lol, long live the Empire I say. However, I don't like this debating on whether the EU is correct or not, because as someone stated earlier, without the EU we would have very little. Imagine a Star Wars with no books, games, comics, merchandise, but only movies. You would have no answers to any questions that weren't specifically answered in dialogue during the movies. Because of this, you have to take liberties, and that has become the EU, which in part is our only source for all the little things that truly flesh out that galaxy far, far away On Pilots and Clones: You think anyone would turn down a volunteer? Ofcourse there were good ol' fashioned humans in the all walks of the Imperial military. Beside that point, I read in an interview that clone stock had sometimes gotten worse rather than better. Politcal deals are made for so-and-so's DNA to be made into clones for the Imperial military for this much money/influence/power, etc hence the differing voices and all around behavior of stormtroopers in the OT. And ofcourse one has to consider where all the regular humans that comprise the officers and pit crews and etc that are seen. There is also and Imperial Academy that puts out tons of volunteers from all kinds of planets from Corellia (Han) to Tatooine (Biggs and probably Luke, if only...) on Xenophobia and the Empire: Exactly, whatever the Emperor wants, he better sure as hell get. We cannot answer this question. We only have what the EU tells us. In the movies we see Palpatine (pre-Emperor) with Alien cohorts. Perhaps he's only using them for political gain and nothing more. The movie does not overtly make the point so we cannot imply anything without help of the EU. Having said that, one can only assume that the Empire was xenophobic because there's nothing stating otherwise in the movies, which take precedence over anything after. on Fighters: It's simply a design philosophy whether or not to use fighters more like the TIE or the X-Wing. The Empire's philosophy was one based on power, cost efficiency, and the ideal that, "You are expendable." In that sense, it fits them perfectly. About Wedge killing hundreds by himself: It's completely plausible if you figure there are billions of people in the New Republic. Thousands of them are pilots. Wedge has assembled himself and only 11 others as the best fighters in all the New Republic. as an aside: I wonder how the Empire would have fared against the Vong. They'd be losing scores of fighters, what with no shields and all. But then again, even the Imperial Remnant has established a new philosophy of fighter design by flying the Chiss clawcraft (seemingly, somehow) and SoroSuub Preybirds anyway, my train of thought derailed so more laters