PT Palpatine's Machinations

Do you think Sidious let Sifo-Dyas begin arranging the order of the Clone Army - either as his Sith Apprentice, or as a well intentioned Jedi - before Sidious had Sifo-Dyas eliminated? Then Darth Sidious impersonating Sifo-Dyas ordered the army himself, before passing other responsibilities for the clones on to Tryrannus?

The inclusion of Zam Wesell in Attack of the Clones seems so random. She’s a changeling, but almost nothing is done with her shape shifting ability on screen. Is there just to establish shape shifting as a possibility in Star Wars?

 

Most likely, GL never thought much about it and figured he would answer it once ROTS rolled around... except GL realized he only had roughly two hours to tell episode III and he really needed a random Kashyyyk war so the clone army subplot was dropped.

 

Legends and Newcanon both seem to be going with the "well-intentioned Jedi" version of Sifo-Dyas, who was definitely involved early in the process of the ordering.

 

I was puzzled when Sifo-Dyas appeared as a Force illusion to Yoda on the Clone Wars looking like a Sith Lord. Sifo-Dyas has the yellow and red Sith eyes and other shading on his face. An earlier hologram shown of Sifo-Dyas looks quite different with a heroic appearance.

What purpose did making him evil in an illusion serve? Now if he was a Sith Lord the way he actually looked might be the only way Dooku and Palpatine could conjure the illusion.

 

I mean, narratively it just served as an indication to Yoda that it wasn't the real Sifo-Dyas.
I never really thought it beyond that. Yoda is peering into the dark heart of the projection and seeing that it's a Sith conjuration.
The Sith eye's is a way to convey to the audience what is going on, so we can actually connect the dots how Yoda recognized the trick for what it was.

 

Well to start, if we look at what it was like during the filming, then you had Sido-Dyas, Darth Tyrannus and Zam was just a woman, not a shape-shifter.

This was then changed in post or reshoots, Sido-Dyas became Sifo-Dyas, just Tyrannus and Zam can now change her shape.

To start with the last, that was indeed pretty random and it served no purpose and just caused questions. Like why she would bother with covering her face when she can change it and why she never made use of this power to elude the Jedi in the bar.
Had it been present from the start, you could have done much with this. Have her kill a Naboo guard, steal their clothes and infiltrate Padme's place and try to kill her. The Jedi sense something and the chase starts there.
But instead we have this rather pointless bit that makes little sense and makes characters stupid.

To the former, with Sido-Dyas and Darth Tyrannus, the Jedi knew that the "Jedi" that ordered the army did not exist and they knew that a sith hired Jango. So the clues were REALLY obvious in how shady the army was. So Lucas changed it and that makes sense.
Now we have a real if dead Jedi, Sifo-Dyas and just Tyrannus. But to me, the army is still fishy, Obi-Wan says that Sifo-Dyas was apparently dead when the army was ordered and the Jedi know that Jango works for Dooku. So that they don't smell a whole hosts of rats makes them seem clueless.

As for your question, was Sifo-Dyas ever involved? Either as a Jedi or Sith? Him being a sith is just pointless, why have another Sith in with Maul and Dooku if it serves no purpose?

So if he was just a Jedi that Palpatine manipulated to get the army rolling. Ok let's assume that did happen. Why kill Sifo-Dyas before he placed the order? The Kamino will build for anyone that can afford to pay them, so a Jedi is not needed to place the order. The reason would then logically be to make the army seem legit, that when it is discovered and if the senate/Jedi look into the details, it will look like a Jedi did order the army. So then it would make sense to have Sifo-Dyas actually place the order and then kill him. Because then the facts will support that Sifo-Dyas did this.
If however he is killed before the order is placed and if that can be proven, then the army now looks a lot more shady. And how would that benefit the Sith? It would not. It is in their interest that the army looks kosher so that the senate and Jedi make use of it.

So my answer is that if Sifo-Dyas was indeed involved then the smart thing to do was to have him place the order and then eliminate him.
Now it is possible that Sifo-Dyas had started to smell a rat and was on the verge to talk to the JC and that is why he was killed. But then why even bother with having Sifo-Dyas involved at all? Just have him be a Jedi that was killed and Dooku/Palpatine used his name when ordering the army. Much simpler.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Or a hand maiden. That would be unexpected. And another of Padme’s layers of constant security in The Phantom Menace is broken.

What purpose could it serve? I guess one is luring in Dooku to the Dark Side if Sifo-Dyas was first. Another would be if the visions of the future Sifo-Dyas had were real and no one else could see them. Not the Jedi and not Darth Sidious.

If Darth Sidious wants the knowledge Sifo-Dyas has he could uses the Jedi rejecting him and Sifo-Dyas complete faith an army is needed as bait to turn him to the Dark Side. Then Sidious would need Sifo-Dyas’s until his vision of the future was lined up to happen.

If Sifo-Dyas is an honest Jedi the reason seems Order 66 other related modifications to the Clones.

If he’s a Sith why kill Sifo-Dyas at that point? Is it something to do with Order 66 and who controls it? Or other changes Sidious wants to make to the vision Sifo-Dyas had? Is Sifo-Dyas just too powerful / knowledgeable and needs eliminated?

 

Well that was the hope on the Republic side, made before the actual negotiations took place.

Regarding Nute, Sidious can make use of his cowardice. He might tell him that everyone in the senate is outraged at what happened on Geonosis and that the Republic will likely give Nute a death sentence if he gives in himself and goes to trial, so he has to fight to survive.
Regarding the other seps, the leaders weren't there when the battle at Geonosis happened, but the Jedi might be able to find proof of their involvement. They might examine all the destroyed battle droids and find proof that the Techno Union, Corporate Alliance, and Commerce Guilds all contributed to the army. They might also track down the other organizations who funded the Geonosians to mass produce battle droids.
Regarding getting other systems to join the seps, yes the defeat on Geonosis is a hindrance. But the war is not over, the seps will mass produce more battle droids, all the systems will have to pick a side, and Dooku will negotiate with them and find ways to get them on his side.

Yes he would consider it as a possibility, but he just wouldn't expect things to be as bad as they were.
Here's an analogy. Let say someone is sick during exam time but I used some magic to foresee that they would get 100% on it anyways. That doesn't mean I foresaw every question and how confident they were in each answer. I might've just had a blurry vision of them getting their exam paper back, and the score on the top corner of the paper said 100%. If that's what I saw, I wouldn't expect them to fall asleep midway through the exam, wake up 10 minutes later, randomly guess the answer to half the multiple choice questions, and frantically write out the answer for the written question up to the very last second of the exam time. Sure, those are things that could happen if someone writes an exam while sick, but I'm not expecting that given the result. Not that it matters. As long as I knew the final result beforehand, I could have advised the person to take the exam as normal instead of deferring it.

Sidious's foresight through the Force is a supplement to his scheming abilities, not what he solely depends on. So no, he doesn't need to see all the details like marriage and time of pregnancy since the beginning of AOTC. What he does likely know is that Anakin's feelings for Padme is a potential weakness of his. If he gives them an opportunity to interact more, the feelings may grow deeper, and thus become a greater weakness, one that Sidious can figure out a way to exploit at a later date.

Regarding getting the Jedi to protect her, I don't think it would have happened without his insistence. When he first made the request, Padme and Bail were both strongly against it, and their facial expressions can even be interpreted as shocked at the suggestion. When Sidious kept insisting, Yoda looked at him suspiciously. Padme only reluctantly agreed after his continued insistence.

Maybe Zam got a probe droid to see through the window where Anakin and Obi Wan were, so she assumed that the real Padme must be close by?

 

@Jedi_Sith_Smuggler_Droid

To the former, having not one but two Jedi Master turn to the dark Side makes Anakin turning far less of an event. The films take time to establish all his issues and flaws and how he differed from a "proper" Jedi. And yet we have two Jedi, Masters even, that Palpatine can turn with little difficulty. So why spend all that time setting all this up when Palpatien can just say to Anakin "Hey, want to be evil?" and Anakin goes "Sure."

To the latter, Sifo-Dyas is a character we never see and know next to nothing about. He was a Jedi Master and likely sat on the council, that is it. Nothing about visions or anything. Had the film set up that Sifo-Dyas was exceptionally skilled in this regard then maybe. But as is, we have almost nothing.

Order 66 is not really needed. The clones obey any order without question. So anyone that has a higher authority than the Jedi, like the chancellor, could order the clones to kill all Jedi and the clones would obey instantly. So that is no reason.

As for the rest, again we know nothing about Sifo-Dyas, how strong he is, how Palpatine turned him, when, why, nothing.
So again, having him be a sith adds nothing.

It is like "Plo-Koons grand father once met Landos great great grand father." Ok and?

Had the negotiations started in AotC?
The film does not say either way.
If not, then it would seem that the seps thing is a very new development. That it started say last month and they have not have time to sit down and talk.
But that is not the impression I got. The seps have been growing and causing more and more problems and disrupting the peace. So much so that the senate is debating creating a republic army to help the Jedi.
In all that implies that this had been going on for a bit.
So have they not had any negotiations?

About Nute, in TPM, he actually attacked and conquered a republic world and he got off.
In AotC all he had technically done is try and kill Padme. The seps had not yet attacked the republic.
They had built up and army yes and it can be inferred that they would. But they had not yet done so.
So that he would get executed for this when he got no punishment for what he did in TPM is a bit iffy.

As for the rest of the seps. If the situation is that the seps, even with their new droid army, could not totally conquer a weak Republic, then with the clone army added, the seps have no way to do that.
So the seps instead of an easy win is now looking at a possible and even likely loss.
In the face of that, suing for peace makes sense. Again since the seps did not actually attack.
As for Dooku, what would he use to bring in more systems? With the seps we see, his pitch seemed to be "We have a big army, the republic has none, we can use it to get what we want." That is gone now, the republic is not weak, it has an army and it crushed the seps at Geonosis. So systems that might have been tempted to side with Dooku at the prospect of an easy victory, would think twice. Those that had, could decide to act like they knew nothing of this or simply change sides.

You argued that he did not expect it to be that bad. Again it is a massive battle, things can easily go wrong. Not expecting bad things to happen in that situation is stupid or he has looked ahead in the film and knows it will turn out alright.

What Palpatine's foresight or what people say it is, comes across to me like, a person wants to get across a minefield. They get a vision that says they will make it across unharmed so they go "Cool" and just walk across, no precautions taken at all.
Or a person plans to rob a bank, gets a vision that says he will accomplish it. So they make no plans or preparations and just go to the bank and it just so happens that all the guards have called in sick and they have no called in new ones. The alarm is broken and they have not bothered to fix it and the person he says "Give me the money" is a total rookie and just gives in. So the robber walks away with lots of cash.

Except he ignores things he does want, Padme killed to please Nute and get the army bill passed for something that MAY become useful.
That makes little sense. Unless Palpatine has read the script.

We can't know for sure and Palpatine likely did not know for sure what would happen.
But again, things happen because the plot says so.

Now you are adding stuff in order for the film to make sense.
When Jango and Zam talk, it is clear that is the first they have spoken since the bomb failed to kill Padme. And yet Jango has the bugs already.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

Maybe Palpatine originally tried to turn Sifo-Dyas to the dark side, and failed. He then killed him, and moved on to Dooku. Zam, being a shape shifter, could have impersonated Sifo-Dyas, and placed the order for the clone army.

 

There’s some good discussion on this topic and the various possibilities in the last page of this thread.

To summarize, this is a story that grew more complicated with time. Originally, when they planned for it to be “Sido-Dyas,” the idea was that the Jedi Council would suspect it had been a pro-war member of the Senate who had pretended to be a Jedi to create the army, when in reality it had been Sidious (technically, they would’ve been right).

Then Sifo-Dyas was turned into his own character, the Jedi Master who had visions of the coming conflict and decided to take action by ordering the clone army, before the Sith found out, killed him, and made use of the army for their own ends. This was sort of what we got from AOTC, which TCW clarified somewhat.

But then Lucas made it more complicated, and this was implied in TCW though not explicitly stated, by making Sifo-Dyas an apprentice of Sidious’s who preceded Maul. In the thread I linked we try to make sense of that timeline, but the essential idea is that Sifo-Dyas, as a Sith Lord, ordered the clone army and then was killed, Maul was the apprentice for a while and then was defeated, and finally Tyranus took over. There would have been some overlap, and generally we know Lucas doesn’t care too much about the timeline details when they’re distant from his story.

My personal theory takes this complicated apprentice scenario and goes further, because this is Sidious we’re talking about. Sidious’s first intended apprentice after killing Plagueis was actually going to be Talzin, who worked with him when Maul was still a child and was told she would be his right hand. But then Sidious stole Maul instead, and while training and raising that child, he took an already trained Jedi and turned him into his apprentice, Sifo-Dyas.

In the decade or so prior to TPM, Sifo-Dyas fully operated as Sidious’s apprentice, helping prepare the various aspects of his plan, including ordering the Clone Army. Around this time, Sifo-Dyas, being a Sith Lord, may have started corrupting Dooku to turn him into his own apprentice so that they could take on Sidious. Catching wind of this, Sidious would have had Maul kill Sifo-Dyas and take over from him. But he would have continued corrupting Dooku just in case. Then when Maul was defeated in Naboo, Dooku took over as Darth Tyranus, and the rest is history. We see similar overlaps and conflict between possible apprentices in TCW and then of course in ROTS, where Darth Vader finally takes over the mantle.

As far as the detail of Sifo-Dyas having died before TPM, if that’s accurate he could easily have faked his death when deciding to fully commit to the Sith cause. TCW showed that the Jedi hadn’t really known the circumstances of his death until the was, no? He had essentially just disappeared? Maybe I’m remembering that part wrong.

Long story short, out of universe, what happened is that there was a typo and then a tale that grew in the telling. Lucas wanted AOTC to be reminiscent of film noir and he succeeded, because part of what makes a movie fit that genre is having overly convoluted plots. I’m sure Sidious would be proud.

 

I like that! It makes sense.

 

I agree.

 

Maybe Sifo-Dyas is a time-traveller and he created the prophecy of the chosen one and then he slept with Shmi, creating Anakin and then erased her memory of the event and so on.

The issue is that Sifo-Dyas is a non-character in AotC, we never see him and know next to nothing about him. Trying to make him more important or having a big impact when he is never seen does not really work. If the character is that significant then why is he not in the film? If instead Sifo-Dyas was just some Jedi that was killed and the Sith used his name, end of story. Then sure, him not being in the film works as he is not important.

The shooting script has the problem that the "mystery" is really obvious and the clues are to big to ignore.
So changing that makes sense. But the Jedi came across as more competent, they asked more questions, they wondered who did this, why and what the ultimate goal was. In the film the Jedi instead comes across as clueless.

Just how did you get any of that from AotC?
All we know of Sifo-Dyas is this; he was a Jedi Master, sat on the council, was killed about ten years ago and he supposedly ordered a clone army at the request of the senate. The last bit is dubious as Obi-Wan says that Sifo-Dyas was killed before the army was ordered. And we are not given any reason to doubt this and other things support what Obi-Wan says, like Jango not having heard of Sifo-Dyas.

There is nothing about visions, we are given no clue who killed him or why and if Obi-Wan is correct and Sifo-Dyas was killed before the order was placed then Sifo-Dyas was not the one who placed it.
So what he is is just some Jedi that were killed about ten years ago and the Sith used his name when ordering the clone army.

As I mention later, having a complicated plot kind of requires the writer to care about the details.
If they do not, the plot risks making no sense.

As I said above, Sifo-Dyas is a non-character in the film as he is never seen and we know very little about him.
Plus it really paints the Jedi as clueless. Two Jedi master turn to the dark side and they have no clue.
If Sifo-Dyas turned and still sat on the council. That means the Jedi had a turned Jedi sitting in their council and they had no idea.
And I have said it before, it makes Anakin's turn less special and all the time spent on setting up his issues to explain why he turned. But these two Jedi turn and they had none of the issues Anakin had and both were Masters.

Was it just a typo? The shooting script had Darth Tyrannus, who the Jedi knew had to be a Sith and they knew that the person that ordered the army was not a Jedi.
AotC having a convoluted plot, yeah if Palpatine planned for Jango to use the dart, lead Obi-Wan to Kamino and all that. Then convoluted it is or contrived if one is being less kind. And having a complicated plot needs lots of work to map it out and the writer needs to be careful and look at the details.
Trying to write a complicated plot on the fly tends not to work so well and the plot falls apart when looked at carefully.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I don't really think it needs a lot of explaining. When it's revealed that Palpatine is controlling the clones, I think that confirms that Palpatine is behind this situation. In AOTC it's said that Tyrannus hired Jango, and Dooku is revealed as Tyranus at the end and working for Palpatine. Yes, I think it could've been more explained, but I think I kinda just took it as, "Palpatine killed Sifo-Dyas and either ordered or had someone else order the army using his name."

 

Then why are people still confused?

 

I think some may have over-complicated the concept of the story. I don't think it's confusing to think, "Palpatine killed, or had someone else kill, Sifo-Dyas and then impersonated, or had someone else impersonate, him to order the army."

 

Lucas seems to be one of those people as he seems to have made Sifo-Dyas into a Sith.
So we have some saying stuff about "Sifo-Dyas was so good as seeing the future and the only one who could see the coming darkness and that is why he was killed/used." Then we have Sifo-Dyas being a sith and key part of Palpatine's plans.

Either, Sifo-Dyas was just a Jedi that was killed and the Sith simply used his name. If so, then not seeing more of him makes sense.
If Sifo-Dyas did place the order, had some unique vision power or was a Sith, then not getting any more of him is odd.

But what needed resolving in RotS was not really Sifo-Dyas but rather what the Jedi think. They have an army, supposedly ordered by Sifo-Dyas but Obi-wan says that he could not have and Mace says "whoever" about the person behind it. So they have loads of questions and a very fishy clone army.
So what do they think? Have they concluded that Sifo-Dyas did not order the army? If so, who do they think did? And why are they not more worried about the army?
RotS needed some follow up on this but we got nothing. And so the Jedi look incompetent.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

The biggest thing is that, by the time ROTS starts, the Jedi now know that Dooku is a Sith Lord. This means the Jedi should at least assume that the Sith knew about the clone army before the Jedi ever did because Jango would have told Dooku. Do the Jedi even bother looking into this? Nope.

 

I wasn't talking about Lucas, but what the movies presented at the time and why I think it wasn't confusing. But I think him seeing him as a sith doesn't necessarily have to mean he was confused at what happened in the movies.

I think this is a different issue than what I was talking about.

This particular thing I don't think is a real issue.

 

When you set out to make a mystery as opposed to some other framing device, then you need to accept that the entire premise of your story is putting questions in your audiences mind that will later be given an answer. Now, is there anything inherently wrong with a thread being left hanging? No. ...but when you make a sequel to that mystery where none of the characters are even remotely worried about the remaining questions surrounding the huge army that they're using which have tons of links to the Sith... it's an issue whether you want to admit it is or not. Especially when these characters seem to now think that the Chancellor is turning against them and he's the one in charge of said army.

It's like the Jedi completely forgot about almost all of the events from the entire last film.

 

I think it is answered by Palpatine giving order 66.

That it's an issue, like I think is the suggestion here, I think is your opinion. I don't think the characters are left with the inherent notion that Sifo Dyas didn't order the clone army by the end of AOTC. If you don't like that or think that's dumb, or think that would've worked more to be explored more, I think that's your opinion. And I think it could've been explored more in the movies, similarly. But that doesn't mean I agree with your sentiment on it, as a whole. I think I've said this before around here: That all these movies have things I'd prefer to see changed, and this is among them.

 

Yes, but why are the Jedi not able to piece these clues together? If I watch a 007 movie and James Bond has the answers right in front of him, but neither him or all of British Secret Intelligence Service is able to put the pieces together... I'm going to have to assume that the writer just wasn't able to make a convincing mystery narrative without having to write all of the heroes as morons.

The Jedi are not only not even sure about whether Sifo was even alive still by the time the army was ordered... they don't even bother to check. The entire Jedi order has enough clues by the beginning of ROTS to have a direct link between the clones and the Sith and they do nothing with that info.

This all points toward a creator (George Lucas) who didn't have the writing chops to tackle the type of story he set out to create.

 

I think that's not what I was talking about there.

I think you and some make more out of the time confusion from Obi-Wan than the movie intends. If it was confirmed on screen, and Sifo-Dyas was alive during that point, that doesn't actually answer their questions about whether or not he ordered the army. I think they don't have a direct link between the clones and the sith. I think they have a link in Jango, but not a direct one, because they don't know if Jango being a clone template has to do with him being hired by Dooku or not, and with Jango dead they can't answer that question, if they even think that. I didn't say that I think it couldn't be more explained or explored by the characters and the stories.

I wasn't talking about Lucas there.

 

Jango is the clone template. - Jango was working with Dooku. - Dooku is a Sith.

By the time ROTS starts, the Jedi know all three of these things. Why are they unable to piece these clues together? If the Jedi just immediately assumed that it was a big coincidence, then they're idiots.

No, but him having died BEFORE the army was ordered would provide an answer, yet they don't even bother to check into it. AGAIN, if you are setting out to create a movie that is being framed as a mystery... then you are also deciding to create a movie where people are going to be questioning everything... BECAUSE THAT'S THE TYPE OF MOVIE YOU ARE MAKING.