It’s no secret that we absolutely loathe
the Coruscant Guard on this channel, and for a variety of reasons. What’s less
well known is that this opinion was fairly common within the Star Wars universe
as well. Especially on Coruscant, most people hated the Coruscant Guard - and
the Coruscant Guard hated most people, too. The Shocktroopers charged with protecting
the galactic capital detested their jobs, especially when those jobs involved dealing
with Senators or the inhabitants of Galactic City. We don’t really blame them, either.
The Coruscant Guard had some of the nastiest jobs in the Grand Army of the Republic, and in
this video, we’re going to talk all about them. The Coruscant Guard was formed right after the
First Battle of Geonosis, and was an elite force of clone shocktroopers tasked with, well, guarding
Coruscant. Their duties included protecting Senators, defending Galactic City, and managing
Republic Military installations on Coruscant, all of which sound a lot easier than they
actually were. Only Palpatine's most loyal clones were allowed to serve in the Coruscant
Guard, ostensibly to ensure that Coruscant was as well protected as possible. In reality,
however, the Coruscant Guard was stacked with fervent supporters of Palpatine because the Guard
also did a lot of the Chancellor’s dirty work. Over the course of the Clone Wars, the Coruscant
Guard became the foundation of what would become the Imperial police state. They were brutally
repressive, and the population of Galactic City quickly came to fear the boys in red, nicknaming
them stormtroopers. For what it’s worth, clone shocktroopers didn’t like their jobs
any more than the people they terrorized, though obviously their willing involvement
means that we don’t exactly feel sorry for them. After all, these are the guys that killed Fives,
and we’re not gonna start being sympathetic just because they sometimes felt bad after
beating the frak out of innocent civilians. They probably deserved the
unpleasant parts of their job. So what were the unpleasant parts of their jobs?
Well, firstly, there was dealing with Senators. The Coruscant Guard was tasked with
protecting the Galactic Senate, in conjunction with the Senate Commandos,
and through the Diplomatic Escort Group, they were also assigned to protect Senators and other
Republic delegates when they travelled offworld. Obviously, this was a very important task, since
Senators were always at risk of assassination, especially during the Clone Wars. But providing
protection from assassins wasn’t the hard part of the job. The hard part of the job was
trying not to kill the Senators themselves. As poor Fives learned, killing was something
the Coruscant Guard had a really hard time with on its own, but Senators made it even harder.
They tended to be whiny, paranoid, treacherous, or some combination therein, and almost all of
them acted privileged beyond their due, and out of touch in some way or another. Even worse,
shocktroopers on Senatorial guard duty could’ve had the misfortune of being assigned to Jar-Jar
Binks, a fate worse than death. Protecting a person of interest who’s extraordinarily annoying
would make anyone want to swallow their blaster. To make matters worse, shocktroopers
constantly had to watch their charges for hints of treachery, due to the nature of
the Clone Wars, which was an even bigger pain. But the worst part of all this was that
the Senators didn’t appreciate it at all. Most Senators had gotten used to having
servants and bodyguards around them at all times, and they usually disregarded them unless they
had a problem. While the shocktroopers were probably happy to avoid more interaction
with Senators than they had to have, it also meant they were often ignored, and
protected their politically valuable charges thanklessly. In fact, many Senators outright
resented the Coruscant Guard’s security measures. After the passage of the Enhanced
Security and Enforcement Act in 21 BBY, the Coruscant Guard set up checkpoints all
across Galactic City, where shocktroopers would ask passers-by to present identification.
Senators had an annoying habit of expecting special treatment from the guards at
these checkpoints, and of making a fuss when they didn’t get it. Even in the Star Wars
universe, it seems, politicians are politicians. Additionally, most shocktroopers assigned to
protect Senators likely had to coordinate with the Senator’s own security detail, which would’ve been
a nightmare. This would have been a hell of a job even if the Senators themselves weren’t all that
bad. I mean, imagine being a shocktrooper assigned to protect Senator Amidala, only to realize that
all of her handmaidens look pretty much identical. It would get even worse if were you to later
learn that the Senator and one of the handmaidens swapped outfits mid-flight and that you don’t
know who the frak you’re protecting anymore. Lots of Senators had those sorts of crazy
protection schemes, and for the Coruscant Guard, they would’ve been just another
thing to get in the way of their jobs. This fostered a general hatred for Senators
that, it should be said, wasn’t exclusive to the Coruscant Guard. Pretty much everyone hated
Senators, but clones in general hated them more than most, and for good reason. After all, it
was the Senators who decided to keep every last one of them enslaved, and you could imagine that
that rubbed a few clones the wrong way. Moreover, most clones detested the Senate in general, seeing
it as useless and inefficient. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, most clones believed, was the only
one who made the Senate worth fighting for. The Coruscant Guard was also responsible
for maintaining all Republic Military facilities on Coruscant, including military bases
and, unfortunately for the clones, the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center. A fair few
clone shocktroopers ended up serving as glorified prison guards in two facilities - Coruscant’s main
military base and the Republic’s central prison. Now, being a prison guard is another
job that really just sucks on its own, but the types of prisoners incarcerated on
Coruscant made the whole thing a lot worse. The Central Detention Center was
home to galactic-scale criminals, including spice kingpins, underworld leaders, and
elite bounty hunters. The prison at the military base wasn’t much better, as it mostly contained
war criminals. These were dangerous beings who were constantly trying to escape prison, and they
were typically powerful enough to be able to bring in elite mercenaries or even Separatist military
units to do the job. The Coruscant Guard had to be constantly wary about prisoner escape attempts,
or even raids on the detention facilities. With that said, as we’ve been saying,
a lot of that was honestly deserved, considering the other usual
activities of the Coruscant Guard, so let’s take a look at what they
did that made them positively awful. The Coruscant Guard was technically a
subset of Homeworld Security Command, a hybrid police/military department. As part of
Homeworld Security, the Coruscant Guard worked with Galactic City police to combat the threat
of Separatist violence on the galactic capital. This threat was very real, in fairness. In the
two years before the Clone Wars, Coruscant had been subjected to a long string of terrorist
bombings committed in the name of Count Dooku, which is what led to the formation of
Homeworld Security in the first place. The Coruscant Guard, to their credit, did
significantly decrease the number of terrorist attacks on Coruscant over the course of the
Clone Wars, but this came at quite a high cost. Homeworld Security was quite paranoid, and it
rarely made any distinction between simple dissent and Separatism. From the first days of the Clone
Wars, it dispatched the Coruscant Guard against protestors, authorizing the use
of force even when, in hindsight, it wasn’t justified at all. Clone shocktroopers
brutally dispersed antiwar protests whenever they popped up, as well as more mundane protest
movements. For example, when the war began, the Republic Military levelled several city blocks
to make way for military staging areas, displacing thousands of residents. These residents had
nowhere else to go and protested lawfully outside the construction area, hoping to gain
some form of reimbursement for their homes. Instead, they got beaten by
shocktroopers and deported. Not all demonstrations on Coruscant were met
with violence from the Coruscant Guard, however. When Loyalist nationalists founded the Commission
for the Protection of the Republic in 21 BBY, the Coruscant Guard was actually
deployed to protect their rallies, despite the fact that COMPOR was a private
organization unaffiliated with the Republic government. This was also despite the
fact that COMPOR seemingly only accepted human applicants and promoted violent
anti-alien conspiracy theories. As the Clone Wars went on, the Coruscant
Guard started focusing less on stopping threats to planetary security and more on
what they considered preventing threats to planetary security. After the passage of
the Enhanced Security and Enforcement Act, they got the go-ahead to throw any
and all civil liberties to the wind, and you can imagine the results. Coruscant’s lower
levels were placed under curfews and quarantines, and warrantless surprise raids on
lower-city homes became commonplace. The Coruscant Guard became Palpatine’s
secret police, terrorizing the population of Galactic City indiscriminately to
keep Coruscant’s underclass in check. The Coruscant Guard was nothing short of viciously
oppressive. They were the Empire before there was an Empire, stormtroopers before there were
stormtroopers. There’s no denying that their jobs sucked, and that most of the clones who
served in the Guard probably hated their lives. But if your life is spent beating up random
aliens in their own homes for no reason, then you honestly should hate your life. The Coruscant
Guard didn’t just have Fives’ blood on its hands, after all; there were thousands, if not millions,
of beings who suffered unjustly because of them. So, that’s why the Coruscant
Guard hated their lives, and also why they deserved their lot. But what do
you think? On a scale of one to Fives, how much do you hate the Coruscant Guard? Feel
free to post your thoughts in the comments below.
