How did Maul know to go to Tatooine?

Ive seen this movie a dozen times and somehow I missed something. I saw no evidence of anyone telling Palpatine that the jedi and queen went to Tatooine.

 

I assume Maul traced the transmission from Sio Bibble to the Naboo cruiser.

Qui-Gon: It sounds like bait to establish a connection trace.

..

Darth Maul: Tatooine is sparsely populated. If the trace was correct, I will find them quickly, Master.

Perhaps someone sent a reply to Bibble without Obi-Wan knowing. Its probably explained in the novel.

 

he's a sith. he can do anything. cause sith rule.

 

This is something that I couldn't figure out for ages. It was the very fact that they accepted "Bibble's" message which was really sent by Maul which enabled Maul to trace where the signal was received. Had Qui Gon instructed Obi-wan to not let them send OR RECEIVE any transmissions, it would have made the whole thing a lot clearer.

 

"If the trace is correct, I shall find them quickly, Master."
--Darth Maul

 

He made an educated guess.

 

I believe a reply had to be made in some capacity in order for Maul to establish a trace.

 

Maybe simply receiving the message triggered some kind of short reply, like an email receipt that goes back to the sender. That would have been enough for Maul to trace.

 

[DarthNigel]: " Maybe simply receiving the message triggered some kind of short reply, like an email receipt that goes back to the sender."

That's possible, but then why would Obi-Wan be so adamant about them not sending a reply? I suppose they would want to minimize the risk. Even if receiving the message would put them at a slight risk they wouldn't want to take a further risk by sending a reply.

I have another theory, perhaps even more far-fetched. Perhaps Palpatine had secretly placed a tracer on the Queen's ship long before the blockade even took place, just in case.

 

I have asked the same question before.
Here is some feedback from the thread:
http://boards.theforce.net/message.asp?topic=14419386&replies=29

 

The very act of receiving the transmission pinpointed the ship's location.

 

I was confused about this too, but there's a quick little scene when someone walks in on Padme while she's playing the message by herself. I wondered if she had given a reply, away from the jedi.

 

because darth maul knew that in the other three movies, they visited tatooine twice, so he thought that maybe GL would start shooting Tatooine scenes again... it was a gamble, but he gambled right... upon arrival he saw loads of camera crews and Jedi actors... unfortunately he failed to take them down...

 

Simple. In the Sith-cave, Sidious sends out an encoded transmission (the Sio Bibble-plead) to all ship in all systems (like a network broadcast), that can only be decoded by the Royal Naboo Starship (other ships neglect the transmission as they can't decode it). However, the transmission wasn't normal, as it contained a Sith-virus ('ihateu') that extracts the shiplog (revealing the Naboo-Tatooine autopilot command) and establishes a connection with the Sith-cave, sending the log.

Or the Sith have "instant movie"-technology like in Spaceballs, so they can fast-forward the film and see where they're located.

 

maul looked into his palantir

 

Hmmm, I was going to ask this myself, but it's alredy been posted. Problem is, all that is just speculatory replies. What is the answer? How did Maul trace the fugitives to Tatooine?

It was a glaring question you picked up in the movie, a heck of an unanswered question for viewers. The novelisation too gives no answer for readers.

If anyone obtains an official answer, I'd appreciate knowing.

 

i always thought that since the sio bibble transmission scene was immediately followed by the coruscant scene where maul mentions a trace and tatooine, then we were supposed to put 2 and 2 together to surmise that the trace WAS the transmission. i agree that is a little ambiguous as to how the sith did it. but its all good because that leaves the door open for fantastic fan-based explanations like darth meul's.

 

The recieved transmission from Bibble was clearly the trace.
Qui Gon was doing all he knew to stop them being traced by telling the not to *send* any transsmissions.


It was just Maul being sneakier than the Jedi could know.
I mean Qui Gonn is a Jedi and middle aged ladies chaser, how's he to know incoming transmissions can be traced ? He could most likely only barely just use the Philips lady shave hand unit he had on his belt .

And likewise Obi Wan, he was too busy trying to decide if he should listen to Yoda or Qui Gonn about the nature of the Force and was so confused he failed Comms 101.

SHB JR

 

Or, maybe Maul just did some educated reasoning. Simular to Boba Fett in ESP. IF the ship was damaged, there are only so many places they can go. Tatooine would be the best choice because the Hutts wouldn't expect them. Just as Bespin was Solo's best choice because of his ties to Lando.

As far as the trace.. Maybe Maul used some informant's info about a Nebulain (sp) ship parked out in the desert.

 

YES!! I LOVE SPACEBALLS!!!

 

What does that have to do with the topic?

 

Maul is able to determine that the ship is on Tatooine the same way Obi-Wan is able to determine that Anakin is on Tatooine in AOTC - the ship receiving messages enables them to somehow pinpoint the ship's location.

 

Excellence: Watch the damn movie.

Maul says: "if the trace was correct, I shall find them quickly Master."

Obviously, the Sio transmission had a virus attached to it that betrayed the location of the ship.

 

He read the script. Shame he didn't read the end.

And like that... he's gone.

 

Yea, he had to have known.