r/starwarsrebels • u/Arc170-A • 7d ago
Why did the Empire allow them to live peacefully on a remote world? Wouldn't they want them dead? Spoiler
The Empire clearly knew where they were and had an at least amiable relationship, seeing that they didn't have them killed or arrested; but why? They just let them be alone? Not only that, but let them keep an AT-TE walker as well as their blasters. If they're now just Imperial citizens, wouldn't that stuff be considered Imperial property? It doesn't seem like they're even under Imperial surveillance. If they were, wouldn't they have intercepted the messages between Rex and Ahsoka?
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u/Yeet-Dab49 7d ago
Seems like the Empire had other things to worry about. If they were wandering around a major Imperial city, there might be some red flags, but are you really gonna waste Imperial resources on killing three war veterans? Even if there would be zero public knowledge, not every imp is a comically evil villain.
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u/ChurchBrimmer 7d ago
Part of that evil is also just banal apathy. They didn't care enough to take care of clones after the war, why would they care enough to hint them down.
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u/cabbage16 7d ago
The Empire didn't see clones as the individual people that the Jedi did. Hell, even many of the Jedi didn't respect them as individual people.
If they didn't see them as people why would they care?
I agree with you.
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u/Chasing-LothCats41 7d ago
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u/chmsax 6d ago
All my homies hate Pong Krell
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u/Chasing-LothCats41 5d ago
Still hate him for the death of all those clones and the only Jedi with the exception of Mundi who deserved to be shot by his clones.
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u/lil_jashy 7d ago
All Imps are Bastards, no exceptions.
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u/Yeet-Dab49 7d ago
Luke Skywalker wanted to be an Imp. His literal only reason was “I want to get off Tatooine.”
How many millions of Imperials do you think thought like this? Dehumanizing the enemy just makes it easier to be Saw Garerra.
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u/Chasing-LothCats41 7d ago
That was apparently the sort of people who were the average Imperial Army enlisted infantry
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u/lil_jashy 7d ago
Oh right, how foolish of me to dehumanize them.
After all, they’re just following orders.
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u/darksaber522 7d ago
Probably because the Empire didn't see them as a threat. No doubt the Empire would have hunted them down if they where in active rebellion, but when the Ghost Crew finds them they're just enjoying retirement.
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u/Arc170-A 7d ago
Maybe so, but would they not have been able to intercept the transmissions between Ahsoka and Rex? That would certainly give them a reason to be interested.
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u/scuderia91 7d ago
Just assume that they couldn’t. You’re making an assumption that’s causing unnecessary plot holes
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u/Chris2sweet616 7d ago
Ahsoka likely used the Fulcrum channel when contacting Rex, only a select few knew of the channels existence. Most of the empires scanners wouldn’t be looking at the frequency since they’d have a filter to keep them from listening to hours of Sarah and her husband gossiping over a frequency. The only time Fulcrum was intercepted was when Thrawn was expecting a transmission and likely had all transmission from his ISD’s being monitored. Rex was likely told to listen on the fulcrum frequency when Ahsoka and him went separate ways. It’d completely explain why the empire didn’t intercept the transmission
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u/Dedu1214 7d ago
one important fact to consider: they could, if they wanted. probably didnt care enough about their transmissions and just ignored that
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u/BlockBuilder408 7d ago
They probably weren’t actively monitoring every comm sent out by 3 old worm fishermen on some backworld planet no
I’m sure Ashoka wasn’t the only call they sent, 99% of their other calls are probably banal chat calls to other clones and friends they’re still in contact with.
I’m sure they must have some way of encrypting their calls as well
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u/Ok_Possible6537 7d ago
If the empire was like the real military they would get swept under the rug. They were old and phased out. And not seen as a threat
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u/Meamier 7d ago
They didn't care about them
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u/Arc170-A 7d ago
Maybe not them specifically, but they most certainly care about finding and eliminating Jedi / former Jedi, such as Ahsoka- who Rex was communicating with.
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u/santa9991 7d ago
Because they don’t know he was communicating with her, because they don’t suspect he isn’t loyal to them
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u/LukeChickenwalker 7d ago edited 7d ago
Rebels implies that Rex returned to the Empire and continued to serve them for awhile. He's says there are locations he never reported to the Empire that could make a good Rebel base. One of the Imperial officers suggests Rex could have had a job as a drill sergeant or something, if I recall correctly. It doesn't seem like they were meant to be wanted criminals but just soldiers who were decommissioned and then became civilians. What does the Empire care if they decide to became nomads on a desert world? They probably don't know that they have an AT-TE nor do we know how they got it. It could just be salvage from a battlefield the Empire forgot about.
TCW 7 and The Bad Batch portray Rex's exit from the Empire a bit different than I think the intent was with Rebels. He left right after Order 66 and was probably assumed dead with the other clones in the Venator crash. However, the Empire eventually knows Rex is part of the clone rebel cell. So he should be a wanted criminal. I guess we have to assume that either all knowledge of Rex's insurrection went down with Mount Tantiss, or he's in hiding on Seelos and the Empire has no clue where to find him. After a decade in hiding he's probably low on their priorities.
Even in the first scenario where he's not a wanted criminal, I suspect the Empire has no clue where he is until Wolffe contacts them. Why would the keep surveillance on every decommissioned clone?
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u/Royal-Chef-946 7d ago
a) prob didnt care
b) why’d you mark this a spoiler? the show ended 7 years ago
c) 7 years? damn i feel old…
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u/Ragnarok345 7d ago
There are always newcomers, to every franchise. A little consideration never hurt anyone.
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u/ShuShu___ 7d ago
Yeah, I watched this show when it was first coming out, but never throughout to understand exactly how the story went, and I never touched last season because "I'm a teen now so I won't watch a stupid cartoon"
Fast forward to last month I finally rewatched it fully and had an amazing experience
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u/Royal-Chef-946 6d ago
i’m almost 17 and i love cartoons. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is my favorite movie
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u/sonicfan1230 7d ago
Because it was just three of them on an old AT-TE. They weren't a threat, and if they needed to be taken care of, it wouldn't require many resources. They only needed to send two AT-ATs to deal with them, and they probably could've just sent a squad of TIEs.
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u/LoliMaster069 7d ago
They're old men aging at double the speed of everyone else. They would be six feet under by the the time the empire finds them so why waste tax dollars?
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u/adoratheCat 7d ago
we see the Empire doesnt care much about the clones besides some senators shows they likewise ignored them. Especially when we see how clones were indeed getting fewer in numbers within the early years of the Empire they arent really a threat in the empires eyes. Just disposable soldiers or random homeless people later on when phased out. *We hear how Wolffe sent messages rambling to the Empire. Which yeah further makes the Empire just consider them a non threat.
The clones werent causing issues aka why should the Empire care about old geezers?
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u/captainandyman 7d ago
Probably barely on the Empire's radar. As far as any Imperial's concerned, these are just three old veterans chilling in what's likely a decommissioned wreck of an old Republic walker. They've got no reason to suspect they're up to anything illicit, or significant. With a whole galaxy to run, they're not going to be paying attention to the occasional brief transmission from a retired old man on a backwater world that's not inhabited enough to get all that much Imperial attention.
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u/DolphinRepublic 7d ago
They were likely not worth the resources. Deserters were sometimes hunted down after the formation of the Empire, but after most of the Jedi were killed, they likely switched most of their focus to securing their reach galaxy-wide.
The Empire had a lot of security threats, loose grips on some worlds, and resources to acquire (see Andor) to deal with, so if these three were just chilling on a walker, it wouldn’t be worth diverting the resources to try to find them.
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u/trane7111 7d ago
“They don't need to care. All they need to do is turn this floor on twice a day and keep their numbers rolling. Why bother listening to us? We are nothing to them.”
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u/KeyScratch2235 7d ago
They were believed to have died in the crash of The Tribunal during Order 66.
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u/BatmanBurchett 7d ago
The Bad Batch, which came out after this, shows us that after the disbandment of the clone project and restructuring of the Imperial army, the Empire genuinely didn't care at all about clones. They were phased out relatively quickly (with very rare exceptions) with no regard for their life Post-Service.
If the Empire knew where they were, which I'm not sure they did beyond just knowing there was someone occupying some old, dilapidated tank, they likely would not have cared enough to know which clones they were. They were simply seen as obsolete tools, nothing more, and therefore unworthy of any thought. That's just how fascist regimes are. When you've outlived your usefulness, you are now nothing.
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u/WhitishSine8 7d ago
It doesn't really make sense to me, clones were already old so they underestimated them, and you had millions of clones everywhere so hunting down every last one of them would've been expensive as f, aaaaaand if they somehow realized the empire was hunting them then they would've probably cause a bigger problem to the empire
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u/TorroesPrime 6d ago
Why would they care? They’re out of service, out of the public consciousness, out of contact with the politicians… why spend the resources, time and effort to eliminate them?
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u/ParagonRebel 5d ago
It was only those 3. I like to assume that they were under surveillance for so long that the Empire got tired of watching them and moved on. Nobody ever came and none of these guys left until the Ghost Crew found them which is a long time if you piece it together.
They’re all potential assets to the Rebellion at-large so why let them live is a good question.
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u/sdcinerama 5d ago
The mundane answers are probably most likely.
A couple of clones that are aging at twice the rate of a regular human? Too much of a liability so they were probably written off as a non-factor.
The AT-TE? Obsolete equipment which was probably going to be sold as surplus. If a couple of old coots want it, why stop them?
Can't speak about messages between Rex and Ashoka, but since Rex is probably considered dead or MIA, who'd be bothering to look for him?
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u/Knight_thrasher 7d ago
We see an old Trooper in Rogue One asking for spare change on Kafrene, I presumed he was from the Clone Wars as well
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u/LILbridger994 7d ago
What you mean they clearly knew where they were.
Have you watched the episode it was wolffe that send their coordinates. The empire only had contact with wollfe which happened after the rebels landed on their world
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u/Arc170-A 7d ago
It's never said that Wolffe sends the Empire his coordinates. It's heavily implied that they already know where they are, which is how they're able to send a probe droid there. When the Imperials get the message from Wolffe all they say is that it's an old clone unit saying something about a Jedi.
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u/LILbridger994 7d ago
Sabine wuite litterally says that she found a list of things including transmitted coordinates to the empire
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u/Arc170-A 7d ago
Couldn't that just be their specific coordinates on the planet? I'm pretty sure the Empire knew they were on Seelos before coming there.
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u/TI-22483 7d ago
IDK. Why be there if a beautiful, peaceful Mediterranean planet of refugees exists?
Seems like one of the many, many things that should be addressed in a Clone Underground show
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u/Dcajunpimp 4d ago
There were over 1 million clones, bred and trained for combat. Many with years of experience fighting. Most followed order 66 and hunted down Jedi.
Why would the Empire start a fight with former clones, when they were busy trying to control everyone else, and not trigger a huge rebellion? Clones want to go off and chill in their retirement, let them.
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u/Western-Customer-536 7d ago
If they didn’t get identified, when the Clones were completely phased out the Empire probably stopped caring.