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

He's about 4 years behind.

 

And he'll be really disappointed when he finally arrives at the end.

 

double post

 

That's the new worst thing I've ever heard.

 

Which is kind of impressive in the Clone Wars thread...

 

Rumor mill: TCW Season 6 to air in Germany

Interesting....the summaries seem reasonably legit at least (note: some spoilers in the summaries)

 

If those summaries are legit, season six looks to have suffered the same problems as season five: having its plots and ideas, decent or bad as they might be, staggered out over multiple parts to the point where they take a ridiculously long time to actually do anything. The Onderon arc in season 5 is the main culprit, I was able to skip from the first episode to the last one without feeling like I missed anything. Four-parters are a thin, thin tightrope to walk for any show, you really have to pace the plot well so the middle episodes don't drag. From the summaries there, it seems like season 6 wouldn't have pulled it off any more than 5 did.

That is, if these summaries are at all accurate and not just SuperShadowing everyone.

 

So I'm going to tackle this issue before it blows up into something larger because potential retcons are already forming in my mind.

The summaries above very strongly indicate that order 66 was based on sequence coding implanted very deep within the clone's programming. The connection is further implied to be so deeply embedded that only a very, very small handful of people know about it. (Fives only discovered it by going very deeply into Tup's mind himself). Concerned, Fives takes it directly to the Chancellor and his own mysterious personal physician without anyone else so much as dropping a hint of where the order might come from. Of course, the episodes likely give us 'many' more details and will have to be seen before we can be sure... but we get enough from these summaries to get some general ideas. Not necessarily much less than the eps itself may give us.

(Of course, all this assumes these summaries are true, but given that they come from an official german TV network, they likely are).

It would seem that these episodes establish that Order 66 is executed by a genetic sequencing embedded very deep within the mind of a clone, one personally overseen by Sidious. Exactly how he got this code into the clone batches, and who on Kamino may know of it (if 'anyone', even they may not know of its true nature given how tricky the Sith can be) remains a mystery for now.

So how does this mesh with established word on Order 66?

Lucas, and later Traviss, made it pretty clear that Order 66 was in fact really a contingency order given to the clones like one of many other 66+ orders. The order was put in place to ensure that the clones would choose to protect the republic over the jedi order in the event of a confirmed rebellion, and that the order was permanent and could not be rescinded. This was a fairly plausible explanation as it allows the order to have a written basis that even the Jedi could be aware of, but would ignore since it is close to similar orders which give the clones authority to attack even the chancellor himself. I propose that the nature of this document and law should continue to exist, untouched. It makes sense on written paper.

The new catch? When writing these orders, a secret genetic coding was embedded into the clones from birth that not only compels them to follow orders obediently (as Lama Su said, and Tup later repeats when he glitces and says "Good soldiers follow orders."), but one which secretly compells them to order the Order 66 'contingency' as written, explicitly, and absolutely, no matter what, without question, when ordered by the chancellor. The order exists both on paper, and the secret genetic command is put in place to prevent them from disobeying the order as printed on paper.

The catch? From time to time, the programming utterly fails, leading to clones who are too loyal to their master to disobey it as a logical and emotional reaction (As seen in Luceno's Vader novel), or it can get triggered accidentally, as we're seeing with Tups. In short, some clones simply retain their free will, become too "independent", and refuse to obey the order because it doesn't make sense to them (Just as some clones have gone rogue and left the GAR entirely, as seen in the RC novels). Perhaps some can resist their programming due to a very strong Jedi influence (I bet Rex would probably reject it, as he's always been more independently minded).

I know some won't be happy with it. Obviously, the whole Order 66 thing has been a mess for some time now (Lucas himself is flipflopping on this), but this is how audiences originally perceived the clones turning on the Jedi (myself included), so this is the explanation they went with. The thing that will keep this explanation mostly self contained may be the notion that an extremely small number of people know about it (Sidious might have Fives killed for finding out...)

 

I don't know why everyone doesn't know about this: Contingency Orders for the Grand Army of the Republic: Order Initiation, Orders 1 Through 150.

 

I think most people posting in this thread know about that.

 

HEDGESMFG acts like he doesn't know how many Contingency Orders there are.

 

I know about it (And I think it was a pretty damn brilliant way to write the order, may I add), hence why I made a reference to Order 65 in the above post. (Though I confess I did forget the exact number was 150, but I've read that entry before.)

But, again, the exact nature of the contingency orders wasn't written until after ep III premiered, if I recall. Ironically, I believe they were written the way they were based on Lucas' assertion that it wasn't just programmed brainwashing. A notion someone obviously changed their mind about (as he often has)...

I'm not attempting to justify the change per-say, merely saying that those who prefer the existence of the contingency order don't have to automatically assume the new stance means it was never written, nor does the newly revealed programming remove the possibility of clones 'not' following the order. Heck, its implied hidden nature suggests that so few know about it that most characters (in universe) will still assume it wasn't programming.

 

I think we all know that the real reason is because that Jango himself wanted to kill Jedi when he heard "Order 66", as demonstrated in Tag and Binks.

 

If that's really how the episodes are going to play out, that really sucks. Before, the clones' betrayal was a cautionary tale about the dangers of conditioning soldiers to blindly obey orders, something which is relevant today and will always remain relevant. Now, it's a sci fi horror story about genetic programming that has no relevance to today's world, and will only become relevant years and years from now if science ever progresses to that point.

edit: And it makes me ask the question, why did they go through all the trouble of painstakingly setting things up over the course of several arcs so that the clones would have valid reasons to mistrust the Jedi? If it was all just brainwashing in the first place, what was the point of the Pong Krell and Barriss Offee arcs?

 

Maybe this genetic programming is a contingency for if the clones don't follow the contingency!

 

People are complaining that it's the other way around.

 

Let's not start on Barriss Offee again please. I have my points clear on at least other boards already.

 

I could live with this, if I had to. It's still stupid and pointless and defeats the entire concept of Palpatine manipulating official and legal means to take power and destroy the Jedi...but I guess I can live with it.

 

We have already had clones disobey the order in Dark Lord. However, they were commandos, and IIRC they were not as altered genetically as the baseline clones -- though still more altered than the ARCs.

 

This Manchurian Candidate tack just feels like a copout. Seeing how the clones--who, despite being genetically modified, were still human beings with free will--got to the point where they were willing to gun down their generals in cold blood made for an interesting narrative. But if their default mode was to kill Jedi anyway, it's way less interesting, even if some of them manage to resist their programming.

 

No, actually the ARCs are more genetically modified than commandos. Basically troopers = very little modifications except aging and accepting orders better. Commandos = stronger and faster, more quick-thinking, but they still have to be in a unit. ARCs = stronger and faster than even commandos, independent thinking, and one ARC is worth a squad of four commandos. I mean, even look at how big Alpha is...and remember Jango is short!





So it's perfectly logical for Fives to ditch, since he has ARC training. Being trained by liberal-minded ARC Troopers, he's more likely to not take kindly to being mentally modified, if that's what is going on.

 

I was speaking specifically toward their genetic modification for docility and obeying orders.