Skip to main content

star wars - What human rights did the clone troopers have?


The Clone Troopers in the prequel trilogy were genetically engineered to fight the Clone Wars. This question establishes that each trooper was individual and some excelled at different things. The cloners boasted about how the troopers were immensely superior to droids due to their autonomy and individuality.


If a trooper decided that they didn't want to be a solider any more and wanted to retire could they? Were they slaves to the republic or were they free to make their own choices?



Answer



Not very many, unfortunately.


Freedom from Slavery / All are Born Free: False


The clones were "born" into a life where they were meant to serve whatever purpose they had been commissioned for - in this case, as soldiers. They were property of the Republic, bought for money from the Kaminoans. According to Star Wars: The Clone Wars: New Battlefront, they were considered the flesh and blood / mentally superior equivalent of battle droids, when it came to value of their lives. Of course, this is not how the Jedi who fought with the Clones thought of them, but the Senate's and the public's view of them was as living objects.





Freedom of Thought: False


Despite their greater individuality as compared to droids, the genetic tampering that had been part of their creation, did mean that most of them were born with severe limitations when it came to being able to exercise free will - even the more autonomous of the non-ARC troopers, such as Captain Cody, were unable to disobey Order 66, even when it meant trying to kill General Kenobi - someone he personally respected and was a friend of.


ETA: In addition to genetic tampering, the clones' lack of freedom to thought (especially as related to Order 66) was enhanced by Inhibitor Chips. Supposedly, meant to 'just' modify thought and behaviour by preventing clones from being overly independent and aggressive, the true purpose of these chips was to ensure unthinking obedience of Order 66.


As seen in the opening episodes Season 6 of The Clone Wars Tv-Series, a malfunctioning chip caused the clone 'Tup' to prematurely execute his Jedi General Tiplar; and he did not seem to remember his actions afterwards. This led the clone 'Fives' to discover the existence of the programmed order, but he was executed on framed charges before he could reveal his discovery to anyone else.




Freedom of Speech and Action: False


While we can't make any statements regarding the freedom of speech allowed to the Clones, we do know that at least during the course of the Clone Wars, retirement was not an 'official' option allowed to them, as mentioned in the question linked by Phantom42.


So, as per canon, they don't seem to have many choices, or rights.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...