When a clone died, protocol wasn’t as simple as “leave no man behind.” In fact, Legends shows a complex system—sometimes personal, sometimes industrial—that determined what happened to every fallen trooper. So let’s break down exactly what happened to the clones who never made it home.
How Clones Handled Their Fallen Brothers
Clones grew up together, trained together, and fought side by side, so the way they treated fallen troopers says a lot about their daily life during the war. There are a few strong examples in Legends that show what they did when they had a moment to breathe.
One of the clearest cases comes from CT-1707, also known as Able. During a mission, his gunship went down on an empty world. He survived, but everyone else died in the crash. With no command structure left and no support coming, Able buried every one of them on his own. Those graves stayed hidden for decades until Luke Skywalker ran into them long after the Clone Wars ended. This case shows how clones acted when isolation gave them the time to honor their squad.
Another moment appears in the story of Galaar Squad, a commando team that worked through missions many regular units never saw. When one of their members fell, the others gave him a proper cremation before moving on. The Republic didn’t give them an official ritual, so the squad chose their own way to do it.
Examples like these give weight to the idea that clones handled their dead with respect during small missions, especially when only a handful of troopers were involved. They didn’t always have that option, but those moments still appear throughout Legends.
What Larger Battles Looked Like On The Republic’s Side
Everything shifts once you look at full-scale battles. There were too many casualties and too much ground to cover. Recovery teams often moved in after the fighting ended. They collected bodies, weapons, armor, and anything else useful. Gear usually went back into rotation after repairs, while bodies went to medical or military facilities set up for handling remains.
A strong and very specific example comes from CT-914, a trooper featured in MedStar I: Battle Surgeons. CT-914 and most of his platoon died in an ambush, and their bodies ended up in recycling vats at a Republic Mobile Surgical Unit. The book explains that their remains were processed there to salvage their biological material. This detail confirms that such systems existed and that the Republic used them in some locations, especially remote medical bases like the ones on Drongar.
When operations scaled up, the Republic treated the aftermath in a direct and organized manner. Small-scale burials or cremations happened only when conditions made them possible.
Clones Lost In Space Battles
Many stories include clone troopers pulled into open space when ships blew apart. Legends material doesn’t show organized retrieval operations for these cases. Space battles covered huge areas, and wreckage drifted fast. Once a fight ended, bodies and debris often floated far from the original scene. Recovery teams focused on surviving personnel and recoverable equipment, and anything lost to the vacuum usually stayed there.
This pattern appears across different stories. Whenever a battle took place in orbit or in open space, clones who were thrown out of the ships didn’t return to any base or facility afterward.
How The Empire Handled Stormtrooper Remains
The Imperial era took a more centralized and structured path. One of the main sources that covers this part of the timeline is the Imperial Crematorium on Coruscant. The facility served as a dedicated place where the Empire processed the bodies of stormtroopers and other military personnel.
Coruscant held very little land for graves, so this system made sense for the planet’s layout and the scale of the Imperial military. Troopers who served on Coruscant or died nearby usually ended up there. The Empire ran its logistics with clear structures, and the way it handled its fallen soldiers reflects that.