A/N: This two-shot story takes place within the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed video game world, primarily, though it does have a few references to Republic Commando and The Clone Wars, too. It discusses Rahm Kota's low opinion of clones, and Commander Cody's low opinion of enlisted troopers. For a while I've been interested in the contrasting opinions of Kota and Cody regarded clones and ordinary people, and I wanted to compare the two character's beliefs in a short shory, hence, this fanfic. Let me know, if you want to, whether you think Kota or Cody is closer to the truth of the Star Wars universe.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars: The Force Unleashed or any of its characters, Disney and Lucasarts do.

Non-clones are better than clones!

It amazes me sometimes what people will do in order to fight or win a war. I am a great military leader myself, a Jedi General, to be more precise, but I can't believe most of my fellow Jedi would actually accept the use of a clone army to fight in this terrible war.

My name is Jedi Master Rahm Kota. I am a General of the Clone Wars, and a highly respected one, too. But I do not trust this clone army we have been given to wage war against the Separatists, especially not after learning from Master Obi-Wan Kenobi that they are conditioned to obey orders without question, and have limits to their creativity and intuition in battle. And here I wish to explain why I don't like any of the clones, and how I have dealt with it as a Jedi General in the war.

Because of my distrust of clones, I recruited my own militia to fight in the war, and it consisted of many soldiers, both human and alien, from a variety of neutral and backwater worlds, and even some Separatist prisoners-of-war whom I believed had been treated more unfairly for fighting for the CIS than I think they deserved. Although we were a small militia, it always my opinion, and it still is, that non-clone soldiers are superior in virtually every way to clone troopers. Why, you may ask?

It's really quite simple. The Fett clones of Kamino were bred and programmed to follow orders without question, like I said above, and they had little to no freedom to disobey or even object to an order, which means they were capable of doing just about anything, from saving women and children survivors of a planetary bombardment, to burning down entire cities and executing their inhabitants as brutally and painfully as possible. The basic message I got from this news is that the morality and content of a clone trooper's orders mattered less to him than simply obeying those orders, meaning that the clones couldn't care less what sorts of deeds they committed, as long as they succeeded in carrying them out. These "creatures" had (and have) no sense of ethics whatsoever.

Another of their problems is that they had to follow all of their orders to the very letter, which meant that their creativity was quite limited. They had to obey exactly as they were told, instead of thinking up their own ways of following their orders that could save more lives or bring a more peaceful resolution. The only exceptions I've noticed in the whole clone army are two ARC troopers, who called themselves Fives and Jangotat. They somehow partially conquered their programming and obeyed the spirit of their orders instead of the letter, and brought about good results in their campaigns. But almost all other clones didn't even come close to achieving any sort of greatness like that; even most of the other ARC troopers and Republic commandos were still bound to strict obedience.

And then there's the case of independent-mindedness. The clones, because of their conditioning, lacked full independence of the mind, so they were always dependent on a higher authority to tell them to do what they did. And it was because of this that so few of them could resist the pull of Order 66, the contingency order that outlawed the Jedi Order and meant the deaths of so many Jedi. And now, it appears, with their transformation into Imperial stormtroopers, they have no independent minds, whatsoever; they are purely docile to the blasted Emperor.

This is not the case, however, with men and women like those in my militia. They were never grown in a lab, they were born naturally; and because of that, there was no one but the Force to program any thoughts or instincts into their minds. These brave warriors can question or object to orders if they think they don't make sense, or if they know of a better way to defeat the enemy, and they can tell good orders from bad ones, too. Their creativity rarely has limits, as well, so they're able to think of new ways to beat a foe, destroy an enemy weapon, or otherwise save the day. They don't have to be treated so strictly. And, most obviously of all, their minds are fully independent, meaning that they don't need to always have an authority figure telling them exactly what to do. Even the ARC troopers and Republic commandos couldn't match my men in independent-mindedness.

Sadly, however, most of my fellow Jedi were fooled by the clones' seemingly innocent nature, and were willing to lead them in battle. Everyone from Obi-Wan Kenobi to Aayla Secura to Anakin Skywalker trusted and befriended them, and were betrayed by them. But the Jedi wouldn't listen to me, and why? Simply because my personality is a little outwardly hostile. Well, I will admit that I could afford to be a little more likeable in an Order where most of my fellow Jedi showed each other the utmost respect, but that didn't mean that all my advice should have been disregarded by them; I mean, we can't all grow up to be as respectful as Master Yoda! The only Jedi Masters who sort of shared my low opinion of clones that I know of were Quinlan Vos, whose dislike of clones was more personal than professional, and Pong Krell, who hated clones with every fiber of his being, but who also turned to the dark side and betrayed not just the 501st, but his own fellow Jedi.

Still, though, I feel some satisfaction that my theory of non-clones being much more fit to be soldiers than clone troopers has been vindicated, even though it was in a tragic way that it came about. I haven't failed to hear that many new stormtroopers are birth-born recruits as well as Fett- and non-Fett-clones, and I do show just a little more mercy when I have to kill a stormtrooper who isn't a clone, which I can sense through the Force, because I feel a little sorry for non-cloned people who have to serve alongside those clones as foot soldiers, though I still have to fight them fiercely, because evidently, the Empire has trained them to be just as ruthless and brutal as the clone stormtroopers. But with the sole exceptions of the clone of Starkiller and the Force-sensitive clone trooper X2, I will never allow any Republic/Imperial trained clones to serve in my military. The galaxy desperately needs to take back what is theirs from the blasted clone monsters of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, and in this new Civil War, I want to bring that about, and will stop at nothing to see that it happens!