As an avid fan of the Clone Troopers, you might already be aware that following the rise of the Empire, Emperor Palpatine replaced all of the Clone Troopers with Stormtroopers.
However, according to the Legends, a specific battle against the Empire played a significant role in this transition.
If you’re familiar with the Legends and this particular battle, I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments for a lively discussion.
If not, let’s delve into the real reasons behind this pivotal replacement in the Star Wars universe.
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Kamino Rebel – Legends
We know that the creators of the Clone Troopers are the Kaminoans, who used Jango Fett as a template.
However, a significant event, known as the Kamino uprising, led to a major shift in the composition of the Galactic Empire’s forces.
After decades of growing clone troopers for the Old Republic and stormtroopers for the Galactic Empire under Emperor Palpatine, a group of Kaminoans went rogue.
Using their advanced cloning resources, they grew an army with the intent of combating Palpatine’s New Order.
This Kaminoan resistance used the Grand Army of the Republic’s template, Jango Fett’s DNA, and equipped their soldiers with phase I clone trooper armor.
Upon learning of the insurrection, the Galactic Empire hired renowned bounty hunter Boba Fett, himself a clone of Jango Fett, to infiltrate and sabotage the cloning facilities of Tipoca City.
Fett’s intricate knowledge of the facility’s layout, gained from his childhood spent in the city, allowed him to lead the Imperial Army to a crushing defeat of the “anti-clone” army.
The Kaminoan leadership was destroyed when their escape transports were shot down as they attempted to flee.
Before the battle’s end, Fett extracted a sample of the Jango Fett DNA and delivered it to his Imperial clients.
The uprising led to a restructuring of the Imperial cloning policy; the previous model of centralized cloning sources was abandoned in favor of having a wide variety of cloning centers and genetic templates.
In the years following the rise of the Empire, the planet Kamino was kept under the watchful eye of Emperor Palpatine, ensuring that the planet’s cloning technology remained under Imperial control.
However, the Kamino uprising demonstrated the potential risks of relying solely on clones for the Empire’s military might.
This incident convinced Emperor Palpatine to commission the creation of new clones from different templates and the recruitment of birth-born soldiers to fill the ranks of the Stormtrooper Corps.
From the point of view of a Clone Trooper from the game Star Wars Battlefront II, based on the 501st journal, we can clearly see this event.
The journal entries provide a first-hand account of the experiences and emotions of a Clone Trooper during this transition, offering a deeper understanding of the impact of these strategic decisions on the individuals who were most affected by them.
The End of the Clone Troopers – Canon
In the Star Wars Canon, the Clone Troopers were informed that they would be replaced by Stormtroopers.
This news was delivered directly to the Clone Troopers within the first few months of the Empire’s reign.
As depicted in the 2017 Darth Vader issue #2, the clone troopers were no longer deployed in battle and were instead relegated to menial tasks.
Conversations among the Clone Troopers revealed that Palpatine intended to replace them by shutting down the cloning facilities on Kamino, with Stormtroopers set to take their place.
By the fifth year of the Empire, nearly all clones had been phased out of the Imperial army.
Only a few remained within the Stormtrooper Corps, but their numbers continued to dwindle due to the side effects of accelerated aging, which began to degrade them both mentally and physically.
This transition is poignantly illustrated in the Obi-Wan series, where we see an elderly clone trooper begging for credits to survive.
A Strategic Move by Emperor Palpatine
Replacing the Clone Troopers with the human recruit as Stormtrooper is also part of Emperor Palpatine’s plan. This strategic move had several key aspects:
Control and Propaganda: By recruiting regular citizens into the Stormtrooper Corps, the Empire was able to establish academies across the galaxy.
These academies served as a platform for disseminating propaganda, allowing the Empire to indoctrinate its soldiers with its ideologies from a young age.
Financial Considerations: Clones were expensive to produce as they required the costly process of ordering, growing, and training copies of Jango Fett. By transitioning to Stormtroopers, the Empire was able to avoid these high costs.
Distrust of Clones: There was a level of distrust of clones within the Empire, partially due to a series of clone uprisings. By replacing clones with Stormtroopers, the Empire was able to mitigate this risk.
Recruitment of Citizens: A planet with children serving in the Imperial Navy would be far less likely to resist Palpatine’s regime.
Therefore, by replacing the faceless clone troopers with normal human Stormtroopers, the Empire was able to further tighten its grip on the galaxy.
Rapid Aging of Clones: Clones, being genetically identical copies of bounty hunter Jango Fett, were designed to age at an accelerated rate.
This meant that they would become too old to serve in combat roles within a few years of their creation.