PT Order 66 was just mind control?

Ahsoka, in the TCW novel, certainly saw herself and Anakin as being betrayed by the caretaker droid, on Teth.

And "Goldie" is seen as a "backstabber" in Season 1.

There's a recurring "The clones are seen as basically droids made of meat" theme in the EU. Though its usually the most unsympathetic characters that describe them that way.

And on the forums, long before Season 6 came out - people were arguing that clones are basically meat droids, and that any wrongs done to them matter much less than wrongs done to "real humans"

Which was one of Traviss's biggest pet peeves - this belief that clones are subhuman because of their heritage and modifications.

 

TCW did give us a Clone Deserter and even a Clone Traitor.

Some may have been engineered more than others - the Advanced Recon Commandos are sometimes portrayed as having been made "superhuman" - stronger, faster, more intelligent than normal humans.

The "ordinary clones" may have been modified much less - removal of "Jango's flaws" mostly.

The same could be said about slavery, and how the Zygerrians are "clearly loaded" in Season 4. Yet its clear that slavery is seen in-universe as immoral.

 

The Jedi were betrayed just because the clones were micro chipped to kill them doesn't mean that there wasn't a betrayal. Obi-wan would feel mighty betrayed that his friend turned on him. As did every Jedi who was killed, or managed to survive Order 66.

 

It wasn't the first such source though. In Abel G. Pena's History of the Mandalorians, there was a clone deserter called Spar.

As far as I can tell - they have the same amount of free-will as other humans - when the chip's not activated. When it is, they're turned into puppets for the duration.

As to "equating the clones to slaves" - what else can intelligent beings that are bought be?

In the EU, there's clones that aren't slaves - Khomm is a planet where everyone is a clone, for example. It's not the cloning itself that's wrong.

 

What exactly do you "want them to be"?

Do you want them to be "intermediate between the two states" all the time, rather than switching from one to the other?

 

I wonder - did Lucas originally plan them that way in AOTC? We have the Kaminoan statements - but most of the EU didn't run with it. And even TCW went its own way.

Maybe "inherently reduced free will" is just something no writers were interested in exploring.

 

But it's a far removed betrayal that places the blame solely on Palpatine's shoulders. If evil, nasty Palpy hadn't given the order then the nice clones and Jedi would have been bff's.

Now this runs counter to my interpretation of Star Wars and I believe an argument could be made that it runs counter to the story that Lucas is trying to tell. Let us not forget that a great deal is made of the fact that the Republic is a crumbling institution. Anakin spells it out for us: "Sometimes, I wonder what's happening to the Jedi Order . . . I think this war is destroying the principles of the Republic."

Yes, Palpatine is accruing extra power for himself but the point is that the rest of the Republic goes along with it. The Senate rubber stamp his initiatives. The Republic citizenry, we can assume, are fully behind Palpatine otherwise he would not still be in office "long after his term has expired."

To go back to Order 66, the clones receive a highly dubious order - a contingency order that in theory is never meant to be used. There is no pretext, no obvious threat. The clones are supposed to obey it because. . . Palpatine.

The fact that the clones choose to execute this order is an immediate and gut wrenching betrayal. It is also their betrayal. This is important because the clones are ultimately ordinary people, not leaders or politicians or Jedi or Sith Lords. So their betrayal shows that everybody can be a participant in the fall of the Republic, everybody can be culpable. To take a wider, more abstract position, you could view the Order 66 scenes not just as an isolated mutiny in the Republic Army but as a metaphor for a galaxy betraying itself and a Republic dismantling itself.

Now with this new plotline, the choice is taken away meaning that the clones cannot take responsibility for their actions. This means that all responsibility has to be placed upon Palpatine's shoulders alone, reducing the scope of the story. The Prequel trilogy is no longer a tale about a galaxy's descent into darkness in which everybody is culpable. It is a tale about Palpatine the bogeyman.

 

One must understand though how differently a clone's mind is wired than a normal human's. When it comes to direct orders from the supreme chancellor, they're about as free-willed as a battle droid. They're mentally incapable of defying the will of the supreme commander (Palpatine).

 

I thought that was exactly what people who love the PT Jedi want - the Jedi Order to be not guilty of anything immoral, to not have undergone "moral decline" - to not be in any way culpable.

And for Anakin to be deluded, when he says "Sometimes, I wonder what's happening to the Jedi Order" - for them to be unchanged, and for Anakin to be the one who's changed.

 

I'd disagree. They were bred to be more obedient as Lama Su tells us but that doesn't mean that they were stupid, or incapable of independent thought. Think back to AOTC. On Geonosis Padme orders a clone to get a transport. Now Padme happened to be outside the GAR chain of command so her order didn't have to stand. Nonetheless, the clone trooper made a choice to follow that order. But if a CIS battle droid decided to be a smartypants and ordered the clones to surrender you can bet that they would ignore such an order in a heartbeat. Again, this is a choice.

Now sure, The Supreme Chancellor's position was that he was Commander in Chief of the GAR. But was this really a position beyond reproach? I think not. Imagine if Palpatine decided to get into hippy culture and issued an order telling all the clones to stick flowers in the guns of the battle droids. Would that order stand? I'll leave that to your imagination but I know where I stand on that one.

Again, the decision of the clones to follow through on Order 66 was a choice.

I cannot speak for what others want but I can speak for what I want.

So do I want the Jedi to be Karen Traviss style, slave-lord ********s? No. I hate that interpretation. But do I want them to be perfect and bear no responsibility for the rise of the Empire? Again, no.

Think of Nazi Germany (yeah, yeah Godwins law). So Hitler and the Nazi Party unquestionably take the lion's share of the blame for what happened but on some level everyone is culpable. The German people of that time are culpable for turning their backs or colluding, as are the British and French who imposed such harsh terms at Versailles, as are the Nazi collaborators etc etc.

So that's more or less how I want to view the PT. Palpatine takes the lion's share of culpability but I would say that the Jedi are also culpable - as are the Clones, the CIS and ultimately the galactic people. I think it makes for a more realistic and more engaging story to take a wholistic view than to single out one single party and say 'it's all their fault!'

 

Prior to TCW, certainly.

Afterward - this may have been changed. Not sure who's behind the change, Filoni or Lucas.

I know that a few weeks ago, the Commander Gree article in The Official Fact File, made a point of saying Gree was incapable of defying his chip programming.

 

I don't, and won't, recognise such a change. If they want to simplify the story of the fall of the Republic then that's their lookout.

 

I must admit I liked the older stories, which had clones disobeying the order (though in these cases Palpatine hadn't spoken to them but to their superior officers).

Still, the general idea seemed to be that their obedience wasn't so much "perfectly engineered in" as "Jango's independent, disobedient tendencies removed" plus "lots of psychological conditioning".

 

In response to Lord Chazza, I see your point. I think there are exceptions though. Specifically, those numbered orders that could only be issued by certain ranks within the GAR were probably deep-coded in their conditioning and training as orders that absolutely have to be followed, no exceptions. Imagine from birth being taught to follow these particular orders when issued by superiors. Now imagine that, in addition to being taught this, your mind is programmed to be obedient to superiors as an impulsive behavior. Maybe, instead of not having a choice, it's simply an issue of the clones not thinking that there's an alternative to following high-level orders.

 

They still obey Palpatine and the Senate.

In fact, prior to Palpatine revealing himself to Dooku, that was the main reason Dooku was wanting to leave the Order in the first place - the Senate was instructing the Jedi to do dubious things, and thus embroiling them in injustices.

That's understandable. Still, even without a "chip" - there's a concept of "diminished responsibility" and the conditioning they receive on Kamino, as well as the genetic engineering they receive, might qualify them.

 

You've got a good point there and I would be perfectly happy with the idea that the clones bear diminished responsibility. What I don't like is the idea that they bear no responsibility and with this new TWC plotline that is effectively the case.

As I said, I like to view the fall of the Republic as something for which everybody in the galaxy at the time had some responsibility. I like the idea that the galaxy betrayed itself. And what I see with this TWC plotline is an attempt to shift all the blame onto Palpatine's shoulders for the sake of simplification (hence my "Palpatine the bogeyman" comment). If that works for some people, fine, but it doesn't work for me.

 

Sure you can if you have an emotional connection to the droid and the droid has free will and true AI. I'm pretty sure Luke would feel betrayed if R2 sabotaged their X-Wing and decided to help the enemy.

 

Ok fine. I guess my droid comparison wasn't the best way of illustrating my objection. My core point was that inhibition bacteria or whatever removes the possibility of choice - and therefore responsibility - from the clones who participated in Order 66 and that point still stands.

 

I never blamed the clones in the first place. I've always blamed Palpatine. He's the one that issued the orders for the clones to be designed the way they are so therefore the blame rests with him alone. Friends and allies being forced unwillingly to betray one another is pretty horrific. It adds another layer of tragedy to an already tragic event. In my opinion anyway.