The Bad Batch is showing us what happened to the Kaminoans
The Star Wars: The Bad Batch episode 14, titled “War-Mantle” dropped this week. It is finally showing us what happened to the Kaminoans after the Clones Wars!
Check out the video, or read the post below!
Nala Se and Lama Su
As I’ve said in my previous videos and blogs, Kamino has been destined to fall for some time. , Dr. Pershing of the Mandalorian is evidence of this.
He had a Kaminoan logo on his sleeves. He expertise was in cloning. Yet Dr. Pershing was human. This suggested that humans had at some point taken over the operations on Kamino. And of course, those humans were ones working for the Empire.
Now the Bad Batch is telling us about the fall of Kamino.
Nala Se is ahead of everyone else
Episode 14 beings with Nala Se escorting the cadets out of Kamino. It has always been Nala Se who has seen the writing on the wall regarding the Empire.
Prime Minister Lama su, on the other hand, has been doggedly insistent that providing an ideal clone for the Empire would allow the Kaminoans to maintain their contracts with the new government. This has always been a foolish delusion.
In this week’s episode, Lama Su is finally rid of his delusions. But more on that in a minute.
How do we know that Nala Se foresaw the Empire’s actions? Because Nala Se was the one who let Omega run away with the Bad Batch in Aftermath. Remember, this was before she learned Lama Su would kill her clone daughter-figure. Nala Se was truly surprised Lama Su would kill Omega.
Thus, Nala Se must have sensed that the Empire’s ascendance and continuing encroachment into Kaminoan operations meant danger to Omega. She was right.
Fast forward to this week’s Bad Batch episode–we see Nala Se is escorting the cadets out of Kamino. She tells the cadets she will join them. If Lama Su had not interrupted Nala Se to speak with her in his office, she would have escaped with them.
Lama Su and Nala Se after Cad Bane
I think the most amazing part of the story so far is that Nala Se has suffered no punishment from Lama Su for keeping Omega away. Perhaps Cad Bane never reported back to Lama Su after losing his quarry.
Or else, Bane assumed Fennec’s involvement was nothing more than a money grab. Regardless, Bane felt no need to tell Lama Su it was Nala Se’s hired bounty hunter that kept him from returning Omega.
However, the entire point is now moot. The Empire as has cancelled all contracts. Now Lama Su is forced to reckon with the outcome.
When Nala Se speaks to Lama Su in her typical pleasant, agreeing tones, offering what she must know to be useless suggestions, she is only placating Lama Su. His order to Nala Se to evacuate essential personnel and arrange to leave the planet was something Nala Se had already been planning.
But yes, Lama Su has finally figured out that the Empire will destroy their operations, as it cannot allow other buyers to request armies for themselves. The Kaminoans were always doomed to fall for this reason alone. Either they would be destroyed, or have their operations taken over and re-purposed by the Empire, and staffed by the Empire.
Lama Su and Vice Admiral Rampart
By the time the episode ends, Nala Se is caught evacuating medical personnel. I’d like to remind everyone that she had been training Omega as a medical assistant when we first met her.
Part of this may have been her simple desire to train her daughter in the same profession she was trained in. But I now wonder if it was also a way to ensure Omega could travel with her to other Republic bases, or in this case evacuate as “personnel”.
Since Nala Se isn’t shown to have been evacuating medical personnel at the start of the episode, it’s difficult to say. We can certainly say that Nala Se had planned to leave Kamino before Lama Su said anything, as its right there at the start.
All the “viable” clones are being sent off planet, but Nala Se and Lama Su’s arrest tells us the Kaminoan aliens were not intended to leave the planet. Thus Lama Su ruined Nala Se’s escape plan.
It’s not stated, but I presume the cadets escaped Kamino. I don’t know if they are intended to be killed, or if Nala Se had actually planed the cadets to go to a separate planet the Empire did not know about. I hope this plot thread is eventually returned to, as there is a bit of a story there.
By the episode’s end Lama Su finally met his fate. While it is possible he may only have been arrested by the Empire to ensure obedience by Kaminoans, it is also just as equally likely he is dead. At any rate, he has lost political power. The Empire, under Vice Admiral Rampart, is in full control.
Given the dialogue between Crosshair and Rampart at the start of the episode, the planet of Kamino may very well be “sterilized”, as Geonosis is later.
Rampart, in the meantime, spares Nala Se. I suspect she will be used to train Imperial scientists for Palpatine’s personal cloning endeavors, just as the remaining clones are being used to train the new replacement troopers.
What happened to the clones under Project War-Mantle
In the mean time, we have the story of the clones after The Clone Wars being told. As was explained at the start of the series, Project War-Mantle is Rampart’s project to replace clones with recruits.
Gregor
In the meantime, the remaining clones must train the new stormtroopers. Gregor, previously on the Star Wars cartoon, the Clone Wars has returned in The Bad Batch. He is being being deployed at this new forest base to train recruits in this beautiful forest world. Fun fact, the cinematography for this episode is based on that for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Kaminoan aliens were based on the “gray” aliens for that film.
Gregor deserts the hidden base, is hunted down by space bloodhounds, and arrested for desertion.
Once again, the chips don’t seem to be as effective at this point. Whether this is a natural phenomenon as the chips degrade perhaps, or something Nala Se may have engineered as is theorized, remains to be seen.
At any rate, Gregor is in danger, and Rex who is busy doing something VERY important and mysterious requests that the The Bad Batch rescue him.
The Bad Batch and Gregor
Hunter is again reluctant to help his fellow clone, but is outvoted by Echo and Omega. This is the most dialogue we’ve gotten from Echo, by the way. Wrecker, hilariously, is that guy that calls everyone valid and right.
I find it interesting that Hunter decided in Aftermath that the crew absolutely had to rescue Omega, but is reluctant to go back for another clone. This could be due to bad relations with Crossfire, but it could speak once more to Hunter’s strong instincts towards Omega, fueling that curious theory that Omega is their “mother”. But that’s another post.
Hunter and the crew rescue Gregor successfully. They finally see War Mantle in place as the newly armored they stun are non-clones. Unfortunately, Hunter is left behind during the rescue. He demands the Bad Batch leave him behind to escape, much to Omega’s dismay.
Crosshair and Hunter
The episode ends with Crosshair facing Hunter in a cell on the forest base. The meeting seems ominous, but his facial expression is a curious one. It’s unclear what Crossfire intends.
What will happen in the next two episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch? Will Hunter and Crosshair join forces or fight? Will we meet Palpatine in the finale? Or rather, will Nala Se meet Palpatine?
I don’t expect all these questions to be answered. However, we are certainly promised a fateful finale. It will be one that ends in doom for the Kaminoans, and an uncertain future for remaining clones.
Will Rampart kill all the Kaminoans? Is Rex garnering an army of disobedient clones? Will the Kaminoan uprising occur? Will the Kaminoans end without any hope of a fight gone before it begins? For we already know that whether the Kaminoan clones fight for Kamino or not, it will end for Kamino as we know it. What happened to Kamino is not going to be a happy story.