PT What was Dooku told the plan was when he “captured” Palpatine?

Even if we assume Dooku knew it was all a set-up so he could face Anakin and Obi-wan in combat, he would be operating on the presumption that he was going to win. What did he think would happen from there? It’s not like he could just drop Palpatine back on Coruscant at that point. There must have been some other plan that was both worthy of being Palpatine’s plan B in case Anakin failed the test and able to convince Dooku that it was plan A. To me that has to be something more than just immediately allowing the Republic to track him down and rescue him, which could easily raise unwanted suspicions.

 

In the Stover novelization of ROTS, it's implied that (to Dooku at least) his capture is a big part of the Plan:

"It will be," he said slowly, meditatively, as though he spoke only to himself, "an embarrassment to be captured by him."
The voice that answered him was so familiar that sometimes his very thoughts spoke in it, instead of in his own. "An embarrassment you can survive, Lord Tyranus. After all, he is the greatest Jedi alive, is he not? And have we not ensured that all the galaxy shares this opinion?"
"Quite so, my Master. Quite so." Again, Dooku sighed. Today he felt every hour of his eighty-three years. "It is... fatiguing, to play the villain for so long, Master. I find myself looking forward to an honorable captivity."
A captivity that would allow him to sit out the rest of the war in comfort; a captivity that would allow him to forswear his former allegiances—when he would conveniently appear to finally discover the true extent of the Separatists' crimes against civilization—and bind himself to the new government with his reputation for integrity and idealism fully intact.
The new government...
This had been their star of destiny for lo, these many years.

Which would suggest he was expecting a draw followed by an honorable surrender.

In the book with the actual kidnapping (Labyrinth of Evil), toward the end, Dooku reiterates the plan:


"You will duel them," Sidious had said. "Kill Kenobi. His only purpose is to die and, in so doing, ignite young Skywalker to tap the depths of his fear and rage. Should you defeat Skywalker easily, then we will know that he is not prepared to serve us. Perhaps he never will be prepared. Should he by some fluke best you, however, I will control the outcome to spare you any unnecessary embarrassment, and we will have gained a powerful ally. But above all you must make the contest appear real, Lord Tyranus."


which when combined with the above ROTS scene, suggests that Dooku was expecting to kill Kenobi, then ideally fight Anakin to a draw, and surrender to him.

 

Yeah I haven’t read the novelization but from what I’ve heard about it I’m not a fan of its take on Dooku. That sounds like a pretty ridiculous plan for Dooku to go along with if you ask me, and there’s no hint of it in the movie. If Lando can stand up to Vader’s unfair demands I would expect Dooku to be able to do some creative thinking once Palpatine is cuffed into that chair.

 

Fighting to a draw doesn't seem at all realistic in the realm of lightsaber duels. It's most often fatal for the loser, though we do see that Dooku himself was skilled enough to only inflict glancing blows to Obi-Wan in their first duel. A closely fought match would not leave such openings. Dooku losing his hands was a realistic outcome, which I can't imagine him willingly going along with.

Had we not had this canon explanation, there is the other possibility that Dooku was fighting to win (while also seducing/incapacitating Anakin). This loss would put the Republic in a very compromising position and prompt negotiations with the Separatists since they have the ultimate bargaining chip. This seems more like Dooku's endgame to me.

 

He could hit hyperspace (everyone was busy with the battle) and stage a rescue later on.

 

The battle was primarily the Republic attempting to get Palpatine back - it's safe to say that the escape routes would have been blocked off.

Grievous noticed this in the novelization - he attempted to get a path cleared by threatening to kill Palpatine - because Palpatine had just been released, his threats failed.


"Sir?" The thin voice of the comm officer interrupted Grievous's pacing. "We are being hailed by Integrity, sir. They propose a cease-fire."
Dark yellow eyes squinted through the skull-mask at the tactical displays. A pause in the combat would allow Invisible Hand's turbolaser batteries to cool, and give the engineers a chance to get the gravity generators under control. "Acknowledge receipt of transmission. Stand by to cease fire."
"Standing by, sir." The gunnery officer was still shaking.
"Cease fire."
The lances of energy that had joined the Hand to the Home Fleet Strike Force melted away.
"Further transmission, sir. It's Integrity's commander."
Grievous nodded. "Initiate."
A ghostly image built itself above the bridge's ship-to-ship hologenerator: a young human male of distinctly average height and build, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant commander. The only thing distinctive about his otherwise rather bland features was the calm confidence in his eyes.
"General Grievous," the young man said briskly, "I am Lieutenant Commander Lorth Needa of RSS Integrity. At my request, my superiors have consented to offer you the chance to surrender your ship, sir.''
"Surrender?" Grievous's vocabulator produced a very creditable reproduction of a snort. "Preposterous."
"Please give this offer careful deliberation, General, as it will not be repeated. Consider the lives of your crew."
Grievous cast an icy glance around his bridge full of craven Neimoidians. "Why should I?"
The young man did not look surprised, though he did show a trace of sadness. "Is this your reply, then?"
"Not at all." Grievous drew himself up; by straightening the angles of his levered joints, he could add half a meter to his already imposing height. "I have a counteroffer. Maintain your cease-fire, move that hulk Indomitable out of my way, and withdraw to a minimum range of fifty kilometers until this ship achieves hyperspace jump."
"If I may use your word, sir: preposterous."
"Tell these superiors of yours that if my demands are not met within ten minutes, I will personally disembowel Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, live on the HoloNet. Am I understood?"
The young officer took this without a blink. "Ah. The Chancellor is aboard your ship, then."
"He is. Your pathetic Jedi so-called heroes have failed. They are dead, and Palpatine remains in my hands."
"Ah," the young officer repeated. "So you will, of course, allow me to speak with him. To, ah, reassure my superiors that you are not simply - well, to put it charitably - bluffing?"
"I would not lower myself to lie to the likes of you." Grievous turned to the comm officer. "Patch in Count Dooku."
The comm officer stroked his screen, then shook his head "He's not responding, sir."
Grievous shook his head disgustedly. "Just show the Chancellor, then. Bring up my quarters on the security screen."
The security officer stroked his own screen, and made a choking sound. "Hrm, sir?"
"What are you waiting for? Bring it up!"
He'd gone as pink as the gunner. "Perhaps you should have a look first, sir?"
The plain urgency in his tone brought Grievous to his side without another word. The general bent over the screen that showed the view inside his quarters and found himself looking at jumbled piles of energy-sheared wreckage surrounding the empty shape of the General's Chair.
And that - that there - that looked like it could have been a body . . .
Draped in a cape of armorweave.
Grievous turned back toward the intership holocomm. "The Chancellor is - indisposed."
"Ah. I see."
Grievous suspected that the young officer saw entirely too well. "I assure you-"
"I do not require your assurance, General. You have the same amount of time you offered us. Ten minutes from now, I will have either your surrender, or confirmation that Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is alive, unharmed - and present - or Invisible Hand will be destroyed."
"Wait - you can't simply-"
"Ten minutes, General. Needa out.
When Grievous turned to the bridge security officer, his mask was blankly expressionless as ever, but he made up for it with the open murder in his voice.
"Dooku is dead and the Jedi are loose. They have the Chancellor. Find them and bring them to me."
His armorplast fingers curled into a fist that crashed down on the security console so hard the entire thing collapsed into a sparking, smoking ruin.
"Find them!"

 

That was the mission of Anakin and Obi-Wan. The battle was about tackling the separatist armada which attacked Coruscant.

Grievous escaped the battle. If Dooku and Palpatine wanted and needed to, they would escape too.

 

But not on the Invisible Hand itself.

 

No. He had no control over the Invisible Hand by that point.

The argument was that the escape routes were blocked, and if that were the case, it wouldn't matter if he used the Invisible Hand or the Neimoidian shuttle. He wouldn't be able to escape (but he did).

 

Once the Republic know Palpatine is free but crashing on the Invisible Hand, they focus on keeping him alive - which allows Grievous to escape. Escape routes open up again due to the change of focus.

A living Dooku escaping, with his "hostage Palpatine" in tow (since Palpatine wants to keep up the masquerade that he's a normal person) would be somewhat more difficult, since the Republic would be taking the "Keep the kidnappers from escaping with their victim at all costs" approach.

 

Why would the Republic open escape routes to the separatists after the Jedi got Palpatine? The army had no help to offer by that point, and even when the ship was split and about to crash, only the fire brigades could help. The rest of the army had no control over the crashing ship, so there's no point in letting the separatists go. No resources were deviated or in need of deviation.

 

The Republic has a limited number of ships. Disengaging from the Separatist fleet, makes sense as a conservation of resources, once Palpatine's freeing is confirmed.


Going back to the OP's question - whatever Dooku was told the backup plan was, I doubt it was - "we flee to the Separatist systems".


Palpatine values his role as Republic chancellor, and Dooku knows he values that role. Any plan that involves vacating Coruscant for any major length of time, is implausible as something told to Dooku.

 

This was the thought that originally prompted the question in my mind. Why bother making such a public show of kidnapping the Chancellor if you know you have to return him relatively soon? You either have to risk the rescue operation failing or you have to risk someone asking questions about why such a high value prisoner wasn’t properly protected. What do you have to gain that’s worth it? Again, I don’t think the novelization really helps here because “Kill Obi-wan and then surrender to Anakin” is a terrible plan and I can’t buy Dooku going along with it. If Palpatine was truly going to play the “I can order you to cut off your own hand and you better not say no” card he’d be stupid to then put himself at Dooku’s mercy in the very same plan. I mean, they’re Sith. It’s not exactly like the potential of a betrayal doesn’t cross either of their minds.

 

The plan is stupid, very much so for Dooku but also for Palpatine.

Their plan is apparently to sit in the middle of a battle, getting shot at and possibly destroyed.
Waiting for Obi-Wan and Anakin to get there.

1) What happens if both of them get killed while trying to reach the ship?
As iron_lord said, Palpatine is unlikely to want to be removed from Coruscant and his base of power.
So what now? Would Dooku just let Palpatine go? Would they somehow stage an escape by Palpatine?

2) If Anakin looses, then same problem.

3) What if some other Jedi try a rescue?

And what does Palpatine gain from this? Well he pushes Anakin closer to the edge of turning.
I wonder if Palpatine's plan was for Anakin to turn right there and then but when he didn't and refused to leave Obi-Wan, Palpatine had to improvise.
But if all Palpatine wants is to pit Anakin vs Dooku there are a number of other ways he could accomplish that with less risk to himself and far fewer random variables.

For Dooku the added problems are that with the rule of two, he knows that there can't be three Siths.
So if he looses to Anakin and Anakin turns, then he is dead. And besides that, for Dooku to trust that Palpatine would intervene if Anakin were to get the upper hand and stop him from killing Dooku. That is very gullible on Dooku's part.
Dooku has nothing to gain in this.
Either Anakin is killed while getting to the ship or he looses the fight and nothing changes for Dooku.
If Dooku looses then he has proven himself weak and as I said, trusting Palpatine is foolish knowing what Dooku knows. The Sith are all about lies and betrayal.

If Dooku had any goals to make himself the master, he could have done something here.
Plant a bomb on the ship that brought Palpatine from the surface, boom Palpatine dead.
Then blast the senate and the Jedi temple from orbit and then a quick escape.
The Republic is now leaderless and Dooku is the Sith master.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Here's my wild guess... Dooku thought the plan was to capture Anakin alive, and have both the Chancellor and the Chosen One (+/- Obi Wan) as hostages to make some kind of deal with the Republic. I.e., he had no idea Sidious intended to convert Anakin.

Well regarding the first and third one, I think I recall that upon Anakin and Obi Wan's arrival on the Invisible Hand, Grievous said this is just as Dooku had foreseen. So Sidious was probably pretty confident about them getting there. I agree that the actual fight against Dooku on the Invisible Hand was an uncertainty though.

 

That sounds plausible, although now I’m curious what kind of price you can demand for those level of hostages, and how that would fit in to the overall Sith plan.

 

To the first, the Chancellor was already a valuable enough hostage.
Risking destruction just to get another, far less valuable one, makes little sense.

To the second, I hear this explanation quite often "Palpatine had foreseen it."
To me it has come up as an explanation so often that it makes Palpatine practically omniscient and able to forsee everything with total accuracy.
I feel it makes Palpatine less clever, he can just see everything that will happen and when you know all that, making a plan is not as hard.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

The films make it quite ambiguous as to what Dooku knew or thought regarding the overall plan. I mean, he's literally fighting a war against his master...we know in actuality that Sidious ended up killing ALL the separatists. What did Dooku think the end goal was? Eternal war?? A peace treaty with each of them ruling half the galaxy??? Without knowing what his overall goals are, it's hard to determine how specific tactics would fit into those goals.

Two is still better than one, especially when it's one from each power body (government and Jedi).
I think someone also said something earlier about escape routes getting blocked, in which case they're not purposely hanging around, risking their lives to get another hostage, but simply getting the most out of one battle. They have to fight anyways to take away one hostage, may as well take another in the process.
In addition, Palpatine is still supposed to be a good person in the eyes of the public. If he was the only one captured, and the Republic had to make a big sacrifice to save him, people would question why he doesn't commit suicide to save the Republic from making the deal.

 

Dooku’s endgame in all of this is left rather murky I agree, but at this point he’s still at least pretending to carry out Palpatine’s plans. This presumes that Dooku got a version of the plan that does not involve Anakin killing him in cold blood while rescuing the Chancellor and eventually replacing him, but still makes enough sense that he doesn’t catch on to the fact that it is not Plan A. I guess based on the nature of the Sith you could even say that Dooku being aware that Palps hopes to replace him with Anakin isn’t a dealbreaker, since he can simply win the fight and prove he is still more deserving after all, but in this case there still has to exist a Plan B that Dooku believes is worth being a part of once he convinces Sidious that Plan A(nakin) wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

 

I'm talking about what Dooku knew/thought about the entire Clone Wars, of which the Battle of Coruscant is just a part of. We don't know what incentives Sidious promised to Dooku for setting up the whole war in the first place, therefore it is hard to guess what Sidious told Dooku the purpose of the kidnapping was in relation to their overall goal.

 

I think the general idea of spreading chaos and instability throughout the galaxy so that they can take advantage of people’s fears to consolidate power is pretty clear, while simultaneously weakening the Jedi both numerically and morally. Whether Dooku truly believes there will be some kind of ceasefire agreement when the time is right that allows him to assume the number 2 position in a reconciled government as the Separatists’ representative, or he knows both of them can’t make it to the end together so he’s betting on winning the game all Sith Apprentices play with their Master anyways is hard to say, but I don’t think it really matters here. The root of the question is, “why would a man in Palpatine’s position wake up one morning and decide to order his own kidnapping?“. Now the correct answer seems to be so he can get Anakin 1-on-1 with Dooku and encourage him to execute an unarmed prisoner without any pesky witnesses, but he can’t exactly mention that part when he calls Dooku up and says “hey I need you to do me a favor, come attack Coruscant and take the Supreme Chancellor AKA me as a prisoner real quick.”

 

If the supposed end goal is for a divided galaxy where they each rule half, then the supposed purpose of the kidnapping might be to use him/them as hostages to negotiate boundaries etc.
If the supposed end goal is for a reconciled government, then the supposed purpose of the kidnapping might be to "provide an opportunity" for the leaders of both sides to meet face to face and try to reach an understanding. The chancellor, despite being the one held captive, might be able to "convince" the separatists to halt their attacks and discuss their beliefs and values with the Republic, and together make the galaxy a *better* place.
If the supposed end goal is eternal war so they can each have absolute power over their own people, then the supposed purpose of the kidnapping might be for the chancellor to escape with "injuries" (like, maybe a deformed face) to increase people's sympathy for their chancellor and hatred for the enemy.

I'm just throwing out random possibilities here. We know don't know much about Dooku as far as the movies go. I can't really analyze him.

 

The kidnapping also was done to throw the jedi off the scent on who Sidiious was I think they were getting a bit too close to thinking it was Palpatine so this threw their theories out.

 

Plus, even if Anakin and Obi-wan either fail to show up or fail in their mission, it's still a huge blow against the Republic (and Jedi) in the eyes of the public that the enemy was capable of rolling up on their capital and steal their leader. I have no doubt that Palpatine could have easily found a way to spin that situation in his favor.

 

I think it likely that Dooku knew of order 66 and how that would be used.
So I think he knew that that the seps would just be useful idiots that cause a war. Said war kill lots of Jedi and order 66 will take care of what is left.
The war is also used to give Palpatine more and more power. Trading away freedom for security.
The end point would be the Republic turning into the empire and the seps all getting killed off as enemies of the Republic/Empire.
What Dooku's role would be here is debatable.
He could just use a mask or disguise and just be Lord Tyrannus, right hand man to the Emperor.
Like Vader became.
The idea that he would be satisfied of being captured and thrown in jail seems unlikely.
It would take a lot of spin to say for ex that Dooku was not really responsible for the seps actions, that was all on Nute and the other leaders. Or that Dooku had seen the truth and realized that the seps were evil and thus changed sides.
That would leave Dooku as a defeated enemy that either realized he was on the wrong side after quite a while or he is spared execution and only lives due to Palpatine being generous.
Again I don't see how Dooku would be happy with that, he seemed a little too prideful for that. Plus would a sith be ok with this?

I doubt that the goal was to divide the galaxy up between them, both are siths and neither would accept that. They would both know that the other would come for them eventually.

If Dooku had any goals of becoming the Sith Master, he could have done something here. Like killing Palpatine instead of kidnapping him.

In AotC, Mace made it clear that he and the other Jedi would not become hostages to be bartered.
So would the Jedi barter for Anakin?
Or would they expect him to die before allowing himself to be captured?

Also, the kidnapping of Palpatine was some time before the start of RotS. How long is unclear.
So even if the ship could not leave now, that does not mean it could not leave when they had just grabbed Palpatine. As far as I could see, the ship never moved, it was right over Coruscant the whole time.
Plus the seps have several ships. Simply have other ships form a wedge and litteraly break through the republic line and then the ship jumps away. Yes they would loose a lot but staying looses them even more and they loose their hostage.
I know that Palpatine does not want to leave and waits for Anakin but if the ships just sits there and makes no attempt to leave. That might look odd.

The attack was a surprise and Anakin and Obi-Wan had to be recalled. presumably with some of the forces they were with.
So the plan seemed to be "Grab Palpatine, then sit and wait in the middle of a battle for however many hours or days it would take for Obi-Wan and Anakin to get back. Hoping that their ship isn't disabled or blown up during that time."
As I've said, makes very little sense.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface