On Commander Fox and the Coruscant Guard's canon duties and some speculation about them
You know, I didn't go into watching TCW thinking the military cop would end up my blorbo but, eh...here we are lmao. Also, buckle up, because this is long…I will try to summarize periodically and at the end. I do go on, I'm sorry.
Really long. I mean it. Go pee. Get a snack.
Let’s start with a quote from Battleship Galactica:
“There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”
Which is 100% something Palpatine wants to happen and which does happen in the Empire.
Love them or hate them, the Coruscant Guard is in a bitch of a position. So let’s talk about what they actually do. Also important to note—they likely didn’t choose their posting. They were likely assigned to it.
As much as I adore Fox’s fanon version and that Quinan Vos is their Jedi and/or they do shenanigans, even if in Legends he did not like clones at all, there's just not a whole lot of solid material for the Guard. And if you're curious, I wrote a whole other post about the Corries and how I think they were basically set up to fail, probably useful to read that if you're going to read this but it's not necessary. We have very little information about them and less as to their actual personalities. In general, TCW is inadequate at showing what's happening beyond the immediate story around the 501st (even Cody gets shafted T_T). So I decided to sit there and trawl through all of TCW (and TBB, and ROTS) to map what we have of what the Guard, and Fox, actually fucking do because this is how I relax, okay lol
In a very general sense, the Guard seems to fill five distinct functions: diplomatic/state security (on official business), crisis response, critical infrastructure security (CIP), corrections management, and law enforcement. Everything we see them do fits under these umbrellas. Aaaaand Fox totally earns that fanon that he never sleeps and consumes lethal amounts of caffeine on a daily basis because multiple groups handle that workload in the real world.
Until I did this watch-through I kind of assumed they accumulated duties, but that doesn't seem to be the case. From beginning to end, they seem to perform basically the same tasks, though we don’t see the Guard performing CIP duties beyond s3e11, Pursuit of Peace, where they’re present on the transportation platforms similar to the way the B1s do for the arriving shuttle on Raxus in the previous episode. However, there is no reason to assume the clones ever cease these duties either during the war as far as I’m aware, sooooo, moving on. It makes more sense if he keeps the Guard doing CIP anyhow, if for no other reason than because during Order 66, Palpatine can reliably lock down transportation hubs.
The one thing we see in fanon that I cannot for the life of me find evidence of the Corries doing in canon is routinely posting up at and patrolling the Senate building in tandem with/replacement of the Senate Guard. They do get called in several times to handle one crisis or another, which suggests they have a presence on hand, but that aside, are they visible consistently and daily? It doesn’t look so. Providing security to various Senators, Representatives, or Jedi, and like twice to Palpatine, on diplomatic or state visits away from Coruscant? Yes, from beginning to end. Posting up at the Senate doors on an average Taungsday with nothing going on? Nope.
Even in ROTS, the Guard only shows up after the duel with Yoda, when they’re looking for him in the Senate building, and then when they go pick up Kentucky Fried Skywalker (and posting over bringing him into where they put the Vader armor on him). The guards with the group greeting Palpatine when he gets back from being not-really-kidnapped in ROTS are Senate Guards, and the guards that Yoda kills before the duel are Red Guards, not Coruscant Guards. As hard as I looked, I never saw them in the halls of the Senate or the Executive building without having been called in for a specific purpose. Maybe it’s in some reference material saying they do, but otherwise crisis response seems to be the end of it—which does not mean they’re not permanently on call.
Something similar along the lines of what we see in TCW occurs in Andor, almost twenty years later, when Mon Mothma and Cassian are escaping the disturbingly bright white Senate building after Mon Mothma’s speech. We see what are (probably) Imperial Senate Guards in blue uniforms and not wearing armor anymore aside from kind of crappy chest plates hardly any armor seems to be a theme in Imperial Coruscant security, and later in the New Republic, but then somewhat late in the game we also see a bunch of Stormtroopers. The conclusion I drew is they’re very, very close by—close enough to deploy very quickly—but they have to be called in for a purpose.
For my money, this doesn’t violate any sense of antipathy towards clones, it just increases it; the Senate Guard might suggest that clones aren’t worth anything except as cannon fodder in the event of a crisis, not worthy enough to guard Senators on the regular (and the Senate Guards also all but disappear as soon as anything real goes down tbh). After what happened with Argyus I could see the Senate Guard being defensive of their positions.
Changes in security measures throughout TCW are never explicitly shown: per canon reference materials, after the betrayal of Argyus early in the war, Palpatine took the opportunity to expand the already-extant Red Guard in the Senate Guard, which does little to change the superficial components of security forces but gathers more power to him.
The Coruscant Guard, meanwhile, seems to essentially be secondary, emergency security in the Senate building—at least until Order 66, and we don't know much about the immediate aftermath in the building itself beyond ROTS. Palpatine obviously uses the Guard to do things like look for Yoda—whether or not they had their chips activated, which I think is likely, if only for the basic reason that clones with their chips activated definitely wouldn’t bother asking Yoda what the fuck was going on before shooting whereas a clone without the chip having been activated has the potential to hesitate, and a non-clone even more so—so in short, they’re his best bet for consolidating power and eliminating vocal opposition. Palpatine is nothing if not thoroughly competent and I don't think he'd take the risk, personally.
Even in the aftermath of Order 66, as we see in TBB and Tales of the Jedi, the Guard is…providing probably very unwanted atp, but very unavoidable and could be mistaken for last week's totally bog standard procedure though is now under VERY different circumstances with a much different tone, which is an important distinction security at Padme’s funeral as seen when they herd Bail Organa back into a predetermined area where it's easy to keep an eye on him the approved area, while probably others were concurrently collecting the dead bodies of “criminal traitors to the Republic,” and if we're going to take the arguments at face value in the universe itself this arguably falls under the umbrella of law enforcement and corrections management, once again, their job from day one slaughtered Jedi in TBB. The general scope of their duties preexisted Order 66, all the way to when Thire went with Yoda to meet King Katuunko in s1e1.
I now don't think the Corries accumulated duties so much as the pedestal on which the Jedi were held diminished as disillusionment with the Jedi, the war, and clones grew, while other entities asserted themselves—meanwhile, the Guard has always been a unit of the GAR, just with a different mission than frontline soldiers (that throws me in a lot of fics—they’re still part of the GAR, people, just not a unit whose function is frontline combat, certainly not every unit in an(y) army (even in real life) fights on the front lines).
The person we can probably thank for spearheading a more assertive military that is less reliant on Jedi guidance is Tarkin, who apparently, according to an official guidebook, recommended that the Jedi be "gradually phased out from military command" after the whole Citadel thing, because he didn't think the Jedi were aggressive enough. And...y'know, Jedi give a shit about lives. Typical Tarkin stuff. After the Citadel incident, Tarkin goes from being Even Piell's Captain and having a dick measuring contest with Anakin Skywalker about who's better besties with Palpatine to the guy whose authority Fox invokes to Karanakin and doesn't want to cross. Jesus, Fox has terrible bosses.
So, to recap: the Corries have five distinct missions to accomplish which is absolutely insane because that is a lot on a single plate, they don’t seem to be that visible on a daily basis at the Senate building during the Clone Wars (maybe the way the Guard operated in the Senate is inherited and expanded by the Empire?), Argyus’ betrayal was a blow to the Senate Guard's reputation, and allowed Palpatine to expand the Red Guard while, significantly, never using the Coruscant Guard as personal security himself until the Jedi insisted on Naboo during the Rako Hardeen arc...he never takes any initiative of his own, he's very good at getting other people to take critical steps for him, and later Tarkin recommended that the Jedi be phased out of military command while likely pushing for a more assertive GAR, one independent of Jedi leadership while probably bitching at Fox about how he does his job, because that sounds like a Tarkin thing to do. Fox needs a break. Oh dear what if Tarkin threatened Fox himself or the Guard with decommissionings if he or his men weren't as aggressive as Tarkin wanted? That alone is going to make Fox less willing to give grace. Additionally, unsurprisingly, the five things the Corries seem to do on the regular means some extremely key sectors are already coordinated and immediately and completely fall under Palpatine's control after Order 66.
In the meantime, there is an apparent long-term tradition in the Republic of the Senate giving the Jedi a lot of grace, autonomy, and authority (and prewar they seem to get dispatched at the behest of the Senate so that intertwines them with power whether they like or acknowledge it or not). Now please think about what the Jedi are, and how they operate internally, and how they're perceived to operate externally.
Note: I am not a hater of Jedi.
We see Jedi actively used to a high degree of privilege in the Republic, which is brought up now and again. For example, they tend to act without explaining themselves (or, in some cases or perhaps more likely, are believed by the public to act that way or implied to behave that way by Palpatine in what we see, because there's nothing stopping him from not tackling that question directly instead of waiting for the Jedi to offer the explanation they always meant to give), as in s4e16, Friends and Enemies, when Palpatine—yes, he's a fucking Sith Lord, but we know that, most in-universe don’t—asks Mace Windu (and Windu has a solid reason, but the point is, he had to be asked, or else Anakin is made to believe so) why they suspended the bounties on the escaped prisoners, including Rako Hardeen who supposedly killed Obi-Wan which allows Palpatine to let Anakin in on that conversation and run wild with his thoughts..., and Obi-Wan Kenobi actually saying that the Senate Guard "wouldn't dare" search him in s2,e14, Duchess of Mandalore. There's a gulf of a difference between all the Jedi being known and pre-cleared for entrance, and security entities not daring to search somebody.
We angst (for very good reason) about transparency and accountability in the real world. The Jedi Order is essentially trusted to act in the best interests of the Republic without being required to offer very much transparency or endure much oversight, and the way they behave institutionally suggests they are very used to being in that position.
At this juncture, it's kind of important to remember that the Jedi as a whole are actually the good guys who do their level best to not be shitty people, and I have no patience for people who want to tell me that ackshualee the Jedi are evil. It’s just that they do things that can be interpreted negatively because god forbid they hire a PR consultant. They put themselves (or rather, the Jedi would never ask for such privilege, it was put on them) into a position where it’s easy to manipulate the public into believing they’re not trustworthy because their behavior isn’t exactly proactive and open and sometimes their behavior is so detached that it’s really hard for the public to relate to them.
There exists a deleted scene from Friends and Enemies where Mace Windu and Yoda straight up order Fox to call off the search for Hardeen, Bane, and Eval, which of course is not canon but is food for thought, because it reflects dynamics that were at least planned at one point. The scene we do have in canon is when Mace Windu explains to Palpatine why they dropped the bounties, which is a significantly more gentle message and it does less to cast the Jedi in a terrible light, and causes the focus to be on Anakin's anger at their perceived abandonment of pursuing Obi-Wan's “murderer" and not on their behavior towards Fox.
Look, again, I’m no Jedi hater, but throughout TCW the Jedi Council makes an astonishing number of piss-poor decisions and handles PR awfully. To anyone outside their little circle of trust, around anyone who doesn’t hold them in a high regard for one reason or another and assumes good faith (at least superficially), their actions are likely going to look really bad, either because of incompetence or maybe even intentional malice, and Palpatine exploits that.
We get another glimpse from a different angle of the way that ordinary people might feel about the Jedi through the Martez sisters back away or be nice, I love them dearly and they are not fond of Jedi. Look, I adore Luminara okay it's only implied to be her, roll with it. Luminara also effectively gave Bariss up for dead when they got buried because she is so detached.
Now for a different perspective: Bail Organa is a friend to the Jedi. Bail Organa is a Senator and a good man and he knows them personally, and in fact works with them—he is a part of the system the Jedi uphold through their actions.
The Martez sisters got an experience with Jedi that is going to read, for children going through the shock of losing their parents, as a very cold and disinterested dismissal of their grief from a Jedi, who everyone else thinks of as the Senate’s magical superpowered enforcers, living on a planet underneath a crust of wealth controlled by people who are largely not like Bail Organa but who occupy the same social valence.
As an aside, I think that’s largely what the Jedi lost institutionally as a result of retracting from the satellite temples we see in The Acolyte, that for the most part seem to no longer exist by the time of TPM, which I personally think was probably the overall thing they were going for in The Acolyte: setting up where the Jedi were at, politically, by the time of TPM by showing the end of the High Republic period—they got myopic, and there’s the clouding influence of that Sith shrine, and they lost engagement and familiarity with non-Jedi, and vice-versa. On Coruscant, the Jedi are on a pedestal and under a microscope. At least one Senator believe the Jedi serve them, as was said bluntly to Dooku’s face in Tales of the Jedi.
But this isn’t about the Jedi.
I don't think I’d blame Fox for becoming disillusioned or susceptible to insinuation and influence geared towards making him feel negatively or even just conflicted towards the Jedi; he’s got no Jedi of his own to get to know on a more personal level, has no one helping him cross cultural bridges in an environment he probably wasn’t trained to engage with, and maybe the Jedi have a habit of just kind of…ordering him around every now and then while never fucking explaining anything. That deleted scene is the only one of its kind, we don't have shit to contradict it, and Fox’s character is otherwise almost absent; in it there is no question of whether Windu was going to explain anything to Fox from jump, he simply doesn't.
Palpatine probably wouldn’t even have to make much of an effort to sway Fox, if any; in that scene, Fox, on the heels of ”the most violent prison riot in years,” is being told to just let violent criminals get away…and, put bluntly, even if the Jedi came clean about this, it doesn’t just affect them.
I wonder whether open criticism of the Jedi was a socially acceptable, politically survivable thing to do until Order 66, while the Senate is nice to them as long as the Jedi are cooperative. Palpatine doesn't seem to have a single issue selling the story to the populace (the Senate, meanwhile, had the Delegation of 2,000 and immediately after the establishment of the Empire, 63 Senators were, some of whom were tortured, and the public was sold a story of a "dramatic victory over the Jedi rebellion"); the population seems ready to believe the worst about the Jedi—but in the context of a prison break, even if the Jedi eventually came clean (and I don't recall anything suggesting that they did), the clones would likely feel the brunt of the anger in the immediate aftermath of the prison break.
Fox doesn't even mention clone casualties, but then clones rarely seem to reference personal experiences to people who aren't clones unless they feel comfortable with them. The potential for Fox to feel as though his mens' lives were sacrificed carelessly for any number of reasons is there. Fox has no Jedi, which is its own set of issues, but it also means he has no representation with the Jedi Council, and clones...well, they don't do self-advocacy much.
And Mace Windu doesn’t even give Fox the dignity of a real answer in this deleted scene, he just tells him to call off the search, and when Fox protests that they have ships in the area, Windu just says “that will be all” in a rather pointed tone. I know I’d be fucking pissed if I was Fox, because the way Windu handled it is pretty demeaning and dismissive, and Fox has just dealt with a prison riot that has killed like twelve prisoners with an unknown number of clone casualties as well, and you know they had them because in the episode one of the prisoners says they should kill the guards, and now he’s being told not to catch them?
For the record, from a narrative standpoint, I do understand why they left the deleted scene with Fox, Windu, and Yoda out: it accomplishes the same thing as the scene with Palpatine and Anakin but doesn’t give increased insight into the Jedi's plans or progress the central narrative of TCW. It doesn’t really add much at all except make the Jedi look terrible and provide unnecessary explanation.
But as somebody else said, Fox is the most important clone commander that we never get to know, and avoiding context for certain characters is an oddly pervasive tendency in Star Wars. More on that in a minute.
My point is, it’s likely, however tragically, Fox and the Guard probably do end up with a negative impression of the way the Jedi operate and treat clones, even if they might have a positive impression of individual Jedi (although there’s no evidence for that which I know of aside from a circulating page of Fox trivia listing Obi-Wan Kenobi as somebody he’s been seen with). I also came to headcanon that Fox, Thire, and at least some of the Guard know who Darth Vader is because of how he made it back to Coruscant, but there is zero evidence for that and it’s wholly beside the point.
Once again, to recap: Jedi have a very privileged position in the Republic, but this can clash with other people when they don’t share information. Communication is key.
But none of this really maps jack shit out, does it. Fox is probably the easiest stand-in to map the direction of the Guard so we’ll go with him, mostly.
In short: Fox’s and the Corries’ story are likely indicative of gradual institutional radicalization, shown through the Guard’s behavior and a reflection of the way democracy slips away from the Republic and fascist ideation slips in.
Probably best to start out with the movie, because Christophsis is in the movie, and that would place it as Fox’s (and the Guard’s) earliest chronological appearance as damn near at the beginning of the war.
I didn’t watch this movie when it came out in 2008 (I was sulky and barely old enough to drink and DiDnT wAtCh KiDs ShOwS and also I was a huge weeb so I hated the art style ok sue me I got better) but I have heard that for a while, fandom was cool with Fox specifically because he saved Padme from Ziro’s Palace. And what does Fox do in this movie, besides save Padme? He asks her, without his later sharper tone, “should we arrest the Hutt, Senator?”
I want y’all to take a step back and reconcile that guy with the Fox that bore down on Ahsoka and just flat arrested her with no questions asked (despite not personally blaming her for her apparent murder of Letta) in season 5 of TCW and who shot Fives. That is the same person. In his first two appearances, he’s both less sharp and less aggressive than he is later. First when saving Padme, then when he ends up letting the bounty hunters go when they escape the Senate Building. He makes the decision to back down and we don’t know anything else.
Later, he charges Fives, who pulls a gun on him, and that's that.
I kind of wish we’d gotten something of Fox and Tarkin’s dynamic after Tarkin seems to have become more involved with the Guard following the Citadel extraction (shock troopers escorted him to Palpatine at the end of this episode and afterwards in TCW and TBB is seen with them), but so much in TCW and SW along these lines is left shockingly unsaid.
For instance, Yularen’s internal thought process is likewise largely a mystery; my partner defends him fiercely but uh, well…Is Yularen in on the whole thing from the beginning? Is he just useful for Palpatine? He’s head of the fucking ISB ffs when he had been (Anakin’s) frontline Admiral during the war, that's a hell of a lateral transition; was he spying on Anakin? We thought we’d be getting insight in Andor (we both sat up a little) when they called him but noooo it immediately cut away. Boo. He was very disappointed, as was I. Fox occupies a similar position but he somehow has more to go off of, while the Corries are basically background with the exception of three of their sub-commanders and Fox.
The show, despite the movie including Rex et. al., makes the choice to start out in e1s1 (and 2) with Coruscant Guard troopers--Commander Thire, along with Rys and Jek, accompany Yoda on his mission to Toydaria to speak with King Katuunko. Episode two sees Commander Stone as Jar Jar Binks’ guard (okay there were other Senators too but they died). In both instances they are accompanying dignitaries on diplomatic missions—and in both instances it serves the purpose of setting the tone for the show. And meanwhile there is nothing out of pocket about any of the Guard troops we see there—they seem normal.
After that, the Guard is seen in a variety of different capacities: on patrol and then joining in the hunt for Satine (not doing investigations per se, searching for targets, assisting in making arrests, making arrests, like they’re a weapon pointed at a given target determined by someone else), running the prison that preexisted the Clone Wars so where the hell did the people who used to run it go and did they lose their jobs, and guarding transportation platforms and entrances to power generators.
Probably the most…unique? depiction of them is when they show up to escort Tarkin to Palpatine after the Citadel; escorting Tarkin, however, is a capacity in which see them several times afterwards, and it isn’t actually that weird anyway since the 501st provides an escort for Anakin on occasion. It mostly just implies that Tarkin is in a position to command their presence, and might fill the role of a Jedi which the Guard does not have. Seems it's a duty shared by all units to their respective commanders.
Meanwhile, Fox’s own day seems to change as the war goes on, becoming more of an administration-based leadership role, but that’s relatively difficult to verify definitively: we see Fox, who is the Commander of the entire Coruscant Guard, checking IDs in s3e10, Heroes on Both Sides, when in his last prior appearance he had been called in to the Senate building because of the bounty hunters. I guess maybe he has more down time in the earlier half of the war? I’m not sure if there’s a canon explanation for it but it would make sense if the power plant disaster was a turning point on Coruscant for its security, and it’s later in the same season after that disaster that the Guard escorts Tarkin to Palpatine.
It’s still clear that Fox has direct access to Palpatine at least some of the time, as we see in s6e4, Orders, just before Fox kills Fives. I have the sneaking suspicion that the actual command structure of the Guard above Fox (they’re still in the GAR, people) is a mess, Tarkin aside. In any case I can see Palpatine wanting to take a personal interest in Fives' case: iirc Tarkin doesn't actually know about Order 66 before it happens.
After s3e10 we see no more guarding of locales per se, by Fox or any other of the Guard, but we do see police activity by riot troopers in the form of crowd control on the steps of the Jedi Temple against protestors at the beginning of the Temple bombing arc in s5e17, Sabotage, who are protesting against clones, the war, and Jedi “corruption,” going with Palpatine as extra security to Naboo during the Rako Hardeen arc, the whole fuckshow with Ahsoka, and what happened to Fives.
One deeply interesting detail I noticed when I rewatched it is my memory was faulty: I thought Fox had turned away from the light to talk into his comm at some point. He is facing away from the Chancellor, who has his back to the clones and is looking out the window, kind of staring at the floor with his arms crossed when the scene opens (in sheer body language that can be a pretty closed, conflicted posture) and turns to face Palpatine to report that they had found Fives while standing at a three quarters profile, which is a somewhat defensive posture and also the one he adopts when speaking to Vader in the comics he died in. But Fox is a good soldier, and those do what again? He’s stuck with these bosses, he’s got no one in his corner, and whether he likes it or not he's a clone, with zero rights of his own, who has to keep a bunch of people who don't like him or his happy.
And I'm sorry, but his posture after he shot Fives was not triumphant.
To the people he's usually around, it doesn’t really matter what Fox thinks or says, at the end of the day. He's not a person to them, he's little more sentient than a screwdriver. Clones, as far as everyone he is likely to be around regularly, exist to obey orders, and Tarkin and Palpatine sure as fuck won’t be encouraging clones to act on their own impulses. Palpatine cares only as much as will keep Order 66 in the works, which is why he keeps tabs on them and knows them by name. Competency pays. Tarkin doesn’t like clones.
Whatever Palpatine says to Fox just before he goes after Fives, like what Palpatine says to Fives to set him off, is—like so much else—not shown, but it’s probably not unreasonable to assume that Fox doesn’t have as high an opinion of Jedi as Fives. He had no problem believing that Ahsoka could kill clones—based on Fox's reaction I think it's safe to assume the thought that a Jedi could kill a clone or get a clone killed wasn't novel to him, the Umbara arc happens a season before this one and we don't know what scuttlebutt might have made the rounds or what other Jedi might have done, whether they treated clones like objects—and he was prepared to meet deadly force with the same zero hesitation. The man was straight up audibly upset when he thought she killed three clones.
And it’s also probably not insignificant that the Guard is in the room with Fives and Palpatine when he does say something to Fives. It’s Palpatine, the clones do all have chips, it’s possible the chips have already been activated, but we don’t know enough to actually make a judgment call, so it’s hard to say, plus how that would play out when the guards on duty were off shift is a mystery. Maybe he spoke very quietly? Maybe he said something just excusable enough to not set off alarm bells for someone just unfamiliar enough to not catch it?
I don't know, is it possible to just say wild shit in front of a clone, order them to keep their mouths shut, and even without the chips, they'll do as you say? I don't think that would work with Fives but it might with others. Someone like Dogma maybe?
In any case, I’m now more inclined to think Palpatine is very manipulative with Fox and the Guard, as opposed to outright physical abuse.
It might be overall likely that Fox, although he clearly still cared about other clones, saw the flaws in the Republic (and the Jedi) pretty clearly, especially if they often impeded him in doing his job to the best of his ability for whatever reason he didn’t know because maybe Jedi don’t explain themselves unless you ask (and he definitely wasn’t going to ask because clones aren’t supposed to question orders, we see this as part of the reason Pong Krell is able to do so much damage). It might be more likely, if he had a solid opinion (if he let himself have one, rather), for Fox to come to support Palpatine wholeheartedly or as a lesser evil, even if he doesn’t personally like him (and there’s nothing to suggest he does, or doesn't). It’s honestly impossible to make a call on with the information we have at hand.
Physical abuse seems an unnecessary risk for Palpatine at least before Order 66, even if it is so often shown in fanfic. Actively torturing Fox and/or the Corries causes injuries that are hard to hide. He’s more likely to play the suggestive play-nice game like he does with everyone else, even if Fox is a smart man and might realize something is very fucking wrong even if he can’t figure out what (the Jedi Council likewise was suspicious of Palpatine, it's not unheard of). Or maybe Fox’s unhappy posture in Orders was about the possibility of having to kill another clone. Maybe both. Idk.
I think it would be interesting to have had insight into Fox rel. the speech given in TBB by Palpatine that condemned clones as too obedient, which supposedly makes them dangerous. He’s almost certainly dead by then, though; Fox himself dies pretty soon after Order 66, on the same night as Jocasta Nu, while Rampart’s arrest was some time afterwards. The latest positive identification we have of any known red armored Coruscant Guard is in 14BBY, and they’re not around as far as I can tell by Andor.
To get back on track and go back a little, we don't actually see any Corries guarding the Chancellor until the Rako Hardeen arc in season four (and he puts up a calculated stink about the Jedi insisting on it, too; they're added security on a state visit and the Senate Guard is absolutely also still there). I think the implication there is that, pre-war, the Senate Guard normally provided security to Senators on official trips, and Palpatine has until this point avoided having the Coruscant Guard in this capacity, although it seems like it's become an better armed, more capable option. In Friends and Enemies, it's the 501st guarding the Chancellor's door.
What I'm saying is the Guard generally isn't first line security in the Senate or for the Chancellor—or the first group called out to act in the Senate, until perhaps the denouement of ROTS, or TBB, maybe is for a while afterwards. Maybe nothing changed.
Honestly that’s what keeps me coming back to Star Wars, lol. Too many questions.
So, who arrests Admiral Rampart? That’s the Coruscant Guard. Previously, when Riyo Chuchi and Omega are walking through the hallways outside the Senate chamber, it’s really quite empty—of other Senators or the Senate Guard, when it’s more full during the Clone Wars. I don't know if this means the Guard is just there to arrest him, which is possible, or if the Senate Guard is on a temporary break (maybe to vet loyalties?).
We see in Andor that they don’t really have visible guards in the Senate at all during the Imperial era, they’re monitored remotely or have plain clothed agents. Palpatine is using the Guard for the same reasons he condemns all clones in TBB, and it’s possible that for a few years the Senate Guard was reduced in relevance, until the Guard was phased out. Again, it's speculation and impossible to know. Honestly I need to get my hands on that Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire book. Maybe that might help lol. Also wrote a post bitching about the creepy sterile whiteness of the Imperial era Senate building, if you're curious. I find it unsettling lol.
We also don’t know if the shock troopers we see in the comics (and the comics are…sketchy anyway) are clones at all. By 14BBY, the last time we see them, and granted the comics can be iffy, the clones would be nearing 40 in regular aging terms, which means it’s within the realm of possibility that the Coruscant Guard manned by clones is still active, but not without supplemental personnel to replenish number. 10/9BBY(?) is when Kenobi takes place and sees Nax on Daiyu, and of course Nax was 501st not Coruscant Guard, but one wonders if the clones in the Guard—with all it may have known about Palpatine—were ever allowed to retire or leave the Guard alive.
Like it or not, TCW is still very much a kids’ show: it glosses over a lot of emotional depth, and even Umbara is light where that’s concerned. We would know where Dogma is, for better or worse—and since we don’t see him again…I’m assuming worse. Slick? Slick was a one-off episode and he’s written as the villain in it. Star Wars is remarkably sketchy where showing the banal mechanics of how an organization like the Empire works or comes to be (and here I am going to be screaming about Andor and how much I love it…and have loved it since the first season when it got relatively little interest and we were just grateful they'd put a second season in the contract).
Could we please get a comic, a book, a fucking paragraph somewhere about these guys 😭
TL;DR: the Guard’s role in the Clone Wars, which covers five basic missions, remains basically unchanged throughout the show, but the manner in which they perform their duties reflects the gradual radicalization of the environment in which they exist. Fox is…not reticent in his first appearance, but task-based (see problem, address problem) action aside and inclined to ask for direction or pick a less violent option. In his later appearances he maintains the see problem, address problem pattern of behavior, even if he could be conflicted, and is more inclined to act with more aggression. Deleted scenes show the Jedi directly interfering in his job, and the Jedi don’t take the initiative to explain themselves. Tarkin’s role vis a vis the Guard remains largely unexplored and is probably understated.
And I've yapped so long I seemed to have run out of room for tags, oh dear ^^; or maybe I haven't, who knows
