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Chapter Four: Training Your Minions (Foreword by Admiral Firmus Piett)

I would have to say that the Strormtroopers of the Empire are not minions. According to the Official Galactic Dictionary, the term "minion" means: a servile or slavish follower of someone generally regarded as important. Yes the Emperor is important, and yes the troopers follow him, but not as followers, as soldiers.

Almost every intelligent species in the known galaxy has heard about our Stormtroopers. If a large group of people were to be seen to be wearing white armor, and having the combined IQs of a pitchfork, then everyone would be able to identify them as a Stormtroopers.

The Imperial Training Academy, (more commonly known as boot camp), is located on the planet of Carida. Every Imperial officer (including myself,) has passed through the walls of that facility. Even though I learned many useful things at boot camp, it was still a complete hell for my fellow cadets and me.

Though Carida was a nice planet, cadets were never encouraged to look at its scenery; on the contrary, we were too busy trying to stay alive.

As part of our training, we were required to take part in what were called "war games." These games ware designed to simulate an actual battle, and did an incredibly good job at it. The weapons used were supposed to be loaded with training lasers, but occasionally the laser would be all too real, and one poor cadet would end up killing twenty of his fellow classmates be fore he realized what he was doing. Of course, these "incidents" were always covered cunningly, blaming the accident on equipment malfunction. Not that I am in any way blaming the Empire or the Emperor, of course.

Anyways. Apart from the dangers of being accidentally killed by a classmate, the planet itself must be taken into consideration. As I have stated above, Carida was a fairly scenic planet, and to me, who had grown up on Axxila, it looked like paradise. That was before the ship had landed, of course. That gravity of Carida is called "strong" by encyclopedias, but one does not fully appreciate the concept of "strong" gravity until one has set foot inside the atmosphere. Walking on Carida was akin to walking with a fifteen-pound sack of rocks strapped to you at all times. It hurt to breathe on that cursed planet.

The first few days on the planet were mostly spent adapting to this new and brutal environment. The Academy's gravity itself was artificially lowered, not to the standard level, but a half step down from the Caridan normal. You would still ache.

Looking back, I have no idea how I survived. But I know that the training I received there was extremely helpful in my career as an Imperial officer.

That doesn't stop the fact that the four years I spent there were completely and utterly miserable, though. Oh well, all in a days work for the Empire, right?

-- Admiral Firmus Piett

Minions are annoying little creatures (sometimes in a literal sense; see the dancing and singing bugs in 'Anastasia'). You can't become powerful and feared without them, but you always have to watch them to make sure they aren't plotting betrayal, desertion, etc. Generally, you want your minions to be stupid so they can't scrape up enough intelligence to overthrow you. But if they're really dumb, they'll blow everything at a delicate moment. You need to find a perfect balance.

A good combination is to train your minions to be skilled in battle, but not in the 'academic' fields: i.e., plotting, thinking for themselves, communication (see Frankenstein's Monster), etc. A well-known example of good minions is the clone-troopers of the Galactic Empire, a dictatorship expertly run by Emperor Palpatine (also known as Darth Sidious) and Darth Vader. The clone-troopers were very competent in battle, but could not think for themselves outside of fighting. They didn't question their commanders. They could be ordered to guard a Jedi, and then be ordered to kill him / her (see Order 66). They would do this unquestioningly. This was the Perfect Soldier.

Unfortunately for the Empire, the clone-troopers (AKA the storm-troopers) slowly began to lose what little intelligence they had. By the time Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Obi-Wan Kenobi left Tatooine, the troopers had become so stupid that they could not arrest an old man and a farm-boy riding a speeder that was almost falling apart (see the first Quote of the Day).

But it got worse for the Empire. When the old fogey and the kid teamed up with an overly-cocky pilot with a suspiciously American attitude and a big hairy thing, they somehow managed to illegally escape a heavily guarded area in a piece of flying crud. Imperial pilots, who were also clone-troopers, started to chase after them. They were defeated very quickly, even though the pilot of the ship they were chasing (the Decade Gooney-Bird) was being annoyed every two seconds by Skywalker, who was doing a Farmboy-in-Space routine (i.e.; "But how does that work? What does that button do? I'm gonna push that button! What just happened? What's that alarm? Oh, look! What's that light from the room above the engine? Is that fire? Wow!"). This is the essence of pathetic.

As if that wasn't enough, the Empire made the mistake of making the troopers clones of an extremely clumsy man. Skilled, competent, ruthless, yes. But extremely clumsy. That was the Empire's downfall. Because of that one decision, Stormtroopers are thought of with contempt and disdain among heroes everywhere. These troopers could have been the meaning of fear, and they almost were. But banging your head on the top of the doorframe does not exactly strike terror into the hearts of your enemies. Unfortunately, that is exactly what several Stormtroopers did (not to mention accidentally hitting themselves in the head with their fist while marching, tripping and toppling everyone over like dominoes during parades, and sneezing inside their helmets at critical moments).

So your program must be rigorous, strict, and unwavering. No mollycoddling. No breaks. No extra desserts. Better yet, no desserts at all. And none of those exercise sets that look like playgrounds. These minions need to be worried about battle, not who can go the farthest on the monkey bars.

Make them get up in the dead of night without warning and swim in the freezing cold lake. Make them practice hand-to-hand combat with each other every day. Make them jog for hours in a swamp with small --but surprisingly heavy--, backwards-talking aliens on their shoulders (do not allow them to liken this particular exercise in any way with Luke Skywalker's training with Jedi Master Yoda).

But don't sit back and relax once you have a good training program going (you shouldn't be sitting back and relaxing at all. Putting your feet up on the desk does not command respect or fear). It will crumble if you don't maintain it. Make sure you have the proper staff: you need to hire heartless drill sergeants, frosty overseers, sadistic lunch ladies, etc.

Once you make sure that your training program is in good hands, you need to make sure that the fully-trained minions are doing their job. Don't let them slack off. Give out harsh punishments—but to keep morale high, give out good rewards. Hand out promotions freely. But try not to have a 'Death Rank,' such as Admiral in the Imperial Navy, where there is a particularly ruthless commanding officer. If you have a Death Rank, your minions won't want to be promoted, and subsequently will do a bad job on purpose.

So when it comes to training minions, watch out, otherwise the balance between not questioning orders and the ability to actually think will be tipped, and your plans for domination will go down the drain (see the Galactic Empire, the Orc Armies of Middle-Earth, etc.).

Quotes of the Day:

Stormtrooper: Let me see your identification.

Kenobi: You don't need to see his identification.

Stormtrooper: We don't need to see his identification.

Kenobi: These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Stormtrooper: These aren't the droids we're looking for.

Kenobi: He can go about his business.

Stormtrooper: You can go about your business.

Kenobi: Move along.

Stormtrooper: Move along... move along…

-Obi-Wan Kenobi controlling a Storm-trooper's sad little mind

A group of Stormtroopers are chasing Han Solo and his Wookie down a corridor

Stormtrooper: Close the blast doors!
The doors shuts just after Solo and the Wookie run through it, locking the Stormtroopers out

Stormtrooper: Open the blast doors! Open the blast doors!

-Again: the essence of pathetic.