Bail Organa post TFU

How come Bail Organa wasn't arrested for high treason immediately after TFU? Did he go into hiding? I'm surprised the entire House of Organa wasn't bumped off way before ANH. Is there a retcon for this?

 

Here we go again...

 

I think he fought in the resistances side for some time.I dont think he went back too the senate.It contradicts a Tales story and some guides and Rpg material but nothing major i guess.

 

I see various possibilities:

1. Palpatine was overconfident and didn't think the Rebellion would ever become a real threat, so was happy to let Bail fumble along always worrying when the bogeymen would finally bang down his door, and spying on him to identify all the traitors first.

2. He knew the execution or unexplained disappearance of a well loved member of the Senate would only stir up rebellion further. Instead, he decided to bide his time until the Death Star was completed and he could crush all resistance in one go through his delayed response to what had happened in TFU basically being maniacal Tarkin Doctrine laughter accompanied by a declaration of "YOU STILL WANT TO KARK WITH ME?!".

I'm inclined to believe its a little of both. The Rebellion was not yet a major threat, so dealing with Bail there and then would just have made the problem worse. Instead, he waited until the Death Star was complete, then--like a good Sith Lord-- took his revenge and cranked it up into major overkill by blowing up Bail's entire planet.

Bail thought he could screw with the Emperor... well, the Emperor screwed with Bail. It may have taken another year, but presumably it was worth the look on Leia's face, and the chance to scare the rebellion into total submission, or just one or two into grassing up the rest.

Seriously though, I basically see it the way the stories you hear about snipers having had chances to take out Saddam during the first Gulf War, or Hitler, and so on. Decisions just are sometimes taken not to kill somebody but to leave things to play out first.

 

The Force Unleashed novelization may have addressed this concern:

"He is dead," the Dark Lord intoned, gazing dispassionately at the body at their feet.
This moment, the apprentice thought. I saw this!
"Then he is more powerful than ever." The Emperor glanced up, watching sourly as the Rogue Shadow sped away into the busy sky. "He was meant to root out the Rebels, not give them hope. His sacrifice will only inspire them."
"But now we know who they are, my Master. I will hunt them down and destroy them, as you always intended--starting with the traitor Bail Organa."
The Emperor waved him silent and turned to walk away. "Patience, Lord Vader. Far better to destroy a man's hope first. Or that of someone close to him..."

 

Yeah, it makes absolutely no sense. I always just disregarded that bit of TFU.

 

Cronal? No need to get him involved. It was produced during the New Republic era (maybe the GA era) by the studios of Hollywoodtooine, based on a "true story" to make the foundation of the Rebellion more 'EXTREME'. Most historians (well, not Voren) were appalled by the liberties taken.

Cripes. If it came down to the movies or the Radio Drama, I'd take the Radio Drama.

 

Could....

Palpatine have had Bail killed, but cloned him from Kamino and then sneakingly replaced Bail.

Then Bail's clone got killed when the Death Star fired?

 

Well, having thought about this, it would make a lot of sense for Palpatine to keep his enemies where he can clearly see them so he can spy on them to uncover the other traitors in the senate. People like Bail Organa would be a lot more useful to Palpatine alive than dead and he obviously realised this after his failed attempt to nip the rebellion in the bud at the end of TFU. That's my theory. How he convinced Organa that he didn't have to hide in a cave somewhere for the rest of his life is another matter. Knowing how sly Palpatine is as a politician, he'd have found a way. I might write a fanfic that will make this all seem sooo logical.

 

It's all part of PROXY's corrupted memory banks, because Bail was always meant to run a legitimate "front" for the Alliance while Mon Mothma was the openly declared Rebel.

 

I'd imagine that Palpatine treated Bail in the same arrogant way he treated the Rebel fleet at Endor.

Darth Vader would have killed Bail right away, but Vader stays out of the political field. Vader spends ages hunting down the rebels but Palpatine is happy to just sit there while they're at their strongest moment.

The other thing is that Palpatine wants to keep down the number of high profile martyrs. Starkiller's sacrifice is already being used to increase rebel membership so the last thing he wants is to double that.

Then there's of course the "screwing with his head" thing where Bail wakes up after the worsed day of his life and everything's normal.

There's a concept called clemency, maybe Palpatine was trying to recover some lost reputation.

 

That's a good point.

It may have been Palpatine wanted to let him live so he could discredit the Starkiller story. Had he killed Bail, it'd have looked like a cover up. By letting Bail live, when Bail then goes out to recruit people, parading Starkiller as the noble martyr whose sacrifice should not go in vain, Palp's supporters question why Bail isn't dead yet.

Had only Bail been involved, he could have been made to "disappear" rather easily. But with how much chaos Starkiller sowed, a full blown cover up would have been noticable--that many high profile figures disappearing at once is going to raise questions-- so Palps uses reverse psychology to make Bail, Mon Mothma, et al, look like they're talking poodoo.

"He has this space station. Its as big as a moon!" "Moon, eh?"
"A Jedi nearly killed him!" "Uh huh. The Jedi are extinct bud."
"Vader was almost killed."

 

The key thing is that Palpatine was going to kill the Rebel leaders when he had all three of them together. When he could strike off the entire head of the budding Alliance, that would have solved his problems. Afterward, with Garm and Mon back on the loose, it doesn't do him any good to kill the one whom he can already keep an eye on. It just gives the Rebels a very high-profile martyr and upsets people who liked him.