1 minute ago, KungFuFerret said:

I mean, no Jedi has ever been depicted as being able to stand alone against an entire army, and by army i do mean thousands. At least not in the films. There is that cartoon of Mace Windu that the guy who made Samurai Jack did, but he is kind of famous for going over the top, and I'm not really sure that's canon.

Said cartoon ramped up all the Force users to some fairly ridiculous levels, with Mace Windu happening to get the most improvement in terms of what we see him perform in the films, though I recall seeing that it wasn't meant to be a "realistic" take on the capabilities of the Jedi (or any other named character), but instead an exaggerated telling of the story. Windu's especially as it'd been stated to be a retelling of the Dantooine battle from the perspective of the young farm boy that was watching the battle. And yeah, said cartoon is no longer part of the current canon.

4 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Ah, well yeah it's not the best plot device, given how it was implemented in the story, but in itself, the idea that the Jedi were destroyed by the army they were sent to lead is feasible, and thematically appropriate in my book. Though I don't really see the big problem with it. I mean, no Jedi has ever been depicted as being able to stand alone against an entire army, and by army i do mean thousands. At least not in the films. There is that cartoon of Mace Windu that the guy who made Samurai Jack did, but he is kind of famous for going over the top, and I'm not really sure that's canon.

But i mean, one person vs thousands of people potentially firing at once, no Jedi will survive that for long. They aren't flawless, they are living beings, with limitations. Limitations that are higher than the average joe sure, but limitations none the less.

I mean, they have to have limits narratively, or there is no tension in any scene. It's the Superman effect. Nobody really ever worries if Superman is going to survive a fight, he's Superman. The tension they apply is in the situation itself, and how Supes has to resolve the situation. The Jedi aren't Superman, they are far less personally resilient than him. To use a 1-10 scale, normal humans are at a 1, when it comes to overall durability, Superman is at 11, and Jedi are like, a 6-7. Extremely more durable than you or I, but still plenty killable in a number of ways.

Yeah and I do think they would have bagged a fair amount of Jedi but I also think that a fair amount would have escaped the jaws of that trap and were killed or went into hiding later. My main issue I think is that it is just too fast and too effective. Great points.

4 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

Yeah and I do think they would have bagged a fair amount of Jedi but I also think that a fair amount would have escaped the jaws of that trap and were killed or went into hiding later. My main issue I think is that it is just too fast and too effective. Great points.

But, plenty of Jedi did escape and went into hiding. Obi-Wan even says as much in Revenge at the end, when he tells Yoda that he sent out that message, warning all the surviving Jedi to hide. We just see a handful of the previously established Jedi, on screen, dying for dramatic purposes. To convey the tragedy of the betrayal, and the death of an Order that was trying to be a force for good in the galaxy. Kannen Jarrus survived, the kid in the upcoming Fallen Order survived, Yoda and Ben survived. So there is already precedent that some lived. The survivors are the ones that Vader then spent the subsequent 20 years leading up to New Hope, hunting down as the Emperor's attack dog. So nothing in that sequence really contradicts what you think should've happened, since they confirmed it shortly after that in the same film that O66 took place.

7 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Said cartoon ramped up all the Force users to some fairly ridiculous levels, with Mace Windu happening to get the most improvement in terms of what we see him perform in the films, though I recall seeing that it wasn't meant to be a "realistic" take on the capabilities of the Jedi (or any other named character), but instead an exaggerated telling of the story. Windu's especially as it'd been stated to be a retelling of the Dantooine battle from the perspective of the young farm boy that was watching the battle. And yeah, said cartoon is no longer part of the current canon.

Yeah I figured as much, I just felt obligated to mention that one, because someone would inevitably try and "Well Actually" me in a quoted comment. You know, because Star Wars fans.

I guess what I am really after is the idea that Order 66 was as effective as it is sometimes depicted. I think in recent years the idea of more Jedi escaping is commonplace as Lucasfilm is needing to mine the idea that some of the Jedi survived in GCW era. I do remember a lot of discussion about this in earlier years after the movie in which my perceptions was that people generally felt that the Jedi were gone in that 4 minute sequence except for Yoda and Ben.

2 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

My main issue I think is that it is just too fast and too effective. Great points.

It's been addressed why Order 66 was as fast and as effective as it was. The Jedi have never been omniscient, even well before they became attached at the hip to the Republic Senate, and it's been established (particularly in Legends) that a normal person can kill a Jedi, provided they use the right tactics (see HK-47's thoughts on the dos and don'ts of killing Jedi in KOTOR2).

Prior to Filoni's Clone Wars introducing the bio-chip to enforce compliance with Order 66 the moment it was given, it was cited that the clones were so well-trained that they'd respond to orders with minimal emotional content, being likened to a knife sharpened to a very fine edge, enough so that the knife would cut with only the slightest of pressure, and with the various General Orders (up to 150 if I remember right) being drilled into them during their flash-training.

As someone else pointed out earlier in the thread, the Jedi had become accustomed to the presence of the Clone Troopers, to the point that once the clones' generally violent thoughts turned to killing the Jedi Generals, the Jedi in question really didn't have a lot of time to react. Ki-Adi Mundi was probably one of the few that had much time to react (outside of Yoda), but spent much of that being dumb-founded at the clones with whom he'd fought for years suddenly doing an about face in the middle of a firefight. At no point in the films is it stated that the Jedi are infallible beings, with Qui-Gon coming right out and correcting Anakin's false presumption that nobody could kill a Jedi.

In the Revenge of the Sith novelization, Sidious even muses about how the entire war was the perfect trap for the Jedi, using their general attachment to the Republic (it wasn't the best system of government, but it certainly beat all the other alternatives) to draw them into a protracted conflict and get them so used to being in danger that when Order 66 came down, it'd catch them off guard. He also didn't plan on Order 66 being 100% effective, and for there to be Jedi survivors, but as long as those survivors stayed hidden and didn't try to oppose his new Empire, he was perfectly fine with letting them be as it symbolized his victory to the extent that the Sith's greatest enemies were now so cowed that they wouldn't dare to resist his rule; it was really Vader that had a mad-on for totally wiping out the Jedi and would go actively hunting them down.

19 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Ah, well yeah it's not the best plot device, given how it was implemented in the story, but in itself, the idea that the Jedi were destroyed by the army they were sent to lead is feasible, and thematically appropriate in my book. Though I don't really see the big problem with it. I mean, no Jedi has ever been depicted as being able to stand alone against an entire army, and by army i do mean thousands. At least not in the films. There is that cartoon of Mace Windu that the guy who made Samurai Jack did, but he is kind of famous for going over the top, and I'm not really sure that's canon.

But i mean, one person vs thousands of people potentially firing at once, no Jedi will survive that for long. They aren't flawless, they are living beings, with limitations. Limitations that are higher than the average joe sure, but limitations none the less.

I mean, they have to have limits narratively, or there is no tension in any scene. It's the Superman effect. Nobody really ever worries if Superman is going to survive a fight, he's Superman. The tension they apply is in the situation itself, and how Supes has to resolve the situation. The Jedi aren't Superman, they are far less personally resilient than him. To use a 1-10 scale, normal humans are at a 1, when it comes to overall durability, Superman is at 11, and Jedi are like, a 6-7. Extremely more durable than you or I, but still plenty killable in a number of ways.

I saw the samurai jack style cartoon as what holowood planet would put out during the clone wars. Which of course the holodramas disappeared after order 66

10 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I guess what I am really after is the idea that Order 66 was as effective as it is sometimes depicted. I think in recent years the idea of more Jedi escaping is commonplace as Lucasfilm is needing to mine the idea that some of the Jedi survived in GCW era. I do remember a lot of discussion about this in earlier years after the movie in which my perceptions was that people generally felt that the Jedi were gone in that 4 minute sequence except for Yoda and Ben.

The whole notion of the Jedi Purge as being "100% effective outside of Ben and Yoda" had been debunked long before Lucas even gave serious thought to producing the prequels.

WEG had a couple of Jedi templates that were build around the PCs having survived the purge (back then, nobody knew the details of how the Jedi were wiped out, probably not even Lucas himself), and in various stories and media there were Jedi survivors, many of whom got wiped out long after the purge, if only to reinforce the notion that Luke didn't have anyone to turn to for additional training either prior to or after Yoda's passing.

Prior to the canon reset, even Legends had an ever-increasing number of Jedi who survived Order 66. Granted, compared to the number of Jedi that existed prior to the onset of the Clone Wars, that number was incredibly small (maybe a couple dozen at best), so while Order 66 may not have been 100% effective, it was pretty close to 99% effective, especially since it accomplished the notable objective of removing the Jedi Order as an organized force of opposition to Palpatine's shiny new Galactic Empire. So in that at least, removing the Jedi from a position of authority and turning them into fugitives with minimal support, Order 66 was a roaring success.

Edit : And a for how many Jedi did actually manage to survive Order 66, the answer is the same as the one I gave in a thread in the AoR forum: However many your campaign requires there to have survived. If your campaign requires that it was only Ben and Yoda, then for your campaign characters such as Ahsoka and Kanan are SOL. But if your campaign requires several dozen of Jedi survivors of various ranks, then there were dozens of Jedi survivors of Order 66.

4 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

It's been addressed why Order 66 was as fast and as effective as it was. The Jedi have never been omniscient, even well before they became attached at the hip to the Republic Senate, and it's been established (particularly in Legends) that a normal person can kill a Jedi, provided they use the right tactics (see HK-47's thoughts on the dos and don'ts of killing Jedi in KOTOR2).

Prior to Filoni's Clone Wars introducing the bio-chip to enforce compliance with Order 66 the moment it was given, it was cited that the clones were so well-trained that they'd respond to orders with minimal emotional content, being likened to a knife sharpened to a very fine edge, enough so that the knife would cut with only the slightest of pressure, and with the various General Orders (up to 150 if I remember right) being drilled into them during their flash-training.

As someone else pointed out earlier in the thread, the Jedi had become accustomed to the presence of the Clone Troopers, to the point that once the clones' generally violent thoughts turned to killing the Jedi Generals, the Jedi in question really didn't have a lot of time to react. Ki-Adi Mundi was probably one of the few that had much time to react (outside of Yoda), but spent much of that being dumb-founded at the clones with whom he'd fought for years suddenly doing an about face in the middle of a firefight. At no point in the films is it stated that the Jedi are infallible beings, with Qui-Gon coming right out and correcting Anakin's false presumption that nobody could kill a Jedi.

In the Revenge of the Sith novelization, Sidious even muses about how the entire war was the perfect trap for the Jedi, using their general attachment to the Republic (it wasn't the best system of government, but it certainly beat all the other alternatives) to draw them into a protracted conflict and get them so used to being in danger that when Order 66 came down, it'd catch them off guard. He also didn't plan on Order 66 being 100% effective, and for there to be Jedi survivors, but as long as those survivors stayed hidden and didn't try to oppose his new Empire, he was perfectly fine with letting them be as it symbolized his victory to the extent that the Sith's greatest enemies were now so cowed that they wouldn't dare to resist his rule; it was really Vader that had a mad-on for totally wiping out the Jedi and would go actively hunting them down.

I agree that this makes sense, but would it not make sense also that given the size of the galaxy and the fact that not all Jedi would have been assigned to clones as well as the fact that Jedi are kind of about getting out of traps (as movie serial type heroes) that a bunch of these guys got away and maybe even worked behind the scenes to do things in the interim. Imperial propaganda would certainly never admit to such a thing but I feel like the Jedi who survived would not all have had to disappear completely.

There is a lot of material that just keeps adding on to this situation to the point where now I am questioning the original material. Seems like each year we find out more and more Jedi survived. If the trend in this direction continues maybe the original O66 effectiveness should be questioned. By 2022 we may find out that there is a Jedi colony somewhere that nobody wrote about before.

2 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I agree that this makes sense, but would it not make sense also that given the size of the galaxy and the fact that not all Jedi would have been assigned to clones as well as the fact that Jedi are kind of about getting out of traps (as movie serial type heroes) that a bunch of these guys got away and maybe even worked behind the scenes to do things in the interim. Imperial propaganda would certainly never admit to such a thing but I feel like the Jedi who survived would not all have had to disappear completely.

There is a lot of material that just keeps adding on to this situation to the point where now I am questioning the original material. Seems like each year we find out more and more Jedi survived. If the trend in this direction continues maybe the original O66 effectiveness should be questioned. By 2022 we may find out that there is a Jedi colony somewhere that nobody wrote about before.

Again, it depends on how you define the success of Order 66.

If you define it as "unilaterally wiping the Jedi from the face of the galaxy and that nobody survived" then even in the films it's an abject failure, because we've got at least four Jedi in the current canon that survived, those being Yoda, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka Tano, and Kanan Jarrus. And probably more as future writers need them, such as the lead protagonist and his mentor in the upcoming Fallen Order game.

If the success is defined as "break the Jedi Order so that it's no longer an organized source of opposition and denying them the support and resources they'd become accustomed to while driving any immediate survivors into hiding" (which is how Palpatine, who orchestrated the whole thing seems to have defined it), the Order 66 was an absolute success, as there was no serious opposition from the Jedi for close to two decades.

6 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

a bunch     of these guys got away and maybe even worked b  ehind the scenes to do things  in the in  terim

You've just described Obi-Wan.

8 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I do remember a lot of discussion about this in earlier years after the movie in which my perceptions was that people generally felt that the Jedi were gone in that 4 minute sequence except for Yoda and Ben.

That perception is just incorrect, again, as the movie itself states. If other Jedi didn't survive O66, then there would be noone for Ben to send out that warning signal to. Just by basic logic, SOMEONE had to survive, to receive that message. It's left intentionally vague yes, in order to easily milk the "Jedi/Padawan Survivor" trope, because it's pretty much mandatory if you are going to tell a Post O66 story with Jedi in it. It's a franchise based thing, done for further content reasons. But I also think it's pretty reasonable, just like you said. You don't think it makes sense that ALL the Jedi died in O66, and neither did Lucas, or Revenge of the Sith. The fact that a lot of fans didn't take a few minutes to actually think about the follow up lines in the film, isn't a flaw in the film. They clearly set it up for some of the Order to theoretically survive the purge. But left it intentionally vague for spinoff reasons.

1 minute ago, Stan Fresh said:

You've just described Obi-Wan.

As well as Ahsoka Tano (who per her solo novel linked up with Bail Organa's fledging resistance not that long after Order 66) and Kanan Jarrus (though it took him more than a decade to decide to stop running and fight the good fight prior to the official formation of the Rebel Alliance).

1 minute ago, KungFuFerret said:

That perception is just incorrect, again, as the movie itself states. If other Jedi didn't survive O66, then there would be noone for Ben to send out that warning signal to. Just by basic logic, SOMEONE had to survive, to receive that message. It's left intentionally vague yes, in order to easily milk the "Jedi/Padawan Survivor" trope, because it's pretty much mandatory if you are going to tell a Post O66 story with Jedi in it. It's a franchise based thing, done for further content reasons. But I also think it's pretty reasonable, just like you said. You don't think it makes sense that ALL the Jedi died in O66, and neither did Lucas, or Revenge of the Sith. The fact that a lot of fans didn't take a few minutes to actually think about the follow up lines in the film, isn't a flaw in the film. They clearly set it up for some of the Order to theoretically survive the purge. But left it intentionally vague for spinoff reasons.

While I agree with everything here, it's worth noting that Obi-Wan had no idea if anyone survived, and may well have set the beacon in the hopes that other Jedi survived for whatever reason.

Like you, I saw that seen as a way of leaving things open enough so that if future stories required there to be a Jedi who survived Order 66 and the Empire's hunting of the Jedi, that would be a means to tip them off to go underground and hide. In fact, that same beacon message gets referenced in both A New Dawn and the Kanan comic series as being the reason why Caleb/Kanan went underground for so long. I don't know if Filoni put much thought into how Kanan survived Order 66 other than "well, I need a Jedi-type character who's been trained as a Jedi, so I guess he survived Order 66," but the beacon message does cover the "how would he know to go into hiding?" pretty easily.

2 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

While I agree with everything here, it's worth noting that Obi-Wan had no idea if anyone survived, and may well have set the beacon in the hopes that other Jedi survived for whatever reason.

Like you, I saw that seen as a way of leaving things open enough so that if future stories required there to be a Jedi who survived Order 66 and the Empire's hunting of the Jedi, that would be a means to tip them off to go underground and hide. In fact, that same beacon message gets referenced in both A New Dawn and the Kanan comic series as being the reason why Caleb/Kanan went underground for so long. I don't know if Filoni put much thought into how Kanan survived Order 66 other than "well, I need a Jedi-type character who's been trained as a Jedi, so I guess he survived Order 66," but the beacon message does cover the "how would he know to go into hiding?" pretty easily.

Yeah I mean, not every Jedi was a combatant. We see a Jedi librarian for pete's sake. And we also see a 13ish year old Padawan almost escape from the Temple itself, only to get shot down at the very last moment. So the potential for some Jedi or Padawan's to escape is entirely probable, just based on the films themselves. They likely didn't have 100% deployed to combat, because not everyone was a master swordsman, and some of them could easily have been in situations at that exact moment, that would lend themselves to being able to survive, just like Yoda and Ben, who both were openly attacked, but due to other factors, were able to survive. I mean Ben survived because they just assumed he fell to his death, and walked away. If they are that lax in confirming the kill, you could easily justify someone else just barely surviving, and being left for dead.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

While I agree with everything here, it's worth noting that Obi-Wan had no idea if anyone survived, and may well have set the beacon in the hopes that other Jedi survived for whatever reason.

Like you, I saw that seen as a way of leaving things open enough so that if future stories required there to be a Jedi who survived Order 66 and the Empire's hunting of the Jedi, that would be a means to tip them off to go underground and hide. In fact, that same beacon message gets referenced in both A New Dawn and the Kanan comic series as being the reason why Caleb/Kanan went underground for so long. I don't know if Filoni put much thought into how Kanan survived Order 66 other than "well, I need a Jedi-type character who's been trained as a Jedi, so I guess he survived Order 66," but the beacon message does cover the "how would he know to go into hiding?" pretty easily.

In fact Kanan has the message Obiwan sent in his Holocron.

I will also note that I do not believe the jedi senses are always as precise as people think. Like I know they can sense danger, but they can not always sense where the danger is coming from. For example Aayla Secura's gun down by her group of troopers on felucia, right before it happens it looks like she is in kind of a panic looking around for the source of danger, almost like she couldn't tell that her own troops were the source of the danger. I always took this to be the whole "I don't believe it." 'that is why you fail' line because the jedi's ability is limited to what they can believe is possible. Or as Qui-gon put it "your focus determines your reality". In this case I feel like some were caught off guard by the clones because they unwittingly got attached to the idea that the clones were friends and allies of the republic and the republic was a friend and ally to the jedi, so when the clones turned they felt danger, they felt a threat, but they probably could not tell it was coming from the clones as that was beyond their ability to 'believe'.

That said it is already a fact that quite a few jedi survived order 66. It is also a fact that quite a few were hunted down and killed by vader and the inquisitors. It is also a fact that the emperor's propaganda machine put even more jedi in hiding and made it impossible for them to act.

I do not know about you guys, but I personally like to tell my players that what they are doing is 'canon' that they will likely not meet nor mess with other canon characters but what they are doing still happens within the universe of star wars. That this is their star wars story and that everything we are doing could technically have been happening off screen where ever they are because the universe is so vast that the books and movies and tv shows could never possibly cover all the stories to be told. In my games there are more force users that are not found by the inquisitors because they have yet to make it obvious that they are force users and they may never and that would be 'canon' to my game.

I also want to note that "padawan survivor" is literally a spec from the dawn of rebellion book to me this suggests that there were enough "padawan survivors" from order 66 besides kanan that it is an archetypal back story for a character.

21 minutes ago, tunewalker said:

I also want to note that "padawan survivor" is literally a spec from the dawn of rebellion book to me this suggests that    there were enough "padawan survivors" from order 66 besides ka  nan that it is an archetypal back story for a character. 

Being a young survivor of Order 66 is one of the listed possible backgrounds in the Force and Destiny core book. This isn't even something new or unusual, it's part of the basic assumption of the whole game line.

That and equally important to Palpatines scheme is that the Jedi are also completely and utterly discredited. Mace Windu stormed his office with Jedi in a movement similar to a military coup to seize control of the Republic,after declaring war on the separatists 3 years prior. He made the Jedi seem like warmongers who just wanted to bring the republic under heel once they had crushed the Separatist movement, not only were the Jedi being wiped out but they were in absolutely no position to defend themselves politically from the storm that was about to hit them. He basically used the Jedi twice to forfill his scheme, first by getting them to declare war on behalf of the Republic (The CIS didn't go to war until they were attacked on Geonosis) then getting them to seem power hungry so he could declare them as criminals with no possible recourse, which is enough for most of the galaxy/corrupt senators to believe.

By the time they started discovering what actually happened? Well the republic Senate no longer had any powers and the republics protectors had been wiped out. Instead the Emperor had his own army loyal to him that he used to set up the infulstructure he needed for his empire; and he now had plenty of experienced military personal who saw first hand the horrors of the most brutal war the galaxy had seen and had no desire to see it again. The Emperor's scheme didn't need the Jedi to be completely eradicated, he could do that at his leisure once he had seized the Republic; but what remained of them was so scattered in numbers and politically that they had virtually no chance of forming a major movement that could appose the Empire, what he needed for them was to be the great enemy of the empire. We know all too well from history that empires only need an enemy to be whipped into a frenzy. After the death star was built and fully operational, didn't really matter what the Jedi did, he had the ultimate high ground.


Now, the stupid thing was accepting an army that came out of nowhere, from a Jedi master who's apparently no longer alive. But then the Republic was so inefficient that the Jedi were literally forced to accept this army or fall to the immense separatist army that had been building up for decades, so I guess by that point they only really had bad options and no longer had much control over their own trajectory.

2 hours ago, LordBritish said:

That and equally important to Palpatines scheme is that the Jedi are also completely and utterly discredited. Mace Windu stormed his office with Jedi in a movement similar to a military coup to seize control of the Republic,after declaring war on the separatists 3 years prior. He made the Jedi seem like warmongers who just wanted to bring the republic under heel once they had crushed the Separatist movement, not only were the Jedi being wiped out but they were in absolutely no position to defend themselves politically from the storm that was about to hit them. He basically used the Jedi twice to forfill his scheme, first by getting them to declare war on behalf of the Republic (The CIS didn't go to war until they were attacked on Geonosis) then getting them to seem power hungry so he could declare them as criminals with no possible recourse, which is enough for most of the galaxy/corrupt senators to believe.

By the time they started discovering what actually happened? Well the republic Senate no longer had any powers and the republics protectors had been wiped out. Instead the Emperor had his own army loyal to him that he used to set up the infulstructure he needed for his empire; and he now had plenty of experienced military personal who saw first hand the horrors of the most brutal war the galaxy had seen and had no desire to see it again. The Emperor's scheme didn't need the Jedi to be completely eradicated, he could do that at his leisure once he had seized the Republic; but what remained of them was so scattered in numbers and politically that they had virtually no chance of forming a major movement that could appose the Empire, what he needed for them was to be the great enemy of the empire. We know all too well from history that empires only need an enemy to be whipped into a frenzy. After the death star was built and fully operational, didn't really matter what the Jedi did, he had the ultimate high ground.


Now, the stupid thing was accepting an army that came out of nowhere, from a Jedi master who's apparently no longer alive. But then the Republic was so inefficient that the Jedi were literally forced to accept this army or fall to the immense separatist army that had been building up for decades, so I guess by that point they only really had bad options and no longer had much control over their own trajectory.

Yeah Mace totally played into Palps hand. And he did in a way to get Palps awesome video for why he wiped out the Jedi. Which could make for an awesome Alt Universe game. Mace gets the call Grievous is dead before he goes to Palpatine. So he can go to the Senate and say the War is won and the Senate can ask Palpatine to step down.

Well I think that there has been a lot of great points made and I think that the expansive additional material has done its job in bolstering the original events of the movie. This discussion has been a lesson to me in staring into the abyss that is the lore of this setting. I think it just comes down to respecting everyone's head canon. If I play in Donovan Morningfire's game I have to accept that Order 66 was what it was, if I play in KungFuFerret's then maybe there might be more Jedi, etc.. I am just making up those examples, but my point is that I asked a question that was answered mostly as: "what happened is what happened." Just a limitation of working in a setting like this where everyone has their own interpretation, but the secondary and tertiary material is also really strongly weighted.

It was a good experience though, and I think it kind of tells me that there is a sort of average view of these things that is the target when dealing with other players and GMs. A safe zone for public consumption and discussion. Stick to the official and popular view. I am not being sarcastic about this, I feel it was something I needed to integrate. To the victors go the spoils and the people with the book deals are definitely the winners in the arena of ideas about this stuff. The in-depth interpretation sometimes needed to extrapolate from the original material has been done for you with very few gaps.

17 hours ago, LordBritish said:

Now, the stupid thing was accepting an army that came out of nowhere, from a Jedi master who's apparently no longer alive. But then the Republic was so inefficient that the Jedi were literally forced to accept this army or fall to the immense separatist army that had been building up for decades, so I guess by that point they only really had bad options and no longer had much control over their own trajectory.

Yes that part felt very much like another plot thread that just got left on the cutting room floor, like the whole "diminished force use" thingy. Realistically, anyone with half a brain would investigate that further, especially with the current events in the Republic at the time. Heck just look at the real world, and how people will theorize the motivations for world leaders doing things. If a country found that an ARMY of mind controlled clones in the tens of thousands was being grown on Earth, you bet your butts that there would be WAY more research and investigation into that, than what we see in the films. But, again, with prequels, you have to have a certain end point, so Lucas just let the Jedi be stupid about this issue, so that it wouldn't have them discover the puppet master too soon, and derail the "sudden but inevitable betrayal" of Palps.