Echos new status as one of the Bad Batch provides some clues about what the new spin-off show might be like. In The Clone Wars, the Bad Batch clones experimental abilities (extraordinary strength, keen eyesight, unusually high intelligence, etc.) make them outcasts among the Republics mass-produced soldiers. Echo, formerly a regular clone, joined in part because he felt he would fit in better with the outliers after being forcefully enhanced with cybernetic parts by the Separatists. As the new man in the group, hes likely a good choice for a point of view character in the new series a clone who no longer fits in at a time when his fellow soldiers have been brainwashed by inhibitor chips into joining the Empire.

The post-Order 66 era has already been heavily explored, but The Bad Batch offers an interesting new angle. Books about Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kanan Jarrus show this era from the Jedi point of view. Star Wars Rebels, set 14 years after Revenge of the Sith, a team of freedom fighters in the years before the rise of the Rebel Alliance. The clone perspective is less well-known. Rebels and The Clone Wars showed how some clones removed the inhibitor chips that turned them into Jedi-killers, but the story of rogue clones in the immediate aftermath of Order 66 is new territory for Star Wars.

This post-Revenge of the Sith era begs some big questions. What is the Empires policy toward clones? We know the generation of clones active during Order 66 became Imperial stormtroopers, but were eventually phased out and replaced by human recruits. What about the clones opinions? In the penultimate episode of The Clone Wars, Captain Rex, a close ally of Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, was one of the first clones to scrap his inhibitor chip (with Ahsokas help). He resented the Empire but also never directly fought it until Rebels.

But Echo and the Bad Batch in particular might have an even more unique perspective on the Empire because of their inherent outsider status. Its possible their genetic mutations allowed them to disobey their own inhibitor chips in the first place, making them painfully aware of the horrors of Order 66 from the start.

As fans learned in The Clone Wars, the clones have their own society and tragedies. Commissioned for war from birth, they are motivated by their brotherhood as clones and their belief in the competence and moral righteousness of their Jedi leaders. But the Bad Batch are disconnected from the politics of the Republic. While they very efficiently wage war in the name of the Grand Army of the Republic, they are pariahs within it. It might be easier for them to accept that the Republic was vulnerable to the forces that turned it into the Empire, both in terms of Emperor Palpatines use of the dark side of the Force and in terms of the political cracks in the system. The Bad Batch have no inherent love for the brotherhood of clones since it was never really a brotherhood for them.

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How Star Wars: The Bad Batch Could Continue Echos Story from The Clone Wars - Den of Geek