• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers The Bad Batch - Season 1 Discussion [cue A-Team theme music]

He also represents the ideals of the Republic, which also need to be quickly snuffed out.

From another perspective - the fact that only a small squad that had never worked together was sent to Onderon rather than a legion of the Emperor's best troops illustrates the arrogance both the Empire and it's military feel at that moment in time.
While they're certainly not the only rebel group even this early on, his may be the only one (or biggest/most successful?) that ostensibly fought on the "Imperial" side of the war publicly rejecting the new order. That makes him way more philosophically dangerous than any Seperatist hold-out and as such, a priority target.
I guess the same applies to Tarfful, but he seems to have remained on Kashyyyk rather than fleeing. And who knows, he may be Crosshair's next assignment.

I think what also probably singles Saw out in Tarkin's mind is that the two of them have a similar ruthlessly pragmatic outlook. Tarkin would recognise the lengths he would go to for victory. Not that he thinks Saw could ever win, but he would cause a lot of disruption and damage the longer he's allowed to live.

I was always confused at to the timing of that scene, and interpreted it as years after ROTS when watching. Probably post-Bad Batch?
I think the 'Tarkin' novel places it very close to RotS. Days or weeks at most. Note that they're still using Venators and V-Wings to transport a Grand Moff and *The Emperor*, so it can't be that much further along.
My "headcanon" (I hate that word.) has always been that the Geonosians started building the structure of the space station not long after the events of Clones. So it was probably a good bit done by the end of Sith. And probably completely built within five years.

It's the weapons systems that took decades to test and develop.
IIRC most of this was covered in 'Catalyst', and yeah, they'd already started building it by the time the Republic recaptures Geonosis.
I see a lot of fans get confused by the dynamics of that arrangement , but the short version is that it was never meant to be for the Seperatist cause, just like with the clone army it was for Sidious, full stop. The Geonosisians weren't even technically Separatists since Geonosis wasn't part of the Republic. They were an independent world that was contracted by a Trade Federation subsidiary (Baktoid I think?) to build droids for them. The movies and TCW don't go into it much but there's a clear implication that the various commerce guilds are (or rather they *think* they are) playing both sides against the middle, all while officially staying neutral in the Clone Wars. In reality of course they're being manipulated by Sidious to essentially R&D weapons tech for his future Empire on the dime of the Seperatist worlds.
 
IIRC, Catalyst indicates construction of the Death Star station itself didn't really take any time at all. It was trying to figure out how to make the weapon work that resulted in the project taking twenty years.
 
Pretty much. Erso was the only one who really had a handle on the kyber interface, so when he did a runner it instantly stalled. Even when they got him back he spent the better part of a decade and a half quietly sabotaging his own work. Pretty sure the only reason Krenic was still in charge (or indeed: alive) after all of that failure is because Tarkin was keeping him as a sacrificial scapegoat in case Palpatine looses all patience.
 
Which would explain why it didn't take very long for the Death Star II to get so far along in construction just four years after the first ones destruction.
 
Well, there is the minor detail that this time around there are no more Geonosian hives left to do the work.
 
Last edited:
Well, there is the minor detail that this time around there are not more Geonosian hives left to do the work.

On the other hand they weren’t having to hide building the second one, so they probably just enslaved an asslode of people the second time around.
 
It was enough to get the superlaser operational before the Rebel fleet arrived. If barely. Mostly out of fear at what Palpatine would do if they failed, but they made it.
 
Of course, part of the incompleteness of the station was a deliberate ruse to lure the rebel fleet in. But how much of it was?

Say, possibly the big laser had been operational for months already, and the engineers carefully coordinated and stalled the construction of the spaceframe so that there would be huge holes in it till the very last. Indeed, the materials for completing the hull might not exist, "completion" not being part of the mission profile of the second DS at all.

Jerjerrod might know all about it - or he could be under the impression that his life depended on the final surface paint job and Gunners' Mess upholstery being finished by some (utterly arbitrarily) set date, and the mere fact that the battlestation was fully operational would not help him any.

I mean, when Vader comes to motivate him, the plan to destroy the rebellion is already in full swing: the many good Bothans have paid for the disinformation with their lives, and the ragtag fleet might leave Sullust at any moment. Would the Emperor risk that if his all-important weapon weren't already standing by?

Timo Saloniemi
 
I mean, when Vader comes to motivate him, the plan to destroy the rebellion is already in full swing: the many good Bothans have paid for the disinformation with their lives, and the ragtag fleet might leave Sullust at any moment. Would the Emperor risk that if his all-important weapon weren't already standing by?
By this point I think his confidence in his foresight is the main driving force of his decisions.
Personally I'm inclined to take what we saw at face value. No need to make the plan even more elaborate than it needs to be. Jerjerrod was tasked with getting the weapon "operational as planned", he's lagging behind schedule a little because he feels the deadline is "impossible" with the resources he's been given, so Vader went ahead to make sure it was done on time. Clearly he was successful in motivating the workers.
 
Right. I guess I just have a problem taking a web of lies at face value. That the station wouldn't be ready was an explicit lie, but one revealed to the audience late in the game. Wouldn't much of everything else be, too?

I'm looking forward to seeing a piece of onscreen Wars where this foresight ability plays a truly significant role. The Clone Wars came and went with the supposed fortune-telling abilities of the Jedi Council clouded by Sidious. Kanan and Ezra had all sorts of visions, but mainly from external sources and not as pertained to the future. The other onscreen Jedi generally really needed a Mon Calamari Admiral three steps behind them, yelling his catchprase at appropriate times: they didn't seem to realize what was awaiting them behind the next closed door, even.

Sidious was the best of the best, though, and no doubt could see more. Except when it came to Skywalkers.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Right. I guess I just have a problem taking a web of lies at face value. That the station wouldn't be ready was an explicit lie, but one revealed to the audience late in the game. Wouldn't much of everything else be, too?
Less of an explicit lie and more of an implicit misdirection. We as the audience are presented with two pieces of information that is meant to make us think it's not operational: -
  1. The opening conversation between Vader & Jerjerrod establishes that making the station "operational" is behind schedule.
  2. Mon Mothma's briefing establishes that the intelligence they've received indications the station's weapons systems as "not yet operational".
Neither of those things are a lie. However since the movie never comes back to that thread, we are left to assume nothing has changed...until Palpatine says: "Fire at will Commander!"
Yes it's a surprise because it's meant to be, both for the audience and for the Rebels, but from a script and narrative perspective, the movie is playing fair.

Also worth noting don't actually have *any* real idea how much time passed between Vader's arrival and Palpatine's, nor between then and when "Operation Many Bothans Died" showed up. With nothing to connect it to the 'A story' with the heroes, it could have been days, weeks, even a whole month. Plenty of time for things to get finished...or rather just finished enough that it'll actually fire a dozen or so single reactor ignitions, with Vader there cracking the whip.
I'm looking forward to seeing a piece of onscreen Wars where this foresight ability plays a truly significant role.
The creation of the Clone Army was due to Sifo-Dias's visions of the coming conflict. It just so happened that his best buddy in the order was Dooku, so it got co-opted.
The Clone Wars came and went with the supposed fortune-telling abilities of the Jedi Council clouded by Sidious.
The 'Dooku: Jedi Lost' audio-drama gets into some of this, but the short version is that the modern Jedi aren't 100% on board with the ancient prophecies of the Jedi Sages of old, and kinda look at the whole thing as unreliable at best, deranged ramblings of Masters that became too detached from the Living Force and too submerged within the Cosmic Force to make any kind of useful sense. That's the prevailing attitude at least, certain others like Dooku, Sifo-Dias and Qui-Gon are a little more open minded.
It also ties into the overarching notion that the Low Republic Era Jedi have kind of lost their way. Too sure of their primacy. Too arrogant in their righteousness. Depending too much on things like midichlorians counts and "standard testing" instead of listening to the will of the force.

There's also the fact that the temple is built over an ancient force nexus (as most, if not all of them are), though this one happens to also have a Sith Temple buried in it's depths. A wellspring of powerful dark side influence that they've long since assumed was capped, sealed, dealt with, and all but forgotten. Clearly they're wrong and it's reawoken, seeping up to the Temple and clouding the vision of the Order by increments. By the time they even realised their vision was clouded, it was too late, they were already unable to even determine the source.
Whether it's just from negligence over time combined with a sympathetic response to the Sith's increased influence over a galaxy descending into greed and corruption, or if some Darth actually managed to *do* something to reawaken it remains to be seen. Either way I suspect that at some point in the High Republic stories this will be touched on, possibly to indicate the transition from this golden age to the slow decline.
The other onscreen Jedi generally really needed a Mon Calamari Admiral three steps behind them, yelling his catchprase at appropriate times: they didn't seem to realize what was awaiting them behind the next closed door, even.
I think some fans (and some authors) have gotten a skewed idea of how it's supposed to work from it's depiction in certain media (mostly games of the video and pen & paper RPG persuasion) that out of necessity depicts it as a mechanic, where that's really not how it's supposed to be. For example the idea of "dark side powers" and "light side powers", or indeed set "powers" at all makes sense for a game, because they need that "push button to make thing happen" interface for it to all work. But in the context of the lore, it's nonsensical.

The force isn't meant to work like radar. Mostly it's barely even conscious. It's supposed to be more about both letting go the conscious self and cooperating with the will of the force to achieve an end. Think of the force as your arm. You don't have a "make fist power", or a "grab thing power"; you just decide what end you want and the arm acts more or less on instinct. You're not commanding each and every muscle to move just so. It's the same with the force. A Jedi can stretch out their feelings and see things before they happen, and allow the force to react in accordance with one's will. But it takes focus and concertation. Jedi are too often distracted to truly achieve that oneness. Too much crude matter thinking, not enough luminous being thinking.
 
Last edited:
Either way I suspect that at some point in the High Republic stories this will be touched on, possibly to indicate the transition from this golden age to the slow decline.

Probably will be touched on in The Acolyte since it supposed to focus of the rise of the darkside in the closing days of the High Republic.
 
I was watching the new episode with Mulan in it and I was thinking, would it have been better if Omega was actually Palpatine’s clone who later becomes Rey Dad. That way they could fill the gap on the most random reveal in the sequel trilogy.
 
As I hoped, Omega's overt curiosity continues to grow while letting her naiveté get herself into trouble. Not that she's really to be blamed here since Fennec was going to get to her sooner than later. Omega's naiveté only made it easier for Fennec to do so.

Good to see Fennec pop up so soon and I'm thrilled that we definitely haven't seen the last of her. More Ming-Na is always welcomed.
 
I was watching the new episode with Mulan in it and I was thinking, would it have been better if Omega was actually Palpatine’s clone who later becomes Rey Dad. That way they could fill the gap on the most random reveal in the sequel trilogy.
Fennec Shand or Ming-Na Wen are both acceptable, Mulan is either lazy, or borderline racist......
 
Solid episode, heavy on action and very entertaining. The clone characters are slowly growing on me.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top