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You're misunderstanding the pre-TCW situation. Clones didn't *know* they were going to one day betray the Jedi. Order 66 was a contingency order to be used in the event that the Jedi turned on the Republic, and it wasn't a secret. When the order came down, they followed it, because that's what clones do. A legitimate order came from their legitimate superior, and they carried it out. I think what confuses a lot of people is the audio logs from Battlefront 2, which does seem to imply that the speaker knew what was about to happen. But this doesn't really line up with what the EU generally established.
Exactly this. There was even an order 65 saying the Supreme Chancellor has betrayed the Republic and is now public enemy #1, among many other contingencies.
Sure, the intent was only ever for 66 to be utilized, but only one person knew that.
It was one of the Commando books. It implied there were over 100 contingency orders, with orders to turn on the jedi and depose the chancellor just being two of many many possibilities.
> There was even an order 65 saying the Supreme Chancellor has betrayed the Republic and is now public enemy #1
Imagine if he’d said “65” by mistake lol probably should have moved that order number up or down by 10 to be safe.
65 would be pretty safe imo, seventy six could cause more problems.
Also, "Just to cover all bases 65 is incase I go mad, and 66 is if the Jedi turn on us"
How would 65 actually work in practice with Palps holding emergency powers? He is the ultimate authority to the clones, he could just tell them “nah don’t do that” as long as he still holds his legal power. I suppose the Senate could remove him from power, but would 64 or 67 be the answer to that problem?
So then what happens if in response to Order 66 the Jedi generals address the clones and say “The Chancellor is clearly insane to order this, we fought side by side for years to save the Republic. Execute Order 65.” Does that not override them? What happens if any top brass got ambitious and wanted palps out of the picture? Execute Order 65, boom vacant chancellor seat
No, because the chancellor is the supreme commander of the armed forces. Of course, and I would like to see it, the clones, or some of them, could betray the republic and go with the jedi, but that would be a treason against a direct order.
Also, I assume certain order were reserved for certain people. So the order 65 would be followed only if issued by the senate.
It is a government. It is a military, it is a chain of command. Separation of powers.
>I would assume
This is part of why I prefer the inhibitor chips, flaws and all. At least it’s an answer without a ton of headcanon to fill the gaps, it’s just boring
"Order 65 stated that if a majority of the [Senate](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galactic_Senate/Legends) or the [Security Council](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Security_Council) declared that the [Supreme Chancellor](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Supreme_Chancellor/Legends)—at that [time](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Time/Legends) [Palpatine](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Palpatine/Legends)—was unfit for duty, the Chancellor was to be arrested or, if necessary, [killed](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Death/Legends)."
Yes, like I assume Luke Skywalker needs to breath, even tho it is not specifically confirmed anywhere.
Sure, I like head canon. And filling the gaps. Adn this inhibitor chip does not leave many. In fact, none.
In the source, the wording of Contingency Order 66 is subtly different from its immediate neighbors. 65 requires the consent of the Senate or the Republic's "Security Council" to execute, whereas 66 can be executed on the sole say-so of the Chancellor. 66 also requires "Jedi officers" to be "removed by lethal force", whereas 65 only authorizes lethal force "if necessary".
This is correct. Order 65 in effect is something akin to the 25th Amendment, including that it requires ratification from either the Senate or the Security Council (whatever that is, I'm assuming its something like the Cabinet or the National Security Council) to enact.
Not sure if it's a real thing but my head canon is 65 was incase Palpatine wasn't the chancellor. Quick way for him to power grab again. Someone other than chancellor has to be able to call for 65 so it would probably be Palpatine.
Yep.
Clone indoctrination being so heavy and their “patriotism” so strong that they would immediately kill their Jedi leaders who they’ve bonded with after a single order is interesting, tragic, and draws parallels with real life.
What’s interesting about inhibitor chips?
I guess going the way of inhibitor chips simplifies the "science" of the explanation. Essentially dumbs down the idea to a few words. You already have a similar idea with the fact that they are biologically engineered beings designed to be obedient.
I'm thinking of the philosophy of something like Blade Runner here, like the replicants, they're not quite human, not quite a machine. How their minds work is a mystery to both themselves and their creators. They look like us but do they think like us? Do they feel like us?
Combining and exploring that idea along with the very real world moral questions about soldiers following evil orders isn't exactly a brand new idea, but it's a lot more interesting to me than just saying it's a chip.
What's interesting about complete blind patriotism? What's even *realistic* about that, when you consider the millions/billions of individual clones, and the different decisions they might come to? Why isn't it better to showcase that the conditioning is really, really good, but not perfect, and there are cracks forming?
Another thing TCW mentions is the Jedi encouraged creative thinking and individuality in the clones, which certainly became a catalyst for some clones questioning orders and even defecting, *despite* the extreme nature of their conditioning.
Now *that's* interesting.
There's a tragedy where at a point where the war is almost over, the clones are suddenly forced to kill their generals, in a moment they became droids and they could do nothing but carry out the order
If they had free will without the chips some clone would have spilled the beans, probably rex.
There were no beans to spill. These orders were not a secret, and the implication is that the vast majority of clones would have carried out any of them if lawfully ordered to.
In BF2 we follow probably the most decorated clone battalion. It’s not unrealistic that they were closer to the Jedi and higher ups in the republic and therefore knew about tensions between palpatine and the Jedi. And once they got called back to coruscant it’s clear something is up. You don’t call your best soldiers back to the capitol in secret unless you’re planning a coup or expecting one
One of the journals of BF2 explicitly states they knew. “In the waning hours of the clones wars a detachment of the 501st was discreetly transferred back to Coruscant. It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, what we were about to do.”
And several of the ones before that hint at them knowing, too.
Them knowing is fine when it comes to the EU relationships between Jedi and clones, which weren’t nearly as caring and friendly (as a generalization) when compared to current canon.
Ignoring Filoni's wet dreams, the clones didn't know they were killing the Jedi until after Palpatine executed the order. So the journal entry still holds up. Outside of Filoni's wet dreams, of course.
At the very least, the unknown Clone Trooper who recorded the in-universe logs of his journal in the 501st Legion seemed to imply he knew some details of Order 66's inevitability of being falsely triggered. With it also being implied that each journal entry was recorded just moments after some event being detailed occurred. The Trooper in questions mentions things ranging from how he and his brothers in the 501st pondered the idea of Jedi actually being killable, making sure that they were unaware of treachery, hoping that some were killed relatively quickly/painfully, and knowing about their discreet rerouting to Coruscant.
> In the waning months of the Clone Wars, the 501st faced missions critical to the agenda of Chancellor Palpatine. When we arrived at the bombed-out ruins of Mygeeto, our Jedi commander believed we had been sent to take out a droid energy collector. What Ki-Adi-Mundi didn't know, however, was that our unit of the 501st was really after an experimental Mygeetan power source, that the Chancellor wanted for his superlaser. ***Keeping Mundi in the dark wasn't easy; the Jedi had become increasingly wary of the Chancellor's doings, and were on the lookout for the slightest hint of treachery. Just like the rest of them though, he never caught whiff of what was really going on, until it was far too late.***
> It's been said that the 501st got the best of the war. We also got the worst. On Felucia, the Seps dug their metal heels into the muck of that alien hellhole and dared the Republic to come in after them. So we did, only to be met with the month after month of flesh-eating diseases, shrieking nocturnal predators, and other sights that haunt me to this day. Cut off and for all, we knew abandoned by our superiors, ***our only hope was Aayla Secura, our Jedi commander. Without her iron will, none of us would have come out of that mess with our sanity, or our lives.When her death came, I hope it was quick. She earned that much.*** When the 501st was finally rotated out of Felucia, Aayla Secura made a point of seeing us off personally, calling us the bravest soldiers she had ever seen. ***It's a good thing we were wearing helmets because none of us could bear to look her in the eye.***
> What I remember about the rise of the Empire is... is how quiet it was. During the waning hours of the Clone Wars, the 501st Legion was discreetly transferred back to Coruscant. ***It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, what we were about to do. Did we have any doubts? Any private, traitorous thoughts? Perhaps, but no one said a word. Not on the flight to Coruscant, not when Order 66 came down, and not when we marched into the Jedi Temple. Not a word.***
And I know of how Order 66, along with 150-ish other Orders, was meant to only be used as a contingency. I'm familiar with this. But the bold parts in addition to the implication that the journal was written in the near-present of these in-universe events, gives the impression that HE at least knew. As did all members of the 501st, at least those who were transferred to Coruscant.
To this, it does at least give me the feeling that the the Clone Troopers (or at least a decent number of them) were in on how Palpatine would use Order 66 to his advantage. At least before the Inhibitor Chip explanation.
When palpentine tells Cody to execute order 66. He doesn't explain it. How could Cody know what to do if they didn't know about it? And If all the clones knew about it how did the senate and jedi not?
Huh? I'm not sure you actually read what I wrote. It wasn't a secret. The old explanation was that there was a series of 150 contingency orders to be used in various scenarios, including the Jedi betraying the Republic. Nobody expected it to ever come into play, but it was known.
The jedi knowing about something like that and not caring is awful writing. Especially when they had been suspecting the sith lord was paplpentine or in the senate in ROTS
See, that's the thing. The Jedi were able to see past the outward veneer of "kindly well-meaning leader reluctantly accepting power" that Palpatine created. But they only penetrated one layer deeper. They thought he was a wannabe tyrant taking advantage of the war to centralize power in himself. But as far as they were concerned, if he was the Sith Lord, why would he need to hide himself? It's also worth noting that there was another order on the list that amounted to "the Chancellor has gone rogue, apprehend him if possible, kill him if necessary". Nobody expects these emergency orders to ever come up.
Bad excuses. The clones were created under mysterious circumstances already. The already have initial suspicion.
And what the hell do you mean why does he need to hide it? The moment it's revealed multiple jedi masters go to kill him. He would have been dead if not saved by anikan.
Count dooku also told them that a sith lord controlled the republic. And they did very much suspect it was possible sidous was a sith lord along with Mas Amedda.
It also makes palpentine looking like a moron for leaving this up to chance. The whole reason clones are better than droids is because they can think. If clones followed orders like "go jump off that cliff" and "kill all the generals you've been fighting alongside of for years" how are they different than droids.
And there is examples of clones disobeying in the EU so don't hit me with that.
TCW is not a good show but this retcon makes more sense than everyone just did it because they are loyal to the republic. Everyone is so legends good everything else bad that they refuse to the new Canon could do anything better
Because "villain usurps legitimate power and uses it to manipulate billions" is a much more interesting story than "villain has a button that makes everyone obey him"
The difference is the chain of events. Why could Palpatine order it? Because the Jedi legitimately try to assassinate him. You can argue Windu wouldn't go through with it but that's what it looks like.
In one case, Dark Sidious wins through evil ways. In old Canon, Palpatine won by using the system the Jedi protected against themselves.
Looks the same but the theme is completely different and the second one fits with how Lucas wanted to tell the death of democracy through democracy.
I hate the inhibitor chip retcon because not only does it completely erase any deeper character traits of individual clones and turns them into generic good guys it also doesn’t make sense how they stayed loyal to the Empire after they got mindcontrolled.
Exactly, it was just kind of a cool concept that unquestioning loyalty was bred into them. It adds a certain creepiness to them.
It reminds me a bit of the Borg in Star Trek. At first they were just a single hive mind, and that was really cool and disturbing, and then they introduced the Borg Queen and made her their leader. The Borg Queen is... fine, I guess, but now they're all just zombies who follow her will and that basically ruined what made them interesting/terrifying.
In First Contact they did try to show she was just an embodiment of the Collective and not its leader, an avatar much like Skynet's hologram in Terminator Salvation, but then her bath in the acid gas disabled all the other drones, too, which confirmed the opposite.
Yeah, I didn't mind it as much in First Contact because it's such a good movie, haha. But afterwards they should've just said that the Borg Queen was some experiment the Borg were trying out to help them fight humanity or something. And since it didn't work they got rid of her and they're back to their normal hive mind collective. At least that's what I would do if I were in charge of Star Trek, lol.
Following through with such an order will made them an actual mindless killing machines that can't think for themselves though. Sidious not taking chance with the clones made more sense don't you think so? no free will = less chance for failure.
Of all things people hate from newer Star Wars EU, hating the inhibitors chip baffled me the most. They explored both outcome of chip/ no chip in the EU and I don't think both are bad at all. To see that people actually hating it is kinda weird for me
I think there is an ironic tragedy in them being basically turned into droids after the war against droids. It also makes more sense and is more intelligent from palpatines perspective as sinply hoping indoctrination and loyalty would be enough to turn on their generals. I believe before the change there were clones who disobeyed it which would have been a significant issue.
The thing to me is, I don't mind believing that a bunch of Clones DID disobey the orders. I think the stories we're shown in CW of Plo Koon and Obi Wan becoming friends with their troops always felt like outliers.
The clones straight up say to Plo Koon "we're expendable", and added to the fact that Jedi don't really fear death in general I wouldn't be surprised if most generals *did* find the clones expendable.
So I think Rex just saying "fuck that" works fine. And Cody choosing orders over loyalty is fine too. It's just what he valued more.
99.9% of the Jedi are killed by their clones, and the rest are mopped up by Vader which is more or less what Palpatine planned from the getgo.
Still though I don't think its like Palpatine to leave that kind of thing up to chance when you can give them a biological implant. One issue I do have though is more how they were written afterwards, it felt like they were unsure whether they were reset personality wise or if it just forced them to to that specific order. I think thats a result of bad batch not wanting to make the enemies to friendly or innocent though but it is a bit boring.
I think the inhibitor chips are a shameless cop out. I much prefer it when they're just soldiers following orders. That being said, I do understand the argument that the inhibitor chips "make more sense" but the idea that highly disciplined trained soldiers all needed a chip to force them to carry out a tough order is pretty silly
Most soldiers are not going to kill a fellow soldier in their squad just because they got a phone call saying 'they are totally a traitor, no I have no evidence or anything, shoot them in the back and shoot to kill. Do ***not*** take them alive under ***any*** circumstances they have to die in the field and not be taken into custody that is an order' from a guy claiming they are totally President Biden.
Its really not, the clones most likely to have been in a position to take a jedi out would have been the unofficial honor guard that was the squad they would fight alongside when leading from the front and personally partaking in battle. The ones that had been personal acquaintances to them and fought shoulder to shoulder alongside them. It would have been very rare for a jedi general to have been surrounded by troops that weren't part of their permanent command and favored personal squad. Besides:
>
Most soldiers are not going to kill ***their immediate commanding officer in the field*** just because they got a phone call saying 'they are totally a traitor, no I have no evidence or anything, shoot them in the back and shoot to kill. Do ***not*** take them alive under ***any*** circumstances they have to die in the field and not be taken into custody that is an order' from a guy claiming they are totally President Biden.
Still holds true anyway. Being told to take out someone from your own faction is kind of a big deal and kind of the sort of thing you definitely want to be sure is a real legal order to cover your own ass, Especially if that someone is another member of the military who is supposed to be your field commander. You don't just get a casual call from an old man in an identity concealing robe that you think sounds like the Commander in Chief telling you to go kill them and then unquestioningly ventilate their skull within seconds of the call ending.
Much less a guy who now has skin wrinklier than an old man’s ballsack, has a feature-concealing robe over his head, is suddenly speaking in a hoarse/gravelly voice, and calls out of the blue with no warning. Not to mention the fact that, in presumably every other Clome Troopers’ recording save for Cody’s, is speaking on what sounds like a prerecorded message. Obedience may have been drilled into a Clone Troopers’ mind via flash-training in their pods and further education after they were “born.” But mindless stupidity is not. Especially when being pitted against an army literally built on mindless stupidity.
I can see idiots like Fox and Dogma following Order 66 without questions if Inhibitor Chips weren’t shoved in their skulls. They’re the perfect shlubs for doing this sort of shit. But EVERY Clone Trooper, from your youngest Shiny fresh off of Kamino to the most battle-hardened veteran like Rex? A cybernetic implant crammed into the brain that essentially “resets” someone via mental indoctrination and brainwashing *en masse* is the only way I could think of this working.
That comment was referring to a hypothetical scenario of where, if such a widespread broadcast of one of the 150-ish Orders was broadcast to all Clone Troopers, a REALLY bad thing could happen if the wrong person sent the message. Especially if Order 66 was triggered to kill the Jedi *en masse*, Order 65 was used to detain all Senators due to being judged as unfit for governing, or Order 67 to detain (possibly even kill) the Supreme Chancellor himself.
If such a broadcast could be faked by someone who either got wind of the 150-ish Orders and decided to use them against the Republic's command structure? They'd be in a SHITTON of trouble. Especially since Palpatine never seemed to bother adding in a "clause" for Order 66 to respond to only his voice and with someone that looked like him on a holographic broadcast. Something we sort of see happen in one of the Star Wars comics produced under The Rat's EU. A former Padawan uses his connections and observations to determine that the Inquisitorius' military forces, that being the Purge Troopers, were all some of the last Clone Troopers to be produced and had stupidly had their Inhibitor Chips still in versus being removed. He uses a Jedi Mind Trick coupled with saying "execute Order 66" to turn the Purge Troopers against their masters, a strategy that worked and even resulted in the death of at least one Inquisitor.
Now imagine this happening in the days of the Republic, but where any of the three Orders I just mentioned was said by someone using various methods (faking a hologram, false audio broadcasts, a Force-derived Mind Trick, or something else) to cripple the Republic from the inside. Or if the Jedi decided to use Order 67 to detain Palpatine via Coruscant Shock Troopers being turned against him. My comment was brought up with the fact that Palpatine doesn't look or sound like his usual self, with a possibility being raised that if he could look/sound like that but still have Order 66 go off? Then anyone could conceivably do it.
Because it’s already answered in AOTC
“They are totally obedient, taking any order without question. We modified their genetic structure to make them less independent than the original host.”
That always seemed more like a sales pitch being said while showing off a product. Overhyping something as being bigger-er and better-er than whatever counterpart is being made. Especially when the shtick about how Kaminoans are MAJOR perfectionists is brought into the picture and this likely how the Clone Troopers were envisioned/projected on paper.
Besides, it doesn’t really make sense when the Clone Troopers are “totally obedient” and are made for “taking any order without question.” The nascent CIS is using an army made up of robots running off of programming. The most effective countermeasure against an army of robots, true to any military that runs off of common sense and realism, is that you’ll want an army of people who are able to think on personal initiative and strategy versus just being the cartoonish depiction of lemmings in that they’ll walk off a cliff or a woodchipper if told to. One robot army against another robot army isn’t going to cut it, especially since it seems like the Republic or Palpatine should’ve just made Battledroids of their own if they wanted mindlessly obedient drones.
I don’t understand your framing of this as a conspiracy theory the clones were in on. Order 66 was a contingency order for if the Jedi turn bad. That doesn’t mean all the clones are in on a plan to kill the Jedi.
Likewise if order 67 were that every clone needs to make a ham sandwich, that wouldn’t mean that every clone were in on a conspiracy to make ham sandwiches.
I mean, it technically IS a conspiracy theory. Order 66, along with the 150-ish other Orders in place for the Clone Troopers, was an otherwise-benign contingency measure to be used in the event of a Jedi going rogue. Palpatine simply decided to misuse Order 66 and use it to assassinate those who would oppose him as part of his rise to power and his ideology as a Sith Lord.
The issue is that, as I highlighted above to u/awesomenessofme1 above, at least the Clone Trooper who wrote the in-universe journal knew about how Order 66 would be used by Palpatine (and his goal of secretly securing the energy crystal on Mygeeto) to become Emperor. And each entry seems to have been written almost immediately after such in-universe events that the 501st Legion took part in. So that guy at least knew what was coming.
Before TCW, the 501st was *Palpatine’s* private Legion, and didn’t get attached to Vader until after the Declaration of New Order. It’s not too hard to believe that, out of every legion in the GAR, they’d be particularly loyal & have access to additional information.
Yes but in legends before TCW, the first time Anakin led the 501st was Operation Knightfall. Legends Anakin did not get knighted until the final year of the war and when he did, he mainly served with Obi Wan and the 7th Sky Corps. After Order 66, the 501st was transferred to his command.
Palpatine didn’t misuse Order 66, that was his specific end goal. Heck, the entire clone army is pretty much built around that. The other 149 Orders are pretty much more or less smoke screens and red herrings.
Sidious is the culmination of 1000 years of Sith and practically his entire life was dedicated to that moment. So do you really think that he accidentally chanced upon a random order in the clone army handbook and just decided to roll with it?
For me, the inhibitor chips proved that the writers for TCW went way too far in personalizing all the clone troopers. They wrote themselves into a corner and then made up some bullshit to save themselves. Which is exactly what they did with Ahsoka and her trial. They made her too important of a character and didn't want to kill her so they made everyone look bad instead.
Because it removed a level of moral complexity mirrored by the real world and replaced it with a pretty childish copout.
The clones having full autonomy and carrying out Order 66 was a pivotal moment in the EU. They were celebrated and shown as heroes and saviors alongside the jedi; but they were still child soldiers bred for war and following the chain of command. They reacted in that situation not as they were perceived but exactly as they were raised. This is mirrored in our real world of soldiers of the third Reich or any number of other examples following genocidal orders even if they knew they were morally repugnant. It's a far more mature and gritty take on a situation that introduces a moral grayness to the setting. Many likely did have issues with it, but like good soldiers they kept their mouth shut and did as they were commanded. Likely destroying themselves internally in the process. This is shown a bittttt in the EU.
Compare something like that to "ohhh actually they are all great guys and it was a chip!!!"
It takes away a lot of the complexity of the clones and removes their inner emotion and reconciling doing their job vs loyalty (or hatred) to their commanders. The Clones didn’t know they were gonna turn on the Jedi, they trained for it in case the Jedi went rogue and betrayed The Reublic, and they were presented with a difficult choice to make in the moment: Loyalty to whom? Is this Jedi truly a traitor? What would you do?
It also just kinda lumps many clones as default “good guys” who only went bad because of the chips. It’s personally more interesting to me to see a clone being presented as being faithfully loyal to the Republic, and now confronted with an immoral order. Where does their allegiance truly lie, etc. I also just generally dislike the depiction of clones being “good guys,” they were born and bred to be cannon fodder and front line grunts and the more interesting Clones like Spar and Alpha were kinda of neutral morally.
Also, brainwashing is sort of just a lame writing trope imo.
See, this brings up a problem I didn't address in my post. The EU wasn't even consistent with itself in regards to how it treated the clones. Some works had the clones being actively in on the fact that they were definitely going to backstab the jedi at some point (some of them even had them actively relish the thought, because Karen Traviss hated jedi), some works treated them as not having the free will to disobey orders in the first place and not feeling the least bit of conflict, vanishingly few went with what you have just posted. Off the top of my head, the only EU story I can think of that went with anything like that was Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader having one single squad of soldiers go 'hold the hell up, that doesn't sound right, Roan Shryne is someone we fought alongside no way he could be a traitor' and let a jedi go with the rationalization that it must be some sort of Separatist trick instead of a legitimate order. There was no big dramatic agonizing personal choice about having to choose between their duty to the Republic and the chain of command vs their camaraderie with the jedi they had fought side by side on the battlefield with in which the clones happened to pretty universally pick their 'duty' as taking precedent.
Honestly, if anything, something along the lines of them actively having their brains get jacked seems like one of the only ways to both have clones who are humans with free will and explain how those same humans more or less universally made the exact same choice with no deviation. Palpatine let them have free will so that they could bond with the jedi and make the betrayal even more surprising when it was sprung since there was nothing for the jedi to sense was amiss but also made sure he had a way to revoke that free will so that they would definitely be good little puppets and do what he wanted when the time came to slide the knife in. Its a kind of 'covering all your bases' play that makes sense as something someone who could afford absolutely no mistakes would do when he had to both trick the jedi into seeing the clones as people who were on their side and could be trusted yet also make sure they were tools that would perform the function they were meant to fulfill when the time came instead of refusing to betray their friends. The tragedy lies in how Palpatine so completely made tools of them to suit his scheme and how there was basically nothing they could do about it because it was almost impossible for them to even see the strings he had them dangling from to fight against them when he forced them to kill people who were genuinely their friends.
For the sake of clarification, what’s this about Karen Traviss hating the Jedi? I know that she wrote the *Republic Commando* books and that it expanded further on ARC-Troopeda and Clone Commandos while introducing the Nulls.
She thought they were a weird creepy fascist cult and held them responsible for the fact that the Republic was using an 'army of slaves' as if they had a choice in the matter instead of making use of the army the Republic government gave them (its not like they could have raised their own separate army or something). Man, nothing has made me realize how long its been like trying to find some sources talking about it to help me explain, lol.
I mean, I'm definitely not going to say that the Jedi committed a major compromise of their morals by taking the Clone Troopers as fighting forces. And the idea of them being a "slave army" isn't necessarily wrong on paper. These are sapient, free-willed beings bred in tanks on literal shelves for no other purpose than to fight in a war they had no say or choice in. Along with the issue of how all but the oldest Clone Troopers (in chronological terms at least) aren't even TEENAGERS by the time that the Clone Wars concludes due to their pre-engineered accelerated aging. They're child-soldiers in all but name.
But you're still right in that it's not like the Jedi deliberately made the Clone Army in secret on their own initiative, either to stage a legit coup or as their own personal fighting forces. And those who took up positions of command over Clone Troopers sometimes didn't necessarily have a choice in the matter either. Ahsoka (as an example) was a 14-15 year old teenager who was given a military title both due to the fact that she was old enough to be a Padawan and competent/charismatic people were needed to lead the charge. While she might've ultimately said "yes" to taking up the title of Padawan-Commander in the Clone Wars, the Jedi Order isn't necessarily the type of faction to take rejection well and has a strict code of adhering to your elders' wishes.
The point I'm trying to make is that while the Clone Troopers technically ARE slaves in a fashion, it's not like the Jedi as a collective (there were even some Jedi who hated the idea of taking up arms as generals) approved of it universally. They were basically thrust into a war due to having a great deal of respect in the Republic and acting as a peacekeeping order of monks with magic powers that have energy blades which can cut through almost anything. Everyone here, except for Palpatine, is kinda caught in an awkward situation where no one has any outright say in beyond "let's make the best of a bad situation then figure out what to do next."
Also, I'm not trying to be a dick in asking about Karen Traviss' opinion on the Jedi. Or if I seemed rude by making my points above. Sorry if I was on both counts.
Its hardly your fault, I brought her up first. So any 'damn I am getting old its really been over a decade since she was actually a relevant writer to the setting' reaction I had when trying to dig up some citations is my own fault.
I guess the thing that always stuck out to me most was how she treated Jaina Solo in Legacy of the Force. Like, just complete and total character assassination turning a war veteran who has decades of combat experience into a 'pampered jedi princess' for Boba Fett and his mando buddies to dunk on and mock for being so soft and lame compared to the awesome mandos.
[https://gist.github.com/Symbitic/31b9c4d3b6cdfb3f55be3dd39e44645f](https://gist.github.com/Symbitic/31b9c4d3b6cdfb3f55be3dd39e44645f)
ctrl+f 'jedi are useless' to get down to the part that goes over how Traviss bends over backwards and rewrites EU history to make excuses to dunk on jedi because she seriously just hates them so much she can't keep it out of her writing. Down to just plain petty things like acting like Jaina wouldn't know something as basic as how to work a comlink because 'jedi are too reliant on the force. Oh, and keep reading down even after it gets to 'welcome to mandalore'. It veers back into her treatment of the jedi order in the sections after it. Also, this did have one of her old quotes that I had been trying to find if you just want to read her own view.
>
**Karen Traviss** posted:
>I see Vader as a tragic character who's been betrayed by everyone, and ***I can't help thinking of the Jedi as self-serving unelected elitist spoon-benders making whoopee on Republic taxpayers' credits. It's an iconoclastic journo world-view. Believe me, Order 66 was long overdue.*** I have a couple of Jedi that I don't want to shoot on sight, but they're my own creations, so I could make them a little humbler and more aware of the consequences they create for others.
And she isn't exaggerating here for effect, to be clear. She really and truly honestly believed the jedi deserved to be genocided. That is how much she hated them. The only ones who didn't deserve to die were her own pet jedi she created who 'realized the truth' about the order and denounced it for being the force of evil she thinks it was.
Wow. That's... just an absolute load of bullshit. Not you, but about Karen Traviss' opinions on the Jedi (including the certified badass that is Jaina Solo) and her opinions that "Order 66 was long overdue." And that the only Jedi who she personally felt wouldn't be victims of such a sentiment would only be her super-special OC's.
And maybe Jaina Solo WAS a "Jedi Princess" in terms of being related to the most powerful Force-Sensitive being to ever exist (one to challenge not one but TWO fucking gods of the Force) and held a great deal of respect in the New Republic and New Jedi Order. But she EARNED that title through a combination of her own badass-ery as a powerful Jedi Knight, an intelligent young woman, and (like you said) a veteran of several galaxy-spanning/threatening wars. With one of the last 3 involving technology-hating pain fetishists from beyond the galaxy with a heavy resistance to the Force. The title of "princess" was earned many times over and should've ideally been used in the most positive and awe-inspiring sense possible for someone like Jaina Solo. Not to be used in the sense of describing her as some pampered idiot who could be dunked on by a bunch of overly-cocky warriors who make a living killing people for Credits and boasting about how "honorable" they are because of ancient codes that prohibit peace in almost any form.
Now looking back since I saw your comment, I saw that people had MAJOR problems with the *Republic Commando* books (or at least Karen Traviss' depictions of the Jedi Order) and didn't like how she propped up the Mandalorians and even Clone Troopers as Mary Sues. Yet in today's day and age, they're now seen as the bibles for how Clones should be and what Mandalorians are like. I don't understand. And while it may seem rude or even controversial to say it, it seems like this new favoritism comes more from nostalgic value and a preference for the Legends Continuity versus the quality of the materials in it.
And don't get me wrong. I'm NOT a fan of The Rat's Sequels by any means and I have my own... reservations about some things in the current EU's canon coupled with the complete scrapping of the Legends Continuity. But it should seem like a universally objective view of what's there should based on quality exist versus simply valuing/liking something because it's older.
Back to this topic again, I see.
[I tried to break things down once before in an attempt to address it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/s/BbmoVdivOG).
I think a problem with TCW fans is that the show immediately forces you to accept things that ought to be considered utterly nonsensical and incompatible with basic film continuity (even before we touch on CWMMP EU lore).
TCW really exists in its own universe where strange things happen. Like Ahsoka simply existing as Anakin's random never-before-mentioned Padawan, or various people acting completely out of character, or Maul somehow returning, or silly transforming Force Gods of Mortis existing, etc.
Among the strange things going on is that the clones are portrayed *radically* differently from the original material.
No longer are clones the wet droids that they were intended to be as part of a Sith plan to stab the Jedi in the back. Now they're all very humanised and even *regular* clones (rather than just the Commando-tier clones of CWMMP lore) are capable of featuring their own unique personalities and desires.
In truth, the late retcon of clone mind control chips *only* makes sense in the TCW universe which has already taken a *very* different path from film and CWMMP EU lore.
Due to the nature of the show, clones have been portrayed as heroic figures. To soften the blow of Order 66 for the intended audience, the mind control chips are introduced to make them out to be tragic victims rather than the uncaring wet droids that they are *supposed* to be.
That's basically the long and short of it.
TCW takes major creative liberties that are rather perplexing.
You can like what you want. I understand that some people grew up on TCW and to some it was even their first exposure to Star Wars. Sadly this has led to a lot of misguided faith being placed in the extremely middling ability of Dave Filoni.
But for my money, if you want to explore the Clone Wars era, I think you're best off with the CWMMP. Particularly the Republic comics and a few novels.
It’s why I view the animated shows and even live action shows as being in the same timeline as the movies. I like the inhibitor chips personally but they don’t square with what’s in the films as much as most other stuff you see.
I'm not overly fond of the PT films, but I see TCW as a distinct point at which a new universe begins and stretches all the way through the shows and ST films.
Basically, the point at which Ahsoka is invented creates a clear breaking point where we're in a new world divorced from the PT and OT films. Not to mention the EU, of course.
So you don't like it because it's part of something George Lucas worked on and you like the non canon lore someone else made before George introduced the chip.
George being involved or not is largely irrelevant.
My interests lie with whichever story I feel handled the material better.
George originally wrote the clones as wet droids. It's right there in his AotC and ROTS script. Further supported by the ROTS novelisation which he approved of and assisted with its writing.
But George unfortunately is also well-known for messing with his own work. He's made a lot of special edition edits over the years. Some being worthwhile and others very much not being remotely worthwhile at all.
TCW comes swinging out the gate with some absurd retcons which make no sense at all with George's full support. Namely the existence of Ahsoka.
It's not a black and white case of "George good" or "George bad". He's involved with both good and bad decisions.
So in the old lore there were other contingency orders in case Palpatine went crazy, the senate went crazy etc so everyone knew order 66 was a thing but they never thought it would be activated.
The inhibitor chip really cheapens the canonical clones that resisted order 66. Rather than resisting decades of subliminal programming and peer pressure to do what is right it’s just lol I took out the chip that made me do it.
Chips really reduces the agency of the clones and it’s far more sinister that without the chip they essentially made a choice to follow order 66 rather than being forced to
Soldiers get alot of head injuries.
Which would A) Make the chip faulty.
B) Show up on any X-ray scan on the injured soldiers.
Which would expose the whole plot to kill the jedi.
Based on the fact that the Inhibitor Chips could only be found by Kaminoan technology, customized scanning equipment, and the Force by people who ONLY knew about (or at least suspected) their existence? No one would’ve really suspected anything was up, especially when Tup acruelly had a defective/malfunctioning/degraded/fucked-up-to-Hell-and-back Inhibitor Chip and medics couldn’t examine what was wrong with him in the field. You don’t exactly want to perform neurosurgery in anywhere but a sterile and controlled environment unless absolutely necessary.
Anyone who saw, by some freak chance, an Inhibitor Chip was either meant to (such as physicians on Kamino) or CIS personnel who captured a Clone Trooper for study. The latter would likely see it as just a brain tumor of some type and ignore it. Especially since the only 2 depictions we’ve had of the Inhibitor Chips had them looking like weird masses/blobs of flesh.
1) That's not how it works, no.
The chip would show up on any scan, no matter what.
You know kinda like the scan machines you see, whenever you travel.
2) Yes, ideally you want to perform neurosurgery in a hospital.
But if it's a matter of life and death, it's just done wherever is possible.
Which would happen all the time during a galactic war.
3) It wouldn't be a freak chance, soldiers get head injuries all the time.
So basically any medic would see a TON of these chips.
Especially since they are implanted in every single clone.
4) You don't ignore brain tumors...
It didn’t seem to work when Ahsoka used a fully functional medical bay (which included a sensor array for the brain) aboard the *Tribunal*, a *Venator*-class Star Destroyer. She had to rely on Droid-based asssistance (in addition to the medical droid already present) and the Force itself to find Rex’s Inhibitor Chip. Tech also had to build a customized and handheld brain scanner from scratch to use Rex’s Chip-less brain as a “standard” for what the scanner should look for. And even this was implied to still be a difficult process.
All this implies that, without specialized Kaminoan medical equipment and/or people who know about the Inhibitor Chips, you wouldn’t find them under normal circumstances. They may either be made to be undetectable by conventional means or are “disguised” in some manner to “blend in” with normal grey matter. Or a third option exists that the Inhibitor Chips are buried REALLY deep in the brain and can’t just be found on a cursory inspection/quick procedure.
And I’ll definitely concede about how brain trauma of any type could “prematurely activate” an Inhibitor Chip. The CIS was already implied to be tinkering around with biological warfare specifically for Clone Troopers, as Grievous and Ventress had a brief discussion on what their orders were concerning some of Jango Fett’s splooge during the Second Battle of Kamino. And the episode that originally featured the Inhibitor Chips had some discussions about rumors concerning anti-Clone viruses that the CIS may have been developing. Not to mention all sorts of run-of-the-mill dangers in the galaxy and its myriad of planets such as radiation, toxic chemicals, lethal bacteria, and microorganisms that love eating squishy brain meat. All this could trigger an Inhibitor Chip to go haywire like in Tup’s case or simply no longer function as intended (if at all).
And the reason I brought up the “tumor part” in my last thing was also concerning the cadavers of Clone Troopers or POW’s the the CIS took. A prime example of the latter being Echo after he was nearly killed at The Citadel. Whether it was the Techno Union’s mad scientists or some medical droids in the CIS, they likely but unwittingly saw Echo’s Inhibitor Chip when shoving all those cybernetics in his brain. They must have somehow damaged it or even totally removed it, as he didn’t seem affected in any capacity during Order 66 being called in. So no one outside of those few people aware of the Inhibitor Chips (Palpatine, Count Dooku, some Kaminoan scientists, Omega, and MAYBE a relatively small number of Clone Troopers) would understand what they are if they saw one either attached to a Clone’s brain on a slab or on a microscope slide.
Because without the inhibitor chip it was more real. It came down to soldiers - soldiering, they were following orders, because that's what they do. With the inhibitor chip they somewhat lost their humanity, in my opinion. They were just another bot, just in a fleshy outer shell.
After experiencing the many storytelling possibilities surrounding biological/mental manipulation of clones in the Dune novels, I can tell you without a doubt that being able to flip a switch with the chips in SW is just plain lazy. On top of that, Lucas seemed to be suggesting that the reason the clones were so successful against the Jedi was because there was no animosity or anger in the clones. Palpatine could've told them to dig a latrine, and they would've had the same response because they lack the ability to distinguish the moral difference between those two orders.
I think you’ve got a point about Order 66 working so well because there was no animosity or anger or emotion behind the action. Jedi seem to be particularly responsive to emotion/intent over action. The clones are just following an order.
A side thought that just occurred is the clones could have also been put into an altered mental state when Order 66 is triggered. A trigger could be included in the broadcast that puts the clones into a fugue state, that makes them follow orders without any free will or emotion.
Wouldn't there also be a complete lack of animosity and/or anger (aside from small subconscious thoughts that a Clone Trooper might be experiencing) if the Clones were falling back to their "programming" from the Inhibitor Chips? They were basically just fleshy robots at that point, with even your average CIS Battledroid probably being more emotional at the moment.
And sure. I can believe that a Clone Trooper that's never met a Jedi in his life and is just fresh out of training wouldn't see the moral difference in following one order then another. But guys who've known the Jedi as friends (and more in Darman's case) for three years and even admired a few of them? They'd still see no problem killing them without a thought or even double-checking to see if Order 66 was somehow forged/triggered falsely?
We have many IRL examples that inhibitor chips would not be needed for such an order.
They may be clones but it makes them less than human that they have to be forced to show the darker sides of humanity.
Are you familiar with the banality of evil? It's often used to describe how most Nazis weren't ideological fanatics, sociopaths or sadists. How incomprehensible crimes can be committed for the most mundane reasons.
The book *Ordinary Men* delves into this concept in horrifying detail as they cover a reserve police battalion's participation in the "Holocaust by Bullets." Only a few of the soldiers fit the popular conception of the bloodthirsty Nazi. Most of them knew damn well that what they were doing was horribly wrong, but they came up with all kinds of reasons why they had to participate.
They didn't want the rest of their squad to bear the burden of the gruesome mass executions. They rationalized that Jewish people were an existential threat to their country. Some convinced themselves that quickly killing the children was a kindness. Others were simply doing their duty and parroting whatever justifications their superiors gave them.
Those were ordinary former civilians — the clones are anything but that. They were bred and raised to be the perfect soldiers. The clones existed to serve the Republic, and their lives revolved around following orders — and Palpatine was the ultimate authority.
The strongest bond that most clones had was to each other. There were millions of them, most of whom never significantly interacted with a Jedi. It's not hard for me to believe that they would have followed an order to kill the Jedi when it came in the context of responding to an attempted coup, which is how it was typically portrayed.
You mention the 501st logs, which do imply that at least some clones had prior knowledge that Order 66 would be used. This doesn't really mesh with other depictions in the EU, and the idea that all clones knew what would happen doesn't really fit with their portrayal in TCW — it seems impossible that none of the clones would have alerted a Jedi. However, if we put aside how it would be kept a secret, the clones carrying out Order 66 is still plausible. The Felucia log states:
>"When the 501st was finally rotated out of Felucia, Aayla Secura made a point of seeing us off personally, calling us the bravest soldiers she had ever seen. It's a good thing we were wearing helmets, because none of us could bear to look her in the eye."
This shows that they know how wrong the plan is, but let it happen anyway.
For what it's worth, I don't think that the depiction in Battlefront II logs makes Order 66 unrealistic. Even if we assume that the game's version of events was definitive for the EU, it was following an elite group of clone troopers that would ultimately be used to storm the Jedi temple. The average clone might not have any idea what was planned.
Ultimately, I think that the inhibitor chips make the betrayal much more hollow. I found the idea of the clones we met in TCW betraying the Jedi to be much more emotionally impactful when it was their choice to follow orders.
The clones never spoke up about Order 66 because of one critical issue, an issue that (ironically) is specifically called out in TCW by Slick: "It's the Jedi who keep my brothers enslaved."
The Jedi, by accepting command of what is effectively an army of slaves, compromised their ideals. Order 66 is that coming back to haunt them.
The inhibitor chips only deny the clones this agency.
That's just one guy. A dude who also was a hypocrite in getting his own brothers killed by betraying the Jedi on Cristophsis, either in the demolitions he triggered at the base or the parts of the battle that didn't go the way that were planned to. And with him also admitting that, while he claims it wasn't a motivating factor, he was still offered money but never clarified if he TOOK it.
And the idea of Order 66 being used by Palpatine to "come back to haunt" the Jedi is still preserved with the Inhibitor Chips. If anything, it actually makes it even more disturbingly poetic. The Jedi accepted an army of slaves bred to serve in a war they had no say in, compromising their ideals. Then the Jedi, after years of convincing the Clone Troopers of their individuality and their status of people, were now slaughtered by the same beings they saw as equals but now slaves of those they opposed.
It's stupid, lazy, bullshit. It erases the cost of betrayal, betrayal has to STING, it's rough, it's tragic, painful. Using chips reduces the clones to mere droids, the choice isn't theirs anymore. You don't get to do that, the droids lost because they couldn't keep up with the decision making and peer bonding aspects of camaraderie that the clones exhibit
They're humans, they care about each other, they risk their lives with the knowledge that they HAVE lives to risk in the first place, they go through hell for one another, no droid could.That's why it's so painful, they CHOSE to obey order 66
If it's out of their control then they're not human anymore, which invalidates every reason why they prevailed over the droids I just mentioned, you can't have it both ways, it's weak, and spineless and immature writing, trying to have their cake and eat it too. You can't make a bold choice like order 66 just to scramble and undo it to salvage fan favorite characters and make them no longer responsible. It just ruins it completely
>We modified them to be less independent then the original host.
I don't understand why there really needs to be an explanation beyond what was said in AOTC. The idea of genetic engineering an army without morality, free will, pity, etc.. has been around a while in science fiction.
I like the inhibitor more, it's way more tragic that the clones lost their will and attacked their friends, friends that told them they are unique and not machines.
Also makes more sense how they just killed without any thought before pulling the trigger
Another level of tragedy is how the Clone Troopers felt after all was said and done. We hear the perspective of Wrecker and Grey about how they had a sort of "out of body experience" when their Inhibitor Chips kicked in and were horrified to learn what they did. Meanwhile others such as Crosshair and Styles genuinely believed that the Jedi WERE traitors while their actions were necessary/justified.
Either way, the Inhibitor Chips take away agency of free-thinking sapient beings who were treated as people and equals by all but the most asshole-ish Jedi. Their minds and personalities were changed forever then reduced to either horrified trauma victims of what they were forced to do or permanently "reconditioned" to believe what they did was right.
I mean it makes more sense before TCW where clones weren’t really characters. After they’re established as being real people either they’re brainwashed or they never cared about the Jedi in the first place and the past 6 seasons were all a waste of time.
It doesn’t make sense for Cody to mindlessly betray Obi Wan unless he literally had no choice.
TL;DR the chips are the only way for both the clones and the Jedi to not be dicks
Personally it can be both: the Clones were both conditioned and coerced.
Considering that this is the only chance Palpatine can pull off bringing Sith domination and killing his faction's ancient rival, he needs to get this right.
Its always good to have a backup contingency just in case.
The 2 most important quotes about this from the movies IMO
"Tbey are totally obedient, taking any order without question" - Kaminoan cloner
"The time has come, execute order 66" - Chancellor Palpatine
The idea that the clones could follow any order was known to them. Palpatine did not have to claim that the jedi were staging a coup to order the clones to kill the jedi.
The clones had a bunch of orders in place should someone try to grab power illegally, including if Palps did (it was either order 65 or 67). They were just following the orders that they had known about for a long time, assuming that the Jedi were trying to take power of the republic.
The point was that they are brainwashed and not that much better than droids in terms of them just following whatever order they were given.
It was a cheap cop out, and I am really surprised with how much of the Star Wars fan base like it, though here more people seem to be against it.
I haven't watched it in a couple of years, but in AOTC, wasn't it explained that the clones did not their own will, that they were specifically created without fear and to carry out orders? I'll have to rewatch it. And I do have the book, so I'll pull that out, too.
Pre TCW clones were their own people, but they were also soldiers with an utter obiedience and blind loyalty to the Republic breed into them. If they suddenly got the emergency Order that the schmuck who's been leading them into battle is a traitor (And thus might kill you and your brothers) he is gonna get fragged for sure.
Which is why RC's, ARC's and some other clones didn't follow through. Because they figured that their Jedi commanding officer wouldn't do that.
The Chips are a rather stupid explanation, because they assume that each and every single Clone would for some reason have any sort of connection to the Jedi. Which is just... eh? Even in TCW you usually have the Commanders/ARC's following Jedi more closely and the rank and file getting killed because the tactical genius in charge decided to attack a zone without any fucking cover.
See, I always saw the Inhibitor Chips put in as a sort of “insurance policy” for the Clone Troopers having one of the 150-ish other Orders (66 notwithstanding) not being followed. The Nulls, Alphas, Commandos, and “Promoted ARC’s” would have enough independence to question it and necessitate the Inhibitor Chips kicking in if needed.
But there’s always the chance that one Clone Trooper, either because he’s thorough in wanting to constantly double-check orders/regulations or displays a disposition for cleverness/craftiness in battles, who may question any of the 150-ish Orders being declared. What if some Clone insurgents who have grievances with the Republic’s chain of command (Jedi, Chancellor, Senate, etc.) decide to trigger an Order as a rebellion? What if a Super-Tactical Droid used specialized technology to disguise his voice/image in a hologram to launch a preemptive strike on the Republic’s higher-ups? Your average Clone Trooper before the Chip explanation would be putty in the hands of such “near-mindless obedience” being taken advantage of. Especially when you have fucking dumbasses like Dogma running around, a Clone Trooper that’s basically a Droid in mentality and mentally bluescreens when arresting Rex for going after Krell. Dogma’s character honestly, at least in hindsight, feels like it’s taking the piss out of the whole “Clones are meat droids with no free will and blindly conditioned to follow orders” when all is said and done. Especially since he still seems to be mentally glitching out after killing Krell.
But when Inhibitor Chips are added to an army that is advertised as thinking on its feet, having preprogrammed adadaptility, yet conditioned to adhere to the chain of command? You get a sort of insurance policy to ensure no hiccups occur. But even this didn’t seem to 100% work out as intended as Rex mentioned that “very few Clones were immune to the effects of Order 66” and that “it’s rare.” So it stands to reason that some Clone Troopers either had defective Chips, suffered some sort of injury/disfigurement that damaged the Chips, or even never had Chips (for any number of reasons that I can elaborate on as well) to begin with.
It is pretty hard to falsify the exact code, tone of voice and frequency on which the dude givig you orders would be in the first place.
Information warfare is a thing and the clones aren't brain dead.
And yet it seems like the depiction of the Clone Troopers (at least your average goon that isn’t a Null, ARC, Commando, or some outlier) that I’ve gathered seems to have them as being brain-dead drones with no higher thought than “shoot blaster at robot and make it fall down.” People here keep saying that Clone Troopers were characterized as being mindlessly obedient and made to follow any order that’s given to them by the chain of command.
So… yeah. They kind of are brain-dead fucking morons in order for every regular Clone Trooper to mindlessly go along with it and not have any thoughts in their head during Order 66 to do the job. It’s how they HAVE to be in order for this to make sense without some sort of neural implant overriding basic thought and common sense.
And in a case of cyber-warfare of this scale, having to trick an entire army into staging a coup if the CIS went through with a hypothetical scenario of “hijacking” the 150-ish Orders in place? You’ll want to make this plan WAY in advance and after a long-ass time of perfecting every aspect of your false holographic broadcast.
It gave the clones more agency when they *chose* loyalty to the Republic over loyalty to the Jedi - even if the choice was wrong.
There are many real, tragic examples of valiant and honorable soldiers fighting for the wrong thing; but few examples of soldiers being mind controlled directly.
Plus, it gave a better explanation as to the hatred of the Jedi. Imagine fighting alongside someone for years, and then finding out that they tried to betray it all just on the cusp of victory.
Betrayal hurts more than just being enemies from the start.
Come to think of it, I have to wonder how many Clones might’ve realized their wills weren’t entirely their own during Order 66 out if they’ve got inhibitor chips.
That’s a matter that is left rather ambiguous after Order 66, as many Clone Troopers don’t really feel… talkative after their Inhibitor Chips kicked in. Instead falling into the Kaminoan and fandom ideal of “brain-dead meat droids with no thoughts other than following orders.” At least that’s how it VISIBLY looks.
Those few Clone Troopers who had their Inhibitor Chips removed talk about being in a trance when they kicked in, either having complete blackouts in memory or unable to control themselves but forced to watch their actions. Rex and Wrecker fit into the “I have no mouth and I must scream” category while those such as Grey in Depa Billaba’s battalion fit into the “what did I just do” category.
Meanwhile the Inhibitor Chips also seem to affect some Clone Troopers in other ways beyond just immediately putting them into “meat droid mode” then deactivating. Crosshair and Styles (also in Depa Billaba’s battalion) genuinely thought that the Jedi were traitors and had zero compunctions about continuing to follow whatever Palpatine’s orders were. Including hunting down other Jedi or anti-Imperial insurgents with a brutality they’d otherwise never show. Coupled with the lucidity they experience and seemingly little regret of their actions (especially after Crosshair removed his Chip via unknown means) in the immediate time following Order 66? It seems to imply that certain Clone Troopers had their Inhibitor Chips still functioning or were deactivated. Which still allows for the interpretation of the fact that the Clone Troopers were now truly just following orders of their own volition.
At the same time, Rex ALSO mentions that a small number of Clone Troopers were (via unknown means) unaffected by their Inhibitor Chips kicking in. His words to the Bad Batch during Wrecker’s preparations for the removal of his Chip were:
> “You boys were lucky. Very few Clones were immune to the affects of Order 66. It’s… rare.”
How these Clone Troopers were immune is another matter entirely and introduces all manner of questions. Especially since the Inhibitor Chips include a “secondary function” of having Clones kill any of their brothers who refuses one of the 150-ish other Orders as traitors. This raises the possibility of either an “extra layer” of insurance on top of making sure one of the 150-ish other Orders goes relatively smoothly, whether all Clones got Palpatine’s transmission during the Great Jedi Purge, or even whether their Chips were somehow duds or they never had them to begin with. Especially since we see a small number of Clone Troopers maintain a sense of individuality that their Brothers don’t normally display, such as Wolfe keeping the customizations to his armor on Teth or Wilco’s brothers referring to him by name versus his CT-Number.
So ultimately? Make your own head-canon and extrapolate what you can from available information. Along with whatever interpretation you prefer based on how the Inhibitor Chips affected those Clones that had theirs activate. Were they just following orders of their own volition after Order 66, mindlessly brainwashed with no recollection of what happened, riddled with guilt following the execution of some of their closest friends, somehow left unaffected by the Inhibitor Chips but still went along all hunky-dory with what happened, or even never had them in the first place? Go with your gut and what you feel is best.
Although I don't consider the idea of chips to be the most creative narrative solution, it seems to me the most appropriate for a Sith like Palpatine. Between trusting the clones' indoctrination or having the guarantee of total submission through the chips, I have no doubt that a Sith would opt for the latter option.
I dunno, I’m on your side, if only because it works better from a logistical perspective. If we’re going with the old explanation, who trained the clones what Order 66 was? Who made sure they remembered it? Kaminoans? Okay, but Jedi were overseeing their training. They were involved. Something like that is…problematic, and would raise more than a few eyebrows.
It also means that none of the clones ever leaked this info, which as a veteran, I find utterly unbelievable. Stories are a huge part of military culture, as is bitching about stupid shit. Someone would have leaked this.
So for those reasons alone I find the chips a superior storytelling device.
The old explanation was that the clones had 150 contingency orders. One of which (Order 66) was intended to deal with the circumstance that \*a\* Jedi (or small group of them) betrayed the Republic. Its existence wasn't a secret, as others have pointed out. The unexpected part was Palpatine triggering it with \*all\* Jedi as targets.
See, now that’s just bad understanding of how a military works. The best militaries in the world want soldiers to think for themselves. Not about big picture things admittedly (at least among lower ranks), but small scale. You want an adaptable fighting force, once that can think on its feet, capable of doing more than just blindly following orders to the letter.
What you're saying seems pretty much the point of these contingency orders for the clones.
Clone units can be given objectives and allowed the initiative to determine how to accomplish those objectives at a tactical and perhaps operational level.
But there are logical concerns about guaranteeing that these purpose-created clone soldiers respect a chain of command on big picture things, up to and including civilian oversight by the Republic government. At least in part so that the clone soldiers don't organize themselves into attempting a coup.
But that also raises the question of building some checks and balances into the clones' respect for the chain of command. What happens if an individual or group somewhere in the chain of command decides to pull a Julius Caesar with the clone units under their command?
Wookiepedia lists a few of the clone contingency orders from Legends - [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Contingency\_Orders\_for\_the\_Grand\_Army\_of\_the\_Republic:\_Order\_Initiation,\_Orders\_1\_Through\_150](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Contingency_Orders_for_the_Grand_Army_of_the_Republic:_Order_Initiation,_Orders_1_Through_150) . At least 3 other ones deal with how the clones' chain of command changes under certain situations. Including an Order 65 that has similarities to Order 66. Order 65 tells clone commanders to detain the Chancellor - using lethal force if necessary - if a majority of the Senate (or the Senate's Security Council) decides that the Chancellor is unfit to issue orders.
Same here. I always thought it was one of the very few TCW lore additions that actually made sense. It certainly didn't contradict the movies, which is already a plus, and was absolutely needed to explain the TCW clones – who always acted like distinct individuals and not preprogrammed automatons – executing the order without rebelling against it.
Lucas said clones feels nothing when they're killing the Jedi, that the Jedi wAs blindsided by that and killed rather easily. There's just no way the clones could do that without inhibitors chip brainwashing them.
It make sense when the clones still act like a drone and just follow order rigidly back in prequel. But now that they're freshen out and got personality of their own, the Inhibitor chip make the most sense now imo.
And keep in mind. I don’t completely MIND the explanation of at least some Clone Troopers being in on it. Or that a few Clone Troopers weren’t implanted with Inhibitor Chips by the Kaminoans, either to “throw off” anyone who decided to use super-advanced brain scanning technology or to create a secret “control group” of Clones who’d still nonetheless follow Order 66.
For example, I can see Dogma executing Order 66 without a second thought. He’s the type of stooge to follow any orders, no matter how batshit insane and seemingly contradictory they were. He practically does a mental bluescreen of death when trying to stop Rex and company from going after Krell. And maybe even Echo in his early days, as he was a stickler for following orders and adhering strictly to regulation standards, would also do it. As would any Clone Trooper who never met a Jedi in their life or has but hated them.
But every single Clone Trooper? From the little kids who hadn’t seen a battle outside of simulations to the eldest of veterans who were close confidants of the Jedi with reciprocated friendships? It just doesn’t make sense and overrides a sort of “they were all in on it and not one decided to speak up about how all their brothers knew what was coming as well.”
The first 6 seasons anyway but after Disney took over they let him do whatever he wanted. Filoni was an animation director and directed several episodes of ATLA which is why George Lucas picked him for the director of the CW series.
After watching The Clone Wars, I grew to appreciate the inhibitor chip. They spent so much time personalizing the clone troopers that it would feel wrong if they all followed through on that order by will.
IMO, if we're going to criticise how clones were established in The Clone Wars, we might as well criticise how they were introduced in Attack of the Clones. All we knew about The Clone Wars before the prequels was that Luke and Obi-wan fought in it (at least on screen, don't know how much lore was established back then). The name sounded cool, you can visualize a bunch of the same looking person fighting in a war. But what we got was essentially just faceless storm troopers. People who follow orders just like the storm troopers do. But they're not the same characters? To the average viewer, the premise isn't exciting on its own.
I ended up liking what TCW did and fleshing out Rex and stuff, but still think about what The Cone Wars could have been if Lucas had his way back in the 70's. What if the clones were all force users? Sith? Aliens? I mean, there's no limit to that one line in A New Hope.
I feel like it's a pretty logical explanation for the idea introduced in AOTC that the clones were engineered to be compliant. Letting them have free will was too much of a liability; they needed to be more controllable than that.
You'd be surprised how many people I've seen being willing to die on the hill of "just following orders" indoctrination is better than biological/neurological contingency plans (which were already acting on a contingency plan as is) is better. The original premiere episode of the Bad Batch all the way up to the series finale seems to have reignited a lot of debate.
I mean, if people like the indoctrination-based thing? Good for them. I'm not going to sway them from thinking differently. But I've just never understood it. Maybe it's because I didn't "grow up" with the Legends Continuity despite liking it. Maybe it's just because I think the Clone Troopers (or at least the shlub who wrote the in-universe 501st Journal) was a dick.
Either way, I'm with you on the fact that there are bigger issues in the franchise. I'm still just as much of a Sequel-hater as nearly everyone else here and almost universally prefer Legends Continuity stuff versus most of the shlock put out by The Rat's EU.
People don’t like it because it does change the situation a lot. In episode two it is told to obiwan that the clones are completely obedient and will follow any order without question. A chip in the head changes that to just being forced follow orders rather than obedience which is they willingly follow the orders.
“Just following orders” feels like it has a lot more messaging to it than turning clones into effectively just droids. You have to choose to follow orders and the story is more interesting and meaningful when it’s about how those conditions arose than if they just had a chip to do it. The OG trilogy were about Vietnam, and the prequels have ties with the war on terror. The parallels for the war on terror are meaningless if what’s supposed to be American soldiers aren’t choosing to sign up and committing bad acts with good intentions and by just following orders, if they’ve been chipped to do it then it’s no longer on the soldiers as moral actors. Clones are treated as disposable but every time we get to know one they’re extremely human, just like how soldiers and veterans are treated like shit by the government but are all at the end of the day humans like the rest of us.
The EU has the phasing out of clones be about cost-effectiveness. They were expensive with short lifespans without an active conflict to kill them early. The Disney stuff adds in an element of indoctrination and control to imperial forces as a reason in addition to the costs. The implication that there wasn’t already that kind of indoctrination everywhere is really weird when what’s supposed to be a fascist government like the empire would have everyday reminders of it, not just through military service.
If the takeaways had been “we’re treating our military like disposable droids” and about how the military-industrial complex is benefitting certain politicians in unhealthy ways to keep the war going, if clones are supposed to be seen as a stand-in for American servicemen in a fairly nuanced way with more than enough diversity for anyone to relate to, if the Everyman in the story is ignored when it comes to the conflict just like how our government regularly ignores popular opinion on international incidents, how much is lost when all that intrigue and conversation is wiped out in favor of killing every metaphor and parallel that could make Star Wars critical of the system? Where is the meaning of Disney Star Wars? What messages is it trying to communicate and is it doing so in just a surface level virtue signaling way or is it trying to have a conversation? Why is it so interested in retroactively changing and removing messaging from stories told before them?
At the end of the day disney is the kind of company Star Wars would have been criticizing, it IS deeply entwined in the systems that be and is interesting firstly in maintaining the status quo, it would be one of those propaganda centers making imperial propaganda just like Disney did for the Allies in WW2. They may not consciously recognize it but that unwillingness to question power has been showing up and the inhibitor chips are a good example of it.
I actually have no problem with the inhibitor chips, I thought it was ok.
But my thinking before was that they were just programmed that way, there didn’t need to be an inhibitor chip because that was just the way they were made.
Clones in the PT itself were supposed to be indistinguishable organic droids, not so different from the real droids, who would follow orders instantly without question. That's part of the irony of the Clone Wars along with Palpatine controlling both sides. Then the EU perhaps inevitably made them individuals so perhaps this softening was inevitable too. But it's still a cop out.
Wait, this just occurred to me. So the Clone Troopers (as a whole at least) were meant to be battledroids in all but name. No higher thoughts aside from following an order given to them by the chain of command and killing the ACTUAL battledroids fielded by the CIS. No individuality, no emotions, no nothing aside from "shoot gun and make robot fall dead."
If this original iteration of Clone Troopers is more favored, then why do people want there to also be a statement about the whole "just following orders" defense and about how patriotic fervor can warp even good people? The Clones being mindless meat droids wouldn't otherwise allow for conventional morality, or ANY morality at all, to surface and they'd otherwise see the 150-ish other Orders as just command prompts.
It just now seems to me like people are wanting to have it both ways, either having the Clone Troopers not have any higher thought process beyond "kill" or every Clone grappling with their own internal feelings on the inevitable betrayal (whether they were aware ahead of time of Palpatine's true plan is irrelevant in comparison to what happened the moment Order 66 was triggered) of their commanding officers. There can't be any moral quandaries to be had when the Clones can't feel anything beyond "good soldiers follow orders."
So which is it? Are Clone Troopers meat droids who follow every order without higher thought aside than HOW to do it or are the Clone Troopers people who struggle with the atrocities they perform? If it's the former, then there's no tragedy as the Clone Troopers had no personality to begin with.
Well personally I never paid attention to the original EU clone stuff that much, and never got into TCW. So I've never really given much thought about them. Just soldiers on screen and in games. Played the original Battlefronts where they are just disposable player avatars and even that Age of Empires 2 clone where they're toy soldiers, but not Republic Commando much.
Because it changed the narrative and not for the better.
PT is a story of how hubris, moral decay and complacency can pave the way to the totalitarian regime. How doing otherwise right thing can lead to a wrong outcome.
The jedi and the republic compromised their morality. Their principles. And paid the price when Palpatine used it against them.
Instead of expanding the story and showing most of the clones obeying the command, some hesitating and some disobeying it, he made the story smaller with the mind control.
The good guys were compelled by the bad guy to do evil.
I didn’t get into the PT until after the TCW had been around for a while. If the clones were supposed to be flesh droids and meat shields I could see them following orders blindly. But even if that’s all they were supposed to be Palpatine wouldn’t chance some clones developing morality or independence -he’d have a fail safe.
I don't dislike it, but the inhibitor chip should be a known feature of the clones, not a secret. It's the way the kaminoans program specific instructions into their clones, as evidenced by the 150+ protocols in the chip.
It should be on the clone instruction manual - you can program your clone via the inhibitor chip, and in the event of a defect, you can do a hard reset.
I agree on this. The Inhibitor Chips should have Shaak-Ti, at least upon Fives presenting it to her, say "I know about the Chips and the fact that they can perform had resets but wasn't aware they could degrade" when the latter had Nala Se at gunpoint. Along with Nala Se then saying "cloners often don't tell their creations about such countermeasures out of fear of compromising their efficiency" in why Fives didn't know about it.
The idea of 150-ish Orders, meant to be used in a series of well-prepared and documented cases, also makes sense. And is something that also seems to (as you put it) be on the instruction manual a Jedi gets in commanding their Clone Troopers. The in-universe issue just comes down to how no one aside from the Emperor and his closest goons would know about how they would be misused.
The issue presented in some parts of the 501st Journal excerpts I posted in a reply to u/awesomenessofme1 gives the impression that some Clone Troopers (or at least that asshole) knew about it ahead of time. And that he wasn't alone in knowing it, with the impression being given that ALL Clone Troopers must know about it as well.
It's because a lot of people get off on the idea of the clones being essentially droids already for some reason...
Like I will genuinely never understand why people prefer essentially organic droids to the humans that they are. Yeah they were engineered to follow orders, and 99.9% of the time they do, but they are also real people because they are clones of a real person. After 3 years of nonstop war it's just delusional to think that they would all unquestioning kill their commanders who they have risked their lives for and who have risked their lives for them. The clones were better than the droids because they were people, not because they were slightly better droids. Order 66 working so well would simply not be possible without some sort of inhibitor chip or something like it, otherwise a lot of them just wouldn't do it
I prefer the chips. Makes it much deeper and more emotional. I never consumed any EU media outside of BF2 that covered this topic so the chips made a lot of sense to me and fit well when i first watched it
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You're misunderstanding the pre-TCW situation. Clones didn't *know* they were going to one day betray the Jedi. Order 66 was a contingency order to be used in the event that the Jedi turned on the Republic, and it wasn't a secret. When the order came down, they followed it, because that's what clones do. A legitimate order came from their legitimate superior, and they carried it out. I think what confuses a lot of people is the audio logs from Battlefront 2, which does seem to imply that the speaker knew what was about to happen. But this doesn't really line up with what the EU generally established.
Exactly this. There was even an order 65 saying the Supreme Chancellor has betrayed the Republic and is now public enemy #1, among many other contingencies. Sure, the intent was only ever for 66 to be utilized, but only one person knew that.
Yes. I read it this way in a book, I want to say Darth Plagueis but I’m probably wrong.
Never read that one, i think it was the Republic Commando books for me
It was one of the Commando books. It implied there were over 100 contingency orders, with orders to turn on the jedi and depose the chancellor just being two of many many possibilities.
> There was even an order 65 saying the Supreme Chancellor has betrayed the Republic and is now public enemy #1 Imagine if he’d said “65” by mistake lol probably should have moved that order number up or down by 10 to be safe.
65 would be pretty safe imo, seventy six could cause more problems. Also, "Just to cover all bases 65 is incase I go mad, and 66 is if the Jedi turn on us"
How would 65 actually work in practice with Palps holding emergency powers? He is the ultimate authority to the clones, he could just tell them “nah don’t do that” as long as he still holds his legal power. I suppose the Senate could remove him from power, but would 64 or 67 be the answer to that problem?
Good question, id assume the senate could iniate it, but i dont recall if there was an explanation to that level
That's the neat part - it wasn't supposed to. Order 65 was essentially political theatre so Palps could pretend to be all neutral.
the order overrides the chancellors powers. Otherwise it makes no sense.
So then what happens if in response to Order 66 the Jedi generals address the clones and say “The Chancellor is clearly insane to order this, we fought side by side for years to save the Republic. Execute Order 65.” Does that not override them? What happens if any top brass got ambitious and wanted palps out of the picture? Execute Order 65, boom vacant chancellor seat
No, because the chancellor is the supreme commander of the armed forces. Of course, and I would like to see it, the clones, or some of them, could betray the republic and go with the jedi, but that would be a treason against a direct order. Also, I assume certain order were reserved for certain people. So the order 65 would be followed only if issued by the senate. It is a government. It is a military, it is a chain of command. Separation of powers.
>I would assume This is part of why I prefer the inhibitor chips, flaws and all. At least it’s an answer without a ton of headcanon to fill the gaps, it’s just boring
"Order 65 stated that if a majority of the [Senate](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galactic_Senate/Legends) or the [Security Council](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Security_Council) declared that the [Supreme Chancellor](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Supreme_Chancellor/Legends)—at that [time](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Time/Legends) [Palpatine](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Palpatine/Legends)—was unfit for duty, the Chancellor was to be arrested or, if necessary, [killed](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Death/Legends)." Yes, like I assume Luke Skywalker needs to breath, even tho it is not specifically confirmed anywhere. Sure, I like head canon. And filling the gaps. Adn this inhibitor chip does not leave many. In fact, none.
In the source, the wording of Contingency Order 66 is subtly different from its immediate neighbors. 65 requires the consent of the Senate or the Republic's "Security Council" to execute, whereas 66 can be executed on the sole say-so of the Chancellor. 66 also requires "Jedi officers" to be "removed by lethal force", whereas 65 only authorizes lethal force "if necessary".
This is correct. Order 65 in effect is something akin to the 25th Amendment, including that it requires ratification from either the Senate or the Security Council (whatever that is, I'm assuming its something like the Cabinet or the National Security Council) to enact.
Not sure if it's a real thing but my head canon is 65 was incase Palpatine wasn't the chancellor. Quick way for him to power grab again. Someone other than chancellor has to be able to call for 65 so it would probably be Palpatine.
The order would have to be issued by someone else (presumably Mas Amedda) after an agreement with the rest of the senate
Yep. Clone indoctrination being so heavy and their “patriotism” so strong that they would immediately kill their Jedi leaders who they’ve bonded with after a single order is interesting, tragic, and draws parallels with real life. What’s interesting about inhibitor chips?
I guess going the way of inhibitor chips simplifies the "science" of the explanation. Essentially dumbs down the idea to a few words. You already have a similar idea with the fact that they are biologically engineered beings designed to be obedient. I'm thinking of the philosophy of something like Blade Runner here, like the replicants, they're not quite human, not quite a machine. How their minds work is a mystery to both themselves and their creators. They look like us but do they think like us? Do they feel like us? Combining and exploring that idea along with the very real world moral questions about soldiers following evil orders isn't exactly a brand new idea, but it's a lot more interesting to me than just saying it's a chip.
What's interesting about complete blind patriotism? What's even *realistic* about that, when you consider the millions/billions of individual clones, and the different decisions they might come to? Why isn't it better to showcase that the conditioning is really, really good, but not perfect, and there are cracks forming? Another thing TCW mentions is the Jedi encouraged creative thinking and individuality in the clones, which certainly became a catalyst for some clones questioning orders and even defecting, *despite* the extreme nature of their conditioning. Now *that's* interesting.
There's a tragedy where at a point where the war is almost over, the clones are suddenly forced to kill their generals, in a moment they became droids and they could do nothing but carry out the order If they had free will without the chips some clone would have spilled the beans, probably rex.
There were no beans to spill. These orders were not a secret, and the implication is that the vast majority of clones would have carried out any of them if lawfully ordered to.
Its unrealistic. Not even soviet drones would do that.
In BF2 we follow probably the most decorated clone battalion. It’s not unrealistic that they were closer to the Jedi and higher ups in the republic and therefore knew about tensions between palpatine and the Jedi. And once they got called back to coruscant it’s clear something is up. You don’t call your best soldiers back to the capitol in secret unless you’re planning a coup or expecting one
I never played those games but I never questioned that journal quote. It makes sense that groups of clones would get told what they're about to do.
One of the journals of BF2 explicitly states they knew. “In the waning hours of the clones wars a detachment of the 501st was discreetly transferred back to Coruscant. It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, what we were about to do.” And several of the ones before that hint at them knowing, too. Them knowing is fine when it comes to the EU relationships between Jedi and clones, which weren’t nearly as caring and friendly (as a generalization) when compared to current canon.
Ignoring Filoni's wet dreams, the clones didn't know they were killing the Jedi until after Palpatine executed the order. So the journal entry still holds up. Outside of Filoni's wet dreams, of course.
At the very least, the unknown Clone Trooper who recorded the in-universe logs of his journal in the 501st Legion seemed to imply he knew some details of Order 66's inevitability of being falsely triggered. With it also being implied that each journal entry was recorded just moments after some event being detailed occurred. The Trooper in questions mentions things ranging from how he and his brothers in the 501st pondered the idea of Jedi actually being killable, making sure that they were unaware of treachery, hoping that some were killed relatively quickly/painfully, and knowing about their discreet rerouting to Coruscant. > In the waning months of the Clone Wars, the 501st faced missions critical to the agenda of Chancellor Palpatine. When we arrived at the bombed-out ruins of Mygeeto, our Jedi commander believed we had been sent to take out a droid energy collector. What Ki-Adi-Mundi didn't know, however, was that our unit of the 501st was really after an experimental Mygeetan power source, that the Chancellor wanted for his superlaser. ***Keeping Mundi in the dark wasn't easy; the Jedi had become increasingly wary of the Chancellor's doings, and were on the lookout for the slightest hint of treachery. Just like the rest of them though, he never caught whiff of what was really going on, until it was far too late.*** > It's been said that the 501st got the best of the war. We also got the worst. On Felucia, the Seps dug their metal heels into the muck of that alien hellhole and dared the Republic to come in after them. So we did, only to be met with the month after month of flesh-eating diseases, shrieking nocturnal predators, and other sights that haunt me to this day. Cut off and for all, we knew abandoned by our superiors, ***our only hope was Aayla Secura, our Jedi commander. Without her iron will, none of us would have come out of that mess with our sanity, or our lives.When her death came, I hope it was quick. She earned that much.*** When the 501st was finally rotated out of Felucia, Aayla Secura made a point of seeing us off personally, calling us the bravest soldiers she had ever seen. ***It's a good thing we were wearing helmets because none of us could bear to look her in the eye.*** > What I remember about the rise of the Empire is... is how quiet it was. During the waning hours of the Clone Wars, the 501st Legion was discreetly transferred back to Coruscant. ***It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, what we were about to do. Did we have any doubts? Any private, traitorous thoughts? Perhaps, but no one said a word. Not on the flight to Coruscant, not when Order 66 came down, and not when we marched into the Jedi Temple. Not a word.*** And I know of how Order 66, along with 150-ish other Orders, was meant to only be used as a contingency. I'm familiar with this. But the bold parts in addition to the implication that the journal was written in the near-present of these in-universe events, gives the impression that HE at least knew. As did all members of the 501st, at least those who were transferred to Coruscant. To this, it does at least give me the feeling that the the Clone Troopers (or at least a decent number of them) were in on how Palpatine would use Order 66 to his advantage. At least before the Inhibitor Chip explanation.
When palpentine tells Cody to execute order 66. He doesn't explain it. How could Cody know what to do if they didn't know about it? And If all the clones knew about it how did the senate and jedi not?
Huh? I'm not sure you actually read what I wrote. It wasn't a secret. The old explanation was that there was a series of 150 contingency orders to be used in various scenarios, including the Jedi betraying the Republic. Nobody expected it to ever come into play, but it was known.
The jedi knowing about something like that and not caring is awful writing. Especially when they had been suspecting the sith lord was paplpentine or in the senate in ROTS
See, that's the thing. The Jedi were able to see past the outward veneer of "kindly well-meaning leader reluctantly accepting power" that Palpatine created. But they only penetrated one layer deeper. They thought he was a wannabe tyrant taking advantage of the war to centralize power in himself. But as far as they were concerned, if he was the Sith Lord, why would he need to hide himself? It's also worth noting that there was another order on the list that amounted to "the Chancellor has gone rogue, apprehend him if possible, kill him if necessary". Nobody expects these emergency orders to ever come up.
Bad excuses. The clones were created under mysterious circumstances already. The already have initial suspicion. And what the hell do you mean why does he need to hide it? The moment it's revealed multiple jedi masters go to kill him. He would have been dead if not saved by anikan. Count dooku also told them that a sith lord controlled the republic. And they did very much suspect it was possible sidous was a sith lord along with Mas Amedda. It also makes palpentine looking like a moron for leaving this up to chance. The whole reason clones are better than droids is because they can think. If clones followed orders like "go jump off that cliff" and "kill all the generals you've been fighting alongside of for years" how are they different than droids. And there is examples of clones disobeying in the EU so don't hit me with that. TCW is not a good show but this retcon makes more sense than everyone just did it because they are loyal to the republic. Everyone is so legends good everything else bad that they refuse to the new Canon could do anything better
Because "villain usurps legitimate power and uses it to manipulate billions" is a much more interesting story than "villain has a button that makes everyone obey him"
Didn’t he already have that with old canon, considering clones would obey him regardless?
The difference is the chain of events. Why could Palpatine order it? Because the Jedi legitimately try to assassinate him. You can argue Windu wouldn't go through with it but that's what it looks like. In one case, Dark Sidious wins through evil ways. In old Canon, Palpatine won by using the system the Jedi protected against themselves. Looks the same but the theme is completely different and the second one fits with how Lucas wanted to tell the death of democracy through democracy.
I hate the inhibitor chip retcon because not only does it completely erase any deeper character traits of individual clones and turns them into generic good guys it also doesn’t make sense how they stayed loyal to the Empire after they got mindcontrolled.
IMO it’s a lot more badass if they’re simply following orders rather than being turned into mindless killing machines.
Exactly, it was just kind of a cool concept that unquestioning loyalty was bred into them. It adds a certain creepiness to them. It reminds me a bit of the Borg in Star Trek. At first they were just a single hive mind, and that was really cool and disturbing, and then they introduced the Borg Queen and made her their leader. The Borg Queen is... fine, I guess, but now they're all just zombies who follow her will and that basically ruined what made them interesting/terrifying.
In First Contact they did try to show she was just an embodiment of the Collective and not its leader, an avatar much like Skynet's hologram in Terminator Salvation, but then her bath in the acid gas disabled all the other drones, too, which confirmed the opposite.
Yeah, I didn't mind it as much in First Contact because it's such a good movie, haha. But afterwards they should've just said that the Borg Queen was some experiment the Borg were trying out to help them fight humanity or something. And since it didn't work they got rid of her and they're back to their normal hive mind collective. At least that's what I would do if I were in charge of Star Trek, lol.
Following through with such an order will made them an actual mindless killing machines that can't think for themselves though. Sidious not taking chance with the clones made more sense don't you think so? no free will = less chance for failure. Of all things people hate from newer Star Wars EU, hating the inhibitors chip baffled me the most. They explored both outcome of chip/ no chip in the EU and I don't think both are bad at all. To see that people actually hating it is kinda weird for me
I think there is an ironic tragedy in them being basically turned into droids after the war against droids. It also makes more sense and is more intelligent from palpatines perspective as sinply hoping indoctrination and loyalty would be enough to turn on their generals. I believe before the change there were clones who disobeyed it which would have been a significant issue.
The thing to me is, I don't mind believing that a bunch of Clones DID disobey the orders. I think the stories we're shown in CW of Plo Koon and Obi Wan becoming friends with their troops always felt like outliers. The clones straight up say to Plo Koon "we're expendable", and added to the fact that Jedi don't really fear death in general I wouldn't be surprised if most generals *did* find the clones expendable. So I think Rex just saying "fuck that" works fine. And Cody choosing orders over loyalty is fine too. It's just what he valued more. 99.9% of the Jedi are killed by their clones, and the rest are mopped up by Vader which is more or less what Palpatine planned from the getgo.
Still though I don't think its like Palpatine to leave that kind of thing up to chance when you can give them a biological implant. One issue I do have though is more how they were written afterwards, it felt like they were unsure whether they were reset personality wise or if it just forced them to to that specific order. I think thats a result of bad batch not wanting to make the enemies to friendly or innocent though but it is a bit boring.
I think the inhibitor chips are a shameless cop out. I much prefer it when they're just soldiers following orders. That being said, I do understand the argument that the inhibitor chips "make more sense" but the idea that highly disciplined trained soldiers all needed a chip to force them to carry out a tough order is pretty silly
Most soldiers are not going to kill a fellow soldier in their squad just because they got a phone call saying 'they are totally a traitor, no I have no evidence or anything, shoot them in the back and shoot to kill. Do ***not*** take them alive under ***any*** circumstances they have to die in the field and not be taken into custody that is an order' from a guy claiming they are totally President Biden.
This is false equivalency on so many levels and you know it.
Its really not, the clones most likely to have been in a position to take a jedi out would have been the unofficial honor guard that was the squad they would fight alongside when leading from the front and personally partaking in battle. The ones that had been personal acquaintances to them and fought shoulder to shoulder alongside them. It would have been very rare for a jedi general to have been surrounded by troops that weren't part of their permanent command and favored personal squad. Besides: > Most soldiers are not going to kill ***their immediate commanding officer in the field*** just because they got a phone call saying 'they are totally a traitor, no I have no evidence or anything, shoot them in the back and shoot to kill. Do ***not*** take them alive under ***any*** circumstances they have to die in the field and not be taken into custody that is an order' from a guy claiming they are totally President Biden. Still holds true anyway. Being told to take out someone from your own faction is kind of a big deal and kind of the sort of thing you definitely want to be sure is a real legal order to cover your own ass, Especially if that someone is another member of the military who is supposed to be your field commander. You don't just get a casual call from an old man in an identity concealing robe that you think sounds like the Commander in Chief telling you to go kill them and then unquestioningly ventilate their skull within seconds of the call ending.
It is, because the clones were not humans. They were genetically engineered tools.
Much less a guy who now has skin wrinklier than an old man’s ballsack, has a feature-concealing robe over his head, is suddenly speaking in a hoarse/gravelly voice, and calls out of the blue with no warning. Not to mention the fact that, in presumably every other Clome Troopers’ recording save for Cody’s, is speaking on what sounds like a prerecorded message. Obedience may have been drilled into a Clone Troopers’ mind via flash-training in their pods and further education after they were “born.” But mindless stupidity is not. Especially when being pitted against an army literally built on mindless stupidity. I can see idiots like Fox and Dogma following Order 66 without questions if Inhibitor Chips weren’t shoved in their skulls. They’re the perfect shlubs for doing this sort of shit. But EVERY Clone Trooper, from your youngest Shiny fresh off of Kamino to the most battle-hardened veteran like Rex? A cybernetic implant crammed into the brain that essentially “resets” someone via mental indoctrination and brainwashing *en masse* is the only way I could think of this working.
He's not "a guy". He's the commander in chief of the entire army and he gave a direct order to his subordinates.
That comment was referring to a hypothetical scenario of where, if such a widespread broadcast of one of the 150-ish Orders was broadcast to all Clone Troopers, a REALLY bad thing could happen if the wrong person sent the message. Especially if Order 66 was triggered to kill the Jedi *en masse*, Order 65 was used to detain all Senators due to being judged as unfit for governing, or Order 67 to detain (possibly even kill) the Supreme Chancellor himself. If such a broadcast could be faked by someone who either got wind of the 150-ish Orders and decided to use them against the Republic's command structure? They'd be in a SHITTON of trouble. Especially since Palpatine never seemed to bother adding in a "clause" for Order 66 to respond to only his voice and with someone that looked like him on a holographic broadcast. Something we sort of see happen in one of the Star Wars comics produced under The Rat's EU. A former Padawan uses his connections and observations to determine that the Inquisitorius' military forces, that being the Purge Troopers, were all some of the last Clone Troopers to be produced and had stupidly had their Inhibitor Chips still in versus being removed. He uses a Jedi Mind Trick coupled with saying "execute Order 66" to turn the Purge Troopers against their masters, a strategy that worked and even resulted in the death of at least one Inquisitor. Now imagine this happening in the days of the Republic, but where any of the three Orders I just mentioned was said by someone using various methods (faking a hologram, false audio broadcasts, a Force-derived Mind Trick, or something else) to cripple the Republic from the inside. Or if the Jedi decided to use Order 67 to detain Palpatine via Coruscant Shock Troopers being turned against him. My comment was brought up with the fact that Palpatine doesn't look or sound like his usual self, with a possibility being raised that if he could look/sound like that but still have Order 66 go off? Then anyone could conceivably do it.
The chip existed so palps plan has a 100% chance of succeeding, the clones couldve done it without the chips but i doubt it because they arent droids
execpt not really cause every major clone could totally break free if they tried hard enough
Except they couldnt because only afew clones knew about the chips...
Because it’s already answered in AOTC “They are totally obedient, taking any order without question. We modified their genetic structure to make them less independent than the original host.”
That always seemed more like a sales pitch being said while showing off a product. Overhyping something as being bigger-er and better-er than whatever counterpart is being made. Especially when the shtick about how Kaminoans are MAJOR perfectionists is brought into the picture and this likely how the Clone Troopers were envisioned/projected on paper. Besides, it doesn’t really make sense when the Clone Troopers are “totally obedient” and are made for “taking any order without question.” The nascent CIS is using an army made up of robots running off of programming. The most effective countermeasure against an army of robots, true to any military that runs off of common sense and realism, is that you’ll want an army of people who are able to think on personal initiative and strategy versus just being the cartoonish depiction of lemmings in that they’ll walk off a cliff or a woodchipper if told to. One robot army against another robot army isn’t going to cut it, especially since it seems like the Republic or Palpatine should’ve just made Battledroids of their own if they wanted mindlessly obedient drones.
I don’t understand your framing of this as a conspiracy theory the clones were in on. Order 66 was a contingency order for if the Jedi turn bad. That doesn’t mean all the clones are in on a plan to kill the Jedi. Likewise if order 67 were that every clone needs to make a ham sandwich, that wouldn’t mean that every clone were in on a conspiracy to make ham sandwiches.
I mean, it technically IS a conspiracy theory. Order 66, along with the 150-ish other Orders in place for the Clone Troopers, was an otherwise-benign contingency measure to be used in the event of a Jedi going rogue. Palpatine simply decided to misuse Order 66 and use it to assassinate those who would oppose him as part of his rise to power and his ideology as a Sith Lord. The issue is that, as I highlighted above to u/awesomenessofme1 above, at least the Clone Trooper who wrote the in-universe journal knew about how Order 66 would be used by Palpatine (and his goal of secretly securing the energy crystal on Mygeeto) to become Emperor. And each entry seems to have been written almost immediately after such in-universe events that the 501st Legion took part in. So that guy at least knew what was coming.
Before TCW, the 501st was *Palpatine’s* private Legion, and didn’t get attached to Vader until after the Declaration of New Order. It’s not too hard to believe that, out of every legion in the GAR, they’d be particularly loyal & have access to additional information.
They are Called Vader's fist before TCW. IIRC, they are called that in BF2, during the 501st journals.
Yes but in legends before TCW, the first time Anakin led the 501st was Operation Knightfall. Legends Anakin did not get knighted until the final year of the war and when he did, he mainly served with Obi Wan and the 7th Sky Corps. After Order 66, the 501st was transferred to his command.
Palpatine didn’t misuse Order 66, that was his specific end goal. Heck, the entire clone army is pretty much built around that. The other 149 Orders are pretty much more or less smoke screens and red herrings. Sidious is the culmination of 1000 years of Sith and practically his entire life was dedicated to that moment. So do you really think that he accidentally chanced upon a random order in the clone army handbook and just decided to roll with it?
For me, the inhibitor chips proved that the writers for TCW went way too far in personalizing all the clone troopers. They wrote themselves into a corner and then made up some bullshit to save themselves. Which is exactly what they did with Ahsoka and her trial. They made her too important of a character and didn't want to kill her so they made everyone look bad instead.
Because it removed a level of moral complexity mirrored by the real world and replaced it with a pretty childish copout. The clones having full autonomy and carrying out Order 66 was a pivotal moment in the EU. They were celebrated and shown as heroes and saviors alongside the jedi; but they were still child soldiers bred for war and following the chain of command. They reacted in that situation not as they were perceived but exactly as they were raised. This is mirrored in our real world of soldiers of the third Reich or any number of other examples following genocidal orders even if they knew they were morally repugnant. It's a far more mature and gritty take on a situation that introduces a moral grayness to the setting. Many likely did have issues with it, but like good soldiers they kept their mouth shut and did as they were commanded. Likely destroying themselves internally in the process. This is shown a bittttt in the EU. Compare something like that to "ohhh actually they are all great guys and it was a chip!!!"
The chip makes them less human.
It takes away a lot of the complexity of the clones and removes their inner emotion and reconciling doing their job vs loyalty (or hatred) to their commanders. The Clones didn’t know they were gonna turn on the Jedi, they trained for it in case the Jedi went rogue and betrayed The Reublic, and they were presented with a difficult choice to make in the moment: Loyalty to whom? Is this Jedi truly a traitor? What would you do? It also just kinda lumps many clones as default “good guys” who only went bad because of the chips. It’s personally more interesting to me to see a clone being presented as being faithfully loyal to the Republic, and now confronted with an immoral order. Where does their allegiance truly lie, etc. I also just generally dislike the depiction of clones being “good guys,” they were born and bred to be cannon fodder and front line grunts and the more interesting Clones like Spar and Alpha were kinda of neutral morally. Also, brainwashing is sort of just a lame writing trope imo.
See, this brings up a problem I didn't address in my post. The EU wasn't even consistent with itself in regards to how it treated the clones. Some works had the clones being actively in on the fact that they were definitely going to backstab the jedi at some point (some of them even had them actively relish the thought, because Karen Traviss hated jedi), some works treated them as not having the free will to disobey orders in the first place and not feeling the least bit of conflict, vanishingly few went with what you have just posted. Off the top of my head, the only EU story I can think of that went with anything like that was Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader having one single squad of soldiers go 'hold the hell up, that doesn't sound right, Roan Shryne is someone we fought alongside no way he could be a traitor' and let a jedi go with the rationalization that it must be some sort of Separatist trick instead of a legitimate order. There was no big dramatic agonizing personal choice about having to choose between their duty to the Republic and the chain of command vs their camaraderie with the jedi they had fought side by side on the battlefield with in which the clones happened to pretty universally pick their 'duty' as taking precedent. Honestly, if anything, something along the lines of them actively having their brains get jacked seems like one of the only ways to both have clones who are humans with free will and explain how those same humans more or less universally made the exact same choice with no deviation. Palpatine let them have free will so that they could bond with the jedi and make the betrayal even more surprising when it was sprung since there was nothing for the jedi to sense was amiss but also made sure he had a way to revoke that free will so that they would definitely be good little puppets and do what he wanted when the time came to slide the knife in. Its a kind of 'covering all your bases' play that makes sense as something someone who could afford absolutely no mistakes would do when he had to both trick the jedi into seeing the clones as people who were on their side and could be trusted yet also make sure they were tools that would perform the function they were meant to fulfill when the time came instead of refusing to betray their friends. The tragedy lies in how Palpatine so completely made tools of them to suit his scheme and how there was basically nothing they could do about it because it was almost impossible for them to even see the strings he had them dangling from to fight against them when he forced them to kill people who were genuinely their friends.
For the sake of clarification, what’s this about Karen Traviss hating the Jedi? I know that she wrote the *Republic Commando* books and that it expanded further on ARC-Troopeda and Clone Commandos while introducing the Nulls.
She thought they were a weird creepy fascist cult and held them responsible for the fact that the Republic was using an 'army of slaves' as if they had a choice in the matter instead of making use of the army the Republic government gave them (its not like they could have raised their own separate army or something). Man, nothing has made me realize how long its been like trying to find some sources talking about it to help me explain, lol.
I mean, I'm definitely not going to say that the Jedi committed a major compromise of their morals by taking the Clone Troopers as fighting forces. And the idea of them being a "slave army" isn't necessarily wrong on paper. These are sapient, free-willed beings bred in tanks on literal shelves for no other purpose than to fight in a war they had no say or choice in. Along with the issue of how all but the oldest Clone Troopers (in chronological terms at least) aren't even TEENAGERS by the time that the Clone Wars concludes due to their pre-engineered accelerated aging. They're child-soldiers in all but name. But you're still right in that it's not like the Jedi deliberately made the Clone Army in secret on their own initiative, either to stage a legit coup or as their own personal fighting forces. And those who took up positions of command over Clone Troopers sometimes didn't necessarily have a choice in the matter either. Ahsoka (as an example) was a 14-15 year old teenager who was given a military title both due to the fact that she was old enough to be a Padawan and competent/charismatic people were needed to lead the charge. While she might've ultimately said "yes" to taking up the title of Padawan-Commander in the Clone Wars, the Jedi Order isn't necessarily the type of faction to take rejection well and has a strict code of adhering to your elders' wishes. The point I'm trying to make is that while the Clone Troopers technically ARE slaves in a fashion, it's not like the Jedi as a collective (there were even some Jedi who hated the idea of taking up arms as generals) approved of it universally. They were basically thrust into a war due to having a great deal of respect in the Republic and acting as a peacekeeping order of monks with magic powers that have energy blades which can cut through almost anything. Everyone here, except for Palpatine, is kinda caught in an awkward situation where no one has any outright say in beyond "let's make the best of a bad situation then figure out what to do next." Also, I'm not trying to be a dick in asking about Karen Traviss' opinion on the Jedi. Or if I seemed rude by making my points above. Sorry if I was on both counts.
Its hardly your fault, I brought her up first. So any 'damn I am getting old its really been over a decade since she was actually a relevant writer to the setting' reaction I had when trying to dig up some citations is my own fault. I guess the thing that always stuck out to me most was how she treated Jaina Solo in Legacy of the Force. Like, just complete and total character assassination turning a war veteran who has decades of combat experience into a 'pampered jedi princess' for Boba Fett and his mando buddies to dunk on and mock for being so soft and lame compared to the awesome mandos. [https://gist.github.com/Symbitic/31b9c4d3b6cdfb3f55be3dd39e44645f](https://gist.github.com/Symbitic/31b9c4d3b6cdfb3f55be3dd39e44645f) ctrl+f 'jedi are useless' to get down to the part that goes over how Traviss bends over backwards and rewrites EU history to make excuses to dunk on jedi because she seriously just hates them so much she can't keep it out of her writing. Down to just plain petty things like acting like Jaina wouldn't know something as basic as how to work a comlink because 'jedi are too reliant on the force. Oh, and keep reading down even after it gets to 'welcome to mandalore'. It veers back into her treatment of the jedi order in the sections after it. Also, this did have one of her old quotes that I had been trying to find if you just want to read her own view. > **Karen Traviss** posted: >I see Vader as a tragic character who's been betrayed by everyone, and ***I can't help thinking of the Jedi as self-serving unelected elitist spoon-benders making whoopee on Republic taxpayers' credits. It's an iconoclastic journo world-view. Believe me, Order 66 was long overdue.*** I have a couple of Jedi that I don't want to shoot on sight, but they're my own creations, so I could make them a little humbler and more aware of the consequences they create for others. And she isn't exaggerating here for effect, to be clear. She really and truly honestly believed the jedi deserved to be genocided. That is how much she hated them. The only ones who didn't deserve to die were her own pet jedi she created who 'realized the truth' about the order and denounced it for being the force of evil she thinks it was.
Wow. That's... just an absolute load of bullshit. Not you, but about Karen Traviss' opinions on the Jedi (including the certified badass that is Jaina Solo) and her opinions that "Order 66 was long overdue." And that the only Jedi who she personally felt wouldn't be victims of such a sentiment would only be her super-special OC's. And maybe Jaina Solo WAS a "Jedi Princess" in terms of being related to the most powerful Force-Sensitive being to ever exist (one to challenge not one but TWO fucking gods of the Force) and held a great deal of respect in the New Republic and New Jedi Order. But she EARNED that title through a combination of her own badass-ery as a powerful Jedi Knight, an intelligent young woman, and (like you said) a veteran of several galaxy-spanning/threatening wars. With one of the last 3 involving technology-hating pain fetishists from beyond the galaxy with a heavy resistance to the Force. The title of "princess" was earned many times over and should've ideally been used in the most positive and awe-inspiring sense possible for someone like Jaina Solo. Not to be used in the sense of describing her as some pampered idiot who could be dunked on by a bunch of overly-cocky warriors who make a living killing people for Credits and boasting about how "honorable" they are because of ancient codes that prohibit peace in almost any form. Now looking back since I saw your comment, I saw that people had MAJOR problems with the *Republic Commando* books (or at least Karen Traviss' depictions of the Jedi Order) and didn't like how she propped up the Mandalorians and even Clone Troopers as Mary Sues. Yet in today's day and age, they're now seen as the bibles for how Clones should be and what Mandalorians are like. I don't understand. And while it may seem rude or even controversial to say it, it seems like this new favoritism comes more from nostalgic value and a preference for the Legends Continuity versus the quality of the materials in it. And don't get me wrong. I'm NOT a fan of The Rat's Sequels by any means and I have my own... reservations about some things in the current EU's canon coupled with the complete scrapping of the Legends Continuity. But it should seem like a universally objective view of what's there should based on quality exist versus simply valuing/liking something because it's older.
Back to this topic again, I see. [I tried to break things down once before in an attempt to address it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/s/BbmoVdivOG). I think a problem with TCW fans is that the show immediately forces you to accept things that ought to be considered utterly nonsensical and incompatible with basic film continuity (even before we touch on CWMMP EU lore). TCW really exists in its own universe where strange things happen. Like Ahsoka simply existing as Anakin's random never-before-mentioned Padawan, or various people acting completely out of character, or Maul somehow returning, or silly transforming Force Gods of Mortis existing, etc. Among the strange things going on is that the clones are portrayed *radically* differently from the original material. No longer are clones the wet droids that they were intended to be as part of a Sith plan to stab the Jedi in the back. Now they're all very humanised and even *regular* clones (rather than just the Commando-tier clones of CWMMP lore) are capable of featuring their own unique personalities and desires. In truth, the late retcon of clone mind control chips *only* makes sense in the TCW universe which has already taken a *very* different path from film and CWMMP EU lore. Due to the nature of the show, clones have been portrayed as heroic figures. To soften the blow of Order 66 for the intended audience, the mind control chips are introduced to make them out to be tragic victims rather than the uncaring wet droids that they are *supposed* to be. That's basically the long and short of it. TCW takes major creative liberties that are rather perplexing. You can like what you want. I understand that some people grew up on TCW and to some it was even their first exposure to Star Wars. Sadly this has led to a lot of misguided faith being placed in the extremely middling ability of Dave Filoni. But for my money, if you want to explore the Clone Wars era, I think you're best off with the CWMMP. Particularly the Republic comics and a few novels.
It’s why I view the animated shows and even live action shows as being in the same timeline as the movies. I like the inhibitor chips personally but they don’t square with what’s in the films as much as most other stuff you see.
I'm not overly fond of the PT films, but I see TCW as a distinct point at which a new universe begins and stretches all the way through the shows and ST films. Basically, the point at which Ahsoka is invented creates a clear breaking point where we're in a new world divorced from the PT and OT films. Not to mention the EU, of course.
So you don't like it because it's part of something George Lucas worked on and you like the non canon lore someone else made before George introduced the chip.
George being involved or not is largely irrelevant. My interests lie with whichever story I feel handled the material better. George originally wrote the clones as wet droids. It's right there in his AotC and ROTS script. Further supported by the ROTS novelisation which he approved of and assisted with its writing. But George unfortunately is also well-known for messing with his own work. He's made a lot of special edition edits over the years. Some being worthwhile and others very much not being remotely worthwhile at all. TCW comes swinging out the gate with some absurd retcons which make no sense at all with George's full support. Namely the existence of Ahsoka. It's not a black and white case of "George good" or "George bad". He's involved with both good and bad decisions.
So in the old lore there were other contingency orders in case Palpatine went crazy, the senate went crazy etc so everyone knew order 66 was a thing but they never thought it would be activated. The inhibitor chip really cheapens the canonical clones that resisted order 66. Rather than resisting decades of subliminal programming and peer pressure to do what is right it’s just lol I took out the chip that made me do it. Chips really reduces the agency of the clones and it’s far more sinister that without the chip they essentially made a choice to follow order 66 rather than being forced to
Soldiers get alot of head injuries. Which would A) Make the chip faulty. B) Show up on any X-ray scan on the injured soldiers. Which would expose the whole plot to kill the jedi.
Based on the fact that the Inhibitor Chips could only be found by Kaminoan technology, customized scanning equipment, and the Force by people who ONLY knew about (or at least suspected) their existence? No one would’ve really suspected anything was up, especially when Tup acruelly had a defective/malfunctioning/degraded/fucked-up-to-Hell-and-back Inhibitor Chip and medics couldn’t examine what was wrong with him in the field. You don’t exactly want to perform neurosurgery in anywhere but a sterile and controlled environment unless absolutely necessary. Anyone who saw, by some freak chance, an Inhibitor Chip was either meant to (such as physicians on Kamino) or CIS personnel who captured a Clone Trooper for study. The latter would likely see it as just a brain tumor of some type and ignore it. Especially since the only 2 depictions we’ve had of the Inhibitor Chips had them looking like weird masses/blobs of flesh.
1) That's not how it works, no. The chip would show up on any scan, no matter what. You know kinda like the scan machines you see, whenever you travel. 2) Yes, ideally you want to perform neurosurgery in a hospital. But if it's a matter of life and death, it's just done wherever is possible. Which would happen all the time during a galactic war. 3) It wouldn't be a freak chance, soldiers get head injuries all the time. So basically any medic would see a TON of these chips. Especially since they are implanted in every single clone. 4) You don't ignore brain tumors...
It didn’t seem to work when Ahsoka used a fully functional medical bay (which included a sensor array for the brain) aboard the *Tribunal*, a *Venator*-class Star Destroyer. She had to rely on Droid-based asssistance (in addition to the medical droid already present) and the Force itself to find Rex’s Inhibitor Chip. Tech also had to build a customized and handheld brain scanner from scratch to use Rex’s Chip-less brain as a “standard” for what the scanner should look for. And even this was implied to still be a difficult process. All this implies that, without specialized Kaminoan medical equipment and/or people who know about the Inhibitor Chips, you wouldn’t find them under normal circumstances. They may either be made to be undetectable by conventional means or are “disguised” in some manner to “blend in” with normal grey matter. Or a third option exists that the Inhibitor Chips are buried REALLY deep in the brain and can’t just be found on a cursory inspection/quick procedure. And I’ll definitely concede about how brain trauma of any type could “prematurely activate” an Inhibitor Chip. The CIS was already implied to be tinkering around with biological warfare specifically for Clone Troopers, as Grievous and Ventress had a brief discussion on what their orders were concerning some of Jango Fett’s splooge during the Second Battle of Kamino. And the episode that originally featured the Inhibitor Chips had some discussions about rumors concerning anti-Clone viruses that the CIS may have been developing. Not to mention all sorts of run-of-the-mill dangers in the galaxy and its myriad of planets such as radiation, toxic chemicals, lethal bacteria, and microorganisms that love eating squishy brain meat. All this could trigger an Inhibitor Chip to go haywire like in Tup’s case or simply no longer function as intended (if at all). And the reason I brought up the “tumor part” in my last thing was also concerning the cadavers of Clone Troopers or POW’s the the CIS took. A prime example of the latter being Echo after he was nearly killed at The Citadel. Whether it was the Techno Union’s mad scientists or some medical droids in the CIS, they likely but unwittingly saw Echo’s Inhibitor Chip when shoving all those cybernetics in his brain. They must have somehow damaged it or even totally removed it, as he didn’t seem affected in any capacity during Order 66 being called in. So no one outside of those few people aware of the Inhibitor Chips (Palpatine, Count Dooku, some Kaminoan scientists, Omega, and MAYBE a relatively small number of Clone Troopers) would understand what they are if they saw one either attached to a Clone’s brain on a slab or on a microscope slide.
Because without the inhibitor chip it was more real. It came down to soldiers - soldiering, they were following orders, because that's what they do. With the inhibitor chip they somewhat lost their humanity, in my opinion. They were just another bot, just in a fleshy outer shell.
*Why is it less interesting if the evil wizard cast a spell completely removing all moral agency from the king's guard?*
After experiencing the many storytelling possibilities surrounding biological/mental manipulation of clones in the Dune novels, I can tell you without a doubt that being able to flip a switch with the chips in SW is just plain lazy. On top of that, Lucas seemed to be suggesting that the reason the clones were so successful against the Jedi was because there was no animosity or anger in the clones. Palpatine could've told them to dig a latrine, and they would've had the same response because they lack the ability to distinguish the moral difference between those two orders.
I think you’ve got a point about Order 66 working so well because there was no animosity or anger or emotion behind the action. Jedi seem to be particularly responsive to emotion/intent over action. The clones are just following an order. A side thought that just occurred is the clones could have also been put into an altered mental state when Order 66 is triggered. A trigger could be included in the broadcast that puts the clones into a fugue state, that makes them follow orders without any free will or emotion.
Wouldn't there also be a complete lack of animosity and/or anger (aside from small subconscious thoughts that a Clone Trooper might be experiencing) if the Clones were falling back to their "programming" from the Inhibitor Chips? They were basically just fleshy robots at that point, with even your average CIS Battledroid probably being more emotional at the moment. And sure. I can believe that a Clone Trooper that's never met a Jedi in his life and is just fresh out of training wouldn't see the moral difference in following one order then another. But guys who've known the Jedi as friends (and more in Darman's case) for three years and even admired a few of them? They'd still see no problem killing them without a thought or even double-checking to see if Order 66 was somehow forged/triggered falsely?
We have many IRL examples that inhibitor chips would not be needed for such an order. They may be clones but it makes them less than human that they have to be forced to show the darker sides of humanity.
Are you familiar with the banality of evil? It's often used to describe how most Nazis weren't ideological fanatics, sociopaths or sadists. How incomprehensible crimes can be committed for the most mundane reasons. The book *Ordinary Men* delves into this concept in horrifying detail as they cover a reserve police battalion's participation in the "Holocaust by Bullets." Only a few of the soldiers fit the popular conception of the bloodthirsty Nazi. Most of them knew damn well that what they were doing was horribly wrong, but they came up with all kinds of reasons why they had to participate. They didn't want the rest of their squad to bear the burden of the gruesome mass executions. They rationalized that Jewish people were an existential threat to their country. Some convinced themselves that quickly killing the children was a kindness. Others were simply doing their duty and parroting whatever justifications their superiors gave them. Those were ordinary former civilians — the clones are anything but that. They were bred and raised to be the perfect soldiers. The clones existed to serve the Republic, and their lives revolved around following orders — and Palpatine was the ultimate authority. The strongest bond that most clones had was to each other. There were millions of them, most of whom never significantly interacted with a Jedi. It's not hard for me to believe that they would have followed an order to kill the Jedi when it came in the context of responding to an attempted coup, which is how it was typically portrayed. You mention the 501st logs, which do imply that at least some clones had prior knowledge that Order 66 would be used. This doesn't really mesh with other depictions in the EU, and the idea that all clones knew what would happen doesn't really fit with their portrayal in TCW — it seems impossible that none of the clones would have alerted a Jedi. However, if we put aside how it would be kept a secret, the clones carrying out Order 66 is still plausible. The Felucia log states: >"When the 501st was finally rotated out of Felucia, Aayla Secura made a point of seeing us off personally, calling us the bravest soldiers she had ever seen. It's a good thing we were wearing helmets, because none of us could bear to look her in the eye." This shows that they know how wrong the plan is, but let it happen anyway. For what it's worth, I don't think that the depiction in Battlefront II logs makes Order 66 unrealistic. Even if we assume that the game's version of events was definitive for the EU, it was following an elite group of clone troopers that would ultimately be used to storm the Jedi temple. The average clone might not have any idea what was planned. Ultimately, I think that the inhibitor chips make the betrayal much more hollow. I found the idea of the clones we met in TCW betraying the Jedi to be much more emotionally impactful when it was their choice to follow orders.
mind control is a shitty plot device on the same level as amnesia. that's about it for me.
The clones never spoke up about Order 66 because of one critical issue, an issue that (ironically) is specifically called out in TCW by Slick: "It's the Jedi who keep my brothers enslaved." The Jedi, by accepting command of what is effectively an army of slaves, compromised their ideals. Order 66 is that coming back to haunt them. The inhibitor chips only deny the clones this agency.
That's just one guy. A dude who also was a hypocrite in getting his own brothers killed by betraying the Jedi on Cristophsis, either in the demolitions he triggered at the base or the parts of the battle that didn't go the way that were planned to. And with him also admitting that, while he claims it wasn't a motivating factor, he was still offered money but never clarified if he TOOK it. And the idea of Order 66 being used by Palpatine to "come back to haunt" the Jedi is still preserved with the Inhibitor Chips. If anything, it actually makes it even more disturbingly poetic. The Jedi accepted an army of slaves bred to serve in a war they had no say in, compromising their ideals. Then the Jedi, after years of convincing the Clone Troopers of their individuality and their status of people, were now slaughtered by the same beings they saw as equals but now slaves of those they opposed.
It's stupid, lazy, bullshit. It erases the cost of betrayal, betrayal has to STING, it's rough, it's tragic, painful. Using chips reduces the clones to mere droids, the choice isn't theirs anymore. You don't get to do that, the droids lost because they couldn't keep up with the decision making and peer bonding aspects of camaraderie that the clones exhibit They're humans, they care about each other, they risk their lives with the knowledge that they HAVE lives to risk in the first place, they go through hell for one another, no droid could.That's why it's so painful, they CHOSE to obey order 66 If it's out of their control then they're not human anymore, which invalidates every reason why they prevailed over the droids I just mentioned, you can't have it both ways, it's weak, and spineless and immature writing, trying to have their cake and eat it too. You can't make a bold choice like order 66 just to scramble and undo it to salvage fan favorite characters and make them no longer responsible. It just ruins it completely
>We modified them to be less independent then the original host. I don't understand why there really needs to be an explanation beyond what was said in AOTC. The idea of genetic engineering an army without morality, free will, pity, etc.. has been around a while in science fiction.
I like the inhibitor more, it's way more tragic that the clones lost their will and attacked their friends, friends that told them they are unique and not machines. Also makes more sense how they just killed without any thought before pulling the trigger
Another level of tragedy is how the Clone Troopers felt after all was said and done. We hear the perspective of Wrecker and Grey about how they had a sort of "out of body experience" when their Inhibitor Chips kicked in and were horrified to learn what they did. Meanwhile others such as Crosshair and Styles genuinely believed that the Jedi WERE traitors while their actions were necessary/justified. Either way, the Inhibitor Chips take away agency of free-thinking sapient beings who were treated as people and equals by all but the most asshole-ish Jedi. Their minds and personalities were changed forever then reduced to either horrified trauma victims of what they were forced to do or permanently "reconditioned" to believe what they did was right.
In neither scenario were the clones aware of the inevitability of Order 66. They never knew the "secret" so they couldn't give it up.
There's a quote in Tales of the Empire which kind of implies otherwise, confusingly.
They dreamed about it constantly in TCW. But they thought it was a deficiency and didn't openly discuss it among themselves.
I mean it makes more sense before TCW where clones weren’t really characters. After they’re established as being real people either they’re brainwashed or they never cared about the Jedi in the first place and the past 6 seasons were all a waste of time. It doesn’t make sense for Cody to mindlessly betray Obi Wan unless he literally had no choice. TL;DR the chips are the only way for both the clones and the Jedi to not be dicks
Personally it can be both: the Clones were both conditioned and coerced. Considering that this is the only chance Palpatine can pull off bringing Sith domination and killing his faction's ancient rival, he needs to get this right. Its always good to have a backup contingency just in case.
The 2 most important quotes about this from the movies IMO "Tbey are totally obedient, taking any order without question" - Kaminoan cloner "The time has come, execute order 66" - Chancellor Palpatine The idea that the clones could follow any order was known to them. Palpatine did not have to claim that the jedi were staging a coup to order the clones to kill the jedi.
The clones had a bunch of orders in place should someone try to grab power illegally, including if Palps did (it was either order 65 or 67). They were just following the orders that they had known about for a long time, assuming that the Jedi were trying to take power of the republic. The point was that they are brainwashed and not that much better than droids in terms of them just following whatever order they were given. It was a cheap cop out, and I am really surprised with how much of the Star Wars fan base like it, though here more people seem to be against it.
I haven't watched it in a couple of years, but in AOTC, wasn't it explained that the clones did not their own will, that they were specifically created without fear and to carry out orders? I'll have to rewatch it. And I do have the book, so I'll pull that out, too.
Pre TCW clones were their own people, but they were also soldiers with an utter obiedience and blind loyalty to the Republic breed into them. If they suddenly got the emergency Order that the schmuck who's been leading them into battle is a traitor (And thus might kill you and your brothers) he is gonna get fragged for sure. Which is why RC's, ARC's and some other clones didn't follow through. Because they figured that their Jedi commanding officer wouldn't do that. The Chips are a rather stupid explanation, because they assume that each and every single Clone would for some reason have any sort of connection to the Jedi. Which is just... eh? Even in TCW you usually have the Commanders/ARC's following Jedi more closely and the rank and file getting killed because the tactical genius in charge decided to attack a zone without any fucking cover.
See, I always saw the Inhibitor Chips put in as a sort of “insurance policy” for the Clone Troopers having one of the 150-ish other Orders (66 notwithstanding) not being followed. The Nulls, Alphas, Commandos, and “Promoted ARC’s” would have enough independence to question it and necessitate the Inhibitor Chips kicking in if needed. But there’s always the chance that one Clone Trooper, either because he’s thorough in wanting to constantly double-check orders/regulations or displays a disposition for cleverness/craftiness in battles, who may question any of the 150-ish Orders being declared. What if some Clone insurgents who have grievances with the Republic’s chain of command (Jedi, Chancellor, Senate, etc.) decide to trigger an Order as a rebellion? What if a Super-Tactical Droid used specialized technology to disguise his voice/image in a hologram to launch a preemptive strike on the Republic’s higher-ups? Your average Clone Trooper before the Chip explanation would be putty in the hands of such “near-mindless obedience” being taken advantage of. Especially when you have fucking dumbasses like Dogma running around, a Clone Trooper that’s basically a Droid in mentality and mentally bluescreens when arresting Rex for going after Krell. Dogma’s character honestly, at least in hindsight, feels like it’s taking the piss out of the whole “Clones are meat droids with no free will and blindly conditioned to follow orders” when all is said and done. Especially since he still seems to be mentally glitching out after killing Krell. But when Inhibitor Chips are added to an army that is advertised as thinking on its feet, having preprogrammed adadaptility, yet conditioned to adhere to the chain of command? You get a sort of insurance policy to ensure no hiccups occur. But even this didn’t seem to 100% work out as intended as Rex mentioned that “very few Clones were immune to the effects of Order 66” and that “it’s rare.” So it stands to reason that some Clone Troopers either had defective Chips, suffered some sort of injury/disfigurement that damaged the Chips, or even never had Chips (for any number of reasons that I can elaborate on as well) to begin with.
It is pretty hard to falsify the exact code, tone of voice and frequency on which the dude givig you orders would be in the first place. Information warfare is a thing and the clones aren't brain dead.
And yet it seems like the depiction of the Clone Troopers (at least your average goon that isn’t a Null, ARC, Commando, or some outlier) that I’ve gathered seems to have them as being brain-dead drones with no higher thought than “shoot blaster at robot and make it fall down.” People here keep saying that Clone Troopers were characterized as being mindlessly obedient and made to follow any order that’s given to them by the chain of command. So… yeah. They kind of are brain-dead fucking morons in order for every regular Clone Trooper to mindlessly go along with it and not have any thoughts in their head during Order 66 to do the job. It’s how they HAVE to be in order for this to make sense without some sort of neural implant overriding basic thought and common sense. And in a case of cyber-warfare of this scale, having to trick an entire army into staging a coup if the CIS went through with a hypothetical scenario of “hijacking” the 150-ish Orders in place? You’ll want to make this plan WAY in advance and after a long-ass time of perfecting every aspect of your false holographic broadcast.
It gave the clones more agency when they *chose* loyalty to the Republic over loyalty to the Jedi - even if the choice was wrong. There are many real, tragic examples of valiant and honorable soldiers fighting for the wrong thing; but few examples of soldiers being mind controlled directly. Plus, it gave a better explanation as to the hatred of the Jedi. Imagine fighting alongside someone for years, and then finding out that they tried to betray it all just on the cusp of victory. Betrayal hurts more than just being enemies from the start.
Come to think of it, I have to wonder how many Clones might’ve realized their wills weren’t entirely their own during Order 66 out if they’ve got inhibitor chips.
That’s a matter that is left rather ambiguous after Order 66, as many Clone Troopers don’t really feel… talkative after their Inhibitor Chips kicked in. Instead falling into the Kaminoan and fandom ideal of “brain-dead meat droids with no thoughts other than following orders.” At least that’s how it VISIBLY looks. Those few Clone Troopers who had their Inhibitor Chips removed talk about being in a trance when they kicked in, either having complete blackouts in memory or unable to control themselves but forced to watch their actions. Rex and Wrecker fit into the “I have no mouth and I must scream” category while those such as Grey in Depa Billaba’s battalion fit into the “what did I just do” category. Meanwhile the Inhibitor Chips also seem to affect some Clone Troopers in other ways beyond just immediately putting them into “meat droid mode” then deactivating. Crosshair and Styles (also in Depa Billaba’s battalion) genuinely thought that the Jedi were traitors and had zero compunctions about continuing to follow whatever Palpatine’s orders were. Including hunting down other Jedi or anti-Imperial insurgents with a brutality they’d otherwise never show. Coupled with the lucidity they experience and seemingly little regret of their actions (especially after Crosshair removed his Chip via unknown means) in the immediate time following Order 66? It seems to imply that certain Clone Troopers had their Inhibitor Chips still functioning or were deactivated. Which still allows for the interpretation of the fact that the Clone Troopers were now truly just following orders of their own volition. At the same time, Rex ALSO mentions that a small number of Clone Troopers were (via unknown means) unaffected by their Inhibitor Chips kicking in. His words to the Bad Batch during Wrecker’s preparations for the removal of his Chip were: > “You boys were lucky. Very few Clones were immune to the affects of Order 66. It’s… rare.” How these Clone Troopers were immune is another matter entirely and introduces all manner of questions. Especially since the Inhibitor Chips include a “secondary function” of having Clones kill any of their brothers who refuses one of the 150-ish other Orders as traitors. This raises the possibility of either an “extra layer” of insurance on top of making sure one of the 150-ish other Orders goes relatively smoothly, whether all Clones got Palpatine’s transmission during the Great Jedi Purge, or even whether their Chips were somehow duds or they never had them to begin with. Especially since we see a small number of Clone Troopers maintain a sense of individuality that their Brothers don’t normally display, such as Wolfe keeping the customizations to his armor on Teth or Wilco’s brothers referring to him by name versus his CT-Number. So ultimately? Make your own head-canon and extrapolate what you can from available information. Along with whatever interpretation you prefer based on how the Inhibitor Chips affected those Clones that had theirs activate. Were they just following orders of their own volition after Order 66, mindlessly brainwashed with no recollection of what happened, riddled with guilt following the execution of some of their closest friends, somehow left unaffected by the Inhibitor Chips but still went along all hunky-dory with what happened, or even never had them in the first place? Go with your gut and what you feel is best.
Although I don't consider the idea of chips to be the most creative narrative solution, it seems to me the most appropriate for a Sith like Palpatine. Between trusting the clones' indoctrination or having the guarantee of total submission through the chips, I have no doubt that a Sith would opt for the latter option.
I dunno, I’m on your side, if only because it works better from a logistical perspective. If we’re going with the old explanation, who trained the clones what Order 66 was? Who made sure they remembered it? Kaminoans? Okay, but Jedi were overseeing their training. They were involved. Something like that is…problematic, and would raise more than a few eyebrows. It also means that none of the clones ever leaked this info, which as a veteran, I find utterly unbelievable. Stories are a huge part of military culture, as is bitching about stupid shit. Someone would have leaked this. So for those reasons alone I find the chips a superior storytelling device.
The old explanation was that the clones had 150 contingency orders. One of which (Order 66) was intended to deal with the circumstance that \*a\* Jedi (or small group of them) betrayed the Republic. Its existence wasn't a secret, as others have pointed out. The unexpected part was Palpatine triggering it with \*all\* Jedi as targets.
See, now that’s just bad understanding of how a military works. The best militaries in the world want soldiers to think for themselves. Not about big picture things admittedly (at least among lower ranks), but small scale. You want an adaptable fighting force, once that can think on its feet, capable of doing more than just blindly following orders to the letter.
What you're saying seems pretty much the point of these contingency orders for the clones. Clone units can be given objectives and allowed the initiative to determine how to accomplish those objectives at a tactical and perhaps operational level. But there are logical concerns about guaranteeing that these purpose-created clone soldiers respect a chain of command on big picture things, up to and including civilian oversight by the Republic government. At least in part so that the clone soldiers don't organize themselves into attempting a coup. But that also raises the question of building some checks and balances into the clones' respect for the chain of command. What happens if an individual or group somewhere in the chain of command decides to pull a Julius Caesar with the clone units under their command? Wookiepedia lists a few of the clone contingency orders from Legends - [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Contingency\_Orders\_for\_the\_Grand\_Army\_of\_the\_Republic:\_Order\_Initiation,\_Orders\_1\_Through\_150](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Contingency_Orders_for_the_Grand_Army_of_the_Republic:_Order_Initiation,_Orders_1_Through_150) . At least 3 other ones deal with how the clones' chain of command changes under certain situations. Including an Order 65 that has similarities to Order 66. Order 65 tells clone commanders to detain the Chancellor - using lethal force if necessary - if a majority of the Senate (or the Senate's Security Council) decides that the Chancellor is unfit to issue orders.
Same here. I always thought it was one of the very few TCW lore additions that actually made sense. It certainly didn't contradict the movies, which is already a plus, and was absolutely needed to explain the TCW clones – who always acted like distinct individuals and not preprogrammed automatons – executing the order without rebelling against it.
Lucas said clones feels nothing when they're killing the Jedi, that the Jedi wAs blindsided by that and killed rather easily. There's just no way the clones could do that without inhibitors chip brainwashing them. It make sense when the clones still act like a drone and just follow order rigidly back in prequel. But now that they're freshen out and got personality of their own, the Inhibitor chip make the most sense now imo.
And keep in mind. I don’t completely MIND the explanation of at least some Clone Troopers being in on it. Or that a few Clone Troopers weren’t implanted with Inhibitor Chips by the Kaminoans, either to “throw off” anyone who decided to use super-advanced brain scanning technology or to create a secret “control group” of Clones who’d still nonetheless follow Order 66. For example, I can see Dogma executing Order 66 without a second thought. He’s the type of stooge to follow any orders, no matter how batshit insane and seemingly contradictory they were. He practically does a mental bluescreen of death when trying to stop Rex and company from going after Krell. And maybe even Echo in his early days, as he was a stickler for following orders and adhering strictly to regulation standards, would also do it. As would any Clone Trooper who never met a Jedi in their life or has but hated them. But every single Clone Trooper? From the little kids who hadn’t seen a battle outside of simulations to the eldest of veterans who were close confidants of the Jedi with reciprocated friendships? It just doesn’t make sense and overrides a sort of “they were all in on it and not one decided to speak up about how all their brothers knew what was coming as well.”
Lazy writing that randomly came out of nowhere. Just like everything else in The Filone Wars.
Filoni wasn't a writer for TCW.
Bull. Shit.
The first 6 seasons anyway but after Disney took over they let him do whatever he wanted. Filoni was an animation director and directed several episodes of ATLA which is why George Lucas picked him for the director of the CW series.
Everything I see online says he was a writer in the first 6 seasons as well.
IMDB lists him as writing only 13 episodes and only dialogue.
After watching The Clone Wars, I grew to appreciate the inhibitor chip. They spent so much time personalizing the clone troopers that it would feel wrong if they all followed through on that order by will. IMO, if we're going to criticise how clones were established in The Clone Wars, we might as well criticise how they were introduced in Attack of the Clones. All we knew about The Clone Wars before the prequels was that Luke and Obi-wan fought in it (at least on screen, don't know how much lore was established back then). The name sounded cool, you can visualize a bunch of the same looking person fighting in a war. But what we got was essentially just faceless storm troopers. People who follow orders just like the storm troopers do. But they're not the same characters? To the average viewer, the premise isn't exciting on its own. I ended up liking what TCW did and fleshing out Rex and stuff, but still think about what The Cone Wars could have been if Lucas had his way back in the 70's. What if the clones were all force users? Sith? Aliens? I mean, there's no limit to that one line in A New Hope.
I feel like it's a pretty logical explanation for the idea introduced in AOTC that the clones were engineered to be compliant. Letting them have free will was too much of a liability; they needed to be more controllable than that.
The inhibitor chip idea is fine to me. There are much much much bigger issues in the franchise than that
You'd be surprised how many people I've seen being willing to die on the hill of "just following orders" indoctrination is better than biological/neurological contingency plans (which were already acting on a contingency plan as is) is better. The original premiere episode of the Bad Batch all the way up to the series finale seems to have reignited a lot of debate. I mean, if people like the indoctrination-based thing? Good for them. I'm not going to sway them from thinking differently. But I've just never understood it. Maybe it's because I didn't "grow up" with the Legends Continuity despite liking it. Maybe it's just because I think the Clone Troopers (or at least the shlub who wrote the in-universe 501st Journal) was a dick. Either way, I'm with you on the fact that there are bigger issues in the franchise. I'm still just as much of a Sequel-hater as nearly everyone else here and almost universally prefer Legends Continuity stuff versus most of the shlock put out by The Rat's EU.
People don’t like it because it does change the situation a lot. In episode two it is told to obiwan that the clones are completely obedient and will follow any order without question. A chip in the head changes that to just being forced follow orders rather than obedience which is they willingly follow the orders.
“Just following orders” feels like it has a lot more messaging to it than turning clones into effectively just droids. You have to choose to follow orders and the story is more interesting and meaningful when it’s about how those conditions arose than if they just had a chip to do it. The OG trilogy were about Vietnam, and the prequels have ties with the war on terror. The parallels for the war on terror are meaningless if what’s supposed to be American soldiers aren’t choosing to sign up and committing bad acts with good intentions and by just following orders, if they’ve been chipped to do it then it’s no longer on the soldiers as moral actors. Clones are treated as disposable but every time we get to know one they’re extremely human, just like how soldiers and veterans are treated like shit by the government but are all at the end of the day humans like the rest of us. The EU has the phasing out of clones be about cost-effectiveness. They were expensive with short lifespans without an active conflict to kill them early. The Disney stuff adds in an element of indoctrination and control to imperial forces as a reason in addition to the costs. The implication that there wasn’t already that kind of indoctrination everywhere is really weird when what’s supposed to be a fascist government like the empire would have everyday reminders of it, not just through military service. If the takeaways had been “we’re treating our military like disposable droids” and about how the military-industrial complex is benefitting certain politicians in unhealthy ways to keep the war going, if clones are supposed to be seen as a stand-in for American servicemen in a fairly nuanced way with more than enough diversity for anyone to relate to, if the Everyman in the story is ignored when it comes to the conflict just like how our government regularly ignores popular opinion on international incidents, how much is lost when all that intrigue and conversation is wiped out in favor of killing every metaphor and parallel that could make Star Wars critical of the system? Where is the meaning of Disney Star Wars? What messages is it trying to communicate and is it doing so in just a surface level virtue signaling way or is it trying to have a conversation? Why is it so interested in retroactively changing and removing messaging from stories told before them? At the end of the day disney is the kind of company Star Wars would have been criticizing, it IS deeply entwined in the systems that be and is interesting firstly in maintaining the status quo, it would be one of those propaganda centers making imperial propaganda just like Disney did for the Allies in WW2. They may not consciously recognize it but that unwillingness to question power has been showing up and the inhibitor chips are a good example of it.
I actually have no problem with the inhibitor chips, I thought it was ok. But my thinking before was that they were just programmed that way, there didn’t need to be an inhibitor chip because that was just the way they were made.
Clones in the PT itself were supposed to be indistinguishable organic droids, not so different from the real droids, who would follow orders instantly without question. That's part of the irony of the Clone Wars along with Palpatine controlling both sides. Then the EU perhaps inevitably made them individuals so perhaps this softening was inevitable too. But it's still a cop out.
Wait, this just occurred to me. So the Clone Troopers (as a whole at least) were meant to be battledroids in all but name. No higher thoughts aside from following an order given to them by the chain of command and killing the ACTUAL battledroids fielded by the CIS. No individuality, no emotions, no nothing aside from "shoot gun and make robot fall dead." If this original iteration of Clone Troopers is more favored, then why do people want there to also be a statement about the whole "just following orders" defense and about how patriotic fervor can warp even good people? The Clones being mindless meat droids wouldn't otherwise allow for conventional morality, or ANY morality at all, to surface and they'd otherwise see the 150-ish other Orders as just command prompts. It just now seems to me like people are wanting to have it both ways, either having the Clone Troopers not have any higher thought process beyond "kill" or every Clone grappling with their own internal feelings on the inevitable betrayal (whether they were aware ahead of time of Palpatine's true plan is irrelevant in comparison to what happened the moment Order 66 was triggered) of their commanding officers. There can't be any moral quandaries to be had when the Clones can't feel anything beyond "good soldiers follow orders." So which is it? Are Clone Troopers meat droids who follow every order without higher thought aside than HOW to do it or are the Clone Troopers people who struggle with the atrocities they perform? If it's the former, then there's no tragedy as the Clone Troopers had no personality to begin with.
Well personally I never paid attention to the original EU clone stuff that much, and never got into TCW. So I've never really given much thought about them. Just soldiers on screen and in games. Played the original Battlefronts where they are just disposable player avatars and even that Age of Empires 2 clone where they're toy soldiers, but not Republic Commando much.
Because it changed the narrative and not for the better. PT is a story of how hubris, moral decay and complacency can pave the way to the totalitarian regime. How doing otherwise right thing can lead to a wrong outcome. The jedi and the republic compromised their morality. Their principles. And paid the price when Palpatine used it against them. Instead of expanding the story and showing most of the clones obeying the command, some hesitating and some disobeying it, he made the story smaller with the mind control. The good guys were compelled by the bad guy to do evil.
Because it literally doesn’t make any sense.
I didn’t get into the PT until after the TCW had been around for a while. If the clones were supposed to be flesh droids and meat shields I could see them following orders blindly. But even if that’s all they were supposed to be Palpatine wouldn’t chance some clones developing morality or independence -he’d have a fail safe.
I don't dislike it, but the inhibitor chip should be a known feature of the clones, not a secret. It's the way the kaminoans program specific instructions into their clones, as evidenced by the 150+ protocols in the chip. It should be on the clone instruction manual - you can program your clone via the inhibitor chip, and in the event of a defect, you can do a hard reset.
I agree on this. The Inhibitor Chips should have Shaak-Ti, at least upon Fives presenting it to her, say "I know about the Chips and the fact that they can perform had resets but wasn't aware they could degrade" when the latter had Nala Se at gunpoint. Along with Nala Se then saying "cloners often don't tell their creations about such countermeasures out of fear of compromising their efficiency" in why Fives didn't know about it. The idea of 150-ish Orders, meant to be used in a series of well-prepared and documented cases, also makes sense. And is something that also seems to (as you put it) be on the instruction manual a Jedi gets in commanding their Clone Troopers. The in-universe issue just comes down to how no one aside from the Emperor and his closest goons would know about how they would be misused. The issue presented in some parts of the 501st Journal excerpts I posted in a reply to u/awesomenessofme1 gives the impression that some Clone Troopers (or at least that asshole) knew about it ahead of time. And that he wasn't alone in knowing it, with the impression being given that ALL Clone Troopers must know about it as well.
It's because a lot of people get off on the idea of the clones being essentially droids already for some reason... Like I will genuinely never understand why people prefer essentially organic droids to the humans that they are. Yeah they were engineered to follow orders, and 99.9% of the time they do, but they are also real people because they are clones of a real person. After 3 years of nonstop war it's just delusional to think that they would all unquestioning kill their commanders who they have risked their lives for and who have risked their lives for them. The clones were better than the droids because they were people, not because they were slightly better droids. Order 66 working so well would simply not be possible without some sort of inhibitor chip or something like it, otherwise a lot of them just wouldn't do it
I prefer the chips. Makes it much deeper and more emotional. I never consumed any EU media outside of BF2 that covered this topic so the chips made a lot of sense to me and fit well when i first watched it