[exerpt from Republic record 28-2b-4, concerning “cloning”]

Of course I knew about it. We were all briefed, and we all understood the risks and the benefits. It was my duty as a Senator to be aware of these developments, and act upon them appropriately. I wonder what you are implying by that?

[question redacted]

No, that’s a common misperception. The project’s roots lay in industrialist fears that the labour shortage would wipe entire corporations out of existence in a matter of days. I cannot stress enough that there were imminent fears of economic collapse. The decision resulted in the creation of multiple research sites. Alderaan had one, Fyori and Taris each had one, I’m certain there was one on [redacted], and Coruscant was littered with them. They all operated largely in secret. That was the research arm though, not production. We were not prepared to initiate manufacture until the appropriate tests had been completed.

Later, a whole planet—apologies, a moon, I believe—was turned over to its production, employing galactic citizens under complete secrecy. This was signed off by the Senate, you must understand. It was not a single rogue corporation or simply one or two bureaucrats. The bureaucracy itself had acquired this technology, it is critical that you remember that.

But the Republic itself never admitted to it, we couldn’t. The Jedi would have torn us apart form within, arrested the entire Senate if they had to. Imagine, soldiers wielding laser swords striding into council chambers to arrest Senators without any rule of law to control their own behaviour!

Thus, the HoloNet never spoke of it, and for a decade no citizen without the highest military or political rank even knew about it. But there it was, hidden on that little moon, waiting to change everything. And of course, inevitably it did.

[statement redacted]

I resent that. No, the Jedi called it what they did: an act of gross biological negligence; a gene-crime. Let them have their illusions. They could not bear its existence, and their assault on TaggeCorp certainly bore out their own despicable hypocrisy.

[statement redacted]

That was an act of political terrorism, I would like to remind you. Do we dare look back now and say that their response was appropriate? Proportionate to the so-called crime? Of course not! The crime they spoke of was simply another of their rigid and dogmatic principles, based on nothing like the laws of our great Republic.

It was Tesseract, Industrial Automaton, even Cybot Galactica; they all had a hand in its development. The Jedi were aware of—they were aware of this. They were! I am a Senator, sir, and I shall be heard! The Jedi did nothing to act upon this intelligence, beyond immediate reprisals against obvious targets. Why was that?

[question redacted]

That is irrelevant, and the premise of that question is counterintuitive, which you well know. We tend to look now, with hindsight, at Spaarti as though they have woven some miracle out of nothing, conjuring life from thin air or out of the dust of the Clone Wars. The Jedi fell conveniently silent regarding the radical industrial espionage which granted them such vaunted technology. Why?

[statement redacted]

On the contrary, we must ask the question. Why indeed, and I shall tell you: because, by that time it suited their own growing need for cloning technology. The thinning of their numbers meant that the Jedi Order were suddenly able to overlook their self-righteousness. They were simply that desperate. Spaarti have simply carried on developing what Xenon already achieved, just as it was Xenon who rose from the ashes of TaggeCorp. The last to the party were the most innovative, as it turned out, and it is to them that our enemies turned.

But once the Jedi took hold of it, cloning as a concept was transformed. No more the anathema, no longer the genetic horror, the insidious Order took hold of it like water to a man dying of thirst, and they drank their fill. Hypocrites, all. Their legacy is the devastation on Endor, the bioengineering research and design laboratory known as OA-2, a striking shrine to the arrogance of the Jedi.

[question redacted]

It is not for me to say. That the Jedi Order, supposed protectors of the Republic, could incinerate the forest moon only to later take Xenon under their wing denies them any moral right whatsoever.

[question redacted]

Does it really matter? If they were in league with Xenon the whole time, that suggests premeditation and simply indicates they never had any principles at all: only an ideology shaped to suppress any force that might stand against them. On the other hand, if they did in fact coerce Xenon Bioengineering to hand over their technology under duress, as the corporation itself would have us believe, then that exposes their opportunism. Either way, their principles were left in tatters, their reputation ruined.

Some days I can barely get my own mind to conceive of the breadth and extent of their hypocrisy! The Jedi are criminals, murderers when it pleases them. And yet we citizens are still supposed to see them as… what? Noble crusaders? Or worse—the very embodiment of justice? Please. The Order has been rotting for centuries, festering in the bile of their own internal bickering, tugging at the threads of Republic law and order. They unravelled our entire judicial system as they themselves fell.

Whatever valour the Jedi once had was lost, long ago. We should not mourn their passing.

—Caius Palpatine, Senator, evidence recorded in Senate Session