Why is the Clone Army a secret?

AOTC heavily implies that Dooku and Palpatine conspire to create a threat to the Republic in order to scare them into handing their authority over to him to combat it. They supposedly want the Clone War to happen. But if so, why make the clone army a big secret that is discovered at the last minute? Why order it up 10 years prior, and then delete any reference to its location from the records and make it hard to discover? Seems like the whole plot would go easier if the Republic had a big powerful army to begin with.

They have no reason for such an army, and most senators would vote against the creation of said army as it could be abused if placed under the command of thw rong person.

That would make sense except for no one person had the authority to make an army and the senators had been arguing for a long time and may have never come to a conclusion. If anyone had found out that the Jedi, Chancellor, or members of the Senate were ordering a large army, they would have been in violation of Republic laws and probably banned from the republic senate(in the case of the Jedi severally punished.) And the clone troopers can't be built in a day, but require several years to be trained and to grow. The only way that palpatine and dooku could set this whole thing up before hand would be to secretly order the clones so that they could be found by the Jedi later. I imagine it wouldn't be to hard for Palpatine to leave bread crumbs for the Jedi to follow to find the clone army.

My thoughts on the Prequel Politics:

Dooku - secretly leading a group to split the Republic (to give Palpatine a reason to...) Palpatine - wants to be a strong leader and unite it under his control (i.e. - become Emperor)

The Clone army was ordered by Jedi Sifo-Dyas who died prior to the 'ten years ago' when said clones were ordered. Someone possibly pretended to be Sifo-Dyas. Someone who knew how the Jedi worked. Someone powerful enough to maybe even kill him and use his ID. Around this same time (i.e., ten years before EP2), Count Dooku (*former* Jedi) begins amassing a group to split from the Republic. We know how the Sith bump one another off (just look at Vader trying to get Luke to toast the Emperor so they could rule together)...it wouldn't surprise me if Dooku was approached by Sidious to kill Sifo-Dyas (who may have been working for or against the Republic - we don't know) and place the order for clones with the Kaminoans - knowing it would take years to grow the massive army needed. That way, when the time is right, Dooku manipulates the Federation into amassing the droid army - and collecting systems to leave the Republic - giving Palpatine reason to worm his way into the Emperor's chair and unleash an endlessly expendable subserviant army to 'unite' (i.e., rule with an iron fist) the Republic.

Dating from EP2: Over 10 years prior: Sifo-Dyas dies, Dooku leaves the Jedi Council 10 years prior (during EP2): Someone using Sifo-Dyas's name orders the clone army with the Kaminoans, Maul dies and Dooku becomes apprentice Dart Tyrranus, Darth Tyrannus (Dooku) hires Jango Fett as the clone host and all-around assassin, Sidious 'helps' the federation seem like a major threat to shipping lanes - this allows him to take the first political step towards Emperor

The Clones aren't *for* the Republic per se. They are for Sidious who will use them as his forces to ensure all are controlled by him. By the time the Republic finds out about the army, it's too late.

In EP3, I look for Sidious to get Anakin to kill Dooku - since Dooku on the surface seems to be a threat to the Republic's stability - when Sidious just wants this greedy Sith underling out of his way.

Just my thoughts on all this.

Scott

The whole thing just didn't seem to make any sense. Who paid for it? Why was an army needed in the first place if the number of republic systems outnnumbered the number of seperatist systems? Surely they would pool their resources like the allies in WW2. A million clones wouldn't be enough to hold down thousands of star-systems anyway

The difference is that in WWII that the allies consisted of seperate countries that had to pool their resources whereas the republic is one and only one country. I imagine it would be illegal for any one particular republic system to have a sizeable army and pooling them can be a problem since they are not a single entity. It could take years to mobilize such an army and longer still to establish some form of chain-of-command and coordinate attacks. For example, if the United States needs an army they don't ask all fifty states to send them their own personal armies; instead they have one army. Furthermore, not every system has the capability to create an army that can hold its own. Many of the systems have inferior weaponry. That is why the trade federation turned to the genosians for their droid armies. The droid armies could be mass produced and carried the latest weaponry and technology.

Because there was no reason to have a big army. There hadn't been a major military conflict since before the Republic was founded, I believe was explained in the movie. So there was no army in the first place. That's why Palpatine needed to create one. He creates the threat so that the galactic government can vote him emergency powers to counter-act that threat. And in doing so he increases his reign of power. Oh he says that he will lay down the special powers once the threat is neutralized, but as Obi-Wan said he is a politician and not to be trusted. I am suspecting that in lieu of these emergency powers, Palpatine pushes the envelope even further until he is in a position of complete control and declares himself Emperor and stamps out anything that was ever good of the Republic, perverting it into his Empire.

Rebel Alliance Lt. Commander Aramys Strael