It’s Taken Five Years, But Star Wars Has Finally Explained Why The Empire Wanted Grogu

Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3, episode 8.

It’s been five years since Grogu’s debut in The Mandalorian, and Star Wars: The Bad Batch has finally given Star Wars the chance to explain why he’s wanted by the Empire. Though The Bad Batch focuses on Clone Force 99 and the events directly following the rise of the Galactic Empire in the aftermath of Order 66, the animated series has been connecting to The Mandalorian ever since season 1. Now, iThe Bad Batch season 3 has doubled down on these connections, and it’s helping to explain vital aspects of the live-action series – particularly where cloning is concerned.

The Bad Batch season 3 premiere revealed that Omega’s blood can sustain a high “M-count” transfer without degrading the specimen. While the audience knows that M-counts are Midi-chlorians, the characters do not have this same luxury, thus they are unaware that Omega is vital to Project Necromancer – Emperor Palpatine’s contingency plan to clone himself that will ultimately lead to his return in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Omega’s story parallels Grogu’s own, and it’s since allowed Star Wars to explain one vital aspect of his story.

The Bad Batch Has Revealed The Empire Had “M-Count” Bounties

The Bad Batch season 3, episode 8 “Bad Territory” has at last confirmed the Empire placed bounties on individuals with high M-counts. Similarly to how the Imperial Inquisitors operated, these bounty hunters were meant to hunt people with high M-counts, who were either confirmed to be Force-sensitive or had the potential t sustain transfer, for the Empire and their experimentation on Project Necromancer. These M-count bounties were of extremely high value, which made them appealing to bounty hunters – as seen in The Mandalorian with Grogu.

The importance of these targets made them a part of the elite underworld, which is reinforced by the Mandalorian Din Djarin when he first receives his commission for Grogu in The Mandalorian. When Greef Karga offers him the bounty on Grogu, Din simply asks, “Underworld?” to which Greef doesn’t explicitly respond, as he instead insists that all he has the chain code. The implication is that these M-count bounties were as valuable as they were difficult to find – particularly because many of them were much, much younger than any ordinary target.

Why The Empire Wanted Infants With High M-Counts

Going after infants with high M-counts is nothing new in Star Wars, particularly for Palpatine himself. Star Wars: The Clone Wars saw him recruit the bounty hunter Cad Bane to kidnap Force-sensitive infants and take them to Mustafar, which is likely where the first seeds for Palpatine’s Project Necromancer were sewn – years before the Empire actually rose to power. In a cruel way, infants are the easiest target for the Empire to use, as they are less resistant to experimentation – and they offer Palpatine a longer lifetime should he transfer into them as a host body.

Grogu’s High M-Count Meant The Empire Still Had A Bounty On Him Decades Later

Though The Bad Batch takes place over 20 years before the events of The Mandalorian, the Empire never took their bounty off Grogu for this very reason. Project Necromancer is confirmed to still be in progress by the time of The Mandalorian season 3, when Captain Pellaeon mentions Commandant Hux’s work on it at a meeting of the Imperial Shadow Council. Grogu, then, is still vital to their efforts, and his slow aging makes him even more of a vital specimen for the Empire to use in their experimentation.

This means that the period of darkness Ahsoka Tano describes when sharing Grogu’s memories with Din Djarin in The Mandalorian season 2 is likely years and years of Grogu being pursued by bounty hunters on the Empire’s behalf. Moff Gideon’s desire to get Grogu is nothing new; Grogu and his M-count have long since been sought out, at all costs. There’s no telling what exactly Grogu went through during those times, particularly how he managed to slip out of their grasp time and time again – and the longer Grogu survived, the harder things got for him.

By The Mandalorian Era, M-Count Targets Would Be Hard To Find

Grogu’s importance to the Imperial Remnant only grows more when considering how much of a limited resource he is in their eyes. By the time of the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke is considered to be the only Jedi left, something that alone proves how rare Force-sensitives had truly become. The Imperial Inquisitors had also done much of the work required of them up until that point, eliminating as many Force-sensitives as they could all across the galaxy – including themselves. While Ahsoka, Ezra Bridger, and more were still around, many others were not.

By the time of The Mandalorian, then, there were barely any M-count targets left. Grogu has thus become even more of a perfect target for the Empire, as his slow aging has allowed for him to continue being the ideal specimen they need for their experimentation. While the matter of why some bounty hunters were told to kill Grogu and others were told to bring him in alive is still unclear for now, the question of why he was being hunted in the first place has at last been answered – as well as why he’s a popular target for bounty hunters all across the galaxy.

Dauntingly, this means that even after the death of Moff Gideon, Grogu will still be hunted by the Imperial Remnant. As he continues to receive beskar armor and training from his adoptive father and Mandalorian mentor, Grogu will at least be more protected, but the continuation of Project Necromancer means that Grogu and his M-count will always be desired by the Empire. It’s even more important, then, that Grogu learns to protect himself, as The Bad Batch is showing that the Empire will do whatever it takes to get who and what they want.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3, episodes 1-3 are available now on Disney+. Future episodes release Wednesdays at 12:00 a.m. PT, 3:00 a.m. ET, and 7:00 a.m. GMT.