As new entries get added to the Star Wars universe, the overall story gets more and more fleshed out. That's been especially true of Dave Filoni's various animated series, such as The Clone Wars, Rebels and Resistance. The most recent addition to the canon is Star Wars: The Bad Batch, and it has already given a glimpse into the logic behind one of the worst decisions the Empire made and who was to blame for it.
One of the big questions in the minds of fans was what happened to all of the Clone Troopers after Order 66 and the rise of the Galactic Empire. This vast army created using the DNA of Jango Fett was the backbone of the Republic's war effort. But the Empire stopped using them in favor of conscripted soldiers from the various worlds forced to live under its domain. The Bad Batch has revealed that Grand Moff Tarkin was largely to blame for this change.
The early episodes of The Bad Batch have shown how much influence Tarkin had on the changeover. He said the issue was with the cost of the Kaminoan cloning program. Reputedly, conscripted soldiers cost the Empire half as much. In truth, Tarkin openly disliked the Clones after the end of the war, most likely because he was concerned that they might not support the Empire without their conditioning chips in place.
That being said, this decision made extremely little sense from a military perspective. The Clones were dedicated soldiers who excelled at all aspects of being in the military. On the other hand, Stormtroopers were generally bad at their jobs and couldn't hit the broadside of a Jawa Sandcrawler, no matter what Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke. This change from Clone Troopers to Stormtroopers was a huge part of why the Empire ultimately fell.
Realistically, the Rebellion could not have defeated a military force that was born, bred and trained for combat the way the Clones were. The conscripts in the subpar Stormtrooper armor were nowhere near as impressive in combat. The Rebels repeatedly look advantage of the Empire's inept army, giving them an eventual victory. The Stormtroopers were the ones who got their butts handed to them by a pack of angry teddy bears on Endor, after all.
Tarkin's push to change from Clone Troopers to Stormtroopers ultimately gave the Rebels the opening they needed to defeat the Empire. While it wasn't the only mistake the Empire made by far, it was certainly a massive one. The combination of Tarkin's personal bias and penny-pinching decreased the military might of the Empire, something it could not afford if it wanted to maintain its tenuous grasp on the vast majority of the Star Wars galaxy.
Created by Dave Filoni, Star Wars: The Bad Batch stars Dee Bradley Baker, Andrew Kishino and Ming-Na Wen. New episodes air Fridays on Disney+.
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