Stormtrooper Question...

[Mick A]

I'm about to start a 1st edition campaign and one of the guys who is going to be a player asked if Stormtroopers are clones and I had to admit, I honestly don't know...

Has there been any official information saying if they are or not? My apologies if this has come up before...

Mick
_________________
If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything...

[Bren]

Some EU material - especially that written before the creation of the prequels - talks about recruiting stormtroopers - so not clones.

I don't know if George has opined on this matter. Personally I like the idea that the stormtroopers are still clones and that's what I use in my Star Wars Universe. In my SWU the indoctrinated fanatic recruits join CompForce.

Will usually has a good handle on the musings of GL. Hopefully he will pop in and respond.

[faus7rav3n]

In my universe Stormtroopers are a mixed bag. The Clone Wars severely depleted the number of clones available and given that the cloning facilities were damaged by some renegade clones it put extra pressure on recruiters to look to the general populace. My current game has the players as bunch of misfit Stormtroopers, conscripts, criminals and outcasts, used as an Imperial experiment, indoctrinated and sent to serve at the fringes of society to regain some bit of trust in the system. Interestingly enough...the experiment just won't go away and it keeps on proving itself worthwhile.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that there are special cases where standout members of the Army, Navy, and COMPForce can be inducted into the Stormtrooper Corps. Not completely beyond the scope of reason, considering just about 10 years ago, no one knew that Stormies were clones besides ole' GL of course.

[Mick A]

The weird thing about this question is that when I first saw Star Wars at the cinema (back when first came out) and Ben started talking about the Clone Wars I automatically assumed the Stormtroopers were the clones, hence him being in hiding and then even more when they try to 'avoid Imperial entanglements'...

Mick
_________________
If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything...

[Matthias777]

Stormtroopers are a mix of clones and recruits. Depending on where you are on the timeline, the ratio between the two varies.
_________________
Arek | Kage

[faus7rav3n]

I think everyone kinda knew and that was the unspoken rule. But I still like having everyday joes in the Stormtroopers. The clones only think in certain ways. Independant thinkers bring depth to Stormtroopers, makes them much more deadly, as they were originally interpretted to be, outside of the box thinking and such.

The examples of Stormtrooper marksmanship in the movies leaves much to be desired, considering that many of the clones in the Clone Wars series/Prequels were quite good shots. Where did the training go wrong? Stormtroopers should have inspired FEAR in the heroes, not the urge to fire at them or charge them haphazardly. Why were the Imperial Machine's elite troopers no match for a sandy haired kid from tatooine, his scruffy smuggler friend and a walking carpet? I've always hated that trope.

[Mick A]

[faus7rav3n]

I prefer Bruce Willis style movies, the good guys do get shot, step on glass and suffer tremendously, all to see the bad guy plummet hundreds of stories to his death. Sacrifice well worth it.

[Bren]

[S-Foil]

My Stormtroopers changed with the times. In the early days of the Empire (before the prequels I guessed it rose about 20-30 years ABY) Stormtroopers were mostly clones since they were still plentiful after the end of the Clone Wars. As time passed and the Empire's military expanded they needed to fill ranks with natural born recruits.

By the time of the Battle of Yavin only the most elite of Stormtroopers were still clones with ones assigned to backwaters like Tatooine were natural born recruits. The Death Star's destruction devastated the Stormtrooper corps and after that most the PCs ran into were natural born recruits. Even Vader's fleet and the second Death Star would have had natural born troopers since they would have been interested only in the most capable troops regardless of lineage.

I used this to explain why Luke was surprised to encounter clones in the Thrawn trilogy. By the time he had enough strength in the Force to actually detect people most Stormtroopers he had ever encountered were natural borns rather than clones or one clone among a bunch of natural borns.

[Raven Redstar]

It makes sense to me S-Foil.

I tend to stick to normals for most Stormtroopers, with the exception of Royal Guardsmen. For me, I think that following the Clone Wars, there was a lot of public opinion about Clones. With Cloning illegal throughout the galaxy, the Emperor wanted to appear like he followed his own laws, so most of the deployed Stormtroopers were natural born, while he defended his secret projects and facilities with clones, because no one would wonder why they hadn't written home and no one asks questions. Officers stationed at these facilities wouldn't share locker or prep rooms, and wouldn't eat with the grunt troops. Allowing the Emperor to maintain his appearance of a lawful ruler.

Besides, there needs to be a reason to have a Stormtrooper academy.
_________________
RR
________________________________________________________________

[Urban Spaceman]

My biggest argument for saying that they are not clones is that they have different voices to Jango. Haven't seen the Blu-ray versions, but on DVD, they changed Boba's voice match Jango, but not the Stormtooper voices.
_________________
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

[cheshire]

[Grimace]

Wow. I must be all alone in my belief that the Stormtroopers were not clones when I watched them when the movies were originally released in theaters. The mention of the Clone Wars and all made me think that the clones were the BAD guys, not the people that eventually became the Stormtroopers. The two stormtroopers chatting in the Death Star was all the proof I needed that they were just trained soldiers, not some special clone forces.

Add in that it was apparently a big deal that Thrawn used clones to create his forces, and that even further reinforces my belief that ALL of the stormtroopers you see in the movies are NOT clones and are just better trained shock troops of the Empire.

Everyone has their own opinions. Some like to do whatever George Lucas says, or come up with ways to explain some of the inconsistancies from ol' GL, and that's their choice to do so.

My advice for the original poster to this thread....do what makes sense for the Star Wars game you want to run. If you think it's better to have the faceless minions of the Empire be a bunch of the same faces when they remove their helmet, then say that they're all clones. If you think it's better to have them be simply well-trained soldiers who use their uniform look to instill fear, then say they're not clones. Do what works for you.

[Fallon Kell]

You're not alone, Grimace.
_________________
Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier

Complete Starship Construction System