Does the "3 million clones" number make sense?

[Opecoiler]

Well, does it?

[Narsil]

If you think three million clones makes sense, that's one person for every five systems given the fifteen million systems quote, or three people for every one system. Overall I think it makes a little less sense than a later-era Beatles song, and it's a hell of a lot less entertaining.

[TheRedFear]

I don't see any problem with it. Depending on who you ask, there was a million or more persians during the last stand of the three hundred spartans. Fine, let's say there far less...100,000 for example.

If one country on one planet can reasonably field 100,000 soldiers for a war, then it's perfectly reasonable that a galaxy wide war would require far greater numbers

[Mr. Oragahn]

In a galaxy where 10,000 Jedi (masters/apprentices) were able to keep diplomatic affairs in check, and where the amount of navies would have been minimal, and where keeping a blockade around a world can be effective... possibly.

It's still low at first glance, if you're used to other universes where armies are full blown over decades or centuries of war, and all depends on what "unit" meant in the films and novelisations.

You know, it's the same EU where one squadron of X-wings and the same old hotrod freighter seems to constantly save the day of quadrillions people.

For example, how many soldiers did the Empire have in Dune? It never seemed that high to me, precisely because there are other systems which balance situations out, which can be used to keep a control over certain worlds.

Maybe it would have been wise for the EU to insist on creating such a logic, such barriers.

[Opecoiler]

It simply does not make any sense at all.

Let me put the following into perspective:

Operation Barbarossa had three million soldiers in it, and it couldn't succeed in conquering the Soviet Union.

If an army of three million soldiers cannot even succeed in conquering one country of a similar technology level, how can they be expected to fight a galaxy-wide war and win?

Heck, the number of Germans who died in WWII easily exceeds three million.

[GStone]

Why not? It fits in with the fantasy element of SW. Besides, not all planets have Coruscant levels of populations. Some systems are shitty, uninhabited or have a low populace. It wouldn't be necessary to have boots on every planet. Plus, the Emporer was really going with the propaganda. Through both lying and mind control, Palpatine would only need to have a certain number of the senators and other ruling members of worlds go along with what he says. He did mess with the Force powers of lots and lots of powerful, and not so, jedi. With control of information flow, doctored evidence and fear mongering, a good segment can be manipulated to believe the party line. It isn't like every single planet had billions of troops ready to fight against the empire.

[l33telboi]

It doesn't make sense, unless 99% of the planets in the galaxy are minor colonies with nothing but a mining or scientific outpost inhabited by a dozen people. Even then you'd have to assume the clone troopers are some form of highly effective and highly trained force that outperforms 'normal' soldiers by a wide marigin, and that the Republic employed local non-clone forces to defend planets and such. In other words, the clones would have to be a from of Special Forces unit.

It's stupid, no doubt, but hardly the first stupid thing to be said canon.

[Cpl Kendall]

In a galaxy where 10,000 Jedi (masters/apprentices) were able to keep diplomatic affairs in check, and where the amount of navies would have been minimal, and where keeping a blockade around a world can be effective... possibly.

It's still low at first glance, if you're used to other universes where armies are full blown over decades or centuries of war, and all depends on what "unit" meant in the films and novelisations.

You know, it's the same EU where one squadron of X-wings and the same old hotrod freighter seems to constantly save the day of quadrillions people.

For example, how many soldiers did the Empire have in Dune? It never seemed that high to me, precisely because there are other systems which balance situations out, which can be used to keep a control over certain worlds.

Maybe it would have been wise for the EU to insist on creating such a logic, such barriers.

Military formations in Dune where limited by various treaties, shields and the Guild stranglehold on FTL transport.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Couldn't it be possible that the stormtroopers were just specialized official imperial troops, while the Moff and all the jazz tapped into private armies and militia, greasing their hands to enforce order?

Besides, there were not many dissident worlds left when the war ended.

It's always good for an Empire to have an excuse to keep an army in place, so they could actually need to let small worlds apparently cause minor trouble, just for the image.

Add to this the base delta zero, the Death Stars, and you know that you don't need more than that to keep certain worlds' mouth shut.

Besides, with the space superiority, it's easy to have a blockade in place and cut supply lines to forces on the ground. Unless we're talking about an equally armed foe, dissident forces will progressively starve, loose moral and bew low on medicines.
Tactically blast the remaining industrial and agricultural centers on said worlds, and they become totally dependant of extra planetary convoys, which can be intercepted.

The difference with WWII is that no one really had the mean, and maybe not even the will, to blast a whole nation in one shot.

Besides, those low numbers are mirroring a similar situation where the Empire had 25,000 ISDs, or how Thrawn, later on, and his 5 ISDs threatening a whole republic.

It's pretty clear that Star Wars was really lacking an army before the Clone Wars.

[Mike DiCenso]

In a galaxy where 10,000 Jedi (masters/apprentices) were able to keep diplomatic affairs in check, and where the amount of navies would have been minimal, and where keeping a blockade around a world can be effective... possibly.

It's still low at first glance, if you're used to other universes where armies are full blown over decades or centuries of war, and all depends on what "unit" meant in the films and novelisations.

You know, it's the same EU where one squadron of X-wings and the same old hotrod freighter seems to constantly save the day of quadrillions people.

For example, how many soldiers did the Empire have in Dune? It never seemed that high to me, precisely because there are other systems which balance situations out, which can be used to keep a control over certain worlds.

Maybe it would have been wise for the EU to insist on creating such a logic, such barriers.

Military formations in Dune where limited by various treaties, shields and the Guild stranglehold on FTL transport.

Dune and the Dune Chronicles are a decent analogy here in many ways: For instance, you could think of the Clone Wars-era Clone troopers were to regular local militias and armies as the Sardaukar were to the other armies fielded by the various houses of the Landsraad. Comparitively the Sardaukar are few in number compared to the combined might of the Landsraad, but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in sheer unmatched quality such that it would take a signficant amount of the Landsraad working together with their individual fleets and armiesto defeat the Emperor and his navy and the Sardaukar.

Given George Lucas' having taken at least some inspiration from Dune, it would only make sense after a fashion if the Clone Troopers were relatively few in number, but very high quality. Furthermore, if they were used to bolster the local armies and militia of a planet under seige, like what we saw happening on the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk.

However, unlike in the Dune universe, there were little or no checks on Chancellor, later Emperor Palpatine and his Clone/Storm troopers. For instance, as Kendall has noted, there is no Spacing Guild acting as a third party with a total monopoly on FTL travel to keep check on anyone. Nor is there the hydraulic despotism of Dune in Star Wars with whoever controls the spice Melange. On top of that it is clear that Palpatine commands the entire Republic/Imperial starfleet, and there are no similarly comparable space navies to oppose it after the Seperatist defeat in the Clone Wars, it would take decades before the Rebel Alliance could build up one of their own.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

The difference with WWII is that no one really had the mean, and maybe not even the will, to blast a whole nation in one shot.

Not until the end of the war with the United States developing the first practical nuclear weapons did something even remotelly like that capability exist. Even before then, the ability to at least utterly destroy or at least devastate a city existed, but a nation had to be able to field large numbers of bomber aircraft as the Allies did in the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo.

But blast or kill an entire nation? No... even today the superpowers technically don't have that capability. They have to rely on the Nuclear Triad, which consists of fleets of ships (submarines), bomber aircraft, and ballistic missles to get the job done in an overwhelming wave least the enemy intercept the various elements of the Triad and reduce or eliminate that capability.

Besides, those low numbers are mirroring a similar situation where the Empire had 25,000 ISDs, or how Thrawn, later on, and his 5 ISDs threatening a whole republic.

Thrawn was conducting initially more of a hit-and-run type campaign. But the real threat from him would come when he learned of the Katana fleet's location, and managed to salvage most of the 200 Dreadnaughts, which is still a very relatively tiny number of ships when compared to the millions of ships that should theoretically exist according Saxtonites and pro-Wars versus debate folk.

It's pretty clear that Star Wars was really lacking an army before the Clone Wars.

The Galactic Republic clearly lacked a cohesive army, but it was clear in TPM that even planets like Naboo had some kind of self-defense force, and later on the Wookies are shown with substantial ground forces on their homeworld.

There also appeared to be a navy of sorts for the pre-Clone Wars Republic, but it is unclear what the total scope of this fleet outside of EU sources.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

It simply does not make any sense at all.

Let me put the following into perspective:

Operation Barbarossa had three million soldiers in it, and it couldn't succeed in conquering the Soviet Union.

If an army of three million soldiers cannot even succeed in conquering one country of a similar technology level, how can they be expected to fight a galaxy-wide war and win?

Heck, the number of Germans who died in WWII easily exceeds three million.

That comparison falls somewhat flat since the 3 million German soldiers were not going into the U.S.S.R territories to support local militias or armies in overthrowing or defending against other nations/territories. The German military also lacked a number of useful strategic elements that would have made the campaign against the U.S.S.R more successful; for example the Germans lacked the kind of large, four-engined, long range bombers that Britain (e.g. Avro 683 Lancaster) and later the United States (e.g. B-17) had developed. Thus the Germans had no way to reach Russian production centers that been pulled back to the Ural mountains.

Also it didn't help Germany's cause that once they succeeded in taking places such as the Ukraine over, the Gestapo alienated the local populations by attempting to either exterminate or enslave them as part of fullfilling Adolf Hilter's dream of Lebensraum. Thus potentially useful allies who would have fought for Germany against Russia were lost.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

By interesting coincidence, the Sardaukar of the Dune Chronicles were organized into 10 legions, each legion being composed of 30,000 soldiers each, or 3 million strong total.
-Mike

[Cpl Kendall]

By interesting coincidence, the Sardaukar of the Dune Chronicles were organized into 10 legions, each legion being composed of 30,000 soldiers each, or 3 million strong total.
-Mike

10 x 30,000 equals 300,000 not 3 million.

[Mr. Oragahn]

In a galaxy where 10,000 Jedi (masters/apprentices) were able to keep diplomatic affairs in check, and where the amount of navies would have been minimal, and where keeping a blockade around a world can be effective... possibly.

It's still low at first glance, if you're used to other universes where armies are full blown over decades or centuries of war, and all depends on what "unit" meant in the films and novelisations.

You know, it's the same EU where one squadron of X-wings and the same old hotrod freighter seems to constantly save the day of quadrillions people.

For example, how many soldiers did the Empire have in Dune? It never seemed that high to me, precisely because there are other systems which balance situations out, which can be used to keep a control over certain worlds.

Maybe it would have been wise for the EU to insist on creating such a logic, such barriers.

Military formations in Dune where limited by various treaties, shields and the Guild stranglehold on FTL transport.

Dune and the Dune Chronicles are a decent analogy here in many ways: For instance, you could think of the Clone Wars-era Clone troopers were to regular local militias and armies as the Sardaukar were to the other armies fielded by the various houses of the Landsraad. Comparitively the Sardaukar are few in number compared to the combined might of the Landsraad, but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in sheer unmatched quality such that it would take a signficant amount of the Landsraad working together with their individual fleets and armiesto defeat the Emperor and his navy and the Sardaukar.

Given George Lucas' having taken at least some inspiration from Dune, it would only make sense after a fashion if the Clone Troopers were relatively few in number, but very high quality. Furthermore, if they were used to bolster the local armies and militia of a planet under seige, like what we saw happening on the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk.

However, unlike in the Dune universe, there were little or no checks on Chancellor, later Emperor Palpatine and his Clone/Storm troopers. For instance, as Kendall has noted, there is no Spacing Guild acting as a third party with a total monopoly on FTL travel to keep check on anyone. Nor is there the hydraulic despotism of Dune in Star Wars with whoever controls the spice Melange. On top of that it is clear that Palpatine commands the entire Republic/Imperial starfleet, and there are no similarly comparable space navies to oppose it after the Seperatist defeat in the Clone Wars, it would take decades before the Rebel Alliance could build up one of their own.
-Mike

What SW "lacks" in restrictions, it has in ships capable to get anywhere in the galaxy, and lay waste of any world within less than a day.

It's unfortunate that some people around there, despite their wanking, miss the ultimate Wank of God that the Death Star was.

Palpatine didn't believe in great numbers, otherwise he'd have this giant hurt ball cut into the equivalent numbers of ships, troops and crews.

No, he believed in impression and grandeur, and the big dark menace which no one could defeat.

See, you have a planet under your control. But you're elected, you're a president, or a benevolent king/queen.

You may even be pro-Alliance, instead of pro-Empire.

You know there are rebel cells on your planet. What are the chances that you'll support them?
Wouldn't you actually try to bust them, because there's that damn Death Star which can pop in your system, which you can do nothing about, and blast your whole planet in seconds?

This vision of order was that worlds would regulate themselves to avoid the punition.