Star Wars further complicated Palpatine’s plan in The Rise of Skywalker

Fast forward to “Metamorphosis”. When Clone Force 99 learns that the Empire is experimenting with the Zillo Beast as part of their cloning program, Clone Force 99 realizes that the Empire didn’t destroy Kamino in Season 1 to stop cloning, but to control who and what cloned became. But how does cloning a nearly indestructible creature fit into Palpatine’s overall plans? How exactly will this help the Emperor revive himself? The Rise of Skywalker? That’s harder to say.

Maybe he wants to create a clone ship for himself that is almost impossible to destroy? That would certainly have come in handy in the final fight with Rey. What we do know for certain is that the Emperor’s scientists have begun work on a contingency plan to revive him Years before his eventual (first) death in Return of the Jedi, and that all this cloning effort served a single purpose: the Emperor to rule the galaxy forever. It is true that the Emperor explored various avenues to create a perfect clone of himself, as revealed in The Rise of Skywalkerand these Zillo Beast experiments may have been one such attempt that ultimately failed.

While it makes sense that Palpatine would want to create the strongest possible form for himself, Zillo beasts are almost impossible to control or manipulate, and according to Dr. Boll (Cara Pifko) in The clone wars, studying its armor requires the creature to suffer immense pain or simply kill it. Of course Palpatine would be willing, but as we saw in the episode of The bad batchit seems very difficult to keep this a secret for decades when the test subject is strong enough to fight back and can grow to 97 meters in a matter of hours.

Willy-nilly, The bad batch has revealed itself with the controversial Palpatine clone The Rise of Skywalker. And it’s not the first war of stars Show to tie into this twist of the Sequel Trilogy. The Mandalorian has alluded to the Empire’s cloning experiments throughout the run, from Dr. Pershing stealing Grogu’s blood for the midi-chlorians, to the possible “strandcasts” encountered by Mando, Greef Karga, and Cara Dune in Season 2’s laboratory on Nevarro. All of these clues seem to lead back The Rise of Skywalker. Somehow.

Hopefully, The bad batch will provide insight into what exactly Palpatine hopes to get out of cloning the Zillo beasts, whether by Dr. Hemlock’s Research or Clone Force 99. Now that Hemlock knows that Omega is the key to getting Nala-Se to work together, and given that the Evil Batch sent the uncovered research to Rex and Echo, this probably won’t be the last be that we see the doctor or hear of Palpatine’s convoluted schemes to clone one thing or another for the glory of his empire.