In this chapter Dragon is getting to the heart of the side story of Egghead arc: A child is their parent’s weak spot. In general, you could say that one’s family is a relative’s weak spot, as you have seen with Kuma. If you have control over their wellbeing, you can force anyone to do, what you want (not just parents). I like how Oda makes that once again very clear here. And this is also, why Dragon did not want anyone to know that Luffy is his child.
Also look at Stussy in this chapter. There is something very interesting going on with her. Here she seems to express a high level of resignation towards her being a clone. That she even comments on how she would rather like to not have an awareness is telling. If she is saying this, than she must have met much hatred, during her life to not want to have a consciousness. I wonder if she hates herself because of it or the other people, who threw that hatred at her. And I also wonder if said hatred stems from ehr being a clone, like it was mentioned in chapter 1072.
In this regard, she is exactly like the tragic character of Ace. Both characters were weighted down by their father’s influence:
Ace: He suffered under the fame of Gol D. Roger as he was seen as a devil, only because he was the son of the pirate king. This ate away at his feeling of self-worth until he questioned, if it was not be the best, if he were dead or never born.
Stussy: She suffered under the fact that Vegapunk created her as a clone and the world did not accept her, because of the way she was born. It even goes so far that Stussy thinks it better to not be conscious rather than the opposite. The panel shows also a heavy resignation to her fate. She has accepted being a clone, but is not happy with it.
In my opinion, this is going to play a deeper role in the current Egghead arc.
Also, in Wano we had quite clearly the loose plot-strand of Ace’s death brought up again. Luffy still has to face his earlier defeat in Marineford and Sabaody and the fact, that he had not been able to safe either his crew nor his brother Ace back then. However, again, we are in a similar situation now, with 30.000 soldiers, 9 VAs, Kizaru and Saturn and an armada of ships surrounding Egghead. And look who wants to flee: Luffy. And he wants to take his crew and Vegapunk with him. The only one person missing is Ace.
So, all that we would need was one character, who acts and maybe even thinks like Ace did - and maybe looks even like him... .
They would need to question themselves in quite the same way Ace did. And this character would also need to have a connection to Vegapunk as a father-figure. Because, in Marineford, we had Whitbeard, who wanted to safe Ace. Here, we have Vegapunk, who is already identified as a father-figure to Stussy and maybe even to a few of his Satellites and Seraphims.
This whole arc is so much like Marineford... .