In the Star Wars franchise, Order 66 is a directive ingrained in every clone trooper to eliminate every Jedi in sight, but some clones managed to disobey the order when it was executed during Revenge of the Sith. Which clones disobeyed Order 66 and allowed Jedi survivors to escape the Empire? In both canon and the original Expanded Universe (also known as Legends), many clone troopers were able to overcome their conditioning and refused to murder their Jedi allies. Notably, Star Wars: The Bad Batch begins with Clone Force 99 suddenly finding themselves on the long list of clones who refused Order 66. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan Kenobi reveals that whether the clones resisted the order to kill the Jedi, the Empire abandoned its veterans after the war, and some ended up begging in the streets.
Indeed, no matter how many clones disobeyed Order 66, the Republic still became twisted into the Galactic Empire. Clones that no longer served a purpose were simply discarded, and the Jedi were still brought to near extinction. Order 66 was ultimately the true purpose of the clone troopers. Darth Sidious, Count Dooku, and, in part, even the clones’ genetic template Jango Fett, created the clone army with the specific goal of destroying the Jedi Order. The tragedy of the clones in both timelines is that they were fundamentally good, individual, men who gradually conquered their programming, except for the one, sinister, task they were made to perform, in most cases. They did this because of inhibitor chips that left them no choice but to obey Order 66 – or, at least, that left most of them no choice. In both canon and the old Expanded Universe (now branded Legends), some clone troopers disobeyed.
