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In the movies, TV shows, and books, it seems that if a droid is *not* routinely mind-wiped, they develop a personality, and tend to perform their function better. Is it a matter of their being some risk of them becoming less obedient, that droids tend to be wiped every so often? In at least one of the books, IIRC, they mention that because R2 and Luke's X-Wing not having been wiped, that they function better together, but said starfighter can't accept another droid. For something like a protocol droid, would a more individual personality be undesirable? Is it more a matter of a droid starting to question why it should work for a master, when it gets no pay and practically no respect? It's just an interesting topic, and it seems odd that no society within the SW universe seems to ever treat droids as more than property...

The reason for wiping if I remember correctly is that droids who aren't wiped start to develop quirks and will impede function.

Artoo thanks to not being wiped has neutronium balls and is brave for a droid, it can also be a bad thing. If Artoo wasn't so lucky him picking fights with Super Battle Droids and running into blasterfire could wind up destroying him, meaning he can't perform his functions. How shit would Anakin or Luke be if Artoo gets blasted by a Battle Droid or Stormie and now they got no way of going to hyperspace when they try to escape.

For Threepio his personality quirk means he shows cowardice and fear. Such a thing could be bad for a interpreter when he is supposed to be helping to negotiate with some horrible space monsters but can't because he is to busy cowering in terror.

And droids thinking for themselves can lead to droids wondering why they would want to fight for the Empire or Rebellion, why they should be slaves, why work at all? To us it might seem harsh as fuck, and it is considering that droids do appear to be sapient even practically disposable B-1 battledroids, but apparently most of the Star Wars galaxy sees them as just dumb machines.

In The Clone Wars series primitive B1 Battledroids show emotions like fear, pain and distress and they're about the most abused kind of droid out there, which includes their own masters. They probably don't get wiped regularly because they have a short lifespan anyway, but imagine these guys surviving their deployments and developing advanced personalities. In one episode a Battledroid expresses concern that other members of his kind are about to become gratuitious collateral damage and even sounds resignated and mournful when his concerns are ignored. There's a reason they are all connected to a central command and can be switched off collectively at a moment's notice...

What I read on wikis is that the reason they are wiped is to prevent them from rebelling or becoming a threat to their owners. This is a detriment to their functionality, yes. After all, droids are capable of learning and thus their experience would aid them in completing their function.
Note that C3PO interpreted when he had some assurance of this safety or even in the presence of his master. R2 did very risky things but he did that to complete jobs he was assigned to, jobs that a more risk-averse robot may not have been able to complete. Him getting blasted might be bad but if his master died his mission would be rendered redundant anyway.

The practice came about probably because of paranoia after the Separist invasion. When you have a robot army invading and trampling a non-robot population, people will rather sacrifice functionality to feel safer. It's irrational thing meant to ward of fear rather than truly address it but that's people for you.

Zixinus wrote:What I read on wikis is that the reason they are wiped is to prevent them from rebelling or becoming a threat to their owners. This is a detriment to their functionality, yes. After all, droids are capable of learning and thus their experience would aid them in completing their function.

It probably depends on how well the owner treats their droids. Someone like Luke or Anakin, who holds their droid in high esteem and generally cares well for him, would gain little from wiping R2's memory. However for an owner like Owen Lars, who views the droid as nothing but a machine, would obviously have a better reason to wipe the memory of his droids as there was never any memory of good will. In many cases, it would also make sense for a new owner to memory wipe his droids to get rid of any remaining loyalty to the original master. This was obviously Owen's intent with R2.

Zixinus wrote:The practice came about probably because of paranoia after the Separist invasion. When you have a robot army invading and trampling a non-robot population, people will rather sacrifice functionality to feel safer. It's irrational thing meant to ward of fear rather than truly address it but that's people for you.

Given that the CIS was wise enough to not use droid armies without a control signal, I doubt there would be much backlash against droids in general because of it. As the Clone Wars were raging, we still saw police droids on Corucsant. We even see IG-88 as a droid bounty hunter in ESB (thankfully the trash story with him taking over the second Death Star is no longer canon).

Though it is interesting that the Clone Wars used both of the armies that could be created in secret, droids and clones. I almost wonder if Palpatine did this to cause a backlash against them so as to prevent any others from using them against him.