What's the deal with the Palpy and the Sith? Motivations, explanations, etc.

I've been a fan of Star Wars since before I could remember. I literally grew up with the movies in my formative years and so they had an impact that is most likely far greater than if I had encountered them for the first time as an adult. I think the magic of the original trilogy came in part from Lucas being a relative nobody who had to rely fully upon the skill and genius of the team he put together. Star Wars never would have happened without Lucas getting the ball rolling but it never would have been as great as it was without all the other people contributing, from SFX people to the actors to sound design and orchestration. The new trilogy falls apart precisely because Lucas was George Effin Lucas and it was his way or the highway. So I don't really like the prequel trilogy. The expanded universe stuff also leaves me cold, save for X-Wing/TIE Fighter/X-Wing Alliance. It all seems like fanfic. So when I say Star Wars, I'm talking original trilogy.

I'm saying all that right off the bat not to be confrontational but to state my biases up front so you can see where I'm reasoning from. That being said, here we go: What's Palpatine's motivation? What's the deal with the Sith? I've always found that question to be fascinating. When I was a kid, the motivation was obvious: they're all evil. They're no different from the Germans in the WWII movies I watched with my dad, all evil from the field marshal down to the lowest enlisted man. But as I grew older I realized that few people ever think they're the bad guy, the germans thought they were just as right as the allies. There's that old quote "Even the villain is the hero of his own story." TIE Fighter really drove that angle home as I got to play through as a soldier of the Empire and see how their side could be right, "from a certain point of view."

Now I acknowledge from the start that too much of Star Wars was made up on the fly. Vader was never Luke's father until a late draft of Empire. Luke and Leia were never brother and sister until Jedi, otherwise Lucas never would have allowed that tonsil-tickling kiss in Empire. Lucas himself said that the Emperor was originally a weak puppet figure in A New Hope, elevated to be a little scarier in Empire, and made far greater than Vader in Jedi because it wouldn't make dramatic sense if Vader didn't have a greater evil to turn away from. Plus, for two movies Vader was our standard of "Big Bad" in the Star Wars universe. It throws you for a loop when you realize there's someone Vader is scared of and bows down to. So, how did Palpy rise to power? How did he come to take Vader as a disciple? Here's what I pieced together myself before the prequels came out.

Lucas borrowed heavily from many sources. The Galactic government is obviously based on Rome. The Republic is like the Roman Republic, it falls due to internal corruption, weakness, and the ambition of powerful men, and the Empire that results uses fear and oppression to keep people in line. Watching Stormtroopers march through Mos Eisley is just like flashing back to bible movies and watching Roman soldiers march through Jerusalem. So I can totally see where he's going here. In our history, there were many Senators and patriots who wanted to restore the Republic. So there's a great historical model to draw from when trying to paint a realistic history of the Galactic government.

So, to figure out how Palpy came to power, we have to ask "How did Palpy get his Force power?" He's not a fallen Jedi since there would be records. He would have had to come from a Sith background. So, who were the Sith? If we follow the Roman model here, the Jedi are sort of like the Catholic Church with the fighting Jedi a mix between Wild West lawmen, Oriental martial arts heroes, and Templar Knights. In Christian history, there were originally thousands of smaller cults and traditions before Christianity was declared the state religion of Rome. Church leaders sought to consolidate and codify church doctrine and beliefs, making sure everyone was on the same page. Heretics were either

 

So this is basically an...AU/fanfic theory? The prequels do exist, like them or not and they do provide explanations for 95% of the mystery.

EU is slightly different because Lucas has been known to contradict it and has previously said that he considers it to be something separate...like a parrallel universe.

I don't really get the point of this thread to be honest.

 

Yes, the prequels exist, but I don't think they do a decent job of explaining what we saw in the original trilogy. I know there are a lot of people here who don't see a deficiency with the prequel trilogy. That's fair. I'm not trying to win anyone over to my way of thinking. I know far less people are enamored with the expanded universe, especially the post-Jedi stuff.

The purpose of the thread is to speculate on what would be a plausible and believable origin for the Emperor and Vader as seen in the original trilogy, speculating from the information given in the movies, ignoring the prequel trilogy and expanded universe material. If you are a fan of the prequels, then naturally you would not feel a need to speculate since you feel that the questions have all been sufficiently answered. If whiny Anakin and midichlorians and virgin births bother you, then this thread would be right up your alley.