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Lit The extent of Palpatine's Vong Knowledge

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Darth Invictus, Sep 17, 2016.

  1. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Aug 8, 2016
    Okay so we know in Outbound flight Palpatine hears about the Vong. Also during the Imperial period, the size of the fleet was sold partially for preparing against invasion to the imperial public.

    So he did know of a mysterious invasion force-what details did he know?

    I seem to recall reading a Wookieepedia article where the imperials had a base on the same planet as a Vong scout post-implying Palpatine had direct contact.

    What would this contact had looked like?

    Might Palpatine have had something devious up his sleeves with regards to the Vong?
     
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  2. Grey1

    Grey1 Host: 181st Imperial Discussion Group star 4 VIP

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    Nov 21, 2000
    Oh, while I never liked the idea that Palpatine "did good" in preparing the galaxy for a huge invasion war, I love the idea that he wanted to do something with the Vong. Maybe their biotechnology or their religion, or even their lack of force presence appealed to his immortality quest? I'd love that. Palpatine planning on becomng supreme Vong overlord and leaving his previous minions behind for the sake of living longer.
     
  3. Nom von Anor

    Nom von Anor Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Oct 7, 2012
    Maybe the threat of invasion from another galaxy gave Palpatine an idea: Why should he limit his rule to a single galaxy? There are billions of other galaxies in the universe. Why not try to conquer some of these, once he solved his immortality problem?
     
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  4. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Aug 8, 2016
    I don't think Palpatine was any less evil because he knew about the Vong-if you remember Dark Empire Palpatine ultimately wanted to be Dark God of the Universe-the Vong were just another threat/stepping stone to that end goal.
     
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  5. Havoc123

    Havoc123 Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 26, 2013
    Sheev's actions preserved militarism in the Galaxy just long enough for the Yuuzhan Vong, and just long enough to keep the Galaxy united into somewhat large states. Fel Empire, Galactic Alliance, Hapes Consortium, Bothan Space and others is better than megacorporations and system governments fighting over tiny scraps. The Old Republic was headed towards doom, if Sheev didn't centralize it, then you would've had a succession of lame duck Chancellors until it all falls apart. Wouldn't have taken years, or even a decade but it would've slowly withered away as Republic authority stops mattering and the Supreme Chancellor becomes a glorified mayor of Coruscant.

    Obviously it was born out of Sheev's selfish desires, but can't argue that some of his actions had a moderately good impact on the Galaxy. At least, better than the alternative would've been. Sector-States and megacorps fighting each other until the Yuuzhan Vong come in and wipe everyone out. I'm not arguing that Sheev was a good guy and altruistic and wanted to defend the Galaxy, but even villains' actions sometimes result in better alternatives than a slow collapse.

    As for Sheev's plans for them? Defeating them. They were a rival for galactic control. I don't think his drive for defense wasn't born out of wanting to defend people, but wanting to defend himself. If everyone died, he wouldn't have anyone to exactly rule over and if the Yuuzhan Vong managed to conquer the Galaxy, they wouldn't let the guy live, they'd kill him all the same as any other Force User. It was a matter of self-preservation, not altruism.
     
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  6. Dr. Steve Brule

    Dr. Steve Brule Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Sep 7, 2012
    I never got how the general public would have been sold on a massive military to keep the galaxy safe from an invasion. It would be like some government today justifying its big military with the argument that it would be useful to protect Earth from an alien invasion (although I guess that Reagan did kind of make that argument a few times. According to Gorbachev, that was even the first thing Reagan brought up when they first met). Who in the galactic public would take that seriously?

    I like the idea instead that there were some people within the Republic who knew about the Vong, maybe for a while, and Palpatine used it as a reason to justify the Empire to those who otherwise wouldn't go along with it.
     
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  7. Ackbar's Fishsticks

    Ackbar's Fishsticks Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Aug 25, 2013
    I like to think that Palpy was planning some sort of scheme that involved the Yuuzhan Vong somehow, same as with the Ssi-ruuk. I also like to think that for once, he'd have been in over his head and that the Yuuzhan Vong invasion would've been too big for him to control/manipulate.

    If nothing else, that's true. The galaxy we saw in Episode I was in no shape to repel the invasion we saw in the New Jedi Order.
     
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  8. Pfluegermeister

    Pfluegermeister Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 30, 2003
    I'm very glad you asked this question, because I think I can contribute to your answer.

    It's amusing, in a general sense, that the character of Palpatine/Sidious, created by Lucas in response to his feelings about the Nixon administration, is so often defined by the quintessential Nixonian question: "What did he know, and when did he know it?" And that's one of the many things that makes his character so interesting. It usually requires a little reading between the lines to see clearly, but the threads are there to be picked up and examined if one knows where and how to look for them.

    29 BBY - When did Darth Sidious first receive rumors of the Yuuzhan Vong's existence?

    The first known instance of Sidious ever hearing of the existence of the Yuuzhan Vong by any name - in this case, the Far Outsiders - came in the wake of a secret mission (29 BBY) arranged by him to examine the starships made on Zonama Sekot, a rogue planet deep within the Tingel Arm; Sidious dispatched his agent Willhuff Tarkin, who in turn included his old friend Raith Sienar, a long established shipwright and engineer with whom both Plagueis and Sidious had had covert dealings. Both were trusted members of Sidious' support group, and both had extensive engineering knowledge, so both were eminently qualified to examine these starships and discover what others might not.

    No need to go over the details of the mission to Zonama Sekot that are not relevant; you have only to read Rogue Planet; but certain things from that novel are directly relevant to the question at hand. Of particular relevance is that Sidious possessed an extraordinary source of information in the form of a recording device, hidden within a droid that Tarkin had infiltrated into the Jedi Temple itself. Through the intelligence gained from that droid, and from reports submitted by Tarkin and Sienar after the fact, we can assume that Sidious learned the following: that a Jedi named Vergere had been sent to Zonama Sekot the previous year to examine its shipbuilding techniques, and thus happened to be present to witness the arrival of scoutships, using a form of biotech, operated by a previously unknown species which the population of Zonama Sekot referred to as the Far Outsiders.

    If - and that's a BIG if - he also gained access to the content of the message Vergere left behind before she disappeared, perhaps through the droid in the Jedi Temple, Sidious would also have learned the following things that he would probably not have learned otherwise: that these beings, the so-called Far Outsiders, "know nothing of the Force, and the Force knows nothing of them," as the message stated; and that Vergere agreed to go with these Far Outsiders in exchange for their breaking off their attack. The singularly important fact that this apparently highly aggressive species also apparently did not exist in the Force should have absolutely commanded Sidious' attention; but this is not borne out by an examination of his subsequent actions, which appear to treat the problem far less vigorously than it should have demanded from him - but we'll get to that.

    27 BBY - When did Darth Sidious first receive confirmation of the Yuuzhan Vong's existence?

    The Legends make clear that there was a lot of fallout from the launch and subsequent disappearance of Outbound Flight (27 BBY), but of particular importance to the question at hand is that Sidious' agent Kinman Doriana, a long-trusted member of his support group, in the course of attempting to accomplish the destruction of the Jedi-led expedition, ended up having to convince a regional power, the Chiss Ascendancy, to do the job for him. When Thrawn asked Doriana why he should bother, Doriana had an answer ready: that an invasion by a species called the Far Outsiders was coming, in the form of "a massive assault force of dark ships, shadowy figures, and weapons of great power, based on an organic technology of a sort we've never seen before." Doriana claimed that this species already had "a foothold at the far edge of the galaxy, and even now have scouting parties seeking information on worlds and peoples to conquer."

    There is no evidence that, at this point, Doriana himself took his own words seriously; the likelihood is that he was just using this "information" to gain Thrawn's trust. Again, the only known source of information about a belligerent species employing strange technology and bent on invasion was one mercurial Jedi, now several years vanished; it could just as easily not have been true at all - its sole use to Doriana is as a means to convince the Chiss to work his master's will. What Doriana did not and could not know was that in describing this force, he had struck a raw nerve: Thrawn, like all skilled gamesmen, revealed nothing at this point and kept his face even, but later revealed to Doriana the following: that his immediate superior officer in the CEDF had previously encountered ships that matched what Doriana described on the far spinward edge of Chiss space; the attackers were small in number, a reconnaissance force, but they fought fiercely, and with great savagery, before the Chiss finally drove them off. After his experiences in Chiss space, Doriana was inclined to give this information full credence, and it must be assumed that Doriana - who is not known to have withheld anything from Sidious, no matter how insignificant - relayed it to his master with all due seriousness, and provided him with combat data from the incident provided by the Chiss.

    What did Darth Sidious do to prepare for a potential Yuuzhan Vong invasion?

    Doriana told Thrawn that Sidious' intention was to inform the galaxy at large of the threat of the Far Outsiders, once he had brought order to the chaotic Republic, and assembled an army and navy capable of dealing with the threat; until those objectives were achieved, Doriana claimed, Sidious did not wish to announce it, so as to prevent a mass panic that would leave the galaxy still more vulnerable. But though Sidious did in fact go on to establish his Empire, and assemble one of the largest armies and navies - if not the largest - in galactic history, he never made a public announcement regarding the far Outsiders, under that name or any other. Furthermore, with the exception of Thrawn and those officers, such as Voss Parck, that Thrawn kept in his personal confidence, even the highest-ranking officers in the Imperial armed forces seem not to have been informed about it; the book Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial confirms that Imperial records contained no mention of the Yuuzhan Vong. There are any number of reasons Sidious would have decided against informing the general public about the threat of an extragalactic invasion; there is no reason for him to withhold such information from his High Command if he took the threat as seriously as Doriana presumably advised him. Subsequent events would seem to bear out the likelihood that he did not.

    First, Doriana arranged with Thrawn to establish a private information network, separate and apart from the usual official intelligence organizations, to function as a third-party contact between the Chiss Ascendancy and the Republic - later the Empire - and allow both parties to work together on an informal basis, particularly in regards to the perceived threat of the Far Outsiders. It must be assumed that Sidious gave his blessing to the project after the fact, but even in his lifetime, and long before the actual invasion came, this network, under the leadership of a former smuggler named Jorj Car'das, came to naught: the smuggling operation created largely as a cover for Car'das' intelligence activities ended up consuming his attention as it absorbed other smuggling operations and became a criminal powerhouse; when Car'das suddenly vanished (1 BBY), the huge data library he had built up over the years vanished with him; even though Car'das reemerged (19 ABY) before the invasion finally came, there is no evidence that any of the information he had accumulated played any significant role in the ensuing conflict; nor is there any evidence that the Car'das intelligence network, assuming it still survived, played its intended role as a liaison between the Chiss and any of the powers participating in the war. Had Sidious taken the threat of the Far Outsiders seriously, one would assume that a better outcome would have resulted.

    Second, it is known from the Hero's Trial novel that, upon learning that the Chiss were fortifying their systems against the threat of impending invasion by an unknown aggressor (which is indeed a step up from just repelling a small reconnaissance force), Sidious dispatched Thrawn, by then a grand admiral, to fortify portions of Wild Space and the Unknown Regions. The result was the so-called Empire of the Hand, a kind of personal dominion of Thrawn's in which the grand admiral had a free hand to run things as he saw fit, but where every officer ultimately answered, through Thrawn, to the Emperor personally. Like a similar bunch on Game of Thrones, the people living and serving in this dominion feared the coming of both the Far Outsiders and smaller local threats, such as the Vagaari and the Ebruchi, and saw themselves as the first line of defense, even before the Chiss Ascendancy, which also feared these threats but was hamstrung by rules of engagement that Thrawn's Household Phalanx need not observe (shades of General Leia and the Resistance as distinct from the nuCanon New Republic!).

    But when the invasion finally came,while the galaxy at large was engrossed in fighting, within the Unknown Regions, both the Empire of the Hand and the Chiss Ascendancy largely sat out the war, undisturbed and unscathed. Both powers sent small, less-than-official expeditionary forces to oppose the Vong, and both were quite willing to render aid and assistance when asked; but with the sole but significant exception of a Chiss-designed bioweapon that would play a crucial role in ending the war, neither power participated in any large-scale capacity or had a significant impact on the outcome. Whatever intentions Sidious or Doriana had nursed for either power in the event of a potential Yuuzhan Vong invasion, they did not come to fruition in a way that would validate the original stated intentions of either character. Again, had Sidious truly taken the threat with the seriousness it deserved, he would not have presumably done more to ensure both powers did as intended, but they didn't. Even the Imperial Remnant, with which they should have found common cause, could only get them to take the field in small, less-than-consequential capacities.





     
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  9. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    Maybe Palpatine wanted to let the Vong invade so that people would see the "neccesity" of the Empire?
     
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  10. Pfluegermeister

    Pfluegermeister Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 30, 2003
    An Empire that by then would have been about forty-five years old already?

    Plus, he'd already demonstrated the necessity for the Empire in less than half that time; hell, he'd already used the fricking Clone Wars to do exactly that - that was one of the central purposes of that war. The threat of the continuance or resumption of civil war was more than enough to demonstrate the necessity of the Empire, so far as the general population was concerned; there was no need to use the threat of an extragalactic invasion..
     
  11. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

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    Nov 28, 2000
    I like to think the Emperor knew about the Vong but never told anybody, because that way the galaxy would be screwed over if they ever got rid of him but they wouldn't even know it until it was too late. A little bit of pettiness, a little bit of revenge.
     
  12. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Aug 8, 2016
    So your saying it came to nought whatever Sidious had in mind? Surely we can speculate he knew something was coming. Even if he didn't take the threat seriously at first, surely he would have in the future. When the praetorites where at his doorstep.

    We also have to remember as Legends made clear Sidious wasn't simply a scheming politician or dictator to be-the man was quite literally darkness embodied in a human form. He basically wanted in the end to subject the whole universe to his Byss treatment-submissive slaves life energies feeding off of him. Living forever as a dark and maleovent god.

    The Vong surely with their curious abscence from the force, and connection to a living planet would have warranted more than a passing thought on his part.
     
  13. Grey1

    Grey1 Host: 181st Imperial Discussion Group star 4 VIP

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    Nov 21, 2000
    Maybe he was preparing for the Dark Horse invasion, not for the Del Rey Vong invasion.
     
  14. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    The Dark Horse Invasion storyline was that a group of aliens determined to spread the dark side throughout the universe corrupted the Dark Jedi who started the First Great Schism/Hundred-Year Darkness and now that the Sith were extincted, the dark side aliens decided, "If you want the job done right..." I don't see why Palpatine would need to prepare for something that wouldn't happen as long as he lived.
     
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  15. Grey1

    Grey1 Host: 181st Imperial Discussion Group star 4 VIP

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    Nov 21, 2000
    Okay... one, that was a joke. Two, I can think of several scenarios off the top of my head in which Palps would only know that a bunch of darksiders might come along to steal his stuff and therefore would be paranoid enough to prepare for something that will never affect him. And that's before I come up with a scenario in which the dark side society has a problem with an immortal emperor with unlimited powaah.
     
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  16. JediMatteus

    JediMatteus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Sep 16, 2008
    I have always wondered if the Empire would have been at full power , how they would have faired against the Vong with Palpatine and Vader alive and still strong. It would make a damn interesting fanfic.
     
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  17. Pfluegermeister

    Pfluegermeister Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 30, 2003
    Yep, sure am.

    Because what other conclusion can be reached from all the available evidence that's right there in the Legends to be found?

    According to Outbound Flight, Sidious was going to inform the public about the threat, but there's no evidence that he ever did in the ensuing THREE DECADES leading up to Endor or, in Legends, the FOUR DECADES leading up to Onderon. That didn't happen.

    According to Agents of Chaos I, Sidious did not inform anybody in the military, apart from Thrawn, about the threat for thirty to forty years, and no mention of it is found in the Imperial records. He had that long and he SHOULD have informed SOMEONE apart from Thrawn in all that time. That didn't happen.

    According to Outbound Flight, the Car'das intelligence network was supposed to function as a go-between for the Republic/Empire and the Chiss. But while that may be what Doriana wanted, according to Specter of the Past/Vision of the Future, that never happened. Even while Sidious was at the height of his political powers, that network went to pot when he could have prevented that from happening, and neither Car'das nor any information he scrounged up were of any use in the actual war against the Vong because neither was ever mentioned in the NJO series. If he truly cared about the matter, he would never have allowed the network to wither on the vine like that. So yes, that came to naught.

    According to Vision of the Future, the Hand of Thrawn was meant to fortify the Unknown Regions against invasion, but when the invasion happened, the Empire of the Hand never had a prominent role in the series, and neither did the Chiss Ascendancy. With regard to the invasion, save for the whole virus-weapon plotline (and the books give no hint that that virus had anything to do with Sidious), they only really made their presence known like TWICE in the entire NJO series. If he truly cared about the matter, he would never have allowed either power sufficient freedom of action to step back from serving in the very war he intended them to serve in. So yes, that came to naught.

    While we can, in the real world, attribute most of this to the fact that the writers weren't always on the same page with Legends (like THAT'S a surprise...), the accumulation of facts nevertheless speak for themselves. None of them paint a picture of a Sidious that gave the threat much mind - and this is a man who, whether in Legends, nuCanon, or other, always absolutely babysits his schemes, plans them to the nth degree, and generally has every possible variable accounted for. He's done NONE of that, so far as can be seen, where this matter is concerned. He would have if he cared; since he didn't, we can infer that he didn't care.

    Nope. Not if the evidence all points the other way, we can't.

    What I wrote is literally EVERYTHING in Legends regarding what Sidious knew about the Vong and when. Nothing else exists, so far as I know, in Legends regarding this issue. What Sidious knew, you now know. If that information doesn't permit speculation to the contrary, as indeed it doesn't, then no, we CAN'T speculate, and we shouldn't.

    The best predictor of a future pattern of behavior is a past pattern of behavior. What does that pattern tell you about what he would have done?

    He had three to four decades to prepare and didn't substantially prepare; what would he have done in the remaining fourteen years between Onderon and the invasion? And this is a man who plans to the nth degree, who prepares for every anticipated contingency - when he cares about something, he gets things done. He got NOTHING done of any significance.

    So what?

    That was supposed to have been the extreme long-term goal. And he gave that more attention, clearly, than he did anything regarding this invasion.

    Plus, I like Dark Empire and the Dark Empire Sourcebook as much as the next man, but not everyone who wrote for the Legends took it seriously; Vision of the Future shows Mara Jade (and, through her, obviously Tim Zahn himself) pooh-poohing the entire idea that the clone in DE was even Palpatine. So the jury's apparently still out on what exactly Sidious truly was, even within Legends itself; and even the people who wrote for Legends apparently feel that too much emphasis is placed on the DE and DESB sources for what this man was and what he wanted. They can't be IGNORED, those sources, but they also can't take precedence over other sources in that same canon; they're just one of many, and neither more not less important than any other.

    What we ALSO have to remember is that during Sheev Palpatine's physical lifetime, from birth to Onderon, he was as much human as not, as much physical being as not, and as fallible as other physical human beings. Darth Plagueis paints a character that was born of human beings, has the same basic concerns, wants and needs as other human beings, takes his clothes off and puts them on like other human beings do, and eats, sleeps and craps like other human beings do. Despite what his internal monologues may tell him about what he is (which can entirely be written off as self-aggrandizement), he was not the demon lord some like to use Dark Empire to paint him as; and even if he was, he still did squat to properly protect his Empire, that he scraped together over years of hard work, from an invasion that could have brought it down.

    The man who was the last in a line of thirty Sith Lords, who worked a thousand years to undermine and then dismantle the Republic, would never have allowed all that work and effort to go to waste from simple lack of concern for a threat from outside that could actually undo said work and effort. Would you, if you were in his place?

    God, schmod. Sidious would have done more if he cared; he didn't.

    Now I'm beginning to think you didn't read my post, because I accounted for that.

    Sidious would have had one source, and ONLY one, for the information that the Vong were absent from the Force, and that there was a possible connection to a living planet: Vergere's message. And I made clear before that it's not even certain that he ever saw the content of that message. No source in the Legends say specifically that he did, either through intelligence reports or even just from Anakin's lips (and that kid wasn't exactly a secret-keeper where Palpatine was concerned, was he?). At best, all we can say is that there's no source that specifically states he DIDN'T see it. But his behavior is inconsistent with the idea that he read that message because he didn't act accordingly afterwards.

    Yes, surely everything you say SHOULD have warranted more than a passing thought - IF he took these things seriously. IF he knew about them to begin with. If he knew about them and took them seriously, why didn't any of his subsequent actions point to that being the case?

    The simplest explanation is usually the best: he did not know and therefore had no reason to take them seriously. He DID know from other sources that there was a hostile species, called the Far Outsiders by some, which used strange ships and strange biotechnology and which fought like hell; but if he didn't get that message from Vergere, he would not and could not have also known that the Far Outsiders had no connection to the Force, or that there was a living planet involved. If he didn't know, he couldn't have cared. And if he did know, yes, he would have done more to get to the bottom of the matter and address it. The fact that he didn't act is all the indicator I need that he didn't know.

    Why, then, did the Emperor authorize Thrawn to do anything in the Unknown Regions at all? Well, why not? They were going to have to be pacified some time or another.

    Why give Thrawn practically his own empire within the Empire? He'd done it before. How is that different from his giving Tarkin similar autonomy, over an even larger territory? And Tarkin needed no excuse of an extragalactic invasion for him to be invested such such powers and territory.

    Long story short, if the evidence isn't there, as it isn't, there's no point in speculating along the lines you're contemplating. What the text says goes. Sorry, but it is what it is.
     
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  18. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    In Darth Maul: Lockdown, Maul fights a Vong in prison - I can't recall if he ever noticed the inability to "read" that Vong - since he was under orders not to actively use the Force.

    If he had noticed, reported it to Palpatine, and Palpatine had somehow put two and two together when he found out about the Far Outsiders, it might have made a difference - but it does seem that he didn't act like he knew of their Force-immunity.


    Regarding Car'das's activities - the last Car'das scene chronologically I know of was after Vision of the Future, in Survivor's Quest. If he was "in Doriana & Thrawn's confidence" as implied in Choices of One (where Thrawn says to Car'das near the end "I've seen the future. We must succeed, because we have no choice") then that would suggest that he intervened in order to bring down the Vagaari survivor fleet.

    The Vagaari's use of biotech was implied to be because they'd made contact with the Vong and were being used to wage proxy wars in the Unknown Regions - weakening them to pave the way for the Vong.
     
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  19. Havoc123

    Havoc123 Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 26, 2013
    I consider that Thrawn's operation may have been a bit like the Night's Watch in Game of Thrones. It was to initially guard the Galaxy against the extragalactic invasion and under Thrawn, it would have indeed done that. However, with the fall of Thrawn we have no indication of the Empire of the Hand being anything more than a small Unknown Regions. So while it -may- have initially had some sort of function as Guardians of the Galaxy (i hate myself), it doesn't have it anymore. Seeing as it wasn't exactly known what happened to it, with claims by the Remnant and Chiss that it was absorbed by either, I assume that both governments knew it wasn't and kept it around. For all we know, it -did- fight the Yuuzhan Vong in some decreased status. We know it had no effect on the war effort and 'disappeared' around the Yuuzhan Vong Invasion only for Jagged to find out that it's still around when he takes over the Remnant.
     
  20. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Aug 8, 2016
    It seems then a fault of the writers to account for Palpatine's understanding and relationship towards the Vong.

    As for demon lord thing-One can disagree on whether the clone really was Palpatine-I think so primarily because in Star Wars their exists souls or spirits or something of that nature. So even if it wasn't his natural body it was him fundamentally. Back to the demon lord thing-yes he is human as in goes to sleep, eats, drinks, and the rest of mundane human activities. But he is more than that-even Ian Mcdiarmid remarked that he was born evil, his behavior in dark empire speaks for itself, and in Darth Plagueis it's made pretty clear their isn't anything redeeming about him. Palpatine at his core is about the closest Star Wars will get to a devil or "primordial evil embodied". Biologically he's human on a more spiritual level though he's about as human as the Void itself!
     
  21. Pfluegermeister

    Pfluegermeister Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 30, 2003
    You're absolutely right when you say it's the fault of the writers. But that's what happens when you have a series that's way too long, with way too many authors involved, to coordinate properly.

    Whether it's something that will ever be addressed, I'd have to say no. The Vong really don't have a place in the new canon, and to be honest, I'd long had some hesitation about that storyline in the first place.

    As for what Palpatine really is? Let me get back to you tomorrow; we've got stuff to talk about. You'll have fun.
     
  22. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Aug 8, 2016
    Personally I love the Vong-and think the NJO was pretty well coordinated as ambitious as it was. I have heard probably 2 dozen reasons why people hate it-I get to the point when I realize they won't see how truly groundbreaking and amazing the series was. The fact that it was made irrelevant by Denning not withstanding.

    As for Palpatine I would be more than happy to discuss that with you.
     
  23. DelRiego

    DelRiego Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Mar 12, 2002
    just wanted to say this is the type of discussion I love to read. The new canon is still too thin to form them :)
     
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  24. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Aug 8, 2016
    You wanna talk about it? I'd be happy to discuss Palpatine's characterization.
     
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  25. Pfluegermeister

    Pfluegermeister Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 30, 2003
    Thank you for being so patient. I'm gonna talk about it depth; I've just been less than healthy the past couple days and my brain is on empty.

    Fear not; I'll make it worth your while. ;)