"All droid units must shut down immediately."

In ROTS, we see Anakin/Vader initiate a hologram call with Sidious to let him know he has just "taken care of" the Separatist leaders on Mustafar. Sidious then tells him, "Send a message to the ships of the Trade Federation. All droid units must shut down immediately." To this, Anakin/Vader replies "Very good, My Lord". But then he sees Padme's ship landing and runs out to meet her. We do not see him initiate any message of the sort... but as far as we can tell they do get the message, because we never see any more droid army activity after that point (except for a part in the Dark Lord novel when some units get accidentally re-started).

So if we are to just assume that Anakin/Vader did send this message off-screen that's fine, but it still seems like he doesn't get another chance after that point to do it. First he's occupied with Padme, then with Obi-Wan... then with the lava river bank.

First of all, why would Sidious say "Trade Federation"? Aren't parts of the CIS army from other factions besides the TF? Also, I wonder why Sidious would have Anakin/Vader be the one to send the message. Is it just because he is in the Mustafar control room, so the message would be coming from the right location? I can see why Sidious himself might not do it, because the Separatist ships may recognize him as Palpatine, the leader of the Republic, and therefore not take it seriously (unless the receipt and processing of the order would be totally systematic or automated anyway). But the same token could apply to Anakin/Vader; he is/was apparently a pretty well-known Jedi, so the Separatists may not take him seriously either. And on that note, it is interesting that Nute Gunray and the others don't seem surprised that the new apprentice, Darth Vader, that Sidious has just told them about turns out to be a pretty well-known Jedi.

Anyway, I guess the main point is why would Sidious have not had Nute Gunray and the Separatist leadership send out this order themselves before Anakin/Vader arrived to "take care of them"? That would have been most logical, and the order would not have had a chance of being questioned. They already seemed to have acknowledged that the war was over, and thought they would be negotiating some sort of deal... that much is clear with lines such as Gunray saying, "the war is over. Lord Sidious promised us peace... we only want -", before Anakin/Vader killed him. Maybe they were keeping their armies up until they had the deal they wanted, but it still doesn't sit quite right.

So what are your thoughts on this? Am I missing a couple things here, or does this plot thread not seem totally smooth? Thanks.

 

Well Gunray says that the war is over, as Anakin prepares to kill him, so it would make much more sense for him to send the message, but then we don't know what Gunray is actually expecting Vader to do, even if the war was over and Sidious didn't betray him, I don't see what he would have, he was an enemy of the Republic. Maybe Sidious just trusted Vader more than Gunray, or did't see the point in telling him to do it, maybe it was better to have the council killed before giving the order, just to make sure that the threat is truely over?

 

Well, let's see if we can work through this.

I think this was purposefully left ambiguous by Lucas. I wouldn't be totally surprised to see droids in the new live-action TV series, set between Episodes III and IV (hint, hint!). Then again, this may all be much ado about nothing (but I tend to agree that it seems unlikely Anakin gave the order).

Other corporations and alliances pledged their support to Dooku in building the biggest army the galaxy had ever seen, but I think that droids, in general, were the purview of the Trade Federation. Admittedly, this point is rooted more in conjecture than objective fact.

It might be a test of loyalty, though it could also be because Sidious had Anakin wipe out the leaders, and he didn't want to be seen by others within the same organisation, eliminating the possibility that others would recognise him as newly-self-appointed leader of the Empire (as you said).

Anakin's face is somewhat shrouded within his robes, and it's not clear many people did necessarily know what he actually looked like, since Grievous earlier remarked, "I expected someone with your reputation to be a little ... older". Granted, Anakin was in the arena at Geonosis, and was almost turned into lizard meat, which some of the leaders observed, but at a distance. It's very unlikely that they recognised him, and even if they did, I don't think that they felt that they were in a position to show any feelings, lest they unsettle the Sith Lord and rouse his anger.

 

^ Good points, thanks.

 

Excellent observations!

"The master control signal controlled all battle droids and warships of the CIS during the Clone Wars. Lord Vader used this signal to shut down the CIS's droid army and navy after he murdered the Separatist Council, thus paving the way for Palpatine's new Galactic Empire. "

For as vague as the movie was, Dark Lord made it clear that the signal had in fact, been sent. The droids went silent on Murkhana. And it should be noted that not ALL of the Sep-droids were linked to a command ship. So there were planets that had some fully functional droid units running around unchecked after the war's conclusion.

 

Thanks for the Dark Lord quote; I was trying to remember what that novel and also the ROTS novel had to say about this (but I didn't have them available to check at the time).

 

In the novel it's a little different IIRC; there, Gunray & Co. shut down the droids themselves.

 

So Dark Lord and the ROTS novel apparently disagree on this? Interesting. I guess I need to go back and re-read both of these (together with LOE). But it's also interesting that the ROTS novel apparently has Gunray and the others do it, like I was thinking could make more sense.

 

The novel's version is just one of those little differences you often see with novelizations/adaptations; it doesn't mesh with the film's version of events, which supersedes it, but it's fine within the context of the adaptation.

 

Personally, I'd pay money to see the charred and amputated remains of Anakin/Vader pull out a scorched communicator and say, "Almost...forgot...shut down...all...droids...ugghhh..."

 

"And...cancel...next...week's...hair...appointment...aaarggh"

 

"And also...return...the...birthday present...I...bought...for Obi-Wan...ugghh."

 

That's true... I was thinking more of the two novels not agreeing with each other, as opposed to either one of them with the film.

 

Yes there were more droid-producing factions than the Trade Federation, but alas remember we're dealing with the writing of Lucas. Or perhaps Palpasidious wasn't too concerned about the specifics and figured Anakin would know what he was talking about.

Likely the CIS factions knew the leaders had relocated to Mustafar hence a message from there would be the most logical.

It's possible that the droids were shut down by Palpatine or his Clone troops whilst recovering the dying Vader.

 

To me this seemed so little at the time. But, now it's part of the brilliance of the PT. I mean Palpatine.Sidious created two armies and pitted them against each other. So he was going to win either way.

The fact that he could just flip a switch and walk away was brilliant.

 

It really was brilliant, and even though we knew ahead of time that Palpatine would be pulling off something like this, to actually see how it played out in ROTS and to see how impressive it really was... was, well, impressive.