Man, droidekas were actually pretty useful killing machines. Shame those droids were erased from existence after the Clone Wars and only re-appeared when Luke and Mara Jade discovered the remains of the "Outbound Flight" ship
Actually, the Rebels did recover a battalion of Battle Droids shortly before the Galactic Civil War started. Along with several Hailfire Droids, one Providence-class carrier and three Lucrehulks (one of which was destroyed by the Death Star).
I feel like Bail Organa's one scene in Episode 3 sums it up. They didn't want to appear like they were the new Separatists. Even though some of the more inspired attacks against the Empire early on were dealt by CIS holdouts and rebels using Droid tech
Pretty hard to win a hearts and minds campaign using primarily droids as an army. Using a few droids to supplement their ranks would work but I imagine reprogrammed Imperial droids would have been the ideal droids for the rebellion to use.
This right here. The Rebellion had a direct political component to it; it had to because the goal was to restore the Republic. That's hard to do when you're using the weapons of the Republic's enemies, and the Empire would absolutely capitalize on it to undermine your political efforts.
@@daniellyon5011 It's actually not that hard at all. During the Russian Civil War, the Soviets recruited many former Tsarist soldiers to help them against the White Movement. It didn't undermine their image at all. Not to mention the US had a whole battalion of Japanese-Americans to fight the Japanese in WWII.
@@vetarlittorf1807 with all due respect, there's a huge difference in scales, technology, diversity of species, etc. Neither of those conflicts had as much to do with guerilla warfare as the conflict seen in the OT, nor were they against a *vastly* superior foe that has full control of a galaxy-wide, instant mass media/propaganda system such as the Holonet, and neither of the forces you mention needed to kind of outside support as the Rebellion. Those Soviets and Japanese-American soldiers didn't rely completely on money, weapons and supplies secretly funneled from sympathetic outsiders. It's the same reason the Rebellion concentrated on military targets rather than just robbing banks and terrorizing civilians.
@@daniellyon5011 ANother thing as well. The Rebellion relied on the hearts and wallets of the common citizens to support them. Imagine if all they heard was "Why do I need to fight? Just build another droid." Which soon turns to "Why support them? They already have a bunch of droids doing the fighting for them."
i would use the B-1's on suicide raids were numbers were far more important then lives. exactly as intended! on the other hand they would also be very useful just to boost manpower at your makeshift base and make life just a little easier.
i always think there has always been a place for droids in all star wars armys, mainly as gunners or other secondary roles that dont involve being the main pilot or roles that dont need creative thinking but fast calculation and speed like using the ARC 170's but have the 2 other seats as hard wired droids or putting droids in turrets or gun emplacements
@@sarahd4784 I agree, I think it probably has more to do with the amount the Droid has to think about. Droid brain- Droid body- weapon controls- quirks of weapon itself- all based off of whatever info inputs the Droid brain has access to. If you just strap the Droid brain and sensors straight to the turret it'd be alot more responsive I think
@@sarahd4784 idk why anyone would think that, if anything they would be way more accurate than organic beings and might even have faster response to threats and targets in some cases. RL AI are good enough to put them anti air guns to shoot down missiles, star wars AI meanwhile are smart enough to arguably be considered sentient, no way in hell would they have worse aim than human.
@@slimetank394 I've heard it has to do with the very high tech level of sensor jaming devices in Star Wars. This is also why close in starfighter duels are a thing, as they are mosrly forced to rely on the MK I Eyeball for aiming. Course a droid brain hooked to a simple camera should still work...
They could set up a small factory in a freighter. Make high quality Droids, purpose built for mission specific goals, is small numbers. That would fit better in the Rebel narrative.
Imagine if the Rebels would have discovered the abandoned HK series droid factory in Mustafar and later reconstructed and used those droids against the Empire. Even Vader would have ended using the Joestar Secret technique
That's great, but Vader's largest fortress was also located on Mustafar. I'm pretty sure he would've sniffed it out and destroyed it if they did set up there
Yeah but the Empire destroyed that factory. The only one that survived was HK-47, who had previously been relegated to a computer program called "Meatbag."
One of the biggest reasons was the Alliance's image. If they used battle droids en masse, the Empire could just frame this as the Confederacy reborn. A lot fewer people would want to support the Rebels if they seemed like a continuation of the CIS.
I mean, technically the main backers of the Rebels are actually surviving members of the CIS. Heck, even Ezra acknowledges this when he uses that sort of logic with a CIS Commander Droid. The enemy of the Droids is the Republic, the Republic has become the Empire, the Empire is also the enemy if the Droids.
@@Gamer_G33k The good thing about backers is that they stay in the background, the soldiers you use (however) are very much in the foreground. And in the foreground, optics matter
If the droids were produced by the galactic equivalent of apple or google, the empire would just go to those companies (who would no doubt already be quite friendly with the empire) and they would give up all communication and location info without a second thought. After all, imperial contracts would likely be much more lucrative.
Collicoids, the droideka manufacturer, could be bribed fairly easily with rare meats. They are a purely carnivorous race and a good rack of rancor ribs could greatly loosen their purse strings
Great analysis! “Rebels” ( freedom fighters) usually fight a non-linear war, compared to an evil empire, the rebellion needed mobility, and needed the “but-in” from the systems to war a war of attrition against the empire
Great video! I can see the Rebel Alliance not wanting to use battle droids due to the number of Clone Wars veterans in the ranks as well as the optics of the issue. However, I do think they could have used droids to great advantage in the support roles like crewing capital ships, performing reconnaissance and spy work, and maintaining bases. Even basic B1 droids could be repurposed to perform those tasks. The Rebels needed manpower, and droids could free up other beings to fight while they provided the logistical support.
There appeared to be no shortage of rogue droids. They could have simply asked them to join their cause. I mean, most of the droids that went rogue did so because they had no purpose. Fighting for the rebels would have given those rogue battle droids purpose again. And I would bet they would have agreed quite quickly and willingly.
In Legends, several Separatist enclaves did join the Rebel Alliance. They provided them with one battalion of B1 Battle Droids, one Providence-class carrier, three Lucrehulks (one of which was destroyed by the Death Star) and a few Hailfire Droids that were only used during sieges after the Battle of Endor. Oh, and the Battle Droids were only used as security guards for some reason.
"Battle droids were only used as security guards for some reason" Well that was their original purpose. Armed security against pirates and boarders. They weren't that great as soldiers. And they only had a battalion of them.
@@marrqi7wini54 The OOM-series weren't security guards except those with red markings. The Trade Federation battle droids were a paramilitary intended to protect TF resources. But the B1 Battle Droids were created as the CIS' primary infantry. I'm just saying, maybe it would have been more practical for the rebels to use the droids as shock troops or something. That way they could have avoided more casualties. And I would argue that the droids are pretty good soldiers considering a single battalion was able to reduce 200 Jedi to 10 during the arena battle on Geonosis. Despite how goofy Dave Filoni made them appear in TCW, they were an effective fighting force.
I think they could have taken a Jawa approach to droids. Have a mobile ship manufacturing droids obtained through scrap and spare parts. Then there is no shutdown signal and everything is built in house. Heck, hire or recruit Jawas and technicians to build custom droids to fill in where needed. We saw how powerful or helpful specific droids could be in all the movies and shows.
I think there are at least two another reasons. Firstly many founders of the Rebel Alliance were on Republic's side during the Clone Wars meaning they held a great dislike towards battle droids previously used by the CIS. And secondly if the Rebel Alliance used droids en masse, it would've been very easy for the imperial propaganda to paint them as neo-CIS meaning that many people wouldn't support the rebels out of principle.
My head canon is that the Rebels gather as many Lucrehulk ships as they can and convert them into mobile droid factories so that they can have all they need to make their own battle droids and they can always be on the move, thus fitting into the Rebellion’s needs and doctrine
The Empire was already spreading the thoughts that, the Rebels were based off Separatist holdouts. That really wouldnt have helped their image. Happy Year Year guys! Have fun and stay safe out there. Long live the Empire!
More than a few Imperial Command Officers have remarked that "It would be nice every once in a while to destroy a Rebel ship that wasn't built by the Empire." Given that every Nebulon B frigate in the Alliance Warbook was either stolen from the Empire or defected from the Empire. Nebulon-B's were hardly alone in that respect.
Srsly i don't get why people burn/throw away battle droids, like some of them still works as seen in bad batch, and if they don't, they could still worth a lot of credits.
It was mostly a mandate from the empire if I remember right. Like any self respecting dictatorship, they wanted to disarm the populace as much as possible to limit any retaliation. Which made it harder to find enough battle droids to supplement the rebellion. Also, like with the old tactical droids, they wanted to get rid of any information that could be used against them
In the EU, the True Canon in My Mind's Eye, the Corporate Sector kept a sizable Droid Army, and Fleet, to try and stay independent from the Empire, they soon became part of the Empire, but they tried to stay independent right after the Clone Wars, and even after, with some worlds allying with the Rebellion.
One Way To Make A Mobile Droid Factory (Focused Primarily On The Production Of B2s And Droidekas Along With Hyperdrive Equipped Droid Tri-Fighters) Would Be To Convert A Lucrehulk-Class Ship In To A Nearly Fully Automated (It's Producing Droids After All) Hybrid Asteroid Resource Harvesting/Droid Manufacturing Plant. The Lucrehulk Is Big Enough For The Task And We Know The Rebels Would Be Able To Get their Hands On The Ships. Just Park It On An Asteroid Field Out of The Way In The Outer Rim Harvest And Process The Asteroids For Raw Material And At the First Rumer Of Imperial Activity Pack Up And Go To Another Out Of The Way Asteroid Field. Even If The Production Wouldn't Be Enough To Replace Organic Soldiers It Would Be A Welcomed Support For the Rebels On The Ground Or For Specific And Likely Suicide Missions.
I'd imagine an extremely large freighter with a factory inside that produced old B2 and Droidekas would be super useful. You could sell these to planets or cities that need extra protection from raiders and pirates but can't afford to higher people or risk their own people. Plus if you happen to sell to rebel alliance for their bases you could always claim you thought they were protecting food stores or medical supplies that were meant for the outer rim.
Team up with former Separatists who still have Battle Droids could still work out, right? Well, maybe not in the long run. But for what they can gain short-term, it might be worth it if that "short-term gain" contributed something for the Rebels Alliance to deal some blows to the Empire.
Perhaps not as the primary force, but maybe to defend important rebel assets/officers or perform special operations. B1's and Droidekas would be great for this.
If I was the Rebel Alliance and I wanted to make droids I would get them from the Mon Calamari, they already supplied Cruisers. They could build droids there as they are already a target anyway. Or build/retrofit cruisers to be mobile droid factories, so now all you need is to get materials that would be a lot easier to buy with a lot less scrutiny. Lando did eventually build those Terminator like droids in the EU, so I feel they could probably design their own to suit their purposes perfectly. Droids made for stealthy recon, assassination, commando raids, heavy defence droids for when the Empire finds their bases, spy droids, drop troopers, maybe even droids made to fight Darth Vader himself.
I always wondered why the Mon Calamari never had established Droid foundries on their planet. They are accomplished ship builders, but no droids (as far as we know)
the issue that i see with a droid army is that the Rebellion was a group of Senators fighting an optics war using politics for most of it. with the end of the Clone wars the Empire rose and the Rebellion began. it wasn't until about the battle Yavin (technically just before that by a few days) that the Rebellion began openly, and they destroyed the first Death Star. then the Empire struck back while the Rebels were building up their forces, and smashed them pretty hard. when the recovered from that would have been the only time they could have made the infrastructure to produce a droid army, but even without one they managed to overthrow the Empire with a single battle. that means that they had such massive support of the populace that they had overwhelming manpower, rather than a shortage of it (even though few were willing to actually fight) which makes a droid army not the tool for the job.
The Rebels would have had great use for BX-series commandos and IG-series assassins. Or Droidekas. Or anything that could operate a weapon emplacement.
This is a very good question but it might had to do with the fear the Galaxy had towards them and that the Empire managed to track most CIS sites and destroyed them.
Imagine if Luke had found out about the Shard a lot earlier. An entire planet full of sentient Crystals. Pop them in some Droid chassis and you'd have a reusable, adaptable and free-thinking Army, many with force potential. I wish Legends had done more with the Iron Knights.
Actual answer: The Cgi for droid armies wasn't easily available during the OT, and the rebels were meant to be portrayed as the 'humane' army. having droids might have tarnished that. outside of that, great video
Excellent arguments, you described the issues I would have. The only other point I can think of is that using droids the way the Confederacy did - overwhelming numbers of mindless, replaceable robot soldiers - throws away any logistics advantage droids might have over living troops. I mean, that droid army is going in expecting to absorb huge losses. That means it will be basically out of action after the battle until shipments of replacement parts and droids can be brought in, regardless of whether the army won or lost. That means the Rebels would still need a huge logistics pipeline to keep a droid army in the field, and a correspondingly large staff of support personnel to manage the droids' repairs and maintenance. Unlike a living army, though, the droid army would need its supplies and reinforcements from predictable sources - which gets into the production issue Allen mentioned.
I think the rebels had the right idea not going with stupid B1s but something like destroyers or spider droids could help a lot (assuming they can find them and get them reprogrammed)
Maybe not the whole rebellion, but tell me that having a few elite models like commandos and droidekas wouldn’t be a boon to almost any mission the rebels took on.
I would have acquired as many used Hyperdrives as possible, attach each one to a Power Droid, and fire them at Imperial ships and large bases like the Death Star. The Empire were already proven to not hold back after the destruction of Alderaan.
Thank you for actually doing this vid. Many moons ago during the premier of the Lesser Known Rebellion ships episode, when the idea that they had been buying used Luchrehulks came up, I mentioned that if they were getting Luchrehulks they should also be getting Droids, and should be using those Droids to shore up ships crews and other place where they were short on Manpower. Sean said that was an idea that needed discussing. And here we are...
I'm with those who say the Rebellion was a rebellion of people, and that image would be indefensible if droids formed the bulk of the Rebel forces. The Empire had intentionally or not, painted itself as a faceless war machine first with identical clone troops, then using very similar faceless trooper uniforms and overwhelming tech superiority. A potential rebel had to take this all personally and see themselves as a potential hero of the rebellion; why else issue medals at ceremonies?
But the rebel alliance isn't a rebellion of people, since the empire was xenophobic and only recruited people, or humanoids like the chiss, the rebels recruited worries, bothans, and many other alien races.
@@markfergerson2145 by definition they can't be people, people are homosapians, you don't call a lions people do you? You don't call orcas people, I am using them as examples because they have social orders. The rebellion was an amalgamation of multiple alien spices fighting against the empire. And since we only see it from the rebels point of view, we see them as heros, when they could be seen as terrorists too. If you think about it how do the rebels fight? What are their targets, largest complex housing both military and civilian population. The sith and jedi codes have great philosophy each, the sith code is for the here and now on the living plane as you transcend to the spiritual realm the jedi code is more plausible. One talks about making you stronger to break your chaind that hind you to make you free. The other talks about calming your mind so you can come to peace and rest, they are two sides of the same coin. Revan had the correct path as he followed the sith path at one point in his life and followed the jdei code at another point.
What if the Rebellion and the Zann Consortium discovered a secret super droid factory specialized in the production of IG units that could be programmed to fight for either side? The Emperor would be so concerned about that development that he has Darth Vader take a force of 100 Star Destroyers to put that threat down once for all... but Prince Xizor is also in the know...That would be an awesome story all in its own.
another reason for the rebels not to use droids that are stolen from the empire, the empire could easily tell what kind of droids are being taken and either rig the droids with explosives ahead of time to destroy rebel ships, or hide a tracker inside the droids and use that to map out where the rebel bases were as well as rebel cells
I think the biggest reason the rebels didn't use a large amount of combat droids was simply because the resources used to make large conventional armies would be a waste. On the ground the rebels enjoyed a strong gruella campaign and in almost every instance of conventual combat the rebels lost pre-endor. The resources to make droids, metals, powering, factory time, etc would be much more effective for use in the fight that they needed to win in a somewhat conventional way, space. While the rebels could have gone to a random asteroid and started to build battle droids, they could also go build x-wing thrusters or whatever material would help defeat the empires supply chain. Even the droid starships would be a worse investment then parts for their more modern ships, because "disposable war material" isn't really the position the rebels are in.
If i would try to build up a secret droid army in Star Wars, i would take a large ship with equipment to mine asteroids at the front and an automatised droid workshop in the middle, so i could fly through an asteroid field and get the droids build immediately, should someone find my ship i claim to harvest and sell ore, taking some of the ore from the stock as offer. With enough such ships, i could achieve a steady supply of Droids which i hide in the asteroid field as well on smaller transports until i have enough to form a proper army. Though that´s really just me, no idea how people in-universe would think of that method.
In legend there's a tiny "droid brain" name Flirt i think, whose main job is hacking an stuffs. The droid need to be put onto a computer to start hacking like a USB on earth. I think they should've considered created a bunch of those for different jobs, like doing astromech stuffs, handling ship's guns and turrets and things like that, it'll be small enough to save resources, easy for concealment and wouldn't required a whole factory for manufacturing, just a few workshops which can be organized on ships for evacuations in case of attack. There wouldn't be an army of themselves but it would reduce number of organic soldiers needed quite a bit. Bonus points for probably not triggering people's droid-phobia since they wouldn't look like normal droids. One of the Down side is that these things can't move on their own so an organic companion is needed.
The main problem I would see is the maintenance itself without parts so practically use max small strike teams of specialized units and when they have a larger amount of Battle throne so much to cover the retreat and let them fight and pull away
I'd agree entirely on a droid army being horrible optics and something you just wouldn't use in the kind of operations the rebels were engaged in. I would say however that a heavier use of specialist droids for specific purposes, usually well out of sight of the public, would have been very useful. Surely it would have been possible to purchase some captured or repaired commando droids for black ops missions? Or some heavier weapons droids like Droidekas and Spider Droids for heavy weapons support and/or base defenses? Imagine how many fewer human casualties would have been inflicted at Hoth had there been a couple of Spider Droids to cover the retreat of the rebel infantry when the AT-ATs broke through the lines and a few Droidekas to cover the entry to the base as the infantry evacuated. Imagine how much more easily the assault on Lothal would have been with a small squad of commando droids to perform the initial infiltration. Or if Cassian had a commando droid or two to support his operation on Jedda and Eadu for that matter? Rebels aside, why wouldn't we see criminal groups like the Hutts or the Black Sun using repurposed battle droids to bolster their muscle? I'm sure Jabba could have used a couple of Droidekas to supplement those Gamoreans guarding his palace and to hell with the public image (in fact I think it would bolster the kind of image he was going for!)
Why???? the clone wars series was before episode 6 was made....the clone wars in episode 6 was a passing comment with lucas himself saying the "clone wars' was just a comment for a fictional backstory and no plan to flush it out at the time. A idea at the time was clones attacking the republic and not for the republic, again according to lucas himself. Had not been made full in 1978 something.....
I think the biggest issue might actually be building droid armies. Sure, you obviously have the lingering memories of Separatist droid armies - even the Mandalorian alluded to this - but maintaining reliable sources for droids would be tricky. This can be mitigated to a degree by not bothering with building large armies, but any reliable manufacturing capacity would not last long. There is one potential means around this, but just like with foregoing armies, it would only help so much - whether or not it would be a significant-enough help is debatable. The potential means sounds simple at first thought but could be or become a logistical nightmare: A manufacturing fleet. Think of it like a whole fleet of USG Ishimuras (minus the effects of the Marker, obviously) but with further diversity and versatility akin to the Quarian Migrant Fleet. With this, it could be possible for the Rebels to stay away from the more prominent mining regions and their associated hyperspace lanes, stick to regions that could provide some degree of stealth and protection along with potential resources (like asteroid fields), stay as decentralized as possible, copy as much as possible, and scatter them. Undoubtedly, there would be quite a few issues and even problems with this. One of the two biggest and most likely issues is that no massive manufacturing ships would be possible to hide, as these would likely be on a scale at least that of a Star Destroyer. Sure, for the strictly electronic components, there may be comparatively smaller (and thus more concealable) options, but for body parts, which would require massive smelting equipment like what was shown on Geonosis in AotC, that would be likely be much easier said than done. There is the possibility of using asteroids for this, but then it just runs into the issues Alan mentioned in the manufacturing portion. The other big issue is the logistics, namely transporting the materials and manufactured components across the fleet. This is where the logistical nightmare would likely rear the biggest of its ugly heads. Separating the components out as much as possible would certainly make them more feasible to manufacture on a ship, but then you would need a veritable second fleet of support ships (mostly smaller ones but still) to get everything where they need to go at all steps - and then there is the matter of keeping every ship, manufacturing and support, sufficiently maintained and supplied. This could be mitigated to a degree by physically linking ships to form a quick-assemble assembly line, but then, like Alan said, it would make it easier for the Empire to track it down, and for such an operation, it is unlikely to be able to quickly disassemble and flee before significant and possibly critical losses are incurred. There is also the matter of duplicating this as much and as often as possible, though this might be a comparatively lesser issue - after all, if you cannot have even one fleet, you will never have multiple fleets. The problem with relying on droids is that once the supply of them is disrupted, it is very hard to restore it, especially when that supply is not from a manufacturing juggernaut with massive government funding/protection. The only alternative (and it is not much of one as even the manufacturing juggernauts do this) is to have multiple sources. However, as obtaining enough to build one fleet would be challenging enough, trying for, say, one fleet per sector might very well be impossible. All in all, the feasibility of this would come down to how the droids are used, as, like I mentioned earlier, it would likely be impossible to field droid armies. If the Rebels focuse on using them for espionage (like how the Empire did to them) and *very* strategic sabotage (i.e. sacrificial droid bombs at key war production facilities), then having a manufacturing fleet - and maybe even two - might be within the realm of possibility. Beyond that, the issues can very quickly spiral beyond any feasibility.
@@bigredwolf6 I think the problem with using droids as scouts would be the communications. Sure, the Empire used that methods, so in theory, the Rebels should be able to as well. However, the Empire also has the full communications infrastructure to make it a viable means of scouting wide and far. The Rebels had to piggyback off of Imperial means, and while they could do low-data transmissions (voice chat would fall under low data), full scouting reports would run the risk of being detected, and if traced to any degree, it could risk exposing them. Sure, odds are the trace would not last long enough for the Empire to track down their location, but knowing that Rebel is occurring in a specific sector will engender some type of response. Granted, the response would likely not start of as much, but when you are trying to hide, it is best to not be noticed in the first place, and as many times throughout our own history has shown, all it can take to ruin even the best laid plans is one tiny stroke of bad luck. As for the workshop ships, there were likely already a few going around, though they would likely be used to prepare for long-lasting or highly valued missions like espionage and slicing, and those come with their own risks. No workshop ship would be able to be able to provide anything with more impact than the tiniest of uncomfortable thorns. It might work well enough on the most backwater of systems, but closer to the core, you would likely to be very hard pressed. Still, even with these concerns, there is no real reason why they should not be implemented at all. I just doubt they can be implemented on a large-enough scale. Oh, and the Separatist materials angle could work to a degree, but given that Palpatine was essentially controlling how the CIS operated and left literally everyone else - namely those who are in the Rebellion - completely in the dark, it is likely that the Empie would get the materials before the Rebels do. Now, if there were any Separatists that survived with access to droid forces (a fully operational factory or the means and connections to build one would be a bonanza, but even just a platoon could be something), and that they were willing to work with the Rebels, that would be another story.
@@bigredwolf6 Returning would probably not be as easy as you think. As per lore, both Disney and Legends, hyperlane charts need to be regularly updated. It is easy to so for ones that see regular traffic like trade routes, but exploring more unmapped sectors, a return trip would take time. After all, for the astromechs the Rebel starfighters have, they do not actually scan the lanes, they store preloaded routes for relatively quickly jumps. It is also why they never recommend blind jumps - even Han Solo mentioned the dangers of them in A New Hope. So while the droid may handle the recon, if anything happens to it on the return trip, any and all data collected would probably be lost, and because the Rebels would likely not be able to replace the droid anywhere nearly as easily as the Empire could, that does not give them many options. To be fair, jumping back would probably be more feasible for very short jumps - I would say neighboring (and I mean actual next-door neighboring) stars and their planets. Like with the workshop ships, they likely would not be able to operate in a significant capacity, but they should still be able to operate in some capacity, and just like how the tiniest stroke of bad luck can ruin even the beat laid plans, the tiniest stroke of good luck can provide a much-needed reprieve.
@@DavidRichardson153 I think one way they can be used for suicide missions, we saw how horrifyingly effective those modified cleaning droids were in attacking Coruscant. Get a few modified similarly and get them in or aboard something important like transports, and really fuck up logistics. Also, droidekas can change the course of any battle, having a few would certainly be useful in close quarters combat.
What makes you think they weren't? It could be the reason why you never really see more than 3ish star destroyers at any given point in time. Except for Endor.
From 1 video that Ive seen a couple times was that there was a commando droid being used by a clone named Thorner and it was used against the empire along with a few others that are aligned. The name of the video is the only clone trooper who had a sword.
You have a solid set of ideas on why droids wouldn’t be used. One thing that I’ve thought since even before the prequel movies is the use of remotely-piloted drones. This would make a lot of sense instead of endangering fighter pilots, or investing heavily in full-on droids.
I think you nailed everything down rather neatly. Even mobile small scale production facilities, would likely be easy targets. My sudden thought was, just now, how a light/heavy cruiser could have an assembly system of protocol like common humanoid adult size droids-("male or female"), and obvious ASTROMECHs. However, material resources would need to be regularly tapped to produce the metal and metal-like parts and covers. If not for having the system equipped with ore processing and refining equipment and asteroid mining droids, in mind when I've thought of this before, only to consider, "how did they get those in the first place?". They would not be as mobile as most rebel cruisers, and so would be priority targets most times. I'd still want one of my own though, in this universe, so I could start up my own asteroid mining company, selling the collection of otherwise unclaimed resources for a moderately reasonable price on the open market. And of course, droids as pilots, and dockworkers, means that I only have to deal regularly maintaining mechanical issues and needs. No mental or physical medical care needed, not to forget the cost of a payroll, or vacation time. "Zee-Ecks-50. How 'er you doing?" "All systems functions are optimal". "Good news. Continue on ".
What about one of those giant droid control ships? If they could get one of those, they could keep the mobility, upkeep and number of droids almost entirely.
Oh and the idea of Clone Wars was basically a one throw away that wouldn't be flehsed out for 20 years. Droids weren't a thing yet. If they were, they would have been men in suits clomping around like Cyclons. Can you imagine the amount of whining once episode 1 hit and you get these slim BT1s?
After Anakin/Darth Vader was sent to kill all the Separatist Leaders hiding on Mustafar, Chancellor Palpatine nationalized all the Separatist holdings in Banking, technology, and manufacturing. Therefore the empire had both the droids and the clones at its disposal for the creation of its superweapons like Star destroyers, super star destroyers, and Deathstar. Any unneeded droids we're melted down and used as raw materials for other imperial weapons.
Yeah but I doubt the empire was able to hunt down every Droid in the army, you can just amass a small army to protect a planet. And really all it takes is 1 Droid to be able to study it, they are expensive sure and the materials will be hard to get in the long run, but they'd work out well with the rebels run and fight another day or die style
The rebels used Gorilla tactics so having an army doesn't suit their main strategy. But I could see the Rebels manufacturing elite assassin droids and sending them to take care of important imperial figures. Tho I wonder why they didn't use droid ships in their fleets since they couldn't afford to lose crews if caught. The CIS fleets were heavily automated and some of them even had droid brains. And let's not forget the most deadly fighters in Star Wars, the tri fighter droids, cheap fast small and very deadly. The Rebels could have easily do suicide runs on important enemy locations without the fear of loss. Let's not forget that some of the CIS fleets could have been converted to mobile starbases with manufacturing tools onboard so they could create new parts on the move while being hidden from the Empire.
One consideration that comes to mind is that the Old Republic/Empire very likely dismantled all the old Separatist combat droid facilities in order to prevent a future group of separatists from using a massive droid army again. It only makes sense that the Empire would quickly neutralize any such threat under the guise of "keeping the peace" (read: preventing future insurrections), which was probably a very popular move post-Clone Wars.
Not using battle droids was a really smart decision on the part of the rebels. During the Clone Wars the Separatist Driod Army caused terror on thousands of planets throughout the galaxy and committed numerous war crimes against civilians on the planets occupied by Separatist forces. If the Rebel Alliance just used Battle droids in their struggle to overthrow the Empire this would have badly hurt their relations with a population with the Clone Wars still in recent living memory and would make the people more willing to join the Imperial military to stop a repeat of the horrors of the Clone Wars and with that the Rebellion as a whole would have been utterly defeated with the Empire's boost in manpower. Also the rebels weren't conventional fighters they were in many ways like the Vietcong during the Vietnam War relying on hit and run guerrilla tactics and the rebels did try conventional methods of warfare it olny ended in failure like how the Mid Rim Offensive ended
The Rebel Alliance could retrofit their capital ships to be mobile foundries/manufacturing plants...as far as getting raw materials go to Mustafar mine the lava (and salvage CIS tech/droid designs) rings of Geonosis, Hoth asteroid belt etc. and start mining...
Always wondered WHY it woulda been so hard for the Rebels at ANY stage to have tracked down, or if one was still round by the enemy, just seize one then update the programs, armor an arms of the Droid troops an then sick them on the Imperial Forces... Maybe trigger some kinda Vader war PTSD on seeing them waste a ton of Imperials.. most of whom the Empire saw as throw away Cannon fodder anyways.. they'd needed serious updates an additions to aid against the larger Walker forces an heavy or specialized Elite and Spec Ops specialized troops to viably aid the Rebels long term. Probably wouldn't help in all alone but always thought woulda been better then how 1-sided it was that we saw. An always figured it's EXACTLY the kinda thing if someone like Thrawn or Tarkin had EVER been a Rebel leader or saw fit to defect to them they'd gone and done.
Because it would be cake easy to be painted as nothing but Separtists by using droids so soon after the Clone Wars. The Empire could just name them remnants of the Separtists in their propaganda, not really wanting the 'return of the Repbulic' and since most the galaxy was more or less sick of war, would probably go for the propaganda and turn against the Rebels.
If I were to guess, it would be how intertwined the Droid Army was with Palpatine and, thus, most available combat droid manufacturing and other hardware would either have been completely destroyed or so heavily monitored/ in the pocket of the Empire that getting any sort of decent production running wasn't feasible. Any new endeavors would be basically from the ground up, purchasing droids would require a seller that is large enough to fulfill the orders with speed, and the only companies that could do that would likely be heavily reliant on the Empire, be it funding, materials, or what have ya, which the Empire would instantly deny the moment they catch wind of the deal.
Commando Droids would have been very useful to the rebellion. I've also thought about another reason plapatine wanted to use skin and bone soldiers, pain and suffering. Maybe it was something that he fed off of, or just enjoyed.
Bit of an off topic one and you may have said it in their video but does anyone know the song being used for the background? I really enjoyed it for the last couple videos I've watched!
A very interesting topic. I think in the end that droids were just not that practical in the long run: sure to defend a base permanently or to run a huge hit... which the rebels avoided both. Droids have no allegance, can be reprogram by the ennemy, have to be 24/7 commanded, can't react in emergency (which happen all the time when you're a rebel), take time and personnel to deploy and repack (which the rebels had neither of). It's like having tanks for a resistant group during ww2, maybe one or two in case, but otherwise it would be an unpractical useless burden. Also you mentioned in the begining rich patreons of the Alliance: could you tell us more about them, who they were and especially why they financed the rebellion. Otherwise, great job as always.
At the very least they could’ve used some for small roles like guarding, piloting or even fighter support. Those tri droids would be more than a match based on their role.
Droids we’re capable of emotion, attachment, caring and selflessness, in many instances far more than biological creatures. R2 for one, killed almost everyone in a Star Destroyer for C3PO. The red droid in episode 4 when the Jawas are selling them, sabotaged itself so they’d choose R2 after R2 mentioned how his mission was vital to the galaxy. Droids are capable combatants if allowed the chance to flourish, and thus I think that the rebels including more droids into the mix would have helped. Maybe give them a wipe and inspect after purchase to ensure no imperial shit is happening, but afterwards, good to go. Adding things like droid gunships, commando droids and shit like that to their ranks would have helped immensely, as those were although more maintenance heavy, still far deadlier than even seasoned pilots and soldiers.
I think that if a B1 has enough mental possessing to create comedic relief, it might be able to install a compressed version of the Commando software, which could have been the most cost-effective front line soldier in Star Wars. An entire galactic army of aimbots...
@@MK_ULTRA420 their comedic relief stemmed exactly from the fact they lacked memory, their programming was expanded ever further, they couldn't handle it anymore, leading to wacky behaviour at times.
They did use quite a bit of droid stuff like their massive training ship which was a Lucrehulk, I think droids would've been a good way to supplement their forces so in all honesty I assume they probably did that , Tactical Droids and gunner droids would've been useful . The rebellion used a surprising lack of stuff left over from the Clone Wars I hope to see that increase with the increasing lore
I still think having some squads of bx commando droids, droidekas and crab droids would be good to have on stand by for hot extraction missions and defending bases just enough to put up a good defense.
It has a lot to do with the Clone Wars and the bad feelings afterwards The Empire could paint the rebels as separatist remnants, costing them a lot of support in the mid and outer rim
The most effective counters to the separatist droid army were mostly Jedi, who are few and far between after order 66 and were also largely aligned with the rebellion.
In the battlefield, the side not using droids can 'free-fire' on seeing one in combat. If both sides are using droids, then there is the slight delay to make sure "it's one of ours!"
My guess is seperatist type battle droids probably ping like crazy on radars, which would have made them a liability unless kept deactivated and strictly programmed for missions. They could have employed other kinds of droids of course.
I’ve always wondered this and also have always wondered why homing spider droids were only used during the first battle of geonosis…we just never saw them again I’m pretty sure, they must’ve been really bad in order for them to never be used again
For somebody who's channel is dedicated to SW lore I'm disappointed you dismissed the B1 as useless when they're less than 2000 credits to make and need no training, unlike the multi tens of thousands to just grow a clone let alone arm and train them..
The rebellion would have had major difficulties with the possibility of creating a droid army as the empire took control of conglomerates like the Techno Union, which was a major contributor in the clone wars for the confederacy of independent systems. Also, when the empire would inevitably discover the rebels were creating a droid army, they simply send a fleet of ships to destroy the factories making the droids and punish those who were involved in the production of battle droids.
I mean, instead of using droids as a frontline army you can use droids as more of a defensive army for your rebel bases. At the end of the day, they needed every asset they can get their hands on including battle droids, which they are really stupid for not capitalizing on in the first place but that is not important. Plus, if their technology was so advanced every person who is a fan of Star Wars believes they said they are they could’ve easily jus created materials to build battle droids for their armies. Maybe not in large quantities but at least make sufficient enough to pose a very strong last defense at least for bases such as Echo Base and Crait.
The most danger things about droids is you can’t punch them. One clone knows from experience
A background character in the Battle of Utapau in Revenge of the Sith would disagree.
Padme would too lol
@@vetarlittorf1807 not everyone is that level of Chad.
There is an entire clone career path in the ffg games that centers around punching the shit out of droids.
@@spacehitler4537 This is very true!
Man, droidekas were actually pretty useful killing machines. Shame those droids were erased from existence after the Clone Wars and only re-appeared when Luke and Mara Jade discovered the remains of the "Outbound Flight" ship
The Zann Consortium made use of them later on.
@@minicle426 Yeah. But the canonicity of those events is pretty debatable
Useful is an understatement...
Actually, the Rebels did recover a battalion of Battle Droids shortly before the Galactic Civil War started. Along with several Hailfire Droids, one Providence-class carrier and three Lucrehulks (one of which was destroyed by the Death Star).
@@vetarlittorf1807 source?
I feel like Bail Organa's one scene in Episode 3 sums it up. They didn't want to appear like they were the new Separatists. Even though some of the more inspired attacks against the Empire early on were dealt by CIS holdouts and rebels using Droid tech
Honestly, id love some more canon stuff on separatist holdouts fighting the empire
The two missions in battlefront 2005 of Empire vs CIS Holdouts were epic.
@@duncanharrell5009 Lol the Empire needed an entire Stormtrooper Legion to end a Geonosian madlad with a droid factory.
@@duncanharrell5009 best game ever.
@@MK_ULTRA420 tbf that was when the Empire still had a smaller military force and almost no superweapons yet.
Pretty hard to win a hearts and minds campaign using primarily droids as an army. Using a few droids to supplement their ranks would work but I imagine reprogrammed Imperial droids would have been the ideal droids for the rebellion to use.
This right here. The Rebellion had a direct political component to it; it had to because the goal was to restore the Republic. That's hard to do when you're using the weapons of the Republic's enemies, and the Empire would absolutely capitalize on it to undermine your political efforts.
@@daniellyon5011 It's actually not that hard at all. During the Russian Civil War, the Soviets recruited many former Tsarist soldiers to help them against the White Movement. It didn't undermine their image at all.
Not to mention the US had a whole battalion of Japanese-Americans to fight the Japanese in WWII.
@@vetarlittorf1807 with all due respect, there's a huge difference in scales, technology, diversity of species, etc.
Neither of those conflicts had as much to do with guerilla warfare as the conflict seen in the OT, nor were they against a *vastly* superior foe that has full control of a galaxy-wide, instant mass media/propaganda system such as the Holonet, and neither of the forces you mention needed to kind of outside support as the Rebellion. Those Soviets and Japanese-American soldiers didn't rely completely on money, weapons and supplies secretly funneled from sympathetic outsiders.
It's the same reason the Rebellion concentrated on military targets rather than just robbing banks and terrorizing civilians.
@@daniellyon5011 ANother thing as well. The Rebellion relied on the hearts and wallets of the common citizens to support them. Imagine if all they heard was "Why do I need to fight? Just build another droid." Which soon turns to "Why support them? They already have a bunch of droids doing the fighting for them."
i would use the B-1's on suicide raids were numbers were far more important then lives. exactly as intended! on the other hand they would also be very useful just to boost manpower at your makeshift base and make life just a little easier.
i always think there has always been a place for droids in all star wars armys, mainly as gunners or other secondary roles that dont involve being the main pilot or roles that dont need creative thinking but fast calculation and speed
like using the ARC 170's but have the 2 other seats as hard wired droids or putting droids in turrets or gun emplacements
I‘ve heared somewhere that droids are pretty bad shooters, but that doesn‘t make sense to me. Since they should be able to calculate where to shoot.
@@sarahd4784 I agree, I think it probably has more to do with the amount the Droid has to think about. Droid brain- Droid body- weapon controls- quirks of weapon itself- all based off of whatever info inputs the Droid brain has access to. If you just strap the Droid brain and sensors straight to the turret it'd be alot more responsive I think
@@sarahd4784 idk why anyone would think that, if anything they would be way more accurate than organic beings and might even have faster response to threats and targets in some cases. RL AI are good enough to put them anti air guns to shoot down missiles, star wars AI meanwhile are smart enough to arguably be considered sentient, no way in hell would they have worse aim than human.
@@slimetank394 I've heard it has to do with the very high tech level of sensor jaming devices in Star Wars. This is also why close in starfighter duels are a thing, as they are mosrly forced to rely on the MK I Eyeball for aiming. Course a droid brain hooked to a simple camera should still work...
@@sarahd4784 it depends on the droid, but robots IRL are pretty frightening shots
They could set up a small factory in a freighter. Make high quality Droids, purpose built for mission specific goals, is small numbers. That would fit better in the Rebel narrative.
Precisely, maybe even delegate them to more of a medic and tank role.
BX commando droids
@@proteous8100 yepp that would be ideal or some B2 Super Battle droids and droidekas
Imagine if the Rebels would have discovered the abandoned HK series droid factory in Mustafar and later reconstructed and used those droids against the Empire. Even Vader would have ended using the Joestar Secret technique
The only technique effective against the high ground
@@PK-Radio Flying Droid are the High Ground.
That's great, but Vader's largest fortress was also located on Mustafar. I'm pretty sure he would've sniffed it out and destroyed it if they did set up there
@@ThereMayBeLions I was actually referring to the Legends continuity, in which Vader's fortress was in Vjun, not in Mustafar
Yeah but the Empire destroyed that factory. The only one that survived was HK-47, who had previously been relegated to a computer program called "Meatbag."
One of the biggest reasons was the Alliance's image. If they used battle droids en masse, the Empire could just frame this as the Confederacy reborn. A lot fewer people would want to support the Rebels if they seemed like a continuation of the CIS.
You mean they weren't?
I mean, technically the main backers of the Rebels are actually surviving members of the CIS. Heck, even Ezra acknowledges this when he uses that sort of logic with a CIS Commander Droid. The enemy of the Droids is the Republic, the Republic has become the Empire, the Empire is also the enemy if the Droids.
@@Gamer_G33k The good thing about backers is that they stay in the background, the soldiers you use (however) are very much in the foreground. And in the foreground, optics matter
@@AeneasGemini Yeah, I was just pointing out that the Rebels are technically the CIS.
@@vonneely1977 the Rebels were not the CIS, the CIS is part of the Rebel Alliance.
If the droids were produced by the galactic equivalent of apple or google, the empire would just go to those companies (who would no doubt already be quite friendly with the empire) and they would give up all communication and location info without a second thought. After all, imperial contracts would likely be much more lucrative.
Or appear to be more lucrative.
Collicoids, the droideka manufacturer, could be bribed fairly easily with rare meats. They are a purely carnivorous race and a good rack of rancor ribs could greatly loosen their purse strings
Keep in mind too, when the Empire can execute/kidnap your entire board of directors for “confirmed rebel assistance”, it’s a good idea to play ball.
Great analysis! “Rebels” ( freedom fighters) usually fight a non-linear war, compared to an evil empire, the rebellion needed mobility, and needed the “but-in” from the systems to war a war of attrition against the empire
In Legends, the rebels did acquire a battalion of B1 Battle Droids from Separatist holdouts. But they only used them as security guards.
Great video! I can see the Rebel Alliance not wanting to use battle droids due to the number of Clone Wars veterans in the ranks as well as the optics of the issue. However, I do think they could have used droids to great advantage in the support roles like crewing capital ships, performing reconnaissance and spy work, and maintaining bases. Even basic B1 droids could be repurposed to perform those tasks. The Rebels needed manpower, and droids could free up other beings to fight while they provided the logistical support.
There appeared to be no shortage of rogue droids. They could have simply asked them to join their cause. I mean, most of the droids that went rogue did so because they had no purpose. Fighting for the rebels would have given those rogue battle droids purpose again. And I would bet they would have agreed quite quickly and willingly.
The untold story of Rust Squadron
In Legends, several Separatist enclaves did join the Rebel Alliance. They provided them with one battalion of B1 Battle Droids, one Providence-class carrier, three Lucrehulks (one of which was destroyed by the Death Star) and a few Hailfire Droids that were only used during sieges after the Battle of Endor. Oh, and the Battle Droids were only used as security guards for some reason.
"Battle droids were only used as security guards for some reason"
Well that was their original purpose. Armed security against pirates and boarders. They weren't that great as soldiers. And they only had a battalion of them.
@@marrqi7wini54 The OOM-series weren't security guards except those with red markings. The Trade Federation battle droids were a paramilitary intended to protect TF resources. But the B1 Battle Droids were created as the CIS' primary infantry.
I'm just saying, maybe it would have been more practical for the rebels to use the droids as shock troops or something. That way they could have avoided more casualties.
And I would argue that the droids are pretty good soldiers considering a single battalion was able to reduce 200 Jedi to 10 during the arena battle on Geonosis. Despite how goofy Dave Filoni made them appear in TCW, they were an effective fighting force.
I think they could have taken a Jawa approach to droids. Have a mobile ship manufacturing droids obtained through scrap and spare parts. Then there is no shutdown signal and everything is built in house.
Heck, hire or recruit Jawas and technicians to build custom droids to fill in where needed. We saw how powerful or helpful specific droids could be in all the movies and shows.
I think there are at least two another reasons.
Firstly many founders of the Rebel Alliance were on Republic's side during the Clone Wars meaning they held a great dislike towards battle droids previously used by the CIS.
And secondly if the Rebel Alliance used droids en masse, it would've been very easy for the imperial propaganda to paint them as neo-CIS meaning that many people wouldn't support the rebels out of principle.
My head canon is that the Rebels gather as many Lucrehulk ships as they can and convert them into mobile droid factories so that they can have all they need to make their own battle droids and they can always be on the move, thus fitting into the Rebellion’s needs and doctrine
The Empire was already spreading the thoughts that, the Rebels were based off Separatist holdouts. That really wouldnt have helped their image.
Happy Year Year guys! Have fun and stay safe out there. Long live the Empire!
More than a few Imperial Command Officers have remarked that "It would be nice every once in a while to destroy a Rebel ship that wasn't built by the Empire." Given that every Nebulon B frigate in the Alliance Warbook was either stolen from the Empire or defected from the Empire. Nebulon-B's were hardly alone in that respect.
Srsly i don't get why people burn/throw away battle droids, like some of them still works as seen in bad batch, and if they don't, they could still worth a lot of credits.
It was mostly a mandate from the empire if I remember right.
Like any self respecting dictatorship, they wanted to disarm the populace as much as possible to limit any retaliation. Which made it harder to find enough battle droids to supplement the rebellion. Also, like with the old tactical droids, they wanted to get rid of any information that could be used against them
All B1 CIS droids probably were worth more doing other services rather than sell.
becasuse they never watched the Animatrix LOL.
B1 and B2 are still working during the Sequel era.
In the EU, the True Canon in My Mind's Eye, the Corporate Sector kept a sizable Droid Army, and Fleet, to try and stay independent from the Empire, they soon became part of the Empire, but they tried to stay independent right after the Clone Wars, and even after, with some worlds allying with the Rebellion.
Using droids for espionage (like Chopper was in Rebels) and possible as suicide troops in small teams, would be the rebels best move.
One Way To Make A Mobile Droid Factory (Focused Primarily On The Production Of B2s And Droidekas Along With Hyperdrive Equipped Droid Tri-Fighters)
Would Be To Convert A Lucrehulk-Class Ship In To A Nearly Fully Automated (It's Producing Droids After All) Hybrid Asteroid Resource Harvesting/Droid Manufacturing Plant.
The Lucrehulk Is Big Enough For The Task And We Know The Rebels Would Be Able To Get their Hands On The Ships. Just Park It On An Asteroid Field Out of The Way In The Outer Rim
Harvest And Process The Asteroids For Raw Material And At the First Rumer Of Imperial Activity Pack Up And Go To Another Out Of The Way Asteroid Field.
Even If The Production Wouldn't Be Enough To Replace Organic Soldiers It Would Be A Welcomed Support For the Rebels On The Ground Or For Specific And Likely Suicide Missions.
I'd imagine an extremely large freighter with a factory inside that produced old B2 and Droidekas would be super useful. You could sell these to planets or cities that need extra protection from raiders and pirates but can't afford to higher people or risk their own people. Plus if you happen to sell to rebel alliance for their bases you could always claim you thought they were protecting food stores or medical supplies that were meant for the outer rim.
Team up with former Separatists who still have Battle Droids could still work out, right? Well, maybe not in the long run. But for what they can gain short-term, it might be worth it if that "short-term gain" contributed something for the Rebels Alliance to deal some blows to the Empire.
Perhaps not as the primary force, but maybe to defend important rebel assets/officers or perform special operations. B1's and Droidekas would be great for this.
If I was the Rebel Alliance and I wanted to make droids I would get them from the Mon Calamari, they already supplied Cruisers.
They could build droids there as they are already a target anyway.
Or build/retrofit cruisers to be mobile droid factories, so now all you need is to get materials that would be a lot easier to buy with a lot less scrutiny.
Lando did eventually build those Terminator like droids in the EU, so I feel they could probably design their own to suit their purposes perfectly.
Droids made for stealthy recon, assassination, commando raids, heavy defence droids for when the Empire finds their bases, spy droids, drop troopers, maybe even droids made to fight Darth Vader himself.
I always wondered why the Mon Calamari never had established Droid foundries on their planet. They are accomplished ship builders, but no droids (as far as we know)
the issue that i see with a droid army is that the Rebellion was a group of Senators fighting an optics war using politics for most of it. with the end of the Clone wars the Empire rose and the Rebellion began. it wasn't until about the battle Yavin (technically just before that by a few days) that the Rebellion began openly, and they destroyed the first Death Star. then the Empire struck back while the Rebels were building up their forces, and smashed them pretty hard. when the recovered from that would have been the only time they could have made the infrastructure to produce a droid army, but even without one they managed to overthrow the Empire with a single battle. that means that they had such massive support of the populace that they had overwhelming manpower, rather than a shortage of it (even though few were willing to actually fight) which makes a droid army not the tool for the job.
The Rebels would have had great use for BX-series commandos and IG-series assassins. Or Droidekas. Or anything that could operate a weapon emplacement.
This is a very good question but it might had to do with the fear the Galaxy had towards them and that the Empire managed to track most CIS sites and destroyed them.
Imagine if Luke had found out about the Shard a lot earlier. An entire planet full of sentient Crystals.
Pop them in some Droid chassis and you'd have a reusable, adaptable and free-thinking Army, many with force potential.
I wish Legends had done more with the Iron Knights.
there are some ethical problems with that.
The Iron Knights were pretty cool.
@@Fuzzycat16 ethics schmethics
@@wildwyatxbox Well yeah, otherwise just join the Empire lol
@@MK_ULTRA420 I may
Availability of ion cannon
My biggest immersion buster from the prequels
Actual answer: The Cgi for droid armies wasn't easily available during the OT, and the rebels were meant to be portrayed as the 'humane' army. having droids might have tarnished that.
outside of that, great video
Similar reason to why the setting seems so human dominated, all those latex masks are expensive.
Excellent arguments, you described the issues I would have.
The only other point I can think of is that using droids the way the Confederacy did - overwhelming numbers of mindless, replaceable robot soldiers - throws away any logistics advantage droids might have over living troops. I mean, that droid army is going in expecting to absorb huge losses. That means it will be basically out of action after the battle until shipments of replacement parts and droids can be brought in, regardless of whether the army won or lost.
That means the Rebels would still need a huge logistics pipeline to keep a droid army in the field, and a correspondingly large staff of support personnel to manage the droids' repairs and maintenance. Unlike a living army, though, the droid army would need its supplies and reinforcements from predictable sources - which gets into the production issue Allen mentioned.
I think the rebels had the right idea not going with stupid B1s but something like destroyers or spider droids could help a lot (assuming they can find them and get them reprogrammed)
I was thinking the same thing the rebel alliance using battle droids to help fight THE EMPIRE!!
Maybe not the whole rebellion, but tell me that having a few elite models like commandos and droidekas wouldn’t be a boon to almost any mission the rebels took on.
I would have acquired as many used Hyperdrives as possible, attach each one to a Power Droid, and fire them at Imperial ships and large bases like the Death Star. The Empire were already proven to not hold back after the destruction of Alderaan.
Thank you for actually doing this vid.
Many moons ago during the premier of the Lesser Known Rebellion ships episode, when the idea that they had been buying used Luchrehulks came up, I mentioned that if they were getting Luchrehulks they should also be getting Droids, and should be using those Droids to shore up ships crews and other place where they were short on Manpower. Sean said that was an idea that needed discussing.
And here we are...
I'm with those who say the Rebellion was a rebellion of people, and that image would be indefensible if droids formed the bulk of the Rebel forces. The Empire had intentionally or not, painted itself as a faceless war machine first with identical clone troops, then using very similar faceless trooper uniforms and overwhelming tech superiority. A potential rebel had to take this all personally and see themselves as a potential hero of the rebellion; why else issue medals at ceremonies?
But the rebel alliance isn't a rebellion of people, since the empire was xenophobic and only recruited people, or humanoids like the chiss, the rebels recruited worries, bothans, and many other alien races.
@@Robert53area So non-humans aren't people, so you're a Sith?
@@markfergerson2145 by definition they can't be people, people are homosapians, you don't call a lions people do you?
You don't call orcas people, I am using them as examples because they have social orders.
The rebellion was an amalgamation of multiple alien spices fighting against the empire.
And since we only see it from the rebels point of view, we see them as heros, when they could be seen as terrorists too. If you think about it how do the rebels fight?
What are their targets, largest complex housing both military and civilian population.
The sith and jedi codes have great philosophy each, the sith code is for the here and now on the living plane as you transcend to the spiritual realm the jedi code is more plausible.
One talks about making you stronger to break your chaind that hind you to make you free.
The other talks about calming your mind so you can come to peace and rest, they are two sides of the same coin. Revan had the correct path as he followed the sith path at one point in his life and followed the jdei code at another point.
What if the Rebellion and the Zann Consortium discovered a secret super droid factory specialized in the production of IG units that could be programmed to fight for either side? The Emperor would be so concerned about that development that he has Darth Vader take a force of 100 Star Destroyers to put that threat down once for all... but Prince Xizor is also in the know...That would be an awesome story all in its own.
another reason for the rebels not to use droids that are stolen from the empire, the empire could easily tell what kind of droids are being taken and either rig the droids with explosives ahead of time to destroy rebel ships, or hide a tracker inside the droids and use that to map out where the rebel bases were as well as rebel cells
I think the biggest reason the rebels didn't use a large amount of combat droids was simply because the resources used to make large conventional armies would be a waste. On the ground the rebels enjoyed a strong gruella campaign and in almost every instance of conventual combat the rebels lost pre-endor. The resources to make droids, metals, powering, factory time, etc would be much more effective for use in the fight that they needed to win in a somewhat conventional way, space. While the rebels could have gone to a random asteroid and started to build battle droids, they could also go build x-wing thrusters or whatever material would help defeat the empires supply chain. Even the droid starships would be a worse investment then parts for their more modern ships, because "disposable war material" isn't really the position the rebels are in.
If i would try to build up a secret droid army in Star Wars, i would take a large ship with equipment to mine asteroids at the front and an automatised droid workshop in the middle, so i could fly through an asteroid field and get the droids build immediately, should someone find my ship i claim to harvest and sell ore, taking some of the ore from the stock as offer.
With enough such ships, i could achieve a steady supply of Droids which i hide in the asteroid field as well on smaller transports until i have enough to form a proper army.
Though that´s really just me, no idea how people in-universe would think of that method.
In legend there's a tiny "droid brain" name Flirt i think, whose main job is hacking an stuffs. The droid need to be put onto a computer to start hacking like a USB on earth. I think they should've considered created a bunch of those for different jobs, like doing astromech stuffs, handling ship's guns and turrets and things like that, it'll be small enough to save resources, easy for concealment and wouldn't required a whole factory for manufacturing, just a few workshops which can be organized on ships for evacuations in case of attack. There wouldn't be an army of themselves but it would reduce number of organic soldiers needed quite a bit.
Bonus points for probably not triggering people's droid-phobia since they wouldn't look like normal droids.
One of the Down side is that these things can't move on their own so an organic companion is needed.
The main problem I would see is the maintenance itself without parts so practically use max small strike teams of specialized units and when they have a larger amount of Battle throne so much to cover the retreat and let them fight and pull away
I'd agree entirely on a droid army being horrible optics and something you just wouldn't use in the kind of operations the rebels were engaged in.
I would say however that a heavier use of specialist droids for specific purposes, usually well out of sight of the public, would have been very useful.
Surely it would have been possible to purchase some captured or repaired commando droids for black ops missions? Or some heavier weapons droids like Droidekas and Spider Droids for heavy weapons support and/or base defenses?
Imagine how many fewer human casualties would have been inflicted at Hoth had there been a couple of Spider Droids to cover the retreat of the rebel infantry when the AT-ATs broke through the lines and a few Droidekas to cover the entry to the base as the infantry evacuated. Imagine how much more easily the assault on Lothal would have been with a small squad of commando droids to perform the initial infiltration. Or if Cassian had a commando droid or two to support his operation on Jedda and Eadu for that matter?
Rebels aside, why wouldn't we see criminal groups like the Hutts or the Black Sun using repurposed battle droids to bolster their muscle? I'm sure Jabba could have used a couple of Droidekas to supplement those Gamoreans guarding his palace and to hell with the public image (in fact I think it would bolster the kind of image he was going for!)
Funny thing is this is just one more reason the rebel's needed Venator Star Destroyers. In this case a mobile manufacturing plant for battle droids.
Gunna take a guess before finishing the video: Droids are expensive and have a haunting reputation after Dooku and Greivous.
Why???? the clone wars series was before episode 6 was made....the clone wars in episode 6 was a passing comment with lucas himself saying the "clone wars' was just a comment for a fictional backstory and no plan to flush it out at the time. A idea at the time was clones attacking the republic and not for the republic, again according to lucas himself. Had not been made full in 1978 something.....
Because the Star Wars movie was made in the 80s back then a robot is basically a dude in a cardboard suit
I think the biggest issue might actually be building droid armies. Sure, you obviously have the lingering memories of Separatist droid armies - even the Mandalorian alluded to this - but maintaining reliable sources for droids would be tricky. This can be mitigated to a degree by not bothering with building large armies, but any reliable manufacturing capacity would not last long.
There is one potential means around this, but just like with foregoing armies, it would only help so much - whether or not it would be a significant-enough help is debatable. The potential means sounds simple at first thought but could be or become a logistical nightmare:
A manufacturing fleet.
Think of it like a whole fleet of USG Ishimuras (minus the effects of the Marker, obviously) but with further diversity and versatility akin to the Quarian Migrant Fleet.
With this, it could be possible for the Rebels to stay away from the more prominent mining regions and their associated hyperspace lanes, stick to regions that could provide some degree of stealth and protection along with potential resources (like asteroid fields), stay as decentralized as possible, copy as much as possible, and scatter them.
Undoubtedly, there would be quite a few issues and even problems with this. One of the two biggest and most likely issues is that no massive manufacturing ships would be possible to hide, as these would likely be on a scale at least that of a Star Destroyer. Sure, for the strictly electronic components, there may be comparatively smaller (and thus more concealable) options, but for body parts, which would require massive smelting equipment like what was shown on Geonosis in AotC, that would be likely be much easier said than done. There is the possibility of using asteroids for this, but then it just runs into the issues Alan mentioned in the manufacturing portion.
The other big issue is the logistics, namely transporting the materials and manufactured components across the fleet. This is where the logistical nightmare would likely rear the biggest of its ugly heads. Separating the components out as much as possible would certainly make them more feasible to manufacture on a ship, but then you would need a veritable second fleet of support ships (mostly smaller ones but still) to get everything where they need to go at all steps - and then there is the matter of keeping every ship, manufacturing and support, sufficiently maintained and supplied. This could be mitigated to a degree by physically linking ships to form a quick-assemble assembly line, but then, like Alan said, it would make it easier for the Empire to track it down, and for such an operation, it is unlikely to be able to quickly disassemble and flee before significant and possibly critical losses are incurred.
There is also the matter of duplicating this as much and as often as possible, though this might be a comparatively lesser issue - after all, if you cannot have even one fleet, you will never have multiple fleets. The problem with relying on droids is that once the supply of them is disrupted, it is very hard to restore it, especially when that supply is not from a manufacturing juggernaut with massive government funding/protection. The only alternative (and it is not much of one as even the manufacturing juggernauts do this) is to have multiple sources. However, as obtaining enough to build one fleet would be challenging enough, trying for, say, one fleet per sector might very well be impossible.
All in all, the feasibility of this would come down to how the droids are used, as, like I mentioned earlier, it would likely be impossible to field droid armies. If the Rebels focuse on using them for espionage (like how the Empire did to them) and *very* strategic sabotage (i.e. sacrificial droid bombs at key war production facilities), then having a manufacturing fleet - and maybe even two - might be within the realm of possibility. Beyond that, the issues can very quickly spiral beyond any feasibility.
@@bigredwolf6 I think the problem with using droids as scouts would be the communications. Sure, the Empire used that methods, so in theory, the Rebels should be able to as well. However, the Empire also has the full communications infrastructure to make it a viable means of scouting wide and far. The Rebels had to piggyback off of Imperial means, and while they could do low-data transmissions (voice chat would fall under low data), full scouting reports would run the risk of being detected, and if traced to any degree, it could risk exposing them. Sure, odds are the trace would not last long enough for the Empire to track down their location, but knowing that Rebel is occurring in a specific sector will engender some type of response. Granted, the response would likely not start of as much, but when you are trying to hide, it is best to not be noticed in the first place, and as many times throughout our own history has shown, all it can take to ruin even the best laid plans is one tiny stroke of bad luck.
As for the workshop ships, there were likely already a few going around, though they would likely be used to prepare for long-lasting or highly valued missions like espionage and slicing, and those come with their own risks. No workshop ship would be able to be able to provide anything with more impact than the tiniest of uncomfortable thorns. It might work well enough on the most backwater of systems, but closer to the core, you would likely to be very hard pressed.
Still, even with these concerns, there is no real reason why they should not be implemented at all. I just doubt they can be implemented on a large-enough scale.
Oh, and the Separatist materials angle could work to a degree, but given that Palpatine was essentially controlling how the CIS operated and left literally everyone else - namely those who are in the Rebellion - completely in the dark, it is likely that the Empie would get the materials before the Rebels do. Now, if there were any Separatists that survived with access to droid forces (a fully operational factory or the means and connections to build one would be a bonanza, but even just a platoon could be something), and that they were willing to work with the Rebels, that would be another story.
@@bigredwolf6 Returning would probably not be as easy as you think. As per lore, both Disney and Legends, hyperlane charts need to be regularly updated. It is easy to so for ones that see regular traffic like trade routes, but exploring more unmapped sectors, a return trip would take time. After all, for the astromechs the Rebel starfighters have, they do not actually scan the lanes, they store preloaded routes for relatively quickly jumps. It is also why they never recommend blind jumps - even Han Solo mentioned the dangers of them in A New Hope. So while the droid may handle the recon, if anything happens to it on the return trip, any and all data collected would probably be lost, and because the Rebels would likely not be able to replace the droid anywhere nearly as easily as the Empire could, that does not give them many options.
To be fair, jumping back would probably be more feasible for very short jumps - I would say neighboring (and I mean actual next-door neighboring) stars and their planets. Like with the workshop ships, they likely would not be able to operate in a significant capacity, but they should still be able to operate in some capacity, and just like how the tiniest stroke of bad luck can ruin even the beat laid plans, the tiniest stroke of good luck can provide a much-needed reprieve.
@@DavidRichardson153 I think one way they can be used for suicide missions, we saw how horrifyingly effective those modified cleaning droids were in attacking Coruscant. Get a few modified similarly and get them in or aboard something important like transports, and really fuck up logistics. Also, droidekas can change the course of any battle, having a few would certainly be useful in close quarters combat.
What makes you think they weren't? It could be the reason why you never really see more than 3ish star destroyers at any given point in time. Except for Endor.
From 1 video that Ive seen a couple times was that there was a commando droid being used by a clone named Thorner and it was used against the empire along with a few others that are aligned. The name of the video is the only clone trooper who had a sword.
You have a solid set of ideas on why droids wouldn’t be used. One thing that I’ve thought since even before the prequel movies is the use of remotely-piloted drones. This would make a lot of sense instead of endangering fighter pilots, or investing heavily in full-on droids.
"The Mandalorian" S1 E6: The Rebels only use droids when they need something that the protagonist can shoot up without being considered a "bad guy."
Because droid models in the 80's would have increased production cost.
I think you nailed everything down rather neatly. Even mobile small scale production facilities, would likely be easy targets. My sudden thought was, just now, how a light/heavy cruiser could have an assembly system of protocol like common humanoid adult size droids-("male or female"), and obvious ASTROMECHs. However, material resources would need to be regularly tapped to produce the metal and metal-like parts and covers. If not for having the system equipped with ore processing and refining equipment and asteroid mining droids, in mind when I've thought of this before, only to consider, "how did they get those in the first place?". They would not be as mobile as most rebel cruisers, and so would be priority targets most times.
I'd still want one of my own though, in this universe, so I could start up my own asteroid mining company, selling the collection of otherwise unclaimed resources for a moderately reasonable price on the open market. And of course, droids as pilots, and dockworkers, means that I only have to deal regularly maintaining mechanical issues and needs. No mental or physical medical care needed, not to forget the cost of a payroll, or vacation time. "Zee-Ecks-50. How 'er you doing?"
"All systems functions are optimal".
"Good news. Continue on ".
Rebel Officer, "Be careful with that proton bomb. You know how dangerous it is."
B1 Unit, "Roger. Roger." (Slips and drops proton bomb)
What about one of those giant droid control ships? If they could get one of those, they could keep the mobility, upkeep and number of droids almost entirely.
The biggest reason was the budget. Not the Rebel's budget, but the movie budget in the late 70s and early 80s.
Oh and the idea of Clone Wars was basically a one throw away that wouldn't be flehsed out for 20 years. Droids weren't a thing yet. If they were, they would have been men in suits clomping around like Cyclons. Can you imagine the amount of whining once episode 1 hit and you get these slim BT1s?
Well, let’s put it this way: the Alliance lost just as many droids as they did humans at the battle of Yavin. EXACTLY as many.
😁
I see what you mean.
After Anakin/Darth Vader was sent to kill all the Separatist Leaders hiding on Mustafar, Chancellor Palpatine nationalized all the Separatist holdings in Banking, technology, and manufacturing. Therefore the empire had both the droids and the clones at its disposal for the creation of its superweapons like Star destroyers, super star destroyers, and Deathstar. Any unneeded droids we're melted down and used as raw materials for other imperial weapons.
Yeah but I doubt the empire was able to hunt down every Droid in the army, you can just amass a small army to protect a planet. And really all it takes is 1 Droid to be able to study it, they are expensive sure and the materials will be hard to get in the long run, but they'd work out well with the rebels run and fight another day or die style
The rebels used Gorilla tactics so having an army doesn't suit their main strategy.
But I could see the Rebels manufacturing elite assassin droids and sending them to take care of important imperial figures.
Tho I wonder why they didn't use droid ships in their fleets since they couldn't afford to lose crews if caught.
The CIS fleets were heavily automated and some of them even had droid brains.
And let's not forget the most deadly fighters in Star Wars, the tri fighter droids, cheap fast small and very deadly.
The Rebels could have easily do suicide runs on important enemy locations without the fear of loss.
Let's not forget that some of the CIS fleets could have been converted to mobile starbases with manufacturing tools onboard so they could create new parts on the move while being hidden from the Empire.
Guerilla
The rebellion needed to distinguish their difference from the confederacy.
One consideration that comes to mind is that the Old Republic/Empire very likely dismantled all the old Separatist combat droid facilities in order to prevent a future group of separatists from using a massive droid army again. It only makes sense that the Empire would quickly neutralize any such threat under the guise of "keeping the peace" (read: preventing future insurrections), which was probably a very popular move post-Clone Wars.
7:44 pro tip: don't connect your droids directly to a communications hub, have them use a handheld radio and their voices like everyone else.
Not using battle droids was a really smart decision on the part of the rebels. During the Clone Wars the Separatist Driod Army caused terror on thousands of planets throughout the galaxy and committed numerous war crimes against civilians on the planets occupied by Separatist forces. If the Rebel Alliance just used Battle droids in their struggle to overthrow the Empire this would have badly hurt their relations with a population with the Clone Wars still in recent living memory and would make the people more willing to join the Imperial military to stop a repeat of the horrors of the Clone Wars and with that the Rebellion as a whole would have been utterly defeated with the Empire's boost in manpower. Also the rebels weren't conventional fighters they were in many ways like the Vietcong during the Vietnam War relying on hit and run guerrilla tactics and the rebels did try conventional methods of warfare it olny ended in failure like how the Mid Rim Offensive ended
Hello there 😂 was just thinking about generation tech and here you are
your reasons were the exact things that popped into my mind when I read the title. I usually don't catch it that quickly.
The Rebel Alliance could retrofit their capital ships to be mobile foundries/manufacturing plants...as far as getting raw materials go to Mustafar mine the lava (and salvage CIS tech/droid designs) rings of Geonosis, Hoth asteroid belt etc. and start mining...
Always wondered WHY it woulda been so hard for the Rebels at ANY stage to have tracked down, or if one was still round by the enemy, just seize one then update the programs, armor an arms of the Droid troops an then sick them on the Imperial Forces... Maybe trigger some kinda Vader war PTSD on seeing them waste a ton of Imperials.. most of whom the Empire saw as throw away Cannon fodder anyways.. they'd needed serious updates an additions to aid against the larger Walker forces an heavy or specialized Elite and Spec Ops specialized troops to viably aid the Rebels long term. Probably wouldn't help in all alone but always thought woulda been better then how 1-sided it was that we saw. An always figured it's EXACTLY the kinda thing if someone like Thrawn or Tarkin had EVER been a Rebel leader or saw fit to defect to them they'd gone and done.
Because it would be cake easy to be painted as nothing but Separtists by using droids so soon after the Clone Wars. The Empire could just name them remnants of the Separtists in their propaganda, not really wanting the 'return of the Repbulic' and since most the galaxy was more or less sick of war, would probably go for the propaganda and turn against the Rebels.
If I were to guess, it would be how intertwined the Droid Army was with Palpatine and, thus, most available combat droid manufacturing and other hardware would either have been completely destroyed or so heavily monitored/ in the pocket of the Empire that getting any sort of decent production running wasn't feasible. Any new endeavors would be basically from the ground up, purchasing droids would require a seller that is large enough to fulfill the orders with speed, and the only companies that could do that would likely be heavily reliant on the Empire, be it funding, materials, or what have ya, which the Empire would instantly deny the moment they catch wind of the deal.
Commando Droids would have been very useful to the rebellion. I've also thought about another reason plapatine wanted to use skin and bone soldiers, pain and suffering. Maybe it was something that he fed off of, or just enjoyed.
4:10 literally the clip of the clone trooper in the back bonking their head off the door for being to low
Or why didn’t the Alliance build their own battle droids?
Very thorough and logical.
Love the Good Times With Scar timelapse music.
The rebels were born durring the clone wars. So they were traumatized as children.
Bit of an off topic one and you may have said it in their video but does anyone know the song being used for the background? I really enjoyed it for the last couple videos I've watched!
Happy New Years to you The Bens & all the crew and fams.
A very interesting topic. I think in the end that droids were just not that practical in the long run: sure to defend a base permanently or to run a huge hit... which the rebels avoided both. Droids have no allegance, can be reprogram by the ennemy, have to be 24/7 commanded, can't react in emergency (which happen all the time when you're a rebel), take time and personnel to deploy and repack (which the rebels had neither of). It's like having tanks for a resistant group during ww2, maybe one or two in case, but otherwise it would be an unpractical useless burden. Also you mentioned in the begining rich patreons of the Alliance: could you tell us more about them, who they were and especially why they financed the rebellion. Otherwise, great job as always.
In my opinion,I blame the lack of use on droid right activists
The Clone Wars did little for their publicity.
At the very least they could’ve used some for small roles like guarding, piloting or even fighter support. Those tri droids would be more than a match based on their role.
Droids we’re capable of emotion, attachment, caring and selflessness, in many instances far more than biological creatures.
R2 for one, killed almost everyone in a Star Destroyer for C3PO.
The red droid in episode 4 when the Jawas are selling them, sabotaged itself so they’d choose R2 after R2 mentioned how his mission was vital to the galaxy.
Droids are capable combatants if allowed the chance to flourish, and thus I think that the rebels including more droids into the mix would have helped. Maybe give them a wipe and inspect after purchase to ensure no imperial shit is happening, but afterwards, good to go.
Adding things like droid gunships, commando droids and shit like that to their ranks would have helped immensely, as those were although more maintenance heavy, still far deadlier than even seasoned pilots and soldiers.
I think that if a B1 has enough mental possessing to create comedic relief, it might be able to install a compressed version of the Commando software, which could have been the most cost-effective front line soldier in Star Wars. An entire galactic army of aimbots...
@@MK_ULTRA420 their comedic relief stemmed exactly from the fact they lacked memory, their programming was expanded ever further, they couldn't handle it anymore, leading to wacky behaviour at times.
Reprogrammed commando droids would have been really useful, and limited use of combat droids could have seen success.
They did use quite a bit of droid stuff like their massive training ship which was a Lucrehulk, I think droids would've been a good way to supplement their forces so in all honesty I assume they probably did that , Tactical Droids and gunner droids would've been useful . The rebellion used a surprising lack of stuff left over from the Clone Wars I hope to see that increase with the increasing lore
Your videos are amazing, keep it up!
I could see the rebels using like a couple thousand ig units
Sounds legit
Irl drone use in combat could run into the same road blocks
I still think having some squads of bx commando droids, droidekas and crab droids would be good to have on stand by for hot extraction missions and defending bases just enough to put up a good defense.
It has a lot to do with the Clone Wars and the bad feelings afterwards
The Empire could paint the rebels as separatist remnants, costing them a lot of support in the mid and outer rim
The most effective counters to the separatist droid army were mostly Jedi, who are few and far between after order 66 and were also largely aligned with the rebellion.
In the battlefield, the side not using droids can 'free-fire' on seeing one in combat.
If both sides are using droids, then there is the slight delay to make sure "it's one of ours!"
My guess is seperatist type battle droids probably ping like crazy on radars, which would have made them a liability unless kept deactivated and strictly programmed for missions.
They could have employed other kinds of droids of course.
I’ve always wondered this and also have always wondered why homing spider droids were only used during the first battle of geonosis…we just never saw them again I’m pretty sure, they must’ve been really bad in order for them to never be used again
For somebody who's channel is dedicated to SW lore I'm disappointed you dismissed the B1 as useless when they're less than 2000 credits to make and need no training, unlike the multi tens of thousands to just grow a clone let alone arm and train them..
dude Lords of the sith was one of the best star war books ive read all year i was blown away from that book .
The rebellion would have had major difficulties with the possibility of creating a droid army as the empire took control of conglomerates like the Techno Union, which was a major contributor in the clone wars for the confederacy of independent systems. Also, when the empire would inevitably discover the rebels were creating a droid army, they simply send a fleet of ships to destroy the factories making the droids and punish those who were involved in the production of battle droids.
I mean, instead of using droids as a frontline army you can use droids as more of a defensive army for your rebel bases. At the end of the day, they needed every asset they can get their hands on including battle droids, which they are really stupid for not capitalizing on in the first place but that is not important. Plus, if their technology was so advanced every person who is a fan of Star Wars believes they said they are they could’ve easily jus created materials to build battle droids for their armies. Maybe not in large quantities but at least make sufficient enough to pose a very strong last defense at least for bases such as Echo Base and Crait.
Because the robot army being the good guys would be too cool of an idea.