Lit A/V Clone Wars Continuity Discussion (Spoilers Allowed)

I forgot that Padme would get arrested in the US for violating minimum wage laws.

 

Thank yourself all you want; we're not fooled.

 

Picturing those situations in my head was hilarious. I fell off my chair!

 

He wasn't providing campaign contributions to the Separatists, he was providing war material and funding that required much more than just "Lott Dod" to be involved - oh, and let's not forget the representative for the other "neutral" power, the IGBC, that was also implicated.
I recognize it for what it is - much like the "Separatist Congress", it was a victim of the "Saturday morning cartoon" mentality of the series - maintain the status quo.

That the vast number of TF battleships was ludicrous in the wake of their "neutrality". And again, Lucas was the one who believed this to be true... which reflected in the CWAS by the non-appearance of any TF battleships in the later seasons. They were replaced by the odd-looking "Separatist transport".

The films implied that there was some sort of Separatist Council that represented a cabinet of power for Count Dooku. CWAS implied that the Separatist Council.... wait did the Separatist Council even appear once? Or get mentioned?
Ah, CWAS. You've shown us the shortest distance between two points is a crazy, random zig-zag in all directions.

 

If the TF is selling these droids, is selling their warships any different?

 

Most governments would tend to frown on that sort of behavior. But again, Lucas thought it important enough to mandate the removal of the ships.

 

Well, neutrality in both World Wars meant that a country traded with both sides. The US was supposedly neutral prior to Pearl Harbor but was sending warships to the British Empire and the Soviet Union through the lend-lease act. But Germany didn't declare war on the US until Japan had done so.

I'm honestly not sure where this expectation that a corporate entity stop doing business with the other government in a civil war comes in, especially when the Trade Federation primarily did its business in the Outer Rim prior to the war.

 

Well, there was that precedent 10 years prior and all.

And it's not a separate entity. It's a member of the Republic with Senate representation.

But again, considering that the Separatist Council's existence was apparently nil between movies, I suppose it doesn't matter in the slightest.

 

I dunno, that the Republic decided to give votes to corporations is a separate problem altogether. The Trade Federation wasn't a nationalized corporation until Palpatine became Emperor.

 

In the context of the series, I'm okay with the TF being an apparently neutral entity. It's a very interesting idea. The only problem I have is that it makes reconciling older CW material with the new series very awkward. But by itself? A great idea.

 

What does it make awkward? I agree with it being an interesting idea, and I simply don't remember what it clashes with.

 

The open way Lucrehulks were depicted as the main Separatist vessel during the early (both IU and OOU) Clone Wars is the hardest part to reconcile without some creative retconning. It's obvious that they eventually rebel openly, going by ROTS, but there's still the early material.

 

The Trade Federation is a galaxy-wide organization with holdings on literally thousands of systems and planets, likely with local relationships and subsidiary business dealings with a multitude of different groups and franchises. Do you think the money Lott Dod was funneling to the Separatists was coming from literally every single local planet- and system-based sub-division of the Trade Federation? You think there was no plausible deniability whatsoever built into Dod's transactions? In fact, I haven't seen the episode in a while, but Wookieepedia at least seems to imply that most, if not all, of the money he was pledging came from Dod's personal fortune in addition to that of the elite of Cato Neimoidia. Lott Dod's actions would have put a big dent in the Trade Federation pretension to neutrality, but it wouldn't have completely shattered the delicate balance that must have been maintained if the Repbulic's economy was to survive.

Thats the question you're not answering. What was the Republic supposed to do, seize and nationalize every Trade Federation franchise in Republic territory based on whatever legally-dubious information they, but not the public at large, were privy to? That would look real good. It's not like the perception that the Republic was tyrannically overbearing in its regulation of business and restriction of free enterprise was what contributed to thousands of systems seceding in the first place. I'm sure that going to thousands of worlds that were still nominally loyal to the Republic, and doing the equivalent of seizing and taking over their businesses based on what could only be legally proven to be the corruption of a single representative, would have gone over real well in the galaxy at large, and wouldn't have driven even more systems away, as well as squandering any hope of reaching a peace settlement with all those Trade Federation officials who were clearly tepid enough in their leanings to not want to completely break from the Republic.

Remember, the Trade Federation isn't like a normal business like we have on Earth. They're a massive galactic megacorporation which basically rules over enough planets to qualify for Senate representation. If some of the planets in their sphere of influence and their associated Federation division break off and aid the Separatists, that's no reason to punish every other planet that has their own local relationship with Trade Federation and whatever completely separate officials do business there.

And just because someone's senator is corrupt, doesn't mean they're corrupt. Especially given that Dod is a political operator, not a businessman. There's plenty of legal separation and plausible deniability at work to shield most of the rest of the Federation from the consequences of his actions, especially since it's likely that a significant portion of the Federation actually wasn't a provable conspirator in the scheme to fund the droid factory.

That was at the very end of the war. TCW takes place before that. Who knows how things changed? It has no bearing on TCW one way or the other. But I'm pretty sure a trade organization with a fleet of ships plentiful enough to service an entire galaxy could lose the number of freighters we see in RotS and plausibly explain it away as materiel diverted by their admitted extremist elements or ships bought legitimately on the open market and converted to war use.

And you're right, it seems like we mostly saw Banking Clan frigates in TCW as I recall, with a smattering of command ships that looked like Federation cruisers. I couldn't tell you the real reasons for this, but I doubt it was as a result of Lucas trying to sloppily retcon in a group's neutrality, because the Banking Clan was neutral according to TCW as well. Why did we see so many Banking Clan ships then? It doesn't fit the M.O. of this supposed Lucasian conspiracy.

edit:

But that's probably because at that point RotS hadn't come out yet, so artists and writers didn't have as many CIS ships to choose from.

In-universe, I wouldn't expect a hastily converted freighter to show up in a lot of battles as the war progressed and better, more dedicated warships were designed and built.

 

Which was addressed - where? What about the machinations of Clovis? Anakin boards a ship, leaves, and that's the end.

One wonders what you believe happened to Techno Union holdings within the Republic. Or the Corporate Alliance for that matter.

Again, Filoni provided this information. It had never occurred to me, frankly, to notice the lack of TF battleships or the meaning of the new Separatist transport ship. Whether or not you believe him is, I suppose, up to you.

 

According to Wookieepedia, KDY and Blastech seceded from the Techno Union at the start of the war, while CEC and Sienar supplied weapons to both sides. I'm not sure that the Corporate Alliance had a presence in what was "Republic space" once the CIS established itself, but I dunno.

 

It can be explained by the fact that the Republic had to make allowances for the Federation due its economic importance to the Republic. The Commerce Treaty of 1647 mentioned in "Sphere of Influence" seems to be a long-standing bill guaranteeing the Trade Federation neutrality in any conflict. That means the Senate would have to make an active effort repeal that act and deprive the Federation of the right to do trade in Separatist space.

Like I mentioned, the only reason the Federation hadn't thrown its full open support behind the Confederacy, likely taking its systems in Republic territory with them, was because it was more profitable to remain neutral. Take away that option, and suddenly you push them all the way over to the Seppies. Congratulations, Senator, thanks to your commitment to unflagging moral integrity, you've just legislated on behalf of expanding your enemy's territory and logistical backing while simultaneously crippling the Republic's economy. This will go over smashingly well with your constituents, not to mention your new Separatist overlords when they inevitably take over the galaxy with the help of their newfound overwhelming advantage.

e:

So, basically, the same situation that was going on with the Trade Federation. Certain elements remained loyal to the Republic, others broke away. Only in this case, KDY and BlasTech probably weren't working both sides, as far as I know. Maybe because they weren't as influential and powerful as the Trade Federation, and probably because ideologically they were more aligned with the Republic.

Okay, I looked it up, and it looks like he did say that. It sounds like Lucas just changed his mind about how much the Lucrehulks were representations of the neutral business aspects of the war as opposed to the belligerent Separatist aspect of it. Lucas is known to change his mind about things. It doesn't mean his intent wasn't always that the businesses profited from both sides, or that this doesn't make sense. It means he changed his mind in a minor way about how best to represent this fact visually.

 

Oh, I've got scores of material from the EU discussing the matter - there's an HNN article, for instance, where the Republic indeed nationalizes industries, or where the Republic invaded and occupied 'neutral' IGBC planets - but this was all pre-CWAS. Unfortunately, the EU made the somewhat illogical assumption from the movies that the Trade Federation was on the side of the Separatists, much like many of us incorrectly assumed that Han had shot Greedo first.

A shame that no one told Naboo about it.

 

Post them. I'm sure that any industries the Republic nationalized were ones that slipped up and gave them clear legal justification to do so. And I'm sure that any "neutral" planet they invaded had given the Republic clear and legal justification to consider them to have violated their neutrality.

At least in the case of Muunilinst, Separatists had been building droid factories and munitions factories on the planet. That's a big neutrality no-no, just so you know.

What do you mean? Are you talking about the Blockade of Naboo? Surely you recognize that there's a difference between neutrality in a conflict between what are claimed to be two separate parties, and neutrality in a conflict which you started and are the sole and clear belligerent on one side.

And it's not like the Naboo gave a flip about what was and wasn't legally kosher while their people were being starved to death and herded into concentration camps.

e:

Addressing this from earlier: obviously it's hard to tell just how Republic law actually works, but still. The issue probably became clouded because the blockade was being enforced by the entity which normally controlled trade to and from the planet. Essentially, the Federation was simply refusing to enforce their trade contract with Naboo, which was illegal, but ambiguous enough so that the Republic couldn't immediately consider it an act of war.

edit: And just a small interesting note: I looked up BlasTech on the Wook and it looks like they were known to sell weapons to both sides during the Galactic Civil War. Counterintuitively, I'd say this would indicate that they must have been comparatively loyal to the Republic during the Clone Wars and thus built up a fair amount of power and prestige, else they wouldn't have been able to get away with such behavior during the GCW without being instantly nationalized by the Empire.

 

You're putting the cart before the horse - that the actions must be justified if they did it. In the case of Aargau, there was a huge protest by the IGBC to no avail.

Nonsense. The IGBC had some private factories to produce war materiel for their own purposes, and as their right as a neutral power they sold some to the Separatists. I'm sure they would've done the same to the Republic if they had just asked.
Unfortunately, in the wake of the invasions of Aargau and Muunilinst, the outraged IGBC pulled out completely from the Republic, whose economy quickly collapsed and lost the war.

On the contrary, the Senate never actually intervened. It was Naboo and the Jedi Order that took it upon themselves to attack the Trade Federation, even using trickery to end a peaceful resolution to the disagreement.

And in the case of the EU, the Trade Federation was forcibly demilitarized by the Republic following TPM. The fact that there were even any TF warships whatsoever should've been enough justification as they weren't supposed to have any to "sell" to the Separatists, much less have themselves.

 

I can't wait for Qui-Gon to haunt Yoda!

 

Well, yes. This is fiction. I can do that.

No, they had Separatist-run factories churning out droids and munitions which they subsequently were selling directly to the Separatists, all while being overseen by Separatist military personnel.

Come on.

The IGBC didn't pull out completely from the Republic because the Republic only attacked planets of theirs which were providing material aid to the Separatist war effort, and didn't forcibly nationalize the entire IGBC or restrict them from dealing financially with the Separatists.

Yes, I know the Senate never intervened. Which either supports my point, or simply indicates that the Senate bureaucracy was too slow in acting, like Amidala believed. I'm not even sure how you think this helps your argument.

And who said the Federation was selling warships to anyone? As far as I can recall, all Lott Dod said in that episode is that the Trade Federation does business with the Separatists. Any ships that came from the Federation must have been civilian freighters and transports stolen from the Federation or bought on the open market, which were then converted into warships. Nowhere in TCW is there any indication that the Trade Federation was openly selling any sort of war materiel to the Separatists.

 

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