PT Palpatine's Machinations

The seps want to leave . If they attack I suppose they could take the capitol , but what's the point? And what about the millions of planets in the republic ? They outnumber the seps quite a bit. And now they will gather their armies together.

But as Palpatine what's he doing ? has he been removed from power?

 

@Samuel Vimes

A great chess master has all contingencies. Thinking multiple steps ahead.

Having BOTH Separatists Droid Army and Republic Clone Army covers all his angles. So as Palpatine, he is the Chancellor while as Sidious, he is also the De Facto leader of the Separatists …..so it’s a win win either way. As he pits them against each other….who ever wins, Palpatine will take the winning side.

Kill The Chosen One??? Who said he didn’t try?? Maybe It’s one of those “movie destiny” thing.

“The Emperor knew as I did, if Anakin were to have any offsprings, they would be a THREAT to him.”

“The Force is strong with him. He can DESTROY US. The son of Skywalker MUST NOT BECOME A JEDI.”

“Luke you still don’t realize YOUR IMPORTANCE, YOU CAN DESTROY THE EMPEROR, He has FORESEEN this.”

Why didn’t Palpatine kill Luke the moment he walked in with handcuffs with Vader???

I know in the book…for some reason he didn’t want Anakin to be killed by Dooku if Anakin fails to defeat him.

But as for me, in movie logic. Palpatine was just testing who was more powerful Tyranus or Anakin. Whoever wins earns the right to be his apprentice…so Palpatine might as well was trying to kill Anakin. For whatever reasons…Palpatine foresees Anakin as a Sith is his key to his success and that is why he fears Luke and Anakin as a Jedi.

 

When is this stated in any of the movies? As far as the internal logic of AOTC is concerned; the Republic (with only Jedi and local planetary defense forces) is already worried even before they find out about the massive droid armies. Then, once the Republic finds out about the droid armies, they get so worried to the point of acting illogically and putting a clone army of highly questionable origins to use.

But what you're claiming is that, even if the Seps had both the droid armies AND the clone armies, the Republic would be on better footing than they were in the actual movie?? I'm not buying that. That doesn't even make any sense.

He would have never wasted his time trying to infiltrate the Republic at all. He would just be guiding the Seps away from the Republic and manipulating them into starting a war with droids AND clones on their side against a Republic that is in no way, shape, or form prepared to go to war.

 

yeah because they don't want war, they don't want the union to break up.

But I still don't see what you've got Palpy doing in this scenario, how does it benefit him? Is he just Sid now leading the seps in secret?

 

They're unprepared. It is said, in AOTC, that the Jedi won't be enough to stop a potential military uprising from the Seps. And the Republic's options for enacting some sort of federal level army (outside the Clone Army that gets dropped in their laps) are never discussed so neither of us can weigh in on that. We know Naboo has it's own army, but we can't speak for any other planet at the time of AOTC.

Logic would dictate that other planets have their own forces, but logic would also dictate that the Republic wouldn't leave itself defenseless either... and yet that is essentially what they have done by letting the Jedi and Jedi alone protect them for the past few centuries. So, since this Republic operates with little to no forethought toward defending itself, ""logic"" is pretty much useless.

How does Palpatine being in charge of the evil horde that will topple the Republic benefit him? I feel like that question answers itself.

...see...

 

you're making that up.

who says they'll topple the republic? Being in charge of the seps (and in secret)- how is that an improvement from being the leader of the republic? you've demoted him.

 

Sorry but no.
1) In AotC, the crawl says that the seps are causing problems and so much so that the Jedi can no longer maintain the peace so the senate is debating to create a republic army to help the Jedi.
That says clearly that the Republic has no army at this time. The Jedi are the only defenders.
2) A little later Mace says;

Confirming that the Jedi are the only ones that can protect the Republic and there are not enough of them in case the seps turn violent. And this was before Mace knew about the big droid army Dooku had put together.
3) Speaking of Dooku, he says that with their new droid army, the Jedi will be overwhelmed. Again saying that the Jedi are the only defense the Republic has and against the droid army, they are outmatched. Which we see later in the arena. The Jedi fight well but loose.
4) When Yoda shows up with 200 000 soldiers and maybe a dozen ships, Nute is totally surprised, calling it a HUGE army. So between all the Republic worlds, coming up with 200 000 soldiers and a dozen or so ships, that was totally unexpected. Again saying that the various worlds that are still part of the Republic have no military force to speak of. The combined armies of just Earth number a bit more than 200 000.

So the Republic is painted as weak, it only has the Jedi to do their fighting.
That makes very little sense but that is par for the course for the PT.

A chess master would not engage in the convoluted plans that you argue Palpatine has in the PT. That are filled to the brim of things he can not know or control and only make sense if Palpatine has read the script.
Palpatine's plans are not that clever, he only wins because everyone else in the galaxy is dumb.

With just the droid army, the seps will crush the Jedi and win quickly. With both droid and clone army, that victory would be even faster.

You did,

Arguing that Palpatine needs to turn Anakin, no mention of killing him.
And,

Again with the need to turn, just killing Anakin is to you not an option.

And I say if Anakin is the only one that can kill Palpatine then the smart thing to do would be to kill him. Then he has rid himself of the only serious threat.

He thought that Luke was too weak, in case Luke does not turn, then Vader or he would kill him, problem solved.
In ESB, Palpatine initially seemed to want Luke dead, it was Vader that suggest to turn him instead.
And when Luke proved unsuitable, Palpatine was fine with killing him.
So as I have said, Palpatine does not NEED Luke. If he can turn him then good, if not, then killing him works fine. I see the same with Anakin. If he can get Anakin on his side, great. If not, then Anakin dies.
He does not NEED Anakin for anything. Anakin on his side is just a bonus.

That Palpatine could pit Anakin against Dooku and keep who wins, sure. But again, that does not make Anakin a MUST for Palpatine, again he is just a bonus, icing on the cake.
And if, as you argue, Palpatine thinks that Anakin is the only person in the galaxy that can kill him, all the other Jedi are too weak, and that Anakin is destined to kill him. Then a smart person would kill Anakin.
Thus removing his greatest threat. For Palpatine to leave him alive is not smart.
If for some reason Palpatine can not kill Anakin directly then it can make sense that he would want to turn him. But such a thing is never established.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

It makes sense somewhat until he suddenly was able to 'foresee everything' in the third film.

 

Well, according to PT logic, regardless of what Palpatine's plan is for taking over the Republic, he'll just have plans within plans. Regardless of anyone's actions, Sid will come out on top. So... That's how he'll topple the Republic, by benefit of having apparently read the script.

And as far as demotions go, once the Seps demolish the Republic, Palpatine will be the leader of the government that now rules the GFFA. So, it's not so much a demotion as it is just being in the exact same position, but for a different team.

Nope. You probably should watch AOTC again, because these details that myself and @Samuel Vimes are speaking about are in that movie.

 

@Samuel Vimes

If Sidious just used the Droid Army without being Chancellor, there will be no guarantee they could beat the Jedi.

As a Chancellor, he has access to the Jedi’s inner workings. That is why the past Dark Lords failed because they were attacking the numerous Jedi from the outside. As the Chancellor he could attack them from within.

As for the Skywalker line. I’m just going by plot and dialogues here….it was obvious that in the movies Palpatine and the rest of the characters are obsessed with the Skywalkers because after all it’s their movie.

“The Emperor knew as I did, if Anakin were to have any offsprings, they would be a THREAT TO HIM.”
Obi-Wan LITERALLY took himself and Yoda OUT OF THE EQUATION right there.

“That boy was our ONLY HOPE.”
“No THERE IS ANOTHER.”
That other is Leia SKYWALKER….NOT Yoda, nor any Jedi offsprings or any Obi-Wan descendants.

“We have a NEW ENEMY, HE COULD DESTROY US.”

“He’s just a boy, Obi-Wan can no longer help him.”

“The Force is strong with him, the son of Skywalker MUST NOT BECOME A JEDI.”

The way I see it, Palpatine sees the Skywalker as this Unlimited power that HE CAN CONTROL. As a Jedi …it’s a THREAT but as his Sith apprentice…..it can be controlled to do his bidding.

“You can DESTROY THE EMPEROR, he has FORESEEN THIS.”

The Sith are bred to keep getting stronger by having and teaching the most powerful apprentice…survival of the fittest philosophy and there’s no more powerful apprentice than a Skywalker.

It’s for one day the apprentice will beat the master to become the Dark Lord himself is their philosophy.

It’s like a rich guy who wants to marry the hottest girl. He knows she will be his downfall BUT is confident that he can control the situation that he doesn’t care if she will end up being his downfall.

Which Palpatine did for decades and when he discovered a much younger Skywalker….he also went all in on it.

If we are talking about the ST here also then he even has contingencies on a Vader betrayal….he LITERALLY came back from the dead. And of course went after the “hottest girl” again….hey look it’s another Skywalker!! And of course HES OWN BLOODLINE HIMSELF REY. If we go full ST here …he actually BELIEVED that the Skywalker and Palpatine line are the MYTHICAL DYAD.

So that’s why he didn’t want to kill the Skywalker UNTIL he really has to.

 

This is where the actual PT falls apart though. He doesn't need to know the inner workings of the Jedi. If Palpatine just assumed the Jedi would do the dumbest thing possible at every conceivable turn... Palpatine would have guessed correctly and could win by virtue of being the only person in the GFFA during that time period with average intelligence.

Luke is important in the OT because there's only three Jedi left and two of them are elderly. This is the issue GL ran into when crafting the PT because he needed Anakin to be important to the narrative, but there were also thousands of other Jedi running around. So GL made Anakin a prophesized Chosen One to bump up his status. But this leads to narrative issues because no one ever treats Anakin likes he's of any importance. Yeah, they TALK about it a lot, but none of their decisions are ever impacted by it.

Example off the top of my head: If you had access to the only person in the entire universe who could destroy the Sith, and the Sith had just made their comeback after a millennia of nada, would you send that Chosen One to war where he could randomly die in battle, thus ensuring the Sith live on?

This is why it's hard to talk about any character motivation's in the PT that aren't outright stated because so much of the "subtext" that probably should be in the narrative and would actually elevate the material is never explored.

In the PT the Jedi know the Sith have returned and the Jedi have access to a prophesized being who is said to destroy the Sith? What do they do with this information besides sit around and discuss it a few times?

 

@FightoftheForgotten

Or maybe The Jedi just appear dumb and incompetent because their enemy is among them knowing their strategy and subtlety guiding their every moves. Using Dooku a FORMER JEDI as his proxy taking heat and suspicious away from the Chancellor.

As for the Skywalker Lineage,

Obi-Wan specifically says the reason he hid Anakin’s Offsprings was because they are a threat to the Dark Lord himself. While Yoda and Obi-Wan at their PRIME were not factors at all hence why they HID and waited for decades until Luke came of age.

I mean there are other Force Users out there also who they can train or even themselves after ROTS yet they specifically emphasize the importance of Vader and his offsprings.

 

Nah, they're actually dumb. Myself and @Samuel Vimes have gone over this dozens of times in other threads. Their bungling of the Kamino investigation speaks for itself. How are they not even going to bother to look into the possibility of Sifo-Dyas dying BEFORE the army was ordered? How is that not the VERY FIRST THING you look into?

Yes, because Vader's offspring would be effectively the last of any young, fighting capable Jedi. Keep in mind, back in the 80's Yoda couldn't hop around like a meth-head and Obi-Wan was just some old Knight going off on his final adventure.

I don't factor in PT nonsense when it comes to OT character motivations because that stuff doesn't even line up unless you squint really hard anyway.

 

AotC says otherwise, Mace says that if the seps turn violent, there won't be enough Jedi to protect the Republic. And this was before he knew of the new droid army that Dooku had put together. said Dooku also said that the Jedi would be overwhelmed by that army. And as we see, when Jedi fight loads of droids, they loose.

Or perhaps Jedi in the past had a strong military to help them and are not the only defense the Republic has. The Republic in the PT is set up all stupid, they have no army, no soldiers other than the Jedi. And the Jedi can not defend the Republic against a moderately strong attack. So what, did they just hope that no one would actually try and left it at that?
As FightoftheForgotten said, the PT Jedi are very stupid and outwitting them is not actually hard.

Are they?
In TPM, the JC send young Anakin into a warzone where he could get hit by a stray shot and die.
Later, they do decide to train him but hand that job to a Jedi that has never trained anyone before and had just become a Knight himself. And the Jedi had grave misgivings about Anakin, his fear, his attachment to his mother. But sure, let's give him to the total rookie, it is not like Anakin is important to us or the only one who can bring balance.

In ESB, Yoda does want to train Luke and Obi-Wan has to plead with him. Yoda says that Luke is too old and yet he has let three years pass, when Luke was on the Empire's radar and said empire would have killed Luke if they caught him. But sure, wait three years for no reason.
Leia was not on Obi-Wans radar at all and the thought to train her did not enter into the picture until after Luke had left.

That sentence does not mean what you want it to mean. It says just that Anakin's children would be a threat to Palpatine. It does not say that Yoda and Obi-Wan are not threats. You seem to be inserting an "Only" into there.

Also, look at ANH, when Tarkin is informed of Obi-Wan he says quite strongly "He must not be allowed to escape". Suggesting that Obi-Wan is indeed a threat and a danger.
Vader later says, "This will be a day long remembered, we have seen the end of Kenobi and will soon see the end of the Rebellion." Again making Obi-Wan into a fairly big deal.

PT Jedi are not supposed to have children. Also, how come Obi-Wan had to be reminded about Leia?
If she had slipped his mind then how does that fit with everyone being "obsessed" with the Skywalker bloodline? And how come Yoda was so cool with her dying in ESB?

Also, there is an alternative reading here, that Palpatine was worried what the existence of a child might do to Vader. It is not said but I think that Palpatine was pleased that Padme died. She was someone that could have an influence over Anakin/Vader and could pull him away from Palpatine.
A child might do the same.
Or, a child might cause Vader to get ambitious, see a way to overthrow Palpatine and set himself up as no one. Vader alone can not fight Palpatine, one zap and his suit is messed up. But if Vader were to get ahold of a powerful Force user, his own child at that, then Vader could make a play against Palpatine.

Look at the big picture, neither Vader nor Palpatine mention Yoda so they seem to think he is dead.
Only Obi-Wan is mentioned and Vader says he is dead. So Luke has no one to train him.
And yet in ESB Luke is suddenly getting much stronger, so much so that both Vader and Palpatine can sense it.
So he can apparently train himself and so well that both if them can feel it.
Little wonder that Palpatine calls Vader up.

Look at RotJ, did Palpatine come across as worried about Luke or the threat he could pose?
Not really, Palpatine was dismissive of Luke's skill and called them "feeble". And when he attacked, he mopped the floor with Luke, who stood no chance.
Luke beat Vader and Palpatine easily beat Luke, so how is Vader or Luke much in the way of a threat to Palpatine?
When he fought Yoda, Palpatine did try to run at one point. So he was worried, far more worried than he came across in RotJ.

"Survival of the fittest", by letting a big enemy live? The only enemy that can kill you?
That is like not having a vaccine against small-pox because "small-pox will make us stronger."
Sure you can find anti-vaccers that could say stuff like that but that is not smart in any sense of the word.

Also, what did the Sith do? Wipe out the Jedi, remove the threat. They did not let the Jedi be around and train people. And that is what Palpatine's first reaction to Luke seemed to be, kill this threat.

Except Palpatine killed his master when that master slept. So Palpatine did not overpower his master, he killed him when his master had his guard down.

Except here Anakin is not a danger to just Palpatine but to the Sith as a whole, as he is the only one in the galaxy that can destroy them. So letting Anakin live not only puts his own life in danger but the entire existence of the Sith.

Not really, he seemed to want Luke dead and only after Vader suggest to turn him did he change his tune.

Luke was just a bonus, like Anakin. Neat thing to have but something that Palpatine can do without.

He really did not HAVE to kill Luke. As far as he knew, the rebels were finished. Luke had proved unsuitable but as I've said above, Palpatine saw him as not real threat to himself. He could kill Luke with ease.
So Palpatine could let Luke watch the final destruction of the rebels and how Palpatine totally wins and then lock him away and let him slowly die.
Why he killed him was, I think, due in large part, that Luke defied him, he proved him wrong. So it was spite and anger that partly fueled Palpatine killing Luke. Yes Luke was a danger but he was alone, on the DS 2 and the rebels were crushed or would soon be. At least as far as Palpatine knew.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

This is so blunt it made me laugh.

 

@Samuel Vimes and @FightoftheForgotten

You guys make great points. I’m just trying to close plot holes here and you guys keep opening them LOL

I don’t really know the whole background of Master Sifo Diyas but on what I gather is that he did rebel against the JC and ordered the Clone Army on his own and they did try to investigate it on why but I’m just guessing here…Palpatine has kept everyone on Crisis Mode that they have to split their resources on different planets with the barrage attacks from The Separatists.

And don’t we see our own Government as stupid also doing things that has lead people to protest???So playing Devil’s Advocate here, If we put Palpatine’s plans next to our own politics: Sidious trying to take over without being the Republic’s Chancellor is like Having Taliban attacking the “Free World” by force and then succeeding trying to make it the Taliban Empire will be more difficult to maintain.

BUT if the Taliban hid within the Free World…and imagine President Joe Biden or President Donald Trump was SECRETLY the Taliban Leader and then say for SECURITY against the increasingly powerful Taliban …we have to be an Empire. Most people would accept this ….because the leader of the Free World surely can’t be EVIL.

“Palpatine couldn’t control the number of star systems without keeping the Senate intact.”

Until he finally had the Death Star…at that point he couldn’t care less anymore about public opinion.

As for Skywalker, Yoda and Obi-Wan literally went into exile and waited NOT TO FIGHT BUT decided JUST TO TRAIN the son of Skywalker. That was when Obi-Wan just defeated the premier apprentice of the Dark Lord. And yet he didn’t even try..it’s like they know its not their destiny to do so.

Those 18-20 years, they could have at least DO SOMETHING or find other Force Users to train but they hid and waited until Luke becomes old enough. I really think Lucas was just going for that Movie Destiny Trope.

Just like:
Neo on Agent Smith
Harry Potter on Lord Voldemort
Hot Rod on Unicron
That kid on The Never Ending Story

The only other one that killed Sidious was Rey and that is because she is a Palpatine herself. But then at the end…she says she’s a Skywalker….so there you go the Skywalker Destiny Movie Trope still fits. LOL

 

Well if any surviving Jedi are lucky and chance upon an extremely Force sensitive child, that could be dangerous.
Also, Sidious wants more than for the Sith Order to simply survive. I think he wants his successor to be one that he can be proud of, and his standards are VERY high: one who can bring glory to the Sith by becoming the most powerful Force user the galaxy has ever seen. Only a Skywalker bloodline has that potential.

I know there's no proof for this, but I suspect Sidious was putting up an act in his dialogue in ESB, either to conceal his eagerness to replace Vader, or to test Vader's loyalty (in which case Vader failed).
Obi Wan's first reaction to what happened with Han and Leia is "It is you [Luke] and your abilities the Emperor wants." Based on Obi Wan's understanding of Sidious, he seemed to think Sidious would try to convert Luke before killing him.

Luke was obviously not powerful enough yet to destroy Sidious, but he has the potential to. If Luke refuses to turn, Sidious has to get rid of him before he reaches his full potential.




As for why Sidious bothered becoming Chancellor when he can give the separatists both armies and invade the Republic, I see two possible reasons.

First, I'm not sure if most of the separatists were wanting to have a full-scale galactic war. At Geonosis, even "all available droids" that they prepared weren't enough to deal with the Jedi plus the first wave of clones. In Dooku's meetings, one person said, "What you are proposing could be construed as treason." An outright invasion would definitely be treason. After the arrival of the clones, Dooku acted all upset and said to the Geonosians that "My master will never allow the Republic to get away with this treachery," meaning the separatists weren't already planning to go all out against the Republic; there was still plenty of room to get more aggressive than they already were. The separatists were probably too chicken to blatantly try to invade the entirety of the Republic. As the leader of both, Sidious could push both sides into a full scale war.

Second, although it might be easy to initially overwhelm the Republic which has no army, it would be more difficult to ensure a clean victory. There're two aspects to this:

1. The separatists might be able to take over the capital and force the current chancellor to sign a treaty to hand over power, but I doubt they can get their forces into all the systems at once and control them. They would be seen as invaders, and a lot of regional governments that are still intact will form an alliance against the Empire. The fact that the senate was debating the creation of an army at the beginning of AOTC means they could have created a one if they wanted. If the separatists outright attacked, a Republic army would definitely be created, one that Sidious can not control. Or, if the separatist army-in-production ever got discovered by the Republic before the it was ready, things would be even worse for the separatists.
With what Sidious actually did, he made the Empire the legitimate successor of the Republic, where the transition was democratically decided upon. He still needed the support of the senate for decades to keep all the systems under control until the Death Star was completed. To get that support, he had to make the people want an Empire. He also purposely separated the separatist leaders from Grievous, the former to Mustafar while the latter stayed in Utapau. He didn't want Obi Wan to get the credit for destroying both and thus ending the war. He wanted Anakin to get the credit for ending the war and bringing peace to the galaxy. He needed that popular support.

2. With an invasion, it would be very difficult to destroy all of the Jedi. Some (e.g. younglings) wouldn't be going to the front lines. After an attack has started, likely a couple senior Jedi would be responsible to taking the younglings away into hiding while the front-line Jedi hold off the invaders. Some older Jedi would also happen to be somewhere off planet, and he would have no way of knowing where they are. Even if he later tracks them down by looking through records, those Jedi would have already heard about the attack and have likely already hid away.
With what Sidious actually did, he knew where all the leading Jedi members were and did a surprise attack on them all at once. Even then it still wasn't perfect; he had to send a coded retreat signal to lure survivors back, and even that got dismantled by Obi Wan and Yoda. Had it been a simple invasion, there would be even more survivors.
​

Edit:

You said this part before I finished writing it up

 

But by the time of ROTS, there is a large separatist movement. Meaning that a large portion of the galaxy doesn't want an Empire either. This is never discussed though, the movies just gloss over it. Did the systems that were willing to wage war against the Republic just decide to cozy up to an Empire that is objectively worse? Really, Palpatine's plan shouldn't have worked as smoothly as it did in the movies either, but it does because of contrived writing.

This is the question though. WHY was taking over the galaxy this way so important to Palpatine? Why would a Sith Lord be overly concerned that his new evil Empire be decided upon by the people? The movie never gives us a clear cut answer. We know his motivation is to be in control of everything, but why did he want to do it the way he did? Not to sound crass, but character motivations are pretty much the bedrock of writing a story. And yet, all these years later, we still have no concrete answer given by any of the six Lucas era films as to why attacking the Republic from the inside was so important to Palpatine?

The films make it seem like the "extinction" of the Sith, and the "full-scale" war that led to the creation of the Republic are somehow linked together. It seems like, prior to this "full-scale" war, the Sith were in charge. Palpatine says, "Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy" in ROTS. So, is Palpatine taking over the Republic from the inside as a sort of revenge... twisting the good that grew from the former Sith Empire into something terrible? The movie does not provide any answers to this.

 

I think there were more systems on the Republic side than the separatist side. During the senate meeting where Sidious declared the transition into the Empire, the senate seats seemed pretty full:

I think the quote that Sidious39 posted already made this clear enough, but here's a fuller version of the conversation if it helps:
Bail Organa (referring to special session of congress): Could be a trap.
Obi Wan: I don't think so. The Chancellor will not be able to control the thousands of star systems without keeping the senate intact.

This resonates with the dialogue from ANH:
Tarkin: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the old Republic have been swept away.
Officer: That's impossible. How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?
Tarkin: The regional governors will now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line, fear of this battlestation.

 

That should be in the opening crawl of TPM.

 

@Sidious69 and lord_sidious
About the seps or the Republic winning.
My argument is that Sidious69 said this;

Arguing that a seps victory will give him what he wants, rule of the galaxy and the death of the Jedi.
If that is so, then my argument is, why would Palpatine bother with trying to become chancellor and all that? Just create the seps, arm them and conquer the galaxy, easy.

To be clear, I think that the seps were never intended to win, they were just useful idiots that were cast aside when no longer needed.

If Palpatine's plan was that the seps were never intended to win and just be a way to militarize the Republic, weaken the Jedi and make the galaxy want Order. Then sure becoming chancellor makes sense. But there is a big difference between "Set up two sides to fight and whoever wins, Palpatine comes out on top." And "Set up an external threat to militarize the Republic and gain total control over it."

That isn't what the film tells us. Obi-Wan says that apparently Sifo-Dyas was killed before the ordering of the army. If so, then he could not have done it. Jango has never heard of Sifo-Dyas and was hired by Tyrannus/Dooku so the picture the film paints is that Sifo-Dyas had nothing to do with this and it was all Dooku/Palpatine. The Jedi know most of this, except that Dooku=Tyrannus but since they know that Jango works for Dooku and in a whole galaxy's worth of bounty hunters, the possibility that Dooku is Tyrannus should be clear to them.

Again, you argued that a seps victory would work fine for Palpatine. Are you changing your argument?

I would agree but oddly, after disbanding the senate and then destroying Alderaan and not long after, loosing the DS. Would there not be massive uprisings after this? The emperor had just showed how evil he is and he can no longer play the nice guy.
ANH suggest this, that the loss of the DS would be a massive blow to the Empire.
But ESB does a slight reboot and the Empire is still in control.

No, it is more Lucas making the OT first and the PT second and thus was bound to what the first film had established. He tries to retcon in a prophecy where there was not one in the OT. No "Bring balance"
Yoda, at first Lucas was of the opinion that he would be no good in a fight, he was just a mentor.
Obi-Wan was not intended to die, that was a change that Lucas came up with during production.

Also, why did Yoda and Obi-Wan wait three years before getting Luke to come to Dagobah?
Luke was now on the Empires' radar and was hunted and if caught, would be killed or turned.
Why did they not call Leia?

Other Move Destiny films;
SkyNet in T1 and T2, KILL John Connor or prevent him from being born.
Willow, queen Bavmorda, exile the child that is destined to destroy her.
Voldemort's first impulse with Harry Potter was to kill him, remove the threat.

There are quite many stories where some evil ruler hears about a prophesized chosen one that will end their rule. Most often, their impulse is to kill that person, remove the threat. Not letting them live.

To the first, Palpatine rules the galaxy and could have mandated midi-test when a child is born and if the number is high enough. really high, he sends his agents to take a look. The odds that a Jedi in hiding would stumble across such a child is very low.
To the second, if that was true, then he would not kill Luke. At least not right away. He would take some sperm from Luke, use it to impregnate some women and have more from the "Skywalker bloodline".

Except consider this, Vader knows about Skywalker. How? Imperial spies or rebel propaganda most likely.
Vader uses Luke's name in-front of other imperials so he did not try to keep it a secret. So Palpatine knows as well.
So Luke was known and yet Palpatine had never talked to Vader about it for however long this was?
He only contacted Vader when Luke was suddenly getting much stronger and apparently without a teacher.

Cut off Luke's arms, legs and lock him away. That would pretty much remove Luke as a threat.

See above, I am responding to Sidious69's argument that a seps win would serve Palpatine fine.

About the Dooku scene, notice that there is no follow up to what the person said about treason. It is just ignored. Dooku mentions demands but not what those are. Do they want to just leave or are they planning a conquest?
The seps are a bit cowardly, sure I can agree here but when the republic proved far from weak and they got handed a big loss. Wouldn't some of the seps loose their nerve and try to sue for peace?
The seps are getting stronger, more join them and Dooku says that with the support of the TF and CG, their support would grow further. He also makes it clear that they are building an army, planning to use it and most of the seps present have no issue with that.

The writing is lacking to me, Lucas does not put in enough leg-work to set up the situation properly. He just does a quick, very bare-bones and then either relies on EU to add details or that the audience makes up stuff in order for it to make sense.
Plus, 200 000 clones was considered a huge army. On a galactic scale, that is really not big.
And even 1,2 million clones would be far from enough to vage a war on such a scale.

A galactic war is huge, many orders of magnitude larger than any war on Earth. So there is a problem of getting scale across properly. TLJ fails hard to me as the FO is so strong that it can take over all the major systems in the entire galaxy in weeks. Which is ludicrously fast and either FO is many orders of magnitude stronger than the GE at it's height or the galaxy are filled with weaklings that give up instantly.

The set up that the seps are not big enough to fully conquer the galaxy but could do a lot of damage and enforce demands at gunpoint. Sure that makes sense but the films, again, skips over crucial world building or is less than clear.
Say that it is established that the seps want out but it is more than that. They also want territory that is part of the Republic and other things. In short their demands are such that the senate/Republic would never agree to them. So they build up their droid army to either scare the Republic into concessions or simply take those systems by force. The Republic meanwhile has some military capability but most of it is old and out of date and while it is big enough to make a seps conquest of the galaxy very hard, they are still a bit weak. So the clones would then add to these forces, be the Elites, the strong units, well-armed and highly trained. Not be the whole of the Republic army as the films has them be.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

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The most absolutely stupid Palpatine machination was the getting himself kidnapped bit at the beginning of ROTS. He could’ve easily died a bunch of times during that sequence - not to mention that he deliberately placed himself in the middle of a massive battle where the likelihood of being blown up was high. It was way too personally risky a plot.

 

That sequence could have been so much better. Nothing makes sense and none of the action set pieces seem to hold much weight.

 

Agree that this was a higher risk probability on his part. Which is why it’s laughable to me when people say there’s no way he will risk his life on the STAGED Mace duel which has a lower risk probability compared to this.This was also the same guy who confidently made Luke attack him trusting Vader to block…the same Vader who wanted Luke to kill his master a movie before.

Anyways, as for that kidnapping scene. I think he wanted Grevious to have a theatrical attack on Coruscant which made the whole Jedi “everyone on deck” situation. Which made Anakin and Obi-Wan to be called in from their planets they were fighting in. Anakin said something to Padme…that if Palpatine wasn’t kidnapped…he wouldn’t be able to come to Coruscant and have the chance to see her at all if this doesn’t happen.

 

They should have had Dooku actually turn against Sidious and kidnap him. This would be to draw out Obi-Wan and Anakin so that Dooku could try to convert Obi-Wan.

But Dooku wouldn't realize that Palpatine has already been working on Anakin as well. That way we could actually show the audience what was initially happening AND THEN ALSO SHOW how Palpatine was able to work around it. Instead, what we got was three films where random things happen and Palpatine is always twenty-six steps ahead because of reasons.