This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. —spookywillowwtalk 04:19, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Clone Troopers and Infoboxes
Not too long ago today, there was a discussion on Discord regarding the treatment of clones in character infoboxes. More specifically, the familial connections they have with one another and their genetic donors. In the discussion, the following ideas were brought up:
- Clones that refer to their fellow clones as siblings (brother, sister, etc.) should be listed as such where applicable.
- Clones that refute such a familial connection, however, such as Boba Fett, should not have other clones with the same genetic donor listed as siblings.
- Clones that are not confirmed to view their fellow clones as siblings should also not have such a familial connection listed, unless there's evidence of it applying catch-all to a large swathe of clones (whether or not this applies to all clone troopers merits discussion).
- We could introduce a "Genetic donor" field on the character infobox to denote the genetic template/donor of a clone. For example, Boba Fett, Omega, Emerie Karr, and the clone troopers would have Jango Fett listed here.
- A major argument for making this field distinct from the "Parent(s)" field would be that there is not exactly a precedent for clones referring to their templates in a parental manner in Star Wars, with only certain exceptions such as Boba Fett and Dathan. Additionally, genetically speaking they are not their parents anyway, but the same person.
- This does not mean this field is mutually exclusive with the "Parent(s)" field. The aforementioned exceptions of Boba Fett and Dathan would have Jango Fett and Sidious, respectively, listed as both their genetic template and father, for example.
- As an aside, I'm not sure if making it conditionally plural ("Genetic donor(s)") would be necessary unless we can find an example of a clone with multiple known genetic templates/donors.
- Likewise, a new "Clone(s)" field could be introduced for use on infoboxes of characters that are the genetic template for a clone. For example, Jango Fett would have the clone troopers, Boba Fett, Omega, and Emerie listed as his clones, and Luke Skywalker/Legends would list Luuke Skywalker.
- Once again, this should not be conflated with the "Children" field (Jango does not, to my knowledge, view the clone troopers as his sons), but it is also not mutually exclusive (again, see Boba Fett and Dathan).
Any thoughts on these ideas and their implementation are welcome! Thanks! - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 21:35, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Discuss
- I am realizing in retrospect that the name of this SH makes it seem like it applies solely to clone troopers and not all clones. This is not the case, my bad. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 21:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- To talk about the first point, I feel like basically making a list of times a clone used a the word brother to refer to a fellow clone is like, maybe not super useful? In my mind, all the clone troopers think of each other as siblings and to make an individual-specific list of the times they happened to use that word to refer to a comrade is not crucial information (side note, listing "Fellow clones" makes logical sense to me as information to provide in the infobox, but for some reason I'm not feeling it). To me, the cases where it might make sense would be Boba, Emerie, and Omega, since they are not the uniformly-created clone trooper, but ultimately, I think I still don't feel that it is super necessary. For Boba, it's not really applicable because his opinion on the matter is very clear. For Omega, the relationships to the rest of the Batch is, I think, transcendent of the term brother, even if that is an aspect of their relationship. The only thing I can see making sense is listing Omega and Emerie as sisters, although I don't know... for some reason I'm not really feeling that either. I don't know, my thoughts are a mess and probably not super logical but there you go. Wok142 (talk) 00:02, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, Star Wars: Timelines explicitly says Boba and Omega are siblings. Rsand 30 (talk) 00:20, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- I feel like the solution for clone trooper pages is to just put "fellow clones" under the siblings field: on Rex's page, "fellow clones" accounts for all his brothers/sisters, for example. Editoronthewiki (talk) 00:37, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- For proof as to why this is needed, in "Death Trap," one clone trooper tells Boba "don't shoot, we're brothers!" This is a big example of how, no matter the age gap, each clone is a sibling. In the Ahsoka, Ahsoka also reflects on how clones who had never even met each other "defaulted to calling each other brother." In "Rookies," Rex remarks the defense of Rishi is for "all our brothers back home!" Emerie Karr's Databank page says she is "a sister to Omega and the other clones." In effect, clone troopers are a community of siblings. Editoronthewiki (talk) 00:37, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- I know some users may be tempted to only include something like "fellow clones" on certain clone pages, such as depending on what the trooper says, etc. But here's the thing, stuff like Rex's line and that Ahsoka passage show that all clones are, by default, part of the clone family. Even if a clone is like Boba and wanted to think of themself apart, they are included de facto by blood and how their fellows think of them. Boba may want to think of himself as someone apart, but he is loved by his brothers all the same as one of them, as seen in "Death Trap." Honestly, a really interesting story thread I wished was touched on more. Also, as Rsand points out, Timelines already says Omega and Boba are siblings. So yeah, "fellow clones" accounts for everything: we tell the reader this character has a whole community of siblings without needing to list every clone trooper Editoronthewiki (talk) 00:37, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that we should take the other clones defaulting to "brother" into consideration, but I don't think this means we should disregard Boba's lack of feeling brotherhood either. Boba's perspective could have changed but to my knowledge he still does not view the other clones as brothers. However, I don't think we should default to calling them brothers/siblings purely because they are genetic clones of the same individual. Genetically they are the same person, and other outliers in personal view such as Boba may exist. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 00:50, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- For special cases, like Boba I don't see a problem with omitting that. Though, Omega should still be put there since there's an explicit statement establishing such. This does kinda bring up a question, you could say that that clones are all "n-tuplets" with the same genes, but if we go off the logic that they're the same person, then does that mean we should consider anyone who calls another person "Brother" platonically as a found-family type sibling? Or is it only if they share genetic code? And if Boba can deny that relationship, does that mean the relatives of a person who disowns/get disowned should be removed from the infobox? Just spitballing a little, generally I like the idea of clones being called siblings in an infobox.
SHCosmos (He/Him ✦ Talk) 02:11, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- For special cases, like Boba I don't see a problem with omitting that. Though, Omega should still be put there since there's an explicit statement establishing such. This does kinda bring up a question, you could say that that clones are all "n-tuplets" with the same genes, but if we go off the logic that they're the same person, then does that mean we should consider anyone who calls another person "Brother" platonically as a found-family type sibling? Or is it only if they share genetic code? And if Boba can deny that relationship, does that mean the relatives of a person who disowns/get disowned should be removed from the infobox? Just spitballing a little, generally I like the idea of clones being called siblings in an infobox.
- We could do something like we do for Rey Skywalker and put a note that says "renounced". ThrawnChiss7
Assembly Cupola 19:34, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- That would work very well. We have to put blood family members in the infobox but put renounced should the character feel that way, as the clones are literally blood family to Boba they would need to be reflected, but "family connection reounced by Fett" or something shorter would get across his feeings Editoronthewiki (talk)|
- I agree that we should take the other clones defaulting to "brother" into consideration, but I don't think this means we should disregard Boba's lack of feeling brotherhood either. Boba's perspective could have changed but to my knowledge he still does not view the other clones as brothers. However, I don't think we should default to calling them brothers/siblings purely because they are genetic clones of the same individual. Genetically they are the same person, and other outliers in personal view such as Boba may exist. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 00:50, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- I really like the idea of a separate clone field. For some (understandable, I guess :P) reasons the discussion here immediately focused on the Fett clone troopers to the exclusion of everything else, but cloning is such a widespread trope in Star Wars. In Legends, Anakin/Vader was cloned on at least two separate occasions lol. And whatever the case with clone troopers, calling these clones of other people "siblings" is just... not correct. Imperators II(Talk) 09:10, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not acquainted with Legends but it seems like a there would be enough examples like the above to warrant a separate field. Wok142 (talk) 17:23, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- That seems like it would be useful due to cloning's prevalence in the franchise. ThrawnChiss7 Assembly Cupola 19:34, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- Well, "siblings" is the collective community term for clone troopers among themselves. We reflect adoptive siblings in infoboxes, so even if you just want to see it that way, it needs to be reflected Editoronthewiki (talk)
- So how would the "Clones" field work for Jango Fett? Would every clone trooper with an article be named? If not, would that just be shortened to just "Clone troopers" and list all non-trooper Fett clones as well, like Boba and Omega? What is the limit of who does and doesn't count as a clone trooper? What about clone deserters or escapees, or clone cadets and other pre-trooper Fett clones, or clones who never made it to becoming a trooper? What about clones who remained in the Imperial Army and became stormtroopers, or clones who survived even later? What about clones of clones? There's also the matter that, at least in Legends, some clones troopers were created from genetic templates other than Fett's as his gradually degraded, which would make the blanket bullet point of simply "clone troopers" incorrect. Also, would the logic of applying the blanket bullet of point of just "clone troopers" also apply to other cloning programs or mass productions of characters besides Jango Fett? SorcererSupreme21 (talk) 13:59, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- Naming every single clone trooper individually would be unreasonable and bloat the infobox, even with a scrollbox. Preferably it would list just "clone troopers" plus any non-trooper Fett clones (like Omega, Emerie, Boba, etc.) I believe deserters, escapees, cadets, and clone veterans in particular would fall under "clone troopers" as former or prospective clone troopers, though "failed" clones like 99 would perhaps be listed individually. I also think this would be the case for any such mass productions that are not Jango clones wherever relevant. However, you bring up an excellent point in mentioning the non-Jango clone troopers. Though they are a rarity, it is true that listing just "Clone troopers" on Legends Jango's page would be quite the inaccuracy. A possible alternative for Legends Jango would perhaps be listing the exact or rough number of clones known to be produced off of his template (ie "7,000,000 clone troopers" or "at least 7,000,000 clone troopers"; these numbers are made up, I don't know what the actual number/estimate is) - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 19:27, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
- Or just note "Clone troopers grown from Jango Fett's genetic template" (or whatever the most precise terminology is) perhaps? Imperators II(Talk) 19:46, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
