I miiiiight have been making Very Wounded Screechy noises around 47
seconds in.
Then both of us did the equivalent of turning to each other and going
“Heeeeey.”
So imagine, if you will, a galaxy where Sidious decides that the
bio-organic chips are all well and good for Jedi genocide, but it’s
too fallible. Clones require finding a proper progenitor, and so much time. Besides, he has better
uses for the Kaminoans.
So instead, Obi-Wan ‘discovers’
a different planet, and a different conspiracy.
Welcome to the Droid Wars.
The Jedi have brand new, bleeding
edge robots to help them fight. Humanoid, they don’t feel pain,
they have a learning curve that takes one’s breath away, and they
are 110% guaranteed utterly
obedient.
(They have Orders hardcoded
deep into their circuits, and on some level they will always respond
to their master. Sidious loves it.)
NONE of the Jedi consider them ‘people’ (at first), except maybe
Anakin. But then slowly, slowly, as the war goes on, and the droids
are active for hours and days and learn and develop personalities.
The droid-troopers are in fact much, much better at learning than
even their creators thought. In fact, their learning algorithms get
away from original parameters. They’re learning far more than was
expected, so free will eventually kicks in. They behave illogically.
Unit DT-7567 sometimes skimps on his recharge cycle to read stuff, to
learn useless intel. DC-2224 calibrates
his forearm and hand so that it automatically engages specialized
electromagnet attuned to Kenobi’s lightsaber (for
when the General invariably drops it. Again).
(He
also contemplates putting a locator-chip in his General’s cloak,
but he’d probably just end up losing the chip AND the cloak. So
far, attempts to stealthily put trackers on the General’s boots and
person have failed. Boil and Waxer are determined to succeed at some
point.)
That’s another thing. Names. Designs. Customization. Many of the
Jedi don’t see the droid-troopers as more than machines, but it’s
hard to deny that they’re all changing.
Plo sees his lead droid, 3636, mourn over a lost ‘brother.’
Rex saves Anakin and/or Ashoka at the cost of most of his chassis,
and Anakin ends up carrying the scrap that’s left of Rex
back to base. Because fuck this noise, he’s not leaving Rex behind.
The second battle of Geonosis: Waxer and Boil save Kenobi’s life by
running out into enemy fire to get him out of the crashed ship, the
only survivor…the only organic.
The first time Skywalker has to do maintenance on his arm, all the
troops in range swing by to STARE. Kix offers to help, but it turns
out that Kix is better working on organics. But there’s still a lot
of staring and uncanny valley for the poor soldiers: Their Jedi is
part droid.
(Perhaps Rex doesn’t realize he has a crush on Obi-Wan Kenobi for
the longest time, because he was never programmed for that, and so he
doesn’t know how to recognize it. Then his reading uncovers some
strange parallels, and now he REALLY doesn’t know what to do.)
So the Jedi find themselves in the unenviable position of having to
become as cold and unfeeling as the droids around them (but not a one
of those troopers are actually like that). The even less human contact than in The Temple, but endless bloodshed and destruction is a constant wear upon the Jedi. The public’s opinion of
them gets even lower – remote, distant. Subhuman. Just droids, even
the Jedi.
They catch themselves doing it, and that leads to even more internal
conflict. Just imagine Obi-Wan and Cody poring over maps and
discussing strategy, during the mission where Anakin diverts himself
to go rescue R2. And Obi-Wan…..DOES he go ‘it’s just a droid’?
Does he stop himself? Does he SAY it and then feel immediately
guilty for it?
Obi-Wan can’t sense Cody in the Force the way he can a biological,
but he realizes that Cody’s right there, and half-turns to
go ‘not you, I didn’t mean you were just-’ but then. Stops
himself because. Isn’t Cody ‘just’ a droid? Like R2?
All of him is going ‘no!’ but….he’s so CONFLICTED. (And does
R2 count as ‘just a droid’?) Cody doesn’t even ever say
anything, but man Obi-Wan feels guilty for like. EVER.
Palpatine’s plans would have come to fruition, but between the
learning curve and how some troopers go digging into their own code
because they’re BORED (I’m not saying Echo, but I am totally
saying Echo) – it doesn’t work. Oh, some droid-troopers and their
Jedi have no connection whatsoever, and perhaps the order works for
them, but the majority of army?
They survive. But in foiling Sidious, they gain a much bigger mess.
If clones would have been a Legal Nightmare, the situation when
they’re droids is….rather different and rather worse. How
do you convince a corrupt Senate to give the troops their freedom
when droids aren’t even recognized as ‘people’? For every Jedi
that still doesn’t think of the troops as ‘people’, there’s
another handful that do support them. Yet what good is support from
beings that are considered no more than a half-step above droids
themselves?
A few thoughts for fodder that never fit in anywhere:
If Echo is the one who discovers Order 66/the chips, then does that
mean he and Fives metaphorically swap places in the Citadel?
I have a mental image of a somehow blushy Droid!Rex which is both
adorable and confusing to me. Dogmatix figures him being fidgety,
maybe ducking his head a bit, eye-lights flickering more than usual,
and I am slain.
As an alternative, if the Empire does come around, perhaps Luke and
Leia are sent to some remote storage facility (Maybe Old Ben survives
the Death Star. Maybe his Force ghost leads them there). The twins
are directed towards an old scanner. Anakin Skywalker’s genetic code – and that of his children –
can still activate the decommissioned droid-troopers of the old GAR.
The Rebellion now has an army backing them up.
Plunnie for adoption, just please let us know if you write it because
we’d love to read it!
*adds fuel to plot fire* In the old extended EU canon, there are human replica droids.
Steel Phoenix Studios 