Full Series Fate of the Clones

Cody will probably be a regular soldier and lose his rank, the only stormtroopers that spoke in the OTwhere commanders, aka imperial officers, veteran clones where treated like **** during the galactic civil war.

 

A Cody's Fate thread might prove interesting (if, perhaps, far less trafficked than Rex's), but at the risk of veering off-topic...

Anyway, under the new canon rules, who can say for sure? Personally, I always assumed that Cody would still be a Commander when he first donned his new Stormtrooper gear.



And then, by the time of Rebels (some fourteen years-deep into the Imperial Period), he'd possibly be, I don't know, Colonel Cody, or something. Major Cody? General? Field Marshal? Who knows how the ranks will be organized, anymore?

Anyway, if he still is a Commander in the field, then at least we know he'll be wearing an orange pauldron to distinguish himself. Where we only saw pauldrons on the Sandtroopers in the OT, clips from Rebels have already shown that standard-armored Stormtrooper Commanders will be wearing them, too (which is a move I'm in favor of).

One final thought on Cody: Remember when we heard that some of the older clones still served the Empire in a training capacity (grumbling to themselves that the new recruits just don't measure up, of course)? When I first heard that quote, I immediately thought of Cody. But then, given his rank, Cody should be so far above and beyond training new recruits.

Assuming he's not retired and offers to train recruits as his version of a senior taking a part-time job, by this time, Cody should be, I don't know, the man in charge representing the Stormtrooper Corp aboard the top-secret Death Star project, or a Senior Official back on Coruscant, or something.

I'll say this much: Maybe it's obvious, but aside from Rex, there's no other clone I'd rather see turn up in Rebels than Cody.

 

I really want Bacara, Neyo, and Bly in rebels as well we barely knew there story. Also I wonder if he ranks up, maybe he could be transferred to lead the 501st. I'm also wondering if clones could become imp officers or admirals.

 

Seems like all the clones are old men with menial labor jobs per Filoni:

So I think seeing someone like Commander Cody in Rebels as an old man/menial worker, mix in some of his old EU traits (disparaging the new troopers, unhappy with the regime, etc), and then have him feel terrible about firing on Kenobi would work really well.

I hope they have a clone arc a few seasons in. Have Cody and some other old clones doing some thankless labor that a droid could do, mention some clone rebellion/desertion that happened that caused the Empire to relieve them all of active duty, maybe a few stormtroopers or imperial officers give them **** and they shuffle back to work.

The Rebels show up for some other reason or get hired by rebel!Rex and they encounter the clones- who recognize Rex. He takes a look around and tells them all to get their **** together, are they droids or men?

A lightbulb goes off and they go and get their old armor out of storage and proceed to kick stormtrooper ***.

 

Well... this is more depressing than the Jedi purge in ROTS.

 

Working the docks....for the Empire? Because if they're civilians, I know that if I was looking to hire mercenaries, security, law enforcement, or anything requiring combat skills, I would have been all over them.

Even if they age twice as fast as normal, they'd probably still be valuable even by the time of Rebels.

A ~60 year old clone trooper is probably more valuable than maybe 90% of the personnel available, better than all but the most elite combatants still in their physical prime.

Though it would probably be uncomfortable and perhaps untrustworthy, the Rebels should think about hiring some of them as advisers.

But this kind of thinking need not apply.

 

Oh, heck no - I think you're you're absolutely right.


I may not necessarily a fan of the idea that...


“The Clones are all working the docks. They’re all old men. Some of them are very bitter. Some of them feel terrible about what happened. It’s tough being a clone.”

...if only because it seems like a major, huge, illogical waste on the Empire's part (and, yeah, maybe even a little depressing, Jax_the_Admiral).


But that said, I think you're spot-on with your remarks, here, Jenny.



If the clones truly are working at menial tasks? I just don't get it.


Galactic Empire

Does the Empire view the Kamino clones as just too old to be of service, anymore? I think that by saying "They're all old men," this is, perhaps, the implication in Filoni's words.

And I guess that just doesn't feel right to me. As you say, the clones would all be roughly 60 (relative) years of age, and high-ranking Imperial Officers like Tarkin and Yularen are at least the same age, yes?

Okay, the Empire maybe feels that the clones are too old to be of service in the field? I may not necessarily 100% agree, but I'm perfectly willing to entertain that notion. But even then, why, oh, why would someone like Cody or Rex be relegated to pushing a broom, rather than serving as high-ranking officers in the Imperial Army or Navy by now?


Civilians

And, as you say, if the clones are no longer part of the Empire, but retired civilians who are free to come and go as they please? Well, then it almost makes even less sense. Why choose to work as a day laborer, when, as a former clone in the Grand Army of the Republic/First Galactic Empire, you would be uniquely gifted with a specific skill set so highly prized throughout the galactic community?

Can I see some clones wanting nothing more to do with that kind of life, preferring instead to heed the call of a simpler life; a life with it's own set of rewards? Yes, absolutely I can.

But as the fate of millions of former clone troopers and officers, on the whole? I don't know, man.


The Underworld???

But who knows? Maybe "The clones are all working the docks" was really code for the clones working as enforcers for the kingpins of the criminal underworld. After all, assuming one found some clones free of any moral qualms about such things, I don't know if I could really imagine any group of beings better qualified for that line of work.

Come to think of it, if we ever, ever do see Star Wars: Underworld hit the airwaves, I think that's actually something I'd really like to see.

Whaddya think?



I don't know. In the end, that whole quote by Filoni really kinda feels like a hand-wave on Dave's part, doesn't it?

"We won't really be exploring the lives of your favorite clones from that other show - we're doing something altogether different. But that's okay, they're just a bunch of bitter old men leading boring, do-nothing lives. You really wouldn't be interested, anyway."

The problem is, we're Star Wars fans, Mr. Filoni. We're hip to the Jedi Mind Trick -- they don't really work on us!



Anyway, there was one part of Mr. Filoni's quote which I found rather illuminating.

"Some of them feel terrible about what happened."

I assume by "what happened," Dave means Order 66/Jedi Purge/crumbling of the Republic, and the part the clones played in all of it. And to hear that some of the clones feel "terrible" about these things?

Well... that was unexpected.



All of this has tremendous potential ramifications for Rex's fate, by the way.

 

Guys how do we even know If clones have accelerated aging after there prime (there 20's) plus, the 501st during the galactic civil war they attacked the tantive iv, attacked hoth, and occupied bespin and hopefully were on byss durin the battle of endor, the 501st were 100% fett clones and none of them were spaarti clones, also vader did go through the ranks to find the best and put inside the 501st but those guys where minorities. And cody was not some worker in his late 50's in 1 BBY he trained soldiers on kamino, so most likely the remaining commanders trained the recruits while the clones that weren't commanders where still fighting in the 501st.

 

I appreciate it, but what I really meant was that this kind of thinking almost certainly doesn't apply to Dave Filoni and the people at Rebels. I would include the issue of Jedi during the Rebels time period as this kind of thinking, along with the overall approach to the show.

I learned that the people at TCW generally didn't think about Star Wars the way I did. Knowing that some/many (?) of the people from TCW have carried over to Rebels, and judging from what little I've seen of Rebels, I think it's likely the people at Rebels generally don't think about Star Wars the way I do.

When I say "this kind of thinking", I mean thinking of the Star Wars galaxy as a sort of reality, thinking in terms of in-universe logic. I don't think that kind of thinking really applies to the team at TCW/Rebels. I think they often see in-universe logic as an obstacle to whatever it is they want to do at the moment. Therefore, the mountains of discontinuities, everything from Han doesn't understand Chewie, to Anakin vs Dooku for the twentieth time, to Barriss the bomber, to Ahsoka's existence. They don't care about any of the problems that may come along with stuff like that, they just don't care at all, it's just about whatever idea they have at the moment.

Therefore some line about the new recruits being more loyal/less individual than the clone troopers, or whatever Dave said. It was just some throwaway attempt at explaining why the clone troopers aren't going to be the stormtroopers in the show, when I find it highly unlikely that that had anything at all to do with the decision.

It's just something I've accepted and come to expect. Therefore my lack of interest in this show.

 

Someone posted a quote, from a showrunner?, on the forums that the Republic/Jedi turned clones into men and that the Empire took men and turned them into clones. I like this contrast.

Well, Filoni says flat out they are all old men. The first clones were 'born' in 32BBY and Rebels is 4-5BBY, so the clones would be 27-28 chronologically. With 2x aging they are 54-56 biologically- old men is a bit harsh but not completely out of the question. If they age normally after about 9-10 years old or about 18-20 biologically, they are only like 38-40 years old- which calling them old men at that point is a bit ridiculous. As for the rest, consider that most of that info is not canon anymore.

 

I understood completely what you meant, brother.

But then I thought I'd go through all that trouble of the rest of my long-winded post, just to expound on the reasons why I support your position.

Why? Well, I suppose I'm still under the illusion that maybe we're actually heard here by those people who are in a position to do something about it. Show them that I think you were on to something.

Edit: Or, at least, it started out that way. And then I started rambling on in my usual manner, trying to take Filoni's quote and wring anything discussable out of it that I could. You know how I get.

 

can you please give me a link to the site where filoni said that about the clones age?

 

http://www.hitfix.com/news/dave-filoni-on-star-wars-rebels-place-in-the-timeline

At around 3:30 in the video.

 

I do find it really interesting that some of them do feel terrible about what happened.

 

Ok, now I'm really rooting for the rebels I hope all the clones join the rebellion and kick ass.

 

Oh, I agree.

As I said, it's not only rather unexpected, but also, somehow comforting. Eh, maybe I'm just becoming a softie.

It calls to mind that picture Seerow posed a little while back (but for this thread's purposes, I'll post the "Rex'ed up" version):





Anyway, the really exciting thing about clones who "feel terrible about what happened," I think, is that it opens up a whole new world of storytelling possibilities for the clones. It certainly makes clone involvement with rebel insurgencies a much more likely prospect, I think.

Yes, and what was it CT-867-5309 was saying about the Rebels hiring former clone troopers in advisory roles? Clones who are remorseful and who, apparently, are of no further use to the Empire?



You know, the producers of Rebels have shared that the sort of overarching narrative for the series will be to show how a disparate gaggle of upstarts will make connections with other like-minded groups; groups which will eventually form a network of forces united in the fight against the oppression of the Galactic Empire.

Spoiler

And we know that other rebels -- future leaders of the Alliance, like Bail Organa, even -- will be showing up in the new series.

So to me, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to think that, of the various groups we may find our new heroes in the Ghost encountering, a clone resistance cell may be among them.

Which could be fertile ground. I mean, just off the top of my head, long-held prejudices against the clones for their role in Order 66 sure might be hard for someone like Kanan to set aside, thus making it awfully difficult to trust any rebel clone(s) offering to help. Could make for some decent SW drama.

I don't know. It's definitely something I'd personally love to see in the new series. I mean, how cool might it be to see the likes of the surviving members of Delta Squad or Gregor, Cut Lawquane or even the man himself, former Captain of the 501st Legion, CT-7567 Rex leading a resistance group?

I know the thought of clones like Rex staying loyal to the Empire is preferable to some fans (and I can see that), but I won't pretend that the idea of rebel clones maybe joining up with some former Separatists -- waging war together against the machine they all helped to build -- doesn't delight and send my imagination on flights of fancy.

It makes the whole premise behind Rebels that much more exciting, I think, and could be an interesting way of tying Rex's fate into the new canon as early as this autumn.

 

I think your description is fairly accurate, if not across every episode certainly across several episodes every season. I don't think you picked great examples since Filoni's brain fart quote about Han not understanding Chewie is not a part of any TCW episode and Barriss bombing the Jedi Temple does not present any continuity conflicts within the saga canon, but nonetheless I think you're right to point out that they saw continuity in the sense of a single ongoing story as an obstacle they tried to overcome with the highly serialized format. Ahsoka is probably the best example because intuitively it seems like she should get mentioned at least in Ep. III, but apparently GL decided it's okay that she doesn't. Even though I'm okay with it, I agree it makes the saga less cohesive and things like that should not keep popping up. As I think you know, DF's idea for TCW was totally different and it was GL who pushed the discontinuity mountain through if that's how you want to refer to it. So I would not assume ideas that push the limits like that will come from DF in Rebels.

I'll keep this under tl;dr length since I've said it in longer-winded ways before, but there are two main reasons why I'm mostly okay with the serialized format of TCW as long as it doesn't actually present internal or saga continuity conflicts. First is that the OT does it too. We all know that contrary to his portrayal of it, GL was forming how the trilogy worked as a whole as he went along, and with each film changed at least some of the meaning of the previous one(s). TCW is not worse than the OT in terms of extreme examples of this. Second is that I've become a big fan of the serials that were a huge influence on the OT and they are way more absurd with it but I still enjoy the hell out of them, so I guess like Laura Winslow to the highly serialized format's Steven Q. Erkel I have been sufficiently worn down and now embrace it.

 

Wow, man.

I mean, how did you...? What made you think to..?

Wow. Nicely done.

 

I get that. Honest engine, I do.

And before I read that quote from Filoni, I just assumed that, all things considered - their genetic manipulation, intensive training and the inhibitor chip brain implant, combined - the clones wouldn't have given their role in the "Jedi Rebellion" a second thought.

But now (going on the assumption that what Filoni said is gospel, here, and literally indicative of how the Story Group actually views the clones, moving forward), if some clones are actually remorseful, and the Empire is largely finished with these "old" men,* anyway, well, I guess I can see it. There'd be 'just enough' internal logic there for me to take it.


But again, going on just AOTC and ROTS, and after so many years of the clones being presented one way (certainly before TCW got their hooks in them), I completely understand not caring for the idea. In fact, I used to feel the same way. It took me awhile to embrace the new vision for the clones in TCW, but I eventually warmed to the idea of a less systematic, more individualized take on the characters. And, in turn, I think it makes it easier for them to get away with some things with me when it comes to the clones.

It certainly wasn't a perfect fit with what the movies brought us, though, and if I hadn't just happened to have enjoyed what they did with characters like Rex, Fives and Cut Lawquane so much (which allows me to overlook certain... inconsistencies I might otherwise not have), I'd probably still find myself on the other side of the discussion.

* Incidentally, thanks, Filoni, for calling people aged 55-60 years, "old"

 

Cody should be a imperial general, or a colonel, like general maxillion veers during the GCW, While rex should be the leader of a rebel commando squad that are ALL clones

 

I like this post, not only because I think most might agree about Cody, but that's also almost exactly the outcome for Rex that I'd like to see.

And hey, you know what? If they're gonna go that route for ol' Rexy, how's 'bout they work up the "Bad Batch" concept from that unaired TCW arc we learned about (you know, the one with Rex as the leader of a group of "unconventional" clone commandos), and loosely adapt it for the Imperial Period as a group of rebel clones/clone commandos?

Maybe they could finally show us Rex's fate by introducing the batch as the focus of a Rebels arc, and then who knows, back it up later with a novel or comic (you know, to fill in the details for Rex, show us how the cell formed, etc.)? Maybe the crew of the Ghost even encounters the batch on Anaxes (wasn't that one of the settings for the TCW arc?).

Heck, yeah. I'd be all over that.


Conversely, if you wanted to keep Rex Imperial, maybe the Empire has called upon Rex and his expertise to root out these clone 'traitors,' and in so doing, Rex comes face-to-face with the Ghost? I think that could be an interesting way of working Rex into the new series, too.


I don't know if we'll ever even see any former TCW clones in the series, but I hope we will. And if so, I'd look for the Rebels team to have something suitably tasty cooked up for Rex, Cody or any other prominent clones.

But definitely Rex.