Rogue One The Alliance's original plans for Galen

So I've just started reading the Rogue One novel and I just finished the scene where Jyn first arrives on Yavin 4 and meets up with Mon Mothma.

Something that got me wondering though is this quote from Mon Mothma when talking to Jyn.

"It would appear Galen Erso is critical to the development of this Superweapon. Given the gravity of the situation and your history with Saw, we're hoping that Saw will help us locate your father and return him to the Senate for testimony."

Obviously as we know it didn't work out like that but if Saw did decide to help them (probably unlikely but I get the impression that he is very unpredictable) and they did bring Galen to the Senate to tell them about the Death Star ,what would actually happen and what did the Rebels think they were going to get out of that? I can't imagine the Imperials letting Galen get anywhere near the Senate and even if he did he'd probably be assassinated or the Empire would smother the news.

Or did the Alliance never actually plan any of this and they always intended to just silence Galen and lied to Jyn?

Am I just reading into this too much or does anyone else wonder about this?

 

The Alliance at this juncture was still forming, with most in their own factions or cells. They were loosely unified but had variations in motives and agenda, with autonomous affiliation. Saw had his own separate rebel group not affiliated with the Alliance, although it seems they shared intelligence at times (Ring of Kafrene) and of course shared a common enemy. Rogue One themselves became a separate cell of the Alliance...a cell that succeeded, but was obliterated.

I expect Galen Erso would have been killed at some point by Imperials, secretly, if he were to try to testify. He never would make it there. It'd be a political nightmare and grow the Rebellion exponentially. They definitely would have assassinated him, claiming treason.

 

I can answer this one. The whole point of that dialogue was to tell Jyn and the audience that Galen was necessary to prove beyond doubt to a room full of Senators that the Empire was a danger to the Galaxy. A smoking gun so to speak. "Here look here are Death Star plans that should alarm us all." The intention was to illicit a strong reaction from the Senators. Did not matter that the Empire would do all in their power to smear Galen and intimidate the Senate. The Rebels would have all they needed to pursue the campaign of liberation against the Empire.

My sneaky suspicion is of course the Rebels did not really trust Galen and did not have any hard evidence of the Empire having a Death Star. They had a fleet stationed on Yavin IV and they just lay in wait needing a call from someone to give them word to go which never came. Information valuable info directly from the head of weapons research at the heart of the Galactic Empire raising his hand and saying "We have a Death Star, we are capable of using it and i should know i built the bloody thing." With these words the Rebels had their war. That never happened as we know Galen killed.

 

One thing to consider of course is that the Emperors power may differ depending on the location. SW has always had a strong roman influence and the example there is that the Emperors(and before them Military strong men) had more power outside of Rome than within it as most of the military forces were near the empires boarders and generally there was less focus on what they were doing. I don't think its unrealistic to believe the same is true here and the Emperor has a much freer hand in the more out of the way locations we tend to see in the OT and Rogue One compared to on Coruscant and perhaps other major power centers where he's still more accountable at least until the senate is disbanded.

 

Simple. Mon Mothma said it. They wanted to bring Galen to the Senate and expose the Emperor's nefarious plans to the entire galaxy. For the Rebel Alliance, that would either have caused the collapse of the Imperial government, reform of the Imperial government, or tons more support for the Rebel Alliance. Or...Palpatine would have cracked down hard, killed all dissenters, and threatened their respective worlds with the Death Star. Though that likely still wouldn't have prevented galactic chaos.

Had the Rebels succeeded in getting Galen to the Senate, any of those scenarios would have been possible. So it was not a bad plan. But full of risks. As were all their decisions.

 

Rogue One makes it pretty clear latter in the film that disbanding the senate and the reveal of the DS are intended to happen at the same time as the test of Jedha is covered up whilst destroying Alderaan is intended as a statement.

It seems likely that the disbanding would go hand in hand with both making sure the Emperors men were moved into positions of power and a strong PR push justifying the DS, perhaps claiming he was disbanding the senate because it harboured rebels who were planning a separatist movement with Alderaan/Bail being close to the centre of it. Coming just a few years after the Clone Wars I think that "peace at any cost" could still be an effective message.

 

What's funny is that is all true. Bail Organa was financing the Rebels from Alderaan and the Empire had just cause to use force against them. Now of course the Empire is the villain in Star Wars and as we saw on all the worlds we see Imperial repression not to mention the absolute rule of the Emperor, arbitrary powers dictated by the military elite. The Senate had lost all power to persuade or lessen the Emperor to relinquish power or disband the military hierarchy.

 

Which is why Leia's arrest couldn't have come at a better time for Palpatine. This gave him the excuse to dissolve the Senate, and use the Death Star at the same time.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

 

Mixing truth with a lie does of course always make for the most effective politics, Bail as a rebel sympathiser would be easier to cast as similar to the Trade Federation and the other separatist who started the previous conflict even if the imperial military is actually whats driving it this time around.

I do wonder whether we could see this kind of stuff in a future film? maybe something focused on Imperials showing political indoctrination and characters turning against it to join the Rebels.