Re: [GZG] Troop potential

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have to understand the Jedi mindset to understand their relationship to
the Clone Troopers. They were pretty unhappy with the whole
choreographed
march towards war, but recognized they couldn't stop it and the Jedi
could
not be an army. They were not comfortable with cloning.

But once they were in the war, and by the time you get deep into the
third
movie, you really are deep into the war's timeline, they'd gotten pretty
used to seeing battles lost to the separatists at high cost. The Clones
were
well-trained soldiers, patterned after one of the greatest warriors of
the
age (Jango was feared by many and was a good physical specimen). The
thought
was, with some tweaks, they would make excellent soldiers. They were
extensively trained.

The expanded universe made good use of them in a number of books which
were
actually better than the run of the mill for Star Wars books. The
Republic
Commando series was particularly interesting - seeing what happens when
you
leave more of the initiative and spirit in the Clone. Better soldiers to
be
sure, but with a will of their own.

Anyway, back to the Jedi: The Clones were bred to be soldiers, which
wasn't
what the Jedi would have preferred. But the war was costing many lives
and
threatened the Republic and a bigger catastrophe. So they were a
necessary
evil. The Jedi didn't, for the most part, shed a lot of tears for their
own
loses. They were accepting that this was just the way things were in
this
tumultuous time. The Jedi had to do their part as battlefield commanders
and
as potent strikers - if they became obsessed with trying to help out
Clones,
they were not doing *their* job. And if they did that, more people would
get
killed.

In one of the Republic Commando books, two Jedi who are operating with
the
Clone Troopers eventually end up going native because they do spend a
lot of
time finding out that the Clones aren't just mindless weapon systems,
but
actual people with an intense sense of duty and brotherhood (and we have
a
resurgent Mandalorian tradition as a result).

One of the mistakes people make in interpreting the Jedi is in assuming
they
are 'good' or somehow 'pro-life'. They remind me more of your
balance-oriented D&D true neutral character (or a druid). They're also
quite
aware of the struggles of different forces in nature and this is the way
of
the Force. They can be quite ruthless when circumstances require it.

Ultimately, Lucas' movie vision was a bit two-dimensional and a bit
ridiculous. Some of the authors in the expanded universe have cleaned up
the
basic concepts in ways that make the Clones actually fairly interesting
(they remind me a bit of Maoris in some ways).

TomB

-- 
"Now, I go to spread happiness to the rest of the station. It is a
terrible
responsibility but I have learned to live with it."
Londo, A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like
administering medicine to the dead." -- Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine