Prior Episodes | 7956 (21 BBY) | Next Episodes
Continuity & Analysis

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Evil Plans (2010) [S3E8]
A failure in planning is a plan for failure.
"Evil plans! With the Jedi Council focused on the war effort, criminal minds are left unchecked
to spread fear and corruption. Galactic gangster Jabba the Hutt has sent bounty hunter Cad Bane
on a nefarious mission, which shall strike at the heart of the Republic. Meanwhile, the unsuspecting
citizens of Coruscant go about their daily lives..."
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Hostage Crisis (2009) [S1E22]
A secret shared is a trust formed.
"Danger looms! Despite recent victories in the Outer Rim, criminal minds plot at the very heart of
the Republic! The bounty hunter Cad Bane has assembled some of the deadliest criminals in the galaxy
and plans a daring attack to seize members of the Senate. What can be the aim of this despicable act?"
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Hunt for Ziro (2010) [S3E9]
Love comes in all shapes and sizes.
"A great escape! Cad Bane and his notorious crew of bounty hunters liberated Ziro the Hutt from
a Republic prison after holding the Galactic Senate hostage. The Jedi Council has assigned Obi-Wan
Kenobi to retrieve Ziro the Hutt with the help of Jedi Knight Quinlan Vos. Unknown to the Jedi,
we find Ziro in the clutches of the five Hutt families on the distant world of Nal Hutta..."




CONTINUITY
These three episodes form a single storyline about Cad Bane and Ziro. 'Hostage Crisis' is a standalone episode from Season 1 which did not
take place at the same time as most of the season. 'Evil Plans' and 'Hunt for Ziro' were created as a prequel and sequel to 'Hostage Crisis',
which frame that episode within the chronological order of episodes as given by Lucasfilm.
The planet Nal Hutta is seen for the first time. Three worlds are seen in these episodes:


- Padme describes Roonans as notably "particular". She worries about all the details to please Senator Aang, including exact place settings, the color of her outfit,
and most importantly the jogan fruit desert. Aang is so particular about jogan fruit desert that he gives a toast to it, so Padme seems to be quite right
about the importance of little details to a Roonan like Aang. He seems pleased by the party and the friendship of the Senators, and endorses their treaty.

- Senator Aang is a Roonian Senator representing some sector of the galaxy other than the sector where his species' homeworld of Roona is located. Recently,
supplementary material has attempted to suggests he represents Roona in the Senate, which is unlikely. The Senator from Roona is Edcel Bar Gane, who
has represented the planet, and at least half of the Bes Ber Bikade Sector, since Episode I. Bar Gane was seen throughout the Clone Wars in the Senate,
including in the final year of the Republic, when he is seen ten months before Episode III in 'The Wrong Jedi' (S5E20). Aang represents somewhere else.


Todo 360 blew up in 'Holocron Heist' (S2E1) as part of Bane's plan to steal from the Jedi Temple. Why is there no
explanation of his return? In 'Holocron Heist' Bane told Todo he removed some of his memory, and it is possible to make
a backup of a droid's memory and place it in another droid, which would retain the previous droid's experiences and
possibly much of their personality. Bane's statements in that episode do seem to have been a deception to keep Todo
from worrying that he has been turned into a bomb, so we have no reason to believe either way about this. According
to supplementary material, Anakin reassembled him as part of his investigation into the Temple attack, but it seems
ridiculous that anything would have been left of the little droid after a bomb of that size went off inside of him.
Nevertheless, it is said he later escaped and found his way back to Bane. This explanation is unlikely but possible, but it
is needlessly confusing to anyone viewing this series who remembers Todo from his explosive last appearance. Just as
Aurra Sing's liberation from prison in just a few episodes was never explained, Todo is back from an explosion that
should have rendered him unsalvageable, and there is no reason given, or attempt to justify this confusing creative
decision. Todo is a fun character the creators likely brought back because he is a comical sidekick that balances out
Bane's mysterious gunslinger character nicely, but a resurrection this stark really needed at least a line of dialogue.


- The phrase 'do the Jedi use the Force?' is roughly equivalent to the phrase 'does a bear crap in the woods?', as in it goes without saying.
Main Article: Awareness of the Jedi and the Sith

- C-3PO considers four credits to be a fair price to ask for four jogan fruit imported to Coruscant in this time period. Sixteen credits is "galactic robbery".

- C-3PO was once the protocol droid for the chief negotiator of the Manakron system. Supplementary material has decided that this was before Episode I,
and that Anakin rebuilt him instead of built him. This is the only statement in canon to support this, and the implication from the film was that Anakin was
building him out of junk parts he could collect here and there, likely many of which came from old 3PO-series droids. In Episode IV, C-3PO states that his
first job was programming binary loadlifters, however it is seen in Episode III that his memory was erased at that time. Regarding his role serving the chief
negotiator, he could have been assigned by Padme to a delegation sometime over the last year and a half that had him functioning for a time as protocol
droid for that mission. It is also possible his memory circuits, personality matrix, or other components key to his function were salvaged from an earlier
3PO that served in that function, however C-3PO specifically refers to Anakin as "the maker."

- As in Episode VI, we see that droids can be tortured, if they are intelligent and complex enough to comprehend fear over themselves, as well as possessing
something like a nervous system which is the wiring for power, malfunction detection, and limb functionality which runs through a droid. While it might not
'feel' anything like pain does to an organic being, certain kinds of damage cause reactions which bring droids unpleasant feedback and fear for their existence.
Main Article: Droid Intelligence

- Major business that concerns all the Hutt families must be voted on by the Hutt Council, which at this time consists of Jabba, Gorga, Arok, Oruba, and Marlo,
who are the heads of the five Hutt crime families. Gardulla is also powerful, as she is Jabba's representative on Nal Hutta, the homeworld of the Hutts.



Why isn't Anakin more suspicious after learning C-3PO can't remember his day? Anakin is quickly distracted by Padme,
who as usual draws his complete attention, and then doesn't seem to care now that she is calm and is having a successful
party. Had he bothered to ask R2 where they had been all day, he might have grown more concerned. Clearly Bane's
memory wipe was very selective of short term memory, as the pair still remember who they are and what they were
doing prior to be snatched by Bane. This may be yet another case of organics typically ignoring droids, especially Jedi
who rely on feelings from the Force for insight and can't sense droids. There is no way for him to get an odd sense that
something untoward had occurred, unless he received a vision about it through the Force.


- Aurra Sing is seen free and back to bounty hunting work, after being captured and imprisoned four episodes earlier in 'Assassin' (S3E7). There are potentially
many millions of prisoners on Coruscant, and the more skilled or connected criminals don't seem to have any problem breaking out, and yet this is remarkably
fast, and extremely brazen considering she is going right back to attacking the Senate, about the most high-profile target possible. This is not explained, and is
another odd continuity choice for Season 3, which is filled with out of chronological order episodes that were intentionally designed to improve continuity.
Aurra's appearance here is in an out of order episode from Season 1, and they needed to bring her back after her appearance and apparent death in 'Lethal
Trackdown' (S2E22). There aren't enough episodes from Season 3 which actually take place in time between the end of Season 2 and where they chose to
place the hostage crisis story to allow a reasonable amount of time for Aurra to resurface and a reasonable amount of time for Aurra to escape prison. They
seem to have chosen this configuration of episodes for the sake of continuity and logical progression in Ahsoka's character development between the end
of Season 2 and 'Pursuit of Peace' (S3E11), which works great in regard to Ahsoka but leaves Aurra's story a bit incredible.


A group of armed gangsters has landed on a platform of the Senate Building, shot the guards, and the only security
measure that is triggered is that central command for Senate security called in saying, "Base to platform. What was
all that." A voice-altered response with no authentication is enough to allay any fears from central command. There
are no cameras, no redundant security measures, no patrol or scanning droids hovering around, and basically no
security between them and their targets, not to mention that this is a time of war where the Republic capital is in
high security mode. This is not only absurd and unlikely, it is also characteristic of so many stories in SW where
the writers need characters to sneak around and infiltrate for the purposes of storytelling. These technologically
advanced societies and militaries are shown to be either incompetent, or are portrayed as so unafraid of being
challenged that they don't take advantage of technology like cameras which have been around for well over 100,000
years in this galaxy. Given that droids could monitor such things around the clock, it makes no sense that intruders
aren't being constantly watched, and every word listened to.


- Anakin is supposed to be on a meditative retreat, which is something the Jedi apparently go on. We have seen that the Council tries to get Jedi who serve in
the war to take time whenever they can to focus on meditation, connection with the Force, and spending time in a state of peace. Anakin takes advantage
of what he perceives as his own free time to spend time with Padme. The later half of 7956 (21 BBY) is certainly among the longest extended periods where
Anakin and Padme are both on Coruscant and able to spend time together as a married couple. Anakin says that his love for Padme is more important to
him than his ideals, or the work he does to protect those who can't protect themselves, which is honest. This is also why Anakin isn't a very good Jedi in
a some ways, chief of which is that being a Jedi requires commitment to serving the Force above all else, especially one's self.

- The Clone Wars were not a good time to be the Senator from Kinyen, the Gran homeworld. Near the beginning of 7956 (21 BBY), we saw Seantor Kharrus,
who was killed after being shot down by pirates in 'The Gungan General' (S1E12). He was replaced by Senator Philo, who is shot in the back by Cad Bane
in this storyline. With two senators murdered in the same year, it is clearly not a healthy occupation to represent Kinyen in the Senate.


- Palpatine knows Cad Bane, as he has hired him before as Darth Sidious, but as always he needs to keep up appearances. It doesn't matter to him either way
if Ziro is in prison or not, and yet attacks like this one are good excuses for increased security measures, not to mention that things could get out of hand and
take out any number of troublesome Senators. If some opponents are killed, or even sometime allies, this can open up potential new opportunities to
manipulate the installation of an even more compliant Senator, or just one who won't stand in the way. Chaos of any kind benefits Sidious, as long as that
chaos doesn't cause the Jedi to reevaluate their role in the war, or otherwise interfere in his plans. This attack is certainly of little concern to him.
Main Article: Darth Sidious and The Plan

- Anakin loses his lightsaber, yet again, this time giving it to his wife as a gesture. His inability to hold onto his Jedi lightsaber is symbolic of his eventual fall from
the Order, as well as foreshadowing for it being given to Luke who does hold on to it, at least until he loses it when Anakin cuts his hand off. As Anakin shows,
the degree to which a lightsaber makes a Jedi more powerful should not be understated. Without a lightsaber, a Jedi is simply a highly-trained warrior with
great discipline and superhuman abilities, a formidable opponent to be sure, but not nearly as difficult to defeat, especially for a group of opponents. When
a Jedi wields a kyber-powered saber, they greatly magnify the connection between their actions and the Force, and are exceedingly difficult to defeat or capture.
On the other hand, Cad Bane gets very excited when he gets possession of Vos' lightsaber, but is rapidly disarmed by Obi-Wan's superior ability with
the weapon, and knowledge of how to fight with one. Lightsabers are themselves made far more powerful when in the hands of a Force wielder.


Why does Cad Bane set off the bomb in the Senate after they followed his instructions? Is he making a point about how
much he doesn't care if even the entire Republic is after him? It certainly didn't help him escape. If anything, it increased
the likelihood that he would be immediately pursued, and they were still flying in airspeeders, hadn't made it to their
ship, and the planet is surrounded by the largest concentration of ships and troops the Republic has. It is highly unlikely
the Hutts had asked him to set off the bomb in the Senate specifically, as they will already draw heat for this affair and
are only interested in securing Ziro and his secrets. According to 'Dangerous Debt' (S7E7), Bane will take Ziro down
a portal into the Coruscant underworld, and the Jedi will be urgently trying to stop them, a pursuit which Bane might
have made less vigorous by not setting off the bomb. Apparently they will sneak around in the underworld once
the Jedi pursuit is thwarted, allowing them to access the appropriate ship to escape the planet.


- Nal Hutta is the capital of the Hutt domains, located in Hutt Space, within the Slice region of the Outer Rim. It is the homeworld of the vermicular Hutt species,
and is a humid and wet planet teeming with life, that features mostly swampland, as well as forest, as well as near constant rainfall throughout much
of the planet. Besides the palaces of its famed crimelords, the planet is home to a large Hutt population living in villages, towns, and cities. There is also
a diverse population of other races in interstellar community living mostly in the cities. It has only a few major spaceports, in order to strictly control
traffic on to and off of the planet, the most prominent being that in the capital city of Bilbousa, seen in Season 4.


- Obi-Wan thinks Quinlan Vos is crazy, downplaying Cody's assertion that he has "quite a reputation". He is in reality a very advanced Jedi Master, one whose
personality and particular connection to the Force make him unorthodox in many ways. While very independent and seemingly insubordinate, like Qui-Gon
he is more concerned with practicing the Jedi religion and serving the will of the Force as it presents itself to him than he is in following Jedi procedures.
Unlike Qui-Gon, he is very caught up in his own affairs and inappropriately honest, so much so that he comes off as rude, inconsiderate, and impatient.
He doesn't seem too concerned with how his actions will be seen, but nevertheless is knowledgeable and resourceful, and a great person to have as an ally.
Obi-Wan and Vos make a great team. Both Jedi have advanced abilities, inventive tactics, and cool heads in times of rapid action. They swiftly and effectively
bring their mission to its conclusion, and back each other up in a fight without missing a step. While each has a well-developed personality, and gives
the other a hard time as a matter of course, it's clear that both individuals have respect for the other's abilities and priorities.

- Obi-Wan and Vos arrive on Nal Hutta quite expediently. It's not clear exactly how much time has passed since Ziro's escape, but they arrive soon enough after
Ziro that the same party is essentially still going on, and Ziro's drinking cup is still on the floor. Nal Hutta isn't located near a major hyperspace lane, however
it is a very well-established destination lying on important regional hyperspace routes, so it makes sense that it wouldn't be a significantly longer trip.
Main Article: Hyperspace Travel


- Vos uses a Force ability known as psychometry, where a Force wielder can receive visions about the history of an object by touching it. Most advanced Jedi
have some measure of this ability, but it is usually less specific, and usually involves a structure or location as opposed to a small item. Vos may have a natural
aptitude for this, or he may have learned this skill through his studies and the Force, or some combination of these factors. Vos also has an unusual aptitude
for using psychometry to track someone over the surface of a planet, sensing through the Force what direction they passed by a certain location recently.

- According to Ziro, Mama the Hutt is someone Gardulla would never show her face around, for some unknown reason.

- Obi-Wan intends to take Bane in for holding the Senate hostage, and while that is certainly enough, he doesn't mention he also broke into the Jedi Temple,
stole from the Jedi, and fought with Separatist forces in battle against them. It seems Obi-Wan has moved past all that to his latest crime spree. Having no
other option but to fight two Jedi, Cad Bane decides to try and make up for his failure to get to the holodiary first and collect on the Separatist bounty out
on all Jedi. Bane's apprehension is clear, as he suggests they all drop the affair and go their separate ways, hoping the Jedi's peaceful ways might spare him.
At this time, the Separatists are paying a million credits per Jedi to anyone who willing and able to kill one.

ANALYSIS
Roonian Senator Aang is on the Military Oversight Committee of the Galactic Senate. He holds the deciding vote on some matter which Padme and her
allies in the Senate are concerned about. Based on their history and philosophy, it is likely some spending measure designed to further fund the Republic's
war operations, or associated departments, which Padme and her allies wish to block in favor of diverting funds to public necessities and relief supplies.
Based on the attitude of Aang, Padme, and her other guests, it seems that a nice party and a jogan fruit desert was all that was needed to secure his vote.
It must be assumed that he was leaning in their favor to begin with, or their would have been little point in trying to woo him with camaraderie. Padme's
guests besides Senator Aang include Mon Mothma, Dantum Roohd, Jakker-Sun, Bail Organa, and Kin Robb, usual allies of Padme who support planetary
sovereignty and military deescalation, as well as generally favoring spending for public services.

The narrator mentions recent victories in the Outer Rim, which certainly includes the victory at Kamino, and may also include some of the unseen Hydian Way
campaign recently mentioned by Master Plo in a briefing. Depending on one's point of view, this may also refer to battles like Saleucami, Dantooine, and
the 2nd Battle of Geonosis, which took place at least months earlier. Regardless of the scope of the reference, all of these battles are part of a growing trend
of Republic successes in the Rim. Republic forces have achieved enough parity to allow beginning counteroffensives, which themselves have led to the Separatists
varying their tactics. As is typical of their strategy throughout the war, Dooku and General Grievous will not respond by concentrating their forces in a defensive
posture where the Republic's forces can outclass them. Rather, the Separatists will once again widen the scope of their assaults, first throughout the Rim, and
again even further towards the Core, keeping the Republic off-balance, and often unable to devote forces to major offensive campaigns in lieu of defence.

Senator Philo called a meeting in the lobby, before they vote on the Enhanced Privacy Invasion Bill. Philo joins the usual group of opposition senators, including
Padme, Bail Organa, Onaconda Farr, Dantum Roohd, Riyo Chuchi, Zinn Paulness, Kin Robb, Jakker-Sun, and an unidentified senator from Christophsis. Some of these
senators are part of the Council of Neutral Systems, while others are part of the Loyalist faction of the Senate, yet all have a record of voting against militarization,
and promoting planetary sovereignty and individual liberty. The Enhanced Privacy Invasion Bill was a move by Palpatine loyalists to rubber stamp greater power
for the Chancellor and the Republic to spy on citizens in the name of hunting down Separatists. These types of changes are constantly being implemented by
Palpatine within the scope of his authority, but the political climate has not yet shifted to the point that such radical changes can be enacted easily, and direct
authorization from the Senate is still necessary for such a move. Supplementary material suggests this measure is defeated shortly after these events.

The Hutt families engineer the plot to break Ziro out of prison, fearing the exposure of their history of activities. The Hutts are known gangsters, and their
unscrupulous methods are infamous, nevertheless, the full extent of their activities is certainly unknown, and that which is known may only be suspected.
There may be great crimes that were committed which were never attributed to the Hutts, and many powerful individuals who would seek damages if they
were to learn the Hutts were responsible. The plot which began with freeing Ziro succeeds in securing their council records before they are publicized.


FURTHER ANALYSIS
Report Pending