Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3 premiered this week with three episodes: “Confined”, “Paths Unknown” and “Shadows of Tantiss”. This premiere also gave us revelations of a direct connection to The Mandalorian and Emperor Palpatine himself.
SPOILER WARNING! The rest of this article contains spoilers of the first three episodes of The Bad Batch season 3.
Since season 1, fans have wondered if there’s something … special … about the young clone Omega (voiced by Michelle Ang). The protectiveness displayed by Kaminoan cloning scientist Nala Se (voiced by Gwendoline Yeo), and the mystery genetic alterations the Kaminoans might have made in her, seem to hint at Omega being important in a much broader sense than she is to just her Clone Force 99 brothers.
So far, season 3 has gone a long way in confirming this theory.
On his secret base inside Mount Tantiss, the Imperial scientist Dr. Royce Hemlock (voiced by Jimmi Simpson) forces Nala Se to test clones’ blood for the ability to withstand or mix with a high ‘M-count’ from a donor specimen. Over the course of episodes 301 and 303, we see test after test fail with countless clones. But we also see Nala Se secretly dispose of every sample Omega gives her of the young clone’s own blood.
Because, as we soon find out, whatever Hemlock is looking for, Omega has it. And Nala Se has known the entire time.
The mystery heightens in episode 303, “Shadows of Tantiss”, when Emperor Palpatine (voiced by Ian McDiarmid) visits Hemlock’s lab to check on the progress of Project Necromancer. He tells Hemlock, “there is nothing of greater importance to secure the future of this Empire”.
But what is Project Necromancer? What does ‘M-count’ mean?
In The Mandalorian season 2, Imperial scientist Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) notes his testing on the former Jedi youngling Grogu reveals a “high M-count” needed for Pershing’s experiments. According to the official Star Wars website, ‘M-count’ refers to “the amount of midi-chlorians in a being’s blood”. As many fans will know, midi-chlorians are microscopic beings that live inside all living things and communicate the “will of the Force”. The higher the midi-chlorian count a being has, the easier access to the Force and Force abilities.
Later in The Mandalorian season 3, we hear Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) and the underground Imperial remnants called the ‘Shadow Council’, speak of Project Necromancer in reference to desperately needed new leadership. Indeed, in the season 3 finale, we even find out that Moff Gideon has been working on a project to clone himself.
These two revelations lead to a much larger story within the Star Wars franchise. Especially once combined with what we know about Palpatine’s own cloning efforts, revealed in The Rise of Skywalker. Through the unnatural ability of the Sith, Palpatine is able to transfer his essence to another body before his demise on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. What we have come to learn, however, is that Palpatine could not do this without the successful creation of a Force-sensitive clone into whom he could transfer his essence. Now that we know for certain that ‘M-count’ stands for ‘midi-chlorian count’, this makes Project Necromancer Palpatine’s ultimate contingency plan.
It also places Omega in an extreme amount of danger.
The Omega Factor
Hemlock tells Nala Se in episode 301 that the M-count transplanted from their specimen deteriorated rapidly in the host, resulting in an overall failure. It’s clear he’s looking for a host, or perhaps the genetic material from a host, that can ensure the transplanted M-count doesn’t deteriorate.
When Omega’s blood is revealed to have maintained the high M-count provided by the specimen’s blood, Hemlock realizes that she might be the key to everything.
A question answered, perhaps, and another one put in its place: what does this make Omega?
In The Mandalorian, Grogu is considered a specimen whose M-count is high enough to test on Pershing’s hosts. In The Bad Batch, Dr. Hemlock escorts Emperor Palpatine to a secret area of his base where we can assume they are overseeing testing on hosts or other specimens. Importantly, though, Nala Se specifically tells Omega that ‘specimen’ does not refer to the clones.
If the blood we see mixing with the clones’ samples in The Bad Batch is from a Force-sensitive specimen, could this make Omega a potential host? Or someone with the genetic material desperately needed to combine with that of Hemlock’s ‘specimen’ to complete Palpatine’s vision of immortality?
Crosshair and Omega’s escape has kept that answer at bay for the time being. But Hemlock, with his persistence and determination to keep the Emperor’s favour, will undoubtedly pursue Omega across the galaxy. By any means necessary.
New episodes of The Bad Batch air every Wednesday at 3am (EST) / 12am (PST) on Disney+.
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