Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 has now come to a close, successfully tying up several loose ends for Clone Force 99, Omega, and the franchise as a whole. However, aside from ending this side of the story of the young clone and her brothers, it also gives a rough timeline for Project Necromancer.
Project Necromancer was first mentioned in Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 3, promising to explain how Emperor Palpatine managed to return in Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. Though details about it remained scarce then, The Bad Batch Season 3 revealed its specifics.
Warning: Major spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk.
Despite Palpatine and Dr. Royce Hemlock’s big efforts to complete the project, Clone Force 99 managed to prevent them from fulfilling this evil plan. Hunter and Crosshair defeated Hemlock, leaving the program with no leader. Palpatine also seemingly allowed Governor Wilhuff Tarkin to stop its operation following Hemlock’s death and put its funding to Project Stardust.
Nala Se then put the final nail in the coffin, sacrificing herself to blow up the databanks on Tantiss so the Empire would have no chance to use them. However, it wasn’t the end of it and the project was ultimately restarted. The mention of it in The Mandalorian Season 3 revealed the program was ongoing again.
So, as Project Necromancer was stopped during the Imperial Era, it was back in full swing during the New Republic Era. The Remnants of the Empire continued working on the project, with Captain Gilad Pellaeon discussing it in a meeting with the Shadow Council. Commandant Brendol Hux now led the program in the hope of introducing new leadership to the Imperial Remnants and reviving Palpatine and the Empire.
What is Project Necromancer in Star Wars?
Project Necromancer was a biological research program supervised by the Imperial Advanced Science Division. It aimed to enrich someone’s blood with midi-chlorians from an M-count source while keeping the subject’s DNA intact. However, a transfer binder was needed to do this, as directly replicating a source’s M-count was impossible.
The Bad Batch Season 3 finale revealed that Palpatine’s main goal in creating Project Necromancer was to create a clone with a higher M-Count than him. This way, he could increase his connection to the Force. If the project became successful, he would transfer his spirit to the clone and continue his reign in the Empire through a younger and more powerful body.
Palpatine gave Hemlock all the resources he needed, but the latter still found it hard to artificially increase one’s M-count, as cloning decreased the M-count from the original to clone. According to the Imperials, Project Necromancer was meant to restore the stability and leadership of the Empire. Hence, it would be used to clone Palpatine so that he could start to rule again.
All The Bad Batch Season 3 episodes are available to stream on Disney+. As Project Necromancer is back in operation again in The Mandalorian Season 3, more details about this project may be explored in the fourth season of the live-action series.
