President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

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President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Zor »

In this scenario during outbreak of the Federation Klingon war in DS9 due to act of ROB the President of the United Federation of of Planets is one Stephen Palpatine.
Image
As the war breaks out a surprise development comes in as a set of well shielded but otherwise innocuous transport ships delivers a force of 2,200,000 soldiers...
Image
...human clones, trained from birth to be uncorruptable elite soldiers dedicated to the protection of the federation clad in environmentally sealed Plastiod armor (with several variants for operating in specific climates and conditions) and armed with a variety of weapons from powerful infantry scale particle weapons (as pictured above) through squad and platoon level weaponry all the way to armored vehicles and ground support repulsorcraft (but they have no specific spacecraft dedicated to them). There are records of them being commissioned. An additional 600,000 will arrive every year. At the same time deep in their mind in a place shielded from psionic examination are a number of secret orders. They also come with equipment and blueprints for their equipment and spare parts. Some 300,000 Clone Troopers are deployed against the Klingons and soon prove their effectiveness against them.

Some notes...
  • Palpatine has a good understanding of the federation, local politics and similar. Likewise the Clone Troopers have a good understanding of the species in the Alpha Quadrant as well as Starfleet.
  • It's on their records that Section 31 which ordered the Clone Army
  • Palpatine has his lightsaber and force powers but he is reluctant to use in public
  • Palpatine is easily capable of detecting a changeling using the force
  • Clonetrooper helmets can detect shrouded Jem'hadar
  • Clone Troopers have an isotope introduced into their bloodstream that is harmless, but does have a distinct radiological signature which changelings can not replicate
What happens?

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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by FaxModem1 »

Admiral Leyton's little coup with Red Squad leads to a very terse civil war on Earth between Red Squad and the Clone troopers, with the Clones winning.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by The Romulan Republic »

It would probably turn out that Leyton's coup was orchestrated by Palpatine, or at least that he knew about it and let it happen, so that he would have a pretext to take over much more effectively.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by NecronLord »

2.2 million soldiers are insignificant in a war with 600 billion casualties. If they try anything, they just get overwhelmed by numbers.

Bring 2.2 million 'units' next time. ;)

There's also no reason to think the Federation Council is going to vote him any emergency powers, in his own environment, he did persuade people, but he was also operating on many many years of buildup and with a weak, financially corrupt (the Federation is certainly not that!) senate. The Federation they didn't do that kind of shit even when threatened by a grossly superior space power. Plus, if anything, the threat of the changelings makes voting any specific individual great personal power, extremely daft. With that, his preferred method of takeover is right out.

Now that, post Disney, we know how the Shoud of the Dark Side actually works (a secret Sith Temple under the Jedi Temple he used to weaken their vision) there's also no reason to think Palpatine can hide himself from Betazoids, say, as he exploited very specific circumstances to disable the Jedi's insight, he can't very well bring that kind of advantage with him. So he's rumbled in short order and arrested.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Ugg, that old controversy.

And let's be clear- Palpatine will have a hard time taking over the Federation. Say what you will about Starfleet, it has captains who genuinely believe in their ideals and will act against the government to preserve them. Both Picard and Sisko have. I would expect both men, if alive, to revolt once they realized what Palpatine was. Both would take their ship and crews with them, and Sisko would take DS9 and likely Bajor with him. Picard, meanwhile, is a respected officer commanding the flagship could likely inspire a revolt bigger than the Maquis if he chose to. And both men have the connections to make serious inroads with the Klingons and Cardassians. Picard has powerful connections to Betazed and Vulcan as well.

Federation civil war seems plausible, possibly with the Romulans, Borg, or Dominion swooping in to pick up the pieces.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by bilateralrope »

NecronLord wrote:there's also no reason to think Palpatine can hide himself from Betazoids, say, as he exploited very specific circumstances to disable the Jedi's insight, he can't very well bring that kind of advantage with him. So he's rumbled in short order and arrested.
Arrested on what charge ?

I'm expecting that ROB arranged things so that Palpatine's election was legitimate.
All the records point to Section 31 creating the clone army.
I wasn't aware that having psychic powers was illegal in the Federation.
From memory Betazoids can only read emotions. Vulcans can go for full mind reading if they force a mind meld on him. But if a Vulcan tried to force a mind meld, I'd expect that Palpatine would be allowed to defend himself from the attacker.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Lord Revan »

Full Betazoids can read mines and do so fairly frequently though I don't know if "I read it from their mind" counts legal evidence in Federation courts (though I'd assume not). it's only part Betazoids that are limited to emphatic abilities only (Troy is half-human).
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by The Romulan Republic »

And even reading emotions could be enough to raise suspicions. Picard would take "this man is full of hate, anger, sadism, and deceit, even when he's acting nice", seriously from Troi, wouldn't he? It wouldn't be enough for him to arrest the President, but it might be enough to make him start taking a closer look at Palpatine.

Edit: Of course, I can't rule out the possibility that Palpatine could affect the minds of Betazeds in some way to protect himself.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by NecronLord »

Arrested on what charge ?
High Treason, Conspiracy to overthrow the Federation.

I'm expecting that ROB arranged things so that Palpatine's election was legitimate.
All the records point to Section 31 creating the clone army.
Section 31 might be a bit bemused by that, however. Just like the Jedi were.
I wasn't aware that having psychic powers was illegal in the Federation.
From memory Betazoids can only read emotions. Vulcans can go for full mind reading if they force a mind meld on him. But if a Vulcan tried to force a mind meld, I'd expect that Palpatine would be allowed to defend himself from the attacker.
Nope, they can read minds at will. Troi is only half Betazoid.
Full Betazoids can read mines and do so fairly frequently though I don't know if "I read it from their mind" counts legal evidence in Federation courts (though I'd assume not). it's only part Betazoids that are limited to emphatic abilities only (Troy is half-human).
Even if there's no way to use such evidence in court, there's also millions of Betazoids, not a few thousand monks in a temple. It's going to be pretty common knowledge that he is radiating treason and malice reasonably quickly. Luxwanna Troi was very clearly never obliged to be secret about how she violated people's minds left right and center.

Beyond which, the standards of a court are one thing, the standards of an election are another. The Republic has de-facto legalized vote buying (assuming you can buy stock in the Trade Federation and therefore its senator) in some instances, the Federation has not. If he's popularly discredited, he will lose the election.

This assumes he acts wholly out of character (remember, he was ordering murders throughout the prequels and Clone Wars) and doesn't commit any incidental crimes.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by The Romulan Republic »

I dare say Section 31 will investigate this mysterious army being falsely attributed to it a bit more thoroughly than the Jedi did.

But that raises an interesting question: Would Section 31 see Palpatine has an enemy trying to corrupt and take over the Federation, or would they see him as a strong, ruthless leader willing to do what it takes to make the Federation strong, just like them?
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Lord Revan »

well the thing with Section 31 is that they're kind of fanatics, their ideology being similar to the bad guy of "Serenity" (the Firefly movie) seeing themselves as the necessery evil to allow the Federation to keep on running and "pure".

So I'd say that Section 31 would see Palpatine as an enemy.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by NecronLord »

I would also say they would consider him an enemy. His MO was to forment civil war, and to use violent repression. Section 31 at least claim to represent Federation values. We never see Section 31 attempt to overthrow the Federation, either, so there's no reason to believe they're down with that.

Also, and perhaps more obviously, there's the chance the Federation Council will order the immediate demobilization of the clones and for other units to be trained to use their equipment. There is a species of clones, the Arcturians, in the Federation; the idea of using a slave army is probably rightly abhorrent to the Federation.

While not canon in the sense of having appeared on screen, the background the Arcturians during the movie era, was that they were a race of clones and could, in principle, provide billions of clone soldiers; given that these armies didn't appear in the Dominion War, it may well be that the Federation is unwilling to employ clone soldiers during the Dominion War.

Perhaps the best thing to do is to demobilize the clones and provide counseling for them, which would of course, take the wind right out of Palpatine's sails.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Yeah, I think what it comes down to is that the Federation, for all its flaws, is not easy to corrupt internally. Maybe harder than the Republic. People have tried, and they've been slapped down by Starfleet because their are plenty of high ranking officers in Starfleet to whom Federation principles actually matter.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by NecronLord »

Quite. Ultimately the people of the Republic, or at least their political class (witness Padme) were so scared by the prospect of war after a thousand years of peace (a remarkable achievement, mind you) that they were willing to sell themselves to a charismatic strongman; on the other hand while some factions in the Federation are willing to break the law or act immorally due to threats from the Dominion and others there's no sign that such a widescale abandonment of democracy is likely.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by bilateralrope »

What would Palpatine's goals be in this scenario ?

In SW his goals were to rule the galaxy and wipe out the Jedi. Ruling the galaxy within his lifetime isn't an option even if he manages full control of the entire alpha quadrant and the Jedi don't exist.

NecronLord wrote:Beyond which, the standards of a court are one thing, the standards of an election are another. The Republic has de-facto legalized vote buying (assuming you can buy stock in the Trade Federation and therefore its senator) in some instances, the Federation has not. If he's popularly discredited, he will lose the election.
That still leaves him in power until the next election comes along.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Elheru Aran »

The Federation hasn't been around nearly as long as the Republic, and it's in a fairly dynamic galaxy that still has a lot of changes happening to its status quo, so that's a more interesting situation for Palpatine to have to handle. He may well decide to put off any schemes for galactic conquest and start playing a long game by being a good guy for the remainder of his public life and start building a Sith tradition behind the scenes for a future denouement.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Simon_Jester »

NecronLord wrote:2.2 million soldiers are insignificant in a war with 600 billion casualties. If they try anything, they just get overwhelmed by numbers.

Bring 2.2 million 'units' next time. ;)
It seems like most of those casualties would have to have been civilians killed by planetary bombardments. The military casualties... I mean, neither side deploys more than a few thousand ships at any battle of the wars of the Deep Space Nine era. As I recall, overall fleet strengths are strongly implied to be less than ten thousand ships for any of the major combatants (the Dominion MIGHT have more than ten thousand ships but they aren't deploying them to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants).

Since only the largest Star Trek ships have crews of over a thousand, while many ships are relatively small with crews of 100 or less (potentially much less, in the case of the Klingons and the Dominion), it seems reasonable to suppose that the military casualties suffered in direct naval actions could not have been more than a few million on either side.

Given further that the ships lack the means to physically carry more than, oh, single digit thousands of soldiers per ship, it is not plausible that any of the warring powers could have deployed more than, oh, single digit millions of soldiers on a single planet to fight a single campaign.

Therefore, the clone army is still of a militarily relevant size- you could take those clones and use them to crew a respectable fraction of Starfleet's entire frontline warship strength. Maybe all of it. And they make as large an infantry landing force as anything you're likely to see in Star Trek anywhere.

If there were 600 billion casualties in the Dominion War, most of those would have been people who died when their home planets were bombed from space by the Dominion, or were killed en masse by rampaging Jem'Hadar in reprisal for guerilla warfare, or some such. They would not have been fighting soldiers under arms, because if nothing else Star Trek's logistics don't make it possible to transport billions of soldiers from one world to another in a reasonable amount of time.
Now that, post Disney, we know how the Shoud of the Dark Side actually works (a secret Sith Temple under the Jedi Temple he used to weaken their vision) there's also no reason to think Palpatine can hide himself from Betazoids, say, as he exploited very specific circumstances to disable the Jedi's insight, he can't very well bring that kind of advantage with him. So he's rumbled in short order and arrested.
Er, just to be clear, arrested on what grounds?

He didn't orchestrate the Klingon-Federation War; the Klingons are quite capable of randomly attacking people with no provocation from Sith lords. So he's not guilty of conspiracy to start a war the way he is in Star Wars. "Being a Sith" is not illegal in the Federation, they've never heard of these guys before. The only evidence of treason is the commands implanted in the clonetroopers, and you can't find out about those except by careful investigation.

Creating clones with implanted orders (presumably orders to betray rival elements of the Federation command structure and stage a coup) is presumably illegal, but the clones' orders aren't going to be discovered except by reading the minds of the people who made them or commissioned them.

On which note, I wouldn't assume that this secret Sith temple screwing up Jedi prescience thing is the only means a Force adept has to resist telepathic intrusion.

Interoperability is the usual rule here, and Palpatine is one of the most competent psychics of his native galaxy. I'd expect him to be able to resist casual mind reading by Betazoids, or to project false emotions. A deep, systematic probe might reveal his intentions and crimes, but the Federation president would not normally be subject to such probes in the routine course of affairs.

I mean seriously, the guy walked around in the company of Jedi on a regular basis and showed no sign of avoiding them, and as far as I can tell he wasn't even worried that any of them would notice him "radiating malice and thoughts of treason."
NecronLord wrote:This assumes he acts wholly out of character (remember, he was ordering murders throughout the prequels and Clone Wars) and doesn't commit any incidental crimes.
If he knows the Federation, he'll know that committing incidental crimes will imperil his overall plan.

Also, the murders and crimes he commits during the prequels and the runup to the creation of the Empire are motivated because he needs to orchestrate the war. Here, he doesn't have to do that, and couldn't even if he wanted to, because he has no real leverage over the Klingons or the Dominion. They'll do whatever they please without consulting him.

Therefore, his efforts will have to be focused on the home front and on establishing his own personal authority in the face of strong idealist opposition (such as, as correctly noted, the reasonable fear that it would be folly to concentrate all power in the hands of one man when that man might be a Changeling). And he would probably be a lot more circumspect under those conditions.
NecronLord wrote:I would also say they would consider him an enemy. His MO was to forment civil war, and to use violent repression. Section 31 at least claim to represent Federation values. We never see Section 31 attempt to overthrow the Federation, either, so there's no reason to believe they're down with that.
That depends on whether Palpatine pursues the exact same MO in a wildly different political situation. I really don't think it likely that he will. Under the different circumstances he has no need to provoke civil war- unlike the Republic, the Federation has some very powerful external enemies.
Also, and perhaps more obviously, there's the chance the Federation Council will order the immediate demobilization of the clones and for other units to be trained to use their equipment. There is a species of clones, the Arcturians, in the Federation; the idea of using a slave army is probably rightly abhorrent to the Federation...

Perhaps the best thing to do is to demobilize the clones and provide counseling for them, which would of course, take the wind right out of Palpatine's sails.
Now THAT is a good point. I like it. :D
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

Incidentally, the 600 billion casualty figure was projected for the Federation losing the war, not what actually transpired.

As for discovering the secret commands in the clones, the Op states the commands are "hidden from psionic investigation" so trying to find them is doubtful at best. Of course, you might be able to find them, but why would you be looking that deeply in the first place?
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Simon_Jester »

Given that the question of exactly how the clones were trained for warfare would be relevant, I'm sure someone would insist on doing thorough psychiatric examinations of the clones. Since said clones are probably very deferential to authority, I imagine it wouldn't be that hard for some suspicious Vulcan to persuade one to submit to a mind-meld, or for a determined Betazoid to evaluate them closely.

But if "hidden from psionic investigation" really DOES mean that random Vulcans and Betazoids can't just spot the equivalent of Order 66 in the clones' brains, as Zor clearly intended, then it's kind of a moot point.
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Also, I looked up those "Arcturians" mentioned earlier. Turns out they are a rather obscure piece of Star Trek canon, in that they were basically one of the ideas dreamed up by Roddenberry during the Phase Two/Motion Picture era and then never really used, except that a couple of extras made up to look like "Arcturians" appeared here and there.

Like the Deltans, only they never got even one character.

I'd hesitate to take their 'existence' as evidence for the ability to churn out billions of clone soldiers, precisely because we never actually see them do it, nor do we ever get any on-screen evidence that they consider doing it. Which is more likely, that they have this capability but never even discuss using it due to scruples, or that they lack this capability?
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by NecronLord »

Telepathy

Evidence. Do we ever see Palpatine stop a telepath prying into his mind in a canon source?

In the Revenge of the Sith novel (I do not believe this is currently canon) there is this exchange:
He [Palpatine] turned desperately to Saesee Tiin. "Master Tiin-you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now?" Tiin frowned and cocked his head. His blade dipped. A smear of red-flashing darkness hurtled from behind the desk. Saesee Tiin's head bounced when it hit the floor. Smoke curled from the neck, and from the twin stumps of the horns, severed just below the chin
If the novel is a valid source, then only one of the four Jedi Masters who came to attack Palpatine was a telepath, and Palpatine stops it by putting a blade through his neck, not by being able to resist. It's reasonably implicit that Tiin has not tried to scan him before.

In The Force Awakens we see telepathy again. Ghetto spoilers Kylo Ren, who's no Palpatine, mind you, can't keep Rey out of his mind once he's made a link, and he seems to expend considerable effort

Compare that to Luxwana Troi (a high official in the Federation, remember), or if you're feeling really crazy, Tam Elbrun, for the upper end of Betazoid ability – and remember, though he had problems, Elbrun was employed by Starfleet, another of the sorts of people the Federation President might run into. Elbrun was unable to not read people's thoughts.
PICARD
Welcome aboard the Enterprise.
I'm --

TAM
Captain Picard. Here --

Tam reaches into his pocket and produces a data
cassette. He flips it casually to Picard as he steps
down. Picard catches it, annoyed. Tam's attitude is
abrupt and rude.

TAM
(continuing)
You want to know all about your
mission. Everything's on there.
Orders and briefings. Destination
and heading, all that.

16 ANGLE ON PICARD AND DATA

standing by transporter console. Picard is visibly
annoyed. He hands the cassette to Data, who accepts it
and steps toward Tam as if to ask a question.

TAM
(to Troi)
I sensed you were out here.
How've you been?

17 ANGLE ON TROI

TROI
(embarrassed by Tam's
tactlessness, she still
can't help smiling)
Fine, but Tam, I...

TAM TROI
Thought you were on ... thought you were on
Chandra Five. Chandra Five.
Elbrun can casually know what people like Picard are thinking.

But he's not typical, let's look at Luxwana.
TNG S1E5 – Haven wrote:
Deanna hurries to walk with Picard and her mother. She
indicates Homn following them with the luggage.

TROI
Mother -- what happened to Xelo?

MRS. TROI
I was forced to terminate his
employment.
(to Picard)
Xelo was strongly attracted to
me -- his thoughts became truly
pornographic.

[…]
MRS. TROI
(to Captain)
Of course the thoughts of Wyatt's
father toward me were almost as
vulgar...

[…]
MRS. TROI TELEPATHIC V.O.
You've been slack, little one.
Allowed your mental powers to
rust.

TROI TELEPATHIC V.O.
To avoid becoming confused,
mother. Humans constantly think
one thing but say another.

MRS. TROI TELEPATHIC V.O.
Yes, they do, don't they. The
poor dears. Our style of complete
honesty frightens them.

TROI
(switching to voice)
On that subject Mother, there is
such a thing as too much honesty
with humans.

MRS. TROI TELEPATHIC V.O.
Nonsense. It sets them a good
example. If they'd only say what
they think instead of hiding it...

TROI
But they're accustomed to hiding
their thoughts...

MRS. TROI TELEPATHIC V.O.
And I quite understand what you
faced here. An entire shipload
of such inconsistency could drive
one insane.

[….] PICARD
Excuse me, everyone, but dinner
is served...
(to the mothers;
smiling)
... and by Starfleet tradition,
all disputes and disagreements
are thereby resolved.

VICTORIA
(moving off)
In who's favor?

PICARD
The captain's.

MRS. TROI
That's not what you're thinking.

PICARD
Captains are not required to
think.
I could go on, but every appearance of Luxwana in the two series she appears in, is an example of her being able to know people's surface thoughts in close proximity to her at will.

A core concept of TNG is that the Federation considers telepathy to be actionable in negotiations and political matters. It's why Troi rates a bridge seat. Luxwana is able to fire an employee for having pornographic thoughts about her, and as far as we know, wasn't hauled before an employment tribunal or whatever the Federation equivalent may be.

Palpatine has never faced and defeated a telepath except by physical force in any canonical material of which I am aware. The only other canonical dark sider who engages in telepathy has difficulty dealing with a fighter pilot with no known magical abilities of his own apart from his good looks, and has his telepathy flipped around on him which is a sad, sad outing compared to Luxwana Troi, a Federation Ambassador. Please show your evidence that he has comparable powers, or power to resist a telepath except by physical force.

Federation Attitudes to Clones

The Arcturians are an example chosen because they are a Federation member species and therefore probably have a role in setting policy. As mentioned, that's questionably canon. The reason I trotted them out first, is that as an entire species of clones (supposedly) they likely have political pull in the Federation to get things done their way. Let's look at some other examples.

There's the example of the Maraposans in Up the Long Ladder which has a cloning technology that produces an adult clone far faster than Kamino – within days. This civilization is depicted as less advanced in all other respects than the Federation, having no starships of its own, and being at the mercy of a Federation starship in orbit.
ST TNG S2E18 – Up the Long Ladder wrote: RIKER
I want that cloning equipment
inspected. Who knows how many
tissue samples they've stolen.
I have the right to exercise
control over my own body.

PULASKI
You'll get no argument from me.

TROI
I know the Mariposan culture seems
alien, even frightening, but we
really do have much in common.
They're human beings fighting to
survive. Would we do any less?
The Dominion shows that such a technology exists and is scaled up to military use, saying that there's no discussion of the Federation using clone soldiers is disingenuous, the fact that a clone army is inherently a slave army is a major theme of the Dominion War, and we see on various occasions Starfleet personnel trying to get the Jem'hadar to realise this ("Rocks and Shoals"), and other Jem'hadar rebelling ("To the Death") when they are able to get their own Ketracel White.

The Federation never considers building a Dreadnought torpedo, that we know of, but there's every reason to think they could.

Beyond merely the immorality of it, why would the Federation do such a thing? Their culture opposes cloning generally, in Up the Long Ladder, when Riker and Pulaski find clones of themselves in tanks, Riker's immediate reaction is abortion by phaser.
Riker, Pulaski and Geordi beam into the chamber. At
last we see two of the cloning units. Riker
approaches one of the smoke filled artificial wombs.
He opens the door, and the smoke vents into the lab.
Inside is a half-formed clone, but it is still
recognizably the first officer.

He recoils. We see his anger and disgust as he gropes
for his phaser.

STAR TREK: "Send In The Clones" - 3/17/89 - ACT FOUR 48.

41 CONTINUED:

Riker blasts the developing clone. It vanishes. Riker
steps to the second cloning unit. Opens the door; the
smoke vents. He looks inside, looks back to Pulaski
and cocks his head toward the clone. Pulaski nods.

Riker blasts that clone, and it vanishes.
The good news is, they don't appear to regard clones as non-persons. Picard is evidently fascinated by Shinzon, and they hardly go about murdering Mariposans willy-nilly. But they're not going to endorse a clone army. They understand the technology, and less advanced cultures have cloning. Likewise, the Romulans are able to make clones, as evidenced by Shinzon.

The technology for making clones in bulk (and much faster than in Star Wars) exists and is certainly shown to be used by various cultures; the Federation is never said to be unable to understand it or use it, it is rational to conclude that much like genetic engineering, they do not choose to do so as a culture.

Now the Clone Troopers' equipment, that's great, but you can train anyone up on it.

Scale of the Dominion War

Yes, that's total projected casualties. The point is that 2.2 million is a tiny number and rightfully reviled by many Star Wars fans.

If the Federation was one tenth as militarized as modern France, and the 600 bn represented its total population, (Approx figures 66000000/300000 = 220/1. Reduce by factor of ten 2200/1; 600,000,000,000/220= 272,727,272) then it would have two hundred million people in the military. Two million clone troopers is now and has always been an asinine figure for the size of the GAR.

In this scenario, Palpatine has brought specs for the clones' equipment with him. That's frankly much more valuable, and no doubt they'll take those and be fascinated (and Jem'hadar will be in for a nasty surprise) but two million clone troopers is an irrelevant force on the scale of a hundred-world Federation.

Unless as they deliberately put the clones in on their entire navy as discussed, which they're unlikely to do, if they were to start sanctioning clone-slavery (which seems unlikely) at all, they would not be an appreciable part of the overall military once the Federation began reproducing their equipment.

Clone Troopers programming as undetectable

By act of OP, they can't have their programming detected by psychic means. Good thing the programming is in an inorganic chip inserted in their heads, eh?

Image

And thankfully, Rebels establishes that if you remove the control chips, they gain the ability to defy immoral orders:

Image

In Star Trek Voyager Endgame, the EMH finds a chip in future-Janeway's brain during a physical quite easily.

It's an open question if they could remove it - Seven of Nine has various implants in her body, but then, we see that Clone Troopers are quite viable with the implant removed, which borg drones are not.

Garak has a device in his brain in DS9 'The Wire' which is described as similar, though smaller.
Which displays a graphic of a rotating twenty-fourth century
CAT scan of Garak's head. The display reveals a small, non-
organic implant, buried deep inside Garak's brain and
highlighted in red to contrast it from the bones and brain
tissue. Filaments emanating from the implant connect it to
several key areas throughout Garak's central nervous system
Which the Federation can't remove (as far as we know) brain implants reliably, they can certainly detect them, as shown in these examples; so from there they might want to know what the thing does.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Simon_Jester »

NecronLord wrote:Telepathy

Evidence. Do we ever see Palpatine stop a telepath prying into his mind in a canon source?
Well, he spends all his time on Coruscant, interacts closely with Jedi on a regular basis, and does so for a period of decades. He manages to not only keep specific secrets from them, but to conceal from them any hint whatsoever that he is actually a Sith lord seeking to ensure their downfall. So much so that they literally scour the galaxy looking for this 'Sidious' character and it never even occurs to them to carefully investigate Palpatine specifically because he seems a little... off... somehow.

Thing is, the Jedi actually do have the ability to sense deception, tension, and other such negative emotions. With the sole exception of Palpatine, the Jedi routinely perform at least Deanna Troi-level feats of "I sense hostility" or "I sense treachery" or some such.

If Palpatine's inner emotions are a tornado of malice and darkness, then that means he's hiding that from Jedi who are normally pretty good at picking up surface feelings. This suggests that his mental shielding is very reliable, so reliable that not only did Palpatine succeed in hiding his malice and treachery for decades, he knew in advance he would be able to do so from the very beginning- because otherwise, the whole "live in the capital of the Republic surrounded by Jedi" part of his plan would have been obvious suicide and he never could have enacted that plan.

If his inner emotions aren't a tornado of malice and darkness, then maybe his mental shields are less powerful than that... but correspondingly there is less for him to hide from wandering Betazoids.
In the Revenge of the Sith novel (I do not believe this is currently canon) there is this exchange:
He [Palpatine] turned desperately to Saesee Tiin. "Master Tiin-you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now?" Tiin frowned and cocked his head. His blade dipped. A smear of red-flashing darkness hurtled from behind the desk. Saesee Tiin's head bounced when it hit the floor. Smoke curled from the neck, and from the twin stumps of the horns, severed just below the chin
If the novel is a valid source, then only one of the four Jedi Masters who came to attack Palpatine was a telepath, and Palpatine stops it by putting a blade through his neck, not by being able to resist. It's reasonably implicit that Tiin has not tried to scan him before.
Tiin was not necessarily the only telepath or 'psychic' among the four Jedi masters present; at that point Palpatine was clearly just trying to distract one of them so he could get in among them with the lightsaber. He may well have chosen to speak to Tiin because, for whatever tactical reason, he wanted to distract Tiin first, rather than distracting one of the others.
In The Force Awakens we see telepathy again. Ghetto spoilers Kylo Ren, who's no Palpatine, mind you, can't keep Rey out of his mind once he's made a link, and he seems to expend considerable effort
That's a fair point.
Compare that to Luxwana Troi (a high official in the Federation, remember), or if you're feeling really crazy, Tam Elbrun, for the upper end of Betazoid ability – and remember, though he had problems, Elbrun was employed by Starfleet, another of the sorts of people the Federation President might run into. Elbrun was unable to not read people's thoughts.

I could go on, but every appearance of Luxwana in the two series she appears in, is an example of her being able to know people's surface thoughts in close proximity to her at will.

A core concept of TNG is that the Federation considers telepathy to be actionable in negotiations and political matters. It's why Troi rates a bridge seat. Luxwana is able to fire an employee for having pornographic thoughts about her, and as far as we know, wasn't hauled before an employment tribunal or whatever the Federation equivalent may be.

Palpatine has never faced and defeated a telepath except by physical force in any canonical material of which I am aware... Please show your evidence that he has comparable powers, or power to resist a telepath except by physical force.
Are you assuming that normal Jedi do not possess a degree of 'telepathy?' They're certainly empaths if not full telepaths. I'd be surprised if you think that needs to be proven.

So at this point the only valid course I can see you taking with this argument is something like:

"While Palpatine routinely hides from empaths in his own setting and does so very reliably, the difference between concealing one's thoughts from a mere empath (like a half-Betazoid psychiatrist, or a Jedi knight) versus concealing them from a true and highly skilled telepath is like the difference between being able to resist a lit match versus an acetylene torch. Palpatine's proven skill at the former does not confer the ability to do the latter."
There's the example of the Maraposans in Up the Long Ladder which has a cloning technology that produces an adult clone far faster than Kamino – within days. This civilization is depicted as less advanced in all other respects than the Federation, having no starships of its own, and being at the mercy of a Federation starship in orbit.
Note that their lack of starships may well be a result of their limited population size- they resorted to cloning so that the six surviving colonists of an interstellar journey could expand into a population capable of sustaining the colony.
The Dominion shows that such a technology exists and is scaled up to military use, saying that there's no discussion of the Federation using clone soldiers is disingenuous, the fact that a clone army is inherently a slave army is a major theme of the Dominion War, and we see on various occasions Starfleet personnel trying to get the Jem'hadar to realise this ("Rocks and Shoals"), and other Jem'hadar rebelling ("To the Death") when they are able to get their own Ketracel White.
I do not feel it's disingenuous as such to argue that the Federation does not seriously entertain the notion of cloning armies in a hurry because they lack the facilities to do so.

What I will concede is that the Federation clearly does have ethical issues with cloning which are far more intense than the Republic in Star Wars. They also have a much better and more consistent track record on the subject of slavery- the Republic tolerates slavery of both droids and organic beings, although it makes enslaving organics nominally illegal inside its own borders.

While I'm not sure I agree that a cloned army is inherently an enslaved army, I agree that the Federation thinks so. As I noted in an earlier post, this is a very likely issue to arise, and the Federation will probably start looking very closely into the origins and nature of this clone army.

Although if Palpatine has "knowledge of the Federation" it seems likely he would have prepared for this in advance, for example by arranging the cloning through a known and semi-reputable civilization such as these Arcturans, or the Mariposans. And by establishing contacts within parts of the Federation government likely to sympathize with his political agenda if it is spun correctly, such as Section 31.
The Federation never considers building a Dreadnought torpedo, that we know of, but there's every reason to think they could.

Beyond merely the immorality of it, why would the Federation do such a thing? Their culture opposes cloning generally, in Up the Long Ladder, when Riker and Pulaski find clones of themselves in tanks, Riker's immediate reaction is abortion by phaser.
Riker's reaction seems to be in large part caused by the fact that he has been cloned without his knowledge or consent. Which is ironic given the nature of that little transporter hiccup which happened to him on the Potemkin some years earlier, but there it is.
The technology for making clones in bulk (and much faster than in Star Wars) exists and is certainly shown to be used by various cultures; the Federation is never said to be unable to understand it or use it, it is rational to conclude that much like genetic engineering, they do not choose to do so as a culture.
I will note that the old Star Wars EU contained references to cloning techniques much faster than the one used by the Kaminoans

Presumably, if Palpatine were operating in the Federation, he would be using the best cloning available there. It's not like he personally invented the Kaminoan cloning process, after all; they were just contractors.
If the Federation was one tenth as militarized as modern France, and the 600 bn represented its total population, (Approx figures 66000000/300000 = 220/1. Reduce by factor of ten 2200/1; 600,000,000,000/220= 272,727,272) then it would have two hundred million people in the military. Two million clone troopers is now and has always been an asinine figure for the size of the GAR.
Two million clone troopers is an utterly asinine figure in the context of Star Wars. Somewhat less asinine in the context of Star Trek.

It is possible that the total size of the Federation military actually does consist of several hundred million personnel. But if so, then less than 1% of those troops can be actively serving on their starships. Because they have at most, oh, ten thousand such ships, most of which have crews of rather less than a thousand.

Even given that starbase crews could easily equal or even exceed the active starship crew strength at any given time, if we're generous we might somehow posit that Starfleet has ten people serving in starbases and other stationary facilities for every person serving aboard ship. That's still on the order of 10% of this supposed "hundreds of millions of military personnel."

In which case Starfleet (or another military/paramilitary organization within the Federation) must be employing roughly ten groundside personnel who serve no naval role, not even maintenance and support of ships, for every person who does serve such a role. Purely to provide ground security.

I'll believe it when I see evidence of such a large army organization actually existing.

So basically, two million clones is tiny compared to the population of the major Star Trek polities, but it is not tiny compared to the active-duty part of the Federation military, or at least the parts of that military we actually see.

Indeed, two million clones might actually be close to the maximum size of ground forces they are physically capable of deploying, given the limits of their spacelift assets.
Clone Troopers programming as undetectable

By act of OP, they can't have their programming detected by psychic means. Good thing the programming is in an inorganic chip inserted in their heads, eh?]
And thankfully, Rebels establishes that if you remove the control chips, they gain the ability to defy immoral orders:
Zor did not specify that these clonetroopers' programming is being done the same way. As I recall, we were given considerable reason to think that in the old EU, clonetroopers were indoctrinated and conditioned, not just implanted with a mind control chip.

However, that's a detail. Here, it is likely that Palpatine would be trying to use whichever methods of cloning and indoctrinating his troopers would be most convenient and practical. Since Star Trek cloning is faster than Kaminoan cloning, relying on psychological conditioning may be difficult or impossible, in which case Palpatine would have to use control chips, in which case yes, they'd be detected in short order.
Which the Federation can't remove (as far as we know) brain implants reliably, they can certainly detect them, as shown in these examples; so from there they might want to know what the thing does.
Agreed, and if nothing else, if control chips are used, the Federation will extract one from a dead clone sooner or later.

Although, again, this seems like the sort of thing Palpatine would see coming if he started the scenario familiar with the Federation's strengths and weaknesses.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by NecronLord »

Palpatine starting a scenario entirely familiar with the Federation's strengths and weaknesses is a Palpatine who is probably going to do something utterly different.The Clone Army was entirely a trap for the Jedi. He would be a generic despot, and not really in the arena of discussion as we have no idea what the precautions the Federation may or may not have against depotism are.
"While Palpatine routinely hides from empaths in his own setting and does so very reliably, the difference between concealing one's thoughts from a mere empath (like a half-Betazoid psychiatrist, or a Jedi knight) versus concealing them from a true and highly skilled telepath is like the difference between being able to resist a lit match versus an acetylene torch. Palpatine's proven skill at the former does not confer the ability to do the latter."
Precisely. There is no evidence that Palpatine has ever resisted the interrogation of someone like Luxwanna Troi and she seems to do it very very liberally, even against important people, without social (well okay, I'm not sure many people like her) or legal problems.

Which is one of the creepiest things about the UFP.
Zor did not specify that these clonetroopers' programming is being done the same way.
If they're not trained in the same way as the canon clone troopers, why would we assume they're programmed the same, or in any meaningful way similar?
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Captain Seafort »

NecronLord wrote:she seems to do it very very liberally, even against important people, without social (well okay, I'm not sure many people like her) or legal problems.
The question there is whether she gets away with it because the UFP doesn't care about nosey telepaths, or because of the length of her full title and the political and social clout it implies.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

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I suspect it's just permitted. She does it to Sisko and he doesn't do anything to her, and that guy punched a god in the face. But, of course, we don't know for certain.
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Re: President Palpatine and the Grand Army of the Federation (RAR!)

Post by Zor »

NecronLord wrote:Also, and perhaps more obviously, there's the chance the Federation Council will order the immediate demobilization of the clones and for other units to be trained to use their equipment.
The Clonetroopers have already been deployed against the Klingons on the frontlines. Demobilizing them could be a strategic disaster. Also who would be best to train people in the use of their weapons and tactics but Clone Troopers (which will take time)?

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