have the same genome you can subject them to a tailored disease if you want to remove them en masse should the need arise.

[TGLS]

Which is admittedly, a big flaw.

[Fianna]

They already know how to clone Jango Fett's DNA. Trying to clone someone else's DNA might mean starting the research & development phase all over again.

[Meushell]

And again, we know how much Palpatine is banking on THIS specific design, what with the Jedi kill switch, and he surely won't allow anyone to fuck with that.

That could be inserted into any new clone design. It is just a biological chip.

Lacking Jango’s DNA seems to just be a weak excuse for when something goes wrong. Echo, Fives, etc. are graduating the same year Jango died. Even accounting for their accelerated aging, they would have been created years before he died.

[AllanO]

They already know how to clone Jango Fett's DNA. Trying to clone someone else's DNA might mean starting the research & development phase all over again.

Note to elaborate on what I take your point to be: the clones are not really just clones of Jango, as I recall it is explicitly stated that they were tweaked to be more obedient etc. Also, they grow super fast and somehow get educated up likewise (I just looked this up only twice normal speed I thought it was faster). It seems to me that super-speed education might have to be specific to Jango clones and they could not just transfer the same educational tapes or whatever to a clone of Jabba the Hut or whatever. It does not seem unreasonable to me that designing, calibrating and assessing the tweaks, the efficacy of the super grow formula and the education protocols would take some time (like they would need to grow up a clone to check it was all working, which would be what a year or a couple of years perhaps the 8 or 9 years to fully develop a clone). So even if the cloners of Kamino had started developing a new template immediately it might have taken till half way through the clone wars to put it through initial development and start turning out clones in number and the other half of the clone wars for those clones to grow to maturity (not clear on the time scales here?, given maturity is like 8 years seems as though the clone wars would be over before any of this mattered).

Also who is going to pay for all this R&D to create a new genetic and developmental template for another set of clones. The cloners of Kamino did not do it for free (and even if they did they would still need the resources...). The implications of the Clone Wars series seems to be that Palpatine had enough trouble getting money for producing the existing clone stock, imagine the trouble of getting procurement for next generation clones.

Although the fact that it would take like 8 years to grow up a Jango clone means that if the genetic material had been lost or destroyed they would just have to win the clone wars in 8 years or less, meaning some of the drama in this episode was a tad artificial. Although if Ventris and Dooku had gotten their hands on it they might have developed a kill virus or whatever...

Note any security feature on your army of super soldiers is also a potential weakness. "I have created the ultimate killing machine for you." "So what do I do if it ends up being used against me." "Die, what part of ultimate killing machine don't you understand." "Can't you build in some kind of weakness or kill switch or something for me to exploit." "Then it wouldn't be the ultimate killing machine, look if you become an ultimate killing machine then you would be evenly matched." "If I were an ultimate killing machine, why would I need yours." "That's one of those paradoxes of life, note before I authorize delivery of your ultimate killing machine, I am going to need to be paid in full..."

[ORCACommander]

I was always under the impression that once the war broke out in full they found a way to further accelerate the cloning and training process otherwise I see the republic not being drowned out in superior numbers and that did not happen