As HK-47 once observed, mating was one of
the primary drivers of conflict in the Star Wars universe, as it is in the real world.
Humans in particular were known for having especially problematic urges in this regard, as
most adult Humans felt a strong desire to mate, especially when they were under a lot
of stress. Since war definitely counts as “a lot of stress,” you’d probably
expect that human clones grown for war, like the clone troopers of the Grand Army of the
Republic, would be sterilized - but they weren’t. There were valid reasons for this, as we’ll get
into, but it naturally ended up causing its fair share of problems during the war, including an
incident in which a clone commando got a Padawan pregnant. In this video, we’re going to
be talking about the birds, the bees, and more as we take a look at clone hormones
and why the Kaminoans were concerned about them. When plans for the Grand Army of the
Republic were being laid in 32 BBY, the Kaminoan clonemasters had a fiery debate
over whether or not to sterilize the clones they were growing for the Jedi. Most clones
that were grown on Kamino were sterilized, but many geneticists in Tipoca City argued that
the clones grown for the GAR shouldn't be. The reason for this was simple - they were
Human, and as the Kaminoans had observed, Human clones often ended up coming out subpar
when Factor H, as the geneticists called it, was removed. To quote senior
research geneticist Hali Ke: “Two recent Human projects – the miners created
for Tarshan Ring Excavations and the infiltration squads requested by the Lords of Purala IV — began
with trials of sterile clones, as requested by both customers. In both cases the clone prototypes
displayed much higher rates of mental instability, poor unit cohesion, an inability to adapt and
think creatively, and decreased aggressiveness in battlefield sims. A number of corrective
measures were employed — synthetic hormones, rewiring cortical pleasure centers and dietary
additives — but all cases improvement was minimal. It is certainly irregular to recommend that we
deliver an army of clone units able to reproduce. But the TRE and Puralan experiments,
as well as my experience with Humans, tell me that we have no choice if we also
want an army that can fight effectively.” With the Grand Army of the Republic, the Kaminoans
had to choose between an army that was sterile and an army that could fight. Decreased battlefield
aggression is absolutely not something you want in an army, so the Kaminoans made the choice
of not sterilizing the clones of the GAR. This was not an easy choice to make, however,
and it was yet another thing about the army that made the perfectionist, overly-cautious
Kaminoans uneasy about the entire project. Not only did Factor H have a tendency of
increasing aberrations in clone batches, but it also threatened to cause a boatload of problems
for the Republic when the clones were deployed. The potential downsides of unleashing a few
million genetically identical horny ten-year-olds with the bodies and hormones of twenty-year-old
men should be self-evident, especially since these clones were technically the property of the
Galactic Republic. Clones were given very little free time and were expected to spend pretty
much their entire lives on the battlefield, meaning that, in many cases, there would be a
real problem if they went out and made kids. Slave soldiers weren’t allowed to be parents,
they weren’t really able to afford child support, and since they were all genetically identical,
the wider Human population would have some serious gene pool issues if they
produced too many offspring. The Kaminoans feared these problems enough
that some clonemasters were calling for the clones to be sterilized for up to five years
after the decision to leave Factor H intact was made. They were once again
outvoted, but to quell their fears, the other Kaminoan geneticists did come up with
a few simple steps for the Republic to follow in order to minimize incidents. To again quote
Hali Ke, they advised that the Republic: In a nutshell, the Kaminoans hoped they would
be able to socialize the clones into putting bros before hoes, and that the Republic would be
able to keep them away from the general population as much as possible. Hali Ke was
confident that this would minimize problematic incidents, but this hope
ultimately proved to be in vain. By and large, clone reproductive urges weren’t
too much of a problem. For most of the war, the clones were largely kept in their barracks
when they weren’t on duty, meaning they had to settle for hot dates with their right hands
instead of the real deal. This wasn’t always the case, however. About midway through the
Clone Wars, restrictions on what clones could and couldn’t do during their off-time were greatly
loosened up thanks to Kal Skirata’s lobbying, and clones were allowed out of the barracks when
off-duty on Loyalist worlds. The vast majority of clones used these opportunities to get absolutely
hammered, and certain establishments, like 97’s Bar on Coruscant, might as well have been invaded
by the GAR by the end of the war. Of course, alcohol has a nasty tendency to lead to other
regrettable lifestyle choices, so it’s a fair bet that many of those clones did end up going out
and having one-night stands while on shore leave. Fortunately, this resulted in relatively
few serious incidents, as far as we know. There were, however, cases of clones getting a
partner pregnant. One particularly infamous case of this was the case of clone commando RC-1136,
otherwise known as Darman, a member of Omega Squad. During a mission to Separatist-occupied
Quiilura three months into the war, he met Jedi Padawan Etain Tur-Mukan, who became a good friend
of his over the course of the mission. They parted ways after Quiilura’s liberation, but when they
met again a year later to hunt down Separatist terrorist cells on Coruscant, they developed
and declared feelings for each other, and began a relationship. Over the course of their time
together, Darman ended up getting Etain pregnant. We don’t know what’s more problematic about this
incident - the fact that Etain was probably still a teenager at that point, or the fact that Darman
was technically an eleven-year-old. For whatever reason, Etain decided to make the whole thing even
more problematic by not only not telling Darman, but by promising to give her kid to Kal Skirata,
who wanted the child raised as a Mandalorian. She feared that telling Darman would lead him to
get distracted in battle, which is some weird, kinda callous logic if you ask us. So, with
the help of Kal Skirata, she concealed her pregnancy and hid out on Quiilura while the baby
developed. Etain ultimately gave birth to a son, Ventu Skirata, in secret. She still didn’t
tell Darman that he was the father, even after introducing the baby to Omega Squad, to whom
she claimed the child was Kal Skirata’s grandson. Darman actually ended up being virtually
the last person to know he was a father, something that made him
positively livid, as you’d expect. That’s really just scratching the surface of
the absolute basketcase of a relationship that was Darman and Etain Tur-Mukan, but it
should give you a pretty good idea about why the Kaminoans weren’t exactly thrilled
withclones having reproductive instincts. War’s already complicated enough without
pregnancy making things even more of a mess. Incidents like this weren’t common, but
evidently, they did happen, and considering the size and scope of the Grand Army of the
Republic, they probably happened a fair bit, especially when restrictions on what clones
could do in their off-time were lowered. Of course, considering it was Kal Skirata who
made that happen, we’d bet it was his master plan all along, and he just wanted more half-clones to
adopt into Clan Skirata. Just kidding, of course. At the end of the day, there was only so much the Republic could do to make sure clones
kept their snakes in their trousers. In theory, keeping clones separated from
civilian populaces should have done the trick, but, while this worked on Loyalist worlds, it was
much more complicated when clones were fighting battles on inhabited worlds or coordinating
refugee relocations. The Jedi, of course, complicated things as well. Jedi were trained to
not form emotional attachments, but they actually weren’t required to be celibate, contrary to
popular belief, meaning that relationships like Darman’s and Etain’s might have been a lot
more common than you might think. If they were, we just hope that the Jedi in the relationship
had better decision-making skills than Etain did. So, that’s why the Kaminoans feared Factor H,
the instinct to reproduce that they decided to not eliminate in their clone army. But
what do you think? Have we ruined the Clone Wars for you yet? Please keep your frakking
clone-Jedi ships out of the comments below.
