Lama Su

Lama Su was a male Kaminoan who hailed from a race of expert cloners on the planet Kamino. As Prime Minister, he personally oversaw the creation of the clone troopers—the new army of the Galactic Republic—from Tipoca City, the capital of his homeworld. Kamino's contribution to the Republic Military gained Lama Su's people a seat in the Galactic Senate during the Clone Wars.

By the year 32 BBY, Lama Su was the Prime Minister of Kamino, and thus he also served as the leader of the Kaminoan Ruling Council of Colony Governors.[1] Around the same time, Chancellor Palpatine—the public persona of the Sith Lord Darth Sidious—manipulated Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas into secretly placing an order for the creation of a clone army with the cloners on Kamino.[6] Due to the Kaminoans' preference for isolation and Lama Su's own limited understanding of the greater galaxy, the Prime Minister never considered the consequences that a new pan-galactic military force would have on the future. Instead, Lama Su saw the Jedi's proposal as a business opportunity with advantages for Kamino's economy.

Over the next decade, Lama Su and his scientists developed the first generation of clone troopers, all based on the genetic code of the bounty hunter Jango Fett. Aside from his role as a template, Fett also assisted Lama Su as an advisor, and the two closely monitored the training of the clones. During the development phase of the clone army, Lama Su ordered the cloners to heavily modify the clone subjects in accordance with his instructions to engineer soldiers programmed with absolute loyalty. The Prime Minister saw to it that the clones were made with greater docility and a diminished sense of individuality. Through such modifications, Lama Su was confident that the army as a whole would be completely subservient; capable of obeying any order without question.

When the Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi visited Kamino in 22 BBY, Lama Su and Taun We assumed that he came to inspect the progress of the clone troopers. The Prime Minister assured Kenobi that the project proceeded on schedule, and that the first two-hundred thousand combat-ready units would be joined by a million more clones in the imminent future. In his eagerness to impress his Jedi guest with a tour of Kamino's creations, Lama Su overlooked Kenobi's apparent ignorance of the cloning project. Shortly after Kenobi's reported his findings to the Jedi High Council, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine organized Lama Su's clone troopers into the Grand Army of the Republic and placed them under the command of Jedi officers. With the formation of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the Republic deployed its clone forces against the Separatist Droid Army, thus initiating the galaxy-wide Clone Wars.[4]

Around the first year of the war, Su was present when Kenobi returned to Kamino to stop the Zeltron bounty hunter, Vianna D'Pow, from stealing Fett's cloning DNA template. During the first Separatist invasion of Kamino, Lama Su coordinated the planet's defense with the Jedi's support. After enemy battle droids breached Tipoca City's outer security perimeter, Lama Su activated a batch of Alpha-class Advanced Recon Commandos—also known as ARC troopers—to protect the facility's cloning assets.

Jango Fett's death at the beginning of the Clone Wars[4] left the Kaminoans with a limited supply of genetic samples. They were forced to adopt alternative strategies in order to continue the production of clone troopers, such as breeding new clones from the DNA of existing clones. Lama Su was less than impressed by some of the younger clone generations, and so he recommended to Jedi Master Shaak Ti that a new template would have to be selected if the Jedi hoped to maintain an army of efficient troopers.

Su later went with Shaak Ti to welcome Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and the 501st Legion to Tipoca City. The prime minister was surprised to learn that the Confederacy of Independent Systems intended to attack Kamino, despite the Republic Military blockade that surrounded his homeworld. In preparation for the coming battle, Su positioned himself within Tipoca City's central command center.

Lama Su was fiercely proud of his world's achievements in the science of cloning, the major exporting good that was vital to Kamino's economy. His people's reputation as expert cloners was important to him, and thus it was Lama Su's imperative to ensure that Kamino produced clones of the highest quality; genetic failures were completely unacceptable to him. With the exception of several unstable units, Lama Su regarded the clone troopers as some of Kamino's finest products, as well as a testament to the ingenuity of those who served under his employ. The pride he felt in the Kaminoans' reputation was magnified by the combat training and education programs that they utilized to create efficient soldiers for the Galactic Republic

Although Lama Su had interactions with offworlders through his capacity as Prime Minister, he hardly possessed a worldly nature, and thus he only had a limited understanding of galactic affairs or Human behavior. As such, he was unconcerned with the purpose of the Republic's clone army. Their creation was a business deal to him,[7] and so he treated the matter as a merchant-client relationship; Kamino was hired to build a military for the Republic, and Lama Su intended to honor that transaction in exchange for a considerable amount of credits.

The clones themselves were of great importance to Lama Su, although not in the same sense as the Jedi who developed an affinity for them. He was pleased that the clone troopers existed because of the skills and accomplishments of his people and while he did regard them as a magnificent accomplishment on Kamino's part, Lama Su ultimately saw the clones as valuable export products with highly profitable military applications. Some Jedi officers developed close bonds with their clone soldiers, but Lama Su neither shared or cared for the Jedi's sense of compassion.

The Kaminoans, were a tall, thin amphibian sentient species that hail from the aquatic planet of Kamino in Wild Space. Living in large stilted domed cities that rose high above the ocean surface, Kaminoans were known to specialize in pioneering cloning and genetic engineering technology as well as developing more conventional, non-biomedical technologies for various clients, including the Galactic Republic. Kaminoans were slender, towering, pale-skinned humanoids whose oblong heads sat atop elongated neck bones that allowed them limited flexibility. They had two large, almond-shaped black eyes with white pupils that enabled them to see into the ultraviolet spectrum. Male Kaminoans had fin-like crests atop their heads, while females were completely bald and wore unique head crescents. Their long and frail limbs gave them a graceful, gliding walk and featured small feet adapted to their homeworld's firm seabeds and later hard flooring. Kaminoans reached adulthood at 11 years old.

The Clone Wars, also known as the Clone War and the Great Clone War, was the name given to the major galactic conflict fought between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The war was named after the clone troopers utilized by the Republic against the battle droid forces of the Separatists. These armies, the Grand Army of the Republic and the Separatist Droid Army, were two of the largest ever pitted against each other in galactic history, and the fighting between them rapidly spread to countless inhabited worlds.

The 501st was an elite military battalion-turned-legion of clone troopers in the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic. Under the leadership of Jedi General Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Commander Ahsoka Tano, and Clone Commander Rex, the 501st fought against the Separatist Droid Army of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.