What Is The New Republic's Ammesty Program?
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WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR THE MANDALORIAN SEASON 3 EPISODE 3
Last week, The Mandalorian Season 3 gave us some insight into the New Republic. It took us away from the adventures of Din and Grogu and gave us some time with Doctor Pershing, who was the cloning expert under Moff Gideon. He is no longer associated with the Empire after going through the New Republic’s Amnesty Program. Another former Imperial officer under Moff Gideon, Elia Kane, also went through the program. Fans who have read some of the Star Wars books may be familiar with the New Republic, and its ultimate demise, but this is the first we have heard of the Amnesty Program. So, what exactly is this program?
The New Republic is in its early phases during The Mandalorian. In the books, it has been established that instead of having one capital, the New Republic will have a rotating capital, in which members of the senate will take turns hosting the capital. By the time of The Mandalorian, the current capital of the New Republic is on the planet Chandrila under the leadership of Chancellor Mon Mothma. However, there are still facilities on Coruscant, as we saw in the episode. The former Rebel Alliance Fleet becomes the New Republic Defense Fleet. Mon Mothma has also introduced new legislation that would signal to the galaxy that the New Republic will be a democracy and not a military resistance organization.
Image Source: Nerdist
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The New Republic has established something called the Amnesty Program. From the episode, we can see the program is fairly well-established and has plenty of members. The goal of the program is to rehabilitate former members of the Empire. The rehabilitation ranges from therapy to brain manipulation at the very worst. We know the New Republic has a machine called the mind flayer, which as we saw, can really scramble the brain if used at too high of a voltage. The participants are given an identifier when they are first enrolled. However, it is unclear if these former members of the Empire are defectors, or captured by the New Republic. It’s most likely a bit of both.
Once the former Imperials are “reprogrammed” and have demonstrated their loyalty at the Reintegration Institute, they are able to move out and get jobs in the New Republic. Even though Doctor Pershing is known for his ideas on cloning, he is given what is essentially a basic desk job, cataloging Imperial equipment for destruction. The members also have to check in with a parole droid, who would ask questions about their loyalty to the Republic. It is safe to assume the droid’s purpose is to tease out any traitorous thoughts.
The Galactic Concordance is also relevant to the Amnesty Program. In spelling out the Empire’s surrender, non-combatant members of the Empire are given conditional pardons while all surviving Imperial officers are treated as war criminals. Because of their roles, it is possible that Elia Kane and Doctor Pershing are being treated as war criminals here.
Image Source: Disney+
We were only given a taste of the early days of the New Republic in this episode of The Mandalorian. The New Republic would ultimately fail and be completely destroyed when the First Order come into the picture and use their Starkiller Base to destroy the capital of Hosnian Prime. The Amnesty Program also asks the question of whether Imperials can really be rehabilitated. In the case of Elia Kane, her darker side comes out when she increases the mind flayer’s voltage on Doctor Pershing. There may be some ulterior motive here, and perhaps she will eventually show whether the Amnesty Program succeeds at rehabilitation.
It is surprising that the New Republic has chosen to use less-than-stellar methods with those they are trying to rehabilitate, especially when it comes to the mind flayer. We still do not know much about this program, and whether or not it really works. Hopefully, it will be fleshed out in other Star Wars projects.
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Source(s): Nerdist, Den of Geek
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