The Fetts and the Droids: Artificial Intelligence in Fett Lore

Despite how it may seem nowadays, artificial intelligence in Star Wars is not a new concept. AI was one of the staple concepts in the Star Wars universe as seen in the droids — protocol, astromechs, and combat (bounty hunter/assassin/battle) — although the term “artificial intelligence” did not appear in Star Wars content until 2015. As a result, almost every human character in the Star Wars universe would have come across droid technology to some degree unless you just happen to be trapped on a planet without technology, like Endor or Dagobah. Boba Fett and Jango Fett would be the type of characters who got used to AI technology, although each had fairly unique relationship with them versus most characters in Star Wars.

Typically in Star Wars, you have droids as assistants. Luke Skywalker with his Uncle and Aunt, for example, needed droids to assist them in work and at home with repairs and maintenance. Jawas scavenged for droids to sell because it was a lucrative business. Geonosians built droid armies because it was profitable. The Jedi Order as far back as 25,000 years (before the Battle of Yavin) used droids for teaching younglings how to build lightsabers, such as Huyang from “The Clone Wars” and “Ahsoka” television series. The Empire also used droids for combat and torture, although they liked to keep their droids from being too independent thinking, as seen in Dark Troopers which are more like mindless killer robots than sophisticated AI. And then there’s my favorite category of droid — the assassin or bounty hunter droid — and it was first seen in Boba Fett’s live-action screen debut in “The Empire Strikes Back” on Darth Vader’s Executor.

IG-88

In the famous scene that introduced Boba, we see Darth Vader hiring six bounty hunters to hunt the Millennium Falcon ship down — with “no disintegrations.” These hunters were Boba Fett, Dengar, Bossk, Zuckuss, 4-LOM, and IG-88 (aka IG-88B), with the latter two being the first assassin or bounty hunter droids to appear in Star Wars. Despite killer droids with sophisticated AI involved in the hunt, it was Boba Fett who succeeded — a testament to his skill as a hunter. IG-88 came close, tracking Fett to Cloud City on Bespin, but Fett saw he was being tracked and turned IG-88 (temporarily) into scrap. It seems an advanced hunter droid cannot factor in luck, whereas by his nature as a human, Boba Fett would be paranoid enough to be prepared for another hunter trying to intercept his bounty. IG-88B would meet Fett again later (in the War of the Bounty Hunters story arc’s IG-88 one-shot comic), once again failing to factor in luck, and failing at his objective. Boba Fett’s blaster shot meant for IG-88 hit a carbon-freezing device he recently installed in Slave I that then froze IG-88. Boba Fett could have destroyed IG-88B once and for all, but Fett lets him live. By booting the frozen droid off his ship and giving the droid something to think about, it left the droid to consider why Fett let it live. It also consider what purpose it has now that it has no mission or master, having it wonder how it could fail if it has been born to succeed. In that moment, Boba Fett freed the droid IG-88B and expanded its droid mind with a newfound existential, philosophical way of thinking. It was a rare act of mercy from Boba, which makes one wonder how he really felt about droids. Did he pity their existence — or did he relate? After all, what is Boba but a copy of another human being, much like how IG-88B was a replica in a set of identical looking droids.

4-LOM

4-LOM was the other original assassin droid that had encounters with Boba Fett. 4-LOM’s name is a bit of a joke from a behind the scenes perspective, as it works as an acronym for “For the Love Of Money.” 4-LOM is basically C-3PO if C-3PO were into crime. 4-LOM’s encounters with Boba Fett — in Shadows of the Empire, War of the Bounty Hunters, and Bounty Hunters #35 — all involved Boba Fett badly damaging the droid, showing once again Boba Fett’s skill against droids who possess advanced AI programming, although the two never truly had any meaningful interactions outside of the bounty hunting business. It never seemed like Fett saw the droid 4-LOM and his force-sensitive, gas mask-wearing friend Zuckuss as much of a challenge, even though on paper a team up like that should be quite formidable.

R2-D2

Boba Fett did not only have an adversarial relationship with peers, but also with arguably the most iconic Star Wars character of all time: R2-D2. This astromech has lived a long time and seen many things and R2-D2 has played a big role in the Legends and Canon life of Boba Fett. In “The Empire Strikes Back,” R2-D2 is present when Luke Skywalker failed to sneak up on Boba Fett in Cloud City, saving Luke from getting shot by Boba Fett’s EE-3 blaster shots by delaying Skywalker’s movements. Even before this, R2-D2 saved Luke’s life in the “Holiday Special” cartoon, “The Story of the Faithful Wookiee,” where R2 manages to intercept a message between Boba Fett and Darth Vader. R2 then relays the message via C-3PO that Fett is working for the Empire before he could capture Skywalker and the rebels.

BL-17

R2-D2’s dislike of Boba Fett was probably greatest on the “Droids” cartoon where Boba Fett had a droid ally that successfully manipulated C-3PO and almost strained R2 and C-3PO’s relationship. BL-17 was the name of Boba Fett’s droid in Legends, prior to “A New Hope.” BL-17 was a droid that once served with the Mandalorian protectors who were aligned with the Confederacy in the Clone Wars. It then became Boba Fett’s droid serving as a partner in the business of bounty hunter.

Highsinger

That relation is not much different than how young Boba Fett in Canon had C-21 Highsinger as a bounty hunter partner in Boba Fett’s clan, Krayt’s Claw. The cancelled game “Star Wars 1313” allegedly would have explored that partnership further between Boba Fett and a droid similar looking for C-21 Highsinger. It would have been interesting to see, but unfortunately what we know about C-21 was that eventually he and Boba Fett separated ways, perhaps because Highsinger sided with Cad Bane when Bane and Fett feuded. Last we saw of Highsinger he was destroyed on a mission with Latts Razzi, another bounty hunter that Boba Fett worked with during “The Clone Wars.” While the original Boba Fett droid, BL-17, was also destroyed during a mission (which R2-D2 interfered with), Boba Fett was rather upset about the droid’s fate, going after his own clients of the Fromm Gang to make up for the loss. It would seem to indicate Boba Fett did value the artificial life of androids to some extent. Maybe it was more because it was his droid and thus his possession, but it could also be that there was sentimental value with BL-17, being a droid that was connected to Mandalorians, since I never really saw Boba Fett as materialistic, or at least not materialistic without a purpose. He owns what he needs.

R2-D2 (Part 2)

R2-D2 did get the best of Fett twice, but the heroic maintenance/repair droid made up for it in the end, but only before being Boba’s nemesis. His first great offense against Boba was denying Fett of revenge against Mace Windu, as R2-D2 is the only reason Mace Windu and Anakin Skywalker survived on the planet Vanqor. That was back when they searched the remains of a Star Destroyer that Boba Fett destroyed, where Windu and Anakin discover a bomb within a Mandalorian helmet resembling Jango Fett. In the Dave Filoni directed “The Clone Wars” episode “R2 Come Home,” R2-D2 prevents Boba Fett from finishing off Mace Windu and then tricks him into thinking that Windu flew off the planet, successfully evading the Slave I’s attacks long enough to reach a hyperspace ring. Boba Fett was denied executing the killer of his father… all because of one little astromech.

The second time Boba Fett got screwed over by R2-D2 was the most famous example of Boba Fett getting unlucky, the famous Sarlacc Pit sequence from “Return of the Jedi.” Now the whole rescue plan was flawed except for one thing, and that was R2 storing the lightsaber. Leia’s rescue attempt and Luke’s initial attempt failed, so what worked was R2 delivering a lightsaber into Luke’s hands, which was total luck since what if Luke’s hands were tied on the skiff? The lightsaber mostly came in handy in that sequence when fighting Boba Fett specifically. The other minions could have been handled with blasters and a few force pushes, but the lightsaber was needed against Fett. When Fett sees Luke distracted by Lando’s near-fall into the pit he comes flying on to the skiff with the help of his jetpack. He raises his EE-3 towards Luke to shoot but it’s the lightsaber that slices Fett’s weapon, temporarily disarming him. Boba could still shoot out the whipcord, which succeeds until a Sail Barge gunner’s blast deflects off Luke’s lightsaber, hitting the skiff hard enough where Fett fell. This allows Chewbacca enough time to warn Solo of his presence, causing him to panic and get a lucky strike on Fett’s jetpack, shooting him towards the Sail Barge and then towards the Sarlacc. R2’s delivery of the lightsaber is the only reason why the heroes survive this sequence. Perhaps Fett should have trusted his instincts and made a preemptive move on R2-D2 in the Sail Barge, as there was one moment where he seemed to glance at the droid with some suspicion.

R2-D2 ultimately did help Boba Fett, albeit indirectly. In “The Book of Boba Fett,” Grogu’s presence on Tatooine in the battle for Mos Espa between the Pyke Syndicate and the Fett Gotra is the result of R2-D2’s link with Mandalorian Din Djarin, an associate of Boba Fett. R2 was the only means to staying in touch, allowing Din to travel to the planet Ossus where Luke was training/re-training the Mandalorian foundling Grogu. The gift Mando gives Grogu makes Luke reconsider his first student’s status, giving Grogu the choice of leaving to reunite with his human father. R2-D2 travels to Tatooine to deliver Grogu to the Mos Eisley mechanic who could find Din Djarin, who was busy working for Boba Fett in a semi-suicidal mission. Grogu arrives just in time to save his father from dying honorably in war, using his force powers to damage a Scorpenek Droid. Scorpenek Droids are one of the examples of unintelligent droid life meant to be weapons of mass destruction. It sometimes takes the combined efforts of The Force, advanced weapons like a darksaber, and Boba Fett on a Rancor to eliminate these major robotic threats.

8D8

The irony is not lost that a droid like 8D8 from Jabba’s palace who went on to work with Boba Fett may seem menacing with their morbid programming, but 8D8 is rather harmless. They are how they are programmed but they are capable of some independent thinking. For example, 8D8 thought Boba Fett felt threatened by the Hutts and thus avoided saying the name of Jabba during a palace briefing, a sentiment Fett felt insulted by. 8D8 also felt Boba Fett might be perceived as weak if he did not torture his enemies, something Boba Fett did not condone. But it’s interesting how tolerant Fett is of a droid being an independent thinker to some degree.

LEP-Series Service Droid

In contrast, the smaller droid in “Book of Boba Fett” that resembled a rabbit, the LEP-Series Service Droid, did not see Fett’s pretty side at first, shutting itself off after being chased around a kitchen when Fett invaded Bib Fortuna’s palace. It then was given a second chance, working in Boba Fett’s palace. This would show Boba Fett being tolerant of a droid that initially was a “quick little bugger” to him. There were several other droids working in Boba Fett’s palace, so he has learned to use droids out of convenience, even having droids dress him up in his armor on occasion. Perhaps as a retired bounty hunter he is more open to droids that provide a convenient service, although traditionally Boba Fett was not a character that cared for using droids for luxurious reasons, so “Book of Boba Fett” was experimental in that approach, done to add some aura of royalty around the Daimyo portrayal.

Jango Fett’s Droids

Jango Fett was not much into using droids like his son was, although worked alongside them in “Attack of the Clones” briefly during the droid factory sequence where Fett arrests Anakin and Padme. In the canon Bounty Hunters comic series, Jango Fett was seen fighting off a group of battle droids (Bounty Hunters #37), including a KX-series droid — the droid type originally developed for the “Rogue One” film. Jango Fett disarms the KX droid with a powerful knife weapon while using his flamethrower and whipcord launcher to defend his self from other battle droids. Jango Fett’s ability to fight droids was something seen within the Clone Army, as they inherited Jango’s gifts and thus were formidable enemies for an army of battle droids. Normal human beings, apart from the force-sensitive, do not stand much of a chance against battle droids unless they have the right tools and skills, which Jango Fett did. In the video game “Star Wars: Bounty Hunter,” there were some situations where Jango had to fight droids as well, like the battle droids of the prison where he stole the Firespray ship he’d name Slave I. There was also an optional secondary bounty involving a protocol droid, showing that Jango — and other Guild members — hunted droids down for money as well. For protocol droids to be wanted dead or alive would suggest a dark side to artificial intelligence in the service industry — and the very first Star Wars story was about a droid being hunted down for the sensitive information it contained, was it not?

R2-D2 (Part 3)

Back to R2-D2 again: he even plays a role in the life and death of Jango. At the very start of “Attack of the Clones,” R2-D2 is nearly destroyed on the landing platform that explodes, killing off several members of Senator Padme’s security and staff, including Padme’s decoy. The explosion was set up by bounty hunter Zam Wesell under the orders of Jango Fett. Zam was working for Dooku who hired Jango as a favor to Nute Gunray of the Trade Federation who was manipulated by Palpatine to do so, in order to destabilize the government enough in order to allow emergency powers for the Chancellor to approve of the clone army to deal with the threat of the Separatist Droid Army. Padme would have lost her life sooner were it not for R2-D2 as Jango and Zam make a second attempt at Padme’s life while she slept in her guarded Coruscant home. While it was technically Anakin that stopped the venomous multi-legged anthropods (named Kouhuns that come from the Wild Space region of the universe), Anakin could not have accomplished what he needed to do were it not for R2-D2 delaying the deadly creatures long enough. R2’s little delay inevitably is what sparks the chain of events that leads Obi-Wan Kenobi discovering Kamino, the Fetts, and the clones.

It was a miraculous, unlikely chain of events that involved Jango being seen briefly enough in the far distance after he shoots Zam with a Kamino dart which Obi-Wan’s prospector friend identified, pointing him towards the right direction. It seems Palpatine’s plans were never for Jango Fett to succeed in killing Padme. Instead, his skills of discretion and subtle assassinations backfire just enough where only a Jedi could find him exactly where Palpatine wanted and that Jango would be skilled enough to evade the Jedi while simultaneously being followed to Geonosis where the Separatists were meeting and the droid factories were, along with the initial Death Star design plans. While many could view Jango Fett’s mission a failure, it went exactly as Palpatine orchestrated, as he led them to both Kamino and Geonosis. It sets up for the ultimate showdown, between the Fett clones and the droid army. That concludes with Anakin Skywalker turning into half a machine and Boba Fett having to endure a war where soldiers with his father’s face were dying in a war against machines. Despite that, because he had no real connection to the other clones, he probably did not take it personally, so he was never one to refer to battle droids as clankers. In the Battle of Geonosis the difference between man and droid could not be more clear, as C-3PO can lose his head and get it re-attached by R2-D2. While at the same time in the same arena, Young Boba Fett can’t do anything about a very final death, except take the helmet of his father and mourn, looking into the T-visor where his father’s eyes once were looking back at him. He eventually would make his father’s helmet his own face, so much that even for a Mandalorian the way he moved had a robotic quality (even being confused for a droid by Jawas in a 1983 Marvel Comics story).

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While droids are generally not a focus of Boba Fett stories, he has had enough of a history at this point where a storyteller could focus on that aspect in a story, unlike with Mandalorian Din Djarin who has a very planned out storyline in with regards to droids. Din Djarin’s distrust of them is rooted in his parents being murdered by a group of battle droids during The Clone Wars. They were programmed to exterminate villagers, who were then destroyed by heroic Mandalorians who saved Din and took him in as a foundling. Eventually and slowly he learned to accept droids are not evil in nature, learning that — while they possess artificial intelligence — most are still subject to the programming they are given. The variety of programming possible is exemplified in IG-11, transformed multiple times: from bounty hunter, to a nurse droid, to a remote guided robot, and then back to AI in the form of a Marshal.

On the other hand, Boba Fett grew up in a time when his blood-related brothers were at war with droids, while other droids were working as bounty hunters. He saw his father fight on the same side as Separatist droids in a battle against Jedi, only then to see clones siding with the Jedi against the droids. The lines of good and evil were blurred when it came to droids so he could not really think of them in those terms. Boba Fett knows reality doesn’t care how you feel, so he was neutral with droids. I think perhaps Boba Fett saw artificial intelligence as nothing but a business. On the flip side, a human character like Din Djarin feared and distrusted artificial intelligence on a personal and even spiritual level, mirroring real life attitudes on AI; people may see AI as an opportunity or something very problematic. The interesting thing about Star Wars is the lack of information on the origin of droids. They have existed thousands of years before the events of the original film and yet no one ever seems to question their origin in the universe.

We do know Jango Fett played a role when it came to a war between organic species and AI droids. His genetic material was being used for an army bred to fight that inevitability (even if it was the result of heavy manipulation by the Sith) and we know Boba Fett showed he was capable of doing a better job in the intergalactic bounty hunter business than advanced droids like IG-88 and 4-LOM. That’s what makes the Fetts unique in the conversation regarding Star Wars droids. Maybe it’s because one could imagine Fett in a world like that of “The Terminator” film series’ vision of an apocalyptic AI-dominated future. Perhaps because Boba Fett’s armor design was so battle worn, as if it had been through many battles, a key part of the Boba Fett armor design that has been lost in most modern interpretations of Mandalorian armor. While most fans of Star Wars focus on how Mandalorian armor and weapons were a good counter to Jedi Knights, another way to view it is that strong armor like that of beskar finally gave non-force sensitive types a way to even the odds against droids that are used as weapons in war. The Mod culture would also seem to reflect a subculture of people that evened the odds against machines by modifying their human bodies with droid style enhancements.

But if the droid enemy is R2-D2 then Mandalorian armor and modifications aren’t enough — because plot armor goes a long way in the Star Wars universe. After all, Star Wars is a fantasy as much as a sci-fi. While maybe an army of Boba Fetts fighting off killer androids isn’t realistic, or Boba Fett being superior over advanced bounty hunter droids may seem implausible, that’s kind of the point of this style of storytelling. It’s just like the unlikelihood of the Death Star being destroyed (twice). Or it’s like the miracle that the Rebels could find enough cracks during totalitarian-style Imperial rule where they could eventually discover the Death Star’s existence and its secrets. Or it’s the implausibility of characters surviving wounds that would normally kill a person, such as Anakin’s wounds, Palpatine’s survival, Maul’s survival, or Boba Fett’s survival of a near death experience. The droids of Star Wars are not meant to be too realistic or serious but the universe provides a diverse representation of androids, which have added much to the lore of characters like Boba Fett and other popular characters by perfectly blending sci-fi concepts with fantasy tropes.