The Umbara arc in The Clone Wars animated series remains one of the darkest storylines the franchise ever produced. Republic forces fought through perpetual night against technologically superior enemies while their own general conspired to get them killed. Clones murdered each other in the darkness, believing they were fighting droids. The campaign ended with soldiers executing their commanding officer for treason. This is the conflict Luco Bronc survived before becoming a mercenary sniper in Star Wars: Zero Company.
Understanding the Umbara campaign explains Luco’s relationships with his squadmates, particularly Trick the clone trooper. His perspective as someone who fought against the Republic invasion shapes how he operates in a mercenary company that includes former enemies. The Umbara campaign in 20 BBY was brutal enough to leave scars that one year couldn’t heal.
The Umbara Campaign Was a Nightmare
The Republic invasion of Umbara in 20 BBY turned into one of the Clone Wars’ bloodiest engagements. Umbaran forces possessed advanced weapons technology that outclassed standard Republic equipment. Their starfighters moved faster, their mobile heavy cannons hit harder, and their soldiers operated in near-total darkness on a world where daylight never reached the surface.
Clone troopers accustomed to winning through numerical superiority and Jedi leadership found themselves outmatched. The terrain offered no advantages. Bioluminescent plants provided the only light, creating visibility conditions that favored defenders who had spent their entire lives in darkness. Umbaran militia knew the ground, understood the environment, and possessed weapons specifically designed for these conditions.
The tactical situation deteriorated when Jedi General Pong Krell took command of the 501st Legion. Krell had already fallen to the dark side and deliberately issued orders designed to maximize clone casualties. He sent soldiers into obvious traps, refused to adapt tactics when they failed, and eventually ordered clone units to fire on each other by falsely claiming they were fighting Umbaran soldiers in stolen armor. Clones killed their own brothers in the confusion, believing they were fighting the enemy.
When the truth emerged, clone troopers executed Krell themselves. The Umbara campaign ended as a Republic victory only in the sense that they held the planet afterward. General Obi-Wan Kenobi’s forces captured the capital and secured all sectors, bringing Umbara under Republic control. The cost in clone lives made it one of the war’s most pyrrhic successes.
What This Means for Luco Bronc
Luco survived this catastrophe from the Umbaran side. He fought as a soldier in the Umbaran Militia, watching the Republic invasion force butcher its way across his homeworld. He saw clone troopers, the same soldiers now fighting alongside him in Zero Company, kill Umbaran defenders. The Republic conquered Umbara, and whatever life Luco had before the war ended with that conquest.
The timeline makes this connection particularly raw. The Umbara campaign occurred in 20 BBY, just one year before Order 66 ended the Clone Wars in 19 BBY. Zero Company operates somewhere in that compressed timeframe after Umbara’s fall. Depending on when exactly the game is set, Luco’s transition from Umbaran defender to mercenary could have happened in months or stretched across most of that year. Either way, the wounds remain fresh. He didn’t spend years processing the trauma before taking up arms again. He went from watching his homeworld burn to working as a gun for hire while the war that destroyed Umbara still raged.
Zero Company includes Trick, a clone trooper and one of the company’s founding members. Clones killed Umbarans. Umbarans killed clones. Now they’re on the same team. According to available information about Luco’s character, he still hasn’t forgiven the Republic for the Battle of Umbara. He joined Zero Company not out of ideological alignment but to fight alongside them against a common enemy threatening the wider galaxy. This creates built-in character tension that doesn’t require elaborate backstory justification. Luco has concrete reasons to distrust clone troopers specifically and Republic forces generally. He has reasons to question orders, to wonder if he’s being manipulated the way Krell manipulated clone units on Umbara.
The nature of this common enemy remains unclear from available information. During the Clone Wars, most conflicts involved Republic versus Separatist forces. What threat would unite former enemies from both sides? Whatever motivated Luco to work with Zero Company, it wasn’t forgiveness or ideological conversion. He’s there because something threatens the galaxy that concerns him more than his grudge against the Republic, at least temporarily.
Luco’s relationship with Trick specifically reflects this tension. The two often don’t get along, with their conflict rooted in their opposing histories during the war. Trick represents the clone army that conquered Umbara. Luco represents the defenders who fought against that conquest. Zero Company forces them to work together despite that history, and the game’s emphasis on player choices suggests these dynamics will affect how missions unfold and how the story develops.
Umbaran Biology and Combat Style
Umbarans evolved on a world without sunlight. Their eyes adapted to near-darkness, giving them significant advantages in low-light combat. This biological adaptation shaped Umbaran military doctrine around stealth, ambush tactics, and fighting in conditions where most species struggle to see. Luco’s pale white skin, white eyes, and white-blond hair mark him visually as Umbaran, making him instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the species.
Luco’s sniper role makes perfect sense given this background. Umbaran soldiers trained to exploit darkness and limited visibility. Long-range precision shooting from concealment plays to every natural advantage his species possesses. He can operate in conditions where human soldiers need night vision equipment or other technological aids just to see their targets. The Umbaran military used this to devastating effect during the Republic invasion. Their soldiers struck from shadows, disappeared before Republic forces could respond, and turned the planet’s permanent darkness into a tactical weapon. Luco learned these techniques while fighting clone troopers during the conquest. Now he uses them in Zero Company’s operations.
Bit Reactor’s XCOM background suggests Zero Company will emphasize tactical positioning and environmental awareness. A character whose entire combat doctrine revolves around exploiting darkness and sightlines fits perfectly into that design philosophy. Luco’s Umbaran heritage directly informs how he should function mechanically. Missions in low-light environments become opportunities to showcase his advantages. Operations requiring stealth and precision leverage his training and natural abilities. His species characteristics aren’t just lore details but gameplay mechanics that affect how players approach tactical challenges.
His reputation as an incendiary sniper and being described as ‘sharp-tongued’ suggests personality traits shaped by his experiences. Surviving a brutal conquest and joining a mercenary company that includes former enemies would make anyone cynical and defensive. The sharp tongue might be how Luco maintains distance from squadmates he doesn’t fully trust, particularly Trick.
The Mercenary Question
Luco’s transition to mercenary work raises questions about what happened after the Republic secured Umbara. The planet came under Republic control following the campaign, which meant occupation by the same military force that had just conquered it. For an Umbaran militia soldier who fought against that conquest, staying on Umbara under Republic occupation would have been difficult or impossible. He either fled during the final stages of the battle, was captured and later released, or left shortly after the Republic established control.
The Clone Wars ended just one year after Umbara’s fall when Palpatine transformed the Republic into the Empire. Umbara’s fate under Imperial rule isn’t well-documented in canon, but the Empire generally treated non-human worlds poorly. An Umbaran with military training and explicit grievances against the Republic would have strong motivation to avoid Imperial attention. Leaving Umbara and operating as a mercenary keeps him mobile and makes him harder to track or control.
Mercenary work offers survival without requiring allegiance to causes that have already proven themselves destructive. Luco watched his homeworld’s defense fail. He saw what happens when you commit to a side in a galactic war. Taking contracts for credits avoids the ideological commitments that got his people conquered and occupied. This cynicism creates character arc opportunities if Bit Reactor chooses to explore them. Working with Zero Company’s other members, some of whom might have idealistic motivations or lingering loyalty to factions, could challenge Luco’s perspective or reinforce his belief that causes don’t matter.
The fact that Luco joined Zero Company to fight a common enemy threatening the wider galaxy suggests something convinced him that sitting out wasn’t an option. Whatever this threat is, it concerned him enough to work alongside clone troopers despite his unresolved anger about Umbara. The game will presumably reveal what enemy could unite former Republic and Separatist forces during a period when those two factions still dominated galactic conflict.
The compressed one-year timeline between Umbara’s fall and Order 66 also raises questions about how quickly Luco adapted to mercenary life. He went from defending his homeworld to working for hire in less than twelve months. That’s not enough time to process trauma, build a new identity, or develop the hardened cynicism typical of veteran mercenaries. Luco is still figuring out who he is post-conquest while operating in a squad that includes someone who represents everything he lost. The game’s narrative choice system suggests players will influence how that relationship develops and whether Luco finds any resolution or just carries his anger through the entire campaign.
Context and Consequences
Most Star Wars games feature protagonists with uncomplicated relationships to the conflict. They’re rebels fighting the Empire, Republic soldiers fighting Separatists, or neutral parties who pick a side early and commit. Luco’s background resists this simplicity. He fought for the losing side in a defensive war. The Republic invaded Umbara as part of its military campaign to defeat the Separatist Alliance after Umbara withdrew from the Republic and joined the Confederacy. The Republic won. Umbarans lost. The moral complexity of that situation doesn’t resolve neatly into good guys and bad guys.
This moral ambiguity enriches Zero Company’s potential narrative. The game can explore Clone Wars complexity through a character who experienced Republic military power as an occupying force. Luco’s perspective challenges the simple Republic good, Separatists bad framing without making him a villain. He’s not a Separatist ideologue or a war criminal. He’s someone who defended his home and lost, then found himself working alongside the people who took it. That’s a different kind of story than most Star Wars games tell, and it’s one that fits Zero Company’s apparent focus on morally complicated characters operating in gray areas.
The Umbara arc’s reputation among Clone Wars fans also helps. It’s consistently ranked as one of the series’ best storylines. Fans remember the darkness, Krell’s betrayal, and the clones’ moral crisis when they discovered they’d been killing each other. Connecting Luco to that arc immediately signals that Zero Company understands what made The Clone Wars compelling. The war’s moral complexity and the human cost of galactic conflict matter more than simple good-versus-evil dynamics. Bit Reactor isn’t just pulling a random Separatist world for Luco’s background. They chose the Clone Wars campaign that best represents the franchise’s willingness to question whether the Republic’s military actions were always justified.
What Zero Company Could Do With This
Bit Reactor confirmed Zero Company features narrative choices that affect how the story develops. Luco’s Umbara background creates obvious opportunities for meaningful decisions. How does the squad handle missions that benefit Republic interests? Does Luco’s perspective on those operations differ from squadmates who don’t share his history? How does Trick respond when Luco questions orders or refuses to trust Republic contacts? What happens if they encounter other Umbaran survivors who see Luco as a traitor for working with clones, or if they take contracts that put them against Separatist remnants Luco might sympathize with?
The game could also use Luco’s perspective to complicate its portrayal of the Clone Wars. If Zero Company operates in morally gray territory, taking contracts from various clients without formal allegiance to Republic or Separatist causes, Luco becomes the character who questions whether they’re different from the forces that invaded his homeworld. His cynicism about causes and allegiances could function as the voice asking uncomfortable questions about what Zero Company is really doing, who benefits from their operations, and whether they’re just mercenaries serving whoever pays or something more purposeful.
His sniper role provides mechanical opportunities that connect to his background. Stealth missions where Luco’s darkness adaptation creates tactical advantages other squad members don’t have. Long-range elimination contracts that play to his training and species abilities. Situations where his ability to operate in low-light conditions gives the squad capabilities they wouldn’t possess otherwise. Reconnaissance operations where Umbaran stealth doctrine proves essential. The game can make Luco feel mechanically essential in ways that justify his presence beyond just being the squad’s designated long-range damage dealer.
The Umbara campaign’s brutality also sets expectations for Zero Company’s tone. This isn’t a game about heroic soldiers saving the galaxy through noble deeds. It’s about damaged people doing difficult work during a war where both sides committed atrocities and moral clarity was rare. Luco embodies that darkness. He survived one of the Clone Wars’ worst campaigns, watched his homeworld fall to an occupying force, and came out the other side willing to work for whoever pays as long as they’re fighting something he considers a genuine threat. That’s a darker protagonist type than Star Wars games typically feature, and it suggests Zero Company is willing to explore moral complexity without defaulting to simple frameworks where players always fight for the obviously right side.
The one-year timeline between Umbara’s fall and Order 66 means all of this unfolds in a compressed period. Luco’s character arc, his relationships with other squad members, and whatever resolution his story finds all occur while the war still rages and the catastrophe of Order 66 approaches. The urgency of that timeline affects everyone in Zero Company, but Luco’s perspective as someone who already lost his world to Republic military action gives him a different relationship to the coming disaster than characters who still believe the Republic represents something worth defending.