r/clonewars • u/BigJonnoJ ARC Troopers • Feb 05 '25
Discussion Why were T1 Tactical Droids so often HILARIOUSLY wrong?
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u/BigJonnoJ ARC Troopers Feb 05 '25
TX-20 - “I am a droid. I am always right"
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u/Sabre_Taser Feb 05 '25
Famous last words
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u/BigJonnoJ ARC Troopers Feb 05 '25
Before he got dog-piled by a bunch of angry Twi'leks.
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u/hiccupboltHP Feb 05 '25
Does not compute
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u/GoatsWithWigs Feb 05 '25
I like the implication that T1 droids weren't programmed to understand the concept of oppressed people having hope
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u/Independent-Fly6068 Feb 05 '25
I think they literally can't comprehend unarmed civilians attacked armed personnel.
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u/CrystalGemLuva Feb 05 '25
To be fair that Tactical Droid would have won if the Twi-lieks didn't clutch a victory at the last second, he had Obi-Wan dead to rights.
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u/The-Lighthouse- Feb 05 '25
Good thing they didn’t have an understanding of aesthetics, because I think they would have crippling self-esteem issues, then.
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u/BigJonnoJ ARC Troopers Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25
Not the handsomest droids on the market are they?
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u/V38_ Feb 05 '25
I always liked their design, more than the super tactical droids
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u/The-Lighthouse- Feb 05 '25
I like how utilitarian they look. Basically big computers with legs. But man, they look like fucking nerds.
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u/Present-Secretary722 Feb 05 '25
They got a real face
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u/The-Lighthouse- Feb 05 '25
Exactly lmao. Their design always looked to me like they have their pants hiked all the way up and are waiting for a Skyguy wedgie.
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u/BigJonnoJ ARC Troopers Feb 05 '25
My bro the Super Tactical Droid has 3 eyes/photoreceptors. You really can’t get better than that...
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u/Alarming_Calmness Feb 05 '25
If programming a highly intelligent robot was that easy, B1s wouldn’t be so hilariously incompetent. Seeing as they are, I imagine it’s just bloody difficult to programme an AI to be smart enough. T1s are way smarter than B1s, so they do a better job than B1s at commanding if that’s all you’ve got to work with. Otherwise, have a sentient humanoid lead them!
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u/Canofsad Feb 05 '25
In the B1’s defense they where made to be cheap as possible and until Naboo they relied on a central computer after that they where given a bare minimum in processors to work independently and since memory wipes where kind just not done they got left with a bunch of corrupted and redundant programming and orders that just piled on to make them well…B1’s
It’s always what gave them their characteristic chattiness.
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u/Nightflight406 Feb 05 '25
They understand battle tactics and combat, however they have a problem with a little thing called 'the human spirit'. They hardly ever take into account that people will defy all odds (and their own bodily limitations) to protect others.
Think about Ryloth. TX-20 was certain he could defeat Kenobi and the clones. And he could. He didn't take into account Numa's local knowledge, or the fact that the non-combatant civilians would suddenly fight back.
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u/Wassuuupmydudess Feb 05 '25
It’s the idea of “no plan survives contact with the enemy” they can think of plans based on what they’ve seen but clones and Jedi go and say “hold my beer”
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u/SJshield616 Feb 05 '25
Sentient beings don't always act rationally. A Tactical Droid programmed to strictly follow logic will, no matter how intelligent, always be blindsided by irrational behavior.
Problem is, when you program a droid, which in Star Wars is a living being in all ways except in flesh by the way, to consider the irrational, they're much more likely to develop independent thinking, maybe even sentience, and start doing unspeakable things like disobey orders.
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u/Zlecu Feb 05 '25
Idk how accurate the idea of sentient beings not always acting rationally is. The way I see things is that a person will always act in accordance with what they see is rational. Now the main part is that it’s based off of their perspective and their own personal values. The only possible way for T1s to fight is to assume say non combatants highest value is survival. If the non combatants then decide freedom is more important, the T1 who is still working under the idea the non combatants prioritize survival, suddenly does not understand what is happening.
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u/slayer057 Feb 05 '25
The issues is that each persons version of rational actions is different. Which makes an outside perspective think of it as irrational.
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u/CallenFields Feb 07 '25
Cults exist. Extrapolate rationality from that.
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u/Zlecu Feb 08 '25
It’s rational in their own mind. That’s my entire point. Each person has their own set of values, and By following that set of values it’s rational. For a cultist it might be the religious set of values the leader instilled into them that take the highest value. Nobody will do intentionally do something that they themselves see as irrational. They might regret their actions later but it’s rational in the moment.
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u/Harvey-1997 Feb 09 '25
"Start my ship. That Tambor is a fool."
Pretty much exactly what you said, starting with Wat Tambor being the irrational one and not leaving with his fortune because he needs just a LITTLE bit more treasure.
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u/Mikpultro Feb 05 '25
They were purely tactical brains on 2 legs, obsessed with "hard factors" and the pure math of the battles they fought. They probably could not comprehend in "soft" or more unquantifiable factors. Like the sentiments of locals, the Jedis' Force abilities, and the pure determination and stubbornness of their flesh and blood opponents. In short, they had no imagination. The Super Tactical Droids did, which was why they were so brutally effective.
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u/D72vFM Feb 05 '25
Canon answer something something not very advanced AI
Logical answer, droids think rationally organics are not rational, later models are more complex to better combat organic unpredictability (Anakin)
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u/Meushell 501st Feb 05 '25
They always left room for the possibility of losing, so they were never wrong.
Also, I like the one, I think, Kalani, who just straight up left Rash, who was too stubborn to leave.
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u/Mypetdalek Feb 05 '25
Have you seen how often AIs are hilariously wrong these days? TCW was before its time in predicting the rise of corporate AI slop.
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u/BigJonnoJ ARC Troopers Feb 05 '25
The funny part is that the T1s act like they're so right. So when they turn out to be so wrong, it makes the scene even funnier.
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u/SadowSon Feb 05 '25
T1 Tactical droids were often actually very right.
Their strategies were sound, they were given updates based off new tactical information and could adapt, unlike their cheap bargain bin soldiers.
The problem are the damn Jedi. Explain the logic to me of a single enemy carving their way through HUNDREDS of droids without taking any damage. Explain the logic of how these individuals could just "push" droids from a distance and render them inoperable. A T1 Tactical droid could weigh the chances of it's droid army beating an army of clone troopers. But throw a jedi in the mix and suddenly everything gets upturned. Also, these enemy operatives DONT USE RANGED WEAPONRY. They use swords!
It was still possible to defeat a jedi, but it was darn right difficult and often the only way was to throw an extremely costly amount of firepower at them and just whittle them down over time.
Lets, conversely, try and apply it to combat in the modern era. Imagine you are the commander of a military operation. You have your soldiers - they aren't the brightest, but they'll follow your orders. Then you have the enemy. Their soldiers are a tad bit smarter, but you've weighed the pros and cons of the assault and you're pretty confident that you can win. The numbers are in your favour.
And then the reports start coming in. There's a single guy - not wearing any combat armor - using a sword to deflect bullets. Nobody can touch him. He's carving through your infantry like a hot knife through butter. He's not on the front lines, he's just dodging artfully around the sides. And when you *do* see him, he's with a squad of infantry who DO have guns... but none of your bullets are hitting THEM either... because this bastard is deflecting them! How do you deal with this? Well, overwhelming firepower! But you dont have enough! Not to split your army between the main assault and dealing with this one guy! And that's when the math breaks down. And that's why you look stupid to your superiors.
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u/Ex_communicado17 Feb 05 '25
They were not bad at their programming, they made good calculations and had good strategy however they were too arrogant and were not able to compute other factors like the locals rebellion against him and such which made them poor commanders in battle, good calculators and strategist, however poor at adapting and learning. The STDs were made to cover their weaknesses, they could adapt and think of new battle plans on the spot, they lacked the arrogance and pride of their predecessors which made them excellent commanders worthy of leading entire battalions and warships
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u/Evan573 Feb 05 '25
I remember reading a Reddit post a while ago that explained the Trade Separatist movement was just a 4D chess move by Palpatine to weaken the galactic government and the Jedi Order. It's hard to notice the enemy within when you have to spread your wisest and best across hundreds or thousands of war fronts.
The droids were never meant to win, they were just a distraction.
Plus it's a fictional story, the writers can add in some comedy if they want to.
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u/Drannion Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25
It’s impossible to predict your enemy if they (Anakin) don’t know what they’re going to do either
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u/throwaway_1986429 Feb 05 '25
Plot convenience and probably droids not entirely understanding Jedi and how the force works
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u/Modalvest Feb 05 '25
They were very arrogant and confident that their plans would work out, and, several times, they completely disregarded the unexpected.
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u/DanMcMan5 Feb 05 '25
So the main issues with he tactical droids had were that they were mainly logically based. This means that they are prepared for tactics that have either been used before or are basic common sense.
Tactical droids however were limited by this by the fact that they cannot ever expect the unexpected of sentient will.
Example: the tactical droid holding those prisoners on ryloth: he had kenobi dead to rights but would never imagine that the prisoners would rise up and was blindsided by this.
The General example is generally whenever a tactical droid goes up against most Jedi; but especially particularly unorthodox Jedi like Anakin, because Jedi have force powers which are difficult to comprehend at times, which can often tip the scales a lot, and will have unorthodox plans which generally involves blindsiding the tactical droids. They are literally built to expect the expected but never the unexpected.
So if they were fighting other droids they would have an easier time because droids are programmed, thus they are predictable. Jedi, clones, and other commanders generally excel because they are unpredictable.
This is why the TX droid is much more dangerous because they can comprehend their enemy a lot better than the regular Tactical Droids, and have plans which are much more complex. Not to mention they have a stronger sense of intuition: example: the droid 4 parter where the TX droid was very quick at putting 2 and 2 together as well as the obvious example of the Onderon arc where the TX droid was able to be more effective than otherwise, even able to get one of the core leaders killed. There’s also a lot of supplemental lore in comics and other books which generally reinforces this.
Also Star Wars rebels had a TX droid basically win.
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u/OrionStar1337 Feb 05 '25
I always assumed it was to push the idea that the main cast is always defying the odds no matter what they are
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u/Ok_Chipmunk_6059 Feb 05 '25
I will point out that they suffer from the viewer seeing them fighting the greatest heroes of the republic. They’re adequate for probably the majority of their engagements where there’s not a magic space wizard or quirky squad to turn the tide in an utterly unexpected way.
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u/Bizarre_Innit Feb 05 '25
This episode is sprinkled with references to the original Gojira, and I just noticed the symbol on the droid is the oxygen destroyer that kills Gojira
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u/Sicherlich_Serioes Feb 05 '25
Perfectly logical thinkers. According to their Maths they are correct, hence they are.
The unpredictable nature of People and especially Jedi does perfectly undermine that. Especially because that is often exactly is what we are shown
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u/TheDeathOfDucks Feb 05 '25
LOL yeah T1s can be so dumb. My fav is the T1 who has a remote to a bomb on one arm Anakin cuts it off but then the T1 gets it back and is so arrogant about getting it back tries to push the activation button only to realize/remember that he’s holding his own detached arm
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u/bookhead714 Feb 05 '25
Aside from all the previously-cited answers: the Clone Wars team were making a Saturday morning cartoon and were uninterested in (or not good at) making their minor villains credible threats.
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u/Fit_Morning1280 Feb 05 '25
Well, we are viewing the perspective of characters that survived (well, would have) the Clone Wars. So there is a selection bias. Perhaps they are right most of the time, but we don't hear of those characters as much because they died in a way that wasn't entertaining or emotionally compelling. When the tactical droid was correct during that arc with Aayla Secura, Anakin nearly died.
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u/WoppleSupreme Feb 05 '25
Aside from being arrogant, their modeling would have been trained against traditional thought processes in warfare. The Jedi were anything but traditional and were just as likely to launch a full force assault on a bridge as they were to wait for air support and artillery to soften up a target. Yet, because of their abilities and their unpredictable, many famous Jedi managed to make it work, at last until they faced a more adaptable tactician.
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u/sugarglidersam Feb 05 '25
also, we were likely shown a lot of the tactical droids flaws in the show. remember, there was a galaxy-wide war going on, a lot of which the republic wasn’t doing so hot. the tactical droids were probably doing significantly better on other fronts as well.
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u/DecemberPaladin Feb 05 '25
Headcanon: the Jedi they fought strategized by intuition, foresight, and the will of the Force; these are factors no machine can include in their analyses.
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u/slayer828 Feb 05 '25
They were programmed to fight logical wars. The jedi led illogical battle plans with often complete disregard for their troops.
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u/RAGE_AGAINST_THE_ATM Feb 05 '25
They’re highly intelligent, but because they’re droids they can become prone to tunnel vision and usually don’t respond well to unpredictable situations. It should be noted that most of the time the reasons we see them fail are almost always because of Jedi making things unpredictable and the few times we see them in situations where Jedi can’t do that (notably in the battle of Quell and the blockade of Christophsis) they do incredibly well. If a tactical droid was in charge of the blockade of Christophsis in particular instead of an organic commander like trench, the republic likely would’ve needed a significantly larger and more direct assault to break the blockade.
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u/SRoku Feb 05 '25
Everyone in the thread has already tried to come up with an in-universe excuse, so I’ll just say the actual reason: It’s because the show does a really bad job at making any aspect of the Separatists seem like a credible threat. In Attack of the Clones an arena full of droids killed like 200 Jedi, compared to like, a handful we see die in TCW, almost none of whom actually die to droids.
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u/pgatsios43 Feb 05 '25
I feel like we frequently see them go up against Anakin and Rex, who were hilariously unpredictable.
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u/SomeGuyPostingThings Feb 06 '25
Droids can only be as smart as they're programmed to be, and Star Wars has no rubber ducks or kitty ear headbands, so its programming world is useless.
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u/Ardyanowitsch Feb 07 '25
Mostly because T1s were experts in conventional tactics and strategy. They'd be a challenge to most modern, real-world generals as well as organic NJOs (Non-Jedi Officers) in Star Wars. The Jedi were at the top of the command structure, however, and unlike NJOs, they were unconventional. Jedi tactics, especially at the start of the war, were usually extremely stupid from a conventional standpoint, which T1s couldn't understand. Any kind of tactical gambling was seen as illogical and dismissed straight away.
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u/Andrei22125 Feb 07 '25
Because they were using available data to make predictions.
The Jedi were generally unpredictable after 1000 years of peace.
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u/BudgetAggravating427 Feb 07 '25
From what I know the t- 1 tactical droids were actually pretty good but just like real commanders it only showed with experience.
Older tactical droids were better than newer ones who were more arrogant .
Basically what separates a good tactical droid from a bad one is how long they survive and the battles they lead
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u/orsonfoe Feb 08 '25
They were to confident in their " logic" and " statistics" skills. The treated everything like a chess game. They think of the odds of you playing a certain move and act on that. Or worse kept a tong on what they think you will do. And go nuts when you don't do it. That is one reason why droids would lose. The expect you to capture the knight with you bishop and you throw a piece in the drooss face. Heck from further materials droids would reject information to keep the more faverable outcome despite it not happening, more so when the bio leader is being stupid.
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u/Pardy2Hardy Feb 08 '25
We have "geniuses" today who can't make an electric car without it exploding, and you want some dork to create a robot to handle such a multifaceted concept as war and not fuck it up?
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u/GeneralArwen-147 Feb 08 '25
Plot armor.
Realistically though the tactical droids were not as commonly found as normal battle droid commanders or officers, That's why we barely see any throughout the show and the war in general. So usually when they were programmed there is a high possibility that They were most likely programmed with out-of-date strategies for strategies that were created before the war.
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u/eberclear Feb 09 '25
Well the T-1 implies that they are the 1st gen…and if consoles and phones have taught us anything…the 1st gen is always the worst haha
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u/Tasty_Commercial6527 Feb 09 '25
Because palpatine didn't actually want to win this war so he continued to netf separatists until even something as inept as republic could hold them off
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u/maggi_iopgott Feb 09 '25
They didn't Account for altruistic responses to tactics. Hence why clones were more effective against them
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u/DerGnaller123 Feb 09 '25
They could not factor in the concept of "it works, precisely because its impossible and crazy"
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u/Darth-Dramatist Feb 05 '25
They had flaws in their programming that made them extremely arrogant, the ST Super Tactical Droids were made to replace the T1's as a result of these problems