Why Clone Troopers Became Less Effective With Each Generation

Kaminoan Prime Minister Lama Su has a conversation with Jedi General Shaak Ti very early on in the clone wars, the PM is concerned that with the death of Jango Fett, each succesive generation of clones will experience a drop off in quality. Today we take a look at whether this theory rings true or not.

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[MultiRokusho]

I’m surprised the kaminoans didn’t come up with a way to undo the doubles aging process. Just get em to what age you want and dial the speed back to normal.

[secla_SC]

The Clones in BB season 1 also all had their inhibitor chips activated, which is a huge reason as to why they showed little to no individuality and became more aggressive.

[peace_.was_never_an_option]

Alan you fool, you forgot to close the blinds on the window before speaking of Boeing

[OptimusWombat]

Once Jango's original DNA samples were exhausted, each subsequent batch of clones had to be cloned from clones. Star Trek had a term for the degradation resulting from this: "replicative fade". It's like making photocopies from photocopies of photocopies.

Edit: in case anyone's wondering, the term "replicative fade" was mentioned by Dr. Pulaski in TNG: Up the Long Ladder.

[HolyknightVader]

Deteriorating DNA is the obvious culprit, aside from rushing out soldiers to fill demands.

[eddapultstab]

I think DNA degradation was just a smoke screen. One thing that certainly changed from gen 1 is that jango fett was no longer there. Jango brought far more than his genetic material to the clone army, he brought his entire book of business as well. The entire first generation had most if not all the major trainers hand picked by him. Many mercenaries who were teaching the bog standard troopers probably had a connection to jangos career. His presence alone may have had an effect on the facilities operations alone and when he died the effects were immediately felt.

Another major factor may be the wartime training method as well. The first generation were trained in practically every military role and where on standy by, which means that they not only completed their training cycle and stanby but basically doing regular drills for who knows how long when obi wan discovers them. As the war progressed, training is not only progressively condensed to shorten training expenses and time but it may be that the kaminoans were pushing the growth times to their limit to keep up demand. We dont really know all the details yet but I really believe the genetic supply issue is just a cover for all the implementations they have been no doubt discreetly applying through the clone wars.

[elpinguinovolador]

You have just made me realize about that plot hole on clone cadets, as much as i hated the concept of the deteriorating genétic material i never realized how the maths didnt worked, lol.

[xxxlonewolf]

The long necks didn't remove their planet from star charts. It was done for them to keep the army secret.

[samlynn]

I would like to suggest an alternative idea. What if it's not genetic degradation but the Kaminoan alterations. You notice each generation is less independent and more obsessed with rules. That they increasingly lack a personality. That sounds like something a cloner who only vaguely understand humanity might see as desirable.

So my suggestion is that each generation of clone troopers is further altered in an iterative way to increase the traits that the Kaminoan's desire. But due to them not really understanding humans or warfare select and enhance the wrong traits.

[nathanieljackson]

With Jango killed and the shear amount of clones needed for the conflict, it not surprising that the dna was getting stretched out.
The Kaminoans knew whst was happening and tried to adjust. It just unfortunate that only one person was used as a template. Multiple batches of viable dna could have avoided the issues that showed up later in the war.

[Uhmwthjgotsarged]

-Domino squad was probably an indicative outlier of their generation, but Allen didn’t mention all the developing Clones lost in the Battle of Kamino (which was earlyish during the war).

-Disney “canon” also throws out the 2nd Battle of Kamino from BattleFront2. The fight between Empire aligned clones wiping out brother secretly raised to be completely loyal to the Kaminoans.

-Also, Legends lore mentions (in the Republic Commando book series by Karen Traviss) Spaarti Clones developed independently by Palpatine on a moon of Coruscant that made up much of the Coruscant Guard ‘Shock Troopers’ and assumably some Core World forces. These knock-off clones were described as ‘dumb, distracted and/or oblivious.’ They were raised on a “Kamino” that did not rain.

-The evolution of clone individual identities was also going to be an issue as they rapidly aged

[InfiniteNaos]

The prime minister himself admitted the cloners had to stretch the DNA after Jango’s death, plus Boba was missing, and at the time Omega was off limits. So having the DNA stretched over the generations would cause quality degradation which we got to see in a few clones through the war.

99, the heavy trooper during Umbara, Tup with the chip malfunction, maybe Clone Force 99 but they were defiants not defectives, etc.

[richardklein]

They should've just picked up Boba Fett and told him, "Your dad died, so we're taking your DNA to clone it into a new, similar set of troops." And forced him to do so. I could see the Kamanoins doing that honestly if they were that desperate.

[justsoicanfingcomment]

You know, it's surprising.They didn't create a handful of unaltered clones at the beginning to use as fall back redundant templates.
It's also surprising that they did not begin to scale up production.
Not in the sheer numbers being output.
But in the sheer number being put into the vets.
Slow down the growth acceleration with batch put in.
Until they have a long steady line of long lasting high quality clones.
Yes they needed to scale down production.
But all they had to do is just reduce the number of clones.They were making with each batch for the number of batches at a time.
Any excess clones could simply be put into cryo stasis.
Until they were needed.

[Official_Kayde_Games]

I think that this is also supported by 99, his mere existence (not why he was kept around, that was most likely Shaak-Ti’s decision) means that a). Defective clones were already a percent chance in the base cloning process(highly likely) or b). Because like you said the DNA sequence was degrading with every generation of clone making aberrations/mutations have higher chances of occurring(this also appears to be likely given the evidence).

[stMarDivDelta]

I just found this channel and I gotta say I’m loving your format of content. And I love the setup. It’s like you’re having a conversation with someone instead of hearing someone yapp for 10 minutes mark. Very informational too.

[MaxWelton]

0:57 I could’ve sworn (based on AOTC) that Dooku erased it from the Jedi archives of his own volition

[RichelieuUnlimited]

In my opinion the behavioral changes in the later batches don’t so much indicate genetic degradation, instead it’s more consistent with *further accelerated aging. The younger the clones were, when they reached physical maturity *[and thus were somewhat set in their ways], the more immature they were mentally, second batch emotional like teenagers, third batch overly trusting but able to question their ‚parents‘, fourth batch exhibiting simplified thought processes like only thinking in stereotypes. I have no other basis for this assumption apart from the behavioral patterns exhibited.

[sammyfeitlin]

I love the video. You brought up a lot of great points and things that I had not considered or noticed. I would, however, like to pose a thought about Echo. As you said, Echo was a second-generation Clone obsessed with orders and repeated them often, hence earning himself the name Echo. I would like to point out that, unlike Dogma, Echo still retained independent thought after being held prisoner by the Techno Union and having his inhibitor chip basically rendered useless as it wiped out all of his pre-conditioned programming regarding his behavior. At this point, there is a drastic shift in Echo's character as, from that moment on, he goes from repeating orders to giving them. During the Bad Batch Echo sort of acts as an opposing force to Hunter. He can not just go his own way, he cares about his brothers. I feel like, in Echo's case, his inhibitor chip was just more effective. He has such a drastic jump from after he is blown up and joining the bad batch. Echo has his flaws for sure, just like Fives he's emotional, he spends most of the TBB grumpy and complaining which is funny to me. Just my thoughts on Echo

[johannesbowers]

This is why (in Legends) the Empire DID maintain quite a robust Cloning program, with distinguished performance and excellence in combat donors selected as new prime donors as "a reward".

Spaarti cloned individuals flash programmed as HYPER loyalists to the Empire are regularly seeded throughout the Stormtrooper Corps to strengthen their function as field Commisars ready willing and able to execute traitors unprompted. Having this shadow enforcement structure maintained the fear and paranoia as well as keeping even thinking of departure from the COMPNOR party line to a minimum.