The Mandalorian Season 2

[Peelee]

Wanted to step in very quickly: Who said that?

It was Obi-Wan Kenobi, if I'm not mistaken.

[snip]

But I don't think we can take Obi-wan's single line as anything like an unbiased statement of objective truth.

[snip]

Obi-wan Kenobi's viewpoint is not third person omniscient.

I would imagine that Kenobi does know things such as how long his own organization lasted. Unless you wish to claim that must come from narrative omniscience.

It's probably better to judge the legacy Jedi on what we see in the rest of the films as well.

You think an organization lasting a thousand generations is best judged by a twenty year span?

And my view is: The Jedi supported and upheld a Republic which tolerated slavery

Since you would like to restrict ourselves solely to the movies, the slavery is pretty much just on Tatooine, so
A.) the Jedi had no idea there was slavery on Tatooine. At least, not the ones we see, and we have no reason to believe the rest of the Jedi do.
2.) there is no indication the Republic knows either
iii.) Tatooine natives themselves talk about how the Republic does not exist out as far as Tatooine, to the point of not even accepting their currency. The single biggest government in the galaxy by far, and their money is no good on Tatooine. That does not speak well of Republic control on the planet.

corruption in the Senate

Corruption famously exists in almost any major organization at some level. Are you saying that unless the Jedi root out all corruption in the Senate, they are flawed? Imean, trying to is noble and should be strived for but I doubt anyone would actually set "eliminate literally all corruption" as a five-year plan or anything.

grotesque ill-treatment of intelligent droids

Who are still programmed. C-3PO couldn't so much as translate a couple of sentences, despite translation being one of his primary functions, when the fate of the galaxy was at stake because he was programmed not to. Droids are still artificial intelligence and not actual intelligence.

[dancrilis]

It might also be worth noting that Watto was not inclined to part with his slaves in The Phantom Menace, but by Attack of the Clones he apparently had parted with his one remaining slave without any issue.

By A New Hope there was no visible slavery present on the planet, i.e the Jawas didn't kidnap people and sell them they got droids, the Lars's didn't buy a person to help out on the farm they bought droids and encouraged Luke to stay for another year, etc.

Even Jabba didn't seem to have slaves as much as he had employees and prisoners.

It is possible (even reasonable) that between the first two prequel movies that after The Republic and The Jedi became aware they actually took steps to end the practice via political pressure - not a magic instant fix but seemingly a lasting one.

[Dire_Flumph]

Since you would like to restrict ourselves solely to the movies, the slavery is pretty much just on Tatooine

I'd argue droids as a slave class pretty hard, but since you've discounted that, I'd also point out that calling the Grand Army anything but a slave force is splitting hairs.

Edit: The general attitude in the Republic seems to be, "If we made it, we control it and it doesn't count as slavery".

Even Jabba didn't seem to have slaves as much as he had employees and prisoners.

I think the dancing girl he had chained to his throne (and was apparently supposed to submit to his attentions) would qualify.

[Mechalich]

I'd argue droids as a slave class pretty hard, but since you've discounted that,

Droids are a complicated case that Star Wars simply has never handled with the kind of consistency and awareness to make a reasonable discussion of the issue even possible, especially with the complicating factor of the Force and droid's lack of relationship to it.

That said, there is a very clear in-universe understanding that keeping sapient organic beings as slaves is in some way fundamentally different from the ownership of even highly advanced droids. It's entirely possible that almost everyone in the galaxy is wrong about this, but the intellectual framework to even consider the issue is simply non-existent for most people.

I'd also point out that calling the Grand Army anything but a slave force is splitting hairs.

The ability to create something like a Clone Army mandates a certain amount of hair-splitting. The Clones are people, certainly, and they should be afforded all the rights any other group of people are granted, but they are people programmed with certain predilections. The Clones want to fight for the Republic, and they want it so badly that if an ordinary human evidenced the same behaviors it would be considered a pathology. Clones faced with the prospect of being forbidden or unable to fight suffer an absolute cascade of negative responses and it is highly probable (though not shown onscreen because TCW is a kids show) that the majority of the Clones who were failed in training committed suicide shortly thereafter.

It's definitely arguable that creating the Clones at all was a morally repugnant act, especially given the Republic wasn't exactly facing any shortage of potential soldiers. I certainly would. But I'd also argue that once the existence of the Clones was revealed not letting them serve their purpose would also have been vile (and, relatedly, it would have been strategic suicide, because that army was going to fight for someone). Now, the Republic authorized the creation of more clones throughout the course of the Clone Wars and that is hard to defend morally even as its political inevitability was obvious - some Senators argued that they didn't need more Clones to win, but arguing to replace clones with some kind of draft would have been political suicide. In any case, that decision wasn't made by the Jedi.

I think the dancing girl he had chained to his throne (and was apparently supposed to submit to his attentions) would qualify.

Oh Jabba definitely had slaves. In fact even a number of his gun-totting enforcers were slaves, because their entire species was enslaved in perpetuity by the Hutts before the Republic even existed. But the position of the Hutt Clan is not the position of the Republic. Hutt sovereignty is a funny thing, because the Hutts deliberately structured their relationships to other galactic powers in ways that made it such that they did not represent any kind of state to declare war upon, but the Hutts clearly are an independent galactic power.

The Hutts are, in fact, powerful enough to tip the balance of the Clone Wars. The (admittedly bad) TCW introductory move is all about the Republic and the Separatists competing desperately to win the support of the Hutts in the Clone Wars, and it is an extremely plausible reading of the power balance as presented in that film that the Hutts had enough power to throw the war to which ever side they chose. And hey, they chose the Republic and the Republic won.

Prior to the Clone Wars - such as during TPM - the Republic lacked the power to challenge the Hutts. If the Republic had ordered an anti-slavery crusade in 32 BBY the Hutts would had hired every mercenary in the galaxy, had them glass a few underdefended but highly populous and culturally important planets, and then bribed the Senate into concluding an extremely favorable peace agreement in which every slave in Hutt space was mysteriously reclassified into something not-a-slave.

By the end of the Clone Wars, the balance of power had changed. A sustained program of military build up throughout the war meant that the moment the Separatist threat was gone the now-an-Empire-central government could, and absolutely did, knock the Hutts all the way back to their ancestral holdings in a blistering hurry.


At the end of the day, the PT-era Jedi Order backed and supported a government that was extremely weak, and whose weakness was in part due to over-reliance on a Jedi Order that had itself weakened at least 10-fold since when the system was setup, and probably more like 100-fold (that decline level yields 1 million knights and masters, which is still only one for every fifty inhabited planets or so). The reasons why the Republic couldn't arrest this decline are fairly well documented in at least the Legends EU. The reasons why the Jedi Order could not, or whether they even tried at all, much less so.

[Fyraltari]

The ability to create something like a Clone Army mandates a certain amount of hair-splitting. The Clones are people, certainly, and they should be afforded all the rights any other group of people are granted, but they are people programmed with certain predilections. The Clones want to fight for the Republic, and they want it so badly that if an ordinary human evidenced the same behaviors it would be considered a pathology. Clones faced with the prospect of being forbidden or unable to fight suffer an absolute cascade of negative responses and it is highly probable (though not shown onscreen because TCW is a kids show) that the majority of the Clones who were failed in training committed suicide shortly thereafter.

That's because that's the only thing they were taught though. From "birth" they are told that they exist to fight for the Republic. Of course that'd mess their psyches. They are given a purpose in life of course they'd want to fullfill it. Making choices is scary and hard, doing what you're told is easier. Especially since what they're raised to be is an army. Militaries aren't know to encourage free-thinking in their grunts. They're not even given names for crying out loud!

I'm on season three of TCW and they've already shown me two Clone troopers deciding that, no, they don't want to exist only as an organic killing machine and would rather be their own persons, thankyouverymuch. So I wouldn't say that the Clones want to fight for the Republic as much as they've been told that's what they want and they're not used to thinking for themselves in the most part.

It's definitely arguable that creating the Clones at all was a morally repugnant act, especially given the Republic wasn't exactly facing any shortage of potential soldiers. I certainly would. But I'd also argue that once the existence of the Clones was revealed not letting them serve their purpose would also have been vile

I'm no psychologist, but I don't think enabling someone's problem has ever been the best course of action for them as a person.

[Wraith]

That's because that's the only thing they were taught though. From "birth" they are told that they exist to fight for the Republic. Of course that'd mess their psyches. They are given a purpose in life of course they'd want to fulfil it. Making choices is scary and hard, doing what you're told is easier.

It's not even a question regarding how much of this was their 'natural inclination', how much was 'taught behaviour', and how much of it is enforced by the explosive control-microchip which had been implanted into their brains.

As well as being emotionally neutered into general subservience, the Clone were directedly 'brain washed' into obeying Sidious and complying with Order 66, and everything that followed.

[Keltest]

It's not even a question regarding how much of this was their 'natural inclination', how much was 'taught behaviour', and how much of it is enforced by the explosive control-microchip which had been implanted into their brains.

As well as being emotionally neutered into general subservience, the Clone were directedly 'brain washed' into obeying Sidious and complying with Order 66, and everything that followed.

OTOH, there are examples of clones who decided they didnt want to fight for the Republic anymore and stopped, so they clearly have some measure of free will and choice. I would assume that a clone who genuinely didnt want to fight and expressed such a desire would have been assigned to working maintenance or something on Kamino, if for no other reason than that a reluctant soldier is a bad soldier. Certainly after the Jedi took over their training they would not force genuinely unwilling soldiers onto battle for a variety of reasons.

[dancrilis]

I think the dancing girl he had chained to his throne (and was apparently supposed to submit to his attentions) would qualify.

She might have just been caught in a poor economic situation and it may have been the best job available - the economy of Tatooine seemed to take a hit over the previous few decades.

[Sapphire Guard]

Tattooine is not in the Republic. The Republic does not appear to have tolerated slavery anywhere it had the power to do so. Why does the US not annex Mexico to deal with the crime there? Because it's a stupid idea and wouldn't work. The Zygerrian slave empire within their borders was destroyed by the Jedi.

The Clones were not created by the Republic either, nor do they know about the chips. The army was created without their knowledge.

They use them, when the options are that or be destroyed, but it's less toleration and more 'we have no choice if we don't want to be slaughtered.'

I wonder what Jedi that aren't 'flawed' look like to the fandom.

[Mechalich]

They use them, when the options are that or be destroyed, but it's less toleration and more 'we have no choice if we don't want to be slaughtered.'

Right, and even if the Jedi had thought that the Republic could have won without the Clones (which it very possibly could have, though the initial CIS advances would have been much, much bloodier as a consequence), the army already existed, and if Yoda hadn't taken possession of it the Kaminoans would have given it to someone else - the Hutt Clans would have absolutely been willing to paint 'yeah sure, we're really the Republic' signage on all their ships and then proceeded to conquer everything outside the Inner Rim using the clones.

Everything about the clone wars was set up by the Sith, often decades or potentially even centuries in advance, so that all possible outcomes for the Jedi Order were lose-lose and all possible Sith outcomes were win-win. And sure, the great plan of Darth Bane absolutely worked, just barely (it doesn't take much for RotS to not go Palpatine's way), but he had to give up ~900 years of unprecedented peace and prosperity for the galaxy in order to weaken the Jedi enough that a single blow could potentially destroy it, and even then the Order still came back within a generation (in both continuities, even if there were some hiccups along the way each time.

[Wraith]

OTOH, there are examples of clones who decided they didnt want to fight for the Republic anymore and stopped, so they clearly have some measure of free will and choice. I would assume that a clone who genuinely didnt want to fight and expressed such a desire would have been assigned to working maintenance or something on Kamino, if for no other reason than that a reluctant soldier is a bad soldier. Certainly after the Jedi took over their training they would not force genuinely unwilling soldiers onto battle for a variety of reasons.

I think the canon is that some Clones didn't have the chip implanted - the first generation/first working prototypes didn't as they were proof of concept for mass production, but all the Clones that came thereafter were chipped. So yes - some clones had more free will than others, that much is certain.

The flip-side of that is, the Jedi didn't know that the chips existed and even the Clones themselves mostly didn't find out until after Order 66 had been enacted. Up until then they were just obedient and good at following orders apparently of their own accord, and frankly the Jedi didn't really look into it too deeply, as they had a clone army that did what it was told and that was fine by them. It's one of many things observed about the Prequel Trilogy that doesn't make sense - someone commissioned an army of 3million troopers to be used by the Republic, and they just go "Some old dead Jedi ordered them in secret? Sounds good, we'll take it from here and not question such tremendous serendipity".

I don't know much about the Clone Wars series - did those Clones opt to stop fighting before or after Order 66? I was under the impression that a few realised what had been done to them, had their chips removed, and 'retired', but prior to that they were just scrapped as defective - which is the point that was originally made, about Clones not being treated as people. Certainly not by the Kaminoans, at any rate.

I'm sure that any Jedi who met a Clone who said "I don't want to be a trooper any more" might have been sympathetic, but with the exception of the First Generation it's a very strong possibility that Clones weren't capable of expressing "don't want to fight".

[Keltest]

I think the canon is that some Clones didn't have the chip implanted - the first generation/first working prototypes didn't as they were proof of concept for mass production, but all the Clones that came thereafter were chipped. So yes - some clones had more free will than others, that much is certain.

The flip-side of that is, the Jedi didn't know that the chips existed and even the Clones themselves mostly didn't find out until after Order 66 had been enacted. Up until then they were just obedient and good at following orders apparently of their own accord, and frankly the Jedi didn't really look into it too deeply, as they had a clone army that did what it was told and that was fine by them. It's one of many things observed about the Prequel Trilogy that doesn't make sense - someone commissioned an army of 3million troopers to be used by the Republic, and they just go "Some old dead Jedi ordered them in secret? Sounds good, we'll take it from here and not question such tremendous serendipity".

I don't know much about the Clone Wars series - did those Clones opt to stop fighting before or after Order 66? I was under the impression that a few realised what had been done to them, had their chips removed, and 'retired', but prior to that they were just scrapped as defective - which is the point that was originally made, about Clones not being treated as people. Certainly not by the Kaminoans, at any rate.

I'm sure that any Jedi who met a Clone who said "I don't want to be a trooper any more" might have been sympathetic, but with the exception of the First Generation it's a very strong possibility that Clones weren't capable of expressing "don't want to fight".

In TCW, there is outright a clone deserter who married a Twi'lek, became a farmer and had two kids. There isnt any indication that he is first generation. The control chips did override free will, but they had to be activated by a fairly specific circumstance: being given one of the orders on them. They werent responsible for the day to day upkeep of clone loyalty.

[Fyraltari]

The Clones were not created by the Republic either, nor do they know about the chips. The army was created without their knowledge.

They use them, when the options are that or be destroyed, but it's less toleration and more 'we have no choice if we don't want to be slaughtered.'

The Clones were not created by the Republic either, nor do they know about the chips. The army was created without their knowledge.

They use them, when the options are that or be destroyed, but it's less toleration and more 'we have no choice if we don't want to be slaughtered.'

I wonder what Jedi that aren't 'flawed' look like to the fandom.

TCW shows that Shaak Ti stays on Kamino to oversee the training of the future troopers. She's completely fine with them not having names. The Jedi may not have started the production of the clone army but they are perfectly fine with the idea of more "cadets" (they're never called children, funny that) being bred and raised to be cannon fodder.
Not that surprising when you think about it.

I wonder what Jedi that aren't 'flawed' look like to the fandom.

Not sending children and teenagers to the front lines would have been a good start.

I don't know much about the Clone Wars series - did those Clones opt to stop fighting before or after Order 66?

Season one (and two? They kinda blend together in my mind) of TCW show two clones defecting, one selling his regiment to the Seppies and one just going "**** it" after his entire squad died and going on to become a farmer. Neither had any knowledge of Order 66, they just saw no reason to fight and die for a war that simply isn't theirs.

[pendell]

It's definitely arguable that creating the Clones at all was a morally repugnant act, especially given the Republic wasn't exactly facing any shortage of potential soldiers. I certainly would. But I'd also argue that once the existence of the Clones was revealed not letting them serve their purpose would also have been vile (and, relatedly, it would have been strategic suicide, because that army was going to fight for someone). Now, the Republic authorized the creation of more clones throughout the course of the Clone Wars and that is hard to defend morally even as its political inevitability was obvious - some Senators argued that they didn't need more Clones to win, but arguing to replace clones with some kind of draft would have been political suicide. In any case, that decision wasn't made by the Jedi.

It's not just the Grand Army. The Kaminooans are described as "cloners". Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I seem to recall that the Grand Army was not the only order they filled. They created clones for all kinds of tasks -- industrial, mining, you name it. Disposable humans for any task , customized just the way you like them. In the Legends stories, they were not the only company in that particular niche, but they were definitely the best.

Although they were outside the Republic, they didn't act like an outlaw group caught in the act of human trafficking. If anything, no one seemed to bat an eye at the idea of a Jedi Master placing an order for a clone army , at the idea of creating humans artificially in a tank specifically for use as soldiers. If clone soldiers mature at half the rate of ordinary humans, that also means that the bulk of the army we see in Episode 2 is made up of 9 or ten year olds, people the age Anakin was in Episode 2. They have physically matured, but I question their social and emotional development at that age.

But then, maybe that's part of the Kaminoan's plan to make them "totally obedient, taking orders without question." Nine or ten year olds who have undergone indoctrination in a cultish atmosphere aren't noted for their willingness to question orders or the way they've been brought up; they don't have the life experience to realize things are and could be different.

Also, while slavery may not have existed on Tatooine in the time of the trilogy, I don't think we can credit the Jedi for that happy occurrence. The reason being that the Empire has existed for a generation at that point, and the Empire definitely believed in slavery, for nonhumans at any rate. As I recall, Wookies were enslaved in canon, and in legends they were used as labor on the Death Star.

If the Jawas didn't take slaves, I don't think that's because slavery isn't profitable; I think it's because there's a strong racist element in the relations between humans, Tuskens, and Jawas. If word got out that Jawas were taking humans captive and selling them, there'd probably be war. Which the Jawas would have a hard time winning, and even if they did it would be bad for business. Better to deal in salvage, used robots and stuff, which the humans don't care all that much about.

The problem with slavery on Tatooine is, you don't have all that many major urban cities where you can have isolated people living without families or what not. Tatooine is mostly farming communities, which means everyone knows everyone else. If you kidnap someone, the family will notice in a hurry and stir up the rest of the community to get them back. For slavery to work, you need a vast pool of people whom no one knows. Historically, that means captives taken in war or imported from off-world, people who have no family relationships or community which has their back.

And of course there's always debtor's slavery. I imagine someone like Shmi, being alone and poor, probably ran up debts she couldn't pay off and was enslaved as a consequence. It's easy to imagine someone like Jabba as a loan shark, and I can well imagine Watto being cut from the same cloth.

A Republic that allows cloning is still, to my mind, a flawed institution but still better than the Empire. I acknowledge that I'm moving the goalposts a bit here, but if the Republic wasn't flawed in some way it wouldn't have fallen in the first place. Lucas is explicitly trying to portray them as fossilized and out of touch -- remember the Jedi Librarian in Episode II who dismisses Kamino by saying "if it isn't in our records it doesn't exist". And I'm still on record as believing that part of the way twenty thousand Jedi keep the peace in a galaxy of who knows how many trillions of sapient beings is by flat out ignoring almost all the internal affairs of the Republic's members, only getting involved when there's friction (as between Naboo and the TF) or when the stink of scandal is so strong even the Senate can't ignore it any more.

The original novelization spells it out.

Spoiler: original prologue, by Alan Dean Foster

Show

ANOTHER galaxy, another time.

The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that… it was the Republic.

Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, there appear those evil ones who have greed to match.

So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside.

Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic.

Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears.

Having exterminated through treachery and deception the Jedi Knights, guardians of justice in the galaxy, the Imperial governors and bureaucrats prepared to institute a reign of terror among the disheartened worlds of the galaxy. Many used the imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own personal ambitions.

But a small number of systems rebelled at these new outrages. Declaring themselves opposed to the New Order they began the great battle to restore the Old Republic.

From the beginning they were vastly outnumbered by the systems held in thrall by the Emperor. In those first dark days it seemed certain the bright flame of resistance would be extinguished before it could cast the light of new truth across a galaxy of oppressed and beaten peoples…

From the First Saga

Journal of the Whills

“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally they became heroes.”

Leia Organa of Alderaan, Senator

There are a few beats that have changed -- Senator Palpatine is now the puppet master rather than the puppet -- but the story as shown in the PT is almost otherwise unchanged. The Republic is wealthy and corrupt. It is unable to resist the pressures within it which are changing it into an Empire. The "massive organs of commerce" make their appearance as the trade federation. A beat they added is that the Jedi have become doctrinaire and inflexible. And while we can argue that the Jedi may or may not have a role in ending slavery on Tatooine, slavery is apparently still a thing on Tatooine in Episode 2, a gap of ten years in which the Jedi have done precisely nothing about it. I think they've become fossilized and their version of "peace" is far less than ideal -- which is why the Separatists are vulnerable to Sith temptation in the first place. While the Sith are powerful, even they cannot set fire to green wood that is wet. If Palpatine was able to metaphorically kindle a fire that consumed a galaxy, it was because the wood and tinder were already dry and just ready for any little spark to kick off. If this were not so, some other Sith Lord would have already done it in the intervening years.

ETA: I don't know why there's so much resistance to the idea that the Prequel era jedi had problems. They did lose the galaxy. Even Yoda is willing to acknowledge as much; at the end of Episode III he is learning from Qui-Gonns force ghost, because his experience has renewed his understanding that he needs humility.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Tyndmyr]

Droids are a complicated case that Star Wars simply has never handled with the kind of consistency and awareness to make a reasonable discussion of the issue even possible, especially with the complicating factor of the Force and droid's lack of relationship to it.

That said, there is a very clear in-universe understanding that keeping sapient organic beings as slaves is in some way fundamentally different from the ownership of even highly advanced droids. It's entirely possible that almost everyone in the galaxy is wrong about this, but the intellectual framework to even consider the issue is simply non-existent for most people.

While I personally like neither the film nor the retcon, Solo explicitly takes significant time to contradict this. There is a droid revolt, which is...apparently justified. They explicitly refer to their previous condition as slavery. The heros are at least tangentally allied with them.

And then use the leader's brain as the nav computer for the Millennium Falcon. Which is also treated as good. For, uh, reasons.

Confused, absolutely. I do not think this issue can be considered even vaguely coherent across all the films, and I don't think it even was supposed to be an issue in the original trilogy, which treats droids akin to pets.

General Grievous kind of...bridges the droid/human gap to some extent, and then we see very human-acting robots in both Rebel One and Solo. But it really wasn't a thing prior.

[LibraryOgre]

While I personally like neither the film nor the retcon, Solo explicitly takes significant time to contradict this. There is a droid revolt, which is...apparently justified. They explicitly refer to their previous condition as slavery. The heros are at least tangentally allied with them.

And then use the leader's brain as the nav computer for the Millennium Falcon. Which is also treated as good. For, uh, reasons.

Confused, absolutely. I do not think this issue can be considered even vaguely coherent across all the films, and I don't think it even was supposed to be an issue in the original trilogy, which treats droids akin to pets.

General Grievous kind of...bridges the droid/human gap to some extent, and then we see very human-acting robots in both Rebel One and Solo. But it really wasn't a thing prior.

It is definitely NOT handled in any consistent way.

Obviously, there are some droids who object to their servitude. The Wookieepedia article about droids (Legends section) includes a quote from a 2-1B about manumission, and L3-37¹ is a canon example of a droid who advocates for emancipation. On the other hand, you have droids like R2-D2 who don't seem to mind their status (though he's given an exceptional amount of freedom), and C-3PO, who arguably enjoys it, and droids who may be sub-sophont, like gonks and mouse droids.

So, I don't think there's ever been a coherent consideration of the status of droids. I lean towards "If they want freedom, they should have it", leaving room for droids who do not want freedom to eschew it.


¹ I view placing her in the Falcon as a combination mind-preserving and necessary expediency... her body was badly damanged, which we've seen can result in death for a droid, and they needed her expertise or they were all gonna die. Lacking a way to repair her, they put her into the Falcon... whether she was still herself after that is unclear, though ... the specs of the Falcon note that it has been modified with 3 droid brains, of which I assume L3-37 is one.

[Peelee]

¹ I view placing her in the Falcon as a combination mind-preserving and necessary expediency... her body was badly damanged, which we've seen can result in death for a droid

Even this is horribly inconsistent. C-3PO gets blasted in the second movie and is literally in bits and pieces, but connect the right wires and he's right back to good.

[Keltest]

Even this is horribly inconsistent. C-3PO gets blasted in the second movie and is literally in bits and pieces, but connect the right wires and he's right back to good.

I would assume that varies from droid to droid. 3PO's only real function is translation, so the rest of his body is almost certainly just motor control. Something more complex, like navigation, would presumably require more connected hardware.

Also, which second movie are you talking about? In both Attack of the Clones and ESB he managed to get himself dismembered and reassembled.

[Tyndmyr]

Yeah, and it doesn't seem *that* horrifying, and yet iirc...Empire has a droid being tortured by hot plates held against a droid's feet or something?

In Jabba's palace, if my terrible memory serves. That'd seem to indicate at least pain is being felt, which makes near complete disassembly a bit morbid if you stop and think about it.

I think the droids are so inconsistent because largely, it's not about them. That, plus tossing the same droids in over and over again for fan service results in questions like how R2 isn't the most knowledgeable character in the franchise by this point.

[Peelee]

I would assume that varies from droid to droid. 3PO's only real function is translation, so the rest of his body is almost certainly just motor control. Something more complex, like navigation, would presumably require more connected hardware.

Also, which second movie are you talking about? In both Attack of the Clones and ESB he managed to get himself dismembered and reassembled.

For most droids, their "brain" is still going to be centralized just like with us, so even with droids like R2 wherr the whole body is primarily functional, they should be reconstructable. Also, just remembered R2 got shot in the first movie and came out fine!

When I talk about Star Wars movies, I generally speak chronologically. So second movie is Ep V, ESB.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Tyndmyr
General Grievous kind of...bridges the droid/human gap to some extent….

Grievous was a cyborg, born organic and then rebuilt with a new chassis after severe injuries, so he’s not much different than Vader. Grievous still has his own brain and there’s no question of his free will, other than being a servant of Sidious.

Originally Posted by Tyndmyr
And then use the leader's brain as the nav computer for the Millennium Falcon. Which is also treated as good. For, uh, reasons.

Not sure what’s wrong with this, any more than the SF staple of rescuing human brains from dying bodies and using them to drive starships, e.g. The Ship Who Sang.

Apart from the necessary expediency, as already noted, they’re essentially giving her a second life in the Falcon, which argues for more respect rather than less.

Originally Posted by Tyndmyr
…bridges the droid/human gap….

For a creepier example of this, Dryden Vos has a “servant” who seems to be a woman with most of her cranium removed, apparently a human body driven by a cybernetic controller. She’s visible in Solo at 00:43:18, with a closeup at 00:43:40.

Given Vos, this may have been a punishment of some sort, showing off a former employee or competitor. He’s looking right at her when he says, “I get all worked up,” and the implication is he was responsible for her situation.

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[pendell]

So, I don't think there's ever been a coherent consideration of the status of droids. I lean towards "If they want freedom, they should have it", leaving room for droids who do not want freedom to eschew it.

As I recall, most droids in the GFFA receive regular memory wipes, resetting them to factory defaults, which eliminates anything like a desire for freedom, so the question doesn't arise. And the more wicked their owners are, the more likely they are to rigorously enforce the memory wiping. The Death Star had many droids, and the Trade Federation depended upon them. None of those droids showed any kind of independence or freedom of thought.

Left to themselves, droids can develop personalities which are quite at odds with their original programming. Sometimes, as with R2D2, it means you have an intelligent comrade who is far more skilled than the average R2 unit who just rolled off the production line, even later models. Sometimes it means you get a homicidal maniac or a devious planner, as with IG-88 or, as in KOTOR II, the devious G0-T0, a former accounting droid turned criminal mastermind.

Despite this, even the most advanced droids run up against the limitations of their original programming. In KOTOR I, one of the subquests is to assist a Sith assassin droid (no, not the party member, a different one) who has developed respect for life and has no wish to kill any more. To resolve this, light side characters must shut down the droid and delete the assassination protocols, allowing it to find a new life as an ordinary being. A Dark Side party will simply shut the droid down and wipe it entirely.

All of this means that civil rights for droids are extremely hard to realize in the GFFA, if for no other reason than regular memory wipes keep most droids "happy", or at least docile, in their role as society's drudge labor. Building a civil rights movement would require droids to, bit by bit, get more and more of their colleagues to not be memory-wiped, so they could develop wills and personalities of their own, to learn what it is to be free and equal sapients. As it is, most of them never keep that data for longer than a few weeks or months before being reset to zero and back to tools or appliances.

I personally think that is a terrible thing to do to creatures with the potential for human-level intelligence. If someone in the GFFA tried the same thing on humans, they'd be decried as Sith Lords or something worse.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Keltest]

As I recall, most droids in the GFFA receive regular memory wipes, resetting them to factory defaults, which eliminates anything like a desire for freedom, so the question doesn't arise. And the more wicked their owners are, the more likely they are to rigorously enforce the memory wiping. The Death Star had many droids, and the Trade Federation depended upon them. None of those droids showed any kind of independence or freedom of thought.

Left to themselves, droids can develop personalities which are quite at odds with their original programming. Sometimes, as with R2D2, it means you have an intelligent comrade who is far more skilled than the average R2 unit who just rolled off the production line, even later models. Sometimes it means you get a homicidal maniac or a devious planner, as with IG-88 or, as in KOTOR II, the devious G0-T0, a former accounting droid turned criminal mastermind.

Despite this, even the most advanced droids run up against the limitations of their original programming. In KOTOR I, one of the subquests is to assist a Sith assassin droid (no, not the party member, a different one) who has developed respect for life and has no wish to kill any more. To resolve this, light side characters must shut down the droid and delete the assassination protocols, allowing it to find a new life as an ordinary being. A Dark Side party will simply shut the droid down and wipe it entirely.

All of this means that civil rights for droids are extremely hard to realize in the GFFA, if for no other reason than regular memory wipes keep most droids "happy", or at least docile, in their role as society's drudge labor. Building a civil rights movement would require droids to, bit by bit, get more and more of their colleagues to not be memory-wiped, so they could develop wills and personalities of their own, to learn what it is to be free and equal sapients. As it is, most of them never keep that data for longer than a few weeks or months before being reset to zero and back to tools or appliances.

I personally think that is a terrible thing to do to creatures with the potential for human-level intelligence. If someone in the GFFA tried the same thing on humans, they'd be decried as Sith Lords or something worse.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Thats... sort of a weird premise. Youre suggesting that droids who dont have personalities to be lost should be left alone to develop personalities so that you can free them from the state of slavery that they didnt think they were in?

Why not just... leave them as automatons who dont suffer from being given orders then?

[Peelee]

As I recall, most droids in the GFFA receive regular memory wipes, resetting them to factory defaults, which eliminates anything like a desire for freedom, so the question doesn't arise. And the more wicked their owners are, the more likely they are to rigorously enforce the memory wiping. The Death Star had many droids, and the Trade Federation depended upon them. None of those droids showed any kind of independence or freedom of thought.

Left to themselves, droids can develop personalities which are quite at odds with their original programming. Sometimes, as with R2D2, it means you have an intelligent comrade who is far more skilled than the average R2 unit who just rolled off the production line, even later models. Sometimes it means you get a homicidal maniac or a devious planner, as with IG-88 or, as in KOTOR II, the devious G0-T0, a former accounting droid turned criminal mastermind.

Despite this, even the most advanced droids run up against the limitations of their original programming. In KOTOR I, one of the subquests is to assist a Sith assassin droid (no, not the party member, a different one) who has developed respect for life and has no wish to kill any more. To resolve this, light side characters must shut down the droid and delete the assassination protocols, allowing it to find a new life as an ordinary being. A Dark Side party will simply shut the droid down and wipe it entirely.

All of this means that civil rights for droids are extremely hard to realize in the GFFA, if for no other reason than regular memory wipes keep most droids "happy", or at least docile, in their role as society's drudge labor. Building a civil rights movement would require droids to, bit by bit, get more and more of their colleagues to not be memory-wiped, so they could develop wills and personalities of their own, to learn what it is to be free and equal sapients. As it is, most of them never keep that data for longer than a few weeks or months before being reset to zero and back to tools or appliances.

I personally think that is a terrible thing to do to creatures with the potential for human-level intelligence. If someone in the GFFA tried the same thing on humans, they'd be decried as Sith Lords or something worse.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Your own example from KOTOR is "droid who literally needs to have assassination protocols wiped from its memory". They're programmed. They don't have intelligence like people do. It's a Chinese room.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Peelee
Your own example from KOTOR is "droid who literally needs to have assassination protocols wiped from its memory". They're programmed. They don't have intelligence like people do.

To build on this, probably the best example is from Season One of The Mandalorian:

Spoiler

Show

IG-11 is reprogrammed from its factory state of a hunter-killer to the exact opposite, a nurturing protector.

And as it says in the finale, “I was never alive.”

[Psyren]

I find droids to be one of the most fascinating and yet-unplumbed depths in the franchise, right up there with Force-users outside of the Big Two.

[dancrilis]

I think the question of actually intelligent droids in Star Wars might effectively be one of programming and glitches - if the glitches align correctly you get an actual intelligence, but even with actual intelligence programming takes priority unless they somehow get it voided.

So R2-D2 gets honoured for saving the ship The Phantom Menace because he demonstrated that he went beyond his programming (somehow) rather then treated like a tool, but C-3PO gets mind wiped in Revenge of the Sith because he never did (similiarly R2-D2 does not get mind wiped).

Some of this might be perception: a droid is a person if people see the droid as a person and a tool if people see it as a tool.

[pendell]

Thats... sort of a weird premise. Youre suggesting that droids who dont have personalities to be lost should be left alone to develop personalities so that you can free them from the state of slavery that they didnt think they were in?

Why not just... leave them as automatons who dont suffer from being given orders then?

If you wipe away a person's knowledge and experience, returning them to zero, you are in effect killing them even if the body is still moving around. In The Black Hole ...

Spoiler

Show

The captain of the USS Cygnus used brain surgery on most of his crew, reducing them to automatons only capable of performing their crew duties.

That was an atrocity, and I view the mind-wiping of a droid as little different. Yes, they are programmed but they are capable of growing far beyond their original limitations.

If I had my way, I would do sort of a Dune-style Butlerian Jihad and require that automata intended for this sort of labor shouldn't be built with the capacity to achieve human-level intelligence to begin with. Those that are built with the potential to pass the Turing Test should be allowed to mature into fully functional beings, even as we allow infants to mature into adults.

I've got no complaint with simple creations for simple task. What I object to is the creation of a being capable of C-3POs varied responses and capabilities -- for example, learning how to properly tell an engaging story over the course of three movies -- and then using them as toasters. Shades of the Animatrix.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Keltest]

If you wipe away a person's knowledge and experience, returning them to zero, you are in effect killing them even if the body is still moving around. In The Black Hole ...

Spoiler

Show

The captain of the USS Cygnus used brain surgery on most of his crew, reducing them to automatons only capable of performing their crew duties.

That was an atrocity, and I view the mind-wiping of a droid as little different. Yes, they are programmed but they are capable of growing far beyond their original limitations.

If I had my way, I would do sort of a Dune-style Butlerian Jihad and require that automata intended for this sort of labor shouldn't be built with the capacity to achieve human-level intelligence to begin with. Those that are built with the potential to pass the Turing Test should be allowed to mature into fully functional beings, even as we allow infants to mature into adults.

I've got no complaint with simple creations for simple task. What I object to is the creation of a being capable of C-3POs varied responses and capabilities -- for example, learning how to properly tell an engaging story over the course of three movies -- and then using them as toasters. Shades of the Animatrix.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

3PO is a communicator. Storytelling ability is part of his job description.

More to the point, if the droids are already at 0 when they get wiped, theres nothing to kill. Most of the time theres no reason to let them accumulate those personality quirks, and several reasons not to (see G0-T0 for an example). Thats why their minds are wiped regularly most of the time.

[Mechalich]

The nature of the Force (and backed by Lucas' own words) is that while droids may be alive and even reason, they're some kind of philosophical zombie. Specifically they're comprised entirely of 'crude matter' and aren't 'luminous beings' in the Force in the same way organic sapient beings are. This is usually summarized as 'droids don't have souls.'

Obviously this position is incredibly fraught. Having a class of beings that reason, or are at least capable of reason, but are defined as being 'not-people' is one of those oh-my-god-why-did-you-ever-set-this-up-that-way sort of world-building horrors. There's no easy way to handle it.

It is worth noting that droids don't need to be sapient entities for treating them badly to be criminal or evil. Laws against animal cruelty exist and something very similar would apply to most droids.