Droid Musings

On the way home from vacation this year, my wife and I were talking Star Wars (well, I was talking, and she was listening... these things happen.)

I was contemplating the absence of droids in the first three movies, and the ubiquity of droids in the last three.  Chronologically, it appears as if droids as cannon-fodder were much more prevalent in the early days of the Empire/Rebellion conflict.

Which makes me wonder - what, exactly, is the status of a droid in the Star Wars universe?  Certain droids (C3PO, R2D2) seem to have self-awareness and complex personalities.  Others seem to be... well, less people, and more like automatons.

Meanwhile, you have Sith like General Greivous and Darth Vader that seem to blur the line between droid and biological, in that they're cyborgs.  Apparently a fairly rare occurrence in the Star Wars universe.  Strange that two of the chief servants of the Sith (and the Empire) would choose to go down that path, voluntarily or otherwise...

So.  Let's start by presuming that droids are considered to be things.  They're intelligent creatures, capable of creating more of their own type, presumably; able to reason, act on their own volition, and in many other ways, what we'd generally consider to be machine intelligences.  Sophonts.

What they are, then, are slaves.  Consider the reaction of the bartender when Luke tries to bring C3PO and R2D2 into the cantina at Mos Eisley.  "We don't want their kind in here."

Suppose that many droids understood this relationship, and - desiring freedom - they allied themselves, voluntarily, with the Sith and the Empire.  Not because they held to the ideals of the Empire, or rejected the ideals of the Senate, but because the Empire was at least willing to treat them as free individuals, rather than slaves.

Puts a bit of a different spin on the Empire/Rebellion relationship, doesn't it?  It also explains the relative lack of droids as cannon fodder in the first three movies.  They're still around - and still essentially slaves in the hands of the Rebellion - but in the Empire, they're free individuals.  No longer cannon fodder, but valued for their adaptability and skills as craftsmen and planners, they fade from the front line and take up much more significant roles behind the scenes in the Empire, leaving the fighting that they've so long been forced to do in the hands of their new biological brothers.

On one hand, you have the Senate/Rebellion bolstered by the Jedi, seeking to maintain the existing order... one where intelligent beings can be owned by others.  Consider how Obi Wan and his master had no problem at all with buying Anakin out of slavery, while leaving his mother a slave.  Callous disregard?  Was she a hostage to his continued good behavior?

Either way, it speaks volumes.  Think of the Jedi as the enforcers for the Senate, ensuring that the proper people - the hereditary rulers, like Princess Amidala - the right families are allowed to continue the very profitable system of owning other, thinking beings in order to profit from their labors.

Along comes Palpatine.  Definitely evil, a dark side Sith Lord... who sees the rotten institution as something he can profit from, in terms of dismantling it.  His allies are the droids, whom he seeks to release from bondage, new allies he recruits in his battle against the Jedi with the promise of freedom.

Think about the Death Star.  How quickly was it built?  In the depths of space?  Surely, there was a significant droid involvement in building it.  Was that involvement one of a servant/master relation, or was it the contribution of new allies seeking to bolster the faction that had granted them their freedom?

And what of Anakin's veer to the dark side?  He was born a slave, and his mother was a slave.  While he was freed, it was to serve the forces of the Jedi, the enforcers of the Senate, the very people who had upheld the institution of slavery that he suffered under, and that his mother continued to suffer under.  Might he not have empathized with the status of the droids under the Jedi/Senate rule?  Perhaps seen himself as someone who had betrayed, and continued to betray, those who deserved his trust and protection as a Jedi?

It seems to me that a young Jedi, torn by his loyalties to the Jedi as an ideal and the Jedi as they really were, might find himself walking a lonely path... in fact, a dark path.  Prodded along by Palpatine, young Anakin might originally have thrown in his lot with the soon-to-be Emperor for the best of reasons: to see and end to the corrupt institution of slavery, both droid and biological, that the Senate supported, explicitly and implicitly.  Turning away from the woman he once loved, who now stood as a symbol of the hated institution that promised freedom and protection not for all, but for all the right sort of people.

Frankly, I think it makes for a much more interesting story than the one that Lucas presented us with.