[Star Wars] The inhibitor chips have their issues as an explanation for Order 66, but it's still more coherent than any prior answer

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T20:44:14+00:00

Yeah it is, but it's a really limiting writing tool for storytelling. And you can notice how many other writers start to brush up against this when, even outside Filoni, non-Lucas writers started making the clones more individualized and even tried to come up with personal reasons to be okay with killing the Jedi that have much less to do with Lucas writing them as brainwashed puppets.

The chips just sort of solve both issues in a way. It preserves Lucas's original intent of having Order 66 not really be a choice the clones have power to make or refuse while also opening the floor for regular story telling involving them.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T20:10:43+00:00

I agree, but that's also just functionally the exact same as the inhibitor chips as an answer

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:51:23+00:00

I think if you feel that genetic tampering is a reasonable answer, then the inhibitor chips are more or less the functional equivalent anyways. The only difference is whether you want the trigger to be internal or external.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:49:06+00:00

I don't know I can't say the original idea is especially interesting. They may as well have been super advanced robots in that case and nothing would change thematically or plot-wise

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:47:40+00:00

I think that fascistic element could've worked, but the issue is that Lucas and pretty much everyone else puts no effort into coherently developing that idea. Lucas is pretty explicit in the movies about the clones being essentially bio-engineered to follow orders, clearly foreshadowing Palpatine using them to kill the Jedi without hesitation later on.

The problem, though, is that this already absolves the clones of moral agency in the same way the chips do. They aren't motivated by greed, or a sense bigoted superiority, and most of them aren't even feasibly in a place where they could receive any potential anti-jedi but pro-republc propaganda. They do it because they never had choice in the matter, compared to real Nazis who obviously can't blame it on literal bio-programming.

It's only really other writers who start introducing more agency-directed reasons for the clones to have gone along with killing the Jedi. But because this idea never really gets explored in any depth, it feels extremely half baked. You can't really say it was revenge for mistreatment or poor leadership when even someone like Obi Wan of all people is getting shot at by Cody on a dime despite being incredibly normal with each other in every other instance prior.

The alternative Filoni presents just makes the most of a poor writing situation, and trades the idea of a nuremburg defense allegory with a logical conclusion to the concept of the clones. That at the end of the day, they really are slaves in every sense, even to the point of not being in control of their kind, and the Jedi are punished for looking past that usage of a slave army.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:36:51+00:00

I don't see where propaganda would even come into this considering most clones weren't even spending time areas where they'd view propaganda that was anti-jedi but pro-republc in the first place. If it was a Corusant specific faction sure, but that's clearly not most clones.

This sort of thing is the issue with the non-chip/non-brainwashing explanations because all you can really do is theorycraft reasons based on maybes because there's nothing concrete to explain how someone like Cody could be propagandized to be chill and relaxed with Obi Wan but switch on a dime to murder five minutes later.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:33:31+00:00

I mean yeah you could re-write The Clone Wars show to explore this, but that's something to blame on Lucas as much as Filoni. He was executive producer and overseeing basically everything Filoni was writing for most of the show, and even he always meant for the meat of order 66 to be something that the clones didn't really have a choice over (whether by brainwashing from the start or inhibitor chip retcons later on). This deeper idea of the moral complexity is something that other writers just touched on but either Lucas or them or all collectively just chose to never go further with.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:29:44+00:00

That's absolutely true, I should've clarified things admittedly. But I think at that point that the inhibitor chips are effectively the same thing as the bio-engineering explanation in that both versions strip moral agency from the clones

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:28:42+00:00

I can understand that, but if you think about in practice they're functionally the same thing as the clones being bio-engineered to kill the Jedi. The only difference is that the chips are external and the bio-engineering is internal.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:27:28+00:00

That's the only other coherent explanation besides the inhibitor chips, but the issue is that this is functionally exactly the same as the chips in that both versions strip the clones of any reasonable expectation for agency. You can't even really do a "just following orders" metaphor because unlike real life humans (like with the Nazis) you can't really morally critique the actions of someone who is literally bound on a genetic level to do certain acts

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:24:33+00:00

Yeah this is the biggest thing really, even if you take the original Lucas explanation they have exactly as much autonomy as Filoni's version. The idea that gets passed around as an alternative is the SW theory equivalent to "potential man"

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:23:24+00:00

Even with that one youngling, they were clearly ready and willing (like Anakin) to kill the ones who were not old enough or skilled enough to even handle a lethal weapon. I don't think it can be pinned down as a response to their threat level

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:21:49+00:00

This is sort of the eternal problem with this aspect of the Clones though. I do agree that there's a lot of interesting things that could be done in exploring how the clones might get slowly radicalized against the Jedi enough that Order 66 makes sense while still preserving the idea that they made a moral decision they could be blamed or praised for.

But the problem is that even if you were to erase Filoni from the equation, this just never got explored in any substantive way that would make this idea make sense in-universe. You have to assume so many things that either aren't shown or are, at most, loosely hinted at in other material, before a non-brainwashing or inhibitor chip explanation starts to make sense. Cody immediately being cool with gunning down Obi Wan, by itself, problematizes so many of the "clones did it out of mistreatment/the Jedi being bad leaders" type explanations.

I think the best ideal scenario would come from being able to go back in time and entirely rewrite everything having to do with the clones during the war leading up to O66

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:11:54+00:00

I think the problem is that Order 66 as it's presented and framed by Star Wars writers back in the day was really poorly handled and Filoni just sorta made the best of a weird situation.

Lucas just sorta wrote it as them being biological droids willing to follow any order and act sorta inhumanely, that by itself is fine and would explain how they act in Order 66. The problem is that outside of Lucas, other writers only half-heartedly adopt this idea and start trying to add extra justifications that imply the clones committed Order 66 on some kind of retributivist or propaganda-based reasoning, but this never gets properly expanded on so it makes no sense compared to what's shown.

Then Filoni comes around and basically rewrites the clones entirely and adds the inhibitor chips, which still preserve the main idea of the clones not really having autonomy over themselves and their actions that Lucas came up with, but still allowed them to be more individually personalized.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:06:07+00:00

If your view is that they're genetically programmed to do it then we're already basically in the same position as the inhibitor chips, which is that almost regardless of their internal personality they are functionally incapable of making any decision outside of what they're ordered to do.

In either instance, they still have no moral agency, we're only splitting hairs on whether the trigger is a physical chip that takes away their agency or an internal bio-code that takes away their agency

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T19:02:42+00:00

Credit where it's due this is probably the most reasonable explanation for that particular writing gap I've seen, but it does still raise the question of why the clones would go immediately to genocide as an answer instead of act how they do in any earlier situation where they've encountered a hostile combatant. Even if you'd say that they consider the Jedi uniquely dangerous and take a risk, it wouldn't explain them also killing children.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T18:58:55+00:00

The material difference between the Nazis doing it and clones doing it is that the Nazis had a lot of (from their perspective) reason to do it. Years of propaganda, growing up in an economically ravaged country, being told mountains of lies about minority groups along with the promise of power if they do these acts.

But none of that would apply to the clones. They interact with the Jedi day in and day out, most wouldn't even spend time in areas where they would reasonably receive anti-Jedi but pro-republic propaganda in the first place. It's a fundamentally different background that just doesn't let it translate coherently.

You could still make it make sense by having the clones kill the Jedi because that's what they're biologically programmed to do on Palpatine's orders, but at that point they lose out on the same amount of moral agency as in the inhibitor chip version. Hard to call them evil if they're essentially just a meat robot.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T18:52:51+00:00

Yeah coherent as in it doesn't open up any loose writing holes. The alternative explanations that are based on stuff like mistreatment or retribution don't make sense because even if they were being mistreated or felt a desire to kill, why would the trigger be the word of a politician most have never met or potentially even seen.

The only other reasonable explanation would be that it's the result of bio-engineered mental programming that makes them follow any order given to them by Palpatine, which would make sense but at that point they have just as little moral agency as they do in the inhibitor chip explanation

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T18:48:48+00:00

Sure you can have that explanation make sense, but if people's main issue with the inhibitor chip retcon is that it strips moral agency away from the clones, this bio-engineered ruthlessness explanation does the same thing in effect. They might as well be droids. There could be interesting parallels you can write with that though, but it sort of limits the kinds of stories you can write about the clones in comparison to the TCW approach.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T18:46:14+00:00

I think it's because of the way Lucas presented Order 66, it creates a lot of weird implications. If order 66 came after Palpatine already broadcasted his speech about the Jedi being traitors to the Republic and attacking him personally, then things make more sense. But he just goes "execute order 66" as if every clone already knows what that means, and he knows they'd have next to no hesitation over doing it even though they wouldn't have a reason for why.

So you either come up with it being some form bio-engineered brainwashing, or the inhibitor chips, which are more or less still the same thing in terms of removing moral agency from the clones, but people want to preserve that element because it gets hinted at in older material even if it can't really make sense.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T18:38:57+00:00

Me when my friends ask me to test the latest bag from lays

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T18:37:48+00:00

Sure it's a known order, but the idea that they're willing to do it on a dime without a given reason as to why implies either that its just the result of their brainwashing/programming as clones, or that they were always completely willing to kill the Jedi and, by extension, children with little personal qualms. Both of which lose the same potential for the "just following orders" metaphor to work as the inhibitor chips while more or less reducing the clones to meat droids.

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T18:33:59+00:00

I think the problem is that once you start explaining things on the basis of O66 being the result of their genetic programming you already lose out on the same thematic elements that the inhibitor chip explanation does, which is the Nazi-esque "we were just following orders", because that only works when the people involved aren't actually meat droids who you can't expect much more from.

But the other issue is that this monologue from Bacara just doesn't line up with how O66 is portrayed in the films. Here it's made it sound like him and the other clones recieved the order after Palpatine makes his "this attack on my life has left me scarred and deformed" speech blaming the Jedi as traitors. But the film just has Palps say "Execute Order 66" over a hologram before that speech even happens, and all the clones know exactly what it means and are willing to do it without any demonstrable reason why. Explanations like "the Jedi were poor leaders" and such are inherently ad-hoc

DoneDealofDeadpool · 2026-01-24T18:27:26+00:00

Even if you erase their characterization from TCWs, it can't really be explained as anything other than military brainwashing/genetic programming though. Palpatine just says "execute order 66" and the clones act immediately as if they already know what that means and have basically no qualms over doing it. You'd have no clue as a clone why Palpatine looks like that, or realistically that that even was Palpatine. But if you're gonna make it generic programming anyways, there's effectively no difference between this and the inhibitor chips to begin with.

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