Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3.Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3 has already seen some of Star Wars’ darkest animated moments, but one pivotal detail makes Emperor Palpatine’s Project Necromancer even more ominous. The Bad Batch season 2 ending revealed the Empire’s plan to kidnap Omega as a way to pressure Nala Se into assisting with mysterious cloning projects; however, The Bad Batch season 3 disclosed something even worse. In truth, Omega was being held as part of Palpatine’s experimentation on clones.
In an effort to create Force-sensitive clones, no doubt setting up Palpatine’s eventual return in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the Empire was attempting to manipulate and increase clones’ M-counts (or midi-chlorians). While this would be bad enough, this plot is made all the worse by the revelation that Project Necromancer moved to abducting and running tests on Force-sensitive children. Sadly, another of Star Wars’ TV shows has revealed how tragic this Bad Batch storyline really is.
Although The Bad Batch has provided additional insight into Project Necromancer, the concept was not introduced in the show. Instead, Project Necromancer had already been mentioned by the Imperial Shadow Council in The Mandalorian. In The Mandalorian, the project was not explored in great detail; however, The Bad Batch has now made clear why Project Necromancer was so relevant in The Mandalorian.
The driving force behind Din Djarin and Grogu’s relationship was Din Djarin’s desperation to keep Grogu safe in light of the Empire relentlessly hunting him down. Over time, it was revealed that the Empire was specifically after Grogu’s blood, as he was an extremely powerful Force-sensitive being. In light of this, it’s clear that Grogu was so viciously hunted because he represented promise for Project Necromancer and Palpatine’s future.
Devastatingly, this means the Empire’s heartless abductions of Force-sensitive children didn’t stop between The Bad Batch season 3 and The Mandalorian. Given when The Bad Batch season 3 takes place, still early in the Dark Times, this means the Empire’s terrible practices went on for quite some time. While this is sad for the children who were inevitably taken and harmed throughout this long history, it also has crushing implications for Clone Force 99—Omega in particular.
The Bad Batch season 3 still has a few episodes left, but as it stands, Omega has been once again captured by the Empire. While her fate would be daunting regardless, this detail from The Mandalorian makes it much so. It isn’t clear whether Omega survives this ordeal, but, given the continuation of Project Necromancer, it is clear that neither she nor the Bad Batch is able to stop the Empire’s testing upon Force-sensitive children.
While this was certainly brilliant story weaving by Star Wars, a franchise that has always pulled off retcons and connections masterfully, it bodes extremely poorly for the beloved Bad Batch crew. The final word on their fate is yet to be revealed, but their demise could be impending in light of their failure to complete their own mission (or at least Omega’s mission) to bring an end to the Empire’s testing of Force-sensitive children. No matter the fate of Clone Force 99, though, it’s clear that Star Wars: The Bad Batch will get all the darker before its conclusion.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch premieres new episodes Wednesdays at 3 AM ET, 12 AM PT, and 8 AM GMT on Disney+.
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