Fyraltari watches The Clone Wars (2008) for the first time

[Sapphire Guard]

Again Yoda lead the Clone Army into battle and with the specific intent of rescuing Obi-Wan not starting a war.

'I led a Republic army into battle to rescue one of my officials, but I didn't intend to start a war'.

No one in the entire galaxy would believe that was true (except, ironically, Palpatine).

Leading an army into battle is about the clearest possible act of war, and the surviving Jedi do give orders to Clones once they are rescued, and it was also apparently ordered in secret for the Republic by a Jedi Master. Even if they do, it doesn't matter. Once a Republic Army is led into battle, it will be treated as an act of war by everyone concerned, regardless of what excuses anyone comes up with. It will just be assumed that Yoda is lying or being scapegoated.

If the Jedi do go into exile, all the Ancient Jedi worlds are out, because Dooku (and hence the Separatists) will know where they are. It would be very difficult to go anywhere undetected, as the Venators belong to the Republic, so they don't have their own fleet.

They could charter ships or something, but those ships would be very vulnerable to pirate attacks or Separatist interception. They'd have to bring the young, the old, the sick, the injured, etc, and the Archives and Holocrons etc, and figure out what to do with the Dark Side Artifacts vault. It would not be easy to be undetected.

The other option would be to scatter across the galaxy, which becomes a bit of a Turkey shoot for Grievous and requires them to leave the Archives, Holocrons etc behind.

Spoiler: Late TCW

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TCW does lean into the Jedi's failings, but it does so very badly, such as Ahsoka complaining about the Jedi being soldiers and meddling in politics, and then immediately leading a republic army into battle to meddle in politics on Mandalore.

[Keltest]

I do appreciate the thought process of "I am aware that Peelee is not a smart man, but that one is kind of pushing it even for him."

Anyway, the Jedi (via of Yoda, a Jedi Master who held titles of both Grand Master and Master of the Jedi Order, and thus probably a fairly authoritative source on the subject) held to "only for defense, never for attack," "wars not make one great", and other such noncombative teachings. I would suggest that the Knight title, if it referred to a militant role at all, was a holdover from a bygone era, potentially millennia past.

Werent such Yoda-isms said to Luke in ESB, you know after Yoda sees the end of the Clone Wars result in the wiping out of the Jedi?

[Peelee]

I agree, the prequels were poorly thought out and badly written.

[Jasdoif]

Also despite being called "Kidnapped" it is entirely Padmé-free. That feels wrong.

I suppose they didn't want it to call it "Enslaved", because it'd get confusing with the following episode being "Slaves of the Republic".

---

Werent such Yoda-isms said to Luke in ESB, you know after Yoda sees the end of the Clone Wars result in the wiping out of the Jedi?

This is pretty what what Dave Filoni said in that interview about the Yoda-centered arc in (eventually-aired) Season 6.

What you get out of this story arc is that you understand, finally, that Yoda in the Clone Wars period is not at all the same person that he is in The Empire Strikes Back. People, I think, have always wondered, “Why [in The Clone Wars] isn’t he like he was in Empire? He’s not as odd, and he’s not as quizzical. Why is he so much more serious in the Clone War and where’s the fun little Yoda who was wise?” Well, he’s not there yet, you see. The story that we tell goes a very long way toward explaining who Yoda is prior to the Clone War and who he becomes after the Clone War.

[pendell]

'I led a Republic army into battle to rescue one of my officials, but I didn't intend to start a war'.

No one in the entire galaxy would believe that was true (except, ironically, Palpatine).

Leading an army into battle is about the clearest possible act of war, and the surviving Jedi do give orders to Clones once they are rescued, and it was also apparently ordered in secret for the Republic by a Jedi Master. Even if they do, it doesn't matter. Once a Republic Army is led into battle, it will be treated as an act of war by everyone concerned, regardless of what excuses anyone comes up with. It will just be assumed that Yoda is lying or being scapegoated.

If the Jedi do go into exile, all the Ancient Jedi worlds are out, because Dooku (and hence the Separatists) will know where they are. It would be very difficult to go anywhere undetected, as the Venators belong to the Republic, so they don't have their own fleet.

They could charter ships or something, but those ships would be very vulnerable to pirate attacks or Separatist interception. They'd have to bring the young, the old, the sick, the injured, etc, and the Archives and Holocrons etc, and figure out what to do with the Dark Side Artifacts vault. It would not be easy to be undetected.

I suggest that finding Jedi who don't want to be found is much harder than it is made out to be. They can commandeer ships and transport using Jedi mind trick. They can make people "forget" that they were seen. If they go into a thousand bolt holes it will be very difficult to ferret them out, as there's a war on.

As towards the holocrons and the rest of it, in the main timeline they lost those things anyway. Because they were set up to be killed. Had they stayed out of the war, the war would have still gone along roughly the same lines. Because it's not a real war, but a puppet show staged by Sidious and Tyrannous. They cannot allow the Separatists an outright victory, because both Palpatine and Dooku are human supremacists. The entire point of getting a lot of aliens such as the Trade Federation and the Geonosians and the Techno Union all on one side is so that the human-dominant Empire can crush them.

However, if they allow the Republic to win quickly and easily, the cannot militarize the Republic to the point that it can be transformed into a Sith Empire. Thus: Years of drawn out stalemate requiring ever more sacrifices, ever more "emergency" powers to the central government which will become first de facto, then legally, permanent once the Empire is inaugurated.

If the Jedi should be doing anything in this war, it should be acting as mediators; calling the Republic back to its roots as a legal organization , addressing the cries for justice of the non-human separatists while addressing their own failings. To negotiate peace in the original sense, not "aggressive negotations". If the Sith want to start a galactic war than it is the job of the Jedi to throw as much sand in those gears as possible; to prevent the war, or at the least try to inhibit it and minimize it to the extent possible. That's the job of a noncombatant NGO , not the job of a military organization.

Of course, both the Separatists and that faction of the Republic represented by Tarkin will be aiming to kill them, but that's still better than almost literally setting themselves up as targets in front of clone armies, then putting on surprised-Pikachu face when they're shot from behind.

As towards the Dark Side artifacts ... :casually pulls out a thermal detonator: .. I have a suggestion.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Sapphire Guard]

Noncombatant NGOs can only operate if the Combatants allow them to. Dooku just says 'We do not accept the Jedi Order's authority or neutrality, all Jedi in Separatist space will be treated as enemy combatants or spies.' Meanwhile, the Republic says 'we're in the middle of a war here, we don't have the troops to spare to protect you' and they're sitting ducks again.

Any claim to neutrality is immediately ludicrous after they've already led a Republic army into battle. It won't work.

If they scatter across the galaxy, they might have a few more survivors, but they're not really in any better position than the canon timeline vis a vis Palpatine's Rise.

Staying out of a war is much more complicated than just saying 'we don't want to be part of this war', and relies on the combatants agreeing to respect their wishes. The Jedi unilaterally deciding that they don't want to be part of the war is worthless, because neither of the combatants will care.

[Mechalich]

The Jedi Order, circa AotC is actually small enough that you could put the entire thing - even with very aggressive estimates of the size of the service corps, the number of initiates, and various support staff you're talking about less than 150,000 people - on a single ship. The Executor had over twice that many crew and troops aboard, and while that's a very big ship it was militarily optimized. A large passenger liner or colony vessel, or a small group thereof could handle the entire Order and could cruise more or less indefinitely.

It's also important to recognize, just generally, that while the Clone Wars was the largest galactic conflict that had occurred to that point, it still left the majority of the galaxy completely untouched in terms of direct conflict. Huge areas, including whole sectors, saw no combat at all.

And of course, the Sith had to be worried about the Jedi fleeing to the outer reaches of the galaxy because that had long been the Sith strategy. In the multi-millennia history of Sith attempts to conquer the galaxy the cycle went something like: get defeated by the Jedi and collapse, scatter to the fringe, unify behind a charismatic/powerful leader, build up their forces, acquire the allegiance of disaffected powers across the Rim, launch a devastating but unsustainable attack on the Republic, repeat. And insofar as there are Sith-adjacent elements that actually believe in the Separatist cause - Legends contains quite a few, and Ventress arguably starts here, they are absolutely attempting this on their own even though Dooku and Palpatine are using them as catspaws. Palpatine absolutely worries that the Jedi could try this against him to devastating effect and when he founds the Empire he brings the hammer down on the Rim as hard as he possibly can for precisely this reason and never lets up, conducting the largest military buildup in the history of the galaxy by an immense margin to the point of nearly bankrupting the Empire just to suppress dissent (it works too, the Rebellion was fostered by disaffected elements of the Core Worlds aristocracy, not Rim rebels).

Of course, both the Separatists and that faction of the Republic represented by Tarkin will be aiming to kill them, but that's still better than almost literally setting themselves up as targets in front of clone armies, then putting on surprised-Pikachu face when they're shot from behind.

Without the Jedi to lead the Clones, the Republic would have been in deep, deep trouble at in the opening stages of the Clone Wars. They would have faced immense losses early on and command and control issues would have made coordination of the various clone fleets extremely difficult. They might well have lost Kamino or had it blockaded, making the acquisition of Clone reinforcements impossible. Without Jedi heroics they also probably lose the assistance of the Hutt Clans and their secret hyperlanes - the events of the TCW movie, taking place very early in the war, are of paramount strategic importance - which would make it impossible to render the supplies necessary to retain control of critical Mid and Outer Rim systems such as Rothana and Ryloth (Ryloth lacks military importance, but as the Twi'lek homeworld it retains critical morale importance to the galaxy's second most populous species). The Republic would be forced to fortify the Core and Colonies and lack of access to raw materials - because those areas are mostly depleted after thousands of years of extractive effort - would heavily restrict their ability to build up substantial new fleet assets. The would still probably win, by finding ways to exploit new asserts through recycling, exploitation of the Deep Core, or other means, but it might well take decades.

And this isn't hypothetical. This is the plot of the Great Galactic War of SWTOR, and of the New Sith Wars Era. Of course, if a prolonged and widespread conflict of this nature occurs, Palpatine's plan collapses. This is, after all, why the Clones were necessary in the first place - to turn a 30 year war into a 3 year war - but the clone's efficacy without the Jedi would have been greatly diminished. Of course, Palpatine understood Jedi psychology and he knew the PT era Jedi were not going to step aside, it wasn't even a gamble on his part, and that's one of the failures of the PT-Era Jedi Order.

[pendell]

I don't suppose anyone's read Pratchett's Jingo? It's a very similar story in some regards. A war is about to break out between Ankh-Morporkh and Klatch. Vimes has the choice of either obeying orders and being a good soldier, since all of Ankh-Morporkh is being put under arms, or of taking some action to *stop* the madness from occurring.

We see both timelines play out as alternate histories in the course of the book. In the primary timeline, Vimes disobeyed and was able to be part of thwarting the war, which was never fought. Oh, there were a few skirmishes, but nowhere near the holocaust which happened in the alternate timeline, which saw Ankh-Morporkh conquered by Klatch, everyone Vimes knew killed in the battle, including himself.

The Jedi .. chose the alternate timeline. Instead of breaking out of their role and seeking a solution which didn't involve war, they allowed themselves to be caught up in the same madness as the rest of their galaxy, to their detriment and ultimate extinction.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Sapphire Guard]

Read it, yes.

Spoiler: Jingo

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Nothing like that happens. Vimes leads a mission to rescue Angua, the war is stopped by this out of pure luck and the machinations of Vetinari and Ahmed.

The thing that's not adding up for me is that the 'the Jedi should not have joined the war' perspective seems to rely on the idea that you can just opt out of a war by saying 'I'm not playing.' That doesn't work unless the combatants co-operate, which they would not. It's worthless unless Palpatine and Dooku are willing to play along. The revolutionary tactic of 'no, we don't recognise your neutrality' leaves any attempt at staying out of it dead in the water before it starts.

[pendell]

Read it, yes.

Spoiler: Jingo

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Nothing like that happens. Vimes leads a mission to rescue Angua, the war is stopped by this out of pure luck and the machinations of Vetinari and Ahmed.

Spoiler

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Note that Vimes swapped disorganizers with a vimes of a parallel universe. The disorganizer narrates the events which happens to the alternate universe vimes, which results in a final stand at Ankh-Morporkh and the death of every member of the Watch in the ensuing invasion, including Vimes. Everything else is unchanged; Lord Vetinari and 71-hour Ahmed are still doing all they can to avert the war. But if Vimes was not in the right place and the right time, it would still be for nothing.

The thing that's not adding up for me is that the 'the Jedi should not have joined the war' perspective seems to rely on the idea that you can just opt out of a war by saying 'I'm not playing.' That doesn't work unless the combatants co-operate, which they would not. It's worthless unless Palpatine and Dooku are willing to play along. The revolutionary tactic of 'no, we don't recognise your neutrality' leaves any attempt at staying out of it dead in the water before it starts.

Probably the thing they will have to do is abandon the temple at Coruscant and scatter to the Outer Rim. It's a BIG galaxy, even bigger if the Jedi followed the Sith trick of keeping some hyper-routes secret such that there were parts of the galaxy they could access and no one else could, unless they wanted to travel in a generation ship and arrive thousands of years too late. From there they could infiltrate into the Republic and the Confederacy covertly. There's no way any non-Force user could stop them. Jedi precognition allows them to evade blaster fire or other ships, they can mind trick ship crews, they can stow away on craft much as Obi-Wan was able to roam the Death Star undetected by any save Darth Vader. So unless you happen to be on the same ship as Sidious the bulk of the Jedi are going to escape.

And sometimes ... sometimes if nothing else will serve, it's still a choice to go to a concentration camp than it is to be part of a giant evil. It's been done before .

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mechalich]

The thing that's not adding up for me is that the 'the Jedi should not have joined the war' perspective seems to rely on the idea that you can just opt out of a war by saying 'I'm not playing.' That doesn't work unless the combatants co-operate, which they would not. It's worthless unless Palpatine and Dooku are willing to play along. The revolutionary tactic of 'no, we don't recognise your neutrality' leaves any attempt at staying out of it dead in the water before it starts.

Except there were neutral powers during the Clone Wars. Duchess Satine led them for a time, there was a whole Season Two arc about it in the very show we're discussing.

If the Jedi declare neutrality, Palpatine doesn't have the political capital to attack them - Order 66 only works because it's a fait accompli, he declares the Jedi enemies of the state after having killed them all. And yes Dooku can certainly use Separatist forces to attack them, but in order for that to happen he has to both know where they are, and that location has to be vulnerable to attack. If the Jedi go to a prominent Core World like Alderaan - Bail Organa would be only too happy to host them - they remain almost completely untouchable.

[Sapphire Guard]

Spoiler: Jingo

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Yes, Vimes helped, but it wasn't some kind of decision not to be a soldier, he chased after Angua and got lucky.

Palps has all the political capital he needs, because declaring neutrality after leading a belligerent army to attack Separatist leadership (which, as far as anyone knows, the Order commissioned in the first place) is completely ludicrous. The Jedi become the people that set fire to the Republic and then abandoned it in its hour of need.

If the Separatists attack Alderaan because of the Jedi presence there (one of the few things we know about Alderaan is that it's super unarmed), will Bail be so keen on watching his citizens die because of Jedi that won't raise their blades to defend their refuge?

Spoiler: Mandalore

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They only stayed neutral with repeated Jedi help, ultimately got dragged into the war and then the Mandalorians were reduced to handfuls of refugees due to Palpatine's empire. Not the best example.

The list of nations that tried to be neutral and got invaded regardless is a long list. Staying neutral during a major war is extremely difficult, it's not some kind of 'you can't touch me' magic forcefield.

Scattering across the galaxy would be their best bet...but plenty can go wrong with that, too, and that leaves the Jedi completely incapable of doing anything to impede Palpatine's rise.

[Dargaron]

Palps has all the political capital he needs, because declaring neutrality after leading a belligerent army to attack Separatist leadership (which, as far as anyone knows, the Order commissioned in the first place) is completely ludicrous. The Jedi become the people that set fire to the Republic and then abandoned it in its hour of need.

To add on to this, Palpatine could probably play up Dooku's status as a former Jedi, to the effect of "When the Jedi were forced to choose between abandoning the Republic or reining in one of their old comrades gone rogue, they chose the former." In this alternate scenario, Dooku doesn't play up his Sithness nearly as much, and is Darth Tyrannus only in private/when dealing with other dark siders.

Obviously, these examples hadn't been written yet when the prequel trilogy was released, but there are Legends examples of rogue Jedi/former Jedi who the order did feel was their obligation to track down and deal with: obviously the primary example is Revan from KOTOR days, but also in the Jedi Apprentice series, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonn's primary antagonist was Qui-Gonn's former apprentice Xanatos (no, really!) who is very similar to Count Dooku in outward appearance: he came from a privileged background, which led to his defection from the Jedi Order (specifically after a mission where he and Qui-Gonn were assigned to take down his father for war crimes) and used his personal wealth + force abilities to accrue corporate assets for use in schemes against the Jedi Order and (secondarily) the Republic. So if the Jedi shirk their responsibility to deal with Dooku (who for all the public knows is just a rogue Jedi), awkward questions start being asked about why this time is different.

EDIT: Actually, the first few books of Jedi Apprentice had already been written/released before Attack of the Clones came out. My mistake.

[Fyraltari]

season 4, Episode 11: Kidnapped

Spoiler: Recap

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So the togruta planet of Kyros managed to create a society completely devoid of arms and violence. Unfortunately for them, the Separatists are going all "mine mine mine mine mine" on their planet. Their leader who has a thick (Portuguese?) accent the other togrutas don't share explain to Yoda on the holo-phone that he's just going to try to negotiate with Dooku. Yoda assures him he's sending help his way but a CIS fleet is already descending on the capital. Wow, really waited until the last moment to worry about this, didn't you? Turns out Dooku came in person (guess he wanted to stretch his legs a little bit?) with a tactical droid, a B1 with green markings I have never seen before and another guy from a species called the zygerrians. Dooku insists this is a "peaceful occupation" and when the togruta express worries about his people's safety, the Count tells him he is sending them to a safe heaven for their "protection". And he's not taking no for an answer.

Ten rotations (Because "days" doesn't sound sci-fi enough I suppose) Kenobi, Skywalker, Tano, the 501st and the 212th arrive. There are no sign of any Separatist crafts in the system, which is unusual but they don't react to it. I am guessing the various droids we see later were going to be abandoned? Seems like a waste. They land inside the capital and head for the city center. Ahsoka points out that the citizens are nowhere to be seen. Anakin says they're probably hiding which Obi-Wan points out means they don't have to worry about putting them in danger. Their group is eventually met by commando droids who are, like them, on speeders. both groups charge each other while firing away. Meh, needs more jousting. It's an alright fight scene and the Republic makes short work of the enemy (which also included two tanks and a handful of B1s). Kenobi orders Rex to secure the area.

A while later Boil reports some minor battles against "clankers" here and there and that they have surronded the governor's tower. Which is where the Separatist commander, named Darts Danar is barricaded. Danar sent a holo-message to Kenobi asking him to come to the tower to negotiate terms of surrender. Obi-Wan is pleased this operation is going so easily but Anakin pulls the display towards him a crushes it with a "Zygerrian scum! I'll handle that slaver." Holy ****s, Ani, calm down on the racism will ya? (even though it will turn out the guy is indeed a slaver). Also, are you going to pay for that display? They don't grow on trees, you know. Obi-Wan, however, wants Anakin to locate the missing colonists. Skywalker agrees to ask Yularen to make a planetary bioscan and leaves, still obviously pissed. Obi-Wan explains to Ahsoka that Anakin and his mother were sold into slavery by the Hutts when he was a child (Huh, I had assumed they were born into it) which is why he dislikes slavers so much.

In the governor's office Danar is talking to Dooku and another zygerrian who tells him the last shipment as arrived and wonders why Danar hasn't left. It's because he intends to make the Jedi pay for their arrogance. He claims he has them exactly where he wants. Surrounding him with vastly superior firepower. Oh, boy, he's that kind of villain, isn't he? Which is when Obi-Wan arrives. Dooku introduces him as a Jedi Knight (Okay, this is pissing me off, why does he call Anakin a Master, and Kenobi a Knight! What the **** is going on?) and asks Danar to bring him to him, on his knees. Danar clarifies to Obi-Wan that the surrender he was talkign about was Kenobi's. Kenobi stealthily opens his communicator so that Skywalker and tano can listen to the conversation. danr explains that he has planted bombs all over the city and he's going to blow everything up if the Jedi don't give up. To rpove his point he has his tactical droid blow up a building next to the tower. He admits that structure was empty, but it could have not been. Anakin has R2 locate the bombs (somehow) and hopes Obi-Wan can buy them enough time to disarm them all. I mean, since the detonator is not in Danar's hands but in his tactical droid's, I think Kenobi could easily snatch it form his hands and overpower everybody in the office. He has magic powers and a lightsaber, this isn't that hard.

Yet, Obi-wan surrenders his weapon. Darts rants about how the Jedi Order destroyed the "Great Zygerrian Slave-Empire" long ago and he's still pissed about that. À propos of nothing, his sleeves have lightning bolts decorations. Obi-Wan suggests they settle this in the old zygerrian tradition's way: an unarmed fight. If the Jedi wins, Danar will tell him where the citizens and the bombs are and if the Separatist wins, he will deliver Kenobi to Dooku in a cage, which is exactly what he was going to do anyway. I think the separatist high command has like, twenty brain cells that they have to share or something. Danar starts pummelling Kenobi. Meanwhile, Ani and Little 'Soka have reached the first bomb. It's just laying there in the open, guarded by a squad of droids, how di you missed it when taking control of the city? It's not even inside a building! Ahsoak ponders for a moment how to disarm it, but Anakin trusts his instinct and slashes it with his weapon.


They are both killed in the subsequent explosion.


Of course, Skywalker's "educated guess" works just fine and they move on. Back in the governor's office, Danar rants about how great their empire of slavers was and how everybody (but the slaves) prospered until the Jedi went and ruined the fun. Kenobi doesn't even bother to respond to that load of bull****. But he does stop Danar from taking a call telling him about what the other Jedi are doing. Ahsokanakin find the last couple of bombs, however they are linked and have to be disarmed at the same time. Problem is, a couple sniper-droidekas start shooting at them from a nearby rooftop and they have a metal shield that makes just reflecting their blasts straight at them not workable (why aren't more droids made of that blaster-proof alloy? Was it just too expensive?) however since they don't cover the sides the two Jedi can reflect each droid's blast at the other one and destroy them both. Or you could have Force-pulled them off the roof. Anyway, they disarm the bombs. A droid call Darts to tell him and Obi-Wan stops fooling around: he crushes the two commando droids that served as bodyguards for Darts with a flicker of his wrist and pulls his lightsaber to him. See, why didn't you do that in the first place?

However Danar reveals one last bomb: on his tactical droid's back! He switches it on and thorws the droid at Obi-Wan, pinning him to the ground (despite Kenobi effortlessly levitating two of them like not ten seconds ago). Obi-Wan throws the tactical droid through the window (he explodes harmlessly in mid-air) while danar escapes. Terrific job on stopping anyone from leaving the tower without a fight, Boil! Danar reaches the airfield where his ship is parked and takes off. However, Anakin has no intention of letting "that slaver scum" get away and both he and Ahsoka do a Yoshi-jump out of their walkers to reach his ship's hull.

Skywlker simply stabs an engine to stop the ship from leaving. Danar tries to shake them off by opening his cargo doors, but that just lets them inside so he unleashes one of the "pets" he has caged in there: some kind of hungry snail-cephalopod thing. Anakin tell Ahsoka to stabilize the ship while he handles it. She sneaks into the cockpit and kills the second reactor but the ship doesn't crash (must be lighter than I thought). Danar breaks out some sort of glowing whip to "teach Ahsoka her place" but of course, by the time Anakin gets to them she has him pinned on the control board, lightsabers to the throat. Anakin demands ti know where the colonists are, implicitly threatening to kill him if he doesn't talk; it freaks Ahsoka out. Danar gives in and explains his queen plans to bring back the old royal slave auctions.

Later the heroes report to the Jedi council and Yularen confirms what everyone suspected: the bioscan can find no trace of the colonists: they were all taken off-planet. The Jedi agree that the zygerrian plan on rebuilding their empire with Dooku's help and they won't allow it, but first they must find the abducted citizens. I suggest checking Zygerria. Yoda is worried that slavery is great tool for the rise of the Sith because they wanted a somewhat foreboding line to end the episode.

Spoiler: My thoughts

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Darts is about as threatening an antagonist as his first name suggests. Still this light-hearted romp is rather welcome after the constant gloom of Umbara.

I wish Star Wars would stop have entire species all do one job. Surely, all zygerrians cannot be actively involved in the slave trade. Also insert standard complaint about slavery making no sense when robotics is that common.

So Anakin has something against slavers. On one hand that makes sense, on the other from what we saw in TPM, as slaves, the skywalkers lived in their own somewhat-spacious home, had enough food (including fruits on a desert planet!) and he ahd enough free time to work on a droid and a podracer module in parallel. watto didn't appear to be abusive either. I agree that slavery sucks, but I don't think little Ani lacked any liberty that your average ten year old would have. hell, he might have had less freedom at the Temple. And I don't see Shmi burdening him with how bad their situation actually was.

Next up: Slaves of the Republic. So... another clone-centric episode, then?

So, this was the eleventh episode out of twenty-two of season four out of seven. I can confidently say that I am at the midway point of this show. (The later seasons have fewer episodes, but they might be longer, I don't know.) Over the year (and some) it took me to get there, I can say that the show has improved a whole lot in terms of writing. The animation and acting where always excellent and there's no point telling you the music is top-notch, this is Star Wars, after all. Although some problems seems destined to persist all through the show: the unimpressive vilains, the Jedi forgetting about their powers for the plot's sake, Anakin being called a Master, and the inconsistent level a threat a given group of droids is supposed to represent. I had also assumed there would have been some progress on the whole Maul-Dooku-Nightsisters plot by now.

The show was originally cancelled after season 5 ended, yes? I ask because the first episode of season 5 is titled "Revival", so that's confusing. And I see the first episode of season 6 is called "The Lost Misisons Episode 1 the Unknown". The Lost missions were the rough cut-work in progress of the planned future episodes, yes? Did they remake these, eventually when the show got uncancelled? I ask because I think some of the Maul plot was continued in comic book form.

[Keltest]

As far as the Zygerrians all being slavers, i think its important to understand that aside from humans, almost no species have any significant planetary colonies outside of their home systems. Theyll have their planet of origin and probably any other habitable planets within the same star system, and anything outside of that will either be a minor colony or a heavily mixed-species world. So while its likely that not literally every Zygerrian is a slaver, if their planet's economy was/is based around the slave trade, then a vast majority of them are going to be involved with maintaining that in some way, either as literal slave vendors or as somebody who employs slaves. You dont have an electrician, you have somebody who manages slaves to do that stuff, etc...

[hamishspence]

And I see the first episode of season 6 is called "The Lost Misisons Episode 1 the Unknown". The Lost missions were the rough cut-work in progress of the planned future episodes, yes? Did they remake these, eventually when the show got uncancelled? I ask because I think some of the Maul plot was continued in comic book form.

Season 7's first few episodes - the Bad Batch ones, were the rough cut ones that got remade.

Season 6's completed episodes were all aired back in 2014, whereas Season 7's all aired in 2020. The first 4 season 7 episodes were the Bad Batch ones, which were first seen, for free, on the SW.com site. The remaining ones were "all-new" in the sense that they'd never been seen before.

Some episodes that would have been part of season 6, had the cancellation not been announced, were in very rough form (previews of a few short sequences from them, were seen at a convention) - and were then done as a novel instead - the Dark Disciple novel.

Similarly, the Son of Dathomir comic book is based on season 6 scripts.


In addition, the Utapau 4 part arc seen on the SW.com site (in unfinished form but with all the voice acting done) has not been completed or aired as part of a season.

from what we saw in TPM, as slaves, the skywalkers lived in their own somewhat-spacious home, had enough food (including fruits on a desert planet!) and he ahd enough free time to work on a droid and a podracer module in parallel. watto didn't appear to be abusive either. I agree that slavery sucks, but I don't think little Ani lacked any liberty that your average ten year old would have. hell, he might have had less freedom at the Temple. And I don't see Shmi burdening him with how bad their situation actually was.

Referring back to TPM, podracing is deadly dangerous, and Anakin and Shmi both know that. Yes, Anakin enjoys it, but he's also conscious just how abusive "being made to Podrace" actually is. He's also the one who tells Qui-Gon and Padme that, if he runs away from Watto, the implant in him will blow him up. That's a pretty bad situation.

[Fyraltari]

As far as the Zygerrians all being slavers, i think its important to understand that aside from humans, almost no species have any significant planetary colonies outside of their home systems. Theyll have their planet of origin and probably any other habitable planets within the same star system, and anything outside of that will either be a minor colony or a heavily mixed-species world. So while its likely that not literally every Zygerrian is a slaver, if their planet's economy was/is based around the slave trade, then a vast majority of them are going to be involved with maintaining that in some way, either as literal slave vendors or as somebody who employs slaves. You dont have an electrician, you have somebody who manages slaves to do that stuff, etc...

Uh no. Danar makes a clear distinction between the zygerrian empire and its customers. Also it's entirely possible for a society to be dependent on slavery economically without most of its population even seeing a slave as shown by the XVIIItj century (I don't think it would be wise to develop further).

Also the zygerrian empire was dismantled "long ago", their economy has to have transistionned at least partially.

[Keltest]

Uh no. Danar makes a clear distinction between the zygerrian empire and its customers. Also it's entirely possible for a society to be dependent on slavery economically without most of its population even seeing a slave as shown by the XVIIItj century (I don't think it would be wise to develop further).

Also the zygerrian empire was dismantled "long ago", their economy has to have transistionned at least partially.

Im going to mildly spoil next episode and say that while it is entirely possible a culture could have developed that way, theirs did not. They are still dependent on slavery as an institution across their planet. Its still their economy. Even if they dont have an empire anymore, there are still plenty of groups (off hand, the Hutts) that do practice slavery and allow it, and theyre obviously not part of the Republic.

[pendell]

Uh no. Danar makes a clear distinction between the zygerrian empire and its customers. Also it's entirely possible for a society to be dependent on slavery economically without most of its population even seeing a slave as shown by the XVIIItj century (I don't think it would be wise to develop further).

Also the zygerrian empire was dismantled "long ago", their economy has to have transistionned at least partially.

All that may mean is that they no longer have an empire, but the social system on the home world remains unchanged. That happened to Sparta; when the Spartan Hegemony disappeared, Sparta itself remained unchanged. Same with Athens. The Athenian Empire collapsed, but the city itself was a democracy again with a generation, Spartan installation of an aristocracy notwithstanding.

I could point to certain notable attempts in the past decade to fundamentally transform a culture using external pressure, but I'd run afoul of forum rules. Let me content myself by saying this: If change is not rooted in the host culture, it doesn't last.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Fyraltari]

Season 7's first few episodes - the Bad Batch ones, were the rough cut ones that got remade.

Season 6's completed episodes were all aired back in 2014, whereas Season 7's all aired in 2020. The first 4 season 7 episodes were the Bad Batch ones, which were first seen, for free, on the SW.com site. The remaining ones were "all-new" in the sense that they'd never been seen before.

Some episodes that would have been part of season 6, had the cancellation not been announced, were in very rough form (previews of a few short sequences from them, were seen at a convention) - and were then done as a novel instead - the Dark Disciple novel.

Similarly, the Son of Dathomir comic book is based on season 6 scripts.


In addition, the Utapau 4 part arc seen on the SW.com site (in unfinished form but with all the voice acting done) has not been completed or aired as part of a season.

So, if I understand you correctly, when the cancellation was announced, they released what few episodes of season 6 they had ready, and had some of the rest made into the novel and comic book instead. In addition they realeased rough cuts of the first season 7 episodes. Then they remade said episodes and went on with season 7 without finishing season 6? So are those comics/novel required reading for season 7? And what are "the lost missions"?

Referring back to TPM, podracing is deadly dangerous, and Anakin and Shmi both know that.

More than what the average Padawan, goes through?

Yes, Anakin enjoys it, but he's also conscious just how abusive "being made to Podrace" actually is. He's also the one who tells Qui-Gon and Padme that, if he runs away from Watto, the implant in him will blow him up. That's a pretty bad situation.

Fair.

[McNum]

So, if I understand you correctly, when the cancellation was announced, they released what few episodes of season 6 they had ready, and had some of the rest made into the novel and comic book instead. In addition they realeased rough cuts of the first season 7 episodes. Then they remade said episodes and went on with season 7 without finishing season 6? So are those comics/novel required reading for season 7? And what are "the lost missions"?

The truncated Season 6 is The Lost Missions, if I remember right. Season 7 is another half-season, dubbed The Final Season on Disney+.

So you've technically got half of Season 4, a full Season 5, and the two half Seasons 6 and 7 to go. Also without saying which, I can count the remaining bad episodes on one hand. Actually the number is four.

[Mechalich]

More than what the average Padawan, goes through?

While life as a Padawan is pretty darn dangerous (though Anakin and Ahsoka are massive outliers in terms of 'total violence encountered'), it's important to remember that Padawan is the second stage of Jedi training. Jedi begin training as Initiates starting from basically the moment they can walk (or perhaps even before, as in the case of Grogu), and spend roughly a decade training as Jedi, including in lightsaber combat arts, prior to taking the tests, known as the Initiate Trials, that they must pass to even be considered as Padawans. Many, perhaps even the majority, of Initiates do not become Padawans, and are either transferred to the Service Corps or mustered out of the Order entirely.

One of the major season five arcs features the youngling development process in some detail.

[hamishspence]

So, if I understand you correctly, when the cancellation was announced, they released what few episodes of season 6 they had ready, and had some of the rest made into the novel and comic book instead. In addition they realeased rough cuts of the first season 7 episodes. Then they remade said episodes and went on with season 7 without finishing season 6?

Yup.

So are those comics/novel required reading for season 7?

Not required, but certainly of interest. Especially if you're a fan of Ventress (book) or Maul and Mother Talzin of the Witches of Dathomir (comic).

[Grim Portent]

Also insert standard complaint about slavery making no sense when robotics is that common.

On this specific note, I'll contribute that there are a few reasons to keep slaves over droids in the SW universe.

1) Most of the population really don't like droids. Largely irrational distrust, but such is the nature of people. They also don't like clones, largely due to irresponsible and cheap clones being mentally unstable.

2) Being a massive *******. Jabba for example didn't need slaves, he just liked owning them. The feeling of power and superiority felt from having other sentients not just as servants, but as property to be used and discarded at whim.

3) Expense. A good droid isn't cheap, but a slave can be under the right circumstances. Simple droids like B1s are stupid cheap, but also just plain stupid. If you can get one slave for the cost of even five B1 equivalent droids (10,000 credits roughly) you'd generally be better off with the slave. You also don't need to be a mechanic, or pay a mechanic, to keep a slave in good condition like you do with a droid.

[pendell]

On this specific note, I'll contribute that there are a few reasons to keep slaves over droids in the SW universe.

1) Most of the population really don't like droids. Largely irrational distrust, but such is the nature of people. They also don't like clones, largely due to irresponsible and cheap clones being mentally unstable.

2) Being a massive *******. Jabba for example didn't need slaves, he just liked owning them. The feeling of power and superiority felt from having other sentients not just as servants, but as property to be used and discarded at whim.

3) Expense. A good droid isn't cheap, but a slave can be under the right circumstances. Simple droids like B1s are stupid cheap, but also just plain stupid. If you can get one slave for the cost of even five B1 equivalent droids (10,000 credits roughly) you'd generally be better off with the slave. You also don't need to be a mechanic, or pay a mechanic, to keep a slave in good condition like you do with a droid.

No, but you do have to pay a doctor, and medical care etc. can run the cost of human help, even unpaid human help, well above the cost of robots. That's why automation is so popular in the real world.

There's also the fact that, as a rule, intelligent beings don't take well to slavery. At one extreme you have armed revolts which culminate in the massacre of the slaveowners. Less extreme but more common is passive resistance, malicious obedience (Monkey's paw-style doing what you're told in the most stupid way possible to screw with the owner), slow-walking work, bare minimum productivity. There's a reason why, in the old stories, slaves often have overseers with whips. Because people don't give their best effort when they're being worked ten hours a day for someone else's benefit. They'll put in the bare minimum they can get away with, slack off at the first opportunity, find excuses to make things harder rather than resolving problems.

If you read the literature, there's a whole grab-bag of psychological tricks used to keep slaves "in their place" and prevent them from either thinking they're free people or acting like it. And the work it takes to instill a slave mentality in people also stifles their initiative, destroys their creativity, means they no longer have the capability to give all that free humans are capable of, when they believe in what they're doing.

All of which is to say that slave labor is a truly terrible investment compared to automation (which doesn't care about things like morale) or the work of free beings fairly compensated. If Star Wars societies have slaves, it's because they haven't advanced in some ways beyond what was possible even in our nineteenth century.

But then, wasn't it Mechalich who pointed out that Star Wars, from a social science perspective, exists in about 1830 our time?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mechalich]

All of which is to say that slave labor is a truly terrible investment compared to automation (which doesn't care about things like morale) or the work of free beings fairly compensated. If Star Wars societies have slaves, it's because they haven't advanced in some ways beyond what was possible even in our nineteenth century.

But then, wasn't it Mechalich who pointed out that Star Wars, from a social science perspective, exists in about 1830 our time?

Yeah...

You can actually run the economics of droids based on material in the various RPG books and they are stunningly cheap. An ASP - a basic labor droid capable of handling pretty much any form of unskilled labor has 99% uptime - it only needs to shutdown for recharge and basic maintenance one hour out of every one hundred under normal conditions (admittedly, a place like Tatooine probably mandates more maintenance - Anakin's little rant about sand applies quite well to droids). Chattel slavery for labor makes no sense in Star Wars from an economic perspective even considering the numbers presented in-universe.

Now, chattel slavery isn't the only kind of slavery. Sex slavery is an area resistance to market penetration by droids (this was actually specifically called out in legends at points) and so keeping slaves for that purpose remains viable. Debt slavery, of the 'owe my soul to the company store' variety, is also economically viable, since it's a system to capture 100% of the economic output of laborers, including skilled laborers, and is also very much in keeping with the overall social mores presented in Star Wars.

Having said all that, it's important to consider the issue of species psychology. The slaver villains of the present arc are Zygerrians, and the most prevalent slavers in the Star Wars galaxy are the Hutts. Slavery, in Star Wars, is practiced almost entirely by non-humans (or Sith, but that's a somewhat different can of worms). Non-humans are not necessarily functioning under the same economic incentives as humans. The Hutts and Zygerrians keep slaves as a means of enforcing dominance and they don't really care about the economic inefficiencies. Though evidence suggests the Hutts were quite happy to utilize droids primarily and slaves were mostly a luxury status symbol outside of the sex trade (the sex trade was economically significant in its own right and responsible for plenty of slaves, especially female Twi'leks). This means that ultimately slavery in Star Wars is primarily a cultural issue and is resistant to economic policies.

[hamishspence]

The slaver villains of the present arc are Zygerrians, and the most prevalent slavers in the Star Wars galaxy are the Hutts. Slavery, in Star Wars, is practiced almost entirely by non-humans (or Sith, but that's a somewhat different can of worms). Non-humans are not necessarily functioning under the same economic incentives as humans.

One of the first big mentions of it in Legends was in the Thrawn Trilogy, with Pellaeon having participated in an Imperial slaving raid on Kashyyyk. So in this case, slavery is being practiced by the humans of the Galactic Empire. Tarkin also owned Ackbar as a slave.

That might be a subset of "The Sith like slavery" since Palpatine, ruler of the Empire, is a Sith.

Possibly a case of -

"the Dark Side is empowered by negative emotion - slavery promotes negative emotion - the cruelty of the slavers and the suffering of the slaves - so whenever they're in power, the Sith encourage their minions to get involved with slavery".

[Mechalich]

One of the first big mentions of it in Legends was in the Thrawn Trilogy, with Pellaeon having participated in an Imperial slaving raid on Kashyyyk. So in this case, slavery is being practiced by the humans of the Galactic Empire. Tarkin also owned Ackbar as a slave.

This sort of thing depends heavily on how slavery is defined, and is not helped by rather loose language usage by various EU authors. Specifically, it depends on whether or not a difference is specified between an enslaved person and a forced laborer.

A very strict definition of slavery refers only to persons who have been reduced in status to property, and may be treated as livestock, as in Chattel Slavery. The Empire does not appear to have practiced chattel slavery to any significant degree (though it turned a blind eye to the practice among the Hutts and other groups). However, the Empire employed forced labor more or less constantly. Anyone imprisoned for a crime, captured in a conflict, or otherwise condemned by the state could, and often was, made to labor on Imperial projects at gunpoint (many, such as the Wookiees laboring on the Death Star, were summarily executed when those projects were completed). Such people are enslaved, but they aren't property, or at least, they are not the property of private citizens.

Obviously, this is cold comfort as a practical matter, and in fact the lives of forced laborers under a totalitarian regime are potentially at greater risk than those of chattel slaves because forced laborers in such circumstances are not intended to be part of a sustainable economic system - they are an exploitable resource to be used up. As situation like Ackbar's enslavement also indicates how the lines between state resources and personal resources blur for high-ranking officials in a corrupt totalitarian system. Ackbar wasn't really 'Tarkin's' slave, he was a prisoner of the Empire but Tarkin found it somehow satisfying to force a Mon Calamari war hero to serve as his driver and used his authority to have Ackbar placed under his direct supervision.

[hamishspence]

The Empire also reclassified many sapient races (including Wookiees) as nonsapient - resulting in their becoming, literally, livestock, to the Imperials.



That fits the "chattel slavery" bit.

[Dargaron]

The Wookiee slave trade at least long predated the Empire: unfortunately, my Essential Guide to X and New Essential Guide to X books got destroyed in a flood, but IIRC, the reptilian Trandoshans were the ones who started it, and basically "sold" the whole wookiee slaving enterprise to the Empire in exchange for favored status for their species. In Republic Commando, you infiltrate a Trandoshan slaver camp on Kashyykk during the Clone Wars (naturally), while KOTOR apparently backdates wookiee slavery to that timeframe, since one of the antagonists of that game is a wookiee ruler who is selling inconvenient wookiees to off-worlders (I want to say it's to the Zerka corporation?)