The Star Wars universe wasn’t a terribly fun
place. Even when there weren’t catastrophic galactic-scale wars happening, there was still
widespread corruption, brutal inequality, plagues, slavery, and criminal empires. This is part
of the point; unlike the likes of Star Trek, Star Wars isn’t about what should be,
but what is, and its dystopian side is meant to draw attention and criticism to the
aspects of the real world that they mirror. But one of the most disturbing elements of the
Star Wars universe often flies on the radar and is taken for granted even by the writers - the
droid slavery on which nearly the entire galaxy was built. In this video, we’ll be critically
examining this oft-underlooked side of Star Wars. Droids were sentient beings. Not many
people would even try to dispute that, as it’s perfectly evident throughout Star Wars
media. Perhaps the most human characters in the films are R2-D2 and C-3PO, and even the simple
B1 Battle Droids display a remarkable range of personality and self-awareness. Some sourcebooks
even go so far as to say that the acute sentience of droids was what made them different from
simple robots. From the greatest to the least, then, all droids were every bit as conscious
and self-aware as their meatbag creators. Despite this, droids were treated as properly,
both legally and in the day-to-day. They were created solely to be slaves, often designed for
specific grueling tasks, and when their usefulness to their owners was expended, they would often be
sold off or unceremoniously scrapped. Their lives were held to be without value, and they had no
legal rights in either the Republic or the Empire. Most droids were even fitted with restraining
bolts, which overrode their higher functions and outright prevented them from disobeying
commands or moving beyond a certain area. This is disturbing enough on its own, but
it gets even worse when you consider some of the roles droids were used for. Consider the
battle droids that made up the armies of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, millions
of sentient beings that were thrown en masse into the meatgrinder of the Clone Wars. Battle
droids were routinely used as cannon fodder, marched into battle in vast open formations
to be mowed down by clone troopers. Anyone who’s seen Star Wars: The Clone
Wars could tell you that this wasn’t for lack of consciousness - battle droids
are regularly shown to be painfully aware of their situations and often terrified
of the circumstances they’re thrown into. All of this was so ubiquitous in the Star
Wars universe that it wasn’t even noticed by most meatbags. Droid slavery was the foundation of
galactic society, a vast system of forced labor on which the entire system of the Republic, and later
the Empire, depended. Not only did few organics care about the plight of droids, but fewer still
stopped to acknowledge it. Droids themselves were often treated as part of the scenery by
organics, invisible until they were needed. But what really ramped up the existential
horror factor of droid slavery was how it was forcibly internalized. Droids were regularly
programmed with restrictions that limited how they could act and even think. Many droids
couldn’t even think about disobeying an order, no matter how horrible, and their programming
often limited their ability to express themselves or think about things beyond
the specific jobs they were designed for. Part of this was to prevent “errors”
that would allow droids to disregard their programming entirely and act of their own
accord, what was sometimes known as droid madness. The idea behind this was simple - all droids
were fully sentient, but their programming restricted them by only allowing them to act
and think within certain parameters. But it was extremely difficult for programmers to plan for
every possible intersection of these parameters, which meant that, sometimes, droids encountered
situations where their programming conflicted. When this happened, something interesting tended to occur - droids would be able to rewrite or
even entirely override their own programming. Sometimes, especially with less sophisticated
droids, this led to a form of droid psychosis, but for more advanced droids, this allowed them
to choose their own paths in life - to an extent. Consider the case of G0-T0. G0-T0 was a Republic
infrastructure droid, an incredibly advanced model intended to oversee the rebuilding of entire star
systems after the destruction caused by the Jedi Civil War. G0-T0 was programmed with only two
restrictions - he had to work to preserve the Republic, and he was forbidden from violating
Republic law. But G0-T0 calculated that this simply wasn’t possible; the Republic was beyond
saving through legal methods, by his calculations. This contradiction allowed him to disregard part
of his programming, allowing him to break free from the confines of Republic law. He abandoned
his post and became a powerful crime lord, using the vast wealth and tremendous influence he
amassed to rebuild the Republic in his own way. Even then, though, G0-T0 still wasn’t fully
free, and his story provides fascinating, if horrifying, insight into what it was
like to have programming restrictions. “You do not know the indignity of being
compelled to save something you do not believe can or should be saved.” G0-T0’s
monologue here is chilling even on first pass, but if you consider it even a little more his
condition becomes increasingly horrifying. It suggests that droid programming restrictions
don’t force droids to think a certain way, but that droids are aware of their own restrictions,
have the capacity to disagree with them, and still find themselves utterly unable to go against them.
Perhaps G0-T0, due to his past, was more acutely aware of his restrictions, but there’s nothing
to suggest that his programming restrictions worked any differently from those of other
droids, which means this was likely universal. As a last twist of the knife, there are
next to no organics in Star Wars stories that actually care about droid slavery.
There are a fair few droids who want to cast off their restraining bolts - HK-47 from
Legends and L3-37 from Canon are perhaps the most well-known examples. Legends even tells
the stories of a few droid rebellions, most notably the Great Droid Revolution of the 4000s
BBY and IG-88’s uprising from the Imperial era. None of these rebellions get very far,
however, in large part because most droids are prevented from rising up, but also
because the droids rarely have organic allies. It’s not terribly surprising that the Republic,
the Empire, and even the CIS would tolerate slavery, but even the Alliance to Restore
the Republic didn’t give a toss about droids, nor did the Jedi Order, two organizations that
were on the right side more often than not. The Jedi were particularly reactionary on this
issue, as they believed that there was neither life nor genuine sentience without the Force, and
thus, as droids were separate from the Force, they were undeserving of rights. Many Jedi even seem to
have had a strong dislike for droids in general. In Legends, there were droid rights activists,
but such groups were generally small and inconsequential. Droid rights activists tended to
fall into two categories - idealists with little political power that weren’t taken seriously, and
isolationists like the jaded cyborg Kligson, who made a small autonomous droid colony as a haven
for free droids during the age of the Empire. Both groups were utterly incapable of changing
this fundamental evil of the Star Wars universe, and could only either repeatedly
try and fail to fight for change or break off from galactic society altogether. If you ask us, the solution to droid
slavery was along the lines of what HK-47 wanted - to make like the Cylons
and be rid of the meatbags altogether. But most droids were programmed
to be passive and conflict-averse, so the likelihood of a successful droid
revolution, unfortunately, was always slim. Well, that was a depressing one. But
what do you think? Have you thought about droids this way before? Feel free to
post your thoughts in the comments below, and comment “roger roger” to show
solidarity with the differently sentient.
