Star Wars Andor (Disney+ TV series)

[NakedMoleRat]

I would imagine that the empire figured that they wold all continue as dutiful slaves, not questioning anything. I believe the internation was that the guys on level two, once they heard what happened, had begun a possible insurgence against the guards. Or at least their anger and frustration was seeming to go in that direction. Which is why they were all fried.

 

[BlandoCalrssian]

I figured that the prison authorities make it clear in no uncertain terms to returning prisoners that if they reveal that they’ve already served their sentence they will fry the floor.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

That’s the beauty of it. We don’t have to be told directly. The truth is…the Empire is evil.

 

[Wolfsburg]

Yeah my question was centered more on why would the Empire think the transferred worker wouldn't just spill the beans about what is going on, regardless of what level or facility he got moved to? I assume he got moved to Level 2, everyone found out, got upset and the Empire fried the lot of them. I just wondered how the Empire would think there would be any other result. With the stringent quotas and deadlines, I would think the Empire couldn't afford to lose an entire section like that and certainly not on a broader scale if word continued to spread. I will admit I'm not sure why droids wouldn't be a far better workforce, as opposed to having to feed and shelter living beings that can't work nonstop and that always carry a threat of pushing the boundaries.

Also, what do we think they're building? I thought it looked like the center hub of a multilegged droid although some friends feel like it may be Death Star components, which I admit would be neat from a thematic perspective.

 

[dascoyne]

Yeah my question was centered more on why would the Empire think the transferred worker wouldn't just spill the beans about what is going on, regardless of what level or facility he got moved to? I assume he got moved to Level 2, everyone found out, got upset and the Empire fried the lot of them. I just wondered how the Empire would think there would be any other result. With the stringent quotas and deadlines, I would think the Empire couldn't afford to lose an entire section like that and certainly not on a broader scale if word continued to spread. I will admit I'm not sure why droids wouldn't be a far better workforce, as opposed to having to feed and shelter living beings that can't work nonstop and that always carry a threat of pushing the boundaries.

Also, what do we think they're building? I thought it looked like the center hub of a multilegged droid although some friends feel like it may be Death Star components, which I admit would be neat from a thematic perspective.

The medic said the "released" inmate was sent to Level 2 by mistake. I think he was supposed to go to a different facility (maybe one of the nearby ones).

Cassian already said why they don't use droids. It's because they were "cheaper than droids and easier to replace." I'm sure it also solves two problems at once - free labor and how to punish inmates.

 

[Wolfsburg]

Yeah I remember Cassian saying that but frankly it doesn't make much sense. There's surely far more value in a droid that can work around the clock that doesn't have to be fed with no threat of discontent. Droids in SW seem pretty cheap and disposable.

And even if the guy was sent to another facility, I don't see why that'd make any difference. He'd still tell the workers there that the Empire is lying about releasing the inmates and everyone would get upset, just like Level 2 apparently did. I can't imagine why anyone would think the inmate would be beholden to keep the secret. At that point, he has nothing to lose.

 

[dascoyne]

Yeah I remember Cassian saying that but frankly it doesn't make much sense. There's surely far more value in a droid that can work around the clock that doesn't have to be fed with no threat of discontent. Droids in SW seem pretty cheap and disposable.

And even if the guy was sent to another facility, I don't see why that'd make any difference. He'd still tell the workers there that the Empire is lying about releasing the inmates and everyone would get upset, just like Level 2 apparently did. I can't imagine why anyone would think the inmate would be beholden to keep the secret. At that point, he has nothing to lose.

We have had robotics for decades that can work production lines and yet, in some settings, it's not worth the expense of a full fledged robot for some uncomplicated tasks. Why do people still work today as cashiers, greeters, cooks, stock people, waiters etc? The technology exists to replace all those jobs and it has done so in many places. So why isn't everything automated?

And where did you get thr idea that droids were cheap and disposable? As you can see, people keep "companion" droids for decades. If they were cheap and disposable people would be swapping them out or upgrading every year or collect them by the dozens.

 

[Wolfsburg]

The PT was literally full of thousands or millions of droids that were little more than cannon fodder. It's clear droids are plentiful and mass produced in the GFFA. Whatever primitive robots and automation we have in our real world hardly compares to what is possible in the GFFA. I have little doubt that many of those jobs you describe will eventually be replaced by automation in the decades or centuries to come. Someone keeping a companion droid for decades doesn't imply it couldn't be easily replaced.

 

[dascoyne]

For a singular purpose (warfare) with the budget of the military you can mass produce droids or Sherman tanks all day. Just because one kind of droid is mass produced doesn't mean that applies to all droids in all circumstances. Do you know how stupidly expensive it is to repair, maintain and operate a Sherman tank today? Why don't hobbyists just tool up and rip one off the assembly line today if they're so cheap to build?

Perhaps this one machine part they are working on isn't worth the expense of running a droid. Maybe the prison system outbid the Widget Factory's proposal to custom make droids just to build that one part for the government contract. Keep in mind that inmate labor is cheap because they have to house and feed them regardless of if they're working or not. It doesn't look like it takes that much skill to make that piece. Is that so implausible?

 

[Wolfsburg]

For a singular purpose (warfare) with the budget of the military you can mass produce droids or Sherman tanks all day. Just because one kind of droid is mass produced doesn't mean that applies to all droids in all circumstances. Do you know how stupidly expensive it is to repair, maintain and operate a Sherman tank today? Why don't hobbyists just tool up and rip one off the assembly line today if they're so cheap to build?

Perhaps this one machine part they are working on isn't worth the expense of running a droid. Maybe the prison system outbid the Widget Factory's proposal to custom make droids just to build that one part for the government contract. Keep in mind that inmate labor is cheap because they have to house and feed them regardless of if they're working or not. It doesn't look like it takes that much skill to make that piece. Is that so implausible?

It's not implausible but it doesn't make much sense. We've even seen factories in the PT that appeared to have only automated machinery. The old man having a stroke and the riot in the other level is exactly why this sort of thing is inferior to just using machines. The costs of housing and feeding them is one aspect, but it's just inefficient. Given the emphasis on quotas and schedules regarding whatever it is they are making, productivity could presumably go way up if you had machines that could operate around the clock with high precision. Not to mention you would totally eliminate the need for guards or electrified floors and likely minimize the chances of mistakes and human error. The notion that using organic labor is cheaper in a canon where droids are plentiful and commonplace just makes no sense to me, given all the other pitfalls a live worker entails. I think the show is about to demonstrate exactly why using living forced labor is not superior to droids.

I've just never seen much within the SW canon that implied droids were particularly valuable or even highly regarded beyond some individual instances like Luke being kind to Threepio and Artoo or some individual cases of the other companions we see. Nobody worries about upsetting a droid.

 

[dascoyne]

In manufacturing the devil is in the details. Today we are capable of automating the manufacture of shoe soles, uppers and laces yet it is still more cost effective to have those bits assembled by hand in sweat shops than to build a machine that can run flawlessly around the clock. You can make the case that robotics is a better solution all day, but you can't say it is cheaper or even cost-effective to run a robot, even in a galaxy far, far away.

If you believe that we are simply in a transition to the day robots will replace sweat shops then maybe the Star Wars universe is still in some state of transition as well.

As I stated, inmates are already being fed and housed at the expense of the state so the added cost is negligible. It is cost-effective even if it is not elegant.

If you just want to say it is a bad idea then I don't disagree. I would be making mostly a moral argument, not a practical one. Remember, we are talking about the Empire. The Empire doesn't value life and wouldn't care if they have to swap out fallen inmates for fresh bodies. That is kinda the entire point of Star Wars, right? Empire bad.


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And if inmates were only held captive without doing work that doesn't eliminate the need for guards or electrical floors. It is actually the opposite. Having some routine for inmates absolutely makes it easier to monitor and control them. If they just sat around all day in their cells like hamsters in cages you would get more escape attempts and rioting.

Your entire premise rests on the presumption that, in Star Wars, droids are "dirt cheap" and easily replaced. You have yet to make that case. At best you can argue that slave labor is inelegant and immoral, but you can't say that it is cheaper. The cost is human (or alien) suffering is not even a factor with the Empire.

If you want to absolutely prove that droids are cost-effective for this one task you'd have to do so on a spreadsheet. I'm only saying that it is entirely plausible (and more likely) that it is not. They might be ubiquitous and more affordable but that is still a far, far cry from them being so cheap they are disposable. The way I know that slave labor is cheaper for this specific task in the Star Wars universe is that they actually say so in the show.

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And, if your concept of the Star Wars universe is a utopia where droid technology is advanced to where physical labor is all but obsolete, then there's nothing I can tell you that is going to change your mind. We will just have to agree to disagree there.

 

[Victor3]

I think that in this case, we’re seeing how the Imperial mindset is slow in changing to the success of the Rebellion at Aldhani.

The prison system is likely a carryover from the Republic, although with some additional levels of ruthlessness added in by the Empire. By gaming the production system in the prison, the presumption is that the inmates are too caught up in the game to plot insurrection, while others just want to keep their heads down and get out. Up to this point, the sentient workforce is cheaper than droids because they’re already there. The imperials are so confident in the system of this prison that they’re willing cut costs by understaffing it.

Now, thanks to Aldhani, we now have the PORD. This is vey much in line with the Tarkin Doctrine, and is an attempt to reassert control through fear. Now, you can be sent to prison for 6 years, just for looking at a Trooper the wrong way. Short of just disappearing people yet, the Empire instill fear in the population and gets a cheap workforce without additional investment. Some of the inmates have heard about the PORD, and are desperate to see if Cassian knows anything, about sentencing changes.

However, the new regulations mean a learning curve in an understaffed facility. They also didn’t take the minutiae into account. The prison admin screwed up while working with the new directives, and word got out through the inmates. Because of this, rather than instilling greater fear, the inmates will decide that they have NOTHING LEFT to fear.

Were it not for the PORD, the prison labor force would continue to be more economical than building droid factories. However, now that they’re switching to a model of endless incarceration, you open up the doors for exactly the trouble that Wolfsburg describes.

Much as Dedra and Luthen realize, the Imperial overreaction is going to spur the rebellion on. The jail break is a microcosm of what will happen on a galactic scale.

 

[joberg]

The bureaucratic "error" was made on purpose to eliminate a bunch of prisoners and make room for fresh ones. If that prison facility is housing people, from around the Galaxy, deemed "problematic" by the Empire (anyone can be incarcerated for a petty reason it seems and to fuel terror into the population) then, those facilities become engorged with more prisoners than they can house. Hence, the "error", the riot and the results of such action by humans who have nothing to loose were known psychological responses from the jailers.
They (the prisoners)basically fell for it. Nothing to see here at the end of the day; move along

 

[Riceball]

The argument about droids working around the clock is, in the case of what we see in Andor, invalid. In the facility that we see Andor in, every floor runs 2 12 hours shifts which, presumably, gives them around the clock production with only a little time lost to the shift change. The fact that there's more than 1 shift per day, per floor is even mentioned in Andor's "welcoming" speech in which he's told a number and it's explained to him that the number refers to the floor, his shift, and I think one other thing. So it's more than just 1 shift a day on each floor, it's just that we only see Andor's shift since there's no reason to show his floor's other shift(s).

 

[dascoyne]

I just realized the initial question was left on the table. Just how did they expect the "released" inmate not to say anything wherever he went? I don't know. It wasn't explained. We are getting this information from a tertiary source, at best. All we know is that an inmate from Level 4 to be released was sent to Level 2 and the whole floor was wiped. Even the notion of it being an error is pure conjecture on the part of the inmate-medic. Maybe we will find out the answer and maybe we won't. There's enough ambiguity in the facts that one can craft a number of plausible explanations. I think you can draw out a lot with the repeated premise that the Empire simply "doesn't care" what the inmates say or do, so long as they remain under the thumb.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Maybe they didn’t believe he would not talk about it. Perhaps they simply don’t care.

Andorr got a six-year sentence because a stormtrooper saw him and assumed he was a bad guy. There was no trial, only sentencing.

The way they can round up anybody they want, probably very few people there are actually criminals. And therefore they are all expendable.

So, they probably didn’t care whether he talked or not. They can fry the entire batch and have it replaced by the end of the week

 

[dascoyne]

Maybe they didn’t believe he would not talk about it. Perhaps they simply don’t care.

The reason Andorr got a six year sentence with because a storm trooper saw him and assumed he was a bad guy. There was no trial, only a sentencing.

The way they can round up anybody they want, probably very few of the people in there are actually criminally. And therefore they are all expendable.

So, they probably didn’t care whether he talked or not. They can fry the entire batch and have it replaced by the end of the week

Dedra Meero said herself that the Empire's attitude is to assume everything they catch is a "fish."
Cassian was in the wrong place at the wrong time which was enough for the beach trooper to treat him like another fish.

 

[Wolfsburg]

I’ll simply have to digress on the efficacy and frugality of automation vs using slave labor and all the headaches and pitfalls that can entail. Maybe droids in the GFFA are very expensive and impractical but that certainly hasn’t been my takeaway after 9 movies. One set of mindless droids working around the clock vs multiple shifts of living beings seems cheaper to me in the long run but we’ll have to agree to disagree I suppose.

I personally think Cassian’s statement was a throwaway line meant to explain why there are no droids (since we’ve seen an automated factory in SW before) just to justify the scenario the writers came up with. It’s fun and I love the show but that was a hiccup that didn’t quite sell with me personally.

Regarding the “leak” of that one guy being mistakenly reassigned, I agree that maybe more will be made clear later. I suppose the Empire simply doesn’t care but certainly riots and killing the workforce are no good for the bottom line!

 

[Kylash]

Plus, imagine the cleanup.

 

[Master Boda]

Plus, imagine the cleanup.

Nothing a droid couldn’t handle.