Context: Omega is some clone in this new animated show and she's a girl. I haven't watched it but the wiki is pretty clear about her being genetically unaltered. Also trans fem clones in the series are not unprecedented :thonk-trans:
Context: Omega is some clone in this new animated show and she's a girl. I haven't watched it but the wiki is pretty clear about her being genetically unaltered. Also trans fem clones in the series are not unprecedented :thonk-trans:
That's every military officer. The Clone Wars are WWI and WWII Eastern Front, not the Iraq and Afghanistan. Military commanders only care about soldiers to the extent required to keep them obedient and to keep completing military objectives. Soldiers are expected to die in large numbers. When pressing an assault against an entrenched peer enemy the general logic is that you're going to lose three of your soldiers for each defender. That's the math. If you're going to fight and win a war a whole lot of soldiers are going to die, whether they're Clones or 18 year old conscripts or battle droids.
And doing that math; One Jedi is worth vastly more to the cause than even a few hundred clones. Jedi's have tactical and strategic abilities that can't be gotten by other means, and can't be replaced. It takes at least 20 years to train up a new generation of Jedi Knights, and Jedi Knights provide most of the general staff of the Army of the Republic. If one Jedi is worth a hundred Clones, and you get 99 clones killed trying to rescue them, then you're still coming out ahead. It's brutal, it's awful, it's inhumane, and that's war. War is hell.
The Jedi are usually depicted as leading from the front, treating the clones with respect as people, and sharing the risk of most military ventures. They are shown going out of their way to rescue individual clones when possible. They're about the best officers you could ask for.
The whole "Literally child slave soldiers" this is left painfully unaddressed in a lot of Clone Wars media, as is the question of the sentience and personhood of the battle droids (who are pretty obviously sentient people). That said, the Jedi are in a similar situation to the Clones, being taken as children and raised to be magic warrior cops.
You're right that that's the logic of war.
It's just also the reason that I think any kind of respect they treat the clones with is, not even secondary, FAR down the list in term of importance, and it doesn't do anything to change how I see this relationship. We're able to recognize that "but some slave owners treated their slaves well!" is complete bullshit in the real world, but why is this situation any different? The clones are slaves.
Agreed, but I would say that respect still exists. The Jedi are not off the hook for using them, but that being wrong does not make the Jedi more blaise about them dying because they are clones. The original immorality permeates every action, all without the Jedi acting particularly immoral in their actual treatment of clones. If they did throw them away or genuinely see them as lesser, then it would kinda be weaker than them knowing this is wrong and in the moment seeing them fully as people and part of the force, but compartmentalizing the immorality which is their downfall.
It is between the Jedi legit not caring, or caring genuinely but justifying it to themselves and entrenching them deeper into the web. I think that is way more accurate and interesting, though sadly underexplored.
Oh and here is a PDF with "equipment" if you are interested
https://paizo.com/download/starwars/shortstorycollection.pdf
it is from that period of clones being treated more like droids by writers, more unnerving. Stover is easily my fav star wars writer.