‘Star Wars’: Why is genetic research banned in the New Republic?

WARNING: This article contains reveals for part of The Mandalorian. Click away now if you have not yet watched.

In the Star Wars franchise, there are a lot of parts of lore which are consequential regardless of their size and how often they are mentioned. Everyone knows about the Clone Wars, but few outside of animation watchers may understand the space whales (yes, really). Recently, The Mandalorian used one of its episodes to touch on a law passed by the New Republic in the wake of the collapse of the Galactic Empire and here’s the full details of just why the new order banned cloning and genetic engineering.

To begin with, in the show’s third season, we learn some accords signed on Coruscant strictly forbade this part of science. The Wookiepedia section for this bit of the franchise does not mention much apart from the few facts touched on in the show, but, when we look to the past, we get a better picture of what made the government Han, Luke and Leia fought to set up ban the stuff.

If you did not follow any of the tie-in material set during the Prequel Era of the franchise, you may have just assumed the clone army created on Kamino chose to betray their Jedi friends during the Clone Wars’ final days because of Emperor Palpatine’s charisma. In the films, his Order 66 is followed without question, but later animation reveals this only happens due to a chip secretly implanted in clone soldier brains, which forces them to blindly obey. Few, if any, were able to override the programming, and, given how this led to the Sith rising to power and decades of misery, it is likely this was one of the first orders passed. After all, a cultish army of followers who do not question and have guns is never a good idea in our world, so, they wasted no time here.

Though cloning is tightly regulated at this time in the more orderly parts of the galaxy, we of course know it is also going on in the shadows at the same time on a mysterious and little-known planet. Current canon seems to suggest the New Republic was not aware of this effort to resurrect Darth Sidious, but, it is possible this could prove to be false later on. If so, this may be one of the other reasons for the accords to have been created, but, as audiences, we will just have to wait and see what ends up being shown.