PT When did Palpatine become aware of Anakin?

This seems to have changed over time, especially from Legends to Disney canon.
The novel Darth Plagueis suggests that Palpatine only realized Anakin’s significance after first encountering him on Coruscant, however, as of movie and/or new canon, did Palpatine realize Anakin’s significance before the battle of Naboo (he clearly did by the end of TPM, given his line to Anakin)? Did he want Maul out of the way from the get-go?
Palpatine’s willingness to hire a new apprentice 20 years older than himself also suggests that he never intended for Dooku to last long.

 

@Emperor Ferus

Palpatine is supposed to have like 17 plates spinning at all times. I doubt he wanted to lose Maul on Naboo, but I bet he would have groomed Anakin to replace Maul had Maul not died and necessitated Dooku.

It's unknown if Palpatine knew about Anakin being a suspected Chosen One by the Jedi when Anakin initially got to Coruscant or by the time Anakin left Coruscant to go to Naboo, but once Anakin (at ten years old) was able to take out a droid control ship, Palpatine definitely started doing some digging.

 

The obvious assumption based on what's presented in the movies is that Palpatine "discovered" Anakin after the Battle of Naboo. "We will watch your career with great interest". Anything else is unconfirmed speculation based on pretty much nothing (except for the story about Darth Plagueis, which could or could not be true anyway).

 

More like he couldn't afford to start from scratch, specially in such a critical time of his master plan.

It's clear that he only became aware of Anakin after the events on Naboo.

 

George Lucas answered this in the AotC commentary;

George Lucas: ''After Darth Sidious' first apprentice is killed, he has to come up with a new apprentice, and rather than coming up with some baby that he trains from birth, which is what he should have done --well, he shouldn't have gotten himself in a position of getting his apprentice killed anyways-- he's decided to make his move, so he needs somebody that was already trained.''
---Source: AOTC DVD Commentary

Sidious never planned to replace Maul unless Maul gets killed in a mission or in an accident, Maul ''seemingly'' got killed in Episode I so Palpatine had no other choice to recruit a Jedi as a Sith apprentice however Anakin was too young and untrained in Episode I while Sidious had no time to train another apprentice from beginning, so he chose Dooku as Anakin’s place holder until Anakin grows strong enough as a Jedi, so Anakin could be his real apprentice. Not because Dooku was a better apprentice than Maul only Anakin could've been better. Then Maul returned in the Clone Wars by surprising even Sidious with his impressive dark side power (Dooku could never survive that bisection) but it was too late as Sidious already decided on Anakin and Maul was already trying to kill Sidious by plotting with Mother Talzin and Savage Opress, he kept plotting to kill Sidious with different methods later even after Talzin and Savage died (trying to recruit and tryin to use Ahsoka, then by trying to use Ezra and Malachor battle station etc etc) but it didn't work obviously until he found out that Luke could destroy him and he died knowing that.

In the new canon Sidious also said Maul was a loss and he is different than Dooku.

Sidious: ''And my apprentices? Darth Maul was a loss. But Darth Tyranus... He was a proton torpedo.''
---Source: Darth Vader #20 - End of Games, Part I (2016)

Maul was just like Sidious, trained from a very young age as a Sith Lord not someone who was a former Jedi so there would no danger for his apprentice turning to the light side and betray him, but after Maul got killed he had no other choice.

Perhaps Sidious should've trained two Sith apprentices secretly like Tenebrous did in the Legends. Tenebrous trained both Plagueis and Venamis secretly, but Plagueis didn't replace Venamis, he killed him after finding out that there's another Sith apprentice who can replace him. Who knows perhaps Sidious also trained 2 Sith apprentices and Maul killed that Sith apprentice, like he killed Qui-Gon and that Jedi apprentice (Eldra Kaitis), if Maul killed that Sith apprentice pre-TPM, then that would also make sense why Sidious had to rely on a Jedi because there was no Sith left to take as his apprentice.

 

Didn’t the Darth Plaguis book have Sidious and his master manipulating the Force in a way that cause it to snap back against them creating Anakin as a side effect? They weren’t aware of Anakin specifically but were aware of this happening. So when Anakin showed up Sidious had an idea who and what he was. I’m fine with that story being over written but did like that bit of the Sith unintentionally triggering the Force to create a chosen one.

Speaking of apprentices - hasn’t new information come to light that Jedi Master Sifo-Dias may have been Darth Maul’s immediate replacement as Sidious’s apprentice. Then Sifo-Dias brought in Dooku who replaced him?

 

Lucas left open the possibility that Plagueis (not Sidious) experiments in midi-chlorian manipulation could have unintentionally caused Anakin's conception.

Lucas did recently reveal that Sifo-Dyas was the Sith apprentice before Darth Maul:

"Nobody knows who ordered the clones. It's played as if it were somebody from the Jedi Council who foresaw there was going to be a war, so he was preparing for it, but it turns out that was somebody working for Palpatine, Sifo-Dyas. He was the apprentice before Darth Maul."

 

Wow. Can I ask where this quote is from? I thought it was before Dooku not before Maul.

I’m asking because the Clone Wars tells that Dooku ordered the Pykes to kill Sifo-Dyas. What happened so Tyrannus, Maul, and Sifo-Dyas were all actively working for the Sith at the same time?

 

How did I miss this info . This could be used as a story line pre-TPM in the new canon if Lucasfilm decides entertain it because they didn't touch there yet in the new canon. I asked how Maul got his red saber first since the Sith steals the Jedi saber krystals in the new canon due to their traditions, but before Maul even killed Jedi Kaitis he already had a red saber. It would make sense if Maul defeated Dyas and stole Dyas's saber and make it red like Vader stole from Jedi Kirak by killing him, (or it was already Red and Maul just stole it without bleeding) but did Maul let Dyas live for some reason? Because it should've been Dooku ordered the death of Dyas by using Pykes, not Maul. Interesting indeed.

I think its the same story with Anakin's.

Dyas was the placeholder for Maul who is weaker than Maul but Maul needed time to grow.

Dooku was the placeholder for Anakin who is weaker than Anakin but Anakin needed time to grow.

Which makes sense why Lucas said Sidious shouldn't have lost Maul.

Maul was the real apprentice until he found out Anakin could be better so he decided to do the same thing he did with Dyas, use Dooku as placeholder like Dyas until Anakin is ready to defeat Dooku.

Which is why Maul defeated Dyas (like Anakin defeated Dooku) and perhaps Maul let Dyas live and then Dyas got killed by Pykes?

 

It's from Paul Duncan's interview with George Lucas that is included in the book "The Star Wars Archives. 1999–2005".

Yes, but only one was appointed the Sith apprentice at a given time. Before the events of TPM, Dooku, Sifo-Dyas and Maul were all working, at different degrees, for Sidious.

Dooku only became Darth Tyranus after Darth Maul's apparent demise on Naboo. But Dooku was working for Sidious long before that, while he was a Jedi (that's how he managed to delete Kamino from the Jedi Archives). Same with Sifo-Dyas. This is in contrast with Maul, who was groomed from the start to be a Sith Lord and only became one once Dyas was killed.

Assuming that Lucas didn't misspeak, of course.

 

Near the end of the Clone Wars the emergency beacon on Sifo-Dyas’s crashed shuttle began to transmit. Plo Koon located the ship and found Sifo-Dyas’ working lightsaber in the wreckage.

The clone wars series revealed Sifo-Dyas was sent to negotiate with the Pykes by Chancellor Valorum as part of a secret mission. Before his mission was complete Sifo-Dyas was contacted by the Jedi Council with emergency orders to travel to Feluccia and help with a problem there. As his shuttle departed Tyrannus ordered the Pykes to shoot down Dyas’s shuttle. The craft crashed on a Pyke Moon. Sifo-Dyas was killed in the crash. His body was then taken to Felicia where the natives said his body was brought to their village by another Jedi and cremated according to Jedi tradition. The Jedi Order didn’t know the identity of this other Jedi. The natives were told by this mystery Jedi that Sifo-Dyas died helping with the problem he was sent to help with. But he really died on in a shuttle crash on a far away moon.

That makes sense. I wonder if Dooku was to Sifo-Dyas what Ventress was to Dooku. And once Dyas’ usefulness to Sidious was over he had Dooku kill Dyas. That would tie up a lot of loose ends and create a dead end for the Jedi later investigating the origin of the Clone Army.

Even if he wasn’t Darth Tyrannus - Dooku was using the name Tyrannus by that time.

 

Its easy to explain the lightsaber if they want to use that, Kenobi lost his lightsaber several times and make a new one shortly after, same with even Ezra in the Rebels TV Show. If Dyas lost his lightsaber to Maul he can make a new one shortly after, if the Sith let Dyas live obviously since he died because of Pykes. But why would the Sith let him live if Maul replaced Dyas, why would Sidious replace Dyas without Dyas losing to Maul or without Dyas dying because Dyas was still alive in TPM only lost his Sith apprentice position to Maul as Lucas says ''Dyas was the apprentice before Maul'' meaning that Maul took that position officially from Dyas. Also Lucas clearly says in AotC commentary that Maul is ''the first Sith apprentice'', not Dyas. So this should be a new one or did Lucas change his mind later?

 

Its Dooku who kills Sifo-Dyas by ordering the Pykes to shoot him down. Many ways to kill a force wielder - doesn’t have to be a duel. But Dooku should have done it personally.

When this episode of the Clone Wars premiered on NetFlix we didn’t know Sifo-Dyas could be a Sith Lord. It seemed like Dooku was cleaning up the Sith trail of deceiving Jedi Sifo-Dyas to honestly order a Clone Army in the name of the Republic and Jedi that would unknowingly serve the Sith.

The Pykes confirm on screen in front of Anakin and Obi-Wan that Dooku and Tyrannus are one and the same. Tyrannus ordered the attack. But there were a few loose ends Dooku unwittingly left - like Valorum’s aide who was shot down with Sifo-Dyas but didn’t die in the shuttle crash. All that time he was a prisoner the Pykes kept for possible future leverage. This created sort of an emergency to the Sith plans that Darth Tyrannus had to rectify personally - in front of Obi-Wan and Anakin. It was really close.

In a later episode of the same story arc Yoda is confronted with the Sith created illusion of a captive and tortured Sifo-Dyas. Sifo-Dyas inexplicably has yellow red Sith eyes and in general seems to have turned to the Dark Side as he pleads with Yoda to rescue him. That depiction didn’t make much sense as the illusion was meant to trick Yoda into freeing him - why make his friend seem evil if playing on Yoda’s sympathy. But maybe that’s who Sifo-Dyas really was at the end and the illusion created by Dooku and Sidious was limited in reflecting that reality. Part of these illusions effectiveness on Yoda required the real life bond Dooku and Yoda once shared as master and apprentice. Palpatine alone couldn’t have used this dark side magic without that element from Dooku.

 

I've never watched TCW... but going on only what is shown in the movies - someone working for palpatine would have had to be the one to order the clones.... otherwise how would they have built in the order 66 stuff?

Nothing else seems plausible to me.

 

At the very least the Clone Wars confirms Sifo-Dyas started the process of ordering the clone army and setup having special secret orders for the clones. Whether he was a Sith Lord or honest Jedi who saw the future - Sifo-Dyas left instructions that the Kaminoans could not fully trust the Jedi Order or Republic. It’s not clear when Sifo-Dyas died in the process. But Count Dooku using the name Tyrannus had direct top secret contact with the Cloners as a trust worthy Jedi given special command above and beyond the Jedi Order with the army. Tyrannus picked Jango Fett and when a clone later malfunctioned early with Order 66 Tyrannus made secret communication with the Cloners how to deal with it. It’s clear Tyrannus was involved with programmingOrder 66.

Also the Kaminoans believe everyone involved are Jedi and found this double fail safe an odd annoying client request. They see it more peculiar Jedi behavior. They also thought it was weird the Jedi regard the clones as people, not military equipment.

So back to Palpatine becoming aware of Anakin - it seems Palpatine had multiple apprentices at once or a quick succession of them. And he needed them for different purposes. Maul is more like a force weapon and possible future successor / Sith Master. While Dooku’s knowledge of the Jedi Order - and Sifo-Dyas if was an apprentice - was needed to create and hide the Clone Army as well as start the separatist movement and Clone Wars.

It makes sense to let Anakin learn from the Jedi and build up his skill and knowledge until he’s powerful enough to rival Dooku as a Sith Apprentice and after Dooku’s usefulness is over.

 

Not canon but the ROTS book implies that Palpatine may have created Anakin out of midiclorians. I found it interesting.

 

Wait…
Sifo Dyas was a Sith?

 

Maybe. A recently released Lucas interview and details on The Clone Wars make it a distinct possibility.

 

Wait, Lucas said that Sifo Dyas was a Sith Lord? So Sidious was training him and Maul at the same time? Doesn’t that violate the rule of two? This is getting even more confusing.

 

My guess is he was keeping Dyas for getting more and secret information from the Jedi Council since he needed it and using him to manipulate Jedi council, but Maul was the end goal apprentice similar to how he used Dooku for Confederation connections but Anakin was the real end goal apprentice.

Maul might be the secret apprentice and Maul maybe took the official title by beating Dyas.

If I have to guess or create a story line which make sense; Maul finds out there's another apprentice that Sidious uses (like when he discovered captive Jedi Kaitis) and he finds Dyas secretly and defeats him, but before the final strike, Sidious arrives in time and stops Maul (similar to how Sidious stopped Vader from killing Grand Inquisitor) , says that this was sooner than he expected and he orders Maul to spare Dyas's life, since he still needs Dyas for Jedi Council connections but he had no other choice to make Maul his official Sith apprentice which happens sooner than he thought, this could explain why Maul was the Sith Apprentice not Dyas during Naboo Battle and why Dyas was still alive despite losing his position to Maul. After becoming Chancellor, he gets rid of Dyas by using Pykes. Since Chancellor has some authority over Jedi Council and he didn't need Dyas anymore.

As for violating the rule of two, the rule is for protecting the Sith, if Sith decided that the rule is not working anymore then they could easily change it anytime they wanted. Its not like there's a Sith council who are above of Sidious and they are telling Sidious that he can't do it. He can, or other Sith lords too but they understand and they know that the rule is for their own protection and for their own power growth (because weaker Sith gang up on the one strong Sith and Sith can't grow stronger with each generation, so the rule of two made them stronger) so they follow the rule for being stronger and for protection, they don't need to obey it all the time as Sidious told Maul, when Maul disobeyed Sidious's orders Sidious told Maul he didn't fail him because its Sith's nature to defy the authority and the first Sith has born from defiance, and Maul's mission made him stronger so it was actually useful.

So its their nature to break or bend the rules, if the two Sith apprentices doesn't know each other or if they are in no position to work with each other, than its no threat for the strongest Sith master so its not a problem for protection and power growth. Inquisitors are also another faction that actually violates the rule of two openly, it doesn't matter what their name is they are still trained Dark side Force users who works for the Sith master Sidious. Sidious was sure that they wouldn't rebel against him so it was no problem.

But if Vader trains secretly someone then that's a problem because Vader and secret Sith apprentice that Sidious doesn't know can rebel against Sidious. In the legends, Sith master Tenebrus trained both Venamis and Plagueis too, so it happens almost in every generation of the Sith. The Sith follow the rule as long as it suits them, that's how Sith works, they are not like Jedi.

 

I've seen AOTC at least a dozen times, read the book, and I'm still not sure who Sifo Dyas is.

 

I remember that TCW Season 6 episode, they said ''Valorum'' send Dyas to a secret mission related to the Pykes, and that's when Dyas died. So this means that it was before Episode I and Battle of Naboo, because that's where Valorum loses his status as Chancellor of the Republic, so Valorum can't send other Jedi to a secret mission without being the Chancellor. This confirms that Dyas died either shortly before Episode I and Battle of Naboo, or died during those events. I guess it's safe to assume that Dyas was already dead during Episode I.

Also I think, Dyas was indeed turned to the dark side in the new canon too, it wouldn't make sense for Sidious to use Dyas's appearance to trick Yoda. Sidious wouldn't use Dyas if he didn't know Dyas very well, he definitely know how Dyas's voice and his appearance would be, and even Dyas's behaviours so he would choose to act like Dyas to trick Yoda, who was his former apprentice. Although we know Sidious acted with different voices to trick Kylo Ren, still every one of them was related to Sidious; Vader, Snoke etc. It would make sense to use Dyas too, if Dyas is also connected to Sidious.

 

Such a great line way back from Episode 1. There was a part of me that even liked Palpatine back then. LOL

 

Sifo Dyas dies after TPM. Darth Tyranus is the one who orders the Pykes to kill him. In AOTC, they say Dyas was killed nearly 10 years ago. TPM is 10 years before AOTC.

 

I believe he became aware of Anakin around the same time that the Jedi had decided to make him a part of the Order - during the Battle of Naboo.