PT If Dooku had killed Anakin, what was Sidious's backup plan?

Why would he look for someone else? Again, Dooku was told to only kill Obi-wan. Not Anakin. Dooku doesn't have an Apprentice and is still loyal to Palpatine. The whole kidnapping plot was to serve as a test.

 

Yup, I realize that, however, Dooku is only as loyal as a Sith could be, so the "if" possibility is still somewhat of a relevant one, and a good topic for conversation.

 

I dont know what might happen in the long run, but i can imagine Palpatine's immediate reaction

"FFS No, that seriously did not just happen... O..M..F..G.... "

"Well Dooku, I hope you're happy, because you just f$#^ed us. This Sith is now officially f$#%ed! Kudos to you, sir!"

 

Sidious might be angry enough to kill Dooku on the spot.

 

I picture a Robot Chicken Skit...

 

The fight was to have Anakin use the dark side of the Force in battle and feel it's alluring power and the ease with which one could vanquish the enemy (i.e., leading him to the dark side). Dooku wasn't to kill him (like Vader/Luke in ROTJ) - but even if Dooku tried, the Emperor believed Anakin would prevail, imo.

Dooku took Anakin's hand in that prior battle. However, the Emperor was close to Anakin and knew of his growth and strength in battle and in the Force, so he knew that Anakin could defeat Dooku. Mostly, the Emperor knew that Anakin had a reason for revenge against the man who had taken his hand and could embrace that dark emotion in using the Force. The Emperor sealed the deal by reminding Anakin how good ("righteous") revenge felt by bringing up the Tuskin affair.

I don't think either Anakin or the Emperor believed that Obi-Wan would get the better of him. Indeed, based on my understanding of the canon, I feel that Anakin was potentially stronger than Obi-Wan at that time, but only if he used his gifts to their utmost ability. However, impetuousness, arrogance and the knowledge that he was in the wrong (and thus, that tiny light burning inside that did not want to do what he was doing or kill his beloved friend and master) I think combined to inhibit his abilities. Also, from a practical standpoint, Dooku defeated Obi-Wan, so it makes sense that Anakin (who destroyed Dooku) could defeat Obi-Wan also.

 

I can definitely picture that. Would be particularly gruesome.

 

Like Sidious told Yoda at the senate building before their fight, your arrogance blinds you, that is what made Anakin lose to Obi Wan. Among other things. But If Anakin failed and Dooku was still around he would have kept Dooku. Sidious I am sure would have started looking for another apprentice. Sidious' plans were well into motion by that point anyway. So he would have stuck with Dooku for as long as possible. Though I don't know if Sidious would have sent Dooku alone to attack the Jedi temple. With Anakin he had leverage with the saving Padme from dying thing. What leverage would he have on Dooku? So would Dooku be willing to just kill the Jedi on Sidious' command?

 

Dooku didn't have any problem ordering nearly 200 Jedi killed in the arena on Geonosis - can't see why he wouldn't be willing to lead clones into the Temple, if Sidious had ordered them to follow him.

 

Very good point. I hadn't thought of that.

 

In the ROTS novelization - Dooku thinks that, when Anakin's won the duel, he will be spared, and end up participating in the destruction of the Jedi Order - but also that it will be rebuilt as a Sith Army (with Anakin as the Sith Army's leader):

It was no accident that the primary powers of the Confederacy of Independent Systems were Neimoidian, Skakoan, Quarren and Aqualish, Muun and Gossam, Sy Myrthian and Koorivar and Geonosian. At war's end the aliens would be crushed, stripped of all they possessed, and their systems and their wealth would be given into the hands of the only beings who could be trusted with them.
Human beings.
Dooku would serve an Empire of Man.
And he would serve it as only he could. As he was born to. He would smash the Jedi Order to create it anew: not shackled by the corrupt, narcissistic, shabby little beings who called themselves politicians, but free to bring true authority and true peace to a galaxy that so badly needed both.
An Order that would not negotiate. Would not mediate. An Order that would enforce.
The survivors of the Jedi Order would become the Sith Army.
The Fist of the Empire.
And that Fist would become a power beyond any Jedi's darkest dreams. The Jedi were not the only users of the Force in the galaxy; from Hapes to Haruun Kal, from Kiffu to Dathomir, powerful Force-capable humans and near-humans had long refused to surrender their children to lifelong bound servitude in the Jedi Order. They would not so refuse the Sith Army.
They would not have the choice.


With his heroic capture of Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker will become the ultimate hero: the greatest hero in the history of the Republic, perhaps of the Jedi Order itself. The loss of his beloved partner will add just exactly the correct spice of tragedy to give melancholy weight to his every word, when he gives his HoloNet interviews denouncing the Senate's corruption as impeding the war effort, when he delicately—oh, so delicately, not to mention reluctantly—insinuates that corruption in the Jedi Order prolonged the war as well.
When he announces the creation of a new order of Force-using warriors.
He will be the perfect commanding general for the Sith Army.
Dooku could only shake his head in awe. And to think that only days earlier, the Jedi had seemed so close to uncovering, even destroying, all he and his Master had worked for. But he should never have feared. His Master never lost. He would never lose. He was the definition of unbeatable.
How can one defeat an enemy one thinks is a friend?
And now, with a single brilliant stroke, his Master would turn the Jedi Order back upon itself like an Ethrani ourobouros devouring its own tail.
This was the day. The hour.
The death of Obi-Wan Kenobi would be the death of the Republic.
Today would see the birth of the Empire.

 

Quite.

 

Dooku. I mean sure, Sidious told Dooku to let him live, but Dooku is a Sith he could have ignored him and tried to kill him anyways. If he succeeded then Palps would be forced to have him as a second in command. Unless he could turn Mace or Yoda....

 

I think the events likely wouldn't have gone a similar way regardless. In the end order 66 is going to happen and that's the real turning point. Anakin was critical in several ways but the temple still would have been stormed by a huge legion of troopers and it probably would have been dooku leading them I suppose. Nobody in the temple was going to be able to defeat Dooku anyway, who was the best jedi there? Cin Drallig? Anyway Eventually palpatine would have likely killed or betrayed dooku anyway and palpatine had a plan that was diverse enough to where 1 person isn't going to mess it up.

So to answer your question, I don't think that palpatine really needs a backup plan, the train is rolling by the time ROTS happens. I'd argue that after the events of starting the clone war the jedi were already toast because they aren't away that the republics leader and the sepratists leaders are both the sith working on the same team to amp up the war effort to destroy the jedi.