Remember my "Palpatine Dies and the Clones get a Childhood AU"?It's time I revisit it with a better coat of paint and some more thoughts other than "this just how it goes".
AU where Palpatine's grand-scheme, although planned out over the course of literal years, comes crashing down because of some unpredictable wrenches popping up unexpectedly. Mostly the fact that no plan survives first contact, and that saying definitely goes for anything related to the Star Wars universe.
Continue reading... ---
The first wrench in the plan is that when pushing for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum, Padmé doesn't manage to convince the Senate due to being worried about the ongoing conflict. This means that Palpatine doesn't get voted Chancellor like he wanted, and that he has to think of a different way to usurp the title.
The second wrench in the plan is that, Qui-Gon survives the duel with Maul by a thread and doesn't allow Palpatine access to Anakin, who would make for a pretty good replacement apprentice after Maul was seemingly killed. He could try getting to Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon's renounced padawan, but we all know Obi-Wan doesn't trust politicians so that's a no go solution in the end...
The third wrench in the plan is that Valorum resigns from his position unexpectedly and Bail Organa is named the new Chancellor before Palpatine can do anything to stop it from happening. From there, things only get more interesting... Namely, Jango Fett loses his patience when he notices that his employer hasn't given him any promising updates on the whole Jedi eradication plan he agrees to be a part of, and he decides to seed some doubts within the older clones.
He's a sleep-deprived single father caring for a baby (and again I have no idea where Jango had the time to learn how to care for a child, where are your parenting guide books sir, but I doubt Boba was a little angel and that Jango was anywhere near ready enough to be a parent when he became one so...), and he's starting to think his buir would have been incredibly upset with him that he would only claim one ad when he technically has hundreds of thousands of them, so he's not really thinking straight and someone's gotta pay for that right? Why not Lord Tyrannus and by proxy Palpatine?
One thing leads to another and suddenly Kamino is going quiet for reasons Palpatine can't quite understand, but that doesn't really matter to him as much when he realises his attempts to begin a war he can manipulate from both sides are becoming slim to none. He kinda forgets about Kamino entirely in the chaos of trying to gain some form of power and ends up getting killed in a freak accident involving a hoverbus. You know what they say, can't have shit in Coruscant and all that...
Dooku does the smart thing and absconds the hell out of this mess. So now there's a cloning planet that's gone completely dark in the midst of creating an army the Republic doesn't even know about, and actual honest diplomacy solves the growing tension between separatists and republican spaces. The Jedi don't quite know why the galaxy suddenly feels so much lighter, but they sort of assume it's because a war was prevented. Everyone carries on with their lives! Happy ending right?
Well... About that...
Eventually Lama Su manages to send out a distress signal, and suddenly the Jedi are being told their army is out of control and trying to overthrow the Kaminoan government. As the Jedi had no idea they had an army they are sorta left scratching their heads and Obi-Wan is sent out to see what's going on after figuring out where the planet might be.
He's met with the Alphas who are pretty much just teenagers right now, alongside 99 and little Omega. They explain what's been going on to the best of their ability, mostly about the decommissioning and abuse, and how Prime told them that it was their right to fight back against oppression before he left with Boba.
And that's what they all did... Only, in their haste to fight back, they destroyed all available transports so that the Kaminiise didn't escape, and now the Alphas are scrambling to figure out how to feed hundreds of thousands of children that may or may have not gone unsocialised (there's way too many cadets and not enough grown-ups to make sure they're all getting an equal amount of socialisation and education and that's a major part of the issue), when their food reserves are starting to run low... None of them are old enough to really know how to rear children or how to request aid from an unknown government, and they are desperate for any sort of a solution. Even if it means begging their supposed "owners" that they know nothing of other than what little stories they'd heard from jaded Mandalorian trainers that ultimately left them behind.
Needless to say, Obi-Wan is not having a great time but he's nothing if not a decent young man so he's gonna try to help this surprise army of angry children. Starting with requesting that any and all available Jedi with starcrafts come help pick up the kids, because they're not staying on Kamino any longer.
What are they gonna do with all these cadets? Who knows, but they'll make it work and the clones won't be spending their lives as cannon-fodder.
