No, it would be more like the IRS revealing that they had an army.

Nobody has ever considered the IRS "Good Guys".

Ever.

Jedi had claimed to long be the good guys, but some had grown to doubt that in the later days of the Republic just before news comes of their secret, massive army. So perhaps a good analogy would be the ACLU announcing they have their own massive, quasi-military security force. Like the Jedi, they would no longer just have small groups of agents sent to right civil wrongs, but now a massive force to protect you!

Much better example. Of course, I got a chuckle thinking of Al Sharpton as Mace Windu and Jessie Jackson as Yoda.

Found a text version, linked here:

http://insd.swcombine.com/insd/troops/clone.htm

Google to the rescue!

I defer to your superior Google-Fu. Man, I tried forever trying to come up with a text version and no combination of key words yielded pay dirt.

-Snip-

Those troopers in white can be both the elite and the only army at the same time. Regular soldiers have been replaced with the ability to fire lasers from orbit.

This is entirely possible. I, for one, never doubted that Stormtroopers were highly skilled and exceedingly dangerous (to anyone without plot armor). Particularly when you consider that most planets seem to take care of the majority of their own policing and basic defense, leaving the Empire to deal only with major threats.

Of course, there were several military analysts in the fifties that wrote many papers on how infantry would be relatively minimal thanks to the development of precise airpower. []Which we clearly see taking place in vietnam.[/sarcasm]

Forum-Fail

Fail II: Revenge of Fail.

All of the things that make clones undesirable for garrison and long term assimilation, show why the Imperial Army as a separate branch from the Stormtrooper Corps is still my preferred option.

Except special or elite forces are almost always within the same branch as the regular forces. The Army has it's Rangers, the Marines their Force Recon, and that follows for other militaries as well. There is no functional reason why, even if the stormtroopers are not the entirety of the infantry, and everyone we see in laminate is a stormtrooper, there's no reason for them to be separate from the Imperial Army. Particularly when we know there was only one Grand Army during the clone wars. (which also suggested a unified Navy-Army command, which is consistent with what we see in the OT)

One way to look at it is like this.

Laminate Armor is standard issue to both the Imperial Army and the Storm Trooper Corp. The difference between the groups is the training. In the Imperial Military the Storm Trooper Corps is equivalent to SOCOM (Special Operations Command) in the US Military.

Then there is the perception the Galactic Public has of the Imperial Military since the Clone Wars. To the general galactic citizen all people in White Laminate Armor are Storm Troopers. They don't know how to differentiate the difference. Even with Modern Military Uniforms here people really don't the difference when they are looking at Regular Service Members and those Members that are in Special Operations. So the in a way you can look at Storm Trooper is also slang for any Imperial Military Personal in White Laminate Armor.

Quicksilver, I'm not saying that the Stormtrooper Corps are entirely elite, I'm just saying that they are separate like the Army/Marine Corps divide you mentioned. Both the Imperial Army and the Stormtrooper Corps would have their elite units.

Actually lets go.with Imperial Army = Wehrmacht and Stormtrooper Corps = Wafen SS.

But then where did the Stormtrooper Corp come from? There is no precedent for them in the GAotR, and they fill no tactical need. Unlike the SS, which grew out of the Nazi party, there is no political organization for the SS to be an armed group of. And even if there was, there would be no reason for them to be at any of the locations in the OT.

I play as a ARC Trooper in one my campaigns, taking place a few years before battle of Yaven, he suffers from the advanced aging and has a "Bucket List" of things he wants to do before he becomes to old to live a life, which isn't that long for him. His list has things like "Meet a King or Queen", "Start a Riot", and "Win a Karaoke Contest". He is also trying to find Ordo Skirata, after hearing a rumor that he is trying to find a cure to slow down their age acceleration.

In episode I, the basic battle droid was, more than anything, a threat to itself.

In TCW, yes. However Episode I droids used cover and actually had a decent number of kills. The old canon was after Episode 1, the B1 Battle was made (Episode 1 was the OOM series). The B1 series was made to be cheaper and needed to act independently of a central computer.

My only complaint with the droids was the high pitched voice. However, I just add my own fluff it is to make them feel more human when occupying a world.

But then where did the Stormtrooper Corp come from? There is no precedent for them in the GAotR, and they fill no tactical need. Unlike the SS, which grew out of the Nazi party, there is no political organization for the SS to be an armed group of. And even if there was, there would be no reason for them to be at any of the locations in the OT.

(Back on a full computer, so I can quote.)

The Stormtrooper Corps are the direct descendents of the clone troopers from the GAR. These are used as assault troopers and have the advantage of having no local ties or any loyalties beyond to the Emperor and the Empire (in that order). They do all of the heavy fighting during the Outer Rim Sieges (reunification conflicts that wind down the Clone Wars) and take heavy casualties. As a result, they are not used for garrisons and are reserved for use as shock troops.

The Imperial Army comes from all of the local planetary and sector forces of non-clones that assisted the GAR in the Clone Wars. They take on a larger role for the Empire as the numbers of clones prove insufficient during the Outer Rim Sieges and for manning the subsequent garrisons left on worlds of questionable loyalty. These forces have advantages in being a place for building loyal members of the Empire (like Tarkin) and also allow dissidents to be removed by sending them to garrison distant worlds away from their local support.

In my Star Wars campaigns, the militaries of the Empire are divided in four branches: the CompForce, the Army, the Navy and the Stormtrooper Corps.

The CompForce is the military branch of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order (compnor). CompForce troopers are all volunteers and fanatics of the New Order. The Select Committee (the sprawling ruling organization of the COMPNOR) almost openly says that the CompForce eventually replace the Army of the Empire (which is not the plan of the Emperor). The CompForce is mostly an infantry force, trooper’s morale and discipline is high, their equipment is excellent but their combat capabilities are the lowest of the Imperial Forces. CompForce troopers can be deployed as military units (Assault CompForce) or as overseers inside army or Navy units (Observation units). CompForce members think themselves as the paragons of the Empire; they despise the members of the Army (and even the Navy) who are not truly volunteers to serve the Empire. They respect the stormtroopers (clones or not) for their glorious past during the Clone War, the Jedi purge and the imperial reform. With the exception of the stormtroopers, everybody in the imperial forces fears the CompForce. A simple CompForce officer can slow or stop a career or send any member of the Imperial Navy or Army in prison... or worse.

The Imperial Army is the main ground force of the Empire; deploying infantry, artillery, engineering, mobile and armor units, reconnaissance units and special missions forces. There are no imperial galactic draft order to fill the ranks of the Imperial Army, all the men and women are officially volunteers to serve the Emperor. But local governments are free to enact laws of planetary conscription to send part of their youth in the Imperial Army. Sentiments of the Army personnel toward the Navy are mixed: Navy personnel are not real combatants but the Army rely on the Navy for deployment and support. Most Imperial Army enlisted dislike CompForce troopers who are perceived as “more imperial than the Emperor himself”. But a lot of Imperial Army Officers are member of the COMPNOR for obvious political reasons. Stormtrooper are respected by the army troopers and a lot of army troopers wish to join the “Corps”. Most of the officers of the Stormtrooper Corps come from the Imperial Army.

The Imperial Navy operates starships to deploy, protect and assist the three others branches of the Imperial Forces. Of course, the Emperor also uses its Starfleet as a terror tool to enforce his power (the threat of a planetary bombardment can be very persuasive). The Imperial Naval Forces are part of the Imperial Navy; they are foot soldiers used to protect navy assets. Naval troopers are also trained for boarding assault and landing operations. The Starfighter Command is also a part of the Imperial Navy. Since the Imperial Navy needs highly trained personnel, its members are mostly volunteers recruited through an intensive propaganda in the Core Worlds, most of the members of the Navy have a high-school or college degree from a civilian organization. All members of the Imperial Navy think they are the aristocracy of the Imperial Armed forces, they operate the most advanced and expensive equipments of the Empire and are essential to the other branches. As the Army, Imperial Navy crew members don’t trust CompForce troopers or officers who are perceives as spies of a central political organization that have trade skill to high moral standards and discipline. But a lot of Navy officers are member of the COMPNOR for their career and it’s uneasy to make the difference between a true zealot for the Empire and an ambitious.

The Stormtrooper Corps is essentially composed of clone troopers and non-clone officers (with few exceptions). In a way, they symbolize a link between the Palpatine-led Republic and the Empire. They represent the force that protected the Republic against the Separatists and the Jedi plot to overthrow the Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. At the time of the Battle of Yavin, few clones were derived from the DNA of Jango Fett. For various reasons, the strategists of the empire did not want a force composed entirely of the same type of clone; an enemy could have developed a biological weapon to target Jango Fett clones. So the Empire created new clone strains for its stormtrooper force. Imperial military geneticist continuously searches new candidates for cloning in the three other branches of the Imperial Forces (mainly the Army). When a candidate is found, he is also transferred to the Imperial Propaganda and presented to the population of the Empire as paragons of the human soldiers against the enemies of the Empire. This trooper leaves the hazards of the battlefields and spends his time in all kind of holovid shows. Some stormtrooper units are composed of non-clone soldiers; they can be recruited from Army or Navy ranks or recruited from civilians. The origins of non-clone stormtroopers are classified; rumors said that stormtroopers trainees have to cut all links with their past lives. Nobody knows about a stormtrooper family or friend or name. The formation of a non-clone is long and classified; trainees have to unlearn part of their initial army or navy formation to become a stormtrooper. Even if various type of units exists in the Stormtroopers Corps (armor, artillery and even starfighters squadrons), those troopers are essentially foot soldiers using assets of the Army or the Navy for deployment and support. Stormtroopers (clone or not) are not supposed to have any specific feeling towards the other members of the Imperial Armed Forces. They know the values, the strengths and the weaknesses of the other branches and they are clearly not threatened by the CompForce. They also have no mercy.