Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3, episode 14, “Flash Strike”
An exciting new Star Wars theory for The Bad Batch season 3 suggests the true purpose of the Empire’s Zillo Beast. Kept within the bowels of the Empire’s secret cloning facility on Mount Tantiss, it’s been confirmed that the Empire is still holding the massive kaiju-like creature captive. To that end, one has to wonder what the Empire might be planning for the impressive and powerful creature going forward.
The conflict of the Clone Wars awoke one of the last surviving Zillo Beasts on Malastare where it was captured and taken to Coruscant to be studied by the Republic. However, the semi-sentient Zillo Beast ultimately escaped before it was later killed. However, Chancellor Palpatine ordered the creature’s body to be taken and studied, and The Bad Batch season 2 confirmed that the newly formed Empire had successfully cloned the Zillo Beast. Now, The Bad Batch season 3 is teasing big things for the creature, and an exciting theory suggests the Zillo Beast may be tied to an off-shoot of Palpatine’s Project Necromancer.
Having returned in The Bad Batch season 2 as a juvenile, it was logical that the Zillo Beast was being held at the Mount Tantiss cloning facility run by Doctor Hemlock. However, the purpose for why it was cloned and what Palpatine wants with the Zillo Beast has never been fully confirmed beyond an implied interest in replicating its durable armor for the Republic’s ships (now the Empire’s) and that its genetic material could be weaponized in general. Following its breakout and recapture, the cloned Zillo Beast was returned to the planet Weyland and held in Mount Tantiss.
That said, future reveals about Mount Tantiss have made the Zillo Beast’s return in The Bad Batch season 3 somewhat odd. It’s been revealed that Hemlock is in charge of Project Necromancer, meant to produce a viable Force-sensitive clone for Palpatine to transfer his consciousness into in the event of his original body’s death. With this new context, it’s hard to see why Hemlock still has an interest in the Zillo Beast and why his science division is still in charge of containing the creature as seen when Omega briefly escapes her cell and sneaks through the facility’s walls.
Narratively, it’s not hard to see why the Zillo Beast has returned in The Bad Batch season 3. It will likely be used to aid in Omega and Clone Force 99’s break-out attempt, dismantling Hemlock’s operations and freeing the many clones who became imprisoned test subjects following the rise of the Empire. While its purpose to the Empire remains to be seen, it’s worth noting that much of Hemlock’s work involves stand-casting, a variation of the cloning process where an original host’s genetic template is spliced with other genetic materials to create artificial clones with traits beyond those of the original.
In the case of Project Necromancer, strand-casting was seen as the solution to circumvent the problem of clones lacking force sensitivity. By testing hundreds of different blood samples from clones and searching for the right genetic materials, it was determined that Omega’s blood had the traits to ensure that a Palpatine clone could retain its power in the Force without degradation. It’s why she’s so valuable to Doctor Hemlock and the Empire. In the same vein, this concept also connects to Grogu, Supreme Leader Snoke, and Rey’s father Dathan.
As seen in The Mandalorian, Grogu is like Omega in that his blood has a high enough M-count and the right genetic makeup to make him a viable test subject for Project Necromancer. Likewise, both Snoke and Dathan have been identified as strandcasts, albeit ones that were not seen as viable options for Palpatine, Snoke due to his physical deformities and Dathan due to his lack of Force sensitivity. However, perhaps Force sensitivity wasn’t the only thing Hemlock was looking for with his strandcast experiments on Tantiss.
Keeping all this in mind, there is a surprising Bad Batch theory that might just fit regarding the Zillo Beast: perhaps Hemlock was looking to create a strandcast of Emperor Palpatine and the Zillo Beast’s genetic DNA. After all, having a body resistant to lightsabers and the ability to absorb energy like a Zillo Beast would likely be seen as beneficial traits in the eyes of the Palpatine, assuming those traits could be isolated and applied to a human Force-sensitive body. In theory, a Zillo Beast/human hybrid body could have made Palpatine even more powerful (and very hard to kill again).
Another factor that may play a role was a brief image of Hemlock’s tablet in The Bad Batch season 3, episode 10, just before his conversation with Governor Tarkin. Featuring never-before-seen designs for new trooper armor, perhaps Hemlock was looking to create unique forces of his own using the Zillo Beast’s unique durability. This would mirror the future Moff Gideon who was revealed in The Mandalorian season 3 to be creating his own clones on the side while working on Project Necromancer for the Imperial Shadow Council.
At any rate, there will hopefully be a greater purpose and reasoning revealed as to why the Zillo Beast has remained on Tantiss, beyond being a convenient way for Clone Force 99 and Omega to take down Hemlock’s operations. That said, the possible destruction of the Tantiss facility could help explain why the Empire’s study of the Zillo Beast’s genetic material seemingly never goes anywhere in the future of the Star Wars canon. Regardless, it will be very exciting to see what happens to the Zillo Beast in The Bad Batch season 3’s imminent finale.