#archive backup copy of the Jedi Order

[saphronethaleph]

Nu Jedi Order

“So, I’m curious,” Jocasta Nu said, over tea. “About your opinion on the ethics of clones, and of cloning.”

Yoda, Mace and Bant all sighed.

“This is going to be one of those difficult questions, isn’t it?” Bant asked, rubbing her temples. “Masters, can I bow out if this is too philosophically difficult?”

“No,” Yoda informed her, bluntly. “Stay you should. Good for you, it will be.”

“Thanks,” the Mon Cal muttered. “All right, so… I think that cloning isn’t any different to creating a child. The individual who has been created is their own person, both independent and autonomous, and you owe them a duty of care for their childhood and to make sure they are set up in the world. As would be done with a child.”

“That’s a strong start, Master Eerin,” Mace noted, with a nod. “Well done.”

“Thank you,” Bant said. “...though I hope someone else is going to speak up, now. I still feel nervous in these situations.”

“Nerves are the path to not speaking up,” Yoda said, sagely. “Not speaking up leads to ideas forgotten. Ideas forgotten are solutions missed, and contemplation lost. And a conversation, we are here for.”

“Do you think it’s ethical for a clone to be made into a soldier?” Jocasta Nu said.

“That’s… a difficult one for me, I admit,” Mace mused. “Because… we didn’t ask for the army. The army was already there.”

“What worries me about it is that they didn’t really have a choice,” Bant admitted. “They were trained for this since their birth, and… I know they don’t mind, they’ve said it, but I feel like I would have been more comfortable if they’d been given a choice.”

“The cloners of Kamino do consider their clones… output,” Mace said. “Product. It’s worried me about the whole thing.”

“When the war is over, the clones we will champion,” Yoda declared. “Nothing new, this is.”

“It’s not,” Jocasta said. “But I was thinking about it in the specific context of… raising a child from a young age to fulfil a specific role.”

She spread her hands. “That was what happened to all of us, after all.”

“You’re not wrong, Jocasta,” Mace conceded. “I feel like there’s a difference, but I’m not sure I can articulate it.”

“It’s that the Jedi are valued, I think,” Bant suggested. “We… well, it takes a long time to learn the self-discipline that’s essential to using the Force, and we have a position in the galaxy that is well thought of and well respected. The clones… they’re grown up faster so they can be useful more quickly, and they’re treated as a commodity.”

“So would it be different if the clones were better respected?” Jocasta asked.

Yoda frowned, putting down his teacup.

“An important consideration, it is,” he said. “To the rest of the galaxy, look like Kamino does to us, we might.”

“Perhaps,” Mace mused. “Though I think perhaps part of the difference is that we respect the decision of the parents.”

“Don’t the Kaminoans respect the decision of the parents, for the clones?” Bant asked. “If – if creating clones is like parenting, I mean. Jango Fett certainly gave permission.”

She looked troubled. “And is it the decision of the parents or the child that matters more? Did any of us really have the chance to choose to become a Jedi, except Anakin?”

“That gets back to the self-discipline argument,” Mace noted. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying that… there are other ways to reliably get soldiers, but are there other ways to reliably get Jedi with the proper self-discipline?”

There was a silence for a long moment.

“Someone who wants to leave the Jedi order can do so,” Mace added. “But it’s not common, and having grown up in the Jedi Order… someone might not truly feel they can leave.”

“Should it have been an option given to the clones?” Jocasta asked. “To either fight in the Grand Army of the Republic, or to choose to not do so?”

“Perhaps,” Yoda said, slowly. “Perhaps.”

He sighed. “Protectors of the Republic, the Jedi are. But protect it alone, we cannot.”

“I don’t think we were ever meant to protect it alone,” Bant said. “To protect it against the Sith, yes. To help it stay together, yes. But… surely the population of the Republic should be willing to fight for it? At least some of them?”

She looked down at her hands. “And if none of them are… does that mean it should still exist?”

“If the clones hadn’t been available, then the Separatists could have done terrible damage to the Republic before there were armies able to stop them,” Jocasta pointed out. “They were the ones with the armies ready to go. It’s a paradox.”

The archivist sipped from her tea. “The worst time to build an army is after being invaded, but that army has to be attached to the ideals of the Republic more than it is attached to any one person.”

“Devoted to the Republic, the Clones seem to be,” Yoda said, frowning. “But ask them more often, I should. And raised to be, they were.”

“...which is curious,” Mace noted. “Given who their template worked for.”

“They were ordered for the Republic,” Bant said. “For the Jedi, in fact – that was what the Kaminoans were told from the start. And, as we saw, the Kaminoans keep secrets rather than betray their employers – and they raised the army to be as they should be, based on what they were told.”

“I almost wish that the army had been ordered about years ago,” Jocasta said, thoughtfully. “Raised at a normal speed, rather than twice as fast – and offered the choice. Having grown up in a normal community, in fact.”

“That would make them normal citizens,” Mace noted, though he wasn’t disagreeing. “Treating them as people would be far more ethical, you’re right.”

Jocasta nodded, stirring her teacup.

“And no more questions that deeply philosophical, please,” Bant added. “I’d rather enjoy the tea. I get so few opportunities to relax…”

Around twenty years later, an X-Wing starfighter dropped out of hyperspace in the Adega system.

“...well, I don’t see much of anything,” Luke admitted. “But this is where Master Obi-Wan told me to go…”

R2’s reply appeared on the screen, and Luke laughed.

“Yes, he was there,” Luke replied. “I guess… see if there’s anything out there emitting signals?”

He flicked a switch as he did, then sighed.

“I really hope we don’t have to search this planet and its moon,” he muttered, noticing the forest moon orbiting the primary world. “Planets are huge…”

Then a signal came in, and the comm systems of his fighter crackled.

“Skywalker,” a voice said. “You’re expected.”

“I am?” Luke asked. “You knew I was coming?”

“Yes,” the voice agreed. “The homing beacon is on frequency 13, band 4.”

The transmission stopped, and Luke frowned – mystified – before seeing that R2 had switched one of the sensors to frequency 13, band 4.

A weak, fuzzy signal was showing up on the forest moon, and Luke rolled his little fighter before pointing it down to see what was going on.

When he landed on a clear landing pad, the situation was no clearer. There was a moderately-sized settlement just on the other side of a shallow river from where he’d landed, with irrigated farms and pastures for woolly animals on the hills, but almost half the settlement was built into the trees.

And there was something… weird. He could feel it.

“Well, I guess we should find out what’s going on,” Luke shrugged, getting out of his fighter, and as he did an old human woman came striding out of the trees. There were two young men and a young woman with her – the younger woman was a dark-skinned tholothian, while one of the men was a twi’lek and the other was a human.

“Welcome,” the woman said, with a smile. “Master Obi-Wan Kenobi informed us that you were coming.”

“What was he like?” the young human added, then looked embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s not a problem,” the older woman told him.

Luke was staring, because… the young man was just a little bit familiar.

And he couldn’t define how.

“So,” the woman went on, pleasantly. “Tell me, Skywalker. Have you ever had an idea where you can’t decide if it’s an excellent idea or a terrible one?”

Luke blinked.

“…more than once,” he admitted. “Most recently, there was this attack on an Imperial weapons facility where Han disguised himself as Jabba’s – look, who are you?”

“I am Master Jocasta Nu,” the woman said. “And these are Teras Gallia, Tora’shen… and Joras Kenobi.”

Luke might have fallen over if R2 hadn’t been immediately behind him.

“So, speaking of ideas,” Master Nu said, spreading her hands. “When the Great Purge began, I absconded with as much of the Temple medical records as I could find, and managed to source some cloning cylinders… and we have had no idea what is going on in the rest of the galaxy until now. Would you be able to inform us?”