The Mandalorian

Probably the wrong word choice but the Mandalorians in her series are pretty much all tough and gritty mercenaries.

Maybe “needlessly hostile” is better.

Then she has them pop up in the Legacy of the Force series and I have no idea how they are there because I stopped reading that dreck a few books in.

Edited by theLibrarian on Nov 24th 2019 at 11:23:59 AM

Yeah, I heard she really, really loved the Mandolorians.

And really, really hated the Jedi. I'm wondering why someone with such a huge bias was even allowed to write books about them.

Or at least I'm wondering where her editor was to keep her in line.

The first book actually wasn’t bad to the Jedi at all. It was only when she got to write more that she really went all in on her Jedi hate-strap on.

Swarthy is absolutely the wrong choice.

I dont know what you think it means, but it just means dark colored, specifically dark skinned.

Not sure how that's a Mandalorian flaw.

I think the right world would have been "sanguine."

The first book was laser-focused on a specific squad of clones. It wasn't that bad about Jedi, mostly just showing that the specific Jedi in charge was kind of a jerk, and it went out of its way to show that the clones idolized Mandalorian culture and tried to emulate it because the Kaminoans gave them nothing culturally.

And then she went all in to a crazy degree. The only Jedi in her later books that wasn't characterized as an idiot or a belligerent jerk was the one who basically went native with the clones. At least I think that happened, I haven't read those books in years. I might be conflating from different books.

Edited by Zendervai on Nov 24th 2019 at 1:40:13 PM

Wasn't that a the same author who supplied an absolutely nonsensical number for the size of the GAR?

1 Million I think it was, yeah. For an entire galaxy.

Thank god her awful work is now non-canon.

Karen got a lot of shit for that but those marching orders came from Lucasfilm.

The number was in AOTC.

10,000 Jedi commanding 1,000,000 clones.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 25th 2019 at 12:19:14 PM

No, the million was only a part of it. Lama Su said “200,000 units are ready with a million more well on the way.”

If anything I think the number was actually 3 million.

Yeah that was basically the number they started with, not the number in total that fought throughout the entire war.

Easiest way to look at it was just the initial deployment that came to the rescue at Geonosis. Different planets are going to have difference population density, so it wouldn't be hard to argue that detachment was enough to overwhelm the Geonosis defenses, especially in a surprise attack.

In general it also has to be said the clones and droids were not the entirety of the Clone Wars, each side had local militias that provided security and ran isolated missions (even Naboo had a passable defense force for being a pacifist planet). The Republic needed a unified standing army in order to fight the war, they had delayed the recruitment and training process until it was too late and the Clones filled that gap too perfectly. It's notable that they had non-Jedi commanders and support crews that stepped in with little problem, as this was where Tarkin rose in the ranks.

The movies said "a million units," but they never defined exactly what a "unit" was. Traviss assumed it was one troop, but other authors assumed it was a an entire platoon.

And either way, the clear implication was that they could make more clones, while Traviss insisted on keeping the number that low for a long time.

Not to mention it wasn't that every planet had a clone garrison. Various other planetary militias and stuff also fought in the war, and in the Essential Guide To Warfare the Clones were divided into a number of commands and armies that each held jurisdiction over a certain part of the galaxy, so I imagine the war was various things like "Clones fight against non-droids on various planets and oftentimes clash with Separatist armies" and vice-versa, plus major offensives where both sides threw in a ton of stuff. Lots of clashes and attacks and counterattacks.

Even so it's likely that Kamino was still producing clones for the Republic during the war; if they weren't, Kamino wouldn't have been such an important target to the Separatists.

Edited by theLibrarian on Nov 25th 2019 at 5:14:26 AM

Star Wars: The Clone Wars made that clear. There were younger generations of clones getting tours from the older clones, and one episode revolves around a military spending bill about continuing production of clones; Padme tries to defeat the bill because she doesn't want to escalate the conflict further.

Which is highly shortsighted especially when neither side shows any interest in peace. There's a cut part of Essential Guide To Warfare where Panaka brings that up in a conversation with Leia.

Edited by theLibrarian on Nov 25th 2019 at 7:57:31 AM

It’s less short sighted when you figure it wasn’t the only peacemaking strategy Padme was trying to execute. Over the course of the war she tried secret negotiations, de-escalation efforts on both sides, goodwill through neutral parties, etc.

The Clone Wars makes it pretty clear that it would have worked if Palpatine weren’t omnipresent and constantly sabotaging every attempt at making peace.

True. Even the Separatist Senate wanted peace, but that's kind of hard when you're not only a rubber stamp to the MegaCorp entities that form your armies, but that your Chief of State and the Supreme Chancellor are also working to prolong the war.

Did anyone ever figure out that Palpatine was working on both sides to prolong the war?

In Rebels Ezra points out that neither the Republic or the Separatists really won, and asks who did. They realize that the Empire won, but don't really have time to digest the full implications of that.

But yeah, remember that all of Padme's varied attempts at peace almost worked despite the fact that Palpatine was playing both sides and the war was intended from the start to be utterly pointless and go on for as long as he needed it to. In fact, the Padme episodes are some of the few where Palpatine takes a more active role by ordering Dooku to directly sabotage her efforts.

Yoda did but it was way too late at that point.

Edited by Beatman1 on Nov 25th 2019 at 9:47:06 AM

I think my favorite example of how badly Palpatine stacked the deck is that time where - despite Palpatine’s meddling - Padme’s contacts actually convince the Separatist Parliament to make a peace offering. The Republic votes on it, and it looks like they might stop the war.

So Palpatine leaves the proverbial door open for Grievous to waltz troops into Coruscant and blow some random stuff up, convincing everyone that the bid for peace was a trick and horribly discrediting Padme.

Cue Psychotic Smirk from the de-Sheev-er. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t win a game that you’re not even playing.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 25th 2019 at 6:54:18 AM

Dooku told Obi-Wan at the start that the Sith were involved at the highest levels of the Republic. Palpatine in fact used their investigations on that matter as leverage that the Jedi were plotting and eventually attempted a coup. The truth of all this was probably not well known information, but those involved were fully aware the rise of the Empire was not incidental to the Clone Wars.

In Dark Lord—The Rise of Darth Vader—which is, yes, Legends—Palpatine outright tells the Senate, and maybe makes a proclamation to the galaxy as a whole (I don't recall exactly), the truth about the clone wars. Except that instead of admitting guilt, he blames the Jedi for Running Both Sides. Wasn't Count Dooku a former Jedi, after all? Order 66 was totally justified, y'all, because the Jedi didn't just attempt a coup against me personally, they were committing a galactic-scale war crime!

I just saw the newest episode. My only complaint is that nobody has said "See you, Space Cowboy" yet. Other than that, it's amazing.