Kamino’s disappearance from the Jedi Archives led Obi-Wan Kenobi to the Sith plot in Attack of the Clones, but why and how did it go missing?
The disappearance of Kamino from the Jedi Archives in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones led Obi-Wan Kenobi to discover the clone army commissioned for the Republic, and its mysterious absence from the archives is one of the foremost clues in the Sith’s Order 66 plot. When Obi-Wan traced Jango Fett’s assassination plot back to Kamino, he was unable to find the planet on any map in the Archives, and he and Yoda deduced the information must have been deleted by a Jedi. This is the most suspicious circumstance surrounding the creation of the clone army, given that whoever deleted the record hoped Kamino wouldn’t be discovered until the time was right. Order 66 may have been the perfect Jedi trap, but the questions still surrounding a Jedi meddling in the Archive could have given it away.
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The Kamino clone project had been secretly commissioned by the Jedi Sifo-Dyas, who felt dark times approaching and wanted to protect the Republic on a grand scale. His plan was controversial, so he kept his machinations a secret. However, the Sith also knew about his plans and even funded the commission of the army through Damask Holdings, essentially a shell corporation for Darth Plagueis’ Sith money. Count Dooku then murdered his old friend Sifo-Dyas to keep him out of the way as they took control of the Kamino clones. From that point, Dooku controlled the plans, including selecting Jango Fett as the template for the clone army. However, it’s still unclear where the deletion of Kamino from the Archive fell in this plan or who did it.
Even before the Sith took control, Sifo-Dyas could have deleted Kamino from the Jedi Archives to keep quiet the commitment he made to begin cloning an army, allowing him to reveal the sensitive subject at the right time. Sifo-Dyas was still a Jedi Master until his death, which gave him full access to the Jedi Archives to make the deletion. No other Jedi knew about his plans, and he took a secret investment to fund the project, effectively keeping it off the radar until it was ready. The Republic didn’t have a military before the Clone Wars, so Sifo-Dyas’ cloning commission would have meant drastic changes for the Republic. He would not want another Jedi opposed to his plans unwittingly stumbling upon Kamino before he could control the narrative.
However, the most common theory is that Count Dooku deleted Kamino after murdering Sifo-Dyas to ensure the clone army would stay a secret from the Jedi until it was too late to turn back. Dooku was a former Jedi Master and the Sith’s puppetmaster of the cloning project, making him a likely candidate for meddling in the Archives. Although his motivation makes the most sense, the theory is complicated by Dooku’s departure from the Jedi Order prior to turning to the Dark Side. He could have masterminded another manner of access using his intimate knowledge of the Jedi Archives or used an unknown proxy. He also may have been manipulated into making the changes before he left the Jedi Order as part of Plagueis and Palpatine’s grand plan. Whoever ultimately made the deletion, Palpatine was sure to be behind it, pulling the strings either within the Jedi or the Sith.
The Kamino cloning project is perhaps the most important part of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, setting the stage for the fall of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire, but the movements of the Sith and Jedi behind it are shrouded in mystery. The Sith kept their secrets so well that Yoda could not predict Order 66 despite seeing a vision of it. Knowing exactly how this key part of the plan that kept the Jedi away from Kamino occurred would help tie together the Sith’s often-subtle influence behind the scenes of the prequels. The Sith clearly controlled far more than the Jedi could imagine, but the deletion of Kamino from the Jedi Archives shows just how deep the Sith had their claws in both the Republic and the Jedi.
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