GeNode was the popular name used for a variety of genetically enhanced soldier developed with modified Arkanian cloning technology. These clones were drawn from at least three physically distinct genetic templates and developed individual personalities, but they were characterized by a conditioned lack of awareness of their own nature as clones and lack of ability to communicate with fellow GeNodes on the subject of cloning, setting them apart from the clone troopers of the Galactic Republic. Failure of this programming could incite the soldiers to a violent rage, with their clone brethren as targets. GeNode technology was in use by 22 BBY in the hands of genetic terrorist Zeta Magnus during the Clone Wars and, after the rise of the Galactic Empire in 19 BBY, was widely employed by its Stormtrooper Corps before falling out of favor due to the instability of its clones' conditioning.
At one time, nearly half of all Imperial stormtroopers were GeNodes.
Unlike the clone troopers modeled on prime clone Jango Fett and fielded by the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars, the soldiers known as GeNodes were unaware that they were clones. Conditioned with an inability to discuss cloning with other clones, great resilience, and unflinching obedience, GeNodes developed distinct personalities and varying degrees of military competence but nonetheless did not leave service.
The conditioning blinding GeNodes to their clone status, even when looking and communicating with others of the same template, was not always successful, and its failure yielded disastrous results; soldiers suddenly found themselves surrounded by identical impostors sharing their face and would turn on their fellow clones in fits of fearful rage.
One early GeNode clone line, part of the first generation of genetically enhanced marines, had harsh faces and temperaments and black hair. Later templates included a strongly built batch with deep blue eyes and thick blonde hair and a set of clones with wiry builds and small bones, ideally suited to serve as speeder bike–mounted scouts.
The Arkanians produced the cloning methods that were the basis of GeNode technology.
GeNode cloning was developed as a refinement of clone techniques employed by the Arkanians, who were known for their endeavors in genetic science. During the Clone Wars, the terrorist and master geneticist Zeta Magnus, himself the product of Arkanian experimentation, held control over an accelerated GeNode facility on the planet Dantooine in 22 BBY. GeNode soldiers were fielded by the Galactic Empire following its establishment in 19 BBY.
Before 0 BBY, production of the dark-haired first generation template had long been discontinued, though some of these GeNodes continued to serve, including three sergeants—Tak Bazierre, Dalia, and Oswald Strepp—in Imperial Captain Janzor's platoon. By this point, the light-haired template, exemplified by Corporal Milo Strander and Private Sterns Yennich, accounted for forty percent of the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps. Strander, unknowingly a GeNode himself, viewed the clones with disdain.
During the reign of the Empire, GeNode clones fell out of favor with the Imperial Military due to the instability resulting from the failure of their conditioning, and recruited Humans came to dominate the stormtroopers' ranks.
"Pax Empirica" introduced GeNodes in the pages of the strategy guide.
GeNodes first appeared in "Pax Empirica—The Wookiee Annihilation," a short story by Steven L. Kent published in Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds: Prima's Official Strategy Guide in 2001, prior to the release of the 2002 prequel trilogy film, Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. "Pax Empirica" references the presence of clones—the GeNodes—in the ranks of the Empire's stormtroopers, unusually for a story published prior to the introduction of that film's clone army, portrayed subsequently as sharing a single genetic template and being aware of their common nature. Jason Fry, co-author of 2012's The Essential Guide to Warfare, found the story's depiction of clones at odds with such later revelations and therefore worked to downplay the presence of GeNodes in the Stormtrooper Corps in the Essential Guide.
An editorial footnote submitted to Lucasfilm by Abel G. Peña with his novella SkyeWalkers: A Clone Wars Story identifies the GeNode chamber mentioned in that work as the cloning facility depicted in Galaxy of Fear: Clones, a 1998 juvenile novel written by John Whitman, but the connection is not apparent in the text as published in 2015.
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Vol. I
- The Essential Guide to Warfare
- The Essential Reader's Companion