Project War-Mantle: The Bad Batch reveals the origin story of stormtroopers

Crosshair finds himself the leader of a group of potential future recruits to what will become the Stormtrooper corp through Project War-Mantle, which is revealed in The Bad Batch episode 3 as being the beginning of conscripted soldiers — which ultimately ends the cloning program on Kamino.

Before we continue, the term “War-Mantle” was mentioned in Rogue One when Cassian Andor is going through project files, and War-Mantle is one of the projects he names off.

To add insult to injury, Crosshair has his own agenda that doesn’t match that of the men and women who willingly signed up to be the early version of stormtroopers. With the approval of Governor Tarkin, Vice Admiral Rampart is able to enact his vision for the Empire, which just so happens to be conscripted soldiers.

Part of Rampart’s goal is to use advanced clones like the Bad Batch to train elite soldiers who are not enhanced like they are. Now, this becomes a worry, especially with Crosshair in charge of the group. He has a habit of executing orders to a tee, as he is known to say, “Good soldiers follow orders,” which is also something CT-5385 (Tup) said before he accidentally killed Jedi General Tiplar.

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While it wasn’t Tup’s fault that he killed his Jedi general prematurely, it did lead to an investigation conducted partially by CT-5555 (Fives) before he himself was killed into the inhibitor chips inside the clones’ heads.

Going back to Crosshair and his new team,  Rampart refers to the group as Elite soldiers, rather than stormtroopers. This shows that the term (this far into the story) hasn’t come up just yet. It should be known too that the group is seen to question orders Crosshair gives them. This ultimately leads to one of them attempting to revolt and refuse the task given to kill innocent people.

When you look at these soldiers compared to regular stormtroopers later down the track, they actually know right from wrong. The regs, however, will just follow orders without question.

What do you think of the early version of the stormtrooper corp? Tell us below!