Lit Palpatine’s ultimate goal…

So, in canon and legends, Palpatine’s ultimate goal is to become omnipotent and reshape the universe/reality to his design.

Whereas in Legends he more so wanted to rule over a universe of life energy batteries, in canon, it seems his angle to this is to gain god like powers and ascend as a deity. Perhaps even “becoming” the dark side entirely, as he often claims that he is.

My question is this: if Palpatine did gain such unfathomable power, what would this hypothetical universe look like? What did he want the universe to look like? This opens up a plethora of questions in regards to his “true” personality and desires.

Would he create a pure, orderly, Human society, as COMPNOR would have relished?

Would he rule over a grim, hellish reality where all beings are constantly tortured and tormented?

Discuss.

(note that this thread is not so much a what-if, but more so a discussion of Palpatine’s end goal and if we can use the discussion to better dissect what the “real” Sidious was like {for example, the age old debate on whether he was himself xenophobic or not})

 

Peace, Order, Stability... what everyone wants of course. Some just fall prey to the lure of the wrong means to this end. Trapped in the wheels of breaking bad and ever returning cycles of war, pain, death and worse before ejecting from those realizing the trap.

There are several ways to reach that goal... one is to make all see reason and coexist. Failing that, to force them. Failing that due to resistance, to kill any dissenters. Failing that given you have to kill all, as more will always step up, to become the universe and god by consuming it all Nihilus style. In the end, an empty universe and death await and behind it... game over, try again?

 

This might just be my headcanon, but I'd prefer to just delete all the Dark Empire cloning stuff. There's no way to cheat death, light side or dark. Palpatine's goal was just to rule the galaxy for as long as possible, and perpetuate the Sith Order by training an apprentice to eventually take his place.

 

His musings in the Book of Sith plainly state that he never intended on being replaced. Sure he planned on training apprentices, but never to depose him.

In fact, I would assume that they would all end up being Darth Mauls, in effect, just specialized assassins or spies, depending on Sidious’ goals at the time.

EDIT: I have just skimmed through the Dark Empire Sourcebook, and it states that Palpatine intended on the descends of the Skywalker bloodline to act as a nobility class, while himself (Palpatine) serves as its omnipotent ruler.

So we can assume he would just have some sort of Skywalker baby factory going on and training them as regents/apprentices. With the rest of the Dark Side Adepts acting as minor lords.

 

The DE endgame seems to me to be based on knowing-

1. The universe is potentially infinite and other opposition would be met,
2. Potential "power ups" through the soul battery provide an infinite fuel source/source of further power.

A truly ascended Palpatine is something like the Ones times infinity, or infinity minus one. Unless he acquired direct power over the force itself(possible) as well as the material universe-there'd always be something higher to reach for.

That's just...not the case. It misunderstands the Sith's raison d'etre and Palpatine's character. The pursuit of immortality is what the Sith are fundamentally about. And as much as Palpatine is a break with the Sith of the past-he strives for this goal as the only goal of true significance.

At a certain point Palpatine is going to be so powerful-both in innate force ability-and his adepts(which I think would become literal "hands" losing their individual will entirely) and his automated warfleets/world devastators/endless superweapons that nothing short of an equally powerful figure could stop him. Palpatine would want to prevent the Force from "striking back" as it is implied to have done with Anakin's birth.

Canon I don't know as much of-but from what I've gleaned, Palpatine was more interested in controlling reality itself or bending it to his will. DE Palpatine would have been also pursuing endless wars of universal conquest, until at least he became so unimaginably powerful that even the most distant galaxies and most indomitable opposition would have been like wet clay in his hands.

In short-Palpatine wanted universal rulership, everlasting life, and omnipotence.

 

I dunno, I would think that if immortality were possible, then the best chance for the Sith to attain it would have been during the Sith Empire under Marka Ragnos and Naga Sadow. Did the Sith really make some revolutionary discovery between then and 0 BBY? Not to mention that none of their wars against the Jedi and the Republic make sense if their goal was simply to study the Force and become immortal.

 

Vitiate came pretty close-with the ritual he conducted and all. Its notable Plagueis(and arguably Palpatine) saw cloning as something of an inferior substitute. With essence transfer lost, and Vitiate's own ritual either not replicable or also lost.

My interpretation is the Sith "ideal" in terms of immortality is the maintenance of their physical body as it is-having to clone copies, or have their consciousness jump from various hosts isn't the sort of immortality they want, they just settle for it. Plagueis very much did not want to rely on clones or essence transfer. He wanted to become biologically immortal.

Which fits well with both the Sith species' and the Dark Jedi exiles' ideals.

The Sith's secondary goals are to get revenge on the Republic and Jedi, or to conquer the former. Throughout their history-various Sith have focused on different aspects of either of these goals.

 

Palpatine Resurrection in Legends was more OP he had the World Devastators,the Dark Side Elite,more Clone Bodies even he rejuvenated himself and had a Lightsaber Duel with Luke and even came back after being Defeated like 3 times in the New Canon Universe Palpatine Clone Body was more Weak and wanted to take over Rey Body in a similar way Palpatine did the same in Legends with Baby Anakin Solo i believe Palpatine Return it was more dangerous in Legends

 

Plagueis did become biologically immortal, though. Its just that he didn't survive for long after.

 

The new material has Sidious seeing himself as the centre of reality, if it doesn't work for him, he wanys it destroyed. Thus Operation Cinder - a punishment for an empire that failed to protect its emperor.

End goal here is perpetual continuance of a totalitarian dictatorship that is aimed all for the benefit of one person. You or your world fails to do that? Blown up by a Sith Star Destroyer.

 

Disney's handling of the Emperor is, like their handling of Vader, one of their best efforts in an otherwise uneven continuity. Based on interviews, commentary, and McDiarmid's lines in ROTS, it seemed like Lucas was leaning into the idea that Palpatine was so devoted to the Sith as an ideology that he was fully prepared to sacrifice his life for the Sith's continuation.

With respect to the Flannelled One, that always seemed like a weird misinterpretation of the sadistic troll we see in ROTJ. It seemed obvious to me that he had no intention of letting Luke "strike [him] down!" because he was fully capable of defending himself or was fully confident Vader would intervene (which he did).

Canon, thankfully, is playing up how spiteful, narcissistic, and treacherous Sheev is. Unlike Bane and other Sith Lords, Palpatine has absolutely no loyalty to the Sith as an ideology, a lineage, or anything else. Like the Empire, the Sith is a means for him to personally accrue power and he'll bend, break, or replace any or every rule along the way the moment they inconvenience him.

That's the true essence of the character imo. It's also a great irony that Bane, a visionary who for all his faults was rabidly devoted to the Rule of Two, would probably be appalled that the culmination of his line, someone more powerful and successful than he ever was, was someone who didn't give a kriff about any of it beyond what it would do for him personally.

 

Nah, some Sith just want to watch the galaxy burn.

 

Lucas' sometimes has weird and frankly bad ideas. I don't know why.

As for Palpatine-I think its fitting he doesn't care for the Sith as a tradition, or something to follow in a religious sense-he is the ultimate Sith because he's following the Sith's goal of destroying the Jedi and the Republic and achieving eternal life.

Bane would have been pleased at that.

 

Palps being the latest in a line of Sith Lords rather than the originator of the conflict between himself and the Jedi is something I’m conflicted on.

When Episodes 7-9 were first announced in 2012, I was expecting prequel-haters to say that they didn’t want the villains to be “Sith” or to be called “Darth”.

He mentions “the Sith” twice in TROS, but I don’t think “Darth Sidious” is ever mentioned in TROS.

 

While not technically Legends, Palpatine's POV in Luceno's Tarkin novel, continuing themes from Darth Plagueis, makes it sounds like Palpatine's ultimate goal is to overthrow the Force, to dethrone it, to possess life entirely on his own terms, unconstrained by any external rule or need for symbiosis, balance, etc. Per Lucas, the result of pure dark side would be cancer consuming itself, annihilation, nothingness. If Palpatine finally won, if that's even possible, it would be the end of all life in the galaxy, maybe even beyond, because life is not possible without mutuality, reciprocity, symbiosis, balance.

In New Canon, Palpatine's means to this end is trying to access the World between the Worlds, changing the past and the future, becoming omni-temporal and collapsing space-time into a dark side singularity - himself. Cloning and essence transfer are a stop-gap or a consolation prize for not finding or not being able to open the Exegol gate.

 

I think that comports well with Legends' where the Sith's attitude on "mundane" forms of immortality is very much seen as something to settle for when you can't have the gold metal. The Sith want to become God more or less-but they don't want to give up their bodies in the process.

Having to jump from host to host, or through cloned surrogates-or worse cling to a pitiful existence as a ghost in a tomb is something Sith settle for-if they could have their dreams fulfilled these are not the forms of immortality any of them would actually choose.

 

Well, I don't mind that at all. The Jedi are an ancient order with ancient enemies and grudges. I'm fine with the notion of the Sith as an ancient, incestuous battle with the Jedi. It explains the Emperor's training and mastery, but the thousand year peace in which the Sith were mostly inactive also allows for Sidious to be the primary catalyst for renewed conflict with the Jedi and for his own reasons beyond Darth Bane's vendetta.

Honestly, that fact annoys me. Darth Sidious is a cooler name than Sheev Palpatine imo and reflects more of his essence. Sheev Palpatine is the statesman persona the Emperor employed; Darth Sidious reflects his truer, baser nature. In terms of titles/names, for me it goes: "the Emperor" (cool, blunt, ominous) > Darth Sidious > Palpatine.

Also, while we're on the subject, sidebar: it annoys me when writers misunderstand styles of address and just have characters address the Emperor directly as "sir" or "my lord" or "Emperor." It should be "Your Highness" or "Your Majesty" unless they know his Sith heritage in which case I can justify the "my lord."

 

This 100%. He’s clearly “Darth Sidious” in ROTJ and TROS and should be referred to as such. Senator/Chancellor Palpatine seems to be a completely different person to those who don’t know in TPM and AOTC while “Darth Sidious” seems to be the future Emperor. I was hoping that the 2014 canon reboot meant we would see “Darth Sidious” more post-ROTS.

 

I dunno. We knew of him as just "Palpatine" for almost 20 years, and that didn't make him seem any less evil or sinister.

 

^ Agreed. 'Sidious' sounds cartoonishly evil.

 

Most likely if Palpatine had won in Dark Empire he would have used his World Devastators to defeat the Yuuzhan Vong if he had defeated the Vong he would have conquered other Galaxies and if in Legends there is something like World Between Worlds he would have used that power also to conquer other Universes/Realities i think Palpatine wanted to become something more powerful than a Celestial

 

Evil is never satisfied.

Can you imagine Palpatine saying "This is it. All I need. I am done."

Palpatine's "ultimate" goal would be unattainable, as each milestone he reached would allow him to survey the next one beyond.

The Empire, the Galaxy, more galaxies, other dimensions, and on and on.

If the universe is truly infinite, so are the aspirations of the darkside.

 

I have an unreasonable dislike for the name "Sheev," but I don't think Sidious is much better. And I'd argue that the Banite, Separatist "Darth Sidious" was as much a persona as Senator/Chancellor/Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.

 

New Canon Palpatine for some reason wanted to use World Between Worlds during Rebels
for what purpose?

 

In that case, what is his true name?